New Arrivals
Wells
"Amirani Records, the label founded and run by Milanese soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo, ends its eighteen-year run with three final releases. The last of the three, a recording of the Sestetto Internazionale, was reviewed here earlier; preceding it a duet for Mimmo and Finnish soprano and sopranino saxophonist Harri Sjöström, and a solo recording by Milanese cellist Walter Prati.
Mimmo and Sjöström are frequent collaborators, whether in the Sestetto Internazionale or as duet partners, and on W…
Due Mutabili
[…] There is something slightly daunting about the notion of an improvising sextet. Do the casual math of instrumental permutations from six soloists to one sextet, adding in duos, trios, quartets and quintets, and you have something like 55 possible combinations. Literally anything might surface, but among the least likely is the superb music achieved here by Sestetto Internazionale, music that dances between the ideal poles of inevitability and unpredictability, inviting a sense of wonder. Lis…
Cadenza Del Crepuscolo
"The meaning of "cadenza del crepuscolo" ("dusk cadenza") can be interpreted in a variety of ways. The most profound is the one corresponding with the implicitly slow flux of thoughts and reflections that emerge as we sense the day fading away, possibly in a moment of somewhat regretful oscillation between an unknown tomorrow, what we have already experienced and now miss, and the unexpressed potential of what we long for, but have not yet achieved (and perhaps never will).
The sympathetic music…
HerbstReise
"I look at this HerbstReise of ours as a sequence short but complete gaze of sound, often evocative in a narrative way, aimed at fulfilling an articulate as well as legible pattern. Though a single breath crosses them, fascinating opportunities are not alien to the syntax, the outline, and the expression of these improvisations. A clear ellipsis the dialogue proceeds delicately and consistently into, even when it thickens.
The inner timing, the layer of colour that shines through have a reflecti…
How To Get Rid Of The Darkness
*2023 stock* "Gianni Mimmo who runs Amirani Records from Italy and has performed in the KFJC Pit, here is joined by Pierfrancesco Mucari in a series of unaccompanied saxophone duets. These inventive and engaging duets bring to mind some of the duet work of Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake, if only somewhat less raucous. I also hear a soupcon of Anthony Braxton.
These duets seem to be neither fully written out but nor entirely improvised. They play sopranos and an alto, the musical range of which…
Avalanche Zone
*300 copies limited edition* Originally released in spring 2021 by US label L.I.E.S. on vinyl, Anthony Di Franco of Ramleh returns to Fourth Dimension Records with a timely and well-deserved reissue. Featuring three additional tracks to the original six, 'Avalanche Zone' is a weighty and abrasive follow-up to 2018's 'Weapon Design' that's propelled by cranium-crunching bass, icy and portentous textures, battlefield rhythms and just the faintest nod to Anthony's love of both old school noise and …
For the Lives Once Lived
Several years ago Gary Mundy of Ramleh/Broken Flag (and far more besides) declared to me that he wished to do one new Kleistwahr album every year until he's no longer able to do them. Fourth Dimension Records has subsequently fulfilled a promise to honour this plan as much as possible and is managing to keep up so far. How Gary manages to keep pulling new ideas out of the proverbial hat at this rate is anybody's guess, but the latest album, 'For the Lives Once Lived', illustrates very clearly th…
Lost in Room: Mark Perry, Alternative TV and Related, 1977 - 1981 (Book)
"That’s my argument against the way punk’s become so cabaret. It’s almost patronising [when bands play all their hits]. Oh, we’d better play ‘How Much Longer’ because people want that. To me, that’s just patronising to the audience. I’d like to feel, and I always have done, that an Alternative TV audience wants us to experiment or to try new things out through that sense of exploration, or that childlike sense of wonder about making music. That’s why I’ve always wanted to retain that. I haven’t …
Direct Action
Since their formation in 1977 Mark Perry’s group Alternative TV have moved far away from their more direct punk rock beginnings into all manner of other areas of music that have sometimes themselves drawn from improvisation, free jazz, industrial and electronic music. On 'Direct Action', Alternative TV’s first studio album since 'Opposing Forces' in 2015, we are presented with six instrumental tracks which steadily rip apart all expectations as they shed all allusions to rock music in favour of …
Sferics
"2022 was a shit show. I moved three times. I lived in San Francisco for a sudden moment in time. About eight months to be exact. But I jumped through a wormhole . An atmospheric anomaly that rippled across and through my familial center, taking us into a chaos of cardboard boxes, temporary living spaces, a collapse in our art practices, only to be pulled through the other end of the time warp, re-emerging back where we convened in 2019 in Tucson, Arizona--but now it is 2023 and life has changed…
