New Arrivals
Valusia
Crescendo. That's the word that most aptly fits Valusia, the latest ep by wunderkind Nika Rosa Danilova, aka Zola Jesus. Building layer upon layer upon layer of synths and drums and vocals, Valusia, honestly, gets better the more times we spin it. Her career is on the upswing as well, with no signs of a de-crescendo: tours with Fever Ray, Wolf Parade, among other big names. The four songs on this 18 minute record stand with the best Zola Jesus has released. The "cleaner" sound of the Stridulum e…
Vayu Rouah
Cosmic like Three Organic Experiences, esoteric like Password for Entheogenic Experience, Vayu Rouah perform a kind of synthesis of the researches by Alio Die and Aglaia. Vayu Rouah is the primordial wind that join cabala and sonorous alchemies, an inexorable flux with extended electro-acoustic solutions, by a wide range of frequencies. A very long and slow gestation of about eight years have absorbed different musical moods and have stratified itself throw the time.. sound after sound.. t…
Postepeno
poSTepeno is inspired by a multi-part collage created circa 1890 by an anonymous schizophrenic patient (known only as Frau ST) at the Viennese Oberdöbling asylum. The compositions (for piano and sine tones) morph musicalthemes through continual microtonal modifications. Sine tones are unstable, but nevertheless they consistently keep their individual frequency direction (up or down). In the chordal sense, the distance between the tones is subject to alteration. In this way the harmonic indicatio…
Only
Pieces by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Hanns Eisler, Giacinto Scelsi, György Kurtag, Frederic Rzewski, Henri Pousseur, Théodore Botrel, Rudolf Siecynski, and Sephardic songs. Performed/interpreted by vocalist Marianne Pousseur. "I like to listen to music in places that haven't been designed for it. I like when music mixes in with noise. Only came from a very personal desire to open the doors of my musical world to the concreteness of daily life, to tear down the fictional barriers between places a…
Shunt
Strøm are Gaudenz Badrutt, pianist and electronic musician (1972) and Christian Müller (1971), clarinettist and electronic musician. Under the name of strøm the two artists from Biel mix since 2001 various ingredients: free improvisation with conceptual music, contemporary music ideas with free jazz explosions, down to earth, drifty energy with spherical sound. The duo mixes electro-acoustic chamber music skillfully with allusions to contemporary pop-aesthetics. Both musicians studied at …
Night Gallery
Night Gallery III" is the first one to drop from the collaborative efforts of psychedelia power-houses, Sun Araw and Eternal Tapestry. Composed in the heat of SXSW-ian Texas and littered with odes to the Twilight Zone, the upcoming LP of the same name is the result of an improvisational drum circle recorded in one go. "Night Gallery III" is desert drone that feels cleaner than waking up in the Sahara after a peyote trip left you stranded and asking where the saxophone came from, but sort…
Prisoner
Hailed as a hero of underground film in the 1960's, director Masao Adachi presents the shocking new film 'Yuheisha (Terrorist)' after a hiatus of 35 years. The soundtrack was composed by Yoshihide otomo, who is known worldwide for transcending the boundaries of jazz, improv, and noise. As a producer and film composer, he has gained critical acclaim for the soundtracks of 'Heart, beating in the dark', 'Canaria', and 'Boku Wa Imoto Ni Koi Wo Suru'. Also appearing in the film and playing acoustic g…
Artifact: iTi Live In St. Johann
Recorded on March 8th, 2008 at Alte Gerberel, St. Johann in Tirol/Austria at Festival ArtActs 2008. Features on trombone Johannes Bauer, drums Paal Nilssen-Love, analogue synthesizer Thomas Lehn & reeds Ken Vandermark.
Tidings / Amesthyst Waves
Trying to put the last 15 years of music into context, you’d be hard pressed to get anyone to agree on a single thing. If anything, this period has been a collective convergence of all things cool-sounding: naïve experimentalism, academic composition, art-rock synthesis, electronic nihilism/flagellation, and, well, everything else. Mark McGuire could muddy anyones interpretation of the contemporary canon with his buddies in the triadic mega-unit, Emeralds, his collaborative outings in Sun Wa…
Pulses & Places
A striking collaboration took place between Andrea Belfi on drums and assorted small percussion and Rutger Zuydervelt on guitar and organ. Together they produce the 'pulses' and 'places' mentioned in the title. Organic yet partially improvised, it resembles a kind of sonic geography. The listener is taken away for a journey of mild drones, soft yet outspoken percussion. A strong release.
