Reissues
In Streams (Volume 1)
This is the fifth CD release by Morphogenesis, and the first since 1998. Although Morphogenesis do not play live very often, it is certainly their preferred working situation, where the interaction between the space, the people present and the available equipment create a variety of different situations. Substantial extracts from nearly all of their recent concerts appear on this, and a second volume. There is also the inclusion of one studio recording per CD. Perhaps one reason for their infreq…
Gyromancy
Mnemonists eventually evolved into the incredible Biota band. Before they did they released a series of LPs, including the art work that surrounds and informs their approach to improvisation. As Mnemonists their work is darker and more ominous than that of Biota, but the process was still the same: post-processing live improvisation to construct larger works that stood on their own two feet as compositional pieces. Think AMM, Organum, Faust; Mnemonists embraced their strategies but created somet…
Triptych of poisoners
2005 release. Milk From Cheltenham is the first in a series of Alga Marghen editions documenting the activities of the It's War Boys underground label, founded by Amos (of The Homosexuals fame) in the late 1970s. The original LP was issued in an edition limited to 300 copies. The material was recorded from 1979 to 1981 but wasn't released until 1983 due to problems with the silkscreened sleeve. The band only put out this record, a real hidden gem. Lepke said that he wanted it to sound like …
Novum Organum / Liber Duodecim Portarum / La Nuit D'Hermès
Novum organum... commissioned by INA-GRM & composed in 1993. Liber Duodecim Portarum commissioned by INA-GRM & composed in 1983. La Nuit d'Hermès commissioned by Radio France. Italia prize 1981.
Zyklus - Four Realizations By Max Neuhaus
2004 release. Four previously unreleased realizations of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Zylus" (different recordings than the one featured on the Columbia LP Electronics and Percussion -- Five Realizations. Recorded 1959-68. The term "New York School" refers to a circle of composers. "Zyklus" was written in 1959 and is one of the first solo pieces to utilize such a large number of percussion instruments (twenty-one). When Max Neuhaus first started to play this piece there were only three percussi…
Live With The Birds
The ensemble (4 of them) performs on an aluminium strip suspended from a rubber band (for subtle pitch shifting). As with Stockausen's Mikrophonie 1 this single source is bowed, scraped, beaten, tapped, stroked and so on. The Kanary Grand band comprises some 40 birds of various breeds who, sing along. N sum, varieties of interesting gong like drones with realtime fully interactive birds. A must. 3-way gatefold digipack, 12pp booklet with thoughtful essay. Limited art edition of 1000 copies.
Logos works
Logos Works contains eight works by the Logos Duo featuring both Darge and Raes on various instruments, as well as other performers on a wide range of instruments. "This latest recording comes as they look back upon 25 years of collaboration as the Logos Duo. More than a retrospective, we see them affirming a long artistic relationship and forging new horizons--together and on divergent musical paths. In this, their work is a metaphorical journey: an inward exploration of the elegance of algorit…
Lingual Music
Double CD, comes with 12 page booklet. Britain's best-known sound poet is Bob Cobbing, but it's hard to come up with a list of other sound poets working in Britain in the '60s and '70s. It's equally difficult to think of any female sound poets working anywhere. Lily Greenham was Danish, but spent her childhood in Vienna. After several relocations across Europe, she settled in London in 1972 with her British husband (musician and poet Peter Greenham), where she lived until her death in 2001. Near…
Composing Motion
“Sound crazy people vibrate to sound and this disc is for them; it’s got some of the sharpest astringent zings of sound that ever cut the air, maybe because it’s all made with doctor’s blade steel, some of it the sharpest. … All I know is that when it’s set up in motorized vibrating and shaking devices, and struck with strikers, it cuts a new sound groove.” Len Lye
Sei-jaku für Streichquartett
Documentation '20 Years Inventionen', CD III. The string quartet 'sei-jaku' by German composer Klaus Lang, documented on this CD, was performed on 6/30/2002 in the Großer Sendesaal of the SFB Berlin by the Arditti String Quartet during the festival Inventionen 2002.
