New Arrivals
Ethiopian Urban And Tribal Music: Mindanoo Mistiru/Gold From Wax
Double LP version. Includes color insert. Sub Rosa present a reissue of volume one (Mindanoo Mistiru) and two (Gold From Wax) of Ethiopian Urban And Tribal Music, both originally released as two distinct LPs on Lyrichord in 1972. Mindanoo Mistiru and Gold From Wax were recorded by Ragnar Johnson. Ethiopia contains many diverse peoples and many styles of music. It was still an empire in July and August of 1971 when these recordings were made. Over 70 languages and 200 dialects are spoken in Et…
Nox
Daniel Menche is a prolific musician whose work in the fields of noise and experimentalism displays both savage tactile expressionism and masterful studio manipulations. Aaron Turner is an equally prolific artist whose output veers from violent guitar architectures to textural meditations. Consequently, their collaborative album Nox could have been a brutish exercise in punishing frequencies and aural assaults. Instead, Nox is what Turner describes as “a combo of Daniel’s more free-flowing form …
Chants et danses with strings. Vol III
“Chants et danses... with Strings! (Vol. III) is a rather mind-blowing album by Robert Marcel Lepage, René Lussier, and the Bozzini Quartet. This album is a masterpiece of experimental music, joining together chamber music, noise music, and improvisation. The guitarist and clarinetist are joined here by an experimental and classical string quartet, which serves as support and filler more than anything else. Their role isn’t prominent but certainly gives more body to the record. It's a really uni…
Nordra
Pinprick guitar lines, swaths of ethereal brass, sub-bass thuds, the clatter of distorted percussion, fever dream lullaby melodies - it can be difficult to discern what sounds we're hearing over the course of Nordra’s eponymous debut given the strange and unorthodox context of their combination. And while many tech savvy artists have managed to build strange symphonies and texturally curious electronic exercises within the lonely confines of user-friendly software, those in-the-box tactics don't…
The Birth Of Electric Maloya On Reunion Island 1975-1986
Strut present a brand new compilation documenting the groundbreaking maloya scene on Réunion Island from the mid-‘70s, as Western instrumentation joined traditional Malagasy, African and Indian acoustic instruments to spark a whole era of new fusions and creativity. Compiled by Réunionese DJ duo La Basse Tropicale, ‘Oté Maloya’ is out now on CD and LP as well as digital formats. The CD and LP versions include an extensive booklet featuring the history of maloya by Nathalie Valentine Legros of 7…
Ruckus In Lo-Fi Revisited
This Mini-LP is taken from the rare and so nice 1999 'Ruckus in Lo-Fi' LP (Sweden). A singular Instrumental / Hip Hop and Cut-up/DJ album, with 2 hidden strong Balearic tracks inside. One is the now so famous and in demand 'I dream' gem, a headtrip beauty based on the Pink Floyd groove, with its 1999 ORIGINAL VERSION + a killer 'Wolves of Asha' Balearic Remix from our man Joe Morris
Breakthrough
This rare & highly collectible original 7" single from 1971 introduced electronic voice phenomena (EVP) to the wider British public. Recorded by Konstantin Raudive & issued to accompany the publication of his seminal book 'Breakthrough - an amazing experiment in electronic communication with the Dead'. Grab yourself a copy in its original sleeve still with the orginal erratum insert plus new sleeve notes from the publisher explaining the origins of this remarkable & highly influential recording.…
Several Circles
LP version. Richard Scott’s ‘Several Circles’ is a seamless blend of improvised performances and forensically detailed electronic music that bristles, writhes and grows like some mutated living organism. Recorded between 2013 and 2015 in both Manchester and Berlin, this vital new album is a combination of instant, improvised performances and highly structured acousmatic compositions that have been, in Richard’s own words, “microscopically edited, constructed, layered and mixed over many hours in…
Libra - Un Film Du Groupe Pattern
When the bunch of filmmakers known as The Pattern Group (Roland Moreau, Georges Perdriaud and Jean Talansier) did Libra, their second movie, in 1973 they thought it would be a good idea to use bits from Pink Floyd's Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother to create its soundtrack. The movie, a 90-minute film with no dialogue, depicts the story of four youngsters living in communion with nature, an idyllic life that is drastically changed when a U.S. satellite crashes in the area and attracts the …
Sugar Daddy
"This year sees an exciting new undertaking from the Strut camp. We’re launching ‘Original Masters,’ a series of essential original LP reissues exploring rare and under-rated African, Latin and Caribbean music classics, curated by leading collector and DJ, Duncan Brooker. If that right there is enough to let you know that you’ll be needing each of these classic LPs, we’re offering a subscription option which guarantees a copy of each of the four 1LP Original Masters releases we have planned for …
