New Arrivals
In Sirenis
A deluxe edition LP, documenting and salvaging the sonic particularities of the Ravenna harbour."By “noise” we mean all the sounds that surround us every day, but the idea of an uncontaminated natural landscape, or of a singular sound event isolated from the context is impossible to realize and undeniably limiting. The artificial is now an integral part of contemporary sound and image landscape, sometimes almost a synonym thereof.In Ravenna harbour area, largely industrialized spaces intermingle…
Almanac
Dragon Turtle Almanac is a heavy trip; a document of transformation, entropy, and causality. Dragon Turtle evokes Morricone landscapes as if painted by Glenn Branca, where dream atmospheres meet brutal realities of nature and relationships. These forces are both beautiful ("Causality", "Belt of Venus") and destructive ("Moon Fallout", "Burn the Leaves"). The textures and layers move with a sense of urgency and purpose ("Hometime", "Hourglass"). The duality of Tom Asselin and Brian Lightbody's mu…
Crossarc chute
Crossarc Chute was inspired by my interest in the compositional strategies adopted for the early analogue electronics of the 1950s and ’60s, yet using digital processes and my own adaptations. Starting with pulse sounds, predefined filtering techniques and rules became the springboard from which I was able to generate many new sounds. These parameters formed a kind of system from which I could at times deviate.For one piece, Detail II, I separated the frequencybands of a group of sounds and then…
Grapes and Snakes
Grapes and Snakes is the first collaborative work of two of the most respected American underground experimental/noise artists, Aaron Dilloway and Jason Lescalleet. Using purely analog synths and tape manipulation, they build a foggy psychoacoustic mass that lies between dynamic yet patiently treated tape-music and industrial howl. Aaron Dilloway has been releasing and recording music since the age of 16. He was a member of experimental bands Couch, Galen and Universal Indians. He is a form…
In St Cuthbert's Time
The Sounds of Lindisfarne and the Gospels. To celebrate the exhibition of the Lindisfarne Gospels at Durham Cathedral from July to September 2013, awardÐwinning wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson has researched the sonic environment of the Holy Island as it might have been experienced by St Cuthbert in 700 A.D. 'A 7th Century Soundscape of Lindisfarne. Throughout human history artists have been influenced by their surroundings and the sounds of the landscape they inhabit. When Eadfrith, the B…
Kilo
Finnish experimental electronic musician Mika Vainio's first solo album for Blast First sees him return to his classic power electronics/heavy beats approach that made Pan Sonic garner a worldwide reputation. The album developed from Vainio's recent live sets to make 10 tersely-titled tracks inspired by the shipping container industry. Four stars in Mojo: "heavy-freight," The Quietus describes it as "fearsome."
Joke in the hole
Black Dice bod returns to DFA with a playful solo LP of sample-splitting psychotomimetic grooves. Like an unhinged, PCP-huffing cousin of Smith 'N Hack, Copeland deranges plunderphonic globs into stomping, jerry-rigged and unstable structures, equal parts garage rock, wayward blues, disco, techno and avant-garde noise collage. Yet far from being a total mess, 'Joke In The Hole' is possibly his most "musical" effort to date, enriched with fragments of melodic hooks that give something to hold ont…
Sorrow Come Pass Me Around
A collection of spiritual and gospel songs performed in informal non-church settings between 1965 and 1973. Most are guitar-accompanied and performed by active or former blues artists. "Most records of black religious music contain some form of gospel singing or congregational singing recorded at a church service. This album, though, tries to present a broader range of performance styles and contexts with the hope of showing the important role that religious music plays in the Southern bl…
Homage To The Pointed Waveforms
Few copies available, sold out at source - Homage To The Pointed Waveforms is the final release in a series dedicated to specific sound waves. Following Square (2008) and Sine (2009), ...Pointed Waveforms explores composition with triangle and sawtooth waves through studies of a dense modular system. Variations were performed live in Barcelona, Brussels and Madrid during spring 2011, but this LP is the next step. Side A contains a version of the piece that was conceived for the shows, whi…
No Visible Means
Originally self-released in 1984 on Pterodactyl Records, No Visible Means is the work of Canada's own Lou Champagne. Lou Champagne was active the Ontario music scene and also performed with other local musicians from that region as well. The Lou Champagne System was the real-time guitar synth solo act of Lou Champagne. Due to his knowledge of electronics, he was able to link his guitar, synth, and synthetic drums into a working one-man solo act that was playable with floor switches and …
