Reissues

The fifth in this superb series covering historical Japanese electronic music from the Nhk studios, the first covering pieces engineered by Tsutomu Kojima (prior volumes dealt in pieces assisted by Shigeru sato and Hirosi Siotani) highlights herein include Jo Kondo’s “never return” (harsh/psychedelic vocal/piano cutups from 1971 !!!), Hifumi Shimoyama’s fumon iv a, and oto no hajimari wo motomete perennial Joji Yuasa’s my blue sky.   1. “Beyond the Clouds” Keiki Okasaka A work was intentionally…

The Piano Concerto No. 2 is an experiment in classical form. The work contains the same sudden juxtapositions and abrupt contrasts of mood as his futurist music. But the excesses of his recent Ballet mécanique are compensated for by an almost spare, baroque orchestration and motifs that draw on Bach as much as on Stravinsky. In three movements, George Antheil employs a more restrained but still exuberant style. The beautifully meditative slow movement is followed by a virtuosic and compelling to…

Works by Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Pril Smiley, Bülent Arel, Mario Davidovsky, Alice Shields . In 1950, the Columbia University Music Department requisitioned a tape recorder to use in teaching and for recording concerts. In 1951, the first tape recorder arrived, an Ampex 400, and Vladimir Ussachevsky, then a junior faculty member, was assigned a job that no one else wanted: the care of the tape recorder. This job was to have important consequences for Ussachevsky and the medium he dev…

Kenneth Gaburo (1926–1993) composed works for instruments, voices, electronics, multi-media, theater, and a variety of other resources. Foremost among his many interests was a concern with the voice and with language—how we shape language and how we are shaped by it—and with making works that existed somewhere between the boundaries of music and language. Of the works on this CD, three are intensely concerned with what Gaburo termed “Compositional Linguistics” (Antiphony III, Antiphony IV, and M…

Larry Polansky, though known primarily for his work in the field of computer music, has produced a major addition to the keyboard literature, this massive theme-and-variations on Ruth Crawford Seeger’s arrangement of the folk song "Lonesome Road." Inspired by his deep engagement with her music, Lonesome Road (1988-89) is a prime example of Polansky’s penchant for building large architectonic structures through complex transformational processes. The work is in three sections of seventeen variati…

O,O,O,O, That Shakespeherian Rag collects six of the most important compositions from his relatively small body of work. By the late 50s Martirano had begun to freely incorporate elements of jazz and popular music. O,O,O,O, That Shakespeherian Rag(1959), one of his two magnum opuses, is a prime example of this musical synthesis—a serialist choral setting of passages from three Shakespeare plays, accompanied by a chamber orchestra that includes a jazz ensemble. Schoenberg meets bebop in a wild, i…

Compositions performed by Bethany Beardslee and Lynne Weber (sopranos), Jerry Kudern and Robert Miller (pianos). The four works on this recording span a period of a decade and are among the best of Milton Babbitt’s output, tape and otherwise. Philomel, for soprano, recorded soprano, and synthesized sound, is one of the undisputed classics of electroacoustic music and this is its definitive recording. Two versions of Phonemena —one for soprano and piano, the other for soprano and tape— another vi…

The guitar is the popular instrument par excellence. As apt for Brazilian sambas for Irish ballads or American blues, the guitar has also recently been adapted as a surrogate for plucked instruments from non-Western musical traditions; no idiom seems beyond its reach. When social history of the second half of the twentieth century is written, it may be seen that the guitar is as central to this era as the piano was to the nineteenth century. But while the piano was an emblem of upward social asp…

This collection of two tonal works by composers known for their non-tonal compositional style is a fine example of contemporary approaches to sacred choral music. Salvatore Martirano’s Mass is a setting of a traditional Latin Mass whilst Donald Martino’s Seven Pious Pieces sets religious texts by Robert Herrick. The vocal writing is masterful with transparent textures and flowing contrapuntal lines.