Not A Bird / Transcarnation One
Thomas Müller (b. 1970 in Munich) is a Berlin-based video artist, experimental musician, painter, and photographer. For an exhibition in 2005, he burned three of his oil paintings and displayed the resulting pile of ashes as a sculpture entitled "three of my favourite pictures". These particular ashes were reused in new paintings, some of which have again been burned to produce further ashes for further paintings. Thus began a cycle of ash-based works entitled "not a bird", ranging from large ca…
Ore
Andrea Belfi (born 1979) is an international respected electroacoustic musician and composer. He began playing drums at the age of 14. He studied art in Milan, before becoming involved in experimental music and since 2002 he's been in collaboration with a wide range of artists, currently residing in Berlin, Germany. His new album Ore is released on the new UK record label Float which was founded by Sofia Ilyas, who was previously the label manager at Erased Tapes Records. The new label exists pa…
City Of Women
Editions Mego welcome Danish artist Loke Rahbek (Damien Dubrovnik, Croatian Amor, Posh Isolation) to the fold. Known for countless creative and commercial endeavors, Loke presents City Of Women, his first solo full-length under his own name. As with all of Loke's output, City Of Women harnesses the radical with the aesthetic in a manner of extreme pleasure for all who encounter. Harnessing his thorough knowledge and experience in extreme electronics, melodic encounters, and sultry showmanship, L…
Music For 18 Musicians: Tokyo Opera City, Tokyo, Japan, May 21st
A stunning version of Steve Reich's masterpiece of musical minimalism Music For 18 Musicians (1974-1976), performed live at Tokyo Opera House in 2008 by Ensemble Modern and Synergy Vocals, featuring the composer as guest performer. LP housed in a deluxe die cut jacket with printed insert. In the 1960s, with Terry Riley and Philip Glass, Reich gave pulse back to experimental music. He discovered the tape-based techniques of looping and phasing, using recordings of fragments of speech, and then mo…
Jomon
Japanese saxophone transgressor Akira Sakata meets with his long-time collaborator and Fender Rhodes virtuoso Giovanni Di Domenico, Portuguese guitarist Manuel Mota, and drummer Mathieu Calleja for a session recorded at Les Ateliers Claus in Brussels.
Named after the Jomon period of the Japanese prehistory - when Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture rich in tools, clay pottery, and jewelry made from bone and stone - the record features three tracks: Jomon (縄文), Kaen (火焔), and D…
Allegory & Self
Beginning in 1982, the conceptual audiovisual troupe labeled Psychic TV set out on a multimedia journey filled with subversion, liberation and rebellion. While the members? previous works took root in the counterculture zeitgeist of late '70s UK punk and conceptual art, it was no longer a question of how to rebel against authority, but rather how to carefully subvert it through collective infiltration. Parallel to Psychic TV, its members formed the anti-cult faction Thee Temple of Psychic…
Pagan Day
Shortly before Christmas 1984, the core songwriters, Genesis P-Orridge and Alex Fergusson, of underground arts collective Psychic TV quietly released a limited edition record containing sketches and ideas for songs. Some songs would become later fully-realized arrangements, some abandoned and others were just covered in praise of their creator. The record, in recognition of its seasonal release, was simply titled A Pagan Day and would capture the intimate songwriting sessions that were pre…
Approximately Infinite Universe
There's a fury at the core of Yoko Ono's 1973 rock opus Approximately Infinite Universe that was not apparent on previously recorded efforts. Ono has always been a master of turning pain and sadness into art, but here, there's a clenched-fist intensity that sets it apart in her deep, unparalleled catalogue. Ono is angry. She proved that one can carry a boundless love for humanity and still be furious – furious at male/female relationships, at war, at your partner. Meanwhile, on a sonic leve…
Traced
Hugely impressive second album from Jasmine Guffond landing again via the collectable Sonic Pieces imprint and sounding something like a much more disturbed Holly Herndon or this years mind-altering new album from Felicia Atkinson. It’s a compellingly immersive study of digital surveillance technologies and the way they, along with myriad other machines, impinge upon and frame our waking life.
In Traced, Guffond takes the textural and spatially sensitive ambient aesthetics of her previous L…
Reconstructing Debussy
Double LP version. Includes download code. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was one of the most popular and forward-thinking composers associated with impressionist music. His innovative and at this time new way to compose music with non-traditional scales and chromaticism inspired countless artists from the likes of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock. Remarkable attributes of his music include the usage of parallel chords, bitonality, and the many compositions using whole…