Identity Picks
"Over the last decade, Burlington, Vermont songwriter/producer Ryan Power has tirelessly embarked on the quest to write the definitive song based music, full of accuracy, refinement, deliberation, and perfectly-placed shifting harmonic puzzles. Ryan's latest Identity Picks for NNA Tapes is an eight track song cycle that dances through lush jazz pads, aquatic smooth jazz funk styles, and the sensitive side of progressive rock. These songs are long, shifting compositions, slowly unfolding an…
Open Space
I've been composing graphical scores since 2004. Each score has been done for a particular group, and not just for a certain set of instruments but also for specific persons, each with their own personal sound and their own distinct approach to improvisation. The scores hover in the gray region between composition and improvisation. They create a situation where the players are free up to a point to improvise but in which they could also find themselves in juxtapositions with other player…
The Falling Rocket
This is true cosmic music!!! Stephan Mathieu is at the top of his game with The Falling Rocket, this is some seriously pensive & brooding minimalism that runs the gamut of the emotion rainbow without tossing you around rollercoaster style, with mostly just a Farfisa organ, Hohner Electronium, and radio at his disposal, Mathieu concentrates on a dense & lightweight essence, the sound of civilized silence carved out in the blankness of your mind, surrounded by inaudible hiss & hum, a delicate stat…
Divisionals
Mouthus are professionals. Not that their music is a full-time job, or is made out of obligation. Rather, Brian Sullivan and Nate Nelson approach every recording seriously and diligently, never bending their methods to fit expectations or pander to an audience. Often this devout methodology produces a glorious alchemy; other times it results in workmanlike exercises in sound excavation. But every Mouthus album comes with an implicit seal of quality craftsmanship. You may not find an epiphany in …
Arf Arf
The Australian sound poetry / film-maker / artist group ARF ARF consists of Marisa Stirpe, Frank Lovece, Michael Buckley and Marcus Bergner. Between 1985 and 2000 they produced and mounted hundreds of live performances in Australia and Europe. Their film 'Thread of Voice' (featuring Bob Cobbing / Konkrete Canticle) has been shown widely including at The Serpentine Gallery (London), The Pompidou Centre (Paris), Arsenal Kino (Berlin), Millennium (New York) and at the Museum of Modern Art in…
Live in Israel
Iancu Dumitrescu 'Liminal involvement' for ensemble. 'Le silence d'or' (Israel version) for ensemble and computer sounds. Ana-Maria Avram 'Lux animae XII' for ensemble and computer sounds. 'Telesma' (Israel version) for bass clarinet, ensemble and computer sounds. Contemporary Music Ensemble from Tel Aviv under direction Ilan Volkov with special guest Stephen O'Malley.
Unfinished Studies
This LP is the first release from young Melbourne-based composer Robert McDougall, presenting four electroacoustic studies, the fruits of many hours of private sonic research and improvisation. Simple electronics, acoustic instruments, field recordings and textural manipulations are subtly processed, fragmented and iterated into patiently evolving forms. Eschewing the jump-cut dynamics of academic electroacoustics while making use of a large variety of source material, McDougall allows the eleme…
Krionika Soshiki
In the early 80s Paolo Bandera was a founder (along with Eraldo Bernocchi) of the monumental collective post-industrial Sigillum S. In 1993 he created his solo project SSHE Retina Stimulants ("Super Sound High Energy" Retina Stimulants), devoting himself to sharpen the edges of concepts and noise extremes. Krionika Soshiki is one of his most representative works of the first period of solo activities. The six tracks run through subliminal arenas, with flows and ideas collapsed to state of …
Structures and Solitude
Tor Lundvall’s elegant soundtracks have been captured onto nine full length albums and collected within various compilations, raising his stature as one of the most abundant craftsman within the field of ambient music. Lundvall’s second box set for Dais features a 5 disc collection of more recent works including the albums Empty City and Last Light, as well as CD versions of the vinyl-only albums Sleeping & Hiding and The Shipyard. Additionally, the fifth disc in the collection entitled Night …
An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music Vol 6
The sixth and penultimate edition in Sub Rosa's ongoing assembly of crucial noise and electronic music looks at the period 1957-2010. So far the series has been duly noted for its excavation and reappraisal of lesser known works by important artists and vol. 6 is no different, presenting 26 exclusive and original compositions including the work of Tzvi Avni, Joseph Nechvatal, and Kohei Gomi/Pain Jerk among better known titans of the avant garde such as Stephen O'Malley, Dick Raaymakers, J…