Best of 2022
The Recordings (13 CD Box)
Restocked, reduced price * 13-CD limited edition box set with 300 page booklet * The Recordings, a box set edition compiling all Meredith Monk ECM New Series discs to date, is issued on the occasion of the composer and singer’s 80th birthday. With Dolmen Music in 1981 Meredith became the first singer to be the front person on an ECM recording. Included here are the albums Dolmen Music, Turtle Dreams, Do You Be, Book of Days, Facing North, ATLAS, Volcano Songs, mercy, impermanence, Songs of Ascen…
Jackson C. Frank
2022 Repress Jackson C. Frank’s eponymous album is the embodiment of folk legend. Issued in late 1965 on the UK Columbia label, it was for many years more famous for its producer (Paul Simon) and the musicians who would go on to cover its songs (Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny) than for the hauntingly beautiful music contained inside. Frank’s backstory certainly adds to the legacy: born in Buffalo, New York, he used the settlement from a childhood accident to sail to London where he quickly…
L'Uomo dagli Occhiali a Specchio
Sandro Brugnolini's soundtrack to “L'Uomo dagli Occhiali a Specchio” is an unbeatable mix of dark psychedelic themes with heavy jazz drums, exotic percussions, obsessive piano bits, creepy harpsichord, free jazz to wah-drenched psychedelia, stiff funk, and abstract avant-gardism with atonal sounds and tonal passages. Originally issued in 1975, it has long remained one of the most coveted and sought after artifacts of the fertile soil surrounding the 1970’s Italian library and soundtracks. For ma…
Background Music N. 4
Tip! First official reissue ever on clear vinyl. In the field of library music Benito Simoncini a.k.a. Arawak was undoubtedly one of the most important composers. “Background Music N. 4” is a multi-faceted release that includes at least two jazz-tinged symphonic pop gems, together with other more abstract and improvised tracks, in most cases played with a single instrument; it goes from the dramatic sounds of “Secolo XX°”, through the liquid atmospheres of “Aquarium”, to the percussive experimen…
America Giovane N. 2
** mini LP replica with obi & Japanese insert ** Killer. **First official reissue ever, certified holy-grail. Edition of 300 copies, black vinyl 180gr. Comes with Obi, and original liner notes by Jonny Trunk** At the end of the '60s in Italy - but also abroad, especially in France and England - a very particular trend began to spread, that one known as 'Library music' or 'sonorization': as suggested by its name, those were real music libraries intended for the accompaniment of audiovisual produc…
Problemi d'Oggi
** Much needed reissue ** Don't let the name mislead you! The enigmatic M. Zalla is one of the numerous aliases of the italian maestro Piero Umiliani who, during his period of fascination for psychedelic and electronic atmospheres, started to compose a good number of musical portraits dedicated, as the title reveals, to the problems of his time. In the early '70s, Italians were worried about the mafia, terrorism, and social conflicts; and one can sense that the music represents these anxieties i…
Musical Instruments from Prehistory: the Paleolithic
Tip! Art of Primitive Sound is a sensational journey to the origin of Music. In his crucial research chapter on the Paleolithic, between 1986 and 1991 Walter Maioli investigated the soundscape of different geographical, climatic and botanical environments, in which the mystery of the ancient human-nature relationship resides. What emerges is an expanded and unprecedented Paleorganology, with a range of acoustic and natural instruments from all over the World. Rubbing of fossils, animal artefacts…
Organum for Stefano
In Terry Riley's words "I was invited to an art gallery in Los Angeles to hear a solo String Bass recital by Stefano. I arrived late and the concert was in progress, I was walking down a series of concrete halls to reach the galley chamber where the music was taking place. In the distance I could hear the sounds of french horns, trombones, strings and brass all mixing in a beautiful modal ensemble, and at the time I thought that Stefano must be playing his bass with a chamber group. I was amazed…
Eclipse
Masayuki Takayanagi was one of the truly iconoclastic musicians to emerge from Japan, or anywhere else, in the 20th Century. Though he won acclaim in the 1950s and '60s as a master of the electric guitar and jazz improvisation, Takayanagi was a restless spirit, deeply engaged with the era's new movements in contemporary art, music, literature, and philosophy. His work, beginning in the late 1960s placed him on the leading edge of these developments; he began expanding on the most radical element…
Historic Music Past Tense Future
Black Editions presents “Historic Music Past Tense Future”, the first ever album to feature the meeting of Peter Brötzmann, Milford Graves and William Parker. Three of the towering figures in the history of Free Jazz forge an incredibly vital free music born from lifetimes of uncompromising, ceaseless artistry. “Historic Music Past Tense Future” is the inaugural release by Black Editions Archive and the first in a series of records that will present previously unreleased works featuring Milford …
Kofu II
* Glass-mastered CD housed in a die-cut customised debossed outer case (14.5 x 14.5cm) with rounded obi, 16pp inserts with words in Japanese and English from Meitei. Offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper. * Meitei’s 2020 album Kofū was the bold bookend to an expedition, where sounds were first navigated and then subverted in 2018’s Kwaidan and 2019’s Komachi. All three albums were Meitei’s attempt at immersive storytelling, reimagining moments of Japanese history he felt were being w…
Isophonic Boogie Woogie
In restock Reissue of the legendary Afro spiritual minimal electronic masterpiece 5-track first LP (plus 2 bonus tracks) from horn wizard and original underground FM radio DJ Roland P. Young, featuring soprano sax, clarinet, and electronically-processed bass clarinet. An enjoyable outing from a neglected musician. Cosmic Afro-minimal electronic winds recorded in 1970s San Francisco. Classic explorations from the dude who was responsible for the legendary Infinite Sound LP on Arch 1750.
