New Arrivals
Untitled (angle. 1)
'Untitled (angle.1) is a stereo composition based on the eight-channel installation Untitled.First exhibited February 11 Ð March 13, 2009 at the Art Gallery of the University of Maryland (USA), Untitled is the unique first collaborative project between visual artist Linn Meyers and sound artist Richard Chartier, in an installation where optical and sonic patterns intersect. With an architectural transformation of the space, two fifteen foot long by eight foot high walls meet in an enfolding chev…
divide by zero
NEW SERIES FRAMEWORKAn extension of our CONCRETE ELECTRONICS NOISE,a brand new mix-up of unusual conceptions of sound material by young unknown composers, well known not-so-young composers and old but clever composers.Benjamin Thigpen, nomad, born in the United States, immigrated to Paris at the age of 31. He studied music, literature, philosophy and esthetics. He now composes in European studios such as GRM, EMS, Visby and STEIM, as well as in his bedroom and in the train. After six years as a …
Moon Over Torrelorca
Cold and glacial drone recorded at the prestigious EMS in Stockholm. 58 minutes of northern iciness. Moon Over Torrelorca, the second album from Keränen, serves as a great follow up to his amazing debut album Bats In Attic that Lasse Marhaug's Pica Disk released last year. In contrast to the high energy multi-layered noise- bomb the debut offered, Moon Over Torrelorca instead showcases a carefully composed drone piece from this highly skilled sound artist. It’s cold up north.
Strings.Lines
Created between September 2008 and February 2010 in the artist's studio. Viola da gamba: Pierre-Yves Martel. Violin: Chris Bartos. 'strings.lines' came to life from an obsession for old and forgotten object-matter and the desire to produce music that exists in between the new and the old. The starting point to the composition of this work were acoustic tuning forks. In 2007 Nicolas Bernier became fascinated with this object/instrument of particularly beautiful design, and started a collec…
The Last Recording
Final solo alto sax blasting from the late legendary Japanese underground hero Kaoru Abe. Abe was an inspiration to free/jazz and Japanese noise lovers world-wide, lived a fast and hard life and ripped his guts inside out on each and every of his many releases. Extreme music for those who need it.
Retro vulva 2003
A Chilean band living in Paris, who do a really fuckeded up punk rock influenced equally by Captain Beefheart, Os Mutantes, and Caroliner. Limited to 300 copies.
Wege
Wege translates as 'path' and it's a fitting title for the latest rendering from master percussionist and experimental composer Andrea Belfi. The albums' four pieces act as orientation points through some imaginary sonic landscape. Wege is Belfi's forth LP (the first with Room40), and stems entirely from compositions completed at two artist-in-residence projects in Austria (Hotel Pupik) and in Brussels (Q-O2 Werkplatz). The album is built around a cyclic electro-acoustic system, through which Be…
Spoils
For this latest album Caledonian folk impresario Alasdair Roberts teams up with expected collaborators like Alex Neilson (whose drumming and percussion work has illuminated many a free-folk record over recent years, a few of which Roberts has been involved with) and more unusual contributors such as Niko-Matti Ahti of Fonal's Kiila. Perhaps more than ever, Roberts' music invites comparisons to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, traveling sufficiently far from the trad songwriting fold to be thought of as 'a…
Celeste
Another Tompkins Square reissue of early James Blackshaw material, and this is about as early as it gets: Celeste originally surfaced on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon a full five years ago and set the blueprint fr just about every solo recording he's made since. While the first part of the album finds Blackshaw in solo 12-string mode, the second deviates from the well-trodden Takoma-styled path and heads into an effects-laden drone composition. This sort of style-melding approach would come to…
Shrine Of The Post
Now I've seen the Starving Weirdos play live, which always tends to blur opinions of a band's recorded material. If you see a band play and they are a bunch of obnoxious f*ckwits with no clue what they're doing it can colour your judgement somewhat and make a record seem a lot worse than it is, and if you see a band that are just frankly very awesome indeed and lovely folk to boot, then it can give you a different focus when you hear them on cd. Thankfully Humbolt crew Starving Weirdos fal…
M.O.S.
