New Arrivals
Five Fizzles For Samuel Beckett
"Is there a better all-around bassist with a bow than Barry Guy? That query may scream sycophantic hyperbole, but in taking stock of the British improviser's discography it's an interrogative that can't help but manifest repeatedly.
On Guy's end the distinction of best isn't even a peripheral consideration or goal. He's placed his instrument in near-countless contexts, bringing to it a perfect sense of pitch and dynamics. Five Fizzles for Samuel Beckett is right in line with that sterling…
Road Stories (Kali)
The first installment in Unrock's new string wringer Saraswati Series presents two of today's most extraordinary guitar maniacs captured on location. While Bill Orcutt, "Re-inventor of the Blues," falls from abstraction into acoustic hardcore serenade on his wooden 4-string guitar, the Kali-inspired Sir Richard Bishop improvises elegantly and calmly through a feverish 17-minute variation of "Zurvan." Limited edition of 700 numbered copies. 180 gram vinyl, ncludes a solid cardboard info s…
Sinn + Form
Raster-Noton co-founder Frank Bretschneider\'s new project Sinn + Form (Meaning and Form) is based on the conflict between the fundamentally chaotic world described by mathematical and physical theories and models (dynamical systems, probability theory, stochastic systems) and the constant human attempt to recognize, describe, predict, control, and change this world. Musically, Bretschneider simulates this concept with a modular synthesizer system, in which various modules produce a consta…
Split lp
Split LP, released in an edition of 300 numbered copies on splattered orange/black translucid vinyl, and packaged in silver ink silkscreened cardboard covers with an insert. Richard Pinhas, guitarist from French cult band Heldon, is accompanied by his son Duncan, Oren Ambarchi (SunnO))) and Erick Borelva. Tamagawa plays number of songs that are totaly stripped from subtlety. A suite of audible haikus bring to mind the sound of footsteps in the water... a distant waterfall.
Story of Moondog
3rd LP from NYC street performer & avant-garde/minimalist composer, originally released in 1957. Perhaps the least accessible of his early releases, this album is made up of percussive jams, usually on instruments of his own creation, street sounds, poetry, & Far East melodies, despite opening w/ a swinging number that is, oddly, the most bizarre thing on the album.
Two City Blues 2
One of two different sets, along with "Two City Blues 1", recorded on one intense night at Tokyo's Shinjuku Pit Inn. A trio of three towering figures, German free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann, Japanese avant-garde wizard Keiji Haino, and wildly versatile American composer and musician Jim O'Rourke, recorded by Yasuo Fujimura on November 23, 2010. Brötzmann: alto and tenor saxophones, tarogato, and clarinet; Haino: guitar, voice, shamisen; O'Rourke: guitar.
Le Concerts du Domaine Musical 1956
Doxy presents a reissue of "Les Concerts du Domaine Musical", originally released by the French label Véga in 1956. Le Domaine Musical was a concert society established by Pierre Boulez in Paris, which was active from 1954 to 1973. Boulez intended to provide opportunities for new music, after a general musical migration from Germany and Austria to Paris in the wake of those countries' legacy of war-torn decades without music. Le Domaine Musical created an exciting milieu in which the best an…
Musicawi Silt / Tche Belew
"Musicawi Silt" is the best known Ethiopian song from Addis Ababa's golden era of 1970s pop music. The insistent drive of the rhythm and the mighty blast of the horns - a sublime, angular burst - are unmistakable. Hailu Mergia's concept for the Walias first LP "Tche Belew" was to include compositions by various band members. Since Girma Beyene, a member of the Walias, wrote this addictive song in the mid-70s and the Walias band began including it in their sets, it has spread around the wo…
Soulfood Available
For their 3rd album together, the trio of saxophonist Peter Brotzmann, bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble are caught live at the 2013 Ljubljana Jazz Festival for three blistering works of free improvisation. This is the second album by the Peter Brotzmann trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble, following “The Worse the Better” (they’re also together in a third one, “Mental Shake”, but with the addition of Jason Adasiewicz and his vibraphone). And just like that first opus, recorded …
Cyclus
Upon first listening there can already be no doubt: music is for Samy Moussa a matter of personal expression and direct, bodily experience. The physical dimension of his compositions presents itself undistorted, in its overwhelming power and sonic quality. Something else also becomes immediately clear: that someone is reaching into the sound forcefully and emphatically, that he aims to overwhelm, to overpower, even to assault. Samy Moussa values the energetic, virile gesture, he would rat…
Pandora's Box
The Arditti Quartet is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and they are featured on the new Col Legno CD, with four premiere recordings of works by Rebecca Saunders, Benedict Mason, Luke Bedford and John Zorn. Each of the four pieces is a mini-masterpiece in its own right and the Arditti Quartet performs them all with the virtuosity and commitment they are renowned for. The result is a CD of powerful, gripping and great music!