Thankful…
Why Is It They Say A City Like Any City?
The new album by the Peruvian-born / Berlin-based experimental artist Ale Hop was conceived in a context of immobility and provides six sonic vignettes that wonder about location, circularity, rootedness and experience. Following her explorations on music's inherent fixation to geographic space and time, be it through the longing of home ("Apophenia" 2019) or scientific magnification of invisible worlds ("The Life of Insects" 2020), Berlin-based Peruvian-born experimental composer Ale Hop's four…
Toshi Ichiyanagi, A Pianist
Limited 80 copies. V.A “Toshi Ichiyanagi, A Pianist” (special edition) CD+CDR
1_Table tennis performance at Katsumi Asaba Exhibition / 2009 / 13’57”Influenced by Asaba, who even coached a Japanese national team player, Ichiyanagi is also known as a very good table tennis player. A ping-pong table was also brought to the event and a demonstration was held before Ichiyanagi's performance. A contact microphone was attached to the ping-pong table where audience members, as well as Ichiyanagi, played…
Underground Altena
Alga Marghen returns with an absolute stunner, the LP “Underground Altena”, comprising a never before heard or released series of recordings capturing Anima - the duo of Limpe Fuchs and Paul Fuchs - in 1973. Largely rendered on a striking array of instruments, invented and played by the couple, its otherworldly, visionary sounds upend nearly every perception held about underground music transpiring in Germany during this period. Wild, wonderful, truly free, and inspiring as records come.
La Tempesta Colorata
Percussionist extraordinaire Valentina Magaletti recorded live at Colourful Storm's showcase at Cafe Oto in 2021. Intricate, textural longform percussion pieces comprised of traditional drums, found objects, voice and electroacoustics conjured to hypnotic effect. A rare solo recording, following collaborations with Laila Sakini, Yves Chaudouët, Marlene Ribeiro and outings for Blume and Takuroku.
Extremely curious listening for fans of African Head Charge, The Necks, and followers of Magaletti's …
Postaeolian Train Robbery
An obscure classic from the 1970's Belgian jazzy prog scene that has become a much sought after piece in the collector's market since it was originally released in 1974. Highly inspired by both the UK's Canterbury scene and the zeuhl sound, the debut album by Cos has been compared to the likes of Soft Machine, Gong, Hatfield & The North, National Health, Gilgamesh, Egg, Placebo, Magma or Zao, with Pascale Son's unique wordless vocals and nonsense syllables singing in a voice that some sources ha…
Supernova
Remastered sound, faithfull gatefold sleeve reproduction, insert with liner notes. A limited repressing of only 500 copies - please note that the first pressing sold like hot bread and has been unavailable ever since, do not miss this killer edition repressed by popular demand! With several connections to the early Kraftwerk history and formed in the Rhineland area in 1971, Ibliss was a quintet formed by percussionist Basil Hammoudi (from Organisation, the band before Kraftwerk), drummer Andreas…
Fiori Chiari, Fiori Oscuri
Black Truffle’s first ever vinyl reissue of Alvin Curran’s seminal 1978 LP, "Fiori Chiari, Fiori Oscuri" - issued in a beautiful edition immaculately reproducing the original - is a truly historic event. Among the composer’s most famous and sought-after releases that has remained out of print for decades, it is a masterstroke of pulsing minimalism, glacial ambience, musique concrète, and forthright experimentalism. Absolutely stunning and still managing to turn experimental music on its head mor…
Electronic Minimal Music 1979-83
Super Tip! 3LP Set. The rediscovery of J D Emmanuel by critics and audience in the early 2010s and Emmanuel's comeback to the underground scene were crucial in reweaving the development of electronic music in the early '80s. This deluxe three-LP set casts new light on Emmanuel's first activity of composing and performing electronic music in 1979-'83, collecting experiments never before released on vinyl, some of which are previously unreleased in any form. Certainly seminal minimal works such as…