New Arrivals
Grisp
Running the gamut of improv, concrète, industrial tape music, and cut-up sounds. Featuring appearances by MITCHELL BROWN (GASP), AARON HEMPHILL (LIARS), PETER KOLOVOS (OPEN CITY), RICK POTTS (LAFMS, SOLID EYE, AIRWAY), and source material by SMEGMA and the HATERS. Partially collects material from the Beat (777 Was 666), Grisp, and DDT (Chondritic Sound) cassettes. For those that say things like, "I don't really listen to CDs"—you're totally lame.
Supersedure
Field recordings 1995-2007 by Seijiro Murayama : snare drum + objects and Éric La Casa: microphones + field recordings (1995-2007). Drawing by Tomoya Izumi. 'What makes one a musician, a composer? It happens only when one succeeds in giving life to music, a certain presence. I don't hesitate, even though I am not a writer, a painter etc., to say the same thing about them. For this composition, 'Supersedure', I met Eric. It seems to me that we share an artistic, but maybe also a general attitud…
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo
Recorded live on April 10th and 11th, 2010, Tasogare: Live in Tokyo documents the performances of five 12k artists at two temples in Tokyo, Japan. Komyoji Temple (April 10th) saw the first-ever performance in Japan by Australia’s Solo Andata, known for creating deep, textured music with found objects, homemade instruments and very little in the way of electronics or software tricks. The duo was joined by 12k veteran Sawako whose voice and delicate computer work were accompanied by guitarist Hofl…
Bell Trove Spools
Northern Spy is proud to present two of John Butcher’s most recent experiments in moving sound waves through space. On Bell Trove Spools we hear Butcher in two distinct situations: Richmond Hall, a Houston art gallery housing a permanent Dan Flavin collection that has been compared to a bowling alley; and the high-ceilinged marble room in Brooklyn which is the new home to Issue Project Room. Butcher is heard on his two saxes of choice, the soprano and the tenor, and suspended in space, fluid, ch…
Live In Leugen
In December 2009 Zebra (Roel Meelkop & Frans de Waard) were invited to play a hommage to Martin Hannett, the legendary producer of Joy Division, A Certain Ratio and Section 25 (to mention Zebra's favorites). This was the start of a long Factory Records weekend in Brussels. Zebra picked their favorite Martin Hannett productions and sprinkled them some further with their extraordinary electronic means to create a groovy, dense slab of music. This album is called 'Live In Leugen'. Leugen is the dut…
Zone Sensible 2 - Dundee 2
For the best part of a decade, Éric La Casa's attention to sonic phenomena has resulted in some of the finest contemporary Musique Concréte to come out of France. A listener of the highest order, La Casa's methodology for sound recording allows for a versatile examination of both urban and natural environments and it is these interests which are captured on this new edition for Room40. With an ability to find unique perspectives on his sound subjects La Casa's site specific works 'Zone Sensible'…
Puzzle
"Produced by Centre international de recherche musicale, Nice, France. Project involving 22 instrumentists featuring Pierre-Yves Artaud (flutes), Alexandre Ouzounoff (bassoon), Daniel Kientzy (saxophone), Vinko Globokar (trombone), Elisabeth Chojnacka (harpsichord). Puzzle 1999 (14-17) commissioned by INA-GRM." (Discogs)"An extension of the 'virtual orchestra' in which composer Pascal composes music out of gathered individual instrumental tones and lines (with the musicians never having met …
Neue Volksmusik
he zeitkratzer project Neue Volksmusik (new folk music) is more of a reflex to, rather than a reflection on folk music. This is because the ensemble does not play specific music with any sense of distance. On the contrary, zeitkratzer is taking possession of folk music in its essence. This means that they continue a tradition which folk musics all have in common: constant transformation. No form of authentic folk music can ever be about conservation as a fixed medium, destined for a museu…
Grand Electronic Suite
Recorded at the Roundhouse 1972, during the ICES Festival."For this show we rehearsed a week in a small village in the south of Holland. The repertoire of the first part was a kind of "frozen improvisation". We made some written plans about the form and structures and then rehearsed it for the whole week. So during these rehearsals things moved from improvisation into fixed form, just by remembering what we have played, and polishing it. This is a working concept that …
Filmworks XXIII: El General
Eleven cues recorded for a striking documentary focusing on the life of controversial Mexican dictator Plutarco Elias Calles who was called everything from a nun-burner to the father of modern Mexico. Beautiful and dramatic, the music is scored for guitar, marimba, accordion/piano and bass and subtly draws upon Mexican, Spanish, minimalist and soundtrack traditions. Zorn's fifth film score in as many months is a pure delight. Moody and exotic music for a creative and revealing film dealing with …
