New Arrivals
Split the Difference
"Splinters is remembered, indeed lionized by knowing UK jazz fans, as the monumental musical meeting of tenor giant Tubby Hayes, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, saxophonist Trevor Watts, pianist Stan Tracey, bassist Jeff Clyne, and legendary drummers John Stevens and Phil Seamen. Split The Difference is the rare recording Trevor Watts made of the group's first public appearance, at London's 100 Club on May 22nd, 1972. Two extended sets of continuous collective improvisation comprise this full-length CD…
Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night
Reissue of debut release by the collaborative duo of Chicago-based percussionist STEVEN HESS (HAPTIC, PAN AMERICAN) & French composer/producer SYLVAIN CHAUVEAU. Produced by Helge Sten (Deathprod), whose characteristic smudged ambience is evident as he submerges Chauveau & Hess' compositions beneath a swamp of cavernous reverb & synthesized smoke.
Global K.O.
Sprung aus den Wolken have teamed up with Berlin based electro duo Film 2 to record a new album. The result is a mix of Renault Schubert's cool electro pop tunes and Kiddy Citny's and Betty la Gachette's vocals sung in French, English and German. A more than welcome return after a far too long pause for theose German pioneers. "The ten tracks of the CD span from funky electro industrialism to ambient cinematic experimentations (like "Push here" or "Nous irons aux bois") passing though electro 80…
Suite N° 10 \"Ka\" / Suite N° 9 \"Ttai\"
Scelsi's works usually originated as transcribed improvisations; therefore they are never based on superficialities of form or compositional technique but always directly reveal the core of their message. Pianist Marianne Schroeder reports that Scelsi recommended daily improvisational practice as a method for discovering one's own creativity; and on his Suite No. 9 "Ttai" the composer is said to have commented: "Play it whenever you're sad. And when you're in high spirits." In Ttai, which links …
Untitled 2011
*Limited edition of 350 copies in a vacuum packed metallic foil packaged with embossed lettering* Giuseppe Ielasi - sound artist, mastering engineer, label owner, half of Bellows - presents his most substantial solo release since 2009s 'Aix' for 12k with this untitled collection for London's Entr'acte. The eight unmarked tracks were produced in Spring/Summer 2011 and, much like his other work, would appear to be concerned with the minutiae and textured infidelities of the recording proces…
GYU
CD version. Tujiko Noriko returns to Editions Mego after a period of relative silence, this time in collaboration with Tyme. (aka Tatsuya Yamada, member of MAS). This album was developed from songs that the duo made once a year at the end and beginning of the new year, for a period of six years. These were sent to friends and people who asked. After six years, there were six tracks and they added five more tracks based on the illustrations of Kimura Toshiko to complete the album. A gaudy ta…
Rozenhall
A re-mastering and repackaging of two previously released LP’s (2001 & 2003), this CD is a collection of 5 quite different pieces. All are mixed-moving-surrounding sounds and natural and manipulated noise - some can be considered as drone though they aren’t at all. No name for Rozenhall’s style. Very intense. As the CD liner notes say, “Play loud!”. Trk 1: “A Plumage…” - Early 60’s satellite type mixed sounds going round and round the Earth, then they come at you. Grabs your ears with claws. Sho…
Niederländische Sprichwörter
Luigi Archetti und Michael Heisch spent over two years experimenting in the studio. The result is the album the "Netherlandish Proverbs" – a musical approach to the painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525 – 1569). Conceived by a process of random selection, the album presents the listener with freshly perceptible, kaleidoscopic-like audio experiences."The Netherlandish Proverbs" is one of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's best known paintings. It contains over 100 sayings and idioms illustrating hum…
In Celebration Of Knowing All The Blues Of The Evening
Phantom Limb & Earth’s Hypnagogia is the project of Jaime Fennelly (of Peeesseye, Evolving Ear Records) and Shawn Hansen (who also has releases on Evolving Ear). The two join their forces here for an epic ride through the volatile moments of twilight. A synaesthetic kind of excursion, inspired by the deepening shades of light and dramatically rendered through the warm, swelling tones of Farfisa organ and analog synthesizer. In Celebration... in all its moody and cinematic drive could be the quin…
Tengu et Kitsune II
Taku Sugimoto : metronomes, mandolin... Taku Unami: computer, mandolin... Recorded live by Taku Unami at Loop-Line on May 2 and October 16, 2008. Mastered by Taku Unami.
