Reissues
Philomel
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…
New Music for Four Guitars
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…
Mass/Seven Pious Pieces
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.
Sound Forms for Piano: Cage/ Cowell/ Johnston/ Nancarrow
“... 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 …
Of Beauty Reminiscing
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 …
Sharing a Sonority
Alga Marghen proudly presents a new chapter in the documentation series of Charlemagne Palestine's historical works. This CD of previously-unavailable recordings not only presents you Charlemagne Palestine activities in 1974, collaborating with some of most important experimental artists and composers from either the New York loft scene and Cal Arts, but also features world premiere recordings of Terry Jennings and The Fundamental D Flat Group. "Short & Sweet" is the title of a breathtaking duo …
Calcutta Gas Chamber
**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…
Three Overpopulated Cities Built By Shortsighted Planners...
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…
Metrodora
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
Gunpowder temple of heaven
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…
Cool Jojo
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…
Tape Works of Kuniharu Akiyama. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 006
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 …
The Apocalypse Will Blossom
Yesmissolga Records is proud to present its debut release with a stunning piano performance by Charlemagne Palestine. The Apocalypse Will Blossom brings Palestine's recorded work thundering into the 21st century. Working in the lower registers of the piano, as he did in the late '70s, this intensely powerful live performance is unlike anything previously released by Palestine. Recorded by Christoph Heemann in Aachen, Germany at the Ludwig Museum in 2000 on the occasion of the 1000 year celebrati…
In die Nacht
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…
Materiali per tre esecutori e nastro magnetico
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…
K7 Box
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…
Mutation For A Continuity
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…
The Plain Truth
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…
François Dufrêne
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…
Rumori alla Rotonda
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 …