New Arrivals

Michel Doneda, soprano saxophone and radio. Joris Rühl, clarinet. 'Le Linge was my grandparents' old farm in the East of France. It is there, in the barn full of old hay, abandoned wasp nests, murmurs and memories, in its sweltering, dusty heat, that we played for three days and recorded several sequences. We had no precise direction in mind for the record. We focused on the present moment, and then on the next. The barn's structure elegantly cracked with the wind, and the church bells brought t…

The Australian sound poetry / film-maker / artist group ARF ARF consists of Marisa Stirpe, Frank Lovece, Michael Buckley and Marcus Bergner. Between 1985 and 2000 they produced and mounted hundreds of live performances in Australia and Europe. Their film 'Thread of Voice' (featuring Bob Cobbing / Konkrete Canticle) has been shown widely including at The Serpentine Gallery (London), The Pompidou Centre (Paris), Arsenal Kino (Berlin), Millennium (New York) and at the Museum of Modern Art in…

"Good old free music and the best one: never too wild but always outta sight. I liked it from the very beginning 'cos it's DIFFERENT & UNIQUE." EP/Sagittarius A-Star. Sabir Mateen - Tenor saxophone, Sirone - Bass, Andrew Barker - Drums. Recorded June 30, 2008 by Andrew Barker in Brooklyn, NYC. Cover painting by Karl Francke.

How rare, and valuable, it is to be able to experience one composer’s masterwork through the sensibility of another significant, stylistically distinct composer – via a performance that reveals unexpected aspects of both. that is to say, an approach to performance not as an act of self-conscious, flamboyant or dramatic interpretation, according to the concerns of technique, expression, and projection that are at the heart of an instrumentalist’s presentation of a musical score to an audie…

Once more Chicago’s finest delivers another devastating slab of emotionally charged noise. Its been 10 years since the epic statement that was ‘Sheer Hellish Miasma’.  Since then Drumm has trawled through the depths of the global underground with a back breaking speed, adding many masterful releases to his oeuvre for labels the world over. Armed with his distinctive palate of audio tactics, Drumm returns to Editions Mego to deliver ‘Relief’, a 36 minute hypnotic roller coaster ride through…

Recorded live at Cafe OTO in March 2009 during Otomo Yoshihide's first residency here. This was one of only a handful of solo piano performances Otomo has given where he uses the instrument as a control matrix for harmonically rich feedback tones and devastating clusters of complex noise. Beautifully rendered with maximum dynamic range by Lupo's 45rpm cut!

Ass-whooping live set from the Full Blast trio, recorded in Cologne in 2006: Brotzmann’s work with electric bassist Marino Pliakas and drummer Michael Wertmuller extends his work with Last Exit in that it combines an almost metal/No Wave attack with a fluid non-stop dynamic and a feel of electric blues. Brotzmann has always favoured electric bassists – Bill Laswell, Massimo Pupillo – and there’s something about the unyielding aspect of the instrument that acts as a propulsive metal backbone for …

Gerald O'Connell and Mark Harvey began recording as Mystery Plane in 1980, although they had worked together since 1978 in two other more conventional five-piece bands ( The End and 3D5). The very early stuff ( for instance Death Sentence contained on the bonus 7" for members) was recorded in Gerald's living room on a two-track Akai reel-to-reel with a primitive internal overdub facility. For the most part Mark wrote and sang the songs, while Gerald created the backing tracks. In 1981 they were …

Mordant Music beautifully join the dots between the hauntological zeitgeist and original library music with the 2nd of two vinyl reissues of seminal tape music by Tod Dockstader. Born 1932 in Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Dockstader majored in psychology and art but would go on to explore his interests in painting and film as an apprentice editor in Hollywood. This led to a job as a sound engineer in 1958, employed at Gotham Recording studios, where he started meticulously composing during lon…

From 1982 to 1992 Frank Scheffer worked with John Cage on many different occasions, which resulted in a unique archive of historical audio-visual material. Based on this unique archive, including interviews, musical performances and images of different locations related to his life and work—filmed on 16mm—the filmmaker Scheffer created How to Get Out of the Cage—A Year with John Cage. Frank Scheffer wrote: "The famous artist Marina Abramovic introduced me to John Cage. She thought it woul…

