New Arrivals
Nova Psychedelia (1975-1985)
"Outside of his native Pennsylvania-West Virginia stomping grounds, Todd Tamanend Clark remains one of the least known North American underground artists in the lost music DIY field of his era, considering he has collaborated with and shared time with many of his peers over the years (Cheetah Chrome, Allen Ravenstine, Stiv Bators), as well as progenitors (Dorothy Moskowitz of United States of America, Robert Moog, William Burroughs), his significant body of recorded (and printed) work was always…
Creative Orchestra (Köln) 1978
"The Koeln concert shows us these positive vibrations marching through "the complete continuance of creative music," and on towards the next millennium. The "success of the future" is not a lost cause as long as there is music like this in the air."-Graham Lock"Although Anthony Braxton does not play on this double CD (whose contents were released for the first time in 1995), his presence is certainly felt. He conducts the band through a fairly free improvisation and five of his compositio…
Elegy for Native Tongues
Heavy, ominous psychedelic free-improv from Tokyo, Japan. Julian's Cope album of the month . Tetragrammaton is a trio featuring Nobunaga Ken on drums and percussion, Cal Lyall on electronics and guitar, and TOMO on hurdy-gurdy, saxophone and electronics, and have in the past collaborated with members of Zeni Geva, Acid Mothers Temple, Taj Mahal Travellers, and Damo Suzuki from Can. On Elegy For Native Tongues, however, it’s just the main trio at work, displaying a love for high-volume improvised…
The Temple Recording
I am currently making recordings like this: I go to a certain place and choose an object Ð mainly it is a landscape, which is interesting to me. I fix a stethoscope with a small built-in air mike onto my temples. The position of the air microphone can be set anywhere near the ears, but I feel that our temples are the best and only place for that. The stethoscope captures vibrations of my muscles and blood flows. Because of the nature of the air microphone, environmental noises are recorded, t…
Trio
The expansive length of Morton Feldman’s Trio (1 hr., 45 min., 22 sec.) requires a new approach to listening, which takes scale, the physical experience of sound, and novel uses of musical memory into consideration. With his delicate manipulation of musical materials, Feldman blurs the listener’s sense of time as their musical memory struggles to distinguish between past and present sounds - listeners are free to lose themselves in the beauty of each musical moment. Aki Takahashi and Rohan…
Technology 1 & 2
First issued as a very limited private tapes in 1981, now for the first time ever on CD for these early tapes by one of the most important figures in noise/electronic history, Maurizio Bianchi. These two discs were originally issued on tape in 1981 and have been bootlegged and cut into oblivion since then; this is the first time they've been made available digitally and fully uncut. Technology 1 has two long 25 min+ songs, both in a similar vein and showing MB taking a more subtle melodic approa…
Rework
One of America’s greatest ever composers gets the remix treatment. What is it with remix albums this week - are they back? Anyway it’s always an odd thing the remix album, basically it’s just an excuse for the great and good to strut their stuff and do something decent on a high profile record.It’s a mixed bag of collaborators from Tyondai Braxton to Cornelius to Beck (who gets an entire side to himself) to Johann Jonannsson to Peter Broderick (still no doubt weeping from our review of his recen…
Songs About Nothing
Stunning double disc collection of mind-erasing loops, avant classical drone and minimal cold wave threat from Jason Lescallett, presented as a back-handed tribute to Big Black’s notorious 1992 album Songs About Fucking: Songs About Nothing is the sound of pure entropy, moving from ear-scalding feedback sculptures through nod-out minimal synth repetition through scrambled choral works and widescreen soundtrack drones. The first disc unfolds in a series of stately movements linked by a form of ob…
Adèle et Hadrien. Les Livres de Vacances
Lionel Marchetti's 'Adèle et Hadrien' is a captivating document of a holiday of Adèle and Hadrien, two young children around 10 years old. The recordings view a glimpse into the world of Adèle and Hadrien, who go swimming, are startled by strange sounds, and ponder the existence of bugs. They argue with their parents and make jokes, and although Adèle and Hadrien speak French, understanding the French language is not a prerequisite for getting a glimpse into their world. Marchetti practices his …
Tom&Gerry
“In June of 1997 Thomas Lehn and Gerry Hemingway came together for a duo tour in Germany that had originally been planned as a quartet with Mats Gustafsson and Barry Guy. But the budget was meager and salvaging the tour seemed the best option and so the tour went on as a duo. Thomas recorded all of the concerts and the extensive recordings were recently compiled into this double CD, which was painstakingly edited, sequenced and mastered to provide the best possible showcase for this superb…
