Best of 2019
Ethnoelectronics
**Edition of 300** Ethnoelectronics, issued on cassette by Sound Reporters in 1986, exists beyond the realm of easy definition. Very little information about the album exists, other than the fact that it involved the contributions of a remarkable group of sonic explorers - Walter Maioli, Nirodh Fortini, Fred Gales, Raffaele Serra, John Zandijk and the sculptor Edward Luyken, and was conceptualised as the soundtrack for an obscure science-fiction saga. Or was it?The title makes clear allusion to …
Pathways To Unknown Worlds
Intrinsic energies of mythic worlds! Pathways was originally issued on LP in 1975 as part of Sun Ra’s ill-fated and short-lived ABC/Impulse! partnership. This Modern Harmonic edition has been exquisitely mastered from the four-track session reel. The Impulse! LP was formatted as “Quad Compatible”—short for “quadraphonic”—which you could enjoy if you had four speakers, a custom quad cartridge/stylus, and a quad decoder integrated into your ’70s hi-fi. (None of this technology ever achieved wide c…
Little Red Record
**Edition of 500 copies, pressed on color vinyl LP with a bonus track** From the 70's Canterbury scene, one of the greatest pieces of work in the genre. Matching Mole was the first band formed by Robert Wyatt after the seminal Soft Machine experience. An incredibly tight unit featuring Phil Miller (Hatfield and the North) on guitar, Dave McRae (Nucleus) on keyboards, Bill McCormick (Quiet Sun, 801) on bass and Wyatt himself on drums and vocals. Released in 1971 Little Red Record was Mole's secon…
Computer Space
Premiere release! Two sound compositions discovered at Toshi Ichiyanagi’s home in 2018 to be released for the first time! One is an unknown early work created on a computer and the other is material for an experimental short film by Toshio Matsumoto. Particularly, the former piece was revolutionary. the quirky sound he made on the computer at the time was unheard of especially because a computer could only create simple sounds then. Moreover, it also includes an unknown electronic ambient piece …
The Nuclear Observatory Of Mr. Nanof
A rare Italian library/soundtrack gem reissued on vinyl for the first time since 1986 from the mind of Italian architect / music installation and soundtrack master Piero Milesi. This lush adventure of meditative synth and melodic scores for lyricon and small chamber ensemble contains tracks from films The Nuclear Observatory of Mr. Nanof (L’Osservatorio Nucleare Del Sig. Nanof, 1985), The Oversize House (La Casa Fuori Misura, 1985), theatre play King’s Night (La notte dei Re, 1986), and video Th…
Gesti Sul Piano
Edition of 250 copies, historical recordings from 1975 and 1980. Giuseppe Chiari was one of the leading names associated first with Fluxus (being the only Italian member of the interdisciplinary art group since 1962) and later with Conceptual and Performance Art as well as Sound art. Coming from a background of different disciplines, he established new theoretical and practical standpoints in relation to music and art: his approach was always irreverent, walking the tightrope between to do or no…
Ambiances / Images
This reissue documents Knud Viktor’s only two releases on record – Images and Ambiances – both released in 1972 on the french label L’Oiseau Musicien. These records have long been out of print and are hereby made available again, gathering the two separate albums on this double-release. Mstered and produced by Jonas OlesenThe utmost care has gone into creating a reproduction that is as faithful as possible to the original works. These have been transferred from the original analog master tapes a…
Electronic Music
Bent Lorentzen is widely considered one of the key figures and pioneers of early Danish electronic music and he was one of a few classically trained composers seeking out the possibilities of the new technology in the 1960’s. Lorentzen composed a fairly large number of electronic works, – mainly in the 60's and 70'es. Furthermore, he developed a significant educational practice in and around electronic music, conducted workshops, taught at courses, and published articles in both national and int…
Viola Torros
4 compositions from violist/composers Catherine Lamb & Johnny Chang, the 1st focusing on the mysterious compositions of Vedic-era composer Viola Torros, exploring monady, melody and harmony; the second, one composition each from Chang performed with the Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble, and from Lamb using the secondary rainbow synthesizer she developed with Bryan Eubanks..The summer I arrived in Berlin, I began meeting with Johnny around music-related things and he started mentioning a composer he w…
The Acoustic Appraiser