“... in the past, the point of disagreement has been between dissonance and consonance, it will be, in the immediate future, between noise and so-called musical sounds.” — John Cage  The most characteristic features of American music are its eclecticism and innovation. The works presented here are perfect examples; their only common feature is that they were written for a piano altered in some way. The disc opens with the eerie, wailing cries of Henry Cowell’s (1897-1965) The Banshee. In order …

Previous LP release, now available as a new version on CD with a mini-LP style CD & new artwork. "Vikki Jackman (no relation to David of Organum fame) is the pianist that we first met in Andrew Chalk's Goldfall, her impalpable chords and notes a preponderant element of that delicate music. Now Faraway Press issues her solo debut, which comes in a stunningly beautiful sleeve, a time-consumed photo in which little Vikki is portrayed near a snowman. One can't escape memory, which is often all that …

**This special picture LP is limited to 444 numbered copies** An awesome album by John Watermann, the idea for this project came about after a visit to Calcutta in 1990, and through the nightmarish experiences during that short visit. The concept of aurally conveying the horror of a gas chamber was realised through field recordings in an abandoned electrical power station in Brisbane in 1992. The sounds are grating and harsh, a mixture of field recordings and electronic manipulations. One can ra…

Minimalist sound artist CM Von Hausswolff gives his two cents on the state of overdevelopment in various urban environments the world over in this, his second disc for the Sub Rosa label. It's hard to say precisely how the music here relates to town planning: Von Hausswolff concentrates on conjuring the kind of stark, austere glitch-driven soundscapes found on his work for labels like Raster Noton, using what sounds to be entirely synthetic sources, so again, it's difficult to establish any conc…

Mere words can’t describe the impact of an album where the only instrument is the voice of Demetrio Stratos (actually, there are few synthesizer inserts played by Paolo Tofani). Originally released in 1976: a unique work where Demetrio Stratos makes any kind of experiments and sounds with his voice, reaching and going over the limit of human capabilities. Beautiful digipack

Birchville Cat Motel is the project of New Zealander Campbell Kneale, who has from his base in Lower Hutt since the mid 90-ies established himself as the leading voice of this generation of NZ sound artists. Gunpowder Temple of Heaven is a new highlight in his extensive discography. A single 40 minute long-form piece that keeps building and unfolding; heaven for drone-noise enthusiasts. The CD comes with a booklet with a complete Birchville discography as well as liner-notes by Bruce Russell. Fr…

Although Machine was completed in 1971 it was not released until 1973, shortly after the release of Journey Into Space. Machine is therefore the first major composition by Trevor Wishart. It was composed at York University and was originally issued on vinyl as 3 sides of a highly adventurous 3LP box set called Electronic Music From York, released by the University’s own record label. In common with Journey Into Space (also on Paradigm Discs), Machine makes use of a large number of volunteer cont…

2026 Repress. Recorded over three December days in 1979 at Epicurus Studio in Tokyo and issued the following year, Cool Jojo documents a side of Masayuki "Jojo" Takayanagi that sits at considerable remove from the noise-as-method work he was simultaneously pursuing with the New Direction Unit. The guitarist's Second Concept was his vehicle for an explicit return to the Tristano school — the lineage he had absorbed as a young player in postwar Tokyo and never fully set aside — and the programme m…

Kuniharu Akiyama (1929-1996) was well-known as a music critic, mainly of modern and contemporary music. However, his career was not only in the music field -- he was also a very well-regarded avant-garde artist (he especially related to the early Fluxus movement). This release consists of his three unknown tape music pieces. They are very strange. Excerpt from the liner notes: "'Environmental Mechanical Orchestra' (1966) was made for an exhibition called 'From Space to Environment,' carried out …

Fourth part in the rerelease series of all early vinyl albums by Asmus Tietchens on CD. This is the third of the SKY albums from 1982 incl. three bonus tracks of unreleased material not included on the original LP. Comes with a poster booklet feat. the original cover artwork. Edition of 1000 copies.Asmus Tietchens »In die Nacht« (Sky Records 077) 1982 To my surprise, SKY ordered a third album from me. For distribution reasons the album had to be finished rather quickly. This presented me with an…

Hailed in the early seventies as the best Italian group of avant-garde jazz/rock along with Area and Perigeo, in the mid-seventies, with the release of their second album, Dedalus started a much more uncompromisingly experimental approach to music through the use and combination of disparate musical materials: improvisation, electronic music and musique concrète techniques, elements of contemporary classical composition, folk tunes, jazz, use of self-built and modified instruments for timbric re…

This CD is consisting of 9 tracks mainly his self-made sound object 'Analapos' and 'De Koolmees', and 2 tracks of them are recorded for announce sound of opening and closing of Yokosuka Museum of Art. They are so clear and spacy. Booklet is written by himself, David Toop and others. Text in Japanese and English.ALM Records is well known label that has released many avant-garde LP titles in 70-80's. Especially about Akio Suzuki, two LPs has been released - obscure solo LP (limited 100 copies) and…