Popol Vuh's soundtrack work for the films of Werner Herzog in 1970's and 1980's are some of the most stunning in the field. Editions Mego is pleased to present two re-workings of classic Vuh tracks. Mika Vainio takes 'Nachts: Schnee' from the 1987 soundtrack 'Cobra Verde', and delivers a skillfully constructed ambient piece of beauty, which shifts and turns over 10 minutes. Haswell & Hecker turn the majestic 'Aguirre' from the 1972 soundtrack 'Aguirre - The Wrath Of God' into possibly the first …

Hard-grooving Ethiopiques killers from the "Ethiopian Elvis". This eponymous collection gathers some of his finest moments from 45's recorded between 1967 and 1974, nine total, mixing R&B, soul, rock'n'roll with that magically mystical blend of modern flair and traditional groove that makes the Ethiopiques series such a treasure trove. You could imagine each of these being classics in their own right way back when, from the soulful organ burn and infectious breaks of 'Kenoru Lebetchahe' w…

A Sige Records repress of Mamiffer's second full length Mare Decendrii.Artwork is different from the original pressing. Edition of 600. Credits : Recorded from September 2009 to September 2010 at: Studio Litho, Aleph Studio, and London Bridge in Washington State. Produced by Randall Dunn. Co-produced by Mamiffer. Engineered by Randall Dunn. Assistant engineers: Mell Dettmer and Shawn Simmons. Mixed at London Bridge Studio by Randall Dunn. Mixing assistant: Mell Dettmer. Mastered by Mell Dettme…

A collection of spiritual and gospel songs performed in informal non-church settings between 1965 and 1973. Most are guitar-accompanied and performed by active or former blues artists. "Most records of black religious music contain some form of gospel singing or congregational singing recorded at a church service. This album, though, tries to present a broader range of performance styles and contexts with the hope of showing the important role that religious music plays in the Southern bl…

There's a disarming honesty to the way Michigan-based husband and wife duo Windy & Carl communicate with one another. A blog post from Windy, published in late 2011, describes the making of We Will Always Be, framing it in the context of their relationship. "Yeah, we have had bumps in the road, and on occasion it seems as if we may never recover from these bumps, but we do," she wrote. That type of candor doesn't stop at the written word; it also bleeds through into the duo's music. Often their …

Tor Lundvall’s elegant soundtracks have been captured onto nine full length albums and collected within various compilations, raising his stature as one of the most abundant craftsman within the field of ambient music.  Lundvall’s second box set for Dais features a 5 disc collection of more recent works including the albums Empty City and Last Light, as well as CD versions of the vinyl-only albums Sleeping & Hiding and The Shipyard.  Additionally, the fifth disc in the collection entitled Night …

In 1978, Philippe Genion bought a guitar for 1000 belgian francs (25€). He connected it to his hifi amp, quickly learned how to play "smoke on the water" and a few punk songs with two fingers and within two weeks, pushing the amp more and more to the limit, blew his 200W speakers out. Later, around 1980, he bought an old ARP synthesizer from walloon band "Jo Lemaire plus Flouze" and started playing with these instruments and a few old flanger and distorsion pedals, and started recording so…

New studio album recorded by Rafal Iwanski and Rafal Kolacki with special guest Slawomir Ciesielski - great percussionist and drummer of legendary Polish rock band Republika (in 80. Republika was one of the most original European bands - thanks to their specific antimainstream rock & roll songs, with new wave-inspired music and lyrics). HATI forms a link between a personal interest in modern improvised and acoustic music with ritual and meditation. They worked together in 2010 on several tracks …

Telmegiddo was the last tape-decomposition by Maurizio Bianchi and was recorded in February 1983 after the Armaghedon LP. Apocalyptic echo-sounds, originally decomposed at Mectpyo Studio in February 1983. Unofficially issued as cassette tape in 1990 with the given title of "Extreme Man 2". Bakterihabitat by M.B. contains sound sketches that were later used in Telmegiddo. Mixture of bacteriological wall of noises, originally decomposed at the Mectpyo Studio in May 1982. Unofficially issued as cas…

Cry was recorded in a shed at Taieri Mouth between 1998 and 2000 and then released by Emperor Jones on CD in 2000. Alastair has always been one of the most admired yet paradoxically ignored musicians from the New Zealand underground since he first started out in The Rip on Flying Nun Records in the early 1980s. Having already worked with the incredibly talented New Zealander otherwise known as Michael Morley, it seemed natural for MIE’s next step to go on to work with Alastair on getting …