Best of 2018
Music and Poetry of the Kesh
Small repress available, in process of stocking. Includes a facsimile of the original lyric sheet, liner notes, a letterpresses bookmark and an instant download.Buchla synth supremo Todd Barton’s hyperstitious soundtrack to Always Coming Home, an ‘80s American sci-fi novel by author Ursula K. Le Guin, is yet another ingenious recording dug out for reappraisal by Pete Swanson and Jed Middleman’s Freedom to Spend label - a division of RVNG Intl. Expect alien folk songs in made-up language, set to …
Temps en Terre
2018 Release. Meticulously structured studio recordings from Thomas Bonvalet exploring various forms of object amplification and emancipated banjo. Thomas Bonvalet has evolved his solitary project, L'Ocelle Mare since 2005, searching relentlessly through sound, in between great constraints and beautiful escapes. Guitarist in the duo Cheval de Frise, until 2004, he began his solo project by dissecting this instrument, then moved away from it, widening his horizons, gradually developing an instrum…
Moebius 256 301
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…
Zero Gravity
**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…
Magnetic Web
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…
The Sixth Ear
**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 Complete Narco Recordings
All the recent Wah Wah LPs by Nicolas “Nik Pascal” Raicevic and originally on his Narco Records and Tapes label - rumored to be one of the first truly independent labels, with Raicevic simply walking into an L.A. pressing plant & placing orders for stock - between 1969 and 1975. The music is nothing short of genius; a fine beaded mist of exceedingly lo-fi - tape drop-outs are prevalent, entire frequency ranges completely excised from certain tracks ... not to mention the piss-poor quality of the…
Numbers
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…
Whirled Music
Black Truffle present a reissue of a landmark UK release, Max Eastley, Steve Beresford, Paul Burwell, and David Toop's Whirled Music, originally released on Quartz in 1980. Remastered and cut at 45RPM by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering Berlin. Includes a 24-page booklet with archival materials and notes from David Toop, alongside contemporary reviews, flyers, notes on the instruments and performance documentation; Gatefold sleeve."[Whirled Music is] one of the key documents of the inventi…
The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Associated Ensembles
The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Associated Ensembles is a 21-CD limited and numbered edition issued as the standard-bearers of Great Black Music prepare to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Both the Art Ensemble of Chicago and ECM Records were founded in 1969, and there have been many shared experiences. As Roscoe Mitchell says, “It has been amazing to have taken this journey together.”With their first ECM album, the widely-acclaimed Nice Guys, the Art Ensemble’s revolutionary and polystylistic …
Capra Black
Capra Black remains one of the seminal recordings of jazz's black consciousness movement. A profoundly spiritual effort that channels both the intellectual complexity of the avant-garde as well as the emotional potency of gospel, its focus and assurance belie Billy Harper's inexperience as a leader. Backed by an all-star supporting unit including trombonist Julian Priester and drummer Billy Cobham, Harper's tenor summons the brute force and mystical resolve of John Coltrane but transcends its in…
Clic
There is no figure in Italian music, nor within the country’s shimmering, expansive avant-garde, who demands the respect and awe offered to Franco Battiato. He is the beginning and the end. An artist whose output, stretching across six decades, is so diverse and singular, that it defies any concrete definition - darting from psychedelic Prog, definitive gestures in the history of Minimalism, to the heights of explicit Pop. Like many of his contemporaries, Battiato’s journey toward avant-garde an…
Atlas (books, records, relics, prints, sounds)
This book looks at the work of Austrian avant-garde artist Hermann Nitsch, particularly his ritualistic and existential “public aktionen” under the Orgies Mysterien Theater. Presented through the documentation of these events as they were recorded (scored, directed, written down, photographed, published, and reported), this archiving method explores Nitsch’s performative practice, both in terms of how the performance is organised and by what means the organisation is effected by the original and…
Eros In Arabia
This year has been an incredible period for avant-garde, Minimalist, New Age, ambient, and electronic reissues. One after another, many of the most coveted and rare LPs from these movements have emerged from the shadows. While each of these movements had a tendency to avoid easy categorization, the reissue market has largely veered toward those whose location can be easily understood, offering less attention to those members whose work fell into the spaces between. With their fourth release sinc…
Dream, American Music for Electric Guitar
“Dream” is a musical journey through the sound of the electric guitar in American concert music, based on sonic research and on the simplicity and beauty of the electric guitar timbre and colors.Sorrentino’s transcription of Dream by John Cage opens the program. This version demonstrates the pure beauty of the electric guitar’s clean sound with only the addition of light reverb. This is the first CD release for the lost electric guitar composition by Morton Feldman, The Possibility of a New Work…
Music in Twelve Parts
Incredible lost recordings by Philip Glass from 1975, released at ORTF Sextet at La Maison de la Radio, Paris. The sextet is comprised of a stellar cast of musicians with Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, Dickie Landry, Michael Riesman, Joan La Barbara and Richard Peck. Music in Twelve Parts is a set of twelve pieces written between 1971 and 1974. This performance in France includes part 1, 2, 3, 11 and 12 on a double LP.Also included a very rare Philip Glass interview from 1974 in his NYC loft during t…
Composiciones Nativas
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 …
Don't Look Back
For a label that wasn't around long, Strata East achieved the same sort of label recognition that Impulse! or Blue Note managed to build. In other words, you knew what you were getting when you bought a record on the label, even if you didn't know the names on the outside of the cover. "Don't Look Back" is an album led by American saxophonist Harold Vick recorded in 1974 and released in the wake of Harold Vick's recovery from a heart attack, which may partially explain the passion with which he …
Musique Con Crete
Starting with an artist residency Tasos Stamou visited the Greek island over the course of three summers, collecting field recordings, performing with local musicians, producing electronic compositions and gathering old records and tapes of traditional music of the region. The project resulted in the assembling of a unique sound collage which reflects his personal experience as a music visitor to this part of the Mediterranean. Tasos Stamou is an electroacoustic music composer, performer, altern…
dR
"By the time you read this Jerome Noetinger is no longer the boss/face/director of Metamkine, the French mail-order for all sorts of unusual music, music along the lines of what we write about, in case you might be wondering where to purchase any (http://www.metamkine.com/ and no we don’t get paid for this ad). After many years of making parcels Noetinger and his pals decided it was time for a new face (say hello to Franck Laplaine) and now Noetinger can work more on his music. His work has been…