New Arrivals
No Longer Burning
This is the long awaited debut release of Streifenjunko. “No Longer Burning” presents the two Norwegians Espen Reinertsen (saxophone) and Eivind Lønning (trumpet) in 9 extraordinary pieces. Both musicians have background from all kinds of collaborations in jazz, rock and more contemporary projects such as Trondheim Jazzorkester, Christian Wallumrød Ensemble (Eivind), and the recent release: “Varianter av døde trær” with Tetuzi Akiyama and Martin Taxt on SOFA. Streifenjunko is/has also collaborat…
The Temporal Wheel
For all intents and purposes, Grand Salvo is the work of singer-songwriter Paddy Mann. Grand Salvo’s debut album, 1642-1727, and its follow-up, River Road, earned him rave reviews and a solid following at home and beyond for his stark, sensitive and beautiful songs. After a spell living in Europe, Paddy returned to Australia and began work on another album he’d dreamt up while away, A set of songs that acts as a children’s storybook, the album became cursed with too many recording problems and P…
Milwaukee Volume
Revered reeds and drumming duo Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love return to Smalltown Superjazzz with another magisterial set of live improvisations. Released alongside their Chicago Volume, this disc was recorded live in concert at Milwaukee's Alchemist Theater on 10th June 2007 (the Chicago Volume was laid down the following day) and finds these two free-jazz maestros on blistering form. It's a joy to hear how the improvisations evolve - on 'Clean Sweep' the pair …
Alchemic Heart
"Alchemic Heart is a special project presented by Vampillia who have colored these two colossal compositions with beautiful contributions by members of the Boredoms, Jarboe (ex-Swans), Inswarm and Japanese Noise-God Merzbow. Layered strings, piano, bass, noise and voices are weaved mysteriously and expand as two magnificently parallel aesthetic worlds. Comprised of two pieces, 'Sea'/'Land,' a primitive landscape is created via listening and destroyed when the pieces are complete. Vampilli…
Whiskey Leaves
The duo of Aiko Kogo & Anthony Guerra 1st made their presence known on a micro-edition CD-R from New Zealand's Pseudoarcana. Guerra sets the pace w/ layers of makeshift percussion & guitar. Kogo also plays ukelele, but it's her voice that is the real focal point on the album. This is fractured pop perfection.
Transmissions From Sinai
There's clearly a great deal of care and thought gone into the sequencing of this ace new mixtape on Arthur Magazine's record label, and that's down to the estimable taste and selection skills of Al Cisneros (known for his work in the bands Om , Sleep and Shrinebuilder). Opening with the introductory cosmic ambience of Lichens' 'Kopernik Trip Note', the playlist takes a left turn towards Linval Thompson's classic 'Wicked Babylon' before stopping by the sublime 'Everyone In Turn' by Grouper (the …
Volume objects
In the desire to make recorded sound as tactile as possible Autistici (UK), recently featured on 12k’s Blueprints compilation (12k1039), has sculpted found objects, broken acoustic instruments, synthesizers and environmental recordings into Volume Objects. Expertly realized and designed, Volume Objects is loose and organic and demands careful listening. Melody and form are hinted at and then in a whisper, a crackle, are gone. A sense of narrative and place created as if a hundred tiny objects ar…
Temporary Perspectives
Limited to 300 copies. Field recordings, sine waves, computer data, lloopp, electric guitar, tremolo pedal, condenser microphone, contact microphone, mixing board. Recorded and mixed: 2006-2009. Mastered by Valerio Tricoli. Photography by Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga. Package design by Pafsanias Ioannidis.' label info
Thought for Food
Every once in a while a record like this one appears out of the ether without clear reference points. Web details on The Books are sketchy, but I have ascertained that they're a duo consisting of guitarist Nick Zammuto, who lives in North Carolina and has released some solo material under his surname, and cellist Paul de Jong, who lives in New York and has composed for dance, theater and film. After that, the pool of Books information dries up fast. The music is similarl…
Planet Dream
In this present age of the history of humanity, there are few places left for a true utopia. The world has already experienced some of those ideal systems, but the results were tragic. Even in literature utopian thinking seems to have vanished. Only In music is there still a place to wonder, especially when it deals with spontaneous and non-hierarchical procedures. Musical improvisation is becoming the only possibility left to forge micro-societies of freedom and egalitarianism, without having t…
Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night
Reissue of debut release by the collaborative duo of Chicago-based percussionist STEVEN HESS (HAPTIC, PAN AMERICAN) & French composer/producer SYLVAIN CHAUVEAU. Produced by Helge Sten (Deathprod), whose characteristic smudged ambience is evident as he submerges Chauveau & Hess' compositions beneath a swamp of cavernous reverb & synthesized smoke.
