New Arrivals
Still Some Light
legendary Bill Fay released two brilliant but poor-selling albums between 1967 and 1971 before disappearing from the public eye. He spent much of the following decade writing, rehearsing, and occasionally performing--all with no contract or record company support. In recent years, reissues of his now-sought-after original albums along with a pair of releases containing previously unreleased material have renewed interest in the English artist. Coptic Cat is pleased to announce the release of Fay…
Null II & Null III
Null II and Null III are the second and third part of the well-known Italian/Swiss composer’s massive electronic work on the theme of “nothing” (Null), whose first part saw the light with the 2010 Die Schachtel “Null” edition in ZeitComposers series.In this pieces Archetti’s thick sound drones borders on the edge of tonality as their many layers develop with a sort of “geological” pace. The work is in fact intended as a musical research on the “interior” of sound, obtained by large masses of sou…
O kokos tis anixis (Grains of spring)
The ancient Greek philosophers thought that the world is constituted of a series of grains of space and time. When I walked around Miura Peninsula in the springtime, I felt the same way - the quality of the space and the time seemed to be formed by a series of grains of sounds. Each place has its own unique character. You could label it as a particular quality of the place. The quality of the sound.'-'This is one of my trials to present a 'subject' as a piece of work - which can be called…
Life Review (1993-2003)
The Shadow Ring formed in the seaside town of Folkestone, England in 1993. Over the course of a decade, and through eight LPs, Graham Lambkin, Darren Harris and later Tim Goss scraped out a unique musical pathway for themselves, armed with only the barest of tools. With each release the Shadow Ring presented themselves as a group in constant flux. Naive acoustic improvisations, dour bedroom sci-fi epics, cryptic D.I.Y. theatre and glacial electronic soundscapes all became fair game in the…
Rework
One of America’s greatest ever composers gets the remix treatment. What is it with remix albums this week - are they back? Anyway it’s always an odd thing the remix album, basically it’s just an excuse for the great and good to strut their stuff and do something decent on a high profile record.It’s a mixed bag of collaborators from Tyondai Braxton to Cornelius to Beck (who gets an entire side to himself) to Johann Jonannsson to Peter Broderick (still no doubt weeping from our review of his recen…
The Art of the Improviser
"The Art of the Improviser", a 2XCD, is Shipp's most audacious attempt yet to answer the enigmatic question of what it means to be a modern jazz musician. Already having explored the possibilities of electronically infused jazz on critically acclaimed projects with the likes of DJ Spooky, Scanner, and Anti-Pop Consortium, Shipp revisits an acoustic sound for this fearless voyage into the psyche of the improviser. Shipp's "idiosyncratic genius" shines through on this album, explaining once again …
Motion - Movement In Australian Sound
Motion – Movement In Australian Sound is a generous, 2-CD overview of 22 artists representing Australia’s burgeoning terrain of electronic and experimental music. From Scott Horscroft’s mesmerising piece for eleven guitars, the sublimely sweet, driving tones of Pretty Boy Crossover, Sue Harding’s melodies from dot matrix printers to renown veteran Alan Lamb’s awe-inducing casting of field recordings from the West Australian outback, Motioncasts wide to expose some of the most creative and …
Technology 1 & 2
First issued as a very limited private tapes in 1981, now for the first time ever on CD for these early tapes by one of the most important figures in noise/electronic history, Maurizio Bianchi. These two discs were originally issued on tape in 1981 and have been bootlegged and cut into oblivion since then; this is the first time they've been made available digitally and fully uncut. Technology 1 has two long 25 min+ songs, both in a similar vein and showing MB taking a more subtle melodic approa…
Four malleable
This is a limited edition of 300 copies. "Imaginative Elements" (2004), "From Modified Tapes" (2005), "Sceneries" (2006), and "Nocturne" (2009). "My work over the last several years has focused on the investigation of aural phenomena, environment, spatial listening, structure, natural and evolving processes, function, possibilities, and materiality. My interests have led me to explore acoustics, psychoacoustics, binaural beats, and diverse methods of recording sound, and the application of syste…
Atrees / Nomos Alpha
The works on these two discs were all written in the 1950s & 60s, at a time when Xenakis was at his most productive. It has to be said that, to the casual listener, this is not easy listening. However, to the more adventurous collector and to those prepared to explore new musical avenues, this set of the music of Xenakis will prove a rare and valuable opportunity. Featured works: Atrées, Morsima-Amorsima, Nomos Alpha, ST/4, Akrata.
