New Arrivals
_, and Vice Versa
Vice-Versa is an album with 2 process. Originally was gathering some works which produced between 2005 - 2009, with a lose concept of exploring the digital composition by using analog source, as a general guideline. Once the concept become much clearer, more works which share the similar concept were dig out from the hard drive for a better overview and consideration to create an album; on the second process, some of the works has been carry forward with more focus on the development of t…
347
'Tim uses several boxes of speakers and Seijiro uses a snare drum as a resonance box, with microphones. They put boxes for their music in another box = the space. They create different levels of universe within the space. From micro to macro. Always with one clear intention: to improvise listening and to organize sonic space together in a very delicate way.Thanks to La Comète 347, Paris. 'Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to i…
Recyclopaedia Britannica (Selected Works 1992-2002)
“The work of People Like Us rests gingerly between two dangerous positions: on the one hand, the risk of fashioning merely stylish pastiche out of borrowed finery for the sake of self-conscious kitschiness; on the other hand, the risk of making simplistic, heavy handedly "topical" audio-jokes at the expense of one's raw material to a smug effect. If the lounge creeps uncritically snack on their sonic ingredients and coast on being "groovy", the cads of pseudo-critique take cheap shots at straw m…
3 : 1
The cracked, pinched, squeaked, and scraped sounds of the twin trumpets of Mazen Kerbaj and Birgit Ulher and the damped, scrubbed, and rasping sounds of Sharif Sehnaoui seem surprisingly familiar these days. Now that so many players have incorporated these techniques into their vocabularies, it allows one to focus on how they‘re used interactively rather than simply as sounds in and of themselves. Kerbaj and Sehnaoui have gained some visibility as core members of a group of free improvisers base…
La Sala Dei Cristalli
Using selected sound materials from Sonorous stones, Stalactites, Bat calls, Flutes, Field recordings collected by Mariolina Zitta in different caves in Liguria a Sardinia, Italy, processed and edited by Alio Die. In "Lithos" the drones are played by the authors on a set of long stones that goes in resonance, caressed by a bathed hand, by the same principle of the crystal's glasses. A very immersive and obscure traveling, an underground meditation with a ritual touch, in accord with the "natur…
12k Promo Sampler 002
The second 12k sampler CD features 12 songs chronologically looking forward to early 2012 and back to the recent releases and clocks in at over 60 minutes. It offers a sneak-peak at upcoming music plus a re-cap of the past year. The CD is being sold for only $4/$6 (USA/INT'L respectively) and that includes shipping. It's an inexpensive way to familiarize yourself with the latest on 12k. 12k welcomes two new artists to the roster: The Boats (UK) bring their electro-acoustics into song-stru…
Quattro illustrazioni / Suite N° 8 \"Bot-Ba\" / Cinque incantesi
Crazy about the sound: the composer as a medium fHis bizarre way of composing earned Giacinto Scelsi not only fame and respect; he was also mockingly accused of dilettantism. Scelsi regarded himself not as a composer in the traditional sense, i.e. one to combine form, rhythm, pitch and sound in an intelligent way and note the result down on paper, but as a tool. His music was created during periods of meditative contemplation recorded by him on tape, to be noted down only afterwards. Eastern rel…
Vessel
'when I was young, at night, if the wind was blowing in the direction of our house I could hear the slow beating of the ships' engines.' Vessel was conceived for and presented as a site-specific, multi-channel sound installation in Diapason Gallery, Brooklyn, in October 2008. The composition consists of recordings of cargo ships on the river Waal in the vicinity of Zaltbommel, a small town in the heart of The Netherlands. For my parents. Thanks to Jan Tiggelman (boatsman) and Michael J. …
Mountains Among Us
This year sees the eruption of the Volcano with a myriad of releases leaving the town folk covered in a fine and mysterious silt of musical entropy. The limited release of "Mountains" finds our boy’s spelunking the creepiest of dream spawned caves, excavating crystalline fragments along the way, which are then set in beautiful mental jewelry appropriate for any formal occasion. Arpeggiated blurs and disinterred voices snap, crackle and pop as an unnamed rusted hulk is slowly pushed across an eve…
Destroying The Night Sky
