New Arrivals

Chas Smith's six-movement set of variations that comprise Aluminum Overcast play with the listener’s sense of time—the perceived pace and the clock pace at which musical events take place—as they slowly progress, the spare advancing to the dense.The first five sections/variations are built from shared/recurrent phrases—melodic phrases (for bowed and struck metal), rhythmic phrases derived from geometric and Fibonacci structures, and phrases of “harmonic noise” that vary in density. The sixth mov…

Back by popular demand (and available for the first time as a CD), this essential collection of West Coast new music—an anthology known simply as Cold Blue—is a classic. Originally issued on vinyl in 1984, shortly before the demise of the old Cold Blue label, the disc quickly became the company’s most popular release. When Cold Blue was started up again in 2000, the company received numerous letters encouraging it to re-release the anthology as a CD.Although bound together by a common concern wi…

All the music on this album, with the exception of Song(s) of the Sirens, was written specifically for remarkable clarinetist/bass clarinetist Marty Walker. As Is Thought/Aurora, a casually dramatic work for bass clarinet, harp, and vibraphone, is like a miniature concerto in its structure, contrasting solo bass clarinet phrases with tutti lines.Song(s) of the Sirens, a lush work for clarinet, piano, and woman’s voice, gradually and systematically builds in texture, harmonic richness, and melodi…

Five Pieces for Piano (1997), Two Preludes for Piano (1996-97), and For Celesta (1985)—the latter for an instrument that is very seldom featured in a solo setting—display Michael Jon Fink’s command of crystalline forms that are Debussyian in beauty (and occasionally in gesture) yet hold a distinctly contemporary artistic distance from their musical materials. These fragile and primarily extremely quiet pieces are performed with great aplomb by Bryan Pezzone.Living to be Hunted by the Moon (1987)…

Nikko Wolverine (1999) is a three-movement piece scored for various bowed and struck metal instruments in non-tempered tunings. These instruments, which were designed and built by the composer, emit tones that are rich in complex harmonics and often sound more electronic than acoustic. All three movements of this work share motivic materials, but each successive movement adds more harmonic complexity and textural density to the movement that preceded it.Tons Tons Macoutes (1999) is a texturally …

Music of Nights Without Moon or Pearl is a 1998 work for string quartet, contrabass, two pianos, and electronic keyboard. The strings in this piece play pizzicato throughout—with their notes sometimes arriving one at a time, disconnected from one another, and sometimes arriving in flurries. An arch-form work that unfolds slowly and insistently, at its point of greatest activity, the texture of Music of Nights might be likened to the sound of rainfall on a roof—delicate, resonate, active, continu…

Last Things, for bass clarinet, pedal steel guitar, piano, and electronic keyboards, was written for clarinetist Marty Walker in 1987, and has been subsequently performed (as a piece for bass clarinet and tape) by Walker at concerts across the U.S. Somewhat a rhapsodic call and response between bass clarinet and pedal steel guitar, it is constructed of seven connected sections (or songs) that over the length of the piece slowly build in intensity. As the piece progresses, each section expands in…

I’d Rather Be Lucky Than Good is a new recording collaboration of Sam Ashley and Werner Durand. Sam Ashley’s mystic parables imbued with benevolent humor are drawn from a lifelong pursuit of a present-day shamanism. Werner Durand’s wind work on invented and traditional instruments stems from the minimalist tradition, routed through his unique study of obscure world musics. The two artists first met in Berlin in 1984 while Sam was touring Atalanta with Robert Ashley’s opera company, with whom he …

Points sans surface is a composition by Jean-Luc Guionnet for the Un Ensemble, a large ensemble created in 2012 under the direction of David Chiesa. The piece includes a sound system for 25 musicians and 8 speakers. It is also a visual experience generated by light. The general device consists of an acoustic and electroacoustic spatialization of sound. The audience is surrounded by musicians and speakers. Each instrumentalist is picked up by a microphone connected to a mixing console offering th…

In his poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) the Roman poet/philosopher Lucretius (c. 99 – c. 55 BCE) explores Epicurean physics and philosophy through richly poetic language and metaphors, as he presents an entire cosmology: based on the principles of atomism, Lucretius tries to explain the nature of the mind and soul, and the development of the world. While some of his ideas have been proven scientifically wrong, some of his thoughts seem strikingly reasonable even for the cont…

