Best of 2018
Amsterdam to Nueiba
A cosmic, phased-out percussion adventure by Shimshon Miel, a lone-wolf hippie from Tel-Aviv who experimented with hallucinogenic psych-folk, and self-released his only album in 1977. Fortuna Records reissues two of the album's killer cuts for the very first time, alongside a late-night club edit by Kalbata. Expect extra trippy percussion soundscapes layered on top of a thumping bass guitar in wild 70's style stereo action. Kalbata's remix is a straight up voodoo ritual, adding much needed 808 s…
Spirit of 76: London Punk Eyewitness
When punk first broke in the UK in 1976, music journalist John Ingham was on hand to document the very heart of the scene. Struck by the music, fashion and sheer iconoclasm of a little-known outfit called the Sex Pistols, Ingham conducted the first interview with the band, partied with its members and even bailed Sid Vicious out of jail; he also witnessed and documented the group’s evolution at legendary gigs shared with other pioneering punk bands in their earliest days, including the Damned, t…
Imaginary Concerts
Artist Peter Coffin began his work with the iconic designs of LA’s Colby Poster Printing Company in 2008. Over the years, he solicited friends to contribute their dream concerts—invented lineups for impossible gigs—and combined them with the print shop’s famously eye-popping poster backgrounds, resulting in Imaginary Concerts: a stirring, two-volume celebration of music’s vast conceptual universe. Featuring 160 concert lineups from a roster of artists, authors and daydreamers including Yoko Ono,…
Maroon
**Edition of 500 numbered copies. Housed in hand-printed, laser-cut and sewed 1mm thick cardboard covers. All produced and assembled by hand in a pure DIY spirit.Shipping this week** 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 an…
Spiritual Jazz 8: Japan Part One
Double CD Edition. Jazzman Record's latest examination of esoteric, modal, and progressive
jazz of the 20th century has taken them to Japan. The liberating force
of jazz has been created and felt all around the world, but few nations
on earth embraced the jazz message with the passion and intensity of
Japan. From the dawn of the jazz age to the present day, Japanese
audiences have been renowned tastemakers, enthusiasts, and champions of
the music -- in the 1980s, Japan was the biggest per …
Surreal Air Fortress
For a while it was possible to describe the duo Coppice’s often indescribable music simply by identifying their many instruments, particularly the harmonium and accordion wielded by Joseph Kramer and Noé Cuéllar. But the notion of renewal is built right into their name: the word “coppice” refers to the practice of pruning a tree to promote new growth. The label press release says everything "Outside: light-filters-to-be-entered are Surreal Air Fortress. New songs from Coppice for physical model…
Whichever Way You Are Going You Are Going Wrong
Reissue label Emotional Rescue have dusted off a real classic here: Clive and Mark Ives’ 1982 debut, the only release on the brothers’ Sunshine Series imprint. As Woo, they blended rock, jazz, synths and ambience into thirteen spine-tingling trips: everything from deep Theremins and wailing strings on ‘C.H. Revisited’ to braying flamenco guitars on ‘Wapping’."Absolute unsung genius from the Ives brothers, who comprise Woo. On this debut LP of theirs, attenuated assemblages of finespun acoustic g…
Aa Sschmmettrroossppecctivve
1000 pictures and documents from the work and life of Charlemagne Palestine explode from the pages of the book, superimposed in ‘strumming’ layers, weaving the historical & present, works & performance, private & public into a tightly knit sschmmettrroobookk. Texts by Michel Baudson and Xavier Garcia Bardón.In 1974, the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, a great admirer of American avant-garde art, and Karel Geirlandt, the new director of the Centre for Fine Arts, invited Charlemagne Palestine to perform…
Two2 (2CD)
Landmark recording of John Cage's late work for two pianos, played by Mark Knoop and Philip Thomas. Uniquely for Cage's number pieces, Two2 doesn't use time brackets, so duration is open and left to the musicians' 'inner clock'. Previous recordings have lasted between 35 and 74 minutes, but this new version stretches across two CDs and lasts 128 minutes, revealing new depths and sonorities in the music. "A major achievement.”Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani, 9 March 1986
CD version. Unreleased archival recordings as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Around ten years ago, deep into a cozy and hazy night following a concert with my sound brothers Daniel O'Sullivan and Kristoffer Rygg in London (as Æthenor), they graciously introduced me to a recording of rudra veena (a kind of noble deeper bass relative to the sitar, in a way) as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Dhrupad, for those who do not know, is a branch of Hindustani classical …