“These four must be stopped…,” Paul Griffiths wrote more than…
Deadly Weapons
Recent digipack CD reissue "This collective of jazz improv weirdoes banded together for a one-off in 1986 to riff on the deep vibe of all things French and cinematic. Backing vocalist Toni Marshall, Zorn, Beresford, and Toop created a virtual and highly experimental film noir soundtrack to a movie that perhaps existed in the mind of Jean-Luc Godard in the 1950s, but was never made. David Toop is clearly the sonic architect here, haunting the proceedings with his deep use of effects, subdued perc…
Dracaena Draco
Awesome new release by the extended Lisboa ensemble lead by Ernesto Rodrigues and his crowd of talented collaborators (Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Miguel Mira on double bass, Rogerio Silva on trumpet, Eduardo Chagas on trombone, Bruno Parrinha on alto clarinet, Nuno Torres on alto saxophone, Pedro Sousa on tenor and baritone saxophones, Abdul Moimeme on prepared electric guitar, Carlos Santos and Ricardo Guerreiro on computers, Monsieur Trinite', Nuno Morao and Jose Oliveira on percussio…
Schiizo Box
"This is a magic record!The new release of The Striggles holds a secret: If you repeatedly listen to the songs on the total of five singles, it becomes clear: These songs are changing... They do not sound like the last time you’ve been listening to them! A refined technique in the preparation of the records makes it possible: The song, as you’re recalling the memory of the last time you’ve heard it, takes a completely different turn the next time you listen to it. On each of the five colou…
La Verite' des Pierres
Recorded at Tcha3 studio, 12th October, Lisbon. Ernesto Rodrigues: viola, Louis Laurain: trumpet, Bruno Parrinha: clarinet and alto clarinet, Guilherme Rodrigues cello, Carlos Santos: electronics and objects
Anfangen (:Aufhoren)
One main focus of Peter Ablingers music is on the features of human perception. In his words, "human beings are creatures that think of simultaneous things as things happening one after another. This separation of simultaneity to consecutiveness is mental thought… Listening is the perceptive function most likely to be capable of simultaneity." But the composer is not interested in the linguistic character of music which emerges on the background of syntactic and structural principles. The alter…
Songs and piano pieces
music that allows sounds to sound: to die away, completely, into silence sounds thought from their end: not moving forward, but drawing back. this creates space, expanse, a delicate serenity: silence - and what it shelters - becomes audible. this is singing with the ears: barely more than silence. a singing which not only makes, but becomes space: a space for worlds. phrases are also sounds: unfolded, laid out as a path. sound paths that come into being first when followed, invariably trail…
24 Worter
JF: The 24 words are the titles of the individual pieces, and they are at the same time the entire text. They are also a list that shows how the piece gets from a beginning to an end. It is, in a sense, a cycle not simply a collection of pieces - a cycle which begins, makes a journey and ends at a different place. TA: If I had to categorize this list of words, it seems to me they are addressed to quite different areas. Herzeleid (Heartbreak) for example, sounds old-fashioned, Einsamkeitsmangel …
Calibrated contingency
When you saw those two names – Achim Wollscheid and Bernhard Schreiner – side by side on a piece of paper, you probably thought "Of course, this collaboration makes so much sense!" Unless you went "Who?"True, Wollscheid and Schreiner are not what you would call household names of the experimental music scene. Although the former gained serious "street" credit on the Industrial scene in the '80s with his moniker S.B.O.T.H.I. and his collaborations with P16.D4. Wollscheid also cofounded the influe…
Sky Limits
Hill towns and empty mountains pass by, but the smoothness of the train blurs the view, and it's easier than ever to fall asleep in the low morning sunlight coming in through the train's windows', writes Will Long, the artist behind the Celer moniker, in his liner notes to Sky Limits, one of his most fulfilling records to date. First created as a duo project in 2005, Celer has been US-born musician Will Long's solo vehicle since 2009. Through the years and thanks to an astounding rate of produc…