New Arrivals
The Disintegration Loops
*Deluxe 5CD+DVD+Book set* "To mark the 10-year anniversary of its original release – and its forthcoming induction into the 9/11 Memorial Museum this year – Temporary Residence and William Basinski presentThe Disintegration Loops in a fashion truly befitting a library of music with such a lasting legacy. This massive limited-edition box set contains all four historic volumes, plus a pair of stunning live orchestral performances from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 54th Venice Bien…
Glass Canyon
It's been a little while since we've last heard from Oakland-based sound artist Marielle Jakobsons in a solo capacity, but that's certainly not to say she hasn't been busy. Last year saw full-length outings by her two duo projects, Date Palms and Myrmyr, and already in 2012 works with Bay Area drone ensemble Portraits and trio recordings with Helena Espvall and Agnes Szelag have been released. Her last major solo outing (under the nom-de-plume Darwinsbitch) came in form of the dark, comple…
Jazz Sahara
Decades before the advent of 'world music', bassist-composer Ahmed Abdul-Malik introduced Arabic music into jazz, creating a distinct, unique sound that was far beyond its time. Best known in jazz circles for his solid work with Randy Weston and Thelonious Monk, Abdul-Malik, who is of Sudanese descent, was also the first to use the oud, a pear-shaped, traditional Middle Eastern stringed instrument similar to a lute, as a jazz instrument. Recorded in 1958, with tenor saxophonist Johnny Gri…
A Red Score In Tile
Composed way back in 1979, 'A Red Score In Tile' eventually surfaced as a vinyl-only edition in 2003. Made up of piano, this shows Basinski's patented tape-loop technique perfectly and still stands as one of his most affecting pieces of music. If you've heard 'Melancholia' you'll likely know what I'm talking about, piano notes are transformed into tones by the slowly disintegrating tape, and the loops become motifs all of their own. The beauty of Basinski's work is in its patience, and this earl…
Trainwrekz
Ensemble Skalectrik is a side-project of Nick "Ekoplekz" Edwards. Previous emissions include the self-released psycho-geographical abstraction of Snuff Mill Tapes and a homage to Maurizio Bianchi via Feral Tapes. Focusing entirely on spontaneous composition and one-take improvisation, Ensemble Skalectrik represents the most raw, extreme performance-based electronic music in Edwards' repertoire. On Trainwrekz, Edwards has dusted-off his turntables, grabbed a stack of old vinyl (mainly sound e…
Untitled
This album is a return to brutality for Drumm and a continuation of the intense lo-end evil of Wiese. Needless to say it is amazing and an essential purchase for noise fans, Mania-inducing heavy waves of suffocating bass frequencies with ripping and tearing, hissing and speaker-destroying hell-storm; at times these guys indulge in noise in the service of the metal that has influenced them via hi-end frequencies, but for the most part this is an expansive record that will immensely satisfy fans o…
Menses
Originally released in a private edition of 300 copies in 1982. This vinyl re-issue comes in a beautiful picture disc and includes a replica of the original and hard to find insert. The copies I have here include a page of a medical book handsigned by Maurizio Bianchi himself.
Danse Sacrale
A cherry-picked compendium of EDM prototypes circa 1956-1971 by Pierre Henry, Jean-Claude Vannier, Igor Wakhevitch, Henk Badings and more "The roots of Electronic Dance Music" (EDM) by definition. An unlikely combination of early recordings by international electronic and avant-garde composers as well as infrequent collaborators retrospectively unified by their commitment to the musical enhancement of 20th Century ballet and the evolution of modern dance. Presenting key exponents of the musique …
Ripatti 02
Sasu Ripatti links with the legendary Max Loderbauer (NSI., Sun Electric, MvO Trio) as Heisenberg for two knotty, complex riddim trips on his \"studio diary\" imprint. Adopting the mantle of the eponymous fictional meth chef*, the duo conduct fevered but controlled experiments in frayed, often frantic grooves eaten up with dissonant, freeform electronics. A-side is a 125bpm techno tunnel groove with offset bass hits embedded in a swarm of combustible modular chain reactions that dissolve to a gu…
Gridshifter
Stefan Nemeth: synthesizers. Steven Hess: drums (on B-Side). Bernhard Breuer: drums (on 'Dedispersion I & II'). Innode enters the world with an audacious debut of rhythm and sound, space and silence and an astonishing blend of the acoustic and the electronic. Spearheaded by Stefan Németh (cofounder of Radian, Lokai) in close collaboration with Steven Hess (Locrian, Pan American, Cleared) and Bernhard Breuer (Elektro Guzzi, Tumido), Gridshifter is an intense, astonishing sonic experience which na…
Kogetsudai