Centralia
Mountains’ music is defined by slow builds, and subtle transformations, textures and melodic lines that evolve in a variety of ways to create grand soundscapes and acutely detailed compositions. For Centralia, the duo of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg wrote and recorded in a way that mirrors the pace of their music. While the current trend in experimental music is towards hyper-prolificity, Mountains have taken their time on Centralia, resulting in an album that is as precise as it is boundl…
Very Urgent
Originally released on Polydor in 1968. During this year, The Chris McGregor Group were riding high on the London jazz scene, playing and hanging out with all the rising stars of British free jazz. Very Urgent, their eagerly-awaited debut recording, was a joyful call of intent. The album mixes simple but utterly unstoppable tunes and exhilarating horn charts -- immediately establishing a vitality and exuberance that would continue to define the group. Nevertheless, their evident preference f…
Resume the Cosmos
"Resume the Cosmos" finds the unclassifiable Virginian band Rake performing some of their most diverting and accessible work to date. The five nameless tracks that make up the disc were culled from many hours of studio improvisation, not only on a range of atmospheric instrumentation, but also with studio space and "silence" itself. The elusive membership of Rake play out like reconstructed indie rock fans with fistfuls of Sun Ra/Coltrane/70s Miles/Art Ensemble of Chicago/Henry Cow scattered thr…
Fifteen point nine grams
Burkhard Beins: selected percussion, objects. Lucio Capece: soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, preparations. Rhodri Davies: electric harp, electro acoustic devices. Toshimaru Nakamura: no-input mixing board. Recorded live at NPAI Festival, Parthenay, France July 19th, 2007. Mixed by Toshimaru Nakamura. The artwork for this disc was created by QQ in Argentina.
s\\t
"This project started with a commission from [performance group] eighth blackbird and Ben Broening to create a multi-channel composition for the University of Richmond's Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival. I wrote out a set of instructions for each musician and recorded them separately from the rest of the group. The first sessions were with Molly Michael, Nick and Lisa. I started to work with their sounds, layering processing, adding and eliminating elements until I found something t…
Monochromes Vol. 1
Monochromes Vol.1 is the new sound work by Italian multimedia duo TU M'. The Monochromes series is a collection of modular audio and video compositions for chamber ensemble. Fragile atmospheric colours made of sound, light, space."A poet always has too many words in his vocabulary, a painter too many colors on his palette, a musician too many notes on his keyboard.
Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath
Reissued by Fledg'ling in 2007, this is a classic title from 1971 by Chris McGregor's magnificent big band -- Brotherhood Of Breath. Arguably one of the most influential albums to emerge from the London jazz scene of the early 1970s, the Brotherhood of Breath was an exuberant big-band created by South African-born pianist and composer, Chris McGregor. In South Africa, McGregor had formed the racially mixed Blue Notes in the early 1960s. By 1964, finding it very difficult to work at home, t…
Apparitions
Bleak analog electronics and voice from Justin K Broadrick. Apparitions is a dark, insalutary recording of sub bass throb, scathing frequencies and sheets of feedback unleashed with the ferocity of early power electronics sides. A material electric attack from places unknown. Photographs by Paul Lee. Edition of 500."
47°13' N 7°E
Another uncommon sonic wringer from Portuguese label Creative Sources has been signed by a couple of Switzerland-based (as you could easily surmise from the geographical coordinate, which point to a place the district of Franches-Montagnes in the canton of Jura in Switzerland, they used to name this release) musicians, Lea Danzeisen and Christoph Schiller, who decided to squeeze the spinet, the little brother of harpsichord and piano, whose sound got totally transfigured by meticulous mod…
Wedding ceremony
In May 2007 the sextet of Lucio Capece, Julia Eckhardt, Christian Kesten, Radu Malfatti, Toshimaru Nakamura and Taku Sugimoto convened in Belgium to work together and play two concerts, one in Gent and one in Brussels. During their time together the group played a mixture of improvisation and their own compositions. A number of exciting tensions were present. The contrast between loud and quiet, activity and inactivity and indeed improvisation and composition. Wedding Ceremony ties together many…