Reissues
Properly/Acromatic
**Edition of 350 copies** The wildest track off the legendary “Bass Modulations” LP from Octopus Records, Properly, by bass player and composer Piero Montanari, is an afro-rock banger with amazing percussion, drum breaks, and fuzz guitars. On the other side we present Acromatic, by drummer Roberto Conrado – a funky mid-tempo number driven by guitar riffs and a wonderful prog flute solo. Two terrific beats targeted for your psychedelic dancefloor. This is also the fourth of a new Four Flies 45s …
Rullio /Violenza
Edition of 350. The ultimate Italian library breakbeat: wicked synths, and cosmic electronic effects, marks the experimental hip hop beats of Rullio by Ugo Busoni, sourced from the “Valvole" LP on the Nuova Idea label. On the flip side, one will find another rhythmic banger, Violenza by Gerardo Iacoucci, taken from “L’Avventura N. 2" – a psychedelic b-boy break with heavy bassline and percussive piano, echoing an urban soundscape full of drama and suspense.This is the third of a new Four Flies …
Afrotheme / Percussion Blues
**Edition of 350** Two crazy rhythmic cuts by Paolo Ferrara, sourced from the super-rare library LP, “Ritmico”, on Flower Records. Afrotheme is a deep afro-jazz funky track with powerful bass lines, hot percussion, and psychedelic wah-wah guitars. Percussion Blues, on the flip side, blends African and Brazilian sounds with a unique samba groove, and a Fender Rhodes which is the icing on the cake. This is also the second of a new Four Flies 45s series, properly designed for DJs, producers, and wo…
Presently Untitled
Featuring a track each by Richard Youngs, Alternative TV, Extnddntwrk, Map 71, Kleistwahr, Theme and Sion Orgon. Tied in with Fourth Dimension Records' night at Cafe OTO on October 19th comes this compilation in the form of a double-7" featuring the four artists appearing on the night itself and a few others associated with the label. Essentially a mini-album's worth of material represented by an exclusive track each by Alternative TV, Richard Youngs, Map 71, Extnddntwrk (Andrew Fearn of Sleafor…
Cloîtrez Et Tuez Vous Tous
2017 Edition. With Cloitrez Et Tuez Vous Tous, Vomir aims to return to the most basic essence regarding his identity as a Harsh Noise Wall practitioner. This single full length track of more than one hour is the final result of that depurating mindset; focusing on achieving the true bone of his signature sound, while continuing to devastate all ears with a raw and unmovable wall of static. Still as relentless, the boundaries of its aesthetics get pushed further and deeper by the storm of distort…
Songs Of India
"Manufactured Recordings reissues Songs Of India from prominent vocalist Nitai Dasgupta originally released on Vic Keary's underground label, Mushroom Records, in the early '70s. While Keary's background was in reggae, Mushroom Records dabbled in recording a bit of everything. Mostly known for hyper-rare psych, prog and acid folk, Nitai Dasgupta fits in perfectly with their British psych and prog label mates like Simon Finn, Magic Carpet, and Chillum. Nitai Dasgupta was one of the most talented …
Fabric for String Noise
Michael Byron's Fabric for String Noise, Parts 1 and 2 (2018), composed for New York’s notable violin duo String Noise, is wildly virtuosic music that is unlike just about anything else ever written for two violins. This two-movement work, a tremendous (and relentless) river of complex lines, may be said to resemble a sort of universal folk music of madly driven ecstasy, a sonic canvas wherein intense continuous activity shares space with an overarching sense of motionlessness.The composer chara…
River of 1,000 Streams
Daniel Lentz's River of 1,000 Streams is a complex, slowly growing, densely textural piece for solo piano and up to 11 layers of “cascading echoes” (which are created in a live performance via a computer running a MAX patch). Each of the piece’s hundreds of “echoes” is a short moment (generally one to a few bars in length) of the piano solo that may reappear anywhere from a half-second to 25 minutes after the pianist first plays it. Floating sparsely amid the piece’s rich primary texture of trem…
Homo Sacer
Makoto Kawashima was born in Saitama, a prefecture of the Greater Tokyo Area, in 1981. He picked up the alto sax in 2008, and started playing solo in 2010. He is the founder of the Homosacer (Sacredhuman) label. Homo Sacer was originally released in 2015. It was Kawashima's second solo release and his first full-length album. It was also the final release by P.S.F. Records. The album was recorded live during a heavy rainstorm at the gallery and café Yamanekoken in Iruma, Saitama. Facing up towar…
Magic Time: The Millennium/Ballroom Sessions
An awe-inspiring three CD set! We’ve emptied the Columbia vaults of material by these late-‘60s Curt Boettcher-led groups, whose dazzling soundscapes and choral arrangements created a perfect hybrid of sunshine pop and psychedelia. Produced with the bands’ full participation, Magic Time is the definitive compendium of Millennium/Ballroom material, including the entire Begin and Ballroom albums and an additional wealth of unheard songs and alternate versions, plus interviews and rare photos! Magi…
