New Arrivals
Zone Sensible 2 - Dundee 2
For the best part of a decade, Éric La Casa's attention to sonic phenomena has resulted in some of the finest contemporary Musique Concréte to come out of France. A listener of the highest order, La Casa's methodology for sound recording allows for a versatile examination of both urban and natural environments and it is these interests which are captured on this new edition for Room40. With an ability to find unique perspectives on his sound subjects La Casa's site specific works 'Zone Sensible'…
Met life - Underpass
"With the release of Dartmouth street underpass, Keith Fullerton Whitman inaugurates our Met Life series. for his efforts, Whitman sat in on the acoustic world of the tunnel that connects Boston's back bay station to Copley Plaza under Dartmouth street. The sounds are a combination of pumped in muzak, children's voices bouncing off the glass walls, the sudden rush of commuters, and the glorious, rumbling low end buzz and rattle of the train ushering in and out of the station. Whitman electronica…
Protocol
Released October 2012. Chip Shop Music (Erik Carlsson, percussion, Martin Küchen, baritone & alto saxophones, radio, David Lacey, percussion, electronics, Paul Vogel: computer, clarinet) + Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board). Live 2009 in Ireland.
Asleep On The Floodplain
Ben Chasny has spent many years at this point perfecting his very personal vision of the American landscape. With his early LPs he managed to grab a groundswell of support for his distinctly lo-fi recordings, and since hitting the Drag City label with the breathtaking 'School of Flower' he has managed to extend his vision to countless others. 'Asleep on the Floodplain' continues his exploration, and while it doesn't change up the formula too much (apart from the odd analogue synth blurt here and…
Sights
Back in stock. Take two collaborators, one a German sound artist noted for his painstaking micro-engineered computer compositions, the other a New Zealand noise terrorist with a reputation for making albums over his morning tea breaks. Put them in a basement studio in Karlsruhe for three days in February 2003, feed them on coffee and apple juice and let them out to walk in the woods once a day. What do you get? Sights, a dramatic collision of two very different but complementary approaches to th…
Homunculus
Debut disc from the new collaborative project between Nathan Bowles (Black Twig Pickers/Spiral Joy Band) and Lisa Cameron (Venison Whirled). A real odd one this, lots of rattling and scraping of percussive objects creating 3 tracks of abstract improvised surreal sonic explorations. The sound is matched by what I can only describe as the weirdest sleeves I have every had the joy of releasing (and we've had some weird ones), but this one is far out, the guy at my local print shop looked baffled wh…
Ex 30: 30 Years of The Ex
30 years of The Ex - a double album compilation featuring songs from all Ex albums from 1980 until 2006, absolutely compehensive. All songs remastered for this release by Colin McLean at OT301, Amsterdam.
With Records
Otomo Yoshihide (turntable), Ozeki Mikito (kirie), Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone from Mats Gustafsson's solo LP 'It Is All About' on Tyyfus label). Mastered by Jun Numata. Released to commemorate the exhibition Ensembles '09: With Records at Gallery 45-8, Tokyo, October 11-November 8, 2009. No cover, limited 800 copies, serial numbers. Otomo Yoshihide (turntables), Ozeki Mikito (cutout art) and Mats Gustafsson (baritone sax).
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…
In The Mouth - A Hand
Rune Grammofon presents the third album from Swedish trio Fire! -- something of a supergroup with members from already well-known projects. And again, it's a collaboration, this time with the extraordinary and prolific guitarist Oren Ambarchi. With their heavy, hypnotic, psychedelic rock'n'jazz explorations, they have carved out a different sound than any of the groups they are normally associated with. Sax player, improviser, composer and fervent record collector Mats Gustafsson is proba…
divide by zero
NEW SERIES FRAMEWORKAn extension of our CONCRETE ELECTRONICS NOISE,a brand new mix-up of unusual conceptions of sound material by young unknown composers, well known not-so-young composers and old but clever composers.Benjamin Thigpen, nomad, born in the United States, immigrated to Paris at the age of 31. He studied music, literature, philosophy and esthetics. He now composes in European studios such as GRM, EMS, Visby and STEIM, as well as in his bedroom and in the train. After six years as a …
Brahms’ Deutsche Volkslieder
"Only one face": Following their price-winnig recording Schubertlieder, the Tyrolean Musicbanda Franui have now taken up Johannes Brahms' German Folk Songs.
Resume the Cosmos
"Resume the Cosmos" finds the unclassifiable Virginian band Rake performing some of their most diverting and accessible work to date. The five nameless tracks that make up the disc were culled from many hours of studio improvisation, not only on a range of atmospheric instrumentation, but also with studio space and "silence" itself. The elusive membership of Rake play out like reconstructed indie rock fans with fistfuls of Sun Ra/Coltrane/70s Miles/Art Ensemble of Chicago/Henry Cow scattered thr…
Sorow
new work by David Jackman aka Organum after completing the recent "Holy" trilogy ('Sanctus', 'Amen' and 'Omega'). SOROW is not an album that expands the trilogy still farther, but opens a new chapter in Organum's career. On the basis of the European organ drones and the Indian Tanpura foundation, the gentle Japanese temple bell compliments the piece. ....
42 Vexations
16 page booklet including Cage's Place In the Reception of Satie by Matthew Shlomowitz. Erik Satie's 1893 Vexations is musique d'ameublement - literally, "furniture music", the phrase coined by Satie in 1917, where he identifies sound as drapes, tiling, wallpaper - items belonging to the environment and changing it simply by being in it, by actually becoming elements of the space. This recording is the second instalment in a series of furniture music (after Marcel Duchamp's Musical Erratum), and…
Love Comes Close
Love Comes Close is the debut full-length from Cold Cave. Synth-pop, post punk, new wave, atmospheric industrial... Edition of 1000 copies.
Eight Lost Tracks
Oral label can be quite proud: they dug up all the works by Austria's Monoton, the baby of Konrad Becker and released them before on CD. Monoton's music was its time ahead: minimalist pulses based on analogue synthesizers, thus predating techno, glitch, clicks & cuts, and what's better: it still sounds good. The two previous releases were officially released back then, but the eight pieces were never released, save for two on an EP and a compilation. The pieces were recorded between 1981 a…
(Old school) Alvin Lucier
The internationally acclaimed 'hilarious releases' [vital weekly] of zeitkratzer records go on. This is the third release in the new series [old school]. The first two CDs, dedicated to the music of John Cage [zkr0009] and James Tenney [zkr0010] have been highly acclaimed. London's Wire Magazine wrote: 'The rigour and discipline they collectively bring to this compositions make both discs utterly enthralling, from start to finish.' The new release is dedicated to the music of Alvin Lucier. In 20…
Book of Beyond
"Ben Reynolds is one of the newer voices from the same UK scene that includes Ashtray Navigations and many of the VHF celebrities (Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Richard Youngs, etc.) It should be of little surprise then that Book of Beyond fits very nicely among the recordings of those other artists -- noise/junk drone. As in his previous recordings, this at times dissolves into more acoustic offerings, but the Fahey influence appears to be mostly gone, and what remains in the quie…
Guts
Deluxe 2LP version. More voraciously bestial soundwork coming from Daniel Menche -- this time, his chosen theme is the piano, in which he attacks, investigates and dissects with the precision of an autopsy surgeon, adding a whole new meaning to the concept of prepared piano, or should we say, unprepared piano, for an all-out assault. Guts lays out quite possibly some of the finest slabs of Menchian sonic mayhem to date. Slightly different track sequence over CD and vinyl formats due to ti…