New Arrivals

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…

Luca Di Mattei is one of the Afe resident artists since the early days of the label. During the years he had several releases under four different aliases: Leeza, Hendy Van Morris, Jabba and Bill Catez. Leeza is his most well-known and prolific incarnation. Generated using laptop computer technology, Leeza's music has its main roots in what was once called Intelligent Techno, and is clearly inspired by the great records published during the '90s by labels such as Warp, Rephlex, Skam, etc.After t…

A survey of Asian sound activity: 1997 - 1998 1 Koji Tano Field Recording Intro (1:16) 2 Government Alpha Acoustic Type (0:48) 3 Chris C. Lin Bathyal (2:55) 4 Ching Shen Ching* V-Zone (7:25) 5 Magmax Gracie Jugend (5:33) 6 S.Isabella Phosphorescence (4:36) 7 Z.S.L.O. 422189 (4:36) 8 R.H.Y. Yau Dog (1:13) 9 MSBR Fragment #1 (5:10) 10 Kazumoto Endo Night Falls On IKEBUKURO (4:17) 11 PNF My Favorite Scratch (7:58) 12 Yukiko Toyama Park 3AM (5:55)

Tour only CD for the no  fun acid project, see no fun acid 02 for description, this was recorded in an intense studio session with less than a week to go for the tour. Limited to 500, all copies left after tour sent to distributors. "They should be amazing in theory, Carlos Giffoni bringing a Noise mindset to the acid template and all that. OK, the first track on the CD starts off with a nasty little drone which slowly subsides as the 606 kicks in, very satisfyingly as it happens, and continues …

Italian minimal synth & drum machine duo, another side project by Ottaven/Canedicoda, abstract  dread sounds with elements of clinical drone and throbbing frequencies to a more introspective ambient chaos

Second full-lenght album from rashomon (aka Guapo founding member Matt Thompson). Inspired by public information broadcast The Finishing Line (1977), the record is a sonic re-imagining of the film as haunted meditation on the power of memory, drawing the listener into a claustrophobic sense of unease and mounting horror. An amalgam of library music, 1970s prog soundtrack, musique concrète and spectral jazz

In December 2009 Zebra (Roel Meelkop & Frans de Waard) were invited to play a hommage to Martin Hannett, the legendary producer of Joy Division, A Certain Ratio and Section 25 (to mention Zebra's favorites). This was the start of a long Factory Records weekend in Brussels. Zebra picked their favorite Martin Hannett productions and sprinkled them some further with their extraordinary electronic means to create a groovy, dense slab of music. This album is called 'Live In Leugen'. Leugen is the dut…

A new label (The Fader) brings a deluxification of 2009's Psychic Chasms, which now also contains the bonus album Mind Ctrl: Psychic Chasms Possessed, featuring nine exclusive remixes and cover versions by Toro y Moi, Body Language, Javelin, Bibio, Yacht, Darby Cicci of The Antlers, Twin Shadow, Dntel, and Anoraak!An elusive new project from composer Alan Palomo, Neon Indian delivers equal parts synthetic nostalgia, dream-pop lullabies, and grinding guitar noise to create something eerier t…

The Preservation label presents Burnt Offerings, the fourth album from Brooklyn's Padna. As Padna, Nat Hawks initially made his name in the cassette underground on the revered Stunned label with two works of pop experimentalism displaying a bustling -- often boggling -- and vivid imagination. Veritable joyrides in sound and style, these releases were in line with the DIY aesthetic, primitive songcraft and eclectic sonic stew pioneered by the likes of Tall Dwarfs and forwarded by Olivia Tremo…

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…

At some point all great explorers, from Amundsen to Kishan Singh Rawat, come to an opening up and cast their minds across a big space. A clearing, a promontory, a look out from a place no one's been before. Jakob Olausson ventured deep on Moonlight Farm, his debut for De Stijl in the winter of 2005. His singular expression returns on Morning and Sunrise, an explorer's codex, a gaze through to what's more important and less seen. The path yet traveled and the sun arcing over it. Morning and Sunri…

'Japanese percussionist Seijiro Murayama has been working in France since 1999. His musical approach is based on extreme attention to the performance space, the energy of the audience and the quality of silence. He is interested in how continuous sounds and microscopic events can delicately revitalize the environment. Now established in Beirut (Lebanon), french saxophonist Stéphane Rives has spent over last ten years developing new sonic array of extended techniques on the soprano. On thi…

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…

2012 release ** The most recent solo incarnation of pioneer Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, et al.), this is the definitive OLWDTW release spanning two discs. Crowning achievement in a prolific and highly collectable catalog. Solo project of Campbell Kneale, formerly Birchville Cat Motel, and one-half of Black Boned Angel. Packaged in an oversized 5.5" square folder with two art inserts and music spanning two discs, each in an envelope.

