New Arrivals
Forbidden Planets
With Electronic music’s current resurgence and interest in the form at an all time high, this superb 2 CD set, containing compositions and original recordings by the pioneers of this fascinating style of sound, compiled here for the first time, is certain to attract enormous excitement amongst fans of the genre. Featuring tracks recorded largely in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, from names as diverse as the ever popular John Cage, Edgar Varese, Daphne Oram, Henri Pousseur, Miklosz Rozsa, Pierre…
(1975-1991)
Just arrived! The research-performance group kiva was created in 1975 by the American trombonist John Silber and the French percussionist Jean-Charles François as part of a research project at the Center for Music Experiment at the University of California San Diego. During the period of its existence (1975-91) various members (often graduate students from UCSD) joined the two permanent musicians, John Silber and Jean-Charles François, to contribute to the groups artistic production. Two persona…
Michelangelo Antonioni
The third (and perhaps final) project in the film director series which began with Andrei Tarkovsky - Another Kind Of Language and Yasujiro Ozu - Hitokomakura. Michelangelo Antonioni - Trilogy And Epilogue focuses upon the Italian auteur's landmark 'tetralogy' of films L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L'Eclisse (1962) and IlDeserto Rosso (1963). Antonioni was known for not being very keen to use music in his films, partially because he wanted the films to tell their stories free from 'add…
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.
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…
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.
Suara alam Indonesia
original field recordings made in Indonesia 2010; the Swiss radical performer presents again a completely different side of his work => environmental recordings of almost untouched nature & wildlife; lim. 200 in DVD box, comes with 5 colour photos
New Sights, Old Sounds
A much-needed reissue of Derek Bailey's 1978 2-CD Japanese release on the Morgue label, the first disc a series of studio improvisations and the second presenting two live performances in Nagoya and Kalavinka.Recorded and originally issued in Japan in 1978, the contents of this two-disc set quickly became something of a collector's item as the album quickly went out of print. Happily, the master tapes were reacquired for release on Incus in 2002, providing further documentation of a rich portion…
Klavierstücke I-XI / Mikrophonie I & II
Beautiful double CD set, containing a mindblowing Mikrophonie version... Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which “normally inaudible vibrations . . . are made audible by an active process of sound detection (comparable to the auscultation of a body by a physician); the microphone is used actively as a musical instrument, in contrast to its former passive function of reproducing sounds as faithfully as possible” (Stock…
Crippled Symmetry
orton Feldman's music continues to exert its fascination on listeners and record companies alike. After releasing its highly successful recording of the more than three-hour-long For Philip Guston, Bridge once again returns to the California EAR Unit for Crippled Symmetry, at only 87 minutes a mere bagatelle in terms of Feldman's late output. Well, maybe not. Scored for flutes, mallet percussion, and piano/celeste, Crippled Symmetry does exactly what the title says: it toys with not quite exact …
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.
Nature-Culture
A 2008 sequel to his highly-acclaimed first solo CD 'More is More' on psi 06.08. Peter Evans writes: Over the past couple of years one of my main creative outlets has been solo trumpet performance. These discs are meant to show various aspects of my music's development and were recorded in two different settings (studio and concert) and under two different circumstances. Jazz musicians have often referred to the playing of a solo as 'telling a story', which is essentially how I look at this musi…
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…
Music for checking e-mails
Good news from your mailbox! Mitterer makes music on the subject of ambient in an electronic environment. Two amazing CDs with radical backgrounds.Mitterer’s CD in hand is about background music as a relative term, it’s about communicating via ›electronic post‹, it’s about the missing link between analog and digital ambient environments. Because Mitterer creates his instruments and then uses them in a unique way, electronic music for him has a unique vocabulary, one which in this day and age of …
Rare Material
Totally essential two cd collection of some of the most elusive Moondog material of all . When the "Viking of Sixth Avenue" single volume compilation was reissued, we pleaded that here was truly a taste worth acquiring. Louis Hardin somehow managed to find the musical continuities between Bach, native american Sundances, be-bop, Stravinsky and yet still pursue his own musical paths and sound utterly unique. Strong claim, but the music truly bears it out. Drawing the entire disc one from the ultr…
Essence of Ellington/Live in Milano
Preeminent jazz composer/bassist William Parker has been working with large ensembles from the very beginning of presenting his own work as a leader in the mid-70s. His Essence of Ellington project is the very latest manifestation of his orchestral concepts, following in similar form on the extraordinary Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield project which was definitively presented on record by the acclaimed 2010 release, I Plan to Stay a Believer (AUM062/63). The Orchestra here interprets selections …
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…
Untitled (2010)
The next part of the ongoing series of annual reports, consisting of various untitled pieces made in 2010. Different in approach and composition techniques, the tracks of this double album presents the current showcase of one of the most important composers on the underground spanish scene. Using raw source materials from David Newman, 30-second original seed recordings collectively mutated into a myriad sound materials (by David Longa, Ryan Beppel, Daniel Puig, Colin Wambsgans, Martin Sa…
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…
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…