From our now-venerable, but ever thistle-sharp, Scots singer of new songs and old, comes a fifth full-length collection of traditional songs. Reaching down the centuries to unpack these numbers anew, Alasdair finds a set of eternal melodies – and with them, an unsettling number of surreal images that parallel the madness of our modern times.
Jesper Nordberg Trio is a group based in Copenhagen (DK) and Malmö (SE), featuring the double bass player Jesper Nordberg, violinist Stefan Pöntinen and trumpetist Ruhi Erdogan. With Nordberg's compositions as a starting point, the trio's playing can be characterized by close interplay, radical shifts, and having elements ranging from experimental improvisation, Balkan music, Scandinavian folklore, jazz and expressionism. Jesper Nordberg's warm tone and rhythmic displacements meet Ruhi's trumpet…
*2023 stock. 50 copies limited edition* After his oneiric, Casio-centric 'Nullpluss' that Kristian Tangvik released two years ago, the time has come for his next move. In Kristian's own words: "The Cod and the Cat has developed over the course of two years. It came to me in a dream. Some compositions arrived while traveling, others in a complete standstill. And so I have gathered a fresh combination of exceptional performers from the rich and exciting underground of Copenhagen's music scene, and…
Over the course of 20 years, German artist Black To Comm aka Marc Richter has pushed the limits of and merged the aesthetics of art, conceptual installations and music, coming in a wave of innovation alongside his peers Pita, Fennesz, Felicia Atkinson and later Sarah Davachi to name a few. His list of collaborations and commissions is long and impressive. Through it all Richter as Black to Comm has challenged assumptions, explored identity and confronted the concept of authorship itself. Black t…
*50 copies limited edition* The Delphi was one of the greatest silent movie cinemas of Berlin. It was in operation since the late 20s, it shone in its own golden era, was bombed during the Second World War, was closed and then reused as a warehouse; its walls faded, its floor grew mildewy and its facade today does not indicate anything about what once went on the inside. The interior itself maintains a faded echo of its former glory and its integration in this century’s 20s makes it a hidden gem…
*300 copies limited edition (hand-numbered).* Russell Burden (Being) is a sound and visual artist living on the south coast of the UK. His practice develops work that explores qualities of ambient perception, most often through the lens of hydrological, geological or biological processes. He has delivered gallery exhibits in various mediums including live cymatic feed, and dark space installation. Russell was also a member of The Humble Bee & Players and last year as artist in residence for a si…
*2023 stock* First two tracks and Side A of New Bodies. From Los Angeles, also of Open City – first full length-- single takes, live--Intensely physical and abstract music that constantly, unpredictably shifts and evolves. Impulse, memory and intent, laid bare in real time. Post-melody, post-groove sound. Concrete, brutal, yes fun-----
*2023 repress* There can be little more exciting or rewarding than listening to a band playing live and firing on all cylinders at the absolute peak of its powers, and the live performances presented here by Nucleus are no exception. They capture the group in arguably its finest incarnation right at the start of its long career, exhibiting a staggeringly high level of musical discipline matched by an equally impressive ability to improvise and solo.
Nucleus began its long jazz-rock journey in 19…
*2023 stock* "What happens when you multiply limitlessness by infinity? You absolutely do not know. Which is why it's such a great idea to toss Henry Kaiser and Andrea Centazzo into the same reaction chamber. As one of the West Coast's premier freakers for some three decades, Kaiser has made a career of sticking his guitar in unpredictable places. Dude's also an experimental-film-&-lit buff and an ace scuba diver, and grows radioactive coral on Neptune.Meanwhile Centazzo has crashed regularly ou…
Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, the legendary King and Queen of Brazilian Jazz, have captivated audiences for over six decades with their vibrant albums and exhilarating live performances. With a dedicated global fan base including the UK's jazz funk and jazz dance scene to Japan's concert halls, the power couple continues to make waves in the industry – Flora's 'If You Will' (2022) album was even nominated for a Grammy! The duo met and came together musically in Sambalanço and the Sambrasa Trio.…
Yearly compilation album Radar by Keroxen returns with its fourth volume in the ongoing series of themed based albums showcasing the talents and misfortunes of carefully selected musical projects based or connected with the Canary Islands.
