New Arrivals
The Cloud of Unknowing
For fans of acoustic guitar music, James Blackshaw's The Cloud of Unknowing is a gift that's long overdue. Blackshaw's fourth album gracefully glides over the same sonic ground that his contemporaries generally tread with reverential obedience or dilettante tactics. Growing into his prodigious own at the relatively young age of 25, Blackshaw has finessed his 12-string acoustic guitar into a veritable solo symphony that's as schooled in uncommon beauty as it is in complex 20th century composition…
Planet Dream
In this present age of the history of humanity, there are few places left for a true utopia. The world has already experienced some of those ideal systems, but the results were tragic. Even in literature utopian thinking seems to have vanished. Only In music is there still a place to wonder, especially when it deals with spontaneous and non-hierarchical procedures. Musical improvisation is becoming the only possibility left to forge micro-societies of freedom and egalitarianism, without having t…
Stockholm, Berlin 1966
Hard to believe that this far down the line there would still be unreleased recordings of Albert Ayler, never mind a full live set from the apex of his reign, the glorious 1966 tour of Europe, so I nearly did a double take when I first saw this title listed. The Berlin set which the CD is bundled with turned up in lesser fidelity and in the incorrect order on Revenant’s disputed Ayler box, but the Stockholm set has never even been booted and both receive their first release fully authorised by t…
Minimal studies
It all began with Study Ten. After releasing his 4th Static album, which included ten songs, about 15 musicians and which took almost 6 years till its release, Hanno Leichtmann had the wish to record an album in one go, without endless recording and mixing sessions. While experimenting with his modular system he discovered a method to compose that, what he later called Minimal Studies. A modular sample player which can be controlled manually, by a sequencer, LFO or any CV source would mak…
One night in Burmantofts
A long overdue meeting of two of the titans of the saxophone. Alan Wilkinson (alto, Baritone & Voice) and Peter Brotzmann (clarinet, tarogato & tenor) together with Willi Kellers (drums) and Simon H. Fell (bass) blow up one hell of a storm. The individuals on this recording consciously commit, putting themselves 'out there', over the edge. The energy, the electricity, generated by saxophonists Wilkinson and Brötzmann, is a result of their fearless approach to the precipice and their willingness …
Reverie
Reverie is the third collaboration between Antonio Testa and Stefano Musso after ten years from their last cd together "Prayer for the Forest", with this new potion the duo explore different slow-motion athmospheres, playing a wide range of acoustic instruments,and distilling healing sounds,that naturally relate with music-therapy. An album for the soul and the love of being in its entirety. Airy and suspended, "Rêverie" is inductive music for light-hearted moods .°. over any siege of though…
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.
Tummaa
Marks a significant shift in emphasis in this acclaimed musician's work, reflecting a renewed interest in jazz & acoustic performance - this is far more organic than anything he's done before.
The invisible city
Recorded and mixed during 2008-2009 in Berlin. All tracks composed by BJNilsen using tape recorders, computer, organ, acoustic guitar, electronics, viola, subharchord. Field recordings from Sweden, Iceland, Norway, UK, Japan, Portugal and Germany. The subharchord was recorded in the EAM Studio @ Adk, Berlin. Viola played by Hildur Gudnadottir. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye.