Artists on Hanne Darboven is the first installment in a series culled from Dia Art Foundation’s Artists on Artists lectures, focused on German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven. Established in 2001, the lecture series highlights the work of modern and contemporary artists from the perspective of their colleagues and peers. The inaugural Artists on Artists title is published in conjunction with the opening of Darboven’s 1980–83 installation Kulturgeschichte 1880–1983 (Cultural History 1880–1983, 1…

Alec Cheer's Night Kaleidescope is an incredible modern techno-based score to an underground psychedelic detective vampire indie drama. So there. There is little history here as this is a new release, but this is simply an amazing modern score to a 2017 film one may never have heard about (directed by Grant McPhee). What sets this score apart is its clinical post-modern feel, with influences including Mica, John Carpenter, Brian Eno, Goblin, Fabio Frizzi, even whispers of the 1980s, as well as a…

Sub Rosa presents Gilles Gobert's Electronic Chamber Music. Musical genre: trans, hybrid, crossbred, mongrel, whoreson, mixed, unclean, intricated, blended, interracial, bastard, harmonized, bouillabaisse, pandemonium, disorder, bewilderment, muddled, disarrayed, tangled, distraction, shambled, discorded, abashed, fuzzy, foggy, plaything, rejoicing, orgasmic, thoughtlessness, salad, undisciplined, inordinate, coded, slanged, talk, privacy, nearness, disobedient, unruly, confidante, imperfect, ta…

The label offers to the artists involved in the project the possibility to gather and experiment a unique sound setting. Inside a large concrete silo, the sound endlessly twirl sand spins around. A narrow door made of cast iron gives access to this cylindrical space where everything is surrounded by a red glowing darkness.The sound experience is intro-spective and utterly physical.These moments of residenciesunfold as timeless wanderings within the circovonlutions of this vibratile space …

Chik White is the moniker of Darcy Spidle, jaw harpist, tape collagist, non-institutional locally-sourced field recordist, and founder of the OBEY Convention festival. Spidle was part of the Canadian crust-punk scene in his younger years, but he eventually evolved towards more adventurous sides of music. In 2009, after obtaining a collection of jaw harps, his musical output took its most dramatic turn. Since then, he has released a string of tapes and records on seminal underground labels…

Following up on his remarkable Triangular Trade, sound artist (and operator of the Every Contact Leaves a Trace imprint) Seth Cooke offers with Double B another richly investigated, purposeful work looking into the sonic artifacts of the unresolved dissonances in constellations of history, politics, and media. Through his no-input field recording technique, Cooke brings into consideration the materiality of the inscription devices, a sort of sonic ghost hunting that rewards investigative listeni…

Where spring LP Omelette Of Disease was an orgy in painfully hard driven feedback, and the early summer cassette Overdrive focused on rumbling low-end, Benzedrine Bonanza brings a live all-at-once approach. Not unlike Schakalens Bror's earliest cassette excretions, yet now more refined and with the energy of his later live shows successfully transferred to tape. Fully fledged free form guitar noise in a league of its own.

Two giants of improvised music Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway joining pianist/composer Simon Nabatov, for a concert recorded live in Loft, Cologne, Germany on 30-31st October. Simon Nabatov - piano, Barry Guy - double bass Gerry Hemingway - drums, marimba

This is the 1st CD release commemorating the 6th anniversary of Ftarri, the CD shop in Suidobashi, Tokyo. Seijiro Murayama, who lives in France, is active mainly in Europe, giving truly original performances using drums, percussion and voice. Toshihiro Koike is a trombone player who lives in Nagoya. He is the leader of the trio Fuigo, whose other members are Kanji Nakao and Takero Sekijima; and he is also a member of the Satoko Fujii Orchestra. His improvised performances freely using expanded p…

Yuma Takeshita, who plays a modified bass guitar that he calls an electro-bass, and drummer/percussionist Yuji Ishihara have established reputations for musical excellence. Takeshita and Ishihara perform improvised music together in their duo project, Tumo. In 2017 Tumo gave a series of four concerts at Ftarri in which they performed composed works. On the occasion of a visit to Japan by Chilean guitarist Cristián Alvear, the duo performed “DosCuatro” [2017], a text score work they had commissio…

