New Arrivals
Radio Experiment Rome, February 1981
n unusual detour in the Robert Wyatt catalogue, Radio Experiment Rome was recorded in February 1981, when the ex-Soft Machine drummer had been invited to record some material in-progress for a radio broadcast. The tone of these sessions is characterised by a free-roaming experimentation, laying down eight-track recordings of vocals, piano, hi-hat, jaw harp and a variety of analogue tape effects. This is Wyatt unhinged and completely let loose from the agenda of proper album recording: there's no…
Politico/Zytol Automation
De Stijl's excavation of The Parasites Of The Western World turns up the lead single for their second album in the form of an exact reissue. Originally released circa 1980-81, 'Politico' opened the B-side to Substrata with a rippin' new wave roller full of glam stomp, proggy arrangement and punky attitude. The synth-fueled instrumental B-side was exclusive to the single, and as tradition dictates, far more interesting, featuring Terry Censky and Patrick Burke in an ebullient symphony of s…
Untitled (1959)
Track titles are from paintings by Mark Rothko. Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone), Aurora Josephson (voice), Jen Baker (trombone), Scott R. Looney (piano), Damon Smith (double bass). Recorded by Scott R. Looney, 8 January, 2006 at 1510 Studios, Oakland, CA, USA. Mixed by Scott R. Looney. Cover: five linocuts by Aurora Josephson.
Heartbreaker / Look At The People
Initially conceived in Louisville in 1978 from the ashes of two local punk bands by Tony Pinotti, Bruce Witsiepe (coming from No Fun) and Rik and Dave Letendre (coming from I-Holes), the band Circle X moved to New York soon after. They encountered there a young german painter, Ralph Neun, linked to the art school of Darmstadt. Ralph Neun was living in NYC for about a year, and decided to record a song evoking the city: Rolling Stones' 'Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)'. Ralph Neun booked…
Mining Our Bid'ness
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…
I'm So Awake / Sleepless I Feel
The Magic I.D. is a Berlin-based quartet exploring the juncture of song forms with abstract music. The band, consisting of Margareth Kammerer (vocals & guitars), Christof Kurzmann (vocals, g3 & lloopp), Kai Fagaschinski and Michael Thieke (both clarinet), formed in summer 2005 after previously being connected via smaller groupings and projects. The musicians expand song forms through the prism of experimental sensibilities and mesh the two remarkably fluidly. 'I'm So Awake / Sleepless I F…
Live at the Tel Aviv museum
Part 1 : Ariel Shibolet solo (soprano saxophone). Part 2: Between the strings with JC Jones (electroacoustic bass), Daniel Hoffman (violin) and Nori Jacoby (viola). Part 3: all together. Recorded live in November 2006 at the Tel Aviv Museum. Between the Strings is a Creative Improvising Music trio exploring the collision of sounds, noises, rhythm and melody. Comprised of violin, viola, contrabass and live electronics, Between the Strings creates rich orchestral and other-world timbres. Driving g…
Einstein on the Beach
Widely credited as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, this rarely performed work launched its director Robert Wilson and composer Philip Glass to international success when it was first produced in Avignon, France in 1976, with subsequent performances in Europe and in New York at the Metropolitan Opera. It is still recognized as one of their greatest masterpieces. Now, nearly four decades after it was first performed and twenty years since its last production, Einstei…
Resonance
When composing for a group, Ken Vandermark as a rule takes into account factors such as each musician's approach to improvisation, personal tastes and individual sound. So when he chose to compose for a tentet that included musicians who were virtually an unknown quantity to him – musicians such as Polish saxophonist/clarinetist, Mikolaj Trzaska and the Ukrainian duo, Yuriy Yaremczuk on reeds and Mark Tokar on bass – it could have been seen as a foray into relatively unknown territory. And it wa…
Sy
Weltraum play and record music since 2003. Their Traum/Trauma ep has been released by Lona Records in 2006. In 2008 Weltraum became a trio (electronics, guitar, drums) and shifted their musical research towards rythmical blocks, prefering dry and sharp timbers. No melody, no meaning. They actively move in Napoli, collaborating with A Spirale, Ne travaillez jamais, One starving day, (etre)..., giving life to several impro projects (Asp/SEC_, Aspec(t), Strongly imploded, endorgan) and constantly d…
