New Arrivals
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 …
Sempervirent
I spent two months in protected areas of Costa Rica making multichannel field recordings of the different forest ecosystems of Central America. Armed with a quadraphonic setup (IRT cross), a parabolic microphone, a hydrophone, and a scientist's passport, I went to nine main sites to record: the coastal evergreen forest, the tropical dry and deciduous forest, the mangroves, the wooded riverbanks and floodplains, and the forests altered in cultivated areas. The recordings were made at the S…
Uncommon Sense
This is: brass to the power of three, and a lot more besides. John Clark, Dave Taylor and Franz Hackl on French horn, trumpet and bass trombone are not just a brass trio but create a whole cosmos of sounds, styles and techniques. In their musical actions and reactions, each of the three is always also each of the other two, with the voices merging into complex moods and styles. On this album the trio reveal their sense of humor, and a moment later become absorbed in hymnic devotion. Big-band ges…
Port Out Starboard Home
Some bands produce a CD every week; by now it seems 'normal' to have three year gaps in releasing records for Beequeen, which is a fresh antidote to the music business of more = more. For Beequeen, like good wine, things mature given more time. Whereas 'Sandancing' (2008) featured Olga Wallis a guest singer, on this new album she's a fully fledged bandmember, adding her beautiful voice to Beequeen's off beat songs. 'Port Out Starboard Home' features surreal dream-pop, but always with that unique…
Vom Klang Des Lebens/Of The Sound of Life
Solo piano, performed by Roger Woodward. "A co-production between Celestial Harmonies and Bayerischer Rundfunk, Vom Klang Des Lebens/Of The Sound of Life features pianist Roger Woodward on a Steinway model D, playing Peter Michael Hamel's cycle of works composed for and dedicated to his wife and new son. The producer/engineer for the recording sessions in January 2006 was Ulrich Kraus. Long before he discerns the light of the world, still in the womb, nascent man begins to sense the sounds of li…
Free Action
2008 release. "A deep excursion into the laboratory of Germany's most important avant-garde jazz musician. A milestone of breaking down barriers between genres. Feat. Jean-Luc Ponty (Zappa, Mahavishnu). Originally released on MPS in 1967. Unique gatefold cardboard packaging."
The Last Recording
Final solo alto sax blasting from the late legendary Japanese underground hero Kaoru Abe. Abe was an inspiration to free/jazz and Japanese noise lovers world-wide, lived a fast and hard life and ripped his guts inside out on each and every of his many releases. Extreme music for those who need it.
Renihilation
Brooklyn, NY’s Liturgy deal in a style of black metal steeped in the genre’s most basic foundations of buzzing, dissonant guitars and whirlwind percussion, and yet they demonstrate an acute ability to make the sound firmly their own, both modern and ancient. Liturgy’s unique take on the genre only slightly recalls their NYC friends Krallice and the earlier works of the Norwegian wolves Ulver (particularly their 3rd LP masterwork Nattens Madrigal). In some sense Liturgy represents the seeping of …
Harvey Milk
Following critical acclaim of Harvey Milk’s latest album Life… the Best Game in Town (2008), the band’s current home Hydra Head, has gone into the archives for this new/old album. Originally recorded in 1993 by one Bob Weston, these recordings never officially saw the long-playing light of day. Until now. The band is known for being somewhat curmudgeonly, and this proto-debut is fittingly nasty and strangely disconnected. Not for the ‘Milk the youthful exuberance of early spotty Metallica or gri…
Ullakkopalo
This is the first release from Finland's Kemialliset Ystävät since 2007. Kemialliset Ystävät equals Jan Anderzén. He is one of the few Finnish musicians to have achieved renown in the international experimental circuit. In the case of Anderzén -- who also plies a trade as a visual artist -- this is not a matter of juxtaposition between experimental and mainstream, or a calculated career choice. Using music and images, he is busy creating a world that is a law unto itself, a world of exceptional …
Spoils
For this latest album Caledonian folk impresario Alasdair Roberts teams up with expected collaborators like Alex Neilson (whose drumming and percussion work has illuminated many a free-folk record over recent years, a few of which Roberts has been involved with) and more unusual contributors such as Niko-Matti Ahti of Fonal's Kiila. Perhaps more than ever, Roberts' music invites comparisons to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, traveling sufficiently far from the trad songwriting fold to be thought of as 'a…
Surface of the Earth
Gunn Amps and Smashed Guitars. Surface of the Earth was recorded live to cassette, using two microphones in a wooden community hall in Wellington, New Zealand. The lp was gathered from two or three recording sessions in 1994/95. Back then we used to book out the hall for a couple of days, set up our gear and then record everything. It was a very atmospheric room for recording. Tony and Donald would put their guitars through their two old Gunn valve amplifiers and get to work. Tony often used thi…
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…
The Cloud of Unknowing
For fans of acoustic guitar music, James Blackshaw's The Cloud of Unknowing is a gift that's long overdue. Blackshaw's fourth album gracefully glides over the same sonic ground that his contemporaries generally tread with reverential obedience or dilettante tactics. Growing into his prodigious own at the relatively young age of 25, Blackshaw has finessed his 12-string acoustic guitar into a veritable solo symphony that's as schooled in uncommon beauty as it is in complex 20th century composition…
Valusia
Crescendo. That's the word that most aptly fits Valusia, the latest ep by wunderkind Nika Rosa Danilova, aka Zola Jesus. Building layer upon layer upon layer of synths and drums and vocals, Valusia, honestly, gets better the more times we spin it. Her career is on the upswing as well, with no signs of a de-crescendo: tours with Fever Ray, Wolf Parade, among other big names. The four songs on this 18 minute record stand with the best Zola Jesus has released. The "cleaner" sound of the Stridulum e…
Opus 2
Developing on the trance-induction and brainwave entrainment techniques explored on the first Ethernet album 144 Pulsations of Light, Opus 2 moves into deeper, more introspective and emotive territory. A stronger focus on melody and harmonic structure results in pieces that almost approach, but never quite arrive at, traditional song forms, while still leaving much to the imagination of the listener, evading mental categorization and revealing new sonic experiences with each listen. The bu…
Killing HF Harlow
Terrapin is Giovanni Lami & Shaun McAlpine. An improv duo based on real time processing field recordings, analog instruments and digital sounds, all played and processed live. This work comes from some recording sessions in Giovanni’s Studio. Later subtlety edited without any overdubs, just choosing the most suitable parts, noticing something evolve from the session, forming a solid arrangement.
The fundamental idea behind the project is vivisection, holding an historical vivisectio…
Abraum
a new subway tunnel is being built in the harbor area of hamburg's inner city. the tunneling produces waste and the waste needs to be disposed of. in this case sand and shredded rubble are mixed with groundwater in order to be pumped out through steel tubes with a diameter of approximately 80cm. the sounds that are produced in the tubes are object of field recordings that i made at different times and places on site. it was immediately apparent that the continuum of the basic sounds that i used …
13 Japanese birds Vol.10 Niwatori
'MERZBOW's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messaien's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010. Cover art by Jenny Akita.'
Music For Listening On The Moon
"This CD is made for the occasion of Moon Life by Alicia Framis, Shanghai. A continuous sound material from the installation 'Wormhole 2' in Yan Jun's washroom. After simple mastering (Denoise and Compression only). For playing in any environment and listening with any other sounds. 'Wormhole 2' is a continuation of the installation 'Wormhole Trip Souvenir' in The Shop Beijing, as 'Music For Listening On The Moon' is a continuation of 'Wormhole Trip OST'" (Label info)