Best of 2025
Traveling Light
From out of the dark, the crackle of feed back birdsong signals a return to the land of sound environments exclusive to the music of Rafael Toral. A year and a half after his epochal electric guitar album, Spectral Evolution, Traveling Light finds him sharpening his focus, moving boldly from abstract forms to concrete compositions in the form of a set of jazz standards. Based on Toral’s discography, this may seem an unlikely endeavor, but happily, Traveling Light transpires to be one of the majo…
Young Blood
Mysterious, primitive lo-fi ‘pop’ from Swedish enigma Mind Control Hands - was anyone ever meant to hear this?
Something of a needle in a haystack. The depths of the internet are flooded with snippets of information about enigmatic CDrs, often no more than a crusty JPG and a bit of text, if you’re really lucky a single track to listen to. The vast majority are of no interest, but perseverance pays off. Mind Control Hands, originally birthed in the endless sprawl of CD-baby era early 00s micro…
Asymptote Versatile (1963-64)
Multifold digipack edition + extensive booklet. Amgen presents the historic recording of Éliane Radigue's Asymptote Versatile (1963-64), widely recognized as the oldest surviving composition by the pioneering French electronic music composer. This monumental work was performed for the very first time at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on November 26, 2023, marking a truly historic event as Radigue had resolutely refused permission for this work to be presented in concert - until now…
Peter Beyls
Peter Beyls stands as a pioneer at the crossroads of computer science and the arts, shaping generative systems in music, visual, and hybrid formats. In early works, inspired by figures such as Michel Waisvisz, Karel Goeyvaerts, and Lucien Goethals, Beyls fused electronic experimentation with precise tape artistry, notably advancing the crackle box synthesizer at STEIM.
Les Années 1967-1984
Big tip! *2025 repress. 250 copies limited edition* Metaphon is thrilled to present this collection of 14 phenomenal electronic and electro-acoustic works by French composer Fernand Vandenbogaerde, realized between 1967 and 1984. After his science studies Fernand Vandenbogaerde (1946) studied at the Conservatoire de Roubaix and did various classes and courses with a.o. Jean-Etienne Marie, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer, György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Bruno Maderna. He wrote analyti…
飓风 = Hurricane
Huge Tip! Deluxe CD edition, in tri-fold gatefold sleeve with outer case. This is a live recording of the Peter Brötzmann Trio (Peter Brötzmann, Sabu Toyozumi, and Jason Adasiewicz) from their performance at the 5th OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival at B10 Live, Shenzhen, in 2015. After the performance, the B10 Live team conducted a warm and friendly interview with the three musicians. The transcribed conversation has been edited and included in the liner notes of this vinyl album.Liu Ying Studio delivered…
Ideal Secret Circle (11CD Bundle)
Mega tip! *80 copies limited edition bundle.* Ideal Secret Circle It's an 11 CD limited-edition set of albums packaged in digi packs designed by Philip Marshall. The series is curated by Joachim Nordwall.1. Sins For Beginners - We Don’T Need No Music (For Pita)2. Susana Santos Silva - The Fabrication Of Time 3. Merzbow - Gareki No Niwa4. Jim O’Rourke - Subtracted5. Spykes - Memoirs Of Pogonophores Vol. 2.6. A. Bolus - Evil Moisture Plays Music In The Style Of Organ Of Corti7. Eternities - Foreve…
Dangerous Women: Early Works 1985-2005
Laetitia Sonami's Dangerous Women: Early Works 1985-2005 traces twenty years of fearless electronic innovation. From her studies with Eliane Radigue in France to mentorship under Robert Ashley and David Behrman at Mills College, this 2CD collection captures her evolution from analog experimentation to pioneering digital performance with her legendary "lady's glove" interface.
Riddles of the Sphinx
Lost 1977 electronic score by Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge, crafted with enigmatic Denys Irving on modified Moog/ARP synthesizers delivering ten hypnotic sequences of minimalist repetition. Transferred from BFI archives after master tapes vanished, this new 300-copy reissue follows the long out-of-print 2016 edition. Essential Riddles Of The Sphinx finally unearthed.
