Best of 2019
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…
To Magnetize Money and Catch a Roving Eye
**A 4+ hours labyrinthine work, previously unreleased** Jim O’Rourke is among the great voices of his generation - a true musical polymath, whose diverse efforts, since his emergence within the Chicago scene during the late 1980s, have continuously altered the creative landscape. Without him - from his relentless support of the careers of neglected artists, to contributions made within the vast and radical diversity of his output - now tracing across hundreds of releases - so much of what is, co…
Aktuala
Red Vinyl. Milestone! Faithful reproduction of the original release! 1973 Aktuala debut, a stunning overall work where you can hear a lot of different musical influences : avant-garde folk, mediterranean blues ,jazz improvisation, minimalism, african percussions, indian ragas all played with a true psychedelic feeling. The album was recorded in a few days in a totally acoustic dimension and the line-up seems to be a quintet of contemporary music more than a progrock group (although this music is…
After Its Own Death / Walking in a Spiral
**CD Edition** Grouper’s Liz Harris quietly released this album of primordial soundscapes a few weeks ago under the new Nivhek alias, initially released in a private edition that vanished almost as quickly as it was announced, After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house is presented here in a beautiful second edition on Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH.** Opaque assemblages of Mellotron, guitar, field recordings, tapes and broken FX pedals by Pacific Northwest artist Liz Harris,…
Pale Bloom
CD Edition. Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination.Recorded at Berkeley, California's famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first – a three-part suite where Davachi'…
Black Case Volume I and II: Return From Exile
Last copies...Joseph Jarman (1937 - 2019) was a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist best known as a founding member of trailblazing avant-garde jazz group Art Ensemble of Chicago. Jarman was responsible for the Art Ensemble’s signature face paint and elaborate costumes as well as the pioneering theatrical and multimedia elements of their shamanistic performances, which could include dance, comedy, performance art, surreal pranks, and—notably—the recitation of Jarman’s poetry. In 1977, Art Ense…
Water Music
Nice Price! Recorded in 1985, Water Music is the first "Japanese" solo album by Mott The Hoople keyboard player Morgan Fisher, released on Satoro Takazawa aka Pneuma's label LLE. Six mesmerizing ambient tracks are played out as a multi-sensorial improvisation on a Yamaha DX7 digital synthesizer plus grand piano, tape delays, bowed guitar and shell chimes. The result is an highly contemplative album that flows as a powerful yet ethereal journey through the element of water. Completely remastered …
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 Fluid Hammer
Pancrace is a quintet from France comprising Prune Bécheau, Arden Day, Julien Desailly, Léo Maurel, and Jan Vysocky. Pancrace began with a residence in 2015 at the Saint Pancrace church in Dangolsheim where the instrument inventor Léo Maurel resides. Pancrace's debut self-titled double-LP was released by Penultimate Press in 2017 and ended up on The Wire's best releases of that year. After the first record and subsequent tour the band were despondent that the main character of their story, the c…
Suffering For The Promised
Edition of 316 copies on black vinyl, incl. full-colour inner sleeve w/ text by the artist. Being in the making – or un-making – for the past 14 years, Stefan Roigk's Suffering For The Promised has gone through many stages, from being finished, revoked, left untouched, reworked, discussed to finally getting banned onto vinyl in its ultimate and irrevocable form. An atmospherically intense but yet utterly fragile piece, combining concrete sounds, field recordings and devotional vocal fragments to…
Anthology of Contemporary Music from Africa Continent
**2020 small repress with slightly different artwork** A poetically plotted Anthology of Contemporary Music from Africa Continent, a lovely collection of electro-acoustic, computer music, field recordings and soundscapes variations from African artists such as Ahmed Saleh, Healer Oran, Mehdi Halib, Abdellah M. Hassak, In_o, Eryck Abecassis, Victor Gama, and more, meticulously curated by Raffaele Pezzella. Fantastically raw and visceral material, this compilation literally opens up an entirely ne…
Brown Rice
Out of print in the U.S. for more than four decades, Don Cherry‘s meditative, inventive outsider jazz classic, Brown Rice, is available on vinyl once again as of today via Verve/Universal Music. The album is pressed on standard weight black vinyl and housed in a replica sleeve with original liner notes from acclaimed jazz critic Stanley Crouchuite reach this level of wild invention again. Brown Rice contains the apogee of Cherry’s influences: African, Indian, Arabic and American music are all th…
The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen
In process of stocking. After two singles for Fast Product, Leeds art-punk collective The Mekons signed with Virgin Records in 1979. The band would have to borrow gear from their mates Gang Of Four to record their major label debut. In classic Mekons style, the album’s back cover featured a photo of Gang Of Four instead of themselves. As Simon Reynolds writes, “The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen got a mixed reception at the time. Listening to it now, though, the first LP sounds more of a piece w…
Contrée
Unreleased before collection from French electroacoustician Régis Renouard Larivière. Contrée is an LP of quizzical, sometimes eerie voyages into unknown noise. "Allégeance Volatile" and "Esquive" each tackle the same issue in their own way. Overcoming time: whether it be successive, additional, enumerative, or repetitive. However, there is nothing here about the ensuing nature of so-called "repetitive" music. These are types of high-end music. And it is more about insistence, the obstinacy of a…
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…
Assyrian Caesarean
**300 copies ** Chicago-based percussionist Michael Zerang presents his first solo recording after a long career as an exploratory musician and composer. Recorded and mixed by Matt Bordin in the woods at (the new) Outside Inside Studio, the album features a range of approaches to percussion that Zerang has developed over the years, including the use of vibrating drumhead surfaces, expressive friction passages, multiple timbre percussion, and straight up trap-set drumming - all infused with a ric…
Le Petit Duc
Le Petit Duc [The Little Scops Owl] is a sound work by Danish artist Knud Viktor, made between 1978 and 1983. Viktor was classically trained as a painter at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950’s. Le Petit Duc is primarily composed of recordings Viktor made of an owls nest in the spring and summer of 1978. Narrated by Viktor himself and put together from recordings throughout a whole nesting season, Le Petit Duc tells the story of an owl family. The piece speaks to children and adul…
I Was Real
**Double-LP version presented in a heavy tip-on gatefold jacket with textured clothe wrap and matte foil stamping** 75 Dollar Bill is one of the essential groups at the heart of NYC's underground. Driven by the telepathic union of Che Chen's microtonal electric guitar and Rick Brown's odd metered percussion their long-form sound is unmistakable and compelling. On their third album, I Was Real, the group expands in bold new directions, embracing brilliant fuller orchestrations, joyous rockers and…
Prayer
I think it's important and proper to play Steve Lacy's music today and that we have to take the risk. Keeping his example alive means to me every time to question the results achieved. My relationship with his music is not occasional. Steve is present in three tracks of my first album "trochus". Later I played his music alone and in various groups. I would like to remember at least the Fish Horn Quartet, with Fabio Martini, Jean Jaques Avenel and John Betsch, the sextet 5or6 Bones with Sebi Tram…
Ending(s)
While certain recognizable fingerprints are found throughout the body of Daniel Lentz's (b. 1942) work, he has never been content to settle within one particular style or mode of music for long, moving ever forward in an evolutional continuum, an overriding arc that defines his growth as a composer -- beginning with traditional music, diverting into electronic music, moving into performance art pieces for his various touring groups, then sallying into minimalism, followed by work distinguished f…