Tape play
The Ten Tape Compositions: Fat Millie's Lament, The Wasting of Lucrecetzia, For Harry, Lemon Drops, Dante's Joynte, Rerun, Mouthpiece II, Hiss, Few (in collaboration with Henri Chopin), and Kyrie. "Over his career, Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) produced a lot of electronic music. However, works for tape alone are fairly rare in his output. Over about a thirty-year period, ten works for solo tape were produced. Of the ten tape pieces, five were created in the mid-1960s at the University of Illinois,…
s/t
ErstLive is a new series of releases from Erstwhile Records, documenting notable live sets associated with the label. The discs are designed to simulate a concert experience, each in the same template design using two colors chosen by the musicians involved, with a photo of the concert on the back cover. Each will be in an edition of 800 CDs and not reprinted. The initial releases will be chosen from the AMPLIFY 2004 festival which took place in Cologne and Berlin in May 2004. ErstLive …
Savage songs
Jorge Antunes (b. 1942, Rio de Janeiro) studied violin, composition and conducting at the University of Rio de Janeiro, as well as studying physics at the same institution. He further studied composition with Alberto Ginastera and Luis de Pablo. From 1970-71 he attended the University of Utrecht (Gotfried M. Koenig). From 1972-73 he worked with Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris. In 1962 he began his research in electronic music thus becoming a pioneer in the development of this field in Br…
The Piano Works 7 - Chess Serenade
A major discovery and first recording of an important Cage piece from 1944. In 1944, John Cage was invited to participate in “The Imagery of Chess” exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City. The artists included Calder, Noguchi, Motherwell, Breton, Duchamp, Ernst, Man Ray, Tanning and other leading surrealists.Cage contributed a painting entitled “Chess Pieces”. It was purchased at the show and went into a private collection. For decades it was deemed lost and was (almost) forgotten…
Sonatas and Interludes
This landmark recording of John Cage’s prepared piano works performed by Mario Bertoncini was recorded back in December 1991. The sonatas are divided into four groups, each divided by the less overtly structured, rhapsodic interlude pieces. Bertoncini sensitivity to the displaced sonic characteristics of the piano is remarkable and suggests a rigorous dedication to Cage’s work.
A tribute
From the liner notes of Eric Salzman: “John Cage wrote for keyboards throughout most of his life. Most famously, he invented the so-called "prepared piano" but he also wrote for unprepared piano in both traditional and untraditional ways. His later piano works employ an almost ferocious complication and virtuosity at the outer limits of performer possibility. Earlier he used electronic extensions, chance and performer collaboration in complex ways. His early keyboard music was written for himsel…
Voice is the original instrument
Pioneering extended vocal techniques from the 1970s: sensory deprivation experiments, multiphonic investigations, circular breathing adaptations. La Barbara liberates her classically trained voice to discover untapped sonic material, building orchestras from layered vocalisations. Essential document of radical vocal experimentation.
A Catalogue of Sounds
Jakob Ullmann's music realizes an infinite variety of gradations in all areas of musical formation. That the music of the "catalogue" is nearly always played very softly leads to the ear noticing the smallest differentiations; the listener is put into a state of constant, acute attentiveness. The musical stream is constantly subjected to small irritations, sometimes its flow quickens, sometimes there are brief splashes like those caused by pebbles thrown into water. Performers: Ensemble Oriol Be…
Prière
long out print item by Jac Berrocal, a 10” picture-disc, text by Antonin Artaud spoken by Berrocal himself, including excerpts from 'Voyage au bord de la ville' a very abstract and dissonant track with music by Berrocal, Gilbert Artman and Jack Belsen. Private edition of 250 copies only.
Open secrets
"Aphoristic bursts of music separated by silences played with efficiency and fleeting beauty." - New York Times Open Secrets features Mac Low and Anne Tardos performing works for multi-track voices; and Robert Bethea, Andrew Bolotowsky, Daniel Goode, and Gabriela Klassen performing instrumental pieces. Winds/Instruments for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, and narrator, could well become a classic of new music, not only being beautiful, but also displaying Mac Low's witty use and …