Mal des ardents / Pantonéon
eRikm, turntables, electronics, live sampling. Catherine Jauniaux, voice, bird call, cupule, cazoo. In the beginning, there are stories, sometimes dark, told by Catherine Jauniaux. With stunning ease, she invents imaginary conversations where several protagonists spring from deep in her throat, like rabbits out of a hat, like actors from Japanese Noh theatre. eRikm's electronic sounds fuse and infiltrate hers creating an unsettling environment Ð clearing the way or tangling it up in a so…
Les Espaces Acoustiques
Gérard Grisey’s Les espaces acoustiques is a groundbreaking work which defies assumptions about what music “ought” to be. Not for nothing did the composer describe it as “a great laboratory”, exploring the way we listen.The “Acoustic Spaces” cycle, begun in 1974 and completed in 1985, consists of six instrumental works that may be played consecutively, since each acoustic space extends the previous one. The unity of the whole is based on the formal similarity of the pieces and on the two acousti…
Excision
Essential collection of previously vinyl only Nadja tracks which work brilliantly as a 2CD album. All of these tracks originally appeared on limited vinyl or cd releases between 2007 and 2009 and are now out of print. 'Jornada del Muerto' originally appeared on the Trinity CD (Die Stadt Musik) and 'Perichoresis' on the Trinitarian LP (Important Records), both of which releases featured solo tracks by Aidan and Leah and one Nadja track. 'Spahn' appeared on Tumpisa (Accident Prone Records), a …
Spiral I & II, Pole, Wach, Japan, Zykus,
amazing (an cheap) double CD set featuring most of the Stockhausen "intuitive music" (ie quasi improvised). The first piece is Zyklus for solo percussion performed here by Tristan Fry in 1974. Zyklus was one of the first works with a graphic score allowing the performer some freedom to improvise. In the late 60s Stockhausen developed the idea of scores which determined a process rather than the exact content & his group toured the world playing this music. Several pieces are included her…
Creative Orchestra (Köln) 1978
"The Koeln concert shows us these positive vibrations marching through "the complete continuance of creative music," and on towards the next millennium. The "success of the future" is not a lost cause as long as there is music like this in the air."-Graham Lock"Although Anthony Braxton does not play on this double CD (whose contents were released for the first time in 1995), his presence is certainly felt. He conducts the band through a fairly free improvisation and five of his compositio…
The German Years 1977-1999
The first disc is an anthology of the music Moondog made in Germany, after moving there in 1974. The second is a recording of his last concert, on 1 August 1999. Both are excellent and amazing examples of Moondog's skills. Excellent notes and photographs.
Sudoku 82
Specially priced CD single stickered with glowing reviews from Howard Skempton, Kyle Gann, and The Wire. This spare, beautiful, spacious 20-minute piece for eight pianos was composed utilizing systems derived from sudoku puzzles and GarageBand software.
Entraxes inégaux Craquer les liants
Reissue of two LPs from Bloc Thyristors label and two groups run by the drummer Jean-Noël Cognard. Empan with Judith Kan, voice, Jac Berrocal, trumpet, piano, Dan Warburton, violin, keyboards, Béatrice Godeau, cello. Tankj with Serge Adam on trumpet, Jérome Noetinger on electroacoustic devices and tape recorder, Titus Oppmann on doublebass. Recorded and mixed by Patrick Müller.
Tom&Gerry
“In June of 1997 Thomas Lehn and Gerry Hemingway came together for a duo tour in Germany that had originally been planned as a quartet with Mats Gustafsson and Barry Guy. But the budget was meager and salvaging the tour seemed the best option and so the tour went on as a duo. Thomas recorded all of the concerts and the extensive recordings were recently compiled into this double CD, which was painstakingly edited, sequenced and mastered to provide the best possible showcase for this superb…
Thousands Raised to the Sixth
2012 release ** The most recent solo incarnation of pioneer Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, et al.), this is the definitive OLWDTW release spanning two discs. Crowning achievement in a prolific and highly collectable catalog. Solo project of Campbell Kneale, formerly Birchville Cat Motel, and one-half of Black Boned Angel. Packaged in an oversized 5.5" square folder with two art inserts and music spanning two discs, each in an envelope.