Best of 2018

Brian Eno's masterwork album from 1982. Standard 1 LP version. On ‘Ambient 4 (On Land)’ – the final edition in Eno's ambient series – his palate shifted from electro-mechanical and acoustic instruments towards “non-instruments” like pieces of chain, sticks and stones. “One of the big freedoms of music had been that it didn't have to relate to anything – nobody listened to a piece of music and said, ‘What's that supposed to be, then?’, the way they would if they were looking at an abstract painti…

**Available in vinyl for the first time, edition of 200** Born in Lisbon (1932), Armando Santiago studied singing, piano and cello at the National Conservatory of Lisbon. In Italy he studied conducting with Hans Münch and Franco Ferrara, and in Paris he studied with Pierre Schaeffer at the ORTF Research Service. Fellow of the Governments of Portugal and Italy, he worked in Rome with Boris Porena and followed the course of Goffredo Petrassi in the Academy of Santa Cecília, obtaining the diploma o…

Éliane Radigue's complete Naldjorlak trilogy (2004-2009): I for cello (Charles Curtis), II for two basset horns (Carol Robinson, Bruno Martinez), III for all three. Recorded in Paris in 2011 by Daniel Deshays. 3CD.

Buh Records present a new album by Peruvian composer and musician Miguel Flores. Lorca: Lost Tapes (1989-1991) recovers unpublished recordings made for stage works inspired by the life and work of the great Spanish playwright, Federico García Lorca. It is an atmospheric and minimalist album, where you'll find flamenco airs, Andean and Afro- Peruvian sounds, vocal experimentation, and various sound effects, all stitched together in a simple but creative studio montage, which turns these pieces in…

Subtitled "Music for Native Peruvian Instruments and Magnetophonic Tape (1978)" this is a wonderful collection of pieces composed between 1976 & 1978 at the Royal College's EMS by Peruvian composer Arturo Ruiz del Pozo. Ranging from extended tape-loop meditations to application of mystical folk instrumentation & enharmonic percussion sonorities, this is an incredibly eye-opening survey of the work of a composer of whose work I was completely unfamiliar prior to this issue.Like many countries in …

Magnetic Web was released in 1973. It appeared under the Nik Pascal monicker and showed a clear evolution in sound, favoured by the addition of an Arp 2600 and some rhythm boxes. It also included percussions and cymbals. The Two Headed Dog site thinks "this is his masterpiece in all of its acid-laced glory."Besides his musical explorations, Nik was also an interesting painter. His paintings are auctioned from time to time, and are consciousness expanding works influenced by abstract cubism and s…

**strictly limited edition of 500 copies** Nik's last album, Zero Gravity (Narco NR123) came under the Nik Pascal name and had a fantastic side long piece on the title track which reminisces of the works of Cluster. B side features four tracks that also bear some Conrad Schnitzler reminiscences. This was to be Nik's last LP before he would sell all his synths to ex car racer and future electronic/ambient music star Steve Roach. Besides his musical explorations, Nik was also an interesting painte…

**strictly limited edition of 500 copies** 1972 saw the release of The Sixth Ear (Narco NR666), this time credited to Nik Pascal. A more complex work than Beyond The End..., it adds consistent rhythmic patterns to the mix with the addition of bongoes and also explores some interesting chord progressions. Besides his musical explorations, Nik was also an interesting painter. His paintings are auctioned from time to time, and are consciousness expanding works influenced by abstract cubism and surr…

The Italian guitarist Maurizio Abate is a rare breed - an experimental musician from Europe working within, and expanding the American tradition of Guitar Soli, an idiom first pioneered by John Fahey.  Abate initially emerged within a diverse series of collaborative released over a decade ago, but, as the years passed, a love for his instrument, with inspiration provided by Fahey’s indication of its potential for application as a one man orchestra, prompted to him to embark on a pursuit of solo …

**Much needed repress.** Often, when looking back over the history if experimental music in France, easy divisions can be seen to emerge. There are the pioneers of improvised music, usually associated with jazz, and there are the pioneers of electronic music, including tape, synthesis, and electroacoustic practice. This separation is convenient and serves historians well, providing simple answers for the what and why of what occurred, but, in most cases, fails to represent the true spirit of any…