* ltd to 400, black vinyl, color silkscreened jacket with obi (white, dark blue), inserts and a postcard * Je prie pour que la goutte ne tombe pas (I pray that the drop does not fall) is the first international release by Japanese trio Chi To Shizuku. While they have released five albums and a 7” in Japan, their spectral, haunted rock songs haven’t yet reached a much wider audience overseas. With this album, then, a live recording taken at Koenji HIGH, Suginami, Tokyo on 23rd November 2021, the …
Curtis Cuffie (1955–2002) was an artist who lived and worked in and around the East Village from the mid-1980s until his untimely death in the early 2000s. He moved to New York from Hartsville, South Carolina, as a teenager and lived unhoused for long stretches of his adult life. Cuffie found local notoriety for the way he adorned the streets of downtown New York, collecting what the city provided, often sifting trash to stage on-the-spot sculptures along the Bowery and Cooper Square. His arrang…
After K Records founder Calvin Johnson found a copy of their official debut from Zero Records ‘Burning Farm’, in a record crate, he would release it in the United States, where it found its way to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. The resulting tour (and some of the greatest moments in rock music history) is now the stuff of legends! Recorded and released exclusively on cassette in 1982, Minna Tanoshiku Shonen Knife was the first ever release from Shonen Knife. Of the 89 total copies ever manufactur…
Infinitely adaptable, DeMerle's power and rhythmic elasticity underlines his bold presence and command of modern jazz drumming. By the time of 'Spectrum,' Les DeMerle's dynamic 1969 United Artists debut album, Les was a known, prodigious young drumming talent who had been wowing audiences through club and TV performances since he was a teen. The unheard gems was a recorded in 1967 by his band, Sound 67, which was lost in the confusing era at Atlantic Records, never to see the light of day. The a…
Huge Tip! 250 copies. A sinopia is an ancient preparatory sketch technique for a fresco. If you scrape the final work off the wall, the sketch remains; simplified and powerful in it’s starkness. Alessandra Novaga, an experimental guitarist/composer based in Milan, Italy found this historic technique resonated with an album she recently recorded with NYC-based drummer Kid Millions (aka John Colpitts of Oneida, Man Forever and many other projects). Italy’s cultural past is the often transcendent a…
*300 copies limited edition* "I’ve released various materials over the years under other names, Aiko has been materialized in 2022 through self-published music and with IIKKI it's the first official release that I am very proud of. Despite this, Aiko has been publishing in other forms since 2020, but always within the sphere of ambient music." "This album was born as a long-lasting sound continuum. It was then cut, stitched together and reassembled to give shape and restore unity from the fragme…
Tip! Surface World is pleased to share David Lee Myers (aka Arcane Device) and Toshimaru Nakamura’s Elements, a remote collection written and assembled in tandem at the suggestion of the label. Sharing an idiosyncratic approach to feedback-based sound generation and a commitment to their signature instruments (respectively, the Feedback Machine and the No-Input Mixing Board), the pairing lands during an especially fruitful period in their individual discographies. Harmonically dense, energetic a…
False Walls releases a solo album from Glasgow-born and London-based guitarist Kevin Daniel Cahill. Consisting of two long tracks, the album traces a steady progression as it moves through different environments — initially ambient and isolationist in tone, the work ultimately reaches a form of transcendence. Rooted in Kevin’s guitar-playing, though not immediately identifiable as such due to the deployment of tape loops and effects, the album foregrounds feeling and atmosphere, and its duration…
Tip! Gene Coleman is a composer, musician and video director, who has created over 70 works for various instrumentation and media. Central to his work is the inventive use of sound, image and time, and the desire to create experiences that expand our understanding of the world. Since 2001 he has explored the global transformation of culture and music’s relationship with video, science and architecture. Gene has been developing a series of works around concepts of Neuro Music and Transcultural Mu…
*300 copies limited edition* Film and media composer Lyonel Bauchet is best known in the electronic music world for his mastery of the Buchla modular synthesiser. Indeed this is the instrument that was in the foreground for his previous two DiN releases, The Secret Society (DiNDDL11) and The Diver (DiN68). However for his third album on the DiN imprint he has eschewed this familiar territory and instead focused on a collection of analogue gear from Soma Laboratory. Their most famous instrument, …
*300 copies limited edition* Stephen James Buckley aka Polypores returns for his second full album on the DiN imprint following on from his 2022 debut “Hyperincandescent” (DiN71).