O kokos tis anixis (Grains of spring)
The ancient Greek philosophers thought that the world is constituted of a series of grains of space and time. When I walked around Miura Peninsula in the springtime, I felt the same way - the quality of the space and the time seemed to be formed by a series of grains of sounds. Each place has its own unique character. You could label it as a particular quality of the place. The quality of the sound.'-'This is one of my trials to present a 'subject' as a piece of work - which can be called…
Untitled (2010)
The next part of the ongoing series of annual reports, consisting of various untitled pieces made in 2010. Different in approach and composition techniques, the tracks of this double album presents the current showcase of one of the most important composers on the underground spanish scene. Using raw source materials from David Newman, 30-second original seed recordings collectively mutated into a myriad sound materials (by David Longa, Ryan Beppel, Daniel Puig, Colin Wambsgans, Martin Sa…
Tramp (Deluxe Edition)
2CD deluxe edition includes the album, demos for each album track, plus a bonus track demo. Repackaging includes a self-portrait & liner notes about each song taken from VAN ETTEN's journals. A startling collection, filled w/ as much defiant rock as pious, minimal beauty. There are declarative hymns, & remarkably sultry numbers. Guest appearances from Jenn Wasner (WYE OAK), JULIANNA BARWICK, Zach Condon (BEIRUT). NO CANADA/NO EXPORT(SAKI)
Nature-Culture
A 2008 sequel to his highly-acclaimed first solo CD 'More is More' on psi 06.08. Peter Evans writes: Over the past couple of years one of my main creative outlets has been solo trumpet performance. These discs are meant to show various aspects of my music's development and were recorded in two different settings (studio and concert) and under two different circumstances. Jazz musicians have often referred to the playing of a solo as 'telling a story', which is essentially how I look at this musi…
Viva Negativa! A Tribute To The New Blockaders Vol. II
Volume II in a series of UK / European / US and Japanese artists' tributes to the pioneering UK Noise group The New Blockaders including exclusive tracks by : Asmus Tietchens, RLW, Achim Wollscheid, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Sudden Infant, Dave Philips, Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, Kommissar Hjuler, Mama Baer, Freiband, Vortex Campaign, Grunt, Lasse Marhaug, Jerome Noetinger, Christian Renou, Pita, Giancarlo Toniutti, Zbigniew Karkowski, Alexei Borisov, Cisfinitum, etc. Artwork by Richa…
(1975-1991)
Just arrived! The research-performance group kiva was created in 1975 by the American trombonist John Silber and the French percussionist Jean-Charles François as part of a research project at the Center for Music Experiment at the University of California San Diego. During the period of its existence (1975-91) various members (often graduate students from UCSD) joined the two permanent musicians, John Silber and Jean-Charles François, to contribute to the groups artistic production. Two persona…
Crippled Symmetry
orton Feldman's music continues to exert its fascination on listeners and record companies alike. After releasing its highly successful recording of the more than three-hour-long For Philip Guston, Bridge once again returns to the California EAR Unit for Crippled Symmetry, at only 87 minutes a mere bagatelle in terms of Feldman's late output. Well, maybe not. Scored for flutes, mallet percussion, and piano/celeste, Crippled Symmetry does exactly what the title says: it toys with not quite exact …
Atrees / Nomos Alpha
The works on these two discs were all written in the 1950s & 60s, at a time when Xenakis was at his most productive. It has to be said that, to the casual listener, this is not easy listening. However, to the more adventurous collector and to those prepared to explore new musical avenues, this set of the music of Xenakis will prove a rare and valuable opportunity. Featured works: Atrées, Morsima-Amorsima, Nomos Alpha, ST/4, Akrata.
Open Strings: Early Virtuoso Recordings From The Middle East
'Superbly stylish in conception and packaging, it shows that small independent labels can still be an inspirational force' (Daily Telegraph); 'definitive and essential' (Brainwashed); 'stunning in its historical interest and musicianship' (Boston Phoenix); 'phenomenal and mesmerizing' (Dusted); 'one of the major phonographic salvage operations of our time' (The Wire). 'The archival finds are, without exception, phenomenal – and mesmerizing. The oud, the santour and spike fiddle dominate. There a…
Motion Sickness Of Time Travel
DOUBLE CD EDITION In 2010, Rachel Evans released Seeping Through The Veil Of The Unconscious, an expansive, magic trick of a cassette which captivated an unsuspecting American cassette underground and made dedicated fans instantly. Digitalis released fine editions of Seeping... as well as the acclaimed follow-up Luminaries And Synastries on LP which packed an equally potent punch and created much anticipation. Evans has since been hard at work on an expansive, definitive 2LP project, caref…