**Edition of 300** Henning Christiansen's handwritten score for 'Grundtone' [fundamental tone], opus 161 from 1984. Offset printed 1:1 reproduction in two colours. Format: A2 – 420 x 594 mm. Includes download code for Henning Christiansen's own recording of the piece. Released in collaboration with The Museum of Contemporary Art and The Henning Christiansen Archive.The piece 'Grundtone' [fundamental tone] (op. 161) is of central importance in the oeuvre of Henning Christiansen. It marks both his…

**Special version with extra DVD, edition of 100 only** An Island In The Moon is the perfectly conceived minimal ambient project from Italian composers Pier Luigi Andreoni (Doubling Riders, ATROX) and Silvio Linardi. Andreolina being a mix of the names of the two musicians who were both deeply involved with the label Auf Dem Nil on which the album was originally released in 1990. The duo stick to a disciplined and simple palette using only two synthesizers and a Roland S50 sampler. They are join…

Serie of recordings made by Toshiya Tsunoda & Taku Unami in different locations and then processed through different playback speed, noise gate or parallel editing.For 15 years, the Yokohama based artist Toshiya Tsunoda has been releasing remarkable acoustic works into a world that he seems to hear like no one else. His CDs are the most idiosyncratic and rigorous to be found among the many field recording releases of recent years, though his work is just as easy to place in the sound art frame..…

Inexplicable Hours is the sequel of the successful Kevin Drumm 6CD box 'Elapsed Time' also released by Sonoris last year. The first record documents a new direction in his music, with some of his last electroacoustic experimentations with audio generators, field recordings and various electronic devices. The second one explores the same ambient/drone territories as the boxset, but less static and more complex than it appears after a superficial listening. And as always with recent KD's music, a …

Cien Fuegos present a reissue of the Peter Brötzmann Octet's Machine Gun, originally released in 1968. One of the most important albums of European free jazz, finally in the Cien Fuegos series. Recorded May 1968 at "Lila Eule", Bremen. Recorded with a whiff of revolution in the air back in May '68, this landmark Brotzmann LP taps into the spirit of its time with a robust garage rock sensibility, lending a considerable urgency to the session, with the highest volume passages taking up far more ai…

Vinilisssimo present a reissue of Polonio's Bload Stations * Syntax Error, originally released in 1987. Eduardo Polonio has been one of the key names of Spanish music since the late 1960s, especially as a pioneer in the field of electroacoustic music. He was a member, with Luis de Pablo and Horacio Vaggione, of Grupo Alea Electrónica Libre (1970-1972), the first Spanish group of live electronic music; and he was one of the main figures of Barcelona's Laboratorio Phonos since 1976. He was also a …

With their name compressed into MMMD deliver the debut album of Modal Analysis, brought by the Greek experimental band itself. Nikos Veliotis and Ilios are currently performing as the MMMD duo, with further focus on deep monolithic sounds, low frequencies, inter-modulations, dark textures, and distant folk nuances through custom made instruments (Cello & Electronic Bass) and software. Recorded live at St.Paul's Anglican Church, Athens

If you check the credits of The Rolling Stones' Goats Head Soup LP from 1973 you'll find a certain "Pascal" listed on the percussion section. That is none other than Los Angeles based artist Nicolas Pascal Raicevik (1933-1994), aka 107-34-8933, aka Head, aka Nik Pascal, aka Nik Raicevic. Besides his hitting the bongoes on the Stones album, Nik was a great artist on his own, both as a painter and as a musician. As a musician, he was a pioneer in the use of synthesizers, preceeding the Berlin scho…

2024 Repress. After the excellent New Jazz Ramwong (TB6171), Tiger Bay is back with another almost overlooked gem from the German jazz scene of the 60s. Joki Freund, the composer and multi-instrumentalist is one of its most dazzling figures and Yogi Jazz is without a doubt his masterpiece.The influence of John and Alice Coltrane is clear throughout the album and the sextet, for which he gathered together a group of young European musicians who later would achieve great notoriety, reaches an outs…

Edition of 100 copies in Clear vinyl. Standing beyond the realms of category and classification, Pier Luigi Andreoni and Francesco Paladino’s Aeolyca, initially released as a limited cassette in 1989, is an artifact which perfectly illustrates the openness and creative ambition displayed by Italy’s avant-garde music community during the 1980’s. While may of their cousins in other country’s flirted with institutional recognition and fame, Italian artists pushed toward the outer reaches, plumbing …