'A new series designed by Clare Cooper. M.O.S. is Ingar Zach's second solo release for Sofa, six years after the critically acclaimed 'Percussion music'. M.O.S. reveals a large and almost monolithic sound world. Zach's horizontal bassdrum (gran cassa) functions as a gigantic, resonating membrane, where metallic and ceramic percussions create articulations over the bass vibrations in a ritualistic dance of pulses and overtones. The music moves slowly, but with a continuing drive, and stretc…
Turntable History: Spin Ensemble
Arnold Dreyblatt's Turntable History: Spin Ensemble was recorded March 12, 2011 by Ernst Karel at Boston's Goethe Institut. This performance version of the original piece (released on CD as IMPREC323) provides a different perspective on the original composition. From the original studio version of the piece: Arnold Dreyblatt (b.1953) is an American composer who has studied with La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Lucier. He is a member of the German Academy Of Art. He has released wo…
Sentielle objectif actualite
CD version. This recording contains seven remixes by UK-based artist and electronic musician Mark Fell of the first three 12" singles released on the record label Sensate Focus in 2012. These were called 10, 5 and 3.3.... The first of these, 10, was itself a reworking of materials from an earlier project by Fell and Terre Thaemlitz, released on Comatonse Recordings in 2012. The seven remixes were written and recorded in June 2012 at the Upper Lounge, Chatham Street (UK) using a MacBook Pro ru…
Plekzationz
CD version. This recording contains seven remixes by UK-based artist and electronic musician Mark Fell of the first three 12" singles released on the record label Sensate Focus in 2012. These were called 10, 5 and 3.3.... The first of these, 10, was itself a reworking of materials from an earlier project by Fell and Terre Thaemlitz, released on Comatonse Recordings in 2012. The seven remixes were written and recorded in June 2012 at the Upper Lounge, Chatham Street (UK) using a MacBook Pro ru…
C+-
The Phonos ek Mechanes trio was founded in 2007 by three composers and electro-acoustic performers from Wroc aw: Cezary Duchnowski, Pawe Hendrich and S awomir Kupczak. The name of the group comes from Greek and means 'the sound of the machine' which reflects specific methods of artistic creation applied by the three musicians. They play typical instruments such as the piano, electric guitar or electric violin, often prepared and tuned for microtonal music. Sounds that are created this way do not…
Zone Sensible 2 - Dundee 2
For the best part of a decade, Éric La Casa's attention to sonic phenomena has resulted in some of the finest contemporary Musique Concréte to come out of France. A listener of the highest order, La Casa's methodology for sound recording allows for a versatile examination of both urban and natural environments and it is these interests which are captured on this new edition for Room40. With an ability to find unique perspectives on his sound subjects La Casa's site specific works 'Zone Sensible'…
Sunrise
Comprised of pieces from the band's original score for F.W. Murnau's 1927 silent masterpiece "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans", My Education has discovered the perfect forum for which to flex their compositional muscles, achieving ever-transcendent musical heights in the process. This original score was perfected over the last two years through live scoring to the film, performed at sold out shows throughout the USA. Just as the music provides new context to the film as a live accompaniment…
Catch-Wave
Takehisa Kosugi is an inter-media artist and performer who started his career back in the '60s in Tokyo. With his first band Group Ongaku (free anarchist-conceptual improvisations) he was introduced to the Fluxus avant-garde movement. During the '70s, he was a member of the mystical, psychedelic, droning rock band Taj Mahal Travellers. He co-founded the band in 1969. Since the end of the '70s until now, he has released several solo albums and commissioned works for events and sound installations…
Jazz Raga
Awesome reissue! The world famous Impulse jazz catalogue is so cavernous you truly need a music-minded flashlight to uncover its deepest and darkest secrets. Thankfully Light In The Attic has recently acquired such luminescent technology and the first discovery is Hungarian guitarist GABOR SZABO’s 1967 Indo-fusion landmark, Jazz Raga. combines Szabo's distinctive 6-string touch & open-minded ideas. It brings together jazz, pop-rock & his native European influence, along with hypnotic sitar, st…