Very few are aware of the beginning of Maurizio Bianchi's adventures? Before starting the complex and compelling production of many records and tapes in the early eighties under the M.B. trademark, Maurizio Bianchi was documenting the new music scene writing essays and reviews for independent magazines. It was August 1979 in Milan, Italy and his sound was strengthening when he felt the time had come to prove his desire for something new. So he started his first solo project, under the name Sache…

2014 repress, originally released in 2000. First issued on the Broken Flag label in the UK in an edition of 500 in 1983. A different style, providing some distance from all his previous works; a more expansive experimentation with multiple layers of synthesizer sounds. Still very intense. M.B.'s recordings come closest to classical electronics, but always with a very personal style. This CD edition also features an interview on Radio Popolare in Milan from 1/1/83. An English translation i…

2007 release. François Dufrêne (1930-1982) is one of the leading artists from the post-War European and French art scene. He played a key role in many of the initiatives of Lettrism, Nouveau Réalisme and sound poetry. In François Dufrêne's oeuvre, art and poetry intersect in a reciprocal experimentation of the possibilities of transgression of their specific grammars. His oeuvre constitutes a singular example of this special relationship between art and language, which throughout the 20th centur…

Bob Downes is most often thought of as a jazz flautist, composer and group leader, but throughout his varied career that has included such diverse musical activity as working with the John Barry Seven and playing on Egg's second LP, he also had his own fluid conceptual group Open Music with principle bass player Barry Guy and drummer Denis Smith. Other players that passed through Open Music include Chris Spedding, Kenny Wheeler, Ray Russell, Ian Carr, Henry Lowther, Harry Beckett, Harry Miller, …

Live recording at the Rotonda del Pellegrini, Milan, January 21st, 1959 featuring John Cage, Morton Feldman, Juan Hidalgo, Leopoldo La Rosa, and Walter Marchetti. Among all the events involving John Cage during the long stay in Europe that followed his controversial appearance at Darmstadt Ferienkurse in September 1958, the concert he held in Milan on January 21st perhaps represents a less well known episode. Featuring Cage's intervention both as composer and performer of one's own work as well …

Isabelle Berteletti, Florent Haladjian, Jean-Christophe Feldhandler, Lê Quan Ninh. “D’une lumière” (1996) by Jean-Christophe Feldhandler for piano, electric guitar, melodica, percussions, etc., “Oscille” (1997) by Lê Quan Ninh for 4 stones, 4 lightnings II and computer, “Kvadrat” (1988) by Vinko Globokar for 4 percussions, “Seasons” (1970) by Toru Takemitsu for percussions and tape.

In 1967 Z'EV took a tape music class at the UCLA night school. The leader of the course was Joseph Byrd who was the founder and theoretician of the first electronic rock band: the united states of america. So while it's almost 40 years now that he has been involved in the production of electro-acoustic music, Headphone Musics marks the first release of a product exclusively featuring this form of music. All of the source material is drawn from the collection of cassette tapes Z'EV has amassed ov…

A surprising release from the radical Fluxus composer, Yasunao Tone - an encoded description of the visual image in utmost detail. In the mythical future, somebody can translate the sounds of this compact disc back into pictures. Personnel: Yasunao Tone and Craig Kendall - image selection and processing; Craig Kendall - computer programming, digital sound creation, manipulation; John D.S. Adams - assistant producer and audio consultant.

2001 release. As Walter Marchetti told to the producers of De Musicorum infelicitate, i.e., The Unhappiness of Music, this will probably be his last music work, but this is not the only point making this edition a very special one. After two CDs previously issued for Alga Marghen (Antibarbarus in 1998 and Nei Mari del Sud in 1999) these "Ten Pieces in the Form of Painful Variations" dispose in their unceasing and implacable sequence the landing at an anaphorical finis terrae, the extreme and imp…

A beautiful sound art compilation featuring works by Ellen Fullman, Horatio Vaggione, Fast Forward, Takehisa Kosugi, Mario Verandi, Olga Neuwirth, celebrating the 35 years of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Comes with 32-page booklet. Ellen Fullman: Transmission Particle 1 for Long String Instrument and Oboe (2001; 9:00 min)[Ellen Fullman, long string instrument; Eliza Slavet, oboe]Horatio Vaggione: Scir for contrabass flute and tape (1988; 11:37 min)Beate-Gabriela Schmitt, contrabass fluteFast F…