This amazing CD contains some of the great works for solo percussion by the authorities in the field of contemporary music. The performances and recording quality are both superb! Clearly all care and effort went into the recording and text however, the dual layered dvd /cd is in PAL format, and will require said player or a media transfer to see the studio footage and interview with Xenikas. Considering we spend much time searching for the "right music" to add to our collection, this disc…

The Modern Sound Quintet were formed in Stockholm by Trinidadian steel drum master Rudy Smith. On Otinku, Smith wails out on his set of 'pans' (as I believe the vernacular goes) in an improbably slick bebop mode, accompanied by a rhythm section capable of keeping it free and swinging one moment, and then within an instant locking down a groove. While pieces like the title track and 'Bye Bye Blackbird' flow effortlessly, 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy' and 'Memphis Underground' lay down a solid bedrock of …

Catalan musician Ferran Fages, known for his guitar work as much as his work with turntables and electronics, delivers here a striking album of evocative, nocturnal electric guitar explorations. Bracketed by two intricate pieces of feedback, the centerpiece of this work maps out a carefully constructed arc of a story, bringing this album closer to that often misunderstood soundtrack-for-a-movie-yet-to-be-filmed genre. Ferran Fages: electric guitar and walkie-talkie. Composed, recorded and mixed …

Para Pacem Para Bellum” is the first CD release with the great music of Svyatoslav Lunyov's. That serious, highly emotional and spiritual work is the result of two general methods of creating music: academic tradition (scores, acoustic instruments and playing of the real musicians) and the contemporary/experimental way (generating, synthesis, editing with computer tools). Needs to say that this electro-acoustic work combines the well-known traditional elements of the Requiem, Passions and the Ma…

A revelatory debut album by a 64 year old pianist/composer may beg the question: where has Carei Thomas been all this time? Born in a culturally diverse neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Thomas cut his musical teeth in Chicago during a particularly fertile period for that city: gigging with Sun Ra as an improvising vocalist in 1959-60, joining up with the AACM for one hot minute in 1966, co-founding a group called The L…

RESTOCKED!! Limited to 300 copies only "We haven't heard from New Zealand dronescaper Peter Wright in about a year. Well, it's been at least that long since we've reviewed one of his discs. Somehow two other Wright discs slipped through the cracks in that time though, which is a shame, since pretty much everything we've heard from Wright is fantastic. This latest double disc is no different Nine looooooong tracks spread out over two discs, most in the 15-20 minute range, which is ideal for Wrigh…

A dark, choking, psychotropic immersion into abstract isolationist electronics, floating among rumbles, drones, bleeps, glitches...like a trip into the deepest corners of an obscure unknown galaxy, lost forever and glad of it! Everything is made with exclusive use of vintage equipment, no computers, no midi, no emulators…nothing can beat the sound of an unleashed vintage analogue synthesizer

Sound and video artist MPLD works in a world of sentiment and detachment, creating a Lost & Found aesthetic uniquely his own. Lost are the old Kodachrome slides which make up the foundation of his work. Found are the feelings of misplaced memories the slides conjure, as well as the sounds — processed and amplified — of the projectors that bring those images back to life. What’s seen on lacunae is a straight shot of the screen during a rehearsal for a concert, although that might not be clear to …

The piece “Radio-Imitat (Radio Imitation)” by the German artists and musicians collective Insitut fuer Feinmotorik was produced in 2009 for the monthly radio show “Radio Arthur” on Radio LoRa. In addition to its reconstruction of advertising, music and jingles, imaginative room is also made available for talk and discussion. A facsimile of radio is thus painstakingly manufactured, as if by someone who for cared very much less for sense and signification than they did for the weird flow of sound …

Marcus Schmickler's new release following his acclaimed Altars Of Science (EMEGO 082CD) is a must-have for those interested in the rising field of contemporary computer music. It reconfirms Schmickler's interest in the liaison of sound, phenomenology and cognitive sciences. Schmickler, therefore, utilizes a new interpretation of 1960's discovery, the Shepardtone, discovered by Roger Shepard, which creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually rises or descends in pitch yet ultimately …

Since the very first notes, this music appears to be about memory, decay and subversion. It is a deep investigation on the ability of sounds to freely attract or reject each other, in accordance with their own nature and disposition, and still maintain their meaning. Combining dense, multilayered sheets of synthetic sounds, treated bass, electronic percussion, the six tracks reveal their non-architectural principle as the music develops through warm textural details, reverberations, underlying m…

Surface Tension Supplément N°4. 'Organized as a temporary working group, the Manual project set out to explore sound and auditory experience as platforms for social meeting, urban intervention and environmental investigation. Developed in collaboration with Atelier Nord and the Ultima festival and staged in Oslo in 2009, the project brought together six artists from around Europe engaged in experimental media practices. The project functioned as a series of process-oriented field studies of the …