New Arrivals
Raptus
Doris Norton, pioneer in the early electronic/computer music, began her musical career playing avant-garde and progressive music using synthesizers such as Roland System 700, Roland system 100M and Minimoog (Jacula, Antonius Rex). In december 1980 she recorded, at the Fontana Studio 7 (Milan), her first solo album entitled Under Ground (Musik Research). Sponsored by Apple computer and the Roland Corporation music instshe was more involved in experimental electro computerized music and rec…
Live In Tokyo, August, 19th 1974, Part One
This double album (divided into two LPs), recorded live at the Nippon Columbia Studio in Tokyo in 1974, was the group's final effort before disbanding. Here Kosugi and the Travellers blend Eastern and Western instrumentation, vocal chants and electronics to create free-form psych-laden drones. This historic album is an essential and influential piece of Japanese avant rock." Part One LP, clear vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited edition …
Piano Piano
Bureau B reissues Piano Piano by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, originally released in 1991 on the Italian label Materiali Sonori. In classical music, "pp" (piano piano = pianissimo) is a dynamic indication of particularly soft music. And Piano Piano is a very soft, quiet album. Roedelius assumes the role of a fairytale character with his piano music, transported to a strange, fantastical landscape where, filled with awe and amazement, he tries to get his bearings. What he see…
In Vogue Spirit
With their recent split with Naked on the Vague acting as a dip into pop's waters; Wet Hair's follow up, In Vogue Spirit is practically a jump into the pool. The band's most accessible batch of tunes to date boil with Krautrock rhythms, buzzing synths, and a new focus on vocals that has previously been mostly absent in the band's back catalog. It's not all motion and melody here though, the band still retains their experimental spirit, giving the record plenty of teeth to sink into any of …
Egypt Strut
Decades before his time, political and musical revolutionary, Sun Ra, developed a new plane of cultural existence where black people were all-powerful beings from outer space, sending their intergalactic message through jazz music. Recorded live in 1975 at Cleveland's legendary jazz club, the Smiling Dog Saloon, when Sun Ra and his Arkestra descended on the city for a week-long residency. You can imagine how the uninitiated's jaw must have dropped when Ra and his 15 musicians marched out onto th…
Apocatastisis
released 10 march, 2007. performed and recorded by michael gibbons (bardo pond) over the course of 2006 in the lemur house, apocatastisis is a meditation on restoration and awakening. an inner voyage in seven parts consisting of guitars, effects, sitar, tabla and violin. a truly special record. from a one-time pressing of 677 hand-numbered copies. housed within sleeves that were individually silk-screened by alan sherry (SIWA). all pre-orders of this release also received copies of this 500mg bo…
Musica Endoscopica
In its constant pursue of the lost treasures of the Italian avant-garde music, Die Schachtel in collaboration with the University of Padua has recovered from the ashes one of the lost and truly shining diamond of the early electronic/digital scene of the 60s and 70s. After more than two years of painstaking research and audio restoration, Die Schachtel is proud to present a new release dedicated to Teresa Rampazzi, a seminal yet very little known female Italian composer/musician, Founder of …
Throat
In view of the band's assertion that this is a program designed to be listened to in one sitting, it seems a little impertinent to discuss highlights. The seven tracks that make up "Throat" seem a little arbitrary in view of the overall discontinuity of the release, but in as much as this is music which has no time for a lot of preconceptions, that might be an inherent part of the band's intentions. The opening is where the Brotzmann reference comes into its own, but before the piece is o…
Midden
Suum Cuique (pronouned Soom Kwi-Kwe, Latin for "To Each His Own") follows the remit of Young Americans to explore uncharted, experimental, and personal synthscapes, guided by the hand of intuition with an entirely analogue array of machines. In 'Lithic Reduction' concrète textures grind like a millstone to release powdery clouds of analog dust, settling only to be dispersed by gusts of blackened distortion, whereas 'Red Binary' is distinctly electronic, revolving around muted radar bleeps…
And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees
It probably wouldn't surprise most, but the Type label was originally formed with soundtracks in mind. The moody music that usually accompanied their favorite independent films was a starting point for the label, so it seems perfect that nearly seven years on, they are going back to their roots, if you like, with this album from acclaimed Icelandic musician/composer/producer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Jóhannsson emerged on the influential Touch label with the genre-defining Englabörn (TO 052LP) album in…
