New Arrivals
Myriad
Mayas frames her instrument not as 88 keys arranged in tidy scales, but as a sonorous tangle of wood and wire, she produces sounds with a wide dynamic range, playing the whole piano, inside and out, including dramatic percussive effects from banging and scraping the frame of the instrument and the strings. Abdelnour has developed extended techniques and complex patterns of sound production, exploring the microtonal aspects of the saxophone and its high-pitched tones. she employs subtle tonguing…
Black Box: Torture Garden/Leng Tch\'e
"The controversial and influential Naked City Black Box couples two of Zorn's most extreme and violent creations. Torture Garden (1991) presents Naked City's intense and groundbreaking music combining free jazz, bebop, r&b, country, funk, rockabilly, surf, metal and grindcore—usually in the same song! The rare, seldom heard Leng Tch'e (1992), released only in Japan and long out-of-print features Naked City in an agonizingly slow, brutal 32-minute assault. This special 20th anniversary ed…
Fifteen point nine grams
Burkhard Beins: selected percussion, objects. Lucio Capece: soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, preparations. Rhodri Davies: electric harp, electro acoustic devices. Toshimaru Nakamura: no-input mixing board. Recorded live at NPAI Festival, Parthenay, France July 19th, 2007. Mixed by Toshimaru Nakamura. The artwork for this disc was created by QQ in Argentina.
Port Out Starboard Home
Some bands produce a CD every week; by now it seems 'normal' to have three year gaps in releasing records for Beequeen, which is a fresh antidote to the music business of more = more. For Beequeen, like good wine, things mature given more time. Whereas 'Sandancing' (2008) featured Olga Wallis a guest singer, on this new album she's a fully fledged bandmember, adding her beautiful voice to Beequeen's off beat songs. 'Port Out Starboard Home' features surreal dream-pop, but always with that unique…
s/t
Collaboration between Canada's prolific neo-doom duo (NADJA) & New Zealand's pitch black droners (BLACK BONED ANGEL - featuring Campbell Kneale of BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL). These two 20-plus-minute instrumental tracks have a less accessible vibe then the Jesu-like track on last year's Christ Send Light EP. They are comprised in equal parts of Nadja's fuzzed-out, lurching, hazy dream-doom, & Black Boned Angel's razor-sharp, metallic riff-shards. Eventually, the whole thing collapses under the weight…
Maria Minerva's Cabaret Cixous
Over the course of a 12", cassette, and a stream of ace youtube vids, Maria Minerva has emerged as one of the most interesting artistes to come into leftfield-pop focus over the last 12 months. 'Cabaret Cixous' is her debut album, a coruscating water-bed of mottled '90s dance-pop memes writhing under blankets of slyly sexy new age synths while her dreamy vocals whisper and croon seductively suggestive lyrics. It's not quite aural soft porn, but there's an inescapably lascivious element to …
News from the \'70s
This rare collection of recordings from the 1970s features Anthony Braxton at the height of his power and makes an indispensable contribution to his discography. Personally selected by esteemed Italian musicologist Francesco Martinelli from long forgotten cassettes stored in the saxophonist's home, these six tracks were not released commercially until 1999. While the sound quality is mixed, the music is some of Braxton's best. There are two solo performances ("Composition 8G" and "Composition 8C…
We Shall Overtone
Long overdue second release by Renato for LVD. As with Horse Frenzy and his contributions to the Invisible Pyramid and Crows of the World comp, Renato shows his unique vision for what music can be; drawing comparisons to virtually nothing else out there. More varied that his previous Hoarse Frenzy, WSO integrates elements of folk, pure electronic experimentation, and even elements of jazz--building at times into highly satisfying complex structures, ebbing away creating new patterns. For thos…
The Ominous
Jacob is the new project by David Cordero (Úrsula) and Marco Serrato (Orthodox). The duo first collaborated on the arrangements that would become the Emma soundtrack. With a mutual love for sci fi and horror films, Jacob push their dark sonics further on The Ominous, a piece for el cine de la mente. Atonal, dissonant string scrapes meld together in discomforting walls of noise, while hidden forces project an ambiguous malignance lurking in the deep fog. Bleak atmospheres and an abyss of s…
The Resurrection And Revenge Of The Clayton Peacock