Karl Records is welcomes a new artist on board; R.A.N. is the dark electronic/rhythmic ambient music project by Hüma Utku, and Şeb-i Yelda is her debut for Karl. Hailing from İstanbul and based in Berlin for a couple of years now, Utku has been a prolific artist lately: as R.A.N. she released her debut album Her Trembling Ceased, followed by the remix album Remixed: Stories Retold(both 2015). Inspired by the Ottoman poet Bosnian Sabit Efendi, R.A.N. created four new, very personal tracks, develo…

Fourth issue of CRU Magazine, the annual magazine of the Berlin art space La Plaque Tournante ran by french composer Frédéric Acquaviva and english mezzo soprano Loré Lixenberg, which states what has happened or could have happened in the last year at La Plaque Tournante. This issue, printed at 500 copies, includes  1CD, 1DVD, 3 playlists of exhibited material, 3 postcards, 3 affiches and 3 catalogues into the form of posters, featuring Frédéric Acquaviva, Isidore Isou, Orlan, Mats Lindstrom, Je…

The cassette release Bichon Frisé features 4 tracks of atmospheric and eerie New Age music, made by Børre Mølstad, Danielle Dahl, Niklas Adam and Anders Vestergaard at the beautiful peninsula "Nesodden" outside of Oslo back in 2013. The sound is both soothing and easy listening but with an underlying feeling of hallucinatory horror; perhaps not unlike the popular dog breed after whom it is named.

When improvisers turn to electricity and imposing volume levels, the results are sometimes as intense as they are tedious, because they forget that it can quickly become a stodgy, lumbering mess that bleeds out way too soon. Not so here, as the musicians of Uivo Zebra have the experience, but also (and more importantly) the awareness that the most enduring results are found when guts, self-knowledge, shared vision and discipline are kept in rigorous balance. Which needn’t imply it becomes safe o…

The Verge of Ruin is a research in sound and poetry that started in December 2015 by Stefano de Ponti and Shari DeLorian, in Milan. A view that lives in the present and at the same time is strongly connected with several guides and experiences out of the past. Constantly looking for new vanishing points and responding to creative impossibility which are caused by contemporary collapses of media. The framework referred to, is the one drawn by concrete music and acousmatic art of the XIX Century, …

Chronicling the first 10 years of Sloow Tapes, Mellow My Mind gives an overview of all the tapes, broadsides, lp’s and booklets published so far. From Keijo’s desolate avant/acid folk moves to Fursaxa’s spiked organ drones with a short detour by way of Ira Cohen’s Akashic Records. Fully annotated with detailed information about the tapes, promo texts, reviews and a few texts written especially for this publication by Bart De Paepe, Matthew Parry and Louise Landes Levi.

Transistor formed in 2009 when Franck Vigroux was performing in NYC where Ben Miller led several projects. Vigroux was in a creative transition suggesting a stripped down electro-industrial sound with the latter as lead singer. Miller had sung in many bands before but never solely as a lead singer. The new challenge was intriguing. Shows were set up with Vigroux’s sub-bass and extreme frequencies blowing more than one PA system. They struck up an overseas collaboration releasing a self-titled EP…

Double bass, bass guitar, analogue synthesizer, vibraphone, piano, percussion, field recordings.It’s the Australian composer’s 6th solo album since his debut, Ink On Paper (2008) and possibly the strongest demonstration of his innovative extended technique, deployed in two subtly contrasting yet equally hypnotic sides. Using rapid bowing technique to paradoxically generate ostensibly static, sine wave-like tones, coupled with analogue synth, vibes, piano, percussion and field recordings, Majkows…

LP version. "1979's 154 represented the final tableau in Wire's Harvest released '70s triptych and was the first Wire album to be released to a universal set of five star reviews from the British rock weeklies, thus it represented the point when the British 'pop culture establishment' publicly recognized Wire's primacy. '154 makes 95 percent of the competition look feeble' wrote Nick Kent in the NME, 'Wire are achieving a lot of things other--and more recognized--names have been striving fo…

