New Arrivals
Fancies, forbearance
Fancy: a 17th century term generally describing a composition in which form is of secondary importance. Fancies were usually contra-puntal and in several sections. (The Oxford Dictionary of Music)Fancies (2009) served to reconcile previously unsettle…
Harmony In Ultraviolet
This is the first proper vinyl release for Tim Hecker's breakthrough 2006 album. At the time of original issue, there was a small run of a few hundred vinyl copies done by a small German label, but this was pressed on an inferior sounding single LP w…
Hairdryer Peace
Finally available on CD. Ranked 3rd best album of 2008 in The Wire magazine. Intensely psychedelic and mixed for maximum hallucinations, this marks a pretty heavy departure from the Hospitals of old. Heavy tranced-out riffs, weird pop, cracked folk, …
Daydreaming
Debut album by Seattle's Rafael Anton Irisarri, released in 2007 on Deaf Center's Miasmah label. A splendid but pitch black album based on long piano melodies, distant drones and even more distant glitches, "Daydreaming" is a particularely sad and in…
Upcoming Events
Further exploring the collaborative powers of Illusion Of Safety mastermind Dan Burke and prolific sound crafter Thomas Dimuzio, Upcoming Events is an unending spur of equal parts gorgeous and uncomfortably perplexing sound spread of 15 tracks. Crack…
Catch-Wave
Takehisa Kosugi is an inter-media artist and performer who started his career back in the '60s in Tokyo. With his first band Group Ongaku (free anarchist-conceptual improvisations) he was introduced to the Fluxus avant-garde movement. During the '70s…
Satanic Sanction
The only early album in this American cult group's discography that hasn't been made available on CD yet. "Satanic Sanction" is one of the darkest, most ritualistic works ever to be recorded by the band, …
Wolpertinger
Excellent first recordings by Mani and Luigi Archetti.Far away from Mani's space rock releases these are great improvisational postpunkish ethnic jazzy rock masterpieces "Integrating themselves into the sound of nature, or stretching out their feeler…
Blueprints
Over the past 10 years 12k has established itself as a label on the forefront of minimalist music and has become home to some of the most important artists of the genre. It is label that time and time again has not been afraid to release debut albums…
Uncle Joe's Spirit House
A special project fully produced by William Parker for his own Centering Records imprint and dedicated to his Aunt Carrie Lee & Uncle Joe (who is pictured on the album cover) – they celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary on August 6th, 2010. Wi…
Box music
Rutger and Stephen sort of accidentally met through e-mail. A simple note regarding an ordering question for a CD led to an enthusiastic e-mail conversation and climaxed in a musical collaboration. This all happened in a very short period, both music…
Notturni
In the fall of 2011 the pianist Marino Formenti performed four one-hour solo concerts hosted by the Wien Modern festival. The so-called “Notturni” series was centered around the piano oeuvre of Friedrich Cerha. To celebrate the occasion Cerha wrot…
Shrine Of The Post
Now I've seen the Starving Weirdos play live, which always tends to blur opinions of a band's recorded material. If you see a band play and they are a bunch of obnoxious f*ckwits with no clue what they're doing it can colour your judgement somewha…
OTO NO HAJIMARI WO MOTOMETE
Brand new issue of archve series of NHK electronic music studio. Contents: Toshira Mayuzumi : 'Princess Hollyhock' (1957), Shinichi Matsushita : 'Le Cloitre NOir' for voice and electronic music (1959), Toshi Ichiyanagi : 'Parallel Music' (1962), Shir…
13 Japanese birds Vol.10 Niwatori
'MERZBOW's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messaien's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released Januar…
Ceremonies to breathe upon
Two contrabass players here, Andrew Lafkas, of whom I not really heard I think and Michael T. Bullock, of whom I did hear before, and know as someone who likes his improvised playing to be minimal - to say the least. I think Bullock at times also use…
As a Leaf or a Stone
For this release Mathieu Ruhlmann uses a lot of sound sources and per track he lists them. We see listed a coffee grinder, ukelin, e-bow, moss, denture cleaner, bubble wrap, dried plant, cactus, speaker and gate (and that's just the opening track!)..…
Pi:k
'Two musicians from very different backgrounds finding common ground. The first half consists of studio duets on guitar and viola recorded in New York City without any electronics, but they are not what one would expect from these two instruments. Th…