Shot
ultralimited lavishly packaged LP (100 handnumbered copies only!), this ground-breaking electro-acoustic trio made my day. The album is largely improvised, with extracts of Charles Bukowski’s poetic works overlapping on the interweavings and multiple stratiï¬Âed references in the trio’s music. It features a faceted palette of acoustic, analogue and digital colours: drums, metallic objects, ethnical instruments, samples, sequences, filtered voice, pedal effects, vinyls, digital electronic…
Another Dull Dawn
When Chris Corsano turned 6 years old, I already begged him on my wounded knees to record an LP for Ultra eczema. He played it cool, was clearly annoyed but remained polite. From then on (he is now 46) I would email him the same question daily. I slept in a tent in front of his house, sent him letters every week, had all his different cell phone numbers, I even gave him new clothes, though he kept wearing his fully blue outfit. Much like Michael Jackson, corsano, the last drummer on earth, alway…
The Divine
""the divine" marks the second phase in the trilogy proposed by john twells aka xela. crawling out of a castle dungeon in pursuit of its predecessor, "the illuminated", this lp finds itself trapped in an abandoned church somewhere in a damp southern wilderness. church bells chime and rattle through the record's first piece, echoing and distorting through a fog of chattering voices and prayers. tape loops stumble over tape loops and the solemn, ecclesiastical drone slowly decomposes into thick, c…
Night of Purple Moon
Sun Ra was a innovative jazz composer, pianist, synthesizer player, poet and philosophiser who was fascinated by cosmic philosophy. Ra’s fascination with all things ‘cosmic’ combined with his instrumental ability lead to the creation of off-kilter, avant-garde and highly experimental music. ‘The Night of the Purple Moon’ originally cut in 1970 showcases Sun Ra playing the Roksichord (a then state-of-the-art solid-state electronic keyboard manufac…
Only Stories
Latest from the uber prolific Aidan Baker, of mighty doomdronedirge duo Nadja, and as we've discovered in the past, Nadja is Baker's outlet for the heavier stuff, while working under his own name he tends to veer toward the minimal, ambient and drone side of the spectrum. So that's what we were sort of expecting from this, and while it definitely does lean more toward those sounds that the crush of Nadja, it's actually something else entirely, a solo acoustic record. That's right, just ac…
BloodLinks + SacredPlaces
Poet Laureate of East St. Louis+founder/editor of internationally acclaimed journal "Drum Voices Revue". Principal architect of black cultural arts movement of the 60s, teacher & acclaimed writer of countless volumes of poetry, Redmond has been called "the preacher of poetic rhythm" by Maya Angelou, "a carver of high song magic" by Quincy Troupe & "a worker & healer" by Ishmael Reed. On this spirited, funky, streetwise collection of 12 vintage cuts recorded live in the studio in Sacramento in 19…
Paper of pins
"the coming together of this quartet on "paper of pins" has resulted in mature, yet unforced sounding compositions. the touching number "brown reduse" wins you over with its catchy piano sounds and subtle trumpet which is rounded off by the electronica. it's a small orchestral gem in the jazz style which is still edgy despite its perfection. this is highlighted, for example, by the fact that you can hear the brass player drawing breath on some tracks. certainly, the scottish composer is no perfe…
five tracks 1991 - 1993
"one of the earliest cdr's on ultra eczema was a Bob & Lou cdr, which were also recordings from the 90's, and which, together with discovering the insane recorded archive of cassis cornuta, sparkled the idea of collecting and publishing the lost recordings of these belgian weirdo's! Bob & Lou is the pseudonym for the duo field recording / electro-acoustic synth project that Peter De Ceulaer and Luther Vanhoof started in the late 80's. They never played live as Bob & Lou although both of them als…
The Shepherdess and the Bone-White Bird
Stone Breath returns with their first new album in over 5 years. A visionary creation of Eastern-influenced rural acid folk. From fingerpicked acoustics; to clawhammer banjo excursions; to the side-long exaltation that is “The Shepherdess of the Fiery Wheels,” Stone Breath manifest their best work to date; an entire set of originals with the strange and beautiful harmonies and instrumentation which graced their past work. They are clear in sight, united in purpose, and shining in the darkness. C…
Forever Falling Toward The Sky
Forever Falling Toward the Sky is the first ever release by Bay Area based Vestals, AKA Lisa McGee. A taught set of haunting electric ballads, these five tracks weave together a number of layered guitars and vocals into a smokey tapestry of blown electricity. Rather than the ephemeral drones McGee has been involved with recently, most notably the group-mind ensemble Portraits & the duo Higuma, Vestals retains the clarity of song, with these hypnotic gyms having been slowly carved out over…