Reissues

Mort Garson was the master of the moog and a pioneer in electronic music from the late 60s and 70s where he participated in some unforgotten projects such as Lucifer, The Zodiac, Ataraxia and Plantasia. The following review centers on his album “Electronic Hair pieces” from 1969 on which he tickles your senses with instrumental adaptions of the songs from the musical “Hair”. He performs all the tunes on a contemporary moog synthesizer system even with electronic percussion. Since you might recog…

In stock now!! Okay, as the title already suggests, this compilation is made entirely of early 70s library music which was recorded for so called music libraries from whose stores, movie makers and TV producers could license certain titles for their productions. In most cases the compositions were a conglomerate of popular music genres such as funk, psychedelic, rock and soul. I have experienced a few French productions of that kind before, but now it is time for some Italian stuff. I am quite p…

There are synthesizers, there are guitars, bass guitars, real drums and vocals in the first song. Components of rock and pop unite here in this lone 1977 effort and make way for elements of dark slow funk and soul that take you a couple of years back to the early seventies. The garment of swirling synthesizers keep it all together. The atmosphere can be soft and gentle like the touch of a lover’s hand but it can also become more and more mysterious and gloomy generating a feeling of paranoia as …

Another great but late (1928 – 2003) synthesizer artist and pioneer, this time from Italy. His works date back to the early 60s and maybe even beyond considering his age. In the mid to late 60s he became quite active in the field of western movie soundtracks for example. This album I have the honor to review is a concept album on the zodiac signs and the music it contains could not be more diverse. The elements that unite all the tunes are the entirely synthetic, yet warm analogue sound and the …

In the project Scelsi Revisited the tape material is for the first time reflected in the medium of art: seven composers (Ragnhild Berstad, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fabien Lévy, Tristan Murail, Michael Pelzel, Michel Roth, Nicola Sani) were commissioned by Klangforum Wien to create new works from Scelsi’s tape music; Uli Fussenegger had prepared data packages consisting of excerpts from two to three tapes each, which Scelsi apparently had not used for the elaboration of definitive works, the latter …

Makrokosmos Volume I, whose title reflects Crumb’s admiration for Bartók’s piano series Mikrokosmos, contains 12 pieces, grouped into three parts of four each, and Crumb associates each piece with a sign of the zodiac. This is paired with Volume II, which is similarly structured, after the fashion of Debussy’s twenty-four Préludes. Volumes I and II are filled with references to the history of humankind, myths, Christianity, paganism, occultism, literary works, and the composer’s own mental pictu…

I would like to refer to Annette Bik’s project Bach gedoubelt, which was the origin of this piece, putting Bach’s b-minor partita, BWV 1002, in direct context with contemporary musical comments. Bach wrote so-called “Double” movements to the standard dances Allemanda, Corrente, Sarabande and Tempo di Borea, connected to the original as a kind of variation. Annette Bik commissioned four composers to write such “Double” movements to the four main movements of the Partita. This lead to four contemp…

“I will say: I have given this flame to these eyes; I have drawn from the ambiguous smile of the moon […] these two naïve stars open to the infinite”, wrote the poetess Cécile Sauvage in 1908 to her unborn son, Olivier Messiaen. It is amazing that the poem in a sense expresses in a prophetic manner Messiaen’s interest in and passion for themes that were to accompany him throughout his life: the cosmos, infinity. It goes without saying that the poetic lifestyle of his mother was to have a strong …

111 cyclists reach famed opera house Teatro Colón to welcome Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008), one of the great composers of the 20th Century, who was born in Argentina, but left the country and settled in Germany in 1957. However, his adventurous music remained an inspiration to a number of forward-thinking Argentinean musicians, and in 2006 he returned to Buenos Aires for a Kagel festival, where he was to direct a major concert by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, but also worked with a group of young …

Yamaon (1954-1958) for bass, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, contra bassoon, percussion and doublebass is one of the wildest and most direct works of Scelsis. Just as the composition I presagi completed in the same year, the title warns of the destruction of a Mayan city. As Varèse in Ecuatorial and Nocturnal, Scelsi in Yamaon works with a differentiated repertoire of vowels, consonants, and syllables. These have no linguistic semantic meaning, but convey heterogeneous values of expression. “Wh…

A voice behind the curtain. Antique beauty disappears: It will always return, the same music, and each time it will be marked by the wounds of time. And throughout the entire work it accompanies the events that are not told. Little happens, almost nothing. But every action leaves behind infinite echo. Shadings, insinuations, contradictions that accumulate and change; before and after, full and empty; impenetrable silence, in which question blurs into question and answer into answer. A magnificen…

Between April and June 1971, after the democratic election of Salvador Allende’s government, Luigi Nono visited Chile for three months, meeting several artists, composers and politicians, among whom was Luciano Cruz Aguayo, one of the leaders of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR, Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria). Back in Italy, Nono started working on his next musical composition, which was meant to be a piece for piano and orchestra, for Maurizio Pollini and Claudio Abbado. In …