Windmill
Stephen Whittington writes:“…from a thatched hut draws upon a particular strand of Chinese culture: the Chinese scholar who withdraws, temporarily or permanently, from society. The thatched hut was the place where the great Tang dynasty poets Du Fu (Tu Fu) and Li Bai (Li Po) withdrew from the world. Their example was followed by many others, including the poet Bai Juyi (Po Chu-I), author of Record of the Thatched Hut on Mount Lu, and Xia Gui, the Song dynasty painter of Twelve Views from a Thatc…
Ecstatic Descent
Erik Griswold's Ecstatic Descent is a prepared-piano work that melds composed and improvisational elements to create an intensely animated, one-of-a-kind textural sound world. Performed here by the composer, at times it may call to mind an enormous out-of-control music box or mechanical toy. It also readily lends itself to comparisons to various ever-changing (yet ever the same) natural sound phenomena, and has been likened by composer Annea Lockwood to the bubbling frequencies of a river.The co…
Bhajan
Nicholas Chase's Bhajan, described by one critic as “a pas de deux between violin and electronics,” is in four joined/continuous sections. Influenced by many musics from around the globe, the work tantalizes and bewitches the ear with a breadth of sounds that ebb and flow as if guided by an elusive but inherent sense of logic. The composer performs its electronics/computer part while noted violinist Robin Lorentz (who has appeared on four previous Cold Blue CDs) propels the music compellingly, i…
After the Wars
Peter Garland's After the Wars, a resonant, sometimes clangorous four-movement piano solo, displays a unique sense of grace and a sincerity of expression that is quintessentially Garlandesque. In some ways it marks a slight shift of focus from his more overtly melodic and rhythmically driven material of the past 30 years. Garland writes about the piece:“After the Wars was commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill as part of her A Sweeter Music project. The idea (I believe) was to focus on the idea of…
In the Village of Hope
Michael Byron's In the Village of Hope is a restless (and in some ways relentless) virtuosic harp solo performed by Tasha Smith Godínez, who commissioned the work. This ever-changing, ever-churning, ever-developing music is unlike anything else in the solo harp repertoire, though not unlike some of Byron’s other recent work, such as his Book of Horizons for pianist Joseph Kubera.Byron writes about the music:“In the Village of Hope,” a purely sentimental title, was composed at the invitation of h…
The Wind In High Places
The Wind in High Places is an elegant, haunting collection album containing three of John Luther Adams’s serenely powerful recent string works: (1) The Wind in High Places (2011), a three-movement string quartet commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Theodore Front Musical Literature, performed by JACK Quartet; (2) Canticles of the Sky, a four-movement piece for four cello choirs, performed by the 48-member Northwestern University Cello Ensemble, directed and conducted by Hans Jørgen …
35 Whirlpools Below Sound
35 Whirlpools Below Sound presents a fantastical soundworld of 19 short, richly detailed, multilayered electro-acoustic soundscapes jointly composed by Thomas Newman and Rick Cox, whose musical friendship and ongoing working relationship date back to 1985. These enigmatic works, built of often mysterious juxtapositions of sounds, have been gestating and changing shape for many years, with ever an eye toward their eventual completion and release, which this CD marks. The album’s title was taken f…
From A Folio
Michael Jon Fink's From a Folio, a suite of six short pieces for cello and piano and one central piece for six cellos, a set of songs without words, was composed for new-music cellist Derek Stein, with whom Fink has been performing in various small groups during the past few years.As the elegant, subtle music unfolds, radiating a deep, emotional sense of form, the listener is quickly drawn into a highly nuanced, lyrical sound world. Fink’s characteristically reductive but expressive style is evi…
Black Water
Jim Fox’s music is usually noted for its quietude and ambling pace. In the mid-1980s, however, he drifted from these defining stylistic penchants for a couple of years, penning music that often bounced along, energetically and loudly, at a good clip. His clangorous Black Water, from 1984, is rich with dense, sometimes shimmering, sometimes rumbling tremolos and loudly struck chords covering the full range of the piano, set off by brief moments of quiet, twinkling serenity.Jim Fox writes, “Black …
Cold Blue Two
Cold Blue Two is an eclectic anthology of 14 new, previously unrecorded works—many of them written specifically for this CD—by a diverse collection of composers whose personal musical visions usually blend intuition with process. The composers include both the well-known and the not-so-well-known, most with longtime associations with Cold Blue, and two making their first appearance on the label: John Luther Adams, Gavin Bryars, Rick Cox, Michael Jon Fink, Jim Fox, Peter Garland, Daniel Lentz, In…