Hits For The Bin
Nice Music is thrilled to announce the long awaited new full length release from Melbourne/Naarm-based producer Andrew Cowie as Match Fixer. Tantalising with a string of self-released tracks over the last 3 years and following the cloistered urgency of instant NM classic 'Attempts' (2017), 'Hits For The Bin' populates the glowing expanse of his sound world with restrained beat structures, cloaked in Cowie’s signature lush drift and squelched melodic riffing. A foaming wave of relief when compare…
I-I
We are thrilled to introduce the world to the innovative sounds of the Japanese improvisational music trio ‘I-I’. Composed of three exceptionally talented musicians, Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar, daxophone, pedals), Mitsuhisa Sakaguchi (synthesizers, pedals) and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (percussion). This dynamic ensemble has embarked on a remarkable musical journey with their homonymous debut album. "There's no inspiration from others. We just played." With this raw and unfiltered approach to music, ‘I…
INRI (Industria Nacional del Ruido Infinito)
Inspired by the scenic beauty of his studio's surroundings at Lake Pátzcuaro in Michoacan, MX, Dellarge delves deep into the depths of his artistic consciousness to craft a spiritual album that encapsulates the essence of the place. "INRI" stands for Industria Nacional del Ruido Infinito (National Industry of Infinite Noise) and serves as a vessel for Dellarge's innermost self-expression and reflections on the potential of humanity. Drawing inspiration from various sources, Dellarge found creati…
Les siphonophores des eaux froides et profondes de l'Arctique
Named after a metro station located in East Paris, Pointe du Lac originated in 2014 as the brainchild of analogue gear enthusiast Julien Lheuillier, joined shortly after by multi-instrumentalist Richard Francés, followed by Quentin Rollet on Saxophone a few years down the line. Les siphonophores des eaux froides et profondes de l'Arctique (“Siphonophores of the cold, deep Arctic waters”) is the project’s third studio album, the first one written as a three-piece as well as their first release on…
Decon Sound - Deconceptualize 1
*2023 stock* "Stefan Römer performs quotations from cultural or musical theoreticians commenting on performances by two iconic musicians, Syd Barrett and Conrad Schnitzler. The quote functions as an instruction for the sound performance. Stefan Römer explicitly attempts to reach a similar psychedelic state of mind to that of the referenced artists, using an LSD substitute. The performative staging of textual citation, instrumentation comparable to the historical events, musical performance, and …
ReCoder Sound
*2023 stock. 100 copies limited edition* This album takes reference to the German underground film "Decoder" (1984) and its sound track with the main actors Christiane F and FM Einheit (Einstürzende Neubauten), also William S. Burroughs, Dave Ball, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge etc. There are many reasons why it is helpful to look back to this manifest of medial resistance, today we are recoding.
60 Seconds Each
*300 copies lmited edition* An accidental data leak at the beginning of 2022 was the starting point for the Sound Art project 60 Seconds Each which is now available as an LP as a result of a participatory artistic process (concept & production: Kristof Geoergen). 32 tracks by 32 international artists form a 32-minute listening experience of diverse sound positions, each within minimal duration. Connecting the conceptual default of 60 seconds assigned to each artist with randomly generated conten…
My Strong Will
My Strong Will is a new album of "Ethiopian Classical Music" by Girma Yifrashewa. Recorded with Bulgarian musicians and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria, the album is a return to where Yifrashewa completed his own conservatory training in the late 1980s and early 1990s, across both sides of the fall of Communism. Guided by Yifrashewa's piano, these chamber works bring the music of Ethiopia into a Western Classical format, uncovering meditative and emotional new vistas for both…
La Donna Invisibile
Beat Records is proud to reissue the classic OST by Ennio Morricone for the drama movie “La donna invisibile” aka (“The invisible woman”) directed om 1969 by Paolo Spinola and starring Giovanna Ralli, Silvano Tranquilli, Carla Gravina, Anita Sanders, Gizi Rizzi, Franca Sciutto, Gino Cassani, Raùl Martinez,Elena Persiani. Ennio Morricone has composed an excellent lounge-type orchestral soundtrack for “La donna invisibile”. “La donna invisibile” main theme which is introduced in the opening credit…
I Predatori Di Atlantide
I Predatori Di Atlantide (AKA Atlantis Inferno) is a post-atomic movie directed by Ruggero Deodato in 1983. It narrates the adventures of Mike Ross (Christopher Connelly), Washington (Malik Farrakhan) and of a group of characters bound to the events revolving around the sinking of a Soviet submarine, close to Florida shores. A series of twists will bring the group on an island, just submerged from the abyss which is the mythical Atlantis. The score, unreleased if we pay exception to a 7” vinyl o…