New Arrivals
The unknown knowns
Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, alto saxophone & clarinet. Tor Haugerud, drums & percussion. Kim Myhr, guitars & objects. Martin Taxt, tuba. Muringa navigates playfully in a polarized world of opposites. Between speed and tranquility, industry and flora, violence and tenderness, noise and silence, chaos and order; Muringa gives the listener the hegelian third choice. The group consists of four of the most active improvising musicians from Norway. All occupied with other SOFA-projects such as Mural…
Live aux Instants Chavirés
Joëlle Léandre (doublebass) and Jean-Luc Cappozzo (trumpet) recorded Live in concert by Jean-Marc Foussat at Instants Chavirés( Montreuil, France), 2009. Mastered by Joëlle Léandre and Jean-Marc Foussat.
Exécution des hautes œuvres
Roro Perrot is acoustic improvised songs by Romain Perrot, aka French master of Harsh Noise Wall Vomir. CD released by French label Premier Sang
C+-
The Phonos ek Mechanes trio was founded in 2007 by three composers and electro-acoustic performers from Wroc aw: Cezary Duchnowski, Pawe Hendrich and S awomir Kupczak. The name of the group comes from Greek and means 'the sound of the machine' which reflects specific methods of artistic creation applied by the three musicians. They play typical instruments such as the piano, electric guitar or electric violin, often prepared and tuned for microtonal music. Sounds that are created this way do not…
SID Chip Sounds: The Music Of The Commodore 64
Compilation of music from classic Commodore 64 computer games. The 18 original pieces of music have been remastered for this release. When people talk about "Commodore 64 music," it's easy to forget they're not talking about a musical style: they're talking about a delivery mechanism. What that convenient phrase hides is the sheer amount of originality and creativity that went into creating the music for games on the Commodore 64. Included on this compilation is some of their most celebra…
The Resurrection And Revenge Of The Clayton Peacock
Michael Chapman, one of the finest acoustic guitar innovators borne of the late '70s UK folk scene, was in Philadelphia early 2010, paying tribute to his good friend, the late Jack Rose, a mighty six-string alchemist in his own right, and a youngster wholly inspired by Chapman's critical recordings. While sharing in the good light of friendship backstage, we asked Michael if he'd ever recorded an LP of purely improvised guitar music. It seemed feasible, as the current state of acou…
Seven
Third album from Oslo's PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE & Chicago's KEN VANDERMARK who have previously worked together in SCHOOL DAYS & FME follows their 2 "Dual Pleasure" releases. While it seems barely possible, the duo have become even more groovy on this third album. Free Jazz w/roots in both the American & European traditions: warm, groovy, melodic & funky at the same time as it is raw, wild & energetic. The pure art of spontaneous music. Independent underground jazz at its very best & a free jazz master…
Dopesmoker
The story behind Dopesmoker, the final LP in the life of pioneering stoner sludge trio Sleep, is one of perseverance not usually associated with such dedicated grass aficionados. Intended to be the Cali band’s third record and first for major label London, the album took shape as a single 63-minute track entitled “Dopesmoker,” an ode to the joys of getting baked. After nearly two months of work, the band (guitarist Matt Pike, bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius) pronounced the opus…
Unit
A journey to the Chinese Qinghai province (Tibetan culture region of Amdo) was commissioned by the Goethe-Institut China. Its purpose was to experience the province and to produce art works to be presented at The Third Guangzhou Triennial, subtitled 'Farewell to Post-Colonialism' in the same year. The sound installation Unit and a series of photographs called Cutting Qinghai resulted from this journey, during which I took photographs and made audio recordings. The installation was presente…
Surface of the Earth
Gunn Amps and Smashed Guitars. Surface of the Earth was recorded live to cassette, using two microphones in a wooden community hall in Wellington, New Zealand. The lp was gathered from two or three recording sessions in 1994/95. Back then we used to book out the hall for a couple of days, set up our gear and then record everything. It was a very atmospheric room for recording. Tony and Donald would put their guitars through their two old Gunn valve amplifiers and get to work. Tony often used thi…
Experimentum Mundi