Satanic Sanction
The only early album in this American cult group's discography that hasn't been made available on CD yet. "Satanic Sanction" is one of the darkest, most ritualistic works ever to be recorded by the band, and has for this edition been enlarged by John Zewizz including tracks from the same recording session that didn't make it onto the original vinyl. Featuring the grand voice of Jonathan Briley this is *the* classic …
Renihilation
Brooklyn, NY’s Liturgy deal in a style of black metal steeped in the genre’s most basic foundations of buzzing, dissonant guitars and whirlwind percussion, and yet they demonstrate an acute ability to make the sound firmly their own, both modern and ancient. Liturgy’s unique take on the genre only slightly recalls their NYC friends Krallice and the earlier works of the Norwegian wolves Ulver (particularly their 3rd LP masterwork Nattens Madrigal). In some sense Liturgy represents the seeping of …
Lifetime Of Romance
Heartland synthesist Dylan Ettinger follows up 2010's widely lauded New Age Outlaws imaginary cyber-soundtrack with a stark, dark, and intensely different collection of misshapen new wave weirdnesses, Lifetime Of Romance. Recorded at a proper studio, and written over the course of a year, the seven songs of Romance reflect a heavy influence from the fringier strains of bummed out quasi-industrial synth-pop in the vein of Fad Gadget, certain Cabaret Voltaire, early Human League, etc, but dra…
Lithp
Improvised music group originating from Haifa, Israel. Ofer Bymel (drums), Adi Snir (soprano & tenor saxophone saxophone, clarinet), Michel Mayer (guitar), Ronni Benner (guitar). A clean, sophisticated minimalist style and a sound that fits snuggly into the soft abstract current European scene.
Rebuses
Franz Hautzinger (quartertone trumpet), Masahiko Okura (reeds) and Tetuzi Akiyama (tape delayed electric guitar). Recorded in Tokyo, 2004.A rebus is "a representation of a word or phrase by pictures or symbols", as you probably all know. Just wondering what the words might be then, on listening to this remarkably active (in its discreet lowercase way) trio outing from trumpeter Hautzinger, saxophonist Okura and guitarist Akiyama. EAI is, after all, supposed to be slow and spacious (think Hautzin…
For Myria
On his cd debut, UK sound artist Jodi Cave creates seven short compositions united by themes of singularity and natural randomness. One of the most immediate features of For Myria is its restrained sound palette. Like an instrumentalist who has laid a small collection of choice instruments out in front of him, Cave creates beautifully intimate collages, each touching on maybe only 2 or 3 sounds, woven together by computer processing which has been pushed into the background, utilized more as a c…
Treeg Salaam
Group Doueh's second Sublime Frequencies album 'Treeg Salaam' is finally available on CD. If you're not familiar with Group Doueh, this is as good a place as any to get your fix, featuring tracks compiled and edited from Salmou "Doueh" Baamar's personal cassette archives recorded between 1989-1996. Next to Omar Souleyman and Group Bombino, Group Doueh are one of the few acts to be fully signed and released through the label, offering full length albums of original material which have become cher…
Dispositions Furtives
Through the open sound portals created by his compatriot Castiglioni, the Italian pianist Alfonso Alberti first entered col legno's World of New Music; on his second album, he dedicates his sensitive and brilliant musicality to Gérard Pesson's fragile and puzzling fabrics of sound. A selection of piano pieces has been compiled in a joint effort by the pianist and the French composer; in his interpretations Alberti lets us catch glimpses of musical structures as though they were glittering just u…
Papercuts Theater
AWESOMEEEE!!!! The construction of this latest opus from C. Spencer Yeh's Burning Star Core comes from the collaging of sixty-six live recordings, captured over the course of an eleven year-period. The editing time for this monstrous undertaking was fairly substantial too, taking up two further years of on-and-off assembly. In addition to Yeh himself, the list of contributors takes in an expansive cast of notable noise and improv artists, including Hair Police's Mike Connelly, Trevor Tre…
Stasis
Zbeen is an electro-acoustic project by Gianluca Favaron and Ennio Mazzon. Zbeen’s improvisational approach is developed from the human-machine paradigm which is represented by the interaction with digital instruments specifically designed and developed for this project. K-Frame, Zbeen's debut EP, was released by Ripples in January 2012. Unlike K-Frame, which was developed as a sonic counter-part to the linear algebra concept of an ordered set of ‘k’ linearly-independent vectors, Stasis elabo…
Language of the Dards
WhisPers for WoLves is the solo pysch/noise/folk project of Melissa Moore. The musician, experimental instrument builder, installation/sound artist, and sculptor based in Baltimore,MD. "Language of the Dards" is a multi-part series of pieces developed around the text/teachings/songs of Indian Yogi, Milarepa made of three long recordings of voice/finger-pickin guitar, nepalese oboe, and electronics. The album comes in a hand-assembled gatefold sleeve.