Edition of 300. Based in Copenhagen, Sandra Boss is a member of the young generation of European avant-garde / experimental composers who are pushing the form forward into new and exciting realms, splicing rigorous musical ideas with those of sound art. Often based at the juncture between performance and installation - musical objects becoming sculptures of sound, her work incorporates a series of diverse sound sources - antique tone generators, hearing test machines, bird flutes, children choir…
Bern · Melbourne · Milan
Killer! 300 copies packaged in a double gatefold ruby recycled cardboard sleeve with silver embossed text on front, including a 32-page booklet. Archival and live recordings from Australia’s premiere prepared acoustic improvising trio. Formed in 2002, Melbourne’s Pateras/Baxter/Brown toured heavily between 2004 and 2008, playing a regular residency at the Empress in North Fitzroy in between extensive European tours. They performed multiple concerts in classical, electronic, jazz, grindcore and a…
Spontaneous
**500 copies. Holy Grail territory here...** Maybe the best Alessandroni’s album ever. A true holy-grail for any collector and worldwide music lover, which we can consider nowadays as the most sought-after record of the whole legendary RCA SP 10000 series, and as the rarest album from the king of Italian libraries. Jazz, mellow-funk, downtempo breaks, and incredible rock blends, make this record a refined portrait of the 70’s American way of life, viewed through the fully Italian lens of Alessan…
Broken Music: Artists' Recordworks
**Facsimile edition of the definitive (and legendary) guide to records by artists. Comes with flexi 7"** Broken Music’ is a holy grail avant-garde music publication, a compendium of recordings, record-objects, artwork for records, and record installations created by thousands of visual artists between WWII and 1989. Unavailable since the original, sought-after 1989 edition, it features essays by its compilers Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier, as well as Theodor W. Adorno, Milan Knížák and Lasz…
Die Mauer
**500 copies** Die Mauer is a collection of previously unreleased music composed, performed and recorded by Michael Ranta in 1988/1989 for a ballet choreographed by Philippe Talard. CD is housed in a 6-panel fold out sleeve.
Crone music
2019 repress on CD; 1990 release. Commissioned by Mabou Mines, the experimental theater group from New York, for their interpretation of King Lear, Pauline Oliveros's Crone Music is a subtle and haunting electronic music endeavor. Interfacing an abundance of digital delay processors, reverb effects, and foot pedals to bend pitches from piercing to twisted, sonorous tones, with her one-of-a-kind expanded accordion, Oliveros produces rich, eerie textures. Personnel: Pauline Oliveros -solo accordio…
Homotopy To Marie
Double-CD version includes 30-page metallic hardcover book (15 x 20 x 2cm) containing color and black-and-white art by Babs Santini (Steven Stapleton). Rotorelief present a reissue of Homotopy To Marie. the fifth album by Nurse With Wound, originally released in 1982. Music and sleeve created by Steven Stapleton. The album is "a step on from the Dadaist rock of Merzbild Schwet, with much use of tape manipulation and classical avant-garde techniques". The album, which combines tape edits with res…
Lokale Musik
Despite having an undeniable canon, the minimalist music movement which developed during the 1960s and continues to flourish and evolve today, is defined by a remarkable breadth in ideas and compositional approach. Particularly in Europe, it rapidly took on a diverse number of influences and became very much its own thing. Of the composers who proposed an alternate reality for this territory of sound, there have been few more accomplished than the German composer, Walter Zimmermann.All too often…
Trios
For the 1983 edition of Company Week held at London's I.C.A. in May of that year, guitarist Derek Bailey once more invited a typically eclectic collection of guests. Cellist Ernst Reijseger is a mainstay of Dutch new jazz (ICP Orchestra, Clusone Trio...), American wind virtuoso J.D.Parran a veteran of the Black Artists' Group and Anthony Davis and Anthony Braxton ensembles, while saxophonists Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann, as titans of European free improvisation, need no introduction. French …
Je Suis Un Sauvage / Le Moral Necessaire
A single produced by the highly-revered Saravah label at the time, featuring the Art Ensemble of Chicago backing the poetry of the little-remembered Alfred Panou, is not as well-known as the label's other releases. Seen in the 1967 film Weekend by Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Panou who is of mixed Benin-Togolese origin, already had a career as an actor in political theater when, pushed by producer Pierre Barouh, he recorded two of his texts concerning Black Power. Panou's prose is one of the first, i…