New Arrivals
Insula Dulcamara
Paul Klee’s Naturstudium (1923) recalibrated the dialogue between art-making and the natural world. By peering closely at nature, Klee’s project was one of a magical de-mystification, seemingly a contradiction in terms until you realize that by looking clearly and dispassionately (the studium part of Naturstudium), he brought us full circle to wonder and awe. Spanish percussionist Luis Tabuenca also peers inward at his world—here the universe of percussion sounds—inviting us to a microscopic lis…
Inner Cop Avoidance
An anonymous ICA fan writes in a reddit post, that if you layer these two voices on top of each other and play KP’s voice backwards the band members will speak in unison saying, “we mean there are footsteps while we stand still”. This was suggested a short time after the band played their first concert back in 2022. A few weeks later in another chat someone suggests how the ICA acronym could be understood as a counterabreviation of CIA, “… a music to infiltrate a secret police force?”… Then a ce…
Extinct
Cold Spring is proud to present a unique collaboration between Industrial Breakbeat pioneers Meat Beat Mamifesto (Jack Dangers) and the undisputed king of Japanese noise, Merzbow (Masami Akita).
FasFari
Tip! *150 copies limited release* Xing presents the new LP FasFari by Alessandro Bosetti, thirteenth release of the XONG collection - artist records. The release is on white vinyl, in a limited and numbered edition of 150 copies, together with a print run of 20 collector's editions. Each of these are accompanied with a graphic and text table, designed and hand drawn by the artist with phonetic alphabet, that transcribe the memories of his encounter with each 'voice donor’.
FasFari is composed of…
Penny OST
*100 copies limited edition* Penny is a feature documentary directed by Maya Hardinge. It follows the life of Penny from a teenager living in Uckfield (UK) to Germany and overland by truck in the 1970’s through Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and full circle years later back to her home town. The soundtrack, like the film, is a collage, composed of sounds and events depicting Penny’s journey. While the recently released cassette on woodfordhalse foregrounds Penny’s voice by incorporating generou…
Obsidian
The first release of 2024 is in! After their well-received debut duo album Puncture Cycle (released five years ago on A New Wave Of Jazz - this album you find here), British key improviser Benedict Taylor (viola) and Dirk Serries (archtop guitar) are back with a new duo album. An album they recorded at the fantastic Oude Klooster chapel in Brecht (Belgium) on August 11th, 2023. Full-on interaction, fast-paced dialogue while still listening and corresponding in depth with the sublime acoustics …
Amor
*300 copies limited edition* "When asked about the title of her new record, “Amor”, Limpe bluntly responded, “because it’s everything”. Being a Beatles fan from the very beginning, she’s well aware that “all you need is love”, but there’s more to her sentiment than a corny pun. On the one hand, she’s more than half a decade into her musical career, and describes the relationship towards her instruments in terms of an ongoing and deepening love affair. “Be it my piano, my viola or my percussion i…
A Touch Of Despair
*200 copies limited edition* The project "The Tapes" by Giancarlo Drago developed over a span of 10 years, between 1982 and 1992, before being revived in 2016 in Genoa, Italy. In 1982, Drago was 16 years old and recorded his first tape using toy instruments and creating loops with cassettes, influenced by industrial and new wave music. During that time, a friend gave him a self-built analogue echo unit that produced an incredible background noise, which would become a hallmark of many compositio…
Collected Works 2018-22
'Collected Works 2018-22' coalesces three deeply personal works that were created by Elms for three of the UK's most innovative ensembles and supporters of contemporary music. The three works explore misremembrance and the degradation of memory over time (Consolations in Travel), cyclical patterns of thought and resultant behaviour (The Age of Spiritual Machines), and the perception of reality orchestrated through expectation and misconstrued senses (100 Demons).