Face Time
Face Time is the second release from the trio of Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger, and James Rushford, following on from their 2016 debut Pale Calling (BT 020LP). Recorded at the GRM studios in Paris in June 2017, the record immediately returns to the idiosyncratic sound-world of the trio's first release, a simmering stew of electronic smears, pitched-down animal moans, and mysteriously emotive microtonal organ chords. But before long the record takes an unexpected turn, as sounds that initially ent…
Milan Rai Studio di Fonologia Musicale 1955-83 (Art Edition)
** Special edition 120 page large format Book/LP/CD/Insert – deluxe Hardcover with silver foil impression, custom inner sleeve, insert. Edition of 100 hand-numbered copies ** presents the proceedings of the homage organized at Milan’s Museo del Novecento from June 21, 2016 to January 14, 2017. This exposition (consisting of an exhibition, seminars, concerts, and listening and film sessions) was dedicated to the sound engineer Marino Zuccheri, the main collaborator of Milan’s famous electronic mu…
The executioner
First in a series of two releases unveiling the previously unissued soundtracks made for the films of Ursula Reuter Christiansen by her partner and collaborator Henning Christiansen. The Executioner ("Skarpretteren") is Ursula's first film from 1971 and is now considered one of the most important works of early Danish feminist art. A highly praised recent show at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen highlighted the pertinent themes and ongoing urgency which lies within this bold symbolic w…
Den Rode Skov
Second in a series of two previously unreleased soundtracks Henning Christiansen made for the films made by his partner and collaborator Ursula Reuter Christiansen. Den Røde Skov ("The Red Forest") was Ursula's second film made in 1986. In stark contrast to the exquisite romantic melancolia of their first collaboration, The Executioner (PP 034LP), Den Røde Skov resides as one of the wildest recordings in the entire Christiansen catalog. Aligned more with works like the legendary collaboration wi…
Canaxis 5
Exact LP repro edition. A few months after the foundation of Can, Holger Czukay recorded his first solo album ‘Canaxis’, in conjunction with producer/engineer Rolf Dammers, this album was assembled from thousands of snippets recorded from short wave radio, a long standing obsession of Czukay's which he also incorporated into some of Can's later albums. A refugee during the Second World War, Holger Czukay famously studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in the early ‘60s. That direct exposure to the c…
Dahl-Tah-Ghi
Okkyung Lee is a cellist, composer, and improviser who moves freely between of artistic disciples and contingencies. Since moving to New York in 2000 she has worked in disparate contexts as a solo artist and collaborator with creators in a wide range of disciplines. A native of South Korea, Lee has taken a broad array of inspirations—including noise, improvisation, jazz, western classical, and the traditional and popular music of her homeland—and used them to forge a highly distinctive app…
Pur En Finir Avec Le Jugement De Dieu
Fantôme Phonographique present a reissue of Pur En Finir Avec Le Jugement De Dieu by Antonin Artaud. Antonin Artaud was a French poet, dramatist, and director and one of the most important figures in 20th century European theater, and especially the avant-garde. His piece "Pour En Finir Avec Le Jugement De Dieu" was recorded in 1947 to be aired on French radio. But the project was shelved not only for its scatological, anti-American, anti-religious content, but also for its avant-garde sound, wi…
Tout Ce Que Je Sais
CD edition. The duo Anne-James Chaton and Andy Moor has produced original works where poetry and guitar combine in explorations of thematic axes. With the project ‘Heretics’, of which Tout Ce Que Je Sais (All I know) is the second part, they revive the most obscure, violent, erotic passions, summoning the great figures of their personal mythologies. In the company of Caravaggio, Marquis de Sade, William Burroughs and figures such as Jose Mujica, the duo immerses the listener in another wor…
Grand Bruit/Stop ! l'horizon
Christian Zanési on Grand Bruit (1991): "The great mobile sound bodies have an ordinary yet amazing ability to place the listener-traveler within, as if he or she was inside a giant double bass, in this case a train stroked by a double bow: the rails and the air. In 1991, I explored this phenomenon during my daily commute from the studio to my home. I used only a 21 minutes recording and treated it as a single sound object. I then processed and enhanced it as a photographer would have don…