Best of 2018
Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 10
**Edition of 400 copies, sold-out at source** Before the spectral, romantic electric guitar miniatures for which he is celebrated today, Loren Connors recorded a string of nine solo acoustic guitar improvisations under the name of Loren Mazzacane between 1979 and 1980. The records feature Loren's contorted impressions of Delta and country blues, persistently kneaded into sidelong guitar excursions entangled with wordless, mournful vocal utterances, hummed and moaned in imitation of the dogs that…
Mannyoka
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 in 1977 …
For A Reason
Avant trio This Heat dissolved at a turbulent time in the UK. Margaret “The Iron Lady” Thatcher was in power, and her budget-cutting, ultra-conservative influence was felt strongly in–among many other places–the cultural melting pot of Brixton, South London, where This Heat had their origins. Dusting himself off after the collapse of the band in 1982, guitarist/vocalist Charles Bullen united with Julius Samuel to form Lifetones and embraced the sounds of the local West Indian community to…
Disappearing in a Mirror
LP version. Silk-screened sleeve. Italian sound artist Giulio Aldinucci drops his second album on KarlRecords, Disappearing In A Mirror, is again a truly masterfully composed and sound-designed ambient masterpiece and a more than worthy follow-up to the critically acclaimed Borders And Ruins, (KR 040LP, 2017), which made it onto several year's best lists for 2017. Over the course of four solo albums on labels like Dronarivm plus EPs and collaborative albums (with Ian Hawgood (HOMEN 094CD, 2018))…
Kollektiv
Here are one of the true hidden gems to come out of the 70's German underground scene. Kollektiv produced an incomparable, unmistakeable sound with echoes of Organisation, Neu and early Kraftwerk: spacey but melodic, elevated yet rocking, innovative: progressive in the best sense, consequent in the realisation of intent, forging new musical territory without denying its roots. Electronically alienated by echo, ring modulators, octavoice, vibrators and sound filters, their music truly sounds like…
The Golden Path
**Edition of 300. Czn presents complex interwoven forms plenty of small grooves throughout here and there, scattered throughout polyrhythmic passages. Built in density, this a trance-enducing and hypnotic masterwork.** Czn stands for Copper, Zinc and Nickel the raw path of Materials used by percussionist and sculptor Joao Pais Filipe turned into gold for this compelling drum and percussion album recorded in duet with composer and drummer Valentina Magaletti. Czn is also the alchemical sound of J…
Aeolyca
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 …
Music Is My Life
A stunning set of 11 rare and unreleased-before cues of library gold; jazz, abstracted oddness, killer percussion tunes from the legendary Cometa library music vaults, made by names such as Sandro Brugnolini, Armando Trovaioli, Ennio Morricone, Luigi Zito, Alessandro Alessandroni, Massimo Guantini, Teimar, Berto Pisano, Giovanni Tommaso, Tito Schipa. These cues were all recorded in the late 1960s and in mid 1970s, and all have been used in the sound commentaries of newsreels, films, TV and docum…
Vol. 1 - Room 1-6
Ambienti Coassiali is among the more obscure acts within the 1980’s scene in Italy, having only issued a lone cassette in 1988 - Vol. 1 - Room 1-6, which was released in a tiny, almost unheard edition. We've been told that Ambienti Coassiali was conceived as an ambient side project of Capricorni Pneumatici, but little information exists about either band, beyond the pseudonyms Pazuzu and Soda Caustica - drawn from Aleister Crowley's Liber A'ASH Vel Capricorni Pneumatici Sub Figura CCCLXX. What …
The Mysticism of Sound & Cosmic Language
Double CD edition. A previously unreleased series of astounding recordings, made between 1972 and 1973, by the collective Hy Maya, pull the rug from beneath the standing narratives of history. Never before released in any form, The Mysticism Of Sound & Cosmic Language is a revelation in sound. Incredibly diverse - an absolutely intoxicating, immersive journey through collective creativity which shatters the standing narratives, and foreshadows nearly every important movement of counter-…
Repeat / Metal
Recorded from 1979 – 1980 Repeat / Metal is essentially This Heat’s third proper album, although it was released posthumously in 1993. Arguably their most radical work, Repeat / Metal features side-length tape experiments ranging from the dubby drum loops of “Repeat”, a 20 minute edit / reworking of their landmark piece “24 Track Loop”, to the gamelan-inspired sounds of “Metal”, an electro-acoustic work recorded outside of their studio, Cold Storage, and helmed by member Gareth Williams.Formed i…