Again under the influence of both first and second generation of Berlin school musicians the LP will appeal to fans of Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream, but they will also find a big deal of Zanov's own personal sound on it, since as the musician himself reckons he had little contact with other peers of his generation, so besides a general love for the electronic gear used and the sounds you could make out of them the creative ideas behind his works were all his own. On his second album a richer…

The soundtrack to Pipilotti Rist‘s ‘4th Floor to Mildness‘, the mesmerising and meditative installation showing at Strange Days. Edition of 500. Pipilotti Rist’s (b.1962) mesmerising works envelop viewers in vibrantly coloured kaleidoscopic projections that fuse the natural world with the technological sublime. Referring to her art as a ‘glorification of the wonder of evolution,” Rist maintains a deep sense of curiosity that pervades her explorations of physical and psychological experiences. He…

Brian Eno's Ambient album from 1982. Standard 1 LP version.. Though not the earliest entry in the genre (which Eno makes no claim to have invented), ‘Ambient 1 (Music For Airports)’ was the first album ever to be explicitly labelled ‘ambient music’. Eno had previously created similarly quiet, unobtrusive music on albums ‘Evening Star’, ‘Discreet Music’, and Harold Budd's ‘The Pavilion of Dreams’ (which he produced), but this was the first album to give it precedence as a cohesive concept. He gav…

Brian Eno's pioneering Ambient album from 1975 re-pressed for 2018. Standard 1 LP version. While his earlier work with Robert Fripp on ‘No Pussyfooting’ and several selections from his own ‘Another Green World’ feature similar ideas, ‘Discreet Music’ marked a clear step toward the ambient aesthetic Eno would later codify with 1978's ‘Ambient 1: Music for Airports.’The inspiration for this album began when Eno was hospitalised after an accident. Whilst bed-ridden and listening to a record of eigh…

CD Edition. At the dawn of the 1980’s, a few years before her now legendary LP, Through The Looking Glass, took form, a young percussionist playing with the Berlin Philharmonic, Midori Takada, found her creative ambitions looking further afield. Her ideas brought her home to Japan, then peculating with new notions of what avant-garde and experimental music could be, to form The Mkwaju Ensemble with fellow percussionist Junko Arase and Yoji Sadanari. The project quickly recorded two astounding LP…

2018 small repress. 'Le manteau d’étoiles' collects ten airy instrumental spheres glowing and evaporating in a universal infinity like any moment in the panorama of everyday life. Throughout the whole album, there's a refined sense of reductionism and that achingly poetic melancholy which drips from every sustained note and hushed passage, through the sparse, non-linear interplay of guitar, bass, gongs, flutes, clarinet, percussion, and electronics, Timo Van Lujik and Andrew Chalk, here expandin…

**2026 Stock ** Japanese free/jazz sax legend, Kaoru Abe, dies at the age of only 29 in 1978, living a fast and crazy life and dieing of a drug overdose. His entire music career was only 10 years, from 1968 to 1978. In that short period, he was well recorded with around 30 releases, ten of which are solo sax efforts, duos with guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa and drummer Sabu Toyozumi. Mr. Abe also toured and recorded with Milford Graves, Derek Bailey and Toshinori Konda…

A split album is a marriage of autonomous partners. On each side of the vinyl, one artist presents a limited selection of music. Both sides relate to each other, but they do not intertwine. On Aspen’s first split, guitar brothers Ruben Machtelinckx and Frederik Leroux each contribute twenty minutes of solo performance. Both Machtelinckx and Leroux make use of the oating sounds of the banjo, but in a quite distinct way. While the former presents a determined and solid selection of music, the latt…

Repressed for the first time on LP by Le Très Jazz Club, this fantastic album comes with an insert documenting the story of The Elysian Spring and the recording of this true masterpiece. « Glass flowers », recorded in 1969, and only pressed by 500 copies at the time, is an unclassifiable album, overtaking the jazz outlines. Can words really describe music? It may be hard when music is as fantastic as on this LP. « Glass flowers » is an unclassifiable album, overtaking the jazz outlines, recorded…

Contains both original ZNR releases Barricades III and Traite de Mechanique Populaire, plus two extra CDs - one containing the whole of the post-ZNR LP Les Flots Bleus by Patrick Portella and Joseph Racaille as well as Joseph Racaille’s Pegase and his  ReR Six Petites Chansons EP. The second CD collects early ZNR demos and lost tracks togther, appearing here for the first time. With a very substantial and definitive book of memories, histories, reflections, photographs, documents, interviews and…

