New Arrivals
Walküren am Dornenbaum
This three year-long collaboration begun in 2006 when Korber and Wehowsky embarked on intense recording sessions in Eggenstein, where the latter resides, lasting several days. The output from these sessions forms the basis of this work, augmented by additional field recordings and various electronic manipulations. Korber and Wehowsky used the same software which allowed them to exchange the pieces at any stage of the compositional process, so that every detail of the music could be shaped in a t…
How Day Earnt Its Night
"Ben Reynolds is an English solo steel string guitarist and songwriter. In his solo instrumental works he draws upon the vast well of musical inspiration native to the British Isles as well as that found across the Atlantic and beyond. Ben's 2008 recording Two Wings was released on Portland, Oregon label Strange Attractors Audio House and focuses upon sprawling, meditative improvisations and concludes with the track 'Here Toucheth Blues' which appeared on Tompkins Square's Imaginational An…
Very Urgent
Originally released on Polydor in 1968. During this year, The Chris McGregor Group were riding high on the London jazz scene, playing and hanging out with all the rising stars of British free jazz. Very Urgent, their eagerly-awaited debut recording, was a joyful call of intent. The album mixes simple but utterly unstoppable tunes and exhilarating horn charts -- immediately establishing a vitality and exuberance that would continue to define the group. Nevertheless, their evident preference f…
New Music For Old Instruments
Curated by Jozef van Wissem the “New Music For Old Instruments” festival took place all over the world: in Brussels, New York, Paris, Utrecht, Antwerp and other cities. The idea was to rid traditional instruments of their clichés. When one thinks of a lute for example the Robin Hood image comes to mind of the player standing under a balcony serenading a lady and getting a flower pot thrown at him. In order to update the instrument, to make it mature and give it it’s recognition it deserves, one …
Musica Metaphysica
Mauricio Reyes was born in Mexico City in 1969 and composes music under the name Robol. Musica Metaphysica is his debut album. When he was 14 years old he started to create music with dual tape recorders, two turntables and experimented with different records playing simultaneously at times in reverse. Later he collected rare samples of early electronic music and started to study a wide range of electronic music. One year ago he started to create this album and used sound samples that were recor…
Stundenbuch/Book of Hours
Solo piano, performed by Roger Woodward. "It is fitting that Hans Otte's Stundenbuch/Book Of Hours, recorded by pianist Roger Woodward on a Bösendorfer at the Radio Bremen concert hall, is a co-production between Celestial Harmonies and Radio Bremen. The piece was commissioned by Radio Bremen for its Pro Musica Nova 1996, the highly-regarded biennial festival for contemporary music founded (in 1961) and directed (from 1962) by Hans Otte, during his tenure as Head of Music at Radio Bremen (1959 t…
Blood In The Coffin
CD version: Leon Dufficy is primarily known as guitarist in the hippie-jam outfit, Hush Arbors, but now he steps into his own as the driving force behind Winter Drones. Sounding like the perfect combination of fuzzed-out ambient drift, shoegaze swirl and propulsive pop sensibilities, Winter Drones have slowly gained attention in their native U.K. with a handful of obscure CD-R/cassette releases and compilation appearances. Earlier this year, the band's debut album, Blood In The Coffin, ca…
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…
Black Ohms
An edition of 500 numbered copies. Thank Expo ‘70, O Lord, for the drones you are about to receive. A deep quivering of transcendental electronic mantras pulsates to the patient beat of the third Bardo. Slow, shape-shifting ambiences expand like groaning baritone crystals crawling out from sub-oceanic ooze. Psix pstring psychedelic pspews bisect the curve of extraterrestrial buzz with a surprising terrestrial fluidity until bioluminescent fish gather to choke out quiet hymns around the th…
Milwaukee Volume
Revered reeds and drumming duo Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love return to Smalltown Superjazzz with another magisterial set of live improvisations. Released alongside their Chicago Volume, this disc was recorded live in concert at Milwaukee's Alchemist Theater on 10th June 2007 (the Chicago Volume was laid down the following day) and finds these two free-jazz maestros on blistering form. It's a joy to hear how the improvisations evolve - on 'Clean Sweep' the pair …
Spacer
Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz's (of Exploding Star Orchestra fame) Chicago Trio with drummer Mike Reed and bassist Nate McBride in a great modern jazz release of original compositions, informed, warm and compelling music. "The Jason Adasiewicz Trio features Jason on vibraphone, Mike Reed on drums, and Nate McBride on bass. The Chicago jazz group formed in 2008, first experimenting as a free improvising trio, and later focused attention on arranging tunes that Adasiewicz wrote during his wife's …
Planet Dream
In this present age of the history of humanity, there are few places left for a true utopia. The world has already experienced some of those ideal systems, but the results were tragic. Even in literature utopian thinking seems to have vanished. Only In music is there still a place to wonder, especially when it deals with spontaneous and non-hierarchical procedures. Musical improvisation is becoming the only possibility left to forge micro-societies of freedom and egalitarianism, without having t…
Live in concert
Denman Maroney (piano) & Mark Dresser (bass). Vision Festival NY - June 11, 2008. This is the third duo album by bassist Mark Dresser and pianist Denman Maroney, after Duologues and Time Changes. In contrast to some of the other material by the two players, this one is fully improvised in three long pieces. The first 30 minute track was recorded live at Vision Festival on June 10, 2008, the two other pieces date from a performance in Chicago in 2001. It's hard to call this jazz, since none of th…
The backside suite
'Created and performed by Christian MUNTHE. Upside-down steel 6-string arch top acoustic guitar. Touched by: guitar-pick, palm of hand, fingertips, nails, lips, tongue, teeth, breath, saliva, beer bottle, whiskey tumbler, plastic ball-point pen, paperback book, legs Christian MUNTHE is a Swedish free improviser that since the 1980's concentrates on the sonic possibilities offered by the acoustic guitar in solo as well as various ensemble settings. He has released recordings in his own name and …
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…
La Sala Dei Cristalli
Using selected sound materials from Sonorous stones, Stalactites, Bat calls, Flutes, Field recordings collected by Mariolina Zitta in different caves in Liguria a Sardinia, Italy, processed and edited by Alio Die. In "Lithos" the drones are played by the authors on a set of long stones that goes in resonance, caressed by a bathed hand, by the same principle of the crystal's glasses. A very immersive and obscure traveling, an underground meditation with a ritual touch, in accord with the "natur…
Orchestral Works
Beautiful boxet with 5 CDs "It would be an understatement to say that Iannis Xenakis, who passed away nearly ten years ago, marked the whole second half of the 20th century. Whether or not assisted by computer, he built vast musical architectures, which diverge resolutely from what was being done at the time and is still being done: another world of sounds, combined according to a different, but never gratuitous, approach resulting in something magical. The listener is surrounded by sound, immer…
The state we are in
The first thing this CD reminded me of was Tape...then I checked out the press release and it turns out that Tape's Johan Berthling (also very recently sighted on that Fire! with Jim O'Rourke record) is in fact one-third of this band, the other two being Andreas Soderstrom (Ass) and Per Eklund on drums. It is, as you would expect, gently paced instrumental stuff, slightly pastoral-sounding, with intertwining guitars and a some subtle Hammond organ and trumpet bits. This is a mightily rel…
Musics In The Margin Vol.4
Fourth opus of musical art brut, faithful to our precepts, we search out self-taught musicians. That means people who make contemporary music outside the customary production and distribution channels and with the determination and creative gifts that stem from unmistakable artistic talent. Some of these musicians operate in mental or social isolation and make their music in special workshops while others can be classified with the spiritualist or visionary artists. This particular relationship …
Adhesives and grout
Korm Plastics is proud to present the eigtheenth release in the Brombron series. Originally a co-production between Staalplaat and Extrapool, it is now hosted by co-curator Frans de Waard. In the year 2000 Frans de Waard and Extrapool started the Brombron project. Two or more musicians become artists in residence in Extrapool, an arts initiative in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, with a fully equipped sound recording studio. These artists can work in a certain amount of time on a collaborative projec…