New Arrivals
Unknown skies
...Every trio without a piano, or without a drums, or as in this case without a double bass, gains in incline what it loses in “balance”. It only takes a little sometimes. Everyone plays at ease across. Everyone can split themselves. There are no more solos as solos but phases, circles of influence and predominance which do not last. The duos bind and unbind more clearly, the contrasts stand out better. The theme is no longer material to develop but, as in Unknown Skies, a lyrical and volatile s…
Objects Sense Objectes
Ap'strophe is the duo of Ferran Fages (acoustic guitar) and Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga (zither). Recorded by Christian Pallejà at Maik Maier studios in Barcelona, december 2008. Mixed and mastered by Ferran Conangla. With their music they investigate the perception of the distinctive timbre of the guitar and the zither alongside the differences and similarities of their string instruments.
The Cloud of Unknowing
For fans of acoustic guitar music, James Blackshaw's The Cloud of Unknowing is a gift that's long overdue. Blackshaw's fourth album gracefully glides over the same sonic ground that his contemporaries generally tread with reverential obedience or dilettante tactics. Growing into his prodigious own at the relatively young age of 25, Blackshaw has finessed his 12-string acoustic guitar into a veritable solo symphony that's as schooled in uncommon beauty as it is in complex 20th century composition…
Drones
In the beginning there was the piano. As soon as he had mastered the basics, Jean-Philippe Goude discovered the spell of melancholy while working on a little musical piece: an etude ringing out in the style of a somber hymn. Not the dead meat smells of somberness that, according to Picabia, serious people emit, but the earthen gravity of an abyss dug by life itself. Everything is the result of this bedazzlement. At 11 years old, Jean-Philippe Goude closed his eyes. When his eyelids finall…
Vivian & Ondine
A brand new album from one of the most revered and acclaimed ambient composers of our time, Vivian & Ondine takes the form of a single, three-quarter hour piece, once again constructed from William Basinski's signature style of tape loop manipulation. While the narrative ebb and flow is largely pinned to a single tape fragment, Basinski merged a further "dozen or so" that sunk into the mix in just the right way, adding to the aura of fluctuation and continuous evolution that's so essential to th…
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…
Tengu et Kitsune II
Taku Sugimoto : metronomes, mandolin... Taku Unami: computer, mandolin... Recorded live by Taku Unami at Loop-Line on May 2 and October 16, 2008. Mastered by Taku Unami.
Bones
After playing bass with Rodan, pioneers of post-rock and post-hardcore, the long-respected and much-lauded Tara Jane ONeil has formed bands like The Sonora Pine and Retsin and has collaborated with Sebadoh, Papa M, Come, Low and Ida. Her first two solo albums for the Quarterstick label (Calexico, Rachels, June of ‘44), Peregrine and In The Sun Lines drew great acclaim for a rich musical tapestry The Wire has called “evocative dream music”. Consistently on the move, ONeil records all over the US,…
The Minimalism Of Erik Satie
"[...] Satie, the original "Enfant Terrible", was a strange man with strange thoughts that produced strange music with strange titles that don't seem so shocking today ("Jack-in-the-Box", "Driveling Preludes for a Dog", "Dried Embryos"), but considering that he was born two centuries ago, this bad boy of classical music deserves a very close look.Satie lived an unconventional life and demanded the same from those who attempted to sneak a peek into it. For example, his notes to Vexations r…
Tourbillon D'Obscurité
Philippe Petit is interested in soundtracks; even if he creates original music he'd rather be introduced as a "musical travel agent" than a composer. Petit uses a Cymbalum, an Electric Psalterion, computer and synths to build up electronic layers, process acoustic and field recordings.
To second the machines he likes to move various glasses,
or percussive objects, and take advantage of vinyl material to fondle released sounds. A journalist for various magazines and radio as well as a musical ac…
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!)... The gain is very much alive here, so there is occasionally some feedback leaking through here. That adds a strange component to the highly acoustic music. Ruhlmann plays his stuff with great care. His music is open, spacious, but also intimate. The…
In light
Four years after the release of their debut album Outflow, Japan’s Small Color, a duo comprised of Rie Yoshihara (aka Trico!) (accordion, voice, vintage keyboard instruments) and Yusuke Onishi (guitar, banjo, bass, programming and production) are back with the beautifully polished In Light. This album marks what some may consider a departure for 12k: sublime and gentle, minimal, acoustic J-pop, which once may have been destined for the now-defunct Happy label, but can now sit comfortably beside …
Cellos
The association between Ulrich Mitzlaff and Miguel Mira promises an unforeseeable sound meeting. The specific, personal and different ways of their distinguished expression is the base for their very dynamic and interactive music. They create sounds where the improvisation moves with great fluency between the establishing of textures and abstract musical ideas and the switching in the musical discourse to singular, rhythmic and melodic affirmations. They construct the sonar explorations using th…
Shunt
Strøm are Gaudenz Badrutt, pianist and electronic musician (1972) and Christian Müller (1971), clarinettist and electronic musician. Under the name of strøm the two artists from Biel mix since 2001 various ingredients: free improvisation with conceptual music, contemporary music ideas with free jazz explosions, down to earth, drifty energy with spherical sound. The duo mixes electro-acoustic chamber music skillfully with allusions to contemporary pop-aesthetics. Both musicians studied at …
Amidst The Noise And Twigs
To say that Beta-lactam Ring records has released another typical Volcano the Bear album is to address only the initiated. Yet, it is meant to be a compliment. how best to describe the thrilling mixture of sounds, atmospheres and environments on offer? Those that have heard the group’s half dozen albums, and myriad other releases, have already embraced the unpredictability that remains this British aggrigate’s trademark. This newest offering is distilled, boiling elements from their previous dou…
Caves
Riccardo Dillon Wanke’s Caves was composed and recorded in 2006 in Alfama (historical district of Lisbon, Portugal) using acoustic and electric guitars, saxophones and natural sound elements starting from pure radical improvisation evolving into the investigation of drones and static and looped music related to minimalism. At the center of these works are the binaural beats in musical composition, the results lying between classical composition, minimalistic improvisation and a "folk" sensitivit…
Peace Conference
"Mountain Ocean Sun is a project fronted by His Name Is Alive main man Warren Defever, who collaborates with three like-minded drone artists for an hour-long recording of shruti box, harmonium, bells, gongs and violin. The group's first performance was at a 500 year old Buddhist temple in Osaka, and that pretty much sets the tone for the quartet's quasi-mystical approach to soundscaping. Defever himself continues to mythologise, describing the recording as having been made "on a mountain, in the…
Le beau déviant
Heddy Boubaker, alto & bass saxophones. Ernesto Rodrigues, viola. Abdul Moimême, prepared electric guitars. Recorded in Lisbon, 2010.
Songs of the frogs of Taiwan, vol.1
Taiwan, located between Japan and Philippines, possess a precious natural environment. This 68 minutes long Compact-Disc contains the songs of 16 amongst the 32 species of frogs that inhabit the island. Realized by a sound artist who is also an amphibian enthousiast, these recordings (devoid of vocal or musical accompaniment) are not only audio documents for natural history aficionados, but propose also some listening situation for the pleasure of the ears. This work is an invitation to the deli…
Massacre
In "massacre" Wolfgang Mitterer presents us with a passionate analysis of a timeless threesome: power, religion and violence. An opera for five singers, nine musical instruments and electronics.Based on Christopher Marlowe’s drama »The massacre at Paris«, Wolfgang Mitterer paints an acoustic picture of destruction, conspiracy and the thrill of power. His protagonists virtually rid themselves of their identities, turning into typological representations of different points of view. The concrete e…