Silent Partner
There’s probably not much to say about punk’s continued existence. Like jazz or sitcoms or party politics, it just carries on eating and breathing and shitting and propogating. It’s only interesting when someone comes along trying to advance the form. Like “Arrested Development” or Dennis Kucinich, they’re usually forgotten. This would all be relevant if Neptune were a punk band, which we’re not at all sure is the case. They create a sense of undermining the status quo, which is pretty pun…
Ecotono
“The word Ecotono is built from two roots. Eco (oikos/casa) and tono (tonos/ tensión). An ecotono, or ecotone, is a habitat created by the juxtaposition of distinctly different habitats; an edge habitat; or an ecological zone or boundary where two or more ecosystems meet. It is a transition area between two distinct habitats, where the ranges of the organisms in each bordering habitat overlap, and where there are organisms unique to the transition area. An ecotone region provides conditions of b…
Fléchettes
“Jean Derome (flute, alto saxophone, etc.) and Lê Quan Ninh (percussion) are both leading figures in improvised music. They are also active in other musical genres such as jazz and contemporary music. They were invited by Tour de Bras make an entirely improvised concert that was a time of intense music. Such a sublime moment. Fléchettes documents this encounter, this dialogue while surprises and smiles apart, both fun and physical, both calm and truely energic.”
Unheard spaces
'Absence and Presence (2006). Absence and Presence was originally written for five musicians and four loudspeakers positioned throughout the site of performance in order to explore the traction between amplified and acoustic space. The performance was predicated on a set of directions that determined the combination of musicians at specific times and the duration of their performance. Within these structural parameters the musicians chose what they played and how they responded to one another. T…
Ceremonies to breathe upon
Two contrabass players here, Andrew Lafkas, of whom I not really heard I think and Michael T. Bullock, of whom I did hear before, and know as someone who likes his improvised playing to be minimal - to say the least. I think Bullock at times also uses electronics, but I am not if he uses any of that here. Its not mentioned on the cover, nor the fact that this is perhaps a live concert. I do however think this is a live recording, however one with no audience, but a direct-to-track recording of t…
Book Of Nods
A new landscape is painted out of darkness by progressive strokes of the dawn. The finished piece is neither night nor day, but the transformation itself. Aidan Baker's (Nadja) "Book Of Nods" crests experimental peaks in similarly paced sonic transmigrations. His lustrous chimera blooms open in shifting onion layers built out of slow-moaning guitar, flute, organ and drums. The resonant frequencies of quietly crashing nodes vibrate the ozone with a sub-textural beating of multi-pianic fea…
Our Prayer
Another previously-unreleased gem from South African pianist/composer Chris McGregor and his cohorts in '60s UK free jazz. Our Prayer was culled from the same sessions that produced the also never-released Up To Earth in 1969 and was produced by Joe Boyd and engineered by John Wood at Sound Techniques studio. The previous year they had signed to Joe Boyd's illustrious Witchseason production company alongside Fairport Convention, John and Beverley Martyn, Nick Drake and the Incredible String Ba…
Unknown skies
...Every trio without a piano, or without a drums, or as in this case without a double bass, gains in incline what it loses in “balance”. It only takes a little sometimes. Everyone plays at ease across. Everyone can split themselves. There are no more solos as solos but phases, circles of influence and predominance which do not last. The duos bind and unbind more clearly, the contrasts stand out better. The theme is no longer material to develop but, as in Unknown Skies, a lyrical and volatile s…
Out Of This World's Distortions
Farmers By Nature – drummer Gerald Cleaver, bassist William Parker, and pianist Craig Taborn – a fully-improvising unit, a complete musical collective. Each of these men are highly regarded & admired composers and bandleaders in their own right; their coming together to create new music is always an auspicious and deeply fruitful occasion. Superbly attuned listeners and masterful players of their respective instruments, they are without question one of the finest improvising units / musical grou…
Gallipoli 1915 e le altre storie
Another double OLBM CD that testifies the remarkable work carried out within the New Wave phenomenon by Viridanse (from Alessandria, Piedmont) between 1983 and 1987. Despite its short existence, the group has left an important trace in a time when the world of music was already full of proposals. Influenced by the English Wave and the Florentine scene, Viridanse debut with a split-tape shared with The Art of Waiting. In 1984, Contempo Records produces their 12” EP "Benvenuto Cellini" and - the f…