Collines / Racines
Tip! Rarely has the term "soundscapes" seemed as appropriate as for 'Collines' and 'Racines,' these two long, captivating pieces for cello and Loopstation, respectively inspired by the landscapes of Gaume and the Forêt de Soignes. Gwen Sainte-Rose superimposes the sound layers of her compositions and sculpts the sound material. This CD nestled in a wooden box which, like a small cabinet of curiosities, also contains multiple photographic inserts by Beata Szparagowska and the graphic designer Cor…
Meditate & Destroy
200 numbered copies, with handmade and buffered cover. Contains a A4 insert. Les Disques Omnison announces the release of Meditate & Destroy, the long-awaited debut LP by Leandro Barzabal and Céleste Gatier, a duo that has been making waves in experimental circles across France and Argentina. Following stunning live performances throughout France and a successful tour in Argentina alongside French noise musicians Cigve (Catherine Guesde) and Vomir (Romain Perrot), Barzabal and Gatier have distil…
The Yellow Box
As trans-Atlantic alchemists pulling from a shared dialectic that somehow encompassed both postmodern deconstructionist tendencies and a delightfully subversive sense of poptimism, it’s easy to see how David Cunningham and Peter Gordon immediately hit it off upon initially meeting each other back in the late-1970s at the height of their youthful transgressions. Having initially worked together on the second Flying Lizards’ LP fourth wall, with its ingenious fusion of dismantled rhythms and rearr…
Match / Soliloque 1&4 / Antifonia
Nicolae Brînduş's Match / Soliloque 1&4 / Antifonia reissues the composer’s most eccentric works from the PHTORA cycle (1968-1972), blending collective improvisation, spectral tradition, Romanian folklore, and free jazz into a mesmerizing tapestry. Tape manipulations and reverberation add depth, while Ana Golici’s sleeve art captures the album’s vivid sensibility.
μP RPF78
Big tip! *2025 repress. 250 copies limited edition* An anthology of the intensely arresting work of Robert Fesler (1936-2023), revealing many of his compositions (1975 -1987) created with his self-built synthesizers, with as pinnacle the μP RPF78. All music composed and recorded by Robert Fesler at his home on rue Cour Boisacq in Bierges, Belgium.With profound simplicity and devotion, Fesler paints a hermetic inner world with strong emotions of confronting solitude, sensual alienation and trauma…
Ziua Fără Sfârșit
Before spectral music had a name, Romanian polymath Corneliu Cezar was crafting electro-acoustic revelations. Ziua fără sfârșit collects his 1967-75 recordings - radical explorations of natural resonance that predate Western spectralism by a decade.
Irma
In 1977, for Brian Eno’s Obscure Records, I made a version of Irma. These notes arise from that experience and explore how the piece can be performed. Irma is an unusual score—printed on a single 50cm x 50cm sheet. Its notation consists of verbal fragments from Tom Phillips' A Humument, referencing “libretto,” “decor and mise-en-scène,” or “sounds.” These categories are arranged separately, with stave notation at the bottom. At first glance, it appears indeterminate—requiring preparation before …
Ensemble Pieces
A split album by Christopher Hobbs, John Adams, and Gavin Bryars, released in 1975 as the second title on Brian Eno's imprint Obscure. The album includes two pieces by Hobbs and one each by Adams and Bryars. Side A opens with the experimental compositions of Hobbs, followed by Adams’ spoken-word and orchestral work, while Side B concludes with Bryars’ dissonant, frontier-classical ambient piece, featuring contributions from Brian Eno and Derek Bailey. "Aran" and "McCrimmon Will Never Return" (19…
And I Heard a Voice
Estonian vocal ensemble Vox Clamantis and their leader Jaan-Eik Tulve have established themselves among the leading interpreters of Arvo Pärt’s music over a quarter-century of close collaboration with the composer – a relationship that builds on the almost half a century long artistic partnership between Pärt and producer Manfred Eicher. Of the ensemble’s ECM New Series recording The Deer’s Cry, the BBC Music Magazine wrote that “the level of artistry necessary to achieve the kind of living, bre…
Arctic Summer
"The richness of these recordings cannot be overstated." — A Closer Listen
Lacinia
Returning to Die Schachtel with his fourth full-length with the label, the Genoa born, Bologna based, guitarist and electroacoustic composer, Stefano Pilia, delivers “Lacinia”, a new, immersive cycle of compositions, delving deeper into the realm of metaphysical, spiritual, and divine meaning, weaving astounding arrangements of sonority from a palette of synths, strings, brass, organ, various electroacoustic instruments, and percussion. Resting at a refined intersection of the acoustic and elect…