New Arrivals
The state we are in
The first thing this CD reminded me of was Tape...then I checked out the press release and it turns out that Tape's Johan Berthling (also very recently sighted on that Fire! with Jim O'Rourke record) is in fact one-third of this band, the other two being Andreas Soderstrom (Ass) and Per Eklund on drums. It is, as you would expect, gently paced instrumental stuff, slightly pastoral-sounding, with intertwining guitars and a some subtle Hammond organ and trumpet bits. This is a mightily rel…
Experimentum Mundi
CD reissue of the ultra rare Multhipla related (on its sublabel Fonia) LP from 1981 - the works of Giorgio Battistelli (b. 1953) are often linked to the theater, and even his instrumental works are highly dramatic, with various instruments and elements considered as 'characters' in a drama. For the past 20 years, 'Experimentum Mundi' has been one of the most-performed works of 'musique concrete,' i.e. music made with everyday objects instead of conventional instruments. In this work, 16 everyday…
Helbzeit
We enter an open landscape, rich in impressions, and then leave the beaten track. Here and there we notice something that merits closer inspection. After a shorter or longer pause, we venture a little in another direction. We might simply take the day as it comes and without concern let everything that has been and that we have experienced go to the winds. Or perhaps perceive the singular aspects shown by this landscape with an acute awareness. Use them to recall past events and experiences, thu…
to r.s.
Awesome solo release by a former Amuleto band member (on the die schachtel Musica Improvvisa box)...Wanke continues to amaze us with his sensitive, detailed and spacious sound works. "to r.s." follows up his lauded debut "Caves" on Sedimental with another stunner. For “to r.s.”, Wanke uses electric and acoustic guitars, acoustic piano, objects and natural sounds. The 53 minutes of this unique piece divided in four parts combine static compositions, drones and looped music. Structurally viewed a…
Foley Folly Folio
Pinkcourtesyphone is the not so secret alter ego of renowned sound artist Richard Chartier, and while it seems to be geared more towards a looser, more relaxed sensibility than the serious artist guise that is usually thrust upon him, it lacks none of his careful attention to structure and detail. Quite a bit of the material on this compilation (recorded erratically between 1997 and 2011) could pass for his normal work, but throws enough curve balls to give it a distinct identity all its…
Spiritual/Mental/Physical
‘Spiritual-Mental-Physical’ is a collection of wild early Death demos, presenting the three young Hackney brothers consolidating their powers as they embark on a trip into pure rock and roll music. The album comes with liner notes from Bobby Hackney Sr. explaining the genesis and meaning of the songs included.
Harmony In Ultraviolet
This is the first proper vinyl release for Tim Hecker's breakthrough 2006 album. At the time of original issue, there was a small run of a few hundred vinyl copies done by a small German label, but this was pressed on an inferior sounding single LP which was much too short for the length of the album, not to mention the wide dynamic range of the recording. This new version is mastered at 45rpm over four sides for maximum sound quality. Full color gatefold sleeve.
Reception
The Sons of God: 32 amplified iron plates. Mats Gustafsson: live electronics. Recorded by Olof Madsen on the 5th of March 2006 at Frgfabriken, Stockholm, Sweden. Reception was a sound installation at Frgfabriken (February 18 - March 5, 2006). by the Sons of God and Emanuel Swedenborg and a part of the festival Place and Space, Stockholm New Music. The festival was curated by Magnus Haglund and Magnus Andersson. During the installation period, the following guest-artists were invited for performa…
The 4th world
"The 4th World is The Work's long-lost, never before issued, very last album, from 1994. Succeeding See by some two years, it shares that album's aesthetics and approach - an economy of means, and superior song-writing/ playing - even when compared to their earlier albums. One wouldn't guess it was recorded live at a gig in Breisgau, because the sound is, quite honestly, superlative, and is even better than any of their studio albums. The original, mono recordings (by Volkmar Miedtke) were metic…
Drifters Sympathy
Brand new full length from Grails/Om member Emil Amos. While burying himself in old books on Cold War espionage and '70s Italian horror soundtracks, Emil Amos logged many hours into the night layering endless tracks of improv and then editing them into a cohesive sonic blanket over 2 years time. He emerged with his sixth full length record under the name Holy Sons called Drifter's Sympathy. Listeners will recognize Amos' signature hallucinatory/LSD-inspired mixing-style, heard on records like Bl…
