New Arrivals
Untitled 2011
*Limited edition of 350 copies in a vacuum packed metallic foil packaged with embossed lettering* Giuseppe Ielasi - sound artist, mastering engineer, label owner, half of Bellows - presents his most substantial solo release since 2009s 'Aix' for 12k with this untitled collection for London's Entr'acte. The eight unmarked tracks were produced in Spring/Summer 2011 and, much like his other work, would appear to be concerned with the minutiae and textured infidelities of the recording proces…
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…
Clivages
"Clivages is Univers Zero's first new studio album in over five years. They have spent the last five years performing at prestigious rock and new music festivals throughout Europe and North America and ever-widening their audience. Founding members of the original "Rock In Opposition" [R.I.O.] movement and the inventors of "chamber rock", Univers Zero have continued to change and grow and develop over their entire career, while still keeping a ensemble sound and spirit that is easily recognizabl…
Februar
Within the four-tenth-hasty Suite February von Luigi Archetti the individual musical-acoustic events seem to have out-pulled in individual sound-pure from the being silent background. Looking for, a "Hinhoeren" and emphasizing hidden, electrifying sound particle. The attempt is to be given to the shade of the music a voice. Klangliche atmospheres through-cross feeling and conception. Fourteen ephemeren sound places, arranges for the listener a music, which reciprocates between imagination, expec…
Glass Armonica
In its two hundred year history, the glass armonica has played many roles. It was a serious attempt by Benjamin Franklin to create a new instrument for the classical repertoire; believed to cause insanity in its players, it gained traction as an object of superstition; a century or more in historical obscurity ensued, followed by its revival as a compositional curiosity for a handful of composers and as an exotic timbre in soundtracks and on pop records. More recently, Christina Kubisc…
Dark as the sea
'Architeuthis rex. Leviathan. King. Magnificent sea dweller and haunter of the dreams of Italian artist Antonio Gallucci. Dark of the Sea is that dream, each of the seven recordings an aperture into a horrific underwater world filled with the fear of what lies outside. Together, the album is a kaleidoscope of Don Cherry's Brown Rice, backward masked King Tubby acetates, strange strings, outer space broadcasts of unholy funeral rites, Native American percussion and metaphysical drone. Illustrati…
Wayfaring Strangers: Guitar Soli
another gem, a wonderful collection of obscure solo acoustic guitar tunes from the mid 60s up to the dawn of the 80s -- beautiful work from a slew of players we've never heard of -- but we'd put right up there with Fahey and Basho in the way they reach from the back porch to the cosmos with just their fingers and some strings! One thing we love about this set, and the Numero Group releases to date, is how deep they dig and what beauty they unearth, somehow with impeccable sound quality. S…
divide by zero
NEW SERIES FRAMEWORKAn extension of our CONCRETE ELECTRONICS NOISE,a brand new mix-up of unusual conceptions of sound material by young unknown composers, well known not-so-young composers and old but clever composers.Benjamin Thigpen, nomad, born in the United States, immigrated to Paris at the age of 31. He studied music, literature, philosophy and esthetics. He now composes in European studios such as GRM, EMS, Visby and STEIM, as well as in his bedroom and in the train. After six years as a …
Redsuperstructure
"simple sonic events are unfolding themselves and evoke the sound of an orffean children ensemble. pleasant and strange noises join a bass foundation that recreates the ground shaking subsonic waves of mid-nineties drum&bass. it's like a drum major meets a tibetan monk. all is good in the noosphere - with "redsuperstructure" robert lippok's new record "redsuperstructure" is based on the spectacular set he performed at raster-noton electric campfire at villa massimo in september 2010. afte…
Fire And Frost Pattern
“The cold ice burns like the hot fire” wrote Max Beckmann in 1948 in his letter to an imaginary female painter. The extremes of fire and ice have always been a popular metaphor for the opposites of ardent passion and unfeeling frigidity, of flux and torpor – extremes which, for all our polarizing way of perceiving them, are very similar. This is also true, especially so in fact, in the acoustic field: in terms of their behaviour and dynamics, the sounds we associate with fire and ice – as create…
Los Autodisparadores
A soft immersion, leaving the surface behind,knowing that on the inside, wide horizons are waiting.In the mines of matter: laboring and exploring, searching and will-o‘-wisping, but always with compass and sextant at hand.Ample discoveries are the prize – never boastfully on display,but tended with archeological care: larger molecular aggregates, atoms, elementary particles; interacting or alone.A journey, seemingly documenting itself through close observation. Land surveying through experiencin…
Brahms’ Deutsche Volkslieder
"Only one face": Following their price-winnig recording Schubertlieder, the Tyrolean Musicbanda Franui have now taken up Johannes Brahms' German Folk Songs.