Released in 1995, this debut compilation is a showcase of seven London-based experimental artists. Features John Wall (sonic sampling collage wizard), Andrew Jacques (Put Put member using a microphone and guitar amplifier for disruptive sound sources, sampled by Wall), Crow (great, futuristic fragments of experimental sound/text recordings by a UK installation artist), Alquimia (dream-state mutterings and aura, from an experimental artist from Mexico City), John Grieve (powerful electronic-like …

Compilation CD with Francisco Lopez, Giancarlo Toniutti, Jeph Jerman, Seth Nehil & toy.bizarre, Kiyoshi Mizutani, MNortham, Eric La Casa. A confrontation of different ideas, views, about nature … and sound… From the electroacoustic deep soundscape of Eric La Casa to the droney stones of Giancarlo Toniutti, from the rough fresh stream field recordings of Kiyoshi Mizutani to the heavy processed insects, wood and grass sounds of Seth Nehil & toy.bizarre… from the silent nature of Francisco Lopez to…

These pieces were recorded between 1963 and 1973 at the NHK electronic music studio, Tokyo. Includes 12-page booklet with liner notes in Japanese. This version was withdrawn from sale due to objections from Takeisha Kosugi. His track was then replaced by one by Michael Ranta, and the album was re-released under a different catalog number.   1. “Divertimento” Keitaro Miho     This is a live performance of live percussion instruments and electronically produced percussion instruments. Until then, …

The 3rd issue of early Japanese electronic music made by NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai : National Broadcasting association) electronic music studio. Engineer Satou assisted many electronic works of avant-garde composers. Contents : Makoto Moroi 'Shosange' (1967), Minao Shibata 'Display '70' (1969), Toshiro Mayuzumi 'Mandara with source of Voice and Electric sound' (1969), Joji Yuasa 'Voices Coming' (1969), Makoto Shinohara 'Broadcasting' (1973)    1. “Small Confession” Makoto Moroi     The works ar…

Early Japanese electronic music made by NHK electronic music studio. Engineer Satou assisted many electronic works of avant-garde composers. The following works (except Yuji Takahashi) had released in 1967 and 1969 on LP (Victor VX-52, VX-99), and they are very rare now.' Contents : Yuji Takahashi "Phonogene" (1961), "Yori-Aki MatsudairaTrangent '64" (1964), Minao Shibata "Improvisation for the electronic sound" (1966), Joji Yuasa "IKON on the source of White Noise" (1965), Toshiro Mayuzumi "Cam…

A documentary of pieces performed at the Inventionen Festival in Berlin, 1998. Features: Unsuk Chin, Patrick Kosk, Werner Cee, Francois Donato, Robin Minard, Wolfgang Mitterer, Francis Dhomont, Erik Mikael Karlsson, Trevor Wishart. "Not as much as a bringer-up to speed (or yet another history lesson at that) as a fine cache of current keepers of the crop. New ('93-98), complete pieces from Trevor Wishart (northern-UK composer/programmer known and loved these days for his mid-70's works such as M…

When the Los Angeles Free Music Society 10 CD set came out I eagerly flipped through the contents to see what treasures had finally been made available again. Much to my surprise the early compilation I.D. Art #2 was not included in this otherwise major overview of the LAFMS. I.D. Art #2 was the second LP release on their label, coming after Le Forte Four’s ‘Bikini tennis shoes’ LP, and before the 2LP ‘Live at the Brand’, a split album between Le 44 and The Doo-Dooettes. It dates from 1976. It i…

"The pieces on this CD are all based on the ideas in Larry Polansky's four voice canons, a series of pieces he began in 1975. These canons are usually "mensuration canons," which means that the tempi of successive voices is proportional to their start times, so that the voices end together. They also use simple ideas of moving through a list of permutations, and applying the elements of those permutations to various musical parameters. A set of Polansky's canons was produced on Cold Blue Records…

A lucky restock of one of the most important archival releases in experimental music: "Apollo and Marsyas: Het Apollohuis 1980-1997, an Anthology of New Music Concepts" - a stunning double CD documenting nearly two decades of radical sound art and experimental performance. Het Apollohuis in Eindhoven was one of Europe's most vital centers for avant-garde music, and this anthology captures the extraordinary scope of programming curated by Paul Panhuysen from 1980 through 1997. From over 500 perfo…