Though we’ve come to know a wide range of sounds from Polypores, it’s here on “Multizonal Mindscramble” that we get plunged into the outer reaches of the inner psyche. Flickering insectoid transmissions are laid atop slowly shifting walls of drifting oscillators, barely discernible chirps and static-encrusted filter sw…
Arbitrary presents Terrain Vague – the debut of Danish group Mesmer. The album is a series of (deconstructed) live-recordings taken from three live concerts. The sounds on this record are taken from two years’ worth of sound research and creative outbursts with inspiration from field trips to the outskirts of Copenhagen. Intrigued by the auditive landscapes of places where nature and culture meet and challenge each other. Listening to the field-recordings led Mesmer to interpret the moods, music…
Other Minds is proud to present Jepson Prairie, a new album of recent work by Bay Area composer Tom Bickley. Jepson Prairie continues Other Minds’s tradition of presenting work by under-recorded yet notable composers. Bickley has long been a presence in American New Music as evidenced by his long-standing Deep Listening work and affiliation with the Cornelius Cardew Choir, among others. Despite his many years of composing and performing, Jepson Prairie is Bickley’s debut commercial release as a …
Established by members of the British brass-rock outfit IF with the former Osibisa percussionist Loughty Amao, Zzebra was a forward-thinking hybrid mixing jazz, rock, and world music. Chief songwriter/saxophonist Dave Quincy keeps the arrangements complex and Loughty injects the African element, former Elastic Band keyboardist Gus Yeadon and guitarist John Terry adding layers of melodic inventiveness. Yielding a progressive jazz style that roped in funk, blues, and west African rhythms, this ent…
Established by members of the British brass-rock outfit IF with the former Osibisa percussionist Loughty Amao, Zzebra was a forward-thinking hybrid mixing jazz, rock, and world music. Chief songwriter/saxophonist Dave Quincy keeps the arrangements complex and Loughty injects the African element, former Elastic Band keyboardist Gus Yeadon and guitarist John Terry adding layers of melodic inventiveness. Yielding a progressive jazz style that roped in funk, blues, and west African rhythms, this ent…
Further explorations into the dark past by Tholos Gateway. After the their first Aegean trip documented in their debut album, the trio formed by Colin Marston, Àlex Reviriego and Vasco Trilla returns with the second volume of the Tholos Gateway saga. The dark and ominous atmosphere of the previous album is still here, soaking the ritualistic bells, savage bass drones and dreamy synths in a mysterious fog.This time they count with the collaboration of Yoshiko Ohara (Bloody Panda) and Mick Barr (K…
*2023 stock* Other Days represents Nate Young's most labyrinthine incursion into the nether zone between waking life and nightmarish, cryptographic noise. The recordings stem from an exhibition of lathe-cut etchings and paintings by Young and his wife, Alivia Zivich, installed at Tokyo's Haus Gallery. The process involved designing original images for 22 8" x 8" pieces of acrylic, which in turn inspired 22 audio compositions which were then lathe-cut into the acrylic. The process of lathe-cuttin…
*2023 stock* Nice Music is pleased to announce the return of cult electronica duo Pretty Boy Crossover with their first new material in 15 years, 'Echoes In The Sound Mirror'. Cailan Burns and Jason Sweeney first made an impact in 2000 with their acclaimed 'The Building and Formation' full length on Ian Hamilton, James Reid and Tim Koch's Surgery label, which introduced much of Adelaide's coy and abstract rhythms to the global audience of that era. Since the 1990s they have toiled endlessly with…
Nice Music presents 'Misting' the first solo full length from MP Hopkins since 2016 and his debut release for the label.