**250 copies on black, embossed lettering, 16 page booklet** Comprised of the poets bpNichol, Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton and Steve McCaffery, all of whom are notable for their solo efforts, The Four Horsemen was Canada’s first sound poetry group, active between 1970 and the late 80s - disbanding following the untimely death of founding member, Barrie Phillip Nichol. Nada Canadada, originally issued in 1972, the album reissued before us now, is their debut recorded outing, making its hist…

Continuing the series of collaborations between Honest Jon’s and Incus. As throughout the series, the recordings are newly transferred from tape at Abbey Road, and re-mastered by Rashad Becker. And here we have this incredible duo from underrated cellist Tristan Honsinger and Derek Bailey, originally released on Incus in 1976. There are parralels between this record and fellow sometime Parisian string pkayer Joelle Leandre's Taxi, but really, Honsinger's voice is like no other - there's less rev…

'Homotopy To Marie' is the fifth album by Nurse With Wound, originally released on United Dairies in 1982. The album is a step on from the Dadaist rock of 'Merzbild Schwet', with much use of tape manipulation and classical avant-garde techniques, using keywords including unsettling, volatile, eerie and nocturnal to describe the feel of the album which combined tape edits with resonating gong tones and disembodied children's voices to create a sonic collage far removed from the harsh improvisatio…

Green Ways documents a collection of live recordings, drawn from in situ performances given in Doon, Dungarvan, Plaistow, Shoreditch, Singö and Stratford across 2018 by Graham Lambkin and Áine O'Dwyer. It celebrates the filíocht of rural and urban acoustic environments with a playful economy of means, and offers a special salute to the rich heritage of Carnahalla.Áine O’Dwyer and Graham Lambkin are multi-disciplinary artists whose work explores the nexus between music, text, illustration, theate…

Saltern presents Al Di Là, the first full-length collection of recordings by renowned dancer/choreographer, artist, and writer Simone Forti. Forti (born 1935, Florence, Italy) has influenced generations of artists through her innovative approaches to dance and movement. Forti is noted for her extensive work with musicians, including Charlemagne Palestine, La Monte Young, Jon Gibson, Peter Van Riper, and Z'EV, among others. With Al Di Là, we hear Forti musically in her own right through a diverse…

Separated from both its reputation and its sleeve art, the music of Muslimgauze explores the relationship of visual sensations -- space, color, depth, illusion -- to the listening experience. The music on Maroon is dub-like inspired techno music, laidback with voices appearing randomly in the mix. The thick drums and rich found sounds that densely populate the soundscapes on Maroon give materiality to the warm presence of the synth washes. The music is so layered and textured that it ceases to b…

Subliminal Sounds present the first ever vinyl release Kano's Runes, originally released in 1986. A unique, dark and sparse, tribal, minimal synth, drone, trance, new age recording from the mysterious Kano. Previously only issued as an obscure cassette back in 1986 which is now much sought after. Runes is much darker and brooding compared to its new age peers of the era. Drums, metallophone, synths, and more leads you on a deep inwards trip via damp, cold and foggy caves to the ancients. Runes a…

**Reissue of killer album from 1980 - the album's first reissue on vinyl** Originally released in January 1980, the second album from (Crammed founder) Marc Hollander’s band was more intense and experimental than Aksak Maboul’s debut album, yet often as playful. Containing complex written sections, free improv, and a wild variety of elements, Bandits was recorded with a band comprising revered UK musicians Fred Frith & Chris Cutler, and is described by All Music Guide as “a pinnacle of the…

Primary Informatio is happy to announce the reissue of the LP by The Guerrilla Art Action Group titled Action-Interview at WBAI Radio Station-N.Y, orginally released by the legendary Radiotaxi imprint, and now impossible to obtain. The recording documents a live action/interview by the group on January 5, 1970 on the progressive radio station WBAI. The LP consists of a series of spoken statements describing the problematic relationship between art and business, art and the military, art and clas…

Of all the artists to fall under the sweeping banner of Kosmische / Krautrock - a movement which has benefited from continuous attention from the reissue market since the 1980’s, Georg Deuter remains among the most unacknowledged and under-appreciated. The reasons remain slightly behind reach - the likely consequence of his association with the New Age movement across the 1970’s and 80’s, the lingering effects of stigmas which were later applied that movement’s efforts, and the reissue ma…