Kogetsudai is Sylvain Chauveau's 10th album, the second in a trilogy initiated by Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2010), where the song structure is dismantled and reconstructed on the fringe of silence. Whereas Singular Forms found inspiration from Abstract Painting, Kogetsudai is influenced by Zen rock gardens found in Japan Ñ also the location where the album was conceived (for the most part) Ñ and from which the album borrows its title. Layers of minimal electronic sounds and filtered f…
Ovenschotels
Both DT and JC have been sending eachother garbage and leftovers since a few years, sometimes almost nothing, probably out of pity, often to make eachother smile or as an act of friendship.Sharing the last spoon of cold soup on a cold winter night, when the heater does not want to be touched. these 36 pages are filth, with found imagery or buggles that the cleaning lady forgot to sniff out, images that have been dominating our seperate rooms for years and that remain unnoticed because of the dai…
Recur
After successful EP Collapsed, the Bristol-based project Emptyset strikes back with a full-length album on Raster-Noton. Once more James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas challenge the perceptual boundaries between noise and music and the potential for both technology and architecture to embed and codify themselves within sound. Recur is presented as Emptyset's third studio album -- continuing on from their work with Demiurge, the material examines the central themes of time, structure and recursion, thr…
Mercury time
Komora A - The trio founded by Jakub Miko ajczyk, Karol Koszniec and Dominik Kowalczyk exists from the fall of 2004. Stylistically Komora A locates itself close to ambient but not that one of smooth muzak and background music origins but that full of pulsating anxiety, reaching the black heart of the genre. Profound drones, delicate percussive intrusions, stately whizzes of analogue and modular synths, industrial interventions, multilayered structures - these are only a few ofÊ elements used by …
Galaxies
Laurence Vanay is the pseudonym for Jacqueline Thibault, wife of producer and musician Laurent Thibault (Magma). Her debut album "Galaxies" (1974) is pure genius: almost all instrumental, with gorgeous keyboards of many types, acoustic/electric guitar, even a little Zeuhl bass. There are wordless vocals on many of the tracks, although she occasionally sings in a soft, seductive manner. Incredible, spacey “avant-garde progressive chanson,” a Holy Grail for most collectors of 70's underground Fren…
Molam: Thai Country Groove from Isan Vol. 2
Molam is a multi-faceted folk country music native to Laos and the collection of rural Northeastern Thai provinces called Isan. Molam is an umbrella term used for numerous Lam styles. It literally translates into "expert singer" or "expert song." Featured here on volume two of this series are Lam Phun, Lam Thuy, Lam Plern, Lam Dern, and Lam Sing styles of Molam recordings from the 1970s and 1980s. All of these forms are built from a tradition that is centuries-old. A few examples of Molam…
Partikel III
The third and final part of the Partikel trilogy is finally here! Another beautifully constructed collaboration from the two noise giants - Japanoise King Masami Akita (aka Merzbow) and Swedish Overlord Henrik Nordvargr Björkk (MZ.412, Folkstorm, Toroidh). The styles on ÔPartikel III' range from total noise barrages, to intelligent electronics, to subtle dark ambient pieces. Essential! Presented in a luxurious matt laminate digipak.
Piano Music
Two compositions exploring the decay of the piano from Wandelweiser composer Eva-Maria Houben. Fading sound is the link between life and art; between perception in daily life and perception while performing, while composing.“Fading sound is the link between life and art; between perception in daily life and perception while performing, while composing. And the awareness of fading sound may become the awareness of presence.” Halfway through Eva-Maria Houben’s abgemalt, the pianist unfurls a …
Here Come The Cars
A year after the Clean's reunion LP Vehicle (also their first proper album ever) put them back on the international-pop radar in 1990, guitarist David Kilgour retreated with his new Revox tape machine (which he'd been singing about rapturously in his side-project Stephen and elsewhere: "Have you seen my new tape machine?!") and cut his first solo album, Here Come the Cars, issued by Flying Nun in 1991. From the jarring cover image of David through to the last note, Here Come the Cars is a specia…
Mitosis
"12k kicks off its 11th year with a new release that takes the label down new sonic pathways. Caught between the organic and electronic minimalism that 12k is known for and the unconventional Japanese pop musings and songwriting style of Happy, Moskitoo's Drape is an infectiously strange, bleepy, and dreamy debut release. Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo) hails from Sapporo, Japan in Hokkaido, the country's northern-most prefecture. Perhaps a reaction to the cool climate of her home, her multi-instrumen…