Intimations
Intimations marks the first official release of Group Material, the sound work of Eric Sanchez and Avalon Kalin. Released as a limited edition cassette on Slug Spitter and LP on Gilgongo Records. Blending guitar, piano, synthesizer and field recordings, Group Material craft an ambient sound that simultaneously captures both intentional and incidental settings, an ambient informed musique concrete. On Intimations, Eric Sanchez and Avalon Kalin offer a series of 4 pieces which would feel as at hom…
Strega Beata
'Strega Beata’ is the 3rd full-length album from Sam An’s dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project under the semi-notorious moniker Lana Del Rabies. After a brief hiatus, this record is her first full-length release since the gothic, industrial noise of 2018's Shadow World, ‘Strega Beata’, which loosely translates to "Blessed Witch," is an apocalyptic myth told through dense, textural compositions pulling from the vast corners of dark genre music. The title's meaning is appropriate for the e…
Nonage
“Growing up has always been a solitary journey, marked by forward-looking anticipation, anxiety, unripe potential, aspirations, and closures.”
Chris Rainier Sings the Music of Harry Partch
Tip! *200 copies limited release* Chris Rainier is a South African musician and performer, raised in Australia but now based in London. He earned his PhD in Music there last year with a thesis on American composer and instrument builder Harry Partch. Accompanying that PhD is an album of renditions of compositions from Harry Partch's (little-known) early "Americana" period, from the 1930s and 1940s. At the time, Partch wrote these compositions for his homemade "Adapted Guitars": acoustic guitars …
Colliding Bubbles
Colliding Bubbles (surface tension and release) is a composition for string quartet and harmonica quartet, meaning that Quatuor Bozzini is playing string instruments while playing harmonicas. "The title refers to different kinds of bubbly matter which are set to collide within the composition, leading to different ruptures and possible release of surface tension. The collision of bubbles unfolds partly in relation to sound, where small fluctuations appear in the encounters between harmonicas and…
Dialogues and Shadows
Among its many qualities, music relies on a special force: transcendence. When we listen, we are placed in a different reality, where sound is a vehicle for a much higher meaning. Naturally, not all music is capable of such a thing. But a few musicians clearly stand above as special – as soon as we hear them, we know that their music flows, floats and transcends. Dialogues and Shadows, the second recording by the duo of Gonçalo Almeida and Pierre Bastien emanates a distinct and intriguing sound …
Ultra-Minimal
*300 copies limited release, handmade textile sleeve w/ printed inner* Sylvain Chauveau has been releasing quiet and minimal compositions on various labels for more than two decades. ultra-minimal marks his debut for Sonic Pieces and takes the minimal approach even further, centring on reduction and limitation.
The album was recorded live at Café Oto, London in March 2022 - one of Sylvain’s rare solo concerts and the first time he performed publicly with only acoustic instruments; no machines, n…
Respite
Written and recorded by Sonja Tofik in Stockholm and Paris 2023 Visual by Viktor Fordell
. Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome. With 'Respire', Stockholm's Sonja Tofik presents a collection of works that cluster around themes of disunion and contemplation. In two halves, tiers of synthetic materials are layered into sullen reveries with organic components and concrète treatments, and as the obscurity of their genesis reaches a crescendo, these delicate and foreboding compositions fin…
Ohne Titel
*300 copies limited edition* Helmut Neidhardt, Chris Sigdell and Sascha Stadlmeier first met in 2020. They decided to record together and booked a studio in Dortmund. The recording session was spontaneous and somewhat chaotic. Thus it turned out, that only Helmut’s tracks were really usable. Using some sections as a basis, Chris completely re-recorded his guitar, added a little bit of vocal here and there, and then sent a rough mix to Sascha, who in turn added violin and musique concrete. The fi…
Horizontal Shift
Horizontal shift, features the international trio, from Germany and U.S., of Birgit Ulher, Carol Genetti, and Eric Leonardson. The CD consists of a live performance recorded in 2018 at Elastic Arts in Chicago. Having known each other since the late 1990s, it wasn’t until early 2018 that Ulher, Leonardson and Genetti were able to perform as a trio at Elastic Arts in Chicago. All three are seasoned performers in their own right — each bringing their distinct palettes in combination to create an im…
Flourescent Standard
*100 copies limited edition* On ‘Fluorescent Standard,’ guitarist Anthony Vine and clarinetist Gareth Davis present two luminous and serene worlds of harmonic sound. The duo entwine sustained tones, glowing with the resonant hues of their instruments, into enveloping and expansive atmospheres. Clarinet sonorities, swelling guitar chords, and tumbling elegiac piano fragments drift quietly through time in elusive cycles that subtly change and expand with each return. Every vibration is interconnec…