**Strictly limited to 300 copies. Clear Vinyl** Finally available again on vinyl! Don Cherry's Relativity Suite, recorded with the Jazz Composer's Orchestra in 1973. At this time, Cherry was becoming increasingly interested in Middle Eastern and traditional African and Indian music, having traveled extensively and studied with Indian musician Vasant Rai. This suite of songs was particularly influenced by the Indian karnatic singing tradition, as can be heard from the very opening moments of the …

It was Ludwig Wittgenstein, another Austrian, who already in his debut work identified the borders: in his opinion, he wrote in the preface to his Tractatus logico-philosophicus, he had “essentially resolved” those problems accessible to rational thought, and precisely that would demonstrate “how little is achieved that these problems are resolved.” Even greater emphasis is lent to this insight in the famous sentence with which Wittgenstein closes his Tractatus not even a hundred pages later: „W…

**Embossed matte laminate CD, 6 panel fold out poster, featuring a collage work from Masami Akita created in 1982** Across the middle years of the 1990s, Merzbow (Masami Akita) refined a stochastic language for harsh noise that had emerged from his studio experiments at the beginning of that decade.This technique, which involved a combination of self made instruments, synthesisers, tabletop effects and, in the case of EXD, drum machines, often recorded at incredible levels to create a uniquely v…

People of a certain age love the Moomins. It was the quaint Swedish children's television show about a gang of woodland creatures who looked something like hippopotamuses. Weirdly, the evocative, dreamy music was made in Leeds by a couple of punk-era musicians Graeme Miller & Steve Shill and Finders Keepers have already issued the soundtrack on vinyl. This version is a Winter Wunderland Edition which is the same soundtrack in more 'wintery' sleeve art.

Queried on his favourite word in the German language, Masayoshi Fujita will pick ‘getragen’ – without a sliver of hesitation. Further questioning will reveal that he loves the term’s semantic signifiers, its inherent sense of “expansive, deep, quiet and sombre.” And yet, ‘getragen’ leaves plenty of room for interpretation: depending on context, it might also indicate wearing apparel or the state of being carried – two more mundane interpretations that I would rather keep from him. Does Masayoshi…

Records are almost always more than they seem. For all the sound and joy that they bring, they are works of art in multiple that indicate vast networks of happening, history, and ideas; beacons to be chased, leading to understanding beyond themselves. Particularly in the case of historical works, whether they emerge from dusty crates or as reissues and archival releases, these objects can reveal unexpected creative intersections that defy our notions of what was. Aguirre’s first-time reissue of …

**In process of stocking** Vernal Croossing is Rapoon´s fourth album, originally released in 1993 by Staalplaat. One of the most interesting records released by Robin Storey (founding member of the pioneering industrial group ZovietFrance) on vinyl now for the first time. A magic balance between percussion and electronics, creating mind-bending tapestries of minimalistic patterns and quasi-melodic drones fused with occasional doses of well-placed white noise. An approach much in debt to his 12 y…

Edition of 300. New York, 1978, kindred composers Philip Corner and Carles Santos meet at the Bösendorfer piano of Charlemagne Palestine to record four-hand piano versions of Corner’s pieces “Chord” and “Gong!”.  The result is a long-flowing distillation of the source of the two composers’ affinity: avant-garde practice of austere artistic devotion at play with perfect imperfections of the uncontainable human spirit.A small cassette edition appeared  in the late 1980’s and is now presented in a …

**CD edition** Issued alongside the compilation Musiche de Teisco, the Dual Planet label offers another piece of the mysterious cosmic puzzle of electronic library maverick Teisco. Fast forward several years to D.O.C, a library recording released under his new tag Rimauri, Here, you can hear how Teisco / Rimauri has refined the synthetic vision he started to work on with his earlier recording Dossier Special. This set conjures up instant thoughts of vintage computer game soundtracks or even a pa…

**CD edition** The last time we checked in with Italian musician Teisco aka Rimauri, aka Marco Melchiori, was quite possibly also the first time many of you checked in with this most singular of characters. For The Roundtable imprint’s reissue of his blasted ‘70s Italian library classic, Tuscan Castle & Country Seat, managed to be both a blast of fresh air for the library and soundtrack palate, and a defining moment in early 21st century reissue culture. But Tuscan Castle only tells part of the …

**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set. Eistla was the final one of these, first released at the end of 2018.

**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set. Saudade was his third overall and the first of two full-lengths released in 2018 alone.