Hopkins' solo work to date via the likes of Regional Bears, Penultimate Press and Thalamos fitfully caresses tape collage, found sound, speaker feedback and electroacoustic techniques. 7 years on from 'Blue-Lit Half Breath', 'Misting' immediately arrests with vibrant frequency and fidelity, yet no less fidgety or labyrinthine in its crypticised patterns of non-literal investig…
"These recordings are an attempt to process many long hours spent in isolation and many late nights spent both welcoming and dreading the following days." CD reissue of a one sided C90 released on Veil Tapes in 2022. Bleak, moist, subterranean noise that evokes a peaceful fearfulness. One of the best things I've heard from a relative newcomer in the past few years, it felt only right to do a CD version to spread it further.
*2023 stock. 250 copies limited edition* On March 17, 2021, Tetuzi Akiyama, Ayako Kataoka and Kiyomitsu Odai gave a concert at Ftarri in Suidobashi, Tokyo. This CD is a complete recording of the two sets they performed that day (25 and 34 minutes respectively). Akiyama played electric guitar; Kataoka used turntable, electronics and voice; and Odai performed on computer. Internationally renowned improviser/guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama lives in Tokyo and performs frequently both in Japan and overseas.…
Underpinning the foundation of “M21” are some incredible low frequency drones created by amplifying the hum from portable record players. Ugly contact sounds from touching the arms, noise and scratches: all kinds of sounds fly past, warped into a tough, tenacious sound world.
"So this is how you push turntables into revolt! Divorcing them entirely from their original purpose, into a repeating infinite amplification of motors (rotation) and cartridges (contact). Essential!" - Otomo Yoshihide
Bruce Brubaker is one of the most exciting pianists in the contemporary American classical scene, according to Pitchfork. He is back with a follow-up to his 11th album Glass Piano an audacious reprise of compositions by his contemporary Philip Glass. Brubaker’s new album, Eno Piano, is a stunning reinterpretation of selected tracks from Brian Eno’s ambient masterpiece, Music for Airports, as well as three original tracks. Brubaker carefully dissects, rearranges and reconstructs the iconic compos…
"'DDD' is a field recording album recorded by Daisuke Suzuki and was originally released by Texas based IDEA in 2001 in an edition of 300 copies on LP. Sometimes field recordings can be appreciated in relation to the conceptual art form, or as an on-site sound study and documentation of a very specific phenomena. Daisuke had no concept of the idea of building sonic panoramas and was specifically only Concerned with gathering lots of intriguing sound matter for his personal listening. 'DDD' was…
*2023 stock. 100 copies limited edition* Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation. Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974…
*2023 stock. 300 copies limited release* And / In is the Amsterdam/Berlin-based duo of Heather Frasch and Koen Nutters creating music with objects, text, and vibrations. Shadows and light, audible and inaudible movement, air, liquids, and solids. They conduct musical investigations of objects, bodies, agents, sounds, actions, text and silence. Objects and/in silence. Text and/in sound. Reading and/in actions. A spatio-vibrational theater workshop approaching the meaning and the life of objects a…
La preuve is a rearguard action. Most of the people who inspired it are dead or retired. Old teenagers flay their former loves. They bear witness to a bygone era, but happily embraced, digested and spat out. Everything was still possible. Or possible at last. Psychedelia opened the doors of perception. Romanticism wasn't relegated to a dull formatting, a cheese without a rind. The group Poudingue, which started out ten years ago, has some fine leftovers. These are the crumbs from purgatory. The …
*Limited edition of 100 copies.* “Vowel” was recorded live by Jeton Hoxha at Braka Miladinov culture center of Struga, Macedonia, in June 2018. Previously published as only digital release on Eighth Tower Records, it was remastered and it's now available on cd. This recording is now part of the ZeroK black programs facility.