A very special release with an unusual mix of sound: Using Cadaverous Condition's "To The Night Sky" album as source material for their tracks, all the aforementioned bands have created a unique new style of music. Call it metal ambient, drone metal or electronics metal, the result is something previously unknown and exciting. Hear Nurse With Wound doing one of their darkest tracks ever - listen to Controlled Bleeding's totally insane restructuring of a rock track, or be surprised by Nocturnal E…
Valusia
Crescendo. That's the word that most aptly fits Valusia, the latest ep by wunderkind Nika Rosa Danilova, aka Zola Jesus. Building layer upon layer upon layer of synths and drums and vocals, Valusia, honestly, gets better the more times we spin it. Her career is on the upswing as well, with no signs of a de-crescendo: tours with Fever Ray, Wolf Parade, among other big names. The four songs on this 18 minute record stand with the best Zola Jesus has released. The "cleaner" sound of the Stridulum e…
Birds in a box
Stephen Vitiello is a sound and media artist. CD releases include “Bright and Dusty Things” (New Albion Records), “Listening to Donald Judd” (Sub Rosa) and “The Gorilla Variations”, with Molly Berg (12k). Vitiello’s sound installations have been presented internationally, including exhibitions at the Cartier Foundation, Paris, the Whitney Museum of American Art in NY and the High Line, also in NYC. Originally from NY, Stephen is now based in Richmond, VA.Rutger Zuydervelt records as Machinefabri…
From The Ground
The Preservation label presents From The Ground, the debut album from Portland, Oregon’s Heather Woods Broderick. Growing up in the relative quiet of the Maine countryside while learning a range of instruments and being sung to sleep by her parents playing folk songs, natural and rural sounds became central to Heather’s sense of song, falling into a deeply personal realm.
The subtlety and nuance in Heather’s music also comes from her inclination towards ambient and experimental sounds, con…
Out of the past
'Featuring Derek Bailey on electric guitar and Steve Noble on drums & cymbals. Recorded in a London studio in February of 1999 and not released until now.'
Otter Songs
Otter Songs is the culmination of the process that began in 2008 by Lingua Fungi and Alio Die. The idea for the collaboration was born from the initial recordings by Jaakko Padatsu utilizing diverse self made instruments and natural objects including driftwood, snail shells and otter skull ocarinas. The archaic and arctic drones were later complemented with subtle recordings by Stefano Musso with zither, sitar and other acoustic instruments. The collaboration was sealed with final recordings i…
Suite N° 10 \"Ka\" / Suite N° 9 \"Ttai\"
Scelsi's works usually originated as transcribed improvisations; therefore they are never based on superficialities of form or compositional technique but always directly reveal the core of their message. Pianist Marianne Schroeder reports that Scelsi recommended daily improvisational practice as a method for discovering one's own creativity; and on his Suite No. 9 "Ttai" the composer is said to have commented: "Play it whenever you're sad. And when you're in high spirits." In Ttai, which links …
Endless Falls
Endless Falls is the fifth full length release by Scott Morgan under the loscil moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil …
Mubomuso
Mubomuso is a neologism, made up from two extant words. Mubo suggests the unadorned and unaffected, while muso means to be in a state without thought or preplanning. All parts of the release lead the listener towards the consideration of a very specific topic Ð namely, war and violence, and the deeper connections to human nature. Stripped of the clothing of civilization, etiquette and socialization, we slowly become aware of reactions and purposes that exist deep within us embedded comma…
Rebuses
Franz Hautzinger (quartertone trumpet), Masahiko Okura (reeds) and Tetuzi Akiyama (tape delayed electric guitar). Recorded in Tokyo, 2004.A rebus is "a representation of a word or phrase by pictures or symbols", as you probably all know. Just wondering what the words might be then, on listening to this remarkably active (in its discreet lowercase way) trio outing from trumpeter Hautzinger, saxophonist Okura and guitarist Akiyama. EAI is, after all, supposed to be slow and spacious (think Hautzin…
Sleppet
Composed and produced by Marc Behrens in 2007-2008 in Bergen, Oslo and Frankfurt am Main. Basic material recorded in Gloppen, Bergen, on Utvær island, at Brenndalsbreen glacier and close to Rosskleivvatnet lake, Norway. Sleppet originated from a sound art project in 2007, when six renowned artists (Natasha Barrett, Bjarne Kvinnsland, Steve Roden, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen and Marc Behrens) recorded sounds on a 10-day trip through the Norwegian Westlandet region and used the nature exper…