Black Box: Torture Garden/Leng Tch\'e
"The controversial and influential Naked City Black Box couples two of Zorn's most extreme and violent creations. Torture Garden (1991) presents Naked City's intense and groundbreaking music combining free jazz, bebop, r&b, country, funk, rockabilly, surf, metal and grindcore—usually in the same song! The rare, seldom heard Leng Tch'e (1992), released only in Japan and long out-of-print features Naked City in an agonizingly slow, brutal 32-minute assault. This special 20th anniversary ed…
Wireless
1st live album by Norway's Geir Jenssen - recorded in 2007 by Chris Watson & mastered by Touch stalwart BJNilsen. In the early 1990s, he was a pioneer of so-called "ambient techno," but since then, he has refined his sound into something more magnetic & enduring. Here, he incorporates samples of field recordings by Jony Easterby & trumpet by Anders Karlskas, invoking a sparser, more arresting sound.
Sostrah tinnitus - Stain
Warm, involving, deep and penetrating sounds... Flowing sounds patterns, vibrating drones permeated by a discreet sense of tension, evolving in dark, obscure, foggy, nocturnal atmospheres, violated by raven voices, mysterious noises and sounds of metal objects in motion... And then concrete noises, confused and elusive melodies, feeble light flashes, buried echoes of human voices, distantr whispers, sudden passages of rough sounds, undefined nuisances, subliminal and hypnotic sequences, just lik…
Night within
Guest contributions include David Sylvian, Daniel O'Sullivan (Miracle and Ulver), Duke Garwood and many others with the two creators, Daniel Lea and Matthew Waters, both taking a directorial role. The album was sculpted in Reykjavik by Ben Frost, enhanced by his signature aural physicality and visceral sub bass. The album is a vast collision of sound, from free brass and woodwind to "geometric" bowed cymbals and metallic percussion.But more than simply music, the multidisciplinary L A N D draw o…
Kampanerura
Kampanerura is the name of a boy appearing in the children's story Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), Japanese poet and author of children's literature. A boy with pure soul transmigrates and becomes a dissipated man around a trip to the bottom in Asia. From accompanying text by Masayoshi Urabe 'What are my legs on? What are my feet standing on? Sand? I feel something sharp and pointed! And a gentle breeze where am I? The sea? I feel it flowing! I've crossed ove…
Eternally now
More music by Gianluca Becuzzi (see Vital Weekly 810 for his previous release), and another one that doesn't reveal much in terms of information. Just a titles and the year it was produced. Its however some kind of concept album. The opening and closing tracks are 2:33 each, while the three tracks in the middle last 12:48. Also from the titles there are similarities: 'Culture vs Nature', 'Nature vs Culture', two parts of 'The Essential Nowhere' and 'Rings Of Time'. Probably that should give the …
Colofon & Compendium 1991-1994
Telephone terrorism tactics and voyeuristic ambience from the Scanner archive 1991-1994. Exclusive unreleased material. An eavesdropper's delight. "In the summer of 2010, I worked through my extensive archive of DAT tapes, cassettes and mini-discs, which had accumulated since 1977, and with the help of my ever-capable and patient interns, began the process of digitizing these materials. The result -- over 600 hours of largely unreleased material -- was overwhelming to say the least, and …
Liminoid / Lifeforms
Liminoid is a composition for large ensemble exploring sonic immersion in drones and textures, rhythms and pulsations. Incorporating composed and improvised segments, the piece uses elongation of sound and layered polyphony in an attempt to create a liminal and/or numinous state. This recording of Liminoid is from its premier at The Music Gallery’s X-Avant Festival in Toronto, October 25, 2008. The piece features a powerful vocal performance with every member sharing the vocal duties. The lyrics…