Michael Chapman, one of the finest acoustic guitar innovators borne of the late '70s UK folk scene, was in Philadelphia early 2010, paying tribute to his good friend, the late Jack Rose, a mighty six-string alchemist in his own right, and a youngster wholly inspired by Chapman's critical recordings. While sharing in the good light of friendship backstage, we asked Michael if he'd ever recorded an LP of purely improvised guitar music. It seemed feasible, as the current state of acou…
My Life On The Plains
Lee Hyla is a composer of rare power and versatility whose work combines the complexity of atonal classical concert music with the energy of experimental jazz, rock and improvised music. Truly part of the American tradition, his work is imaginative, fresh, and embraces a widerange of diverse influences. Lee Hyla’s third Tzadik CD presents a collection of recent works large and small. Colorful and startling pieces filled with surprises and wild bursts of energy. This is a fabulous and varied prog…
Stridulum EP
Since her Sacred Bones debut last summer, ZOLA JESUS' profile has risen exponentially. Her next full length isn't due 'til 2011, but we feel pretty certain this will tide you over until then. Recording her vocals for the first time with professional instruments, Nika's voice is brought to the powerful forefront of the mix, unleashing emotions that previous work only hinted at. It's a siren song for the apocalypse! Industrial progress is a good analogy for the changes that occur through each cons…
92982
Once again unveiling hidden treasures from his archive of tape loops, William Basinski releases three pieces made at his Brooklyn apartment during one night in 1982, adding a fourth composition (based on the same source material) made earlier this year. You can't help but wonder why this music, recorded so long ago, is only just surfacing. Was the world not ready for WIlliam Basinski in 1982, or was WIlliam Basinski simply not ready to hand himself over to an audience at that point? Whatever the…
Walden Pond's Monk
The first ‘proper’ widely-available album from Portugese composer and pianist Tiago Sousa, ‘Walden Pond’s Monk’ balances itself on the idealism and revolutionary spirit of Henry David Thoreau. While this might be initially hard to hear in an album of mostly solo piano, as the songs seep into the soul it becomes easier and easier to decode Sousa’s messages. There is a mourning, but hopefulness to these compositions, and in contrast to solo piano records from Gonzales or Goldmund it feels like an …
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.
Birdtalking
'When dealing with female interpreters of the art of advanced vocalism, four personal favourites come to mind : Diamanda Galàs, Meredith Monk, Shelley Hirsch and - more recently - Non Credo's Kira Vollman. I'm afraid that I'll have to add a fifth chair at the table. I had already met Ute Wassermann in a great CD on Creative Sources, Kunststoff, a duo with trumpet player Birgit Ulher; yet, Birdtalking is one of those records that immediately raise all aerials, a top-rank effort in which a single …
Stone Circle
RESTOCKED! 10/10 on Foxy Digitalis, writing "best psych album of the year! Maybe even best psych album ever?! “Stone Circle” deserves much more than a measly ten stars!”. Wood-land have released a few bits and bobs on the Install label but i'm totally unfamiliar with their work. 'Stone circle' is the duo's first full length release, limited to a super small run of 100 copies. On first listen i reckon it's total winner. Twenty tracks of brooding lo-fi instrumentation that sounds like it was recor…
Creakiness and other misdemeanours
'Creakiness and other misdemeanours collects the long out of print 'Creakiness' lp as well as various other very limited releases. 'Sand Tangled Women' was released as a limited edition 7' by Klanggalerie. 'Little Dipper Minus Two (Echo poeme sequence 1)' was a CDR limited to 200 copies. 'A Perfectly Natural Explanation' was released on a limited edition 7'. New artwork by Babs Santini.'
Wayfaring Strangers: Guitar Soli
another gem, a wonderful collection of obscure solo acoustic guitar tunes from the mid 60s up to the dawn of the 80s -- beautiful work from a slew of players we've never heard of -- but we'd put right up there with Fahey and Basho in the way they reach from the back porch to the cosmos with just their fingers and some strings! One thing we love about this set, and the Numero Group releases to date, is how deep they dig and what beauty they unearth, somehow with impeccable sound quality. S…
Extra space, extra time
'Six tracks. Recorded at the studio of Extrapool in Nijmegen for a series of 'Brombron' project in October 2009. Mixed and produced by Kazuyuki Kishino at Prima Natura Studio.' label info