Live 80/81
In many ways, the nuanced sound worlds created in the studio by This Heat
are tailor made for sedentary headphone listening. But pulling off such
complicated, genre defying compositions live was surely something to
witness. Until now, there was no real official document of the group’s
live performances. Compiled by Charles Hayward and Charles Bullen from
rough cassette tape recordings of European gigs in Tilburg, Nijmegen,
Ärhus, Apeldoorn, Vienna and Rheims between April 1980 and June 198…
Made Available
Formed in 1976 in Brixton, a multicultural, and – at the time – down-at-heel part of south London, This Heatwere born into a music scene in rapid flux, first thanks to the punk explosion and then via new wave and its myriad offshoots into pop, rock and art-rock. But while many sought to apply punk attitude to chart-friendly sounds, This Heat were concocting some of the most experimental ideas ever committed to tape, taking influence from musique concrète, krautrock, the burgeoning industrial sce…
Reidarin Sähköiset Kuvat
Black vinyl, 500 copies. With liner notes by renowned musicologist and sound researcher Petri Kuljuntausta. Love Records (of Sperm fame) owner Otto Donner saw the commissioned work by electro-acoustic musicians Åke Andersson and Antero Honkanen, who in their daily life were sound technicians at the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, and immediately wanted to produce an album of the project. The 1977 album, which has ended up a very costly collector’s item, hasn’t been reissued in any format until…
Music for Films
Brian Eno's pioneering Ambient album from 1978 has been Half Speed Mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, London and is now presented in a gatefold sleeve on 2 heavy weight albums which are played at 45rpm for a superior listening experience. Now housed in a gatefold sleeve with an Obi and Abbey Road Certificate. Contains a Download Voucher Released 16th November 2018. Available for pre-order now. Deluxe, limited edition 2 LP heavyweight vinyl, remastered at half-speed for 45 RPM, in g…
Ambient 4: On Land
Brian Eno's masterwork album from 1982. has been Half Speed Mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, London and is now presented in a gatefold sleeve on 2 heavy weight albums which are played at 45rpm for a superior listening experience. Now housed in a gatefold sleeve with an Obi and Abbey Road Certificate. Contains a Download Voucher Released 16th November 2018. Available for pre-order now. On ‘Ambient 4 (On Land)’ – the final edition in Eno's ambient series – his palate shifted from e…
The Sound of Soul
When Alan Parker recorded the killer library soul-funk LP The Voice of Soul with session vocalist Madeline Bell in 1976, some bright spark at Themes decided to also release all of the backing tracks as a separate, and equally innocuously title LP called The Sound of Soul. Thank goodness for bright sparks. Released as a collection of “unobtrusive musical backings in various rhythmic styles”, the LP’s original description dryly explains “these tracks have been issued without melody and are therefo…
Sounds of the Projection Box
A sonic documentation of the history of the film projector (movie house version), from spool to digital. For this work, Michael Lightborne relies heavily upon the natural rhythms that the machine creates. Layer upon layer of sound comes into the fray with such majesty and grace. Even within these noises Michael Lightborne occasionally lets something more come in, the way that little melodies flicker about in mere moments. By letting these pieces gain a level of prominence within the album the wh…
Kaitai Teki Kokan, 1970
CD Edition. Replica reissue of one of the rarest free jazz LP ever made: Masayuki Takayanagi & Kaoru Abe's earthshattering Kaitai Teki Kōkan. Supposedly released in a limited run of 100 copies in 1970, this incredibly rare record igot finally its first vinyl reissue via Craftman Records. The album features a recording of the duo’s live performance at the Kōsei Nenkin Kaikan concert hall in Shinjuku on June 28th, 1970. The reissue also includes a replica flyer that advertised the original event.…
Urban And Tribal Portraits
At the beginning of the 1980’s the composer Roberto Musci returned to Italy after a decade wondering the globe - drifting between African, Indian, and the Near & Far East, studying music, making field recordings, and collecting instruments. In 1984 this journey was culminated by the release of his first album, The Loa Of Music, a sonic distillation and near perfect encapsulation of the democratic hybridity at the heart of the Italian avant-garde. It remains one of the most important and thrillin…