CD reissue of the ultra rare Multhipla related (on its sublabel Fonia) LP from 1981 - the works of Giorgio Battistelli (b. 1953) are often linked to the theater, and even his instrumental works are highly dramatic, with various instruments and elements considered as 'characters' in a drama. For the past 20 years, 'Experimentum Mundi' has been one of the most-performed works of 'musique concrete,' i.e. music made with everyday objects instead of conventional instruments. In this work, 16 everyday…
Piano Works and Tape Music
2009 release. Outstanding reissue covering some of the best Yuasa experimental and electronic works from the 60s and 70s: Yuasa was developing a fascination for tape music from the very beginning, and the inner journeys that such music would take him on. As he later wrote: “Tape music was [a] completely unknown field at the time. Even reversed playing of recorded sound, change of tape speed, filtering and feedback echo were totally new for the ear.” However, as Yuasa’s knowledge of technolo…
Beeswax Ephemera
The Preservation label presents Beeswax Ephemera from Iowa City guitarist Evan Miller. With one eye on the future and one on the past, his playing has considerable technical and abstract expanse, though retains a wonderful melodic sensibility upfront. Evan’s experimental leanings give Beeswax Ephemera an idiosyncratic quality that mark an inventive new talent in the world of artists taking guitar music into exciting new directions. These nominally earthy compositions take flight with the undenia…
Dracula\'s Music Cabinet
Great strange psyched out scary(huh?!) wanna be LP.German jazz/library musicians Horst Ackermann & Heribert Thusek’s incredible, dark foray into the world of eerie samples & spine-chilling funk. Electronic effects,screams,moans for your kraut /psych Halloween party! How does Finders Keepers just keep raking these albums in? The latest diamond to be unearthed from their endless mine of crumbling treasures is one of my favourites to date - a lesser heard fried psychedelic marvel from the apt…
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…
The state we are in
The first thing this CD reminded me of was Tape...then I checked out the press release and it turns out that Tape's Johan Berthling (also very recently sighted on that Fire! with Jim O'Rourke record) is in fact one-third of this band, the other two being Andreas Soderstrom (Ass) and Per Eklund on drums. It is, as you would expect, gently paced instrumental stuff, slightly pastoral-sounding, with intertwining guitars and a some subtle Hammond organ and trumpet bits. This is a mightily rel…
Cubic Yellow
early solo album of Luigi Archetti (GURU GURU, TIERE DER NACHT). Featuring; Dieter Moebius (CLUSTER),and HUBL.G! Japan press only. ".. this exceptional downtempo electronica album with hoovering swells that sound like Dom & Roland played at 33 1/3 rpm instead of 45 along with skittering breakbeats not unlike a stripped down Amon Tobin. Fans of Biosphere or The Orb should definitely take note of this one!!!" - aquarius.
Radiant intervals
Radiant Intervals' is the first Eleh LP on Important since '08s 'Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis Vol.3', and follows one of the Wire magazine's (and our) top records of 2010, the incredible 'Location Momentum' for Touch. Continuing with investigations into physically tactile tones and drones, this LP offers four further modular synth expeditions eternally moving towards the distant point depicted on the gorgeous, letterpress printed sleeve. After a stoically inert start 'Night Of Pure E…
All Is Falling
The ultra savant of 12-string mantra cycles expands further into cinematic, orchestral glory - an orgy of organic, deeply felt & exquisitely played pathways to the sublime. His 1st foray into the realm of the electric 12-string guitar. Comprised of one slowly evolving, shifting piece of music in eight parts, replete w/ swirling string cycles & wind instruments augmenting his extended pointillist flurries w/ clouds of sound, sometimes adding delicate counter-melodies but just as often feed…
Spacer
Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz's (of Exploding Star Orchestra fame) Chicago Trio with drummer Mike Reed and bassist Nate McBride in a great modern jazz release of original compositions, informed, warm and compelling music. "The Jason Adasiewicz Trio features Jason on vibraphone, Mike Reed on drums, and Nate McBride on bass. The Chicago jazz group formed in 2008, first experimenting as a free improvising trio, and later focused attention on arranging tunes that Adasiewicz wrote during his wife's …