Rule Of Inference
next to his prolific work as an electronic composer, improviser and producer, "rule of inference" once more features schmickler's as yet less known yet marvelous work as a composer and arranger for classical instrumental settings. similar to his widely regarded album "param" (2001), the album is a collection of various settings, all of them recorded over the course of the last years. "rule of inference" unveils a conception that marks various departures along the history of music: the alb…
Makrokosmikro
"For whatever reason I am not entirely sure of Maurizio Bianchi hooked up with Siegmar Fricke a lot since he returned to recording new music again. Fricke always seems to have something to do with the music of Bianchi, whether or not it is a collaboration, mastering, mixing or post production. Here on 'Makrokosmikro' its a collaboration with Bianchi getting credit for 'macrowaves, cosmotronics, microloops' and Fricke for 'mactronics, cosmodulations, microblending', which I am sure they have had …
Some Other Dream
Malcolm's latest release Some Other Time on Swedish label Kning Disk is an exquisite CD and DVD box set. Each disc features different compositions and improvisations that document Malcolm's work with solo simultaneously played multiple guitar performance (SSPMGP for short). Some Other Time continues Malcolm's journey with three guitars and a suitcase as he revisits and reworks material from previous releases including Homesick for Nowhere, Hung, Swimming in it and Leather and Lacy. The DVD was s…
Kitty Hawk, le sable et le vent
A composition by Olivier CAPPAROS & Lionel MARCHETTI. For string quartet, two voices and three loudspeakers. An oratorio of musique concrète and instrumental music about “Kitty Hawk” the city where the Wright brothers did the first experiment with plane.
Reflex
Reflex is the fifth solo album by Switzerland's Reto Mder (Ural Umbo, Sum of R, Pendulum Nisum) as RM74. A creepy, paranoid record of sinister melody and complex structure. Electronics, organ, synthesizer, guitars and other instrumentation drifts in and out of bizarre atmospherics. The tracks gain emotional resonance as they move among vexing swells of dense, rotting psychedelia. Presented in a heavy matte sleeve printed with dark metallic ink. Includes fold out insert. Photograph by Phill…
Ersatz
The first release from Dieter Moebius and Karl Renziehausen, a painter. The original LP was released on Pinpoint Records in 1990. Reissue with elaborate miniature paper sleeve of the original LP. Digitally remastered version, limited to 1,000 copies
Acoustic solo percussion-vol.2
Great follow-up to the Swiss percussionist's first single. It has one side of music created by disturbing the skin of a drum head and another with a kind of spidery almost drumming. There is definitely the sense of a drum head being struck by something, but the touch is so light it really sounds more like rain on the roof of a metal building. Tup !’ - Byron Coley, The Wire, 2010’Here's the second volume of a projected series of four seven-inchers featuring Swiss improvising percussionist Christi…
Beautiful Monolith Two
It seems as Campbell Kneale (within his Love Will Destroy The World project) aims to discover any darkest and most dangerous corners of the modern experimental music. As an experienced and dedicated hunter, he doesn't walk the empty tracks, rather he's interested much more in rich bushes and impassable thickets. The A side's track is “Glittery Skin”, it shows Merzbow-like pulsating electronic noises, but the main energy-giver is obscure and doomy heavy guitar riff. Sick, anarchic, trancesending …
FRKWYS Vol. 9
LP version: for the ninth volume of FRKWYS, a music and film series pairing contemporary artists with those that may have preceded them in style and/or approach, Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras meet The Congos in Jamaica.
0509
RESTOCKE!! RCF's '0509' cd is the first release by the Misengarde label, an awesome improvised album between the so-called onkyo and noise tout-court, Asmus Tietchens and Keith Rowe; RCF (Ciro Fioratti) wander lonely through his mc505 frequencies in order to make them talk freely, finding a hidden life and reacting against the machine wild language.The disc had been recorded in May 2009 playing the mc505, a mixer and a small multi fx rack; no edits, no overdubs, no copy-paste. And, 100 copies on…