Sax Pax for a Sax
Classical world-folk style by Moondog joined with jazz timbers by The London Saxophonic: the amazing and original collaboration between two distinct way of music.
Somnambulance to Dream General
"Somnambulance" is a reworking of an album of odd and obscure tracks that was released in a microscopic edition on CD-R before. For this CD, Mr. Liles has provided his funniest and possibly most controversial artwork as of yet. You get an hour of music of many different styles: Andrew Liles' trademark of eerie and spooky sounds is there; also electronics and a whole range of instruments are placed in between sketches and longer tracks. And if all this weren't enough, you get three bonus tracks t…
Shuffle
Limited copies back in stock. It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since Rutger Zuydervelt helped nail our jaws to the floor with his exceptional album 'Dauw'. It used to be that there was a new Machinefabriek album almost every week (sometimes two or three) but since 'Dauw' it seems like Rutger's slowed down and withdrawn into a self-imposed silence . And that's no bad thing - 'Shuffle' is his first self-released record in some time and it shows in the near-obsessive quality of the…
Primal Communication
One straight track, no over dubbing or editing. Recorded on July 2007, at H&H Production studio, Easton, PA. Recorded by Tatsuya Nakatani. Mastering by Johan Vandermaelen. Alongside NY percussion improviser Sean Meehan, Tatsuya Nakatani's approach to percussion uses alternative methods of interacting with traditional percussive instruments. The sounds here are subtle, resonant, introspective, and always interesting. (metamkine.com)
Live in Paris
The release of this, our fifth album, coincides with the tenth anniversary of our first concert together, in Philadephia in 2000. Thanks to all the friends, fans, promoters, and producers who have made it possible for us to continue playing, recording, and touring together all these years. It’s a privilege and pleasure for us and we look forward to sharing the next decade with all of you.
Delta
Extended sonic fluxes of synthetic nature mixed with delicate acoustic and electric guitars chords and riffs, crowd noises, indefinite and fading melodic "spots" of unknown origin, feedbacks, echoes, pulsations, vibrations, cracklings, rustling waves in continuous movement... But also sudden pauses, unpredictable and improbable inserts of folk blues radio transmissions, crystal clear water sounds, static, wrapping and dramatic electronic weaves, metallic tickings... An extraordinary range of sou…
Folk XII
FOLK XII" was born as a CD re-edition of Militia's - a band from Perugia, Central Italy - debut release (a four tracks EP entitled "Folk II" released by Contempo in 1985), but also, as the title aptly suggests, as a new reading of that work with the help of modern technology (which produced a partial remixing and remastering by the musicians themselves) and its integration with unreleased tracks that were left aside until today. That 12", althought still immature, was favorably received by the p…
Class Insecta
One of the pioneers of laptop electronics, Ikue Mori has been breaking new ground on the musical frontier for three decades. From her early days in the landmark no wave band DNA, to her years as a regular in the downtown improvisation community and more recently as one of the epicenters of the international laptop electronic scene, Ikue has become an underground hero -- yet her work is still sorely underappreciated. This newest solo CD features Ikue's idiosyncratic take on contemporary dance rhy…
Unknown skies
...Every trio without a piano, or without a drums, or as in this case without a double bass, gains in incline what it loses in “balance”. It only takes a little sometimes. Everyone plays at ease across. Everyone can split themselves. There are no more solos as solos but phases, circles of influence and predominance which do not last. The duos bind and unbind more clearly, the contrasts stand out better. The theme is no longer material to develop but, as in Unknown Skies, a lyrical and volatile s…
EARR plays a Snare is a Bell
a Snare is a Bell is a solo piece for snare drum, voice and the room in which it is played.Inspired by some close encounters I had with African shamanic/trance musicians and my personal experiences with meditation and music, it also relates to a known-to-many-of-us acoustical wonder of sitting on the toilet and picking up the tone of that little room (often by accident while coughing or talking out loud to oneself) and enjoying to sing that tone and let the toilet become filled with an eno…