Presented as an 80-page hardback book -- the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. If Pink Flag proposed an almost cut and paste approach to deconstructing rock history, the Wire's Chairs Missing proposed something more radical, a definite futurism with much less influence from its antecedents. Chairs Missingwas at once more stark and more lush than its predecessor and has exerted its own influence on the course of cultural history, having laid down one of the earliest (if not the earlie…

Limited edition of 200 copies on black vinyl. "I visited Egypt for the first time in October 2016, spending a week there, and I went back for a longer period the next February. Both times I stayed at Sara and Alberto’s place, a couple of friends who have been living in the Maadi district of Cairo for about a year. The first impact with the city and its inhabitants was definitely strong: I had trouble in defining the energy which pervades the streets 24 hours a day and the feeling of perpetual mo…

Lucrecia Dalt’s Anticlines is a volume of bodily and geological substrates within poetic theory and sound. It is a place where skins and minerals dissolve and commingle, where gaseous subterranean leaks inflate lungs, where brain cavities echo interplanetary waves bent from passing through atmospheres. A former geotechnical engineer from Colombia currently residing in Berlin, Dalt’s concern with boundaries and edges shape the lyrics and music of Anticlines, her sixth album. Paying careful attent…

Charles-Eric Charrier is one of those musicians for whom it is difficult to sum up the career process with just a few lines; there are curves, digressions, great jumps,doubts, daring since his beginnings with Dreta Lorelie, he has never ceased to explore new horizons, to open up to the world, to look behind the scenes, to question his music, and music in general - and thanks to all this, he has drawn the map of his inner world. We will avoid talking about rock, jazz, ambient, contemporary music,…

Murmer (Patrick McGinley) is an american-born sound, performance, and radio artist based in europe since 1996. Since then he has been building a collection of found sounds and found objects that have become the basis of all his work. In 2002 he founded Framework, an organisation that produces a weekly field recording-themed radio show, broad- and podcasting around the world. In 2005, he began working closely with the artist-run organisation MoKS in southeast Estonia, relocating there permanently…

You've been carrying this suicide for the twentieth year and for the twentieth year in a row you still don't know what to do about this suicide you've been nestling in yourself for twenty years - and, after twenty years now, you still don't know what to do about the suicide you've been carrying for forty years. You go to the kitchen, you make coffee, you forget where you are, your thoughts concentrate only on the defeat you've been living with for sixty years, that after sixty years you still ha…

Related to Paradise Square (Never Thought I'd See the Day, SOMM 020LP), Cair Paravel was the second project of singer/songwriter Pete Ryder, a key player on two of the most rare and sought-after private folk albums from the UK. This time, the band recorded at a real studio and the result was Some Other Morning, released in 1976 on the Koala label as a tiny edition of 250 copies. Hans Pokora rated this album at four stars, and it's easy to hear why: gorgeous, atmospheric folk with ethereal male-f…

Phil Maggi is a composer, a vocalist and a film maker from Belgium. Known as the lead singer of heavy-rock combo Ultraphallus, Phil Maggi develops an extensive body of work as a solo musician for several years. This new album Animal Wrath is a combination of his different forms of music, from ambient-drone, electro-acoustic, sampling and field recordings to free-jazz. Phil Maggi has invited a few generous collaborators (Oren Bloedow, Maja Jantar, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh,Tom Malmendier, Gabriel Séve…

**Limited edition of 500 coloured LP** « It's stressfull! It's shocking! It's everything a disturbed mind can imagine! » A zombie wearing a Nazi SS uniform terrorizes the French countryside. Meanwhile, some really weird shit is happening, involving a possessed horse, a pirate boat and a couple of car drivers desperately fighting the evil tearing the land to pieces.No plot needed for the madness to begin, as this movie is filled with the insanity guaranteed to give you psychedelic dreams. Directe…

Angélica Castelló is a Mexican and Austrian composer, sound artist, performer, curator and teacher. Her sound work and compositions concentrate on fragility, dreamworld and the subconscious. Performs continuously solo or in cooperations everywhere between Mexico City and Vienna. Numerous compositions for ensembles, radio works as well as installations that operate at the interface of music, performance and visual arts. Several releases on labels like Mikroton Recordings, Interstellar records, Mo…