9 symphonies
Sultan Hagavik is first Polish band (and probably the second one in the world) which performs music using tape decks. It was founded in July 2011 in Wroclaw, in circumstances hard to specify. The band utilizes recordings found on old cassettes, as well as their own material recorded with analogue dictaphone. Using tape decks as musical instruments allows duo members to create completely new sonic quality. In their sur-conventional compositions they refer to many musical genres; from pop to punct…
We Shall Overtone
Long overdue second release by Renato for LVD. As with Horse Frenzy and his contributions to the Invisible Pyramid and Crows of the World comp, Renato shows his unique vision for what music can be; drawing comparisons to virtually nothing else out there. More varied that his previous Hoarse Frenzy, WSO integrates elements of folk, pure electronic experimentation, and even elements of jazz--building at times into highly satisfying complex structures, ebbing away creating new patterns. For thos…
The Very Heart Of The World
On the very heart of the world, Burning Star Core (BXC) has created an incredibly heavy record, built on dense, layered drones, pulses, splintered vocals, and deep rhythms that euphorically build to total overload. With a line-up including the Hair Police front line and other luminaries from across the exploding Midwestern psych-noise-folk underground, BXC's C. Spencer Yeh has assembled a group that seamlessly shifts through epic movements and pushes pure electronic-concrete-physical-ock energy…
Ommatidia
Nmperign are one of the most celebrated and influential bands in contemporary improvised music. Yet surprisingly, more than a decade after their debut, Greg Kelley (trumpet) and Bhob Rainey (soprano sax) have never recorded a studio album as an unaccompanied duo... until now! Intransitive is proud to present the nmperig album that fans have been waiting for: the core duo, beautifully recorded in an actual studio with excellent microphones. The music is spare and peerlessly inventive as always, b…
Alto saxophone
Masahide Tokunaga: alto saxophone. Recorded by Taku Sugimoto at Studio Slubmusic, Tokyo, October 4, 2009. Mastered by Taku Unami. Drawing by Reiko Shioda
The invisible city
Recorded and mixed during 2008-2009 in Berlin. All tracks composed by BJNilsen using tape recorders, computer, organ, acoustic guitar, electronics, viola, subharchord. Field recordings from Sweden, Iceland, Norway, UK, Japan, Portugal and Germany. The subharchord was recorded in the EAM Studio @ Adk, Berlin. Viola played by Hildur Gudnadottir. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye.
Out Of This World's Distortions
Farmers By Nature – drummer Gerald Cleaver, bassist William Parker, and pianist Craig Taborn – a fully-improvising unit, a complete musical collective. Each of these men are highly regarded & admired composers and bandleaders in their own right; their coming together to create new music is always an auspicious and deeply fruitful occasion. Superbly attuned listeners and masterful players of their respective instruments, they are without question one of the finest improvising units / musical grou…
Burnt Offerings
The Preservation label presents Burnt Offerings, the fourth album from Brooklyn's Padna. As Padna, Nat Hawks initially made his name in the cassette underground on the revered Stunned label with two works of pop experimentalism displaying a bustling -- often boggling -- and vivid imagination. Veritable joyrides in sound and style, these releases were in line with the DIY aesthetic, primitive songcraft and eclectic sonic stew pioneered by the likes of Tall Dwarfs and forwarded by Olivia Tremo…
Barbecue Bob in Fishtown
3rd highly anticipated album in solo guitar circles by critically acclaimed CUL DE SAC founder. This guitarist/composer claims a lengthy, rich relationship to what his longtime friend John Fahey so famously dubbed "American Primitive Guitar." He is able to discover & project wide-screened cinema from just 6 & 12 strings, coaxing vivid panoramic images from his sparkling fingerstyle playing. This also features Jones performing solo on 5-string banjo for the 1st time on record, exhuming the spirit…