**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set.Cascade Symmetry was his 2017 sophomore effort.

**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set. Full Blossom of the Evening was his 2016 debut.

Kairos is proud to announce the release of three string quartets by renowned Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino, recorded by the brilliant Quartetto Prometeo. The group has worked closely with the composer for years, leading him to dedicate two pieces to it, one of which is included on this CD, the Quartetto No. 8. The three quartets, Quartetto No. 7, Quartetto No.8, and Sei quartetti brevi were written over a time span of fortyone years, but despite this long range of time, Sciarrino’s idiosy…

You know it's Bollywood time again when you find classic Hindustani music, tinges of fuzz guitar and acid pop plus and a dance orchestra mixed for an album with epic anthems captivating and accessible at once. The musicians play with passion and the singers really chant their souls out to summon Krishna or just rave about tragically broken relationships and other problems of all day's life. This album really paints majestic pictures into your mind and lets you become part of a colorful mo…

Now we drift deep into the world of Bollywood. “Hare Rama, hare Krishna” is an Indian movie from 1971 which features an odd story about family problems, the flight of a young girl into the hippie lifestyle far from home and the quest of her brother to bring her back home. The musical framework of this movie has been created by Rahul Dev Burman (1939 – 1994), one of the most prolific soundtrack score composers from India. And the music alone plays a movie in your mind even though you may not know…

Mort Garson is well known as one of the pioneers of electronic music in the late '60s; some may have heard of his contributions to quite a few pop hits back in the day, when he wrote and conducted orchestral arrangements for one or another popular artist. During the second half of the 1960s Mort Garson and his sidekicks Paul Beaver and Jacques Wilson, among others, discovered Robert Moog's synthesizer and made it an integral part of their future-pop music even before Wendy Carlos released her fa…

This is the sixth album by Dorothy Ashby, a Detroit born jazz harpist who passed away in her early 50s in 1986 way before her time. She left us a rich legacy of music with this 1965 release being one of her milestones. The music is pure bright and swinging with a joyful mood. Dorothy Ashby performs her lines big time with her harp and captures your soul with the melodies she picks from its strings. She is always there upfront while the brass section mostly fills the background with colour if the…

Pregador Do Som present a reissue of the 1972 Afro-Cuban jazz album by Nico Gomez And His Orchestra, Bossa Nova. For fans of easy listening drenched Latin jazz with a lot of rhythm!

An incredible album – one in which the Brazilian female harmony quartet meets up with their male counterparts, the Tamba Trio! The gals have most of the vocals on this set, but backings are in the sublimely modern mode that the Tamba combo was using at the time, set to arrangements by Luiz Eca, the group's pianist – and soaring with a great blend of jazz and bossa elements! The whole thing's a landmark in the Brazilian scene of the time – with edges that are dark and sweet at the same time – and…

**Limited 180 gram vinyl LP + booklet** Minimal Wave is honored to present a reissue of Jyl's self-titled full-length album from 1984, originally released on Klaus Schulze's Inteam label. Born and raised in California, Jyl travelled to Europe in her twenties to dance and met several talented and like-minded collaborators along the way. She ended up in Germany, and worked with Ingo Werner, Angela Werner, and Klaus Schulze, on what would become one of the most important and forward thinking electr…

In a time before jazz music went free and ‘avant-garde’ there were a couple of inspired souls who put an emphasize on extended jams and improvised yet melodic parts based on a rather repetitive rhythm background. The result in turning away from the rather artistic and complicated bebop was the modal jazz that came up in the second half of the 1950s and lasted as the leading style until the mid to late 60s when bands either became free avant garde or discovered rock music to boost up their sound.…

Skokiaan present a reissue of Georges Garvarentz's Panic Button, originally released in 1964. The mastermind behind this album can be seen as a luminary in the field of movie soundtracks, especially for the '60s and '70s, his career lasting til the early '90s, up to his untimely death. Panic Button is the third album of its kind from Garvarentz, composed for an Italian low budget comedy film, of the same name, released in 1964. The most interesting fact about the movie is the participation of cu…

Raja Zahr is an American music producer, singer and multi instrumentalist of Arab (Lebanese) origin. Here we go with the bare facts about this: his first album in a row of five releases between 1980 and 1984. The Arab folk influence is quite obvious on each track and gets more or less expanded if the specific song takes a turn into the realms of traditional music or comes as a plain and simple yet captivating pop song with great arrangements and haunting melodies. Mr. Zahr obviously had a fondne…

Originally released 1978 on Pennine Records, two catalogue numbers before they issued the famouse "Rosemary Lane" album by Tickwinda! Even European music might have quite an exotic feeling and Latvian ethno rockers Alva are the living proof. Based in England at the time they released their sole album “Ja tik butu” they fell straight into the folk rock genre with their cross of melancholic, even slightly psychedelic rock and colorful, mystifying Baltic folk and all of this in the middle of the UK…

Genuine reissue of D.R. Hooker's The Truth (1972) from the original audio sources; new analog transfer with improved mastering. "It's a miracle any copies of this privately pressed album survived -- but be thankful it did, for here is an individual vision. Some people worry about when we'll run out of oil. A rather smaller proportion of us worry about when we'll run out of discoverable, deep-end thrills like this. Connecticut-based Hooker -- a tall, slim hippy with a history of substance abuse -…

Paternoster, that UFO of a rock album released unceremoniously on a custom-pressed CBS Austria long player in 1972, is the stuff of legend. It's been known to the rock collecting elite since the 1980s, when it was first rediscovered, and it quickly became one of those rock records, the records you hear about only if you know someone who knows someone with a copy, much like Damon's Song of a Gypsy. Paternoster is a terrifying album, a collection of songs that traverses the sublime, and thus neces…