Phoenix & Phaedra Holding Patterns
Live composition for portable radios, FM transmitter, 4 corner speaker PA, found sound textures, & Shruti drone box. Sound is all around us. An ethereal tapestry of invisible radio waves and sound pressure waves fills our world. Live in concert, Phoenix and Phaedra plays with our sense of place and scale, by using a surround sound speaker system in combination with a short range FM transmitter which broadcasts to a collection of hand held radios located within the audience. The concert is perfor…
Becalmed
Becalmed is the debut album from Sydney pianist Sophie Hutchings, recorded between two different settings: one with engineer Tim Whitten, best known for his work with The Necks, and one with Tony Dupe, who records on the preservation label as Saddleback. Becalmed isn't an entirely solo affair, and you'll hear Hutchings' family and friends helping her out with violin, cello and percussion - all elements that greatly help bring these recordings to life. Beautifully recorded, elegiac and romantic c…
Cellos
The association between Ulrich Mitzlaff and Miguel Mira promises an unforeseeable sound meeting. The specific, personal and different ways of their distinguished expression is the base for their very dynamic and interactive music. They create sounds where the improvisation moves with great fluency between the establishing of textures and abstract musical ideas and the switching in the musical discourse to singular, rhythmic and melodic affirmations. They construct the sonar explorations using th…
Never Bought Never Sold: Singles + Demos 1979-83
"Animals + Men -- named after a song by Adam and the Ants -- started life around the winter of 1978-1979 when Susan Wells took over vocal duties in what was a three piece called Psychotic Reaction. Based in Frome Somerset, their first release Don't Misbehave in the New Age (1980) was an indie hit. When the band split in '81, Susan and Ralph formed the Terraplanes. A & M/Terraplanes released three vinyl 45s. A few years ago, demos by the band surfaced on the Messthetics/Hyped 2 Death label. Recen…
No Longer Burning
This is the long awaited debut release of Streifenjunko. “No Longer Burning” presents the two Norwegians Espen Reinertsen (saxophone) and Eivind Lønning (trumpet) in 9 extraordinary pieces. Both musicians have background from all kinds of collaborations in jazz, rock and more contemporary projects such as Trondheim Jazzorkester, Christian Wallumrød Ensemble (Eivind), and the recent release: “Varianter av døde trær” with Tetuzi Akiyama and Martin Taxt on SOFA. Streifenjunko is/has also collaborat…
Mile High Volcano
Ultra-heavy bass from the depths by our friends Lee “Culver” Stokoe (also with Skullflower these days) and Karst (nothing else but Mutant Ape and Turgid Animal boss). Deep matter.
Armaghedon
On a mission to bring again the best works of the Italian Industrial acts of the 80s and 90s to the light, Officina Fonografica Italiana offers its first release in the form of a CD reissue of the historic "Armaghedon" by Maurizio Bianchi. Originally released on vinyl in 1984 by the author, this album has longly been his last work before his return to music in the late 90s. Conceived as a soundtrack for a movie by Bianchi himself - unfortunately never finished and now lost - "Armaghedon" is a co…
What Are The Roots That Clutch
It was a cavernous tone that broadcast from a ventilator duct that inspired Patrick McGinley to begin collecting field recordings and working them into his slow-arc compositions. At the time when he heard that particular tone in that particular city at that particular time, he had no gear to recording device on hand. Over the next fifteen years (and counting) McGinley has eased into a peripatetic lifestyle, wandering the European countryside and forests (but never straying too far from th…
Recyclopaedia Britannica (Selected Works 1992-2002)
“The work of People Like Us rests gingerly between two dangerous positions: on the one hand, the risk of fashioning merely stylish pastiche out of borrowed finery for the sake of self-conscious kitschiness; on the other hand, the risk of making simplistic, heavy handedly "topical" audio-jokes at the expense of one's raw material to a smug effect. If the lounge creeps uncritically snack on their sonic ingredients and coast on being "groovy", the cads of pseudo-critique take cheap shots at straw m…
EARR plays a Snare is a Bell
a Snare is a Bell is a solo piece for snare drum, voice and the room in which it is played.Inspired by some close encounters I had with African shamanic/trance musicians and my personal experiences with meditation and music, it also relates to a known-to-many-of-us acoustical wonder of sitting on the toilet and picking up the tone of that little room (often by accident while coughing or talking out loud to oneself) and enjoying to sing that tone and let the toilet become filled with an eno…