Life meets art. Born of a long written corresPondence and a mutual affection for frogs between David Myers (the artist formerly known as Arcane Device) and Tod Dockstader which eventually spawned this programme of electronic & concrete pieces derived almost entirely from field (and swamp) recordings of frogs - choral and solo processed, manipulated and organised in a million ways. This release also marks the welcome return of Tod Dockstader to the lists; it's his first large-scale new published …
Tod Dockstader's musique concrete turns out to have a surprising relevance to music created decades later; he's been described as "one of the godfathers of Nurse With Wound, and a distant cousin of rap and techno" (Option). Craig Anderton writes that Dockstader was one of the few to master "the art of assembling tape-recorded sounds and painstakingly splicing, cutting, dubbing, manipulating and mixing to create final compositions," then adds: "If you think that sounds similar to the procedures u…
Seminal musique concrete recordings from the early 60s that were first issued on CD in '92/'93. This CDs offer all of Dockstader's principal solo works, including unreleased works and material that has been out of print on LP for over a decade (spread over 3 LPs on the Owl label). Dockstader deserves shelf space next to Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, Varése, etc. -- historically vital, minutely detailed experimental electronic music and tape composition. "My choice of the term 'Organized Sound' …
Tod Dockstader is one of the all-time great figures in the world of musique concréte composition, with his "organized sound" works from the 1960s being amongst the most radical ever conceived -- in league with Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, and Varese. Aerial is a rare new work in the realm of shortwave radio, from one of America's most experimental composers. This release is the first (Volume 1) in a three-part series. "I've written before of my interest in shortwave radio. When I was ve…
Reissue of a 1961 Folkways electronic music album. "Tod Dockstader assembled this terrifically unique and fresh collection of synthetic analog sound for release back in 1961. Dormant and nearly forgotten for some 40 years, Locust brings this gem back into print for another go around you won't want to miss out on. Dockstader has been characterized by many as a true antecedent to the techno and ambient electro scenes popularized by the likes of Aphex Twin, a visionary figure who the Washington Pos…
The music on this disc was written over a period of more than thirty years. Over the course of those years, so much has changed in technology, in music, in life in general. But throughout the work represented here one can recognize the remarkable, entirely original voice of Charles Dodge (b. 1942). He is truly a composer who writes music that does not sound like anybody else's. He has never been part of any “ism” or movement; he is his own category. And although his stylistic approach and his…
The Master Musicians of Joujouka are often credited with being the first "world music" group. The Joujouka music for Boujeloud, or the Father of Skins, is frantic and has several movements which would equate to a symphony or the score of an opera if it were European classical music. The festival and ritual originate in the worship of the God Pan. In 1994, Frank Rynne began a two year long project recording the Master Musicians of Joujouka in their village. Sub Rosa released two CDs from these re…
Originally released on CD by Touch and never re-issued. The seventh re-issue in the Hafler Trio re-issue series Seven Hours Sleep. Something approached, and it was embraced, thorns piercing the anonymous functions and the ways in which all the secrets had been help in high esteem. traces of the places yet to come, and those to be left far behind. the first outing in the digital domain, and all the difference the day made when it appeared, startling those in need of a jolly good lie down. and so …
Sonny Rollins with Jimmy Garrison (bass), Elvin Jones (drums) and Freddie Hubbard (trumpet, title track only), recorded for Impulse! at Van Gelder Studio on May 9, 1966. Verve Acoustic Sounds LP reissue.
McCoy Tyner's 1964 Impulse! album, joining a trio session with Jimmy Garrison and Albert Heath (4 June 1963) and a sextet with Thad Jones, Frank Strozier, John Gilmore, Butch Warren and Elvin Jones (4 February 1964). Verve By Request reissue, 2024.
John Coltrane live at the Village Vanguard, New York, 2 and 3 November 1961, with Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones, first released by Impulse! in 1962. Acoustic Sounds Series reissue, 2022.
Larry Young's last Blue Note session, five originals recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 7 February 1969 with Lee Morgan, Herbert Morgan and Eddie Gladden, first released in 1980 (LT-1038). Tone Poet reissue, 2026.
Larry Young's first Blue Note album as leader, recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 12 November 1964 with Sam Rivers, Grant Green and Elvin Jones, first released in 1965. Blue Note Classic Vinyl reissue, 2020.
Tyrone Washington's only Blue Note album as leader, six originals recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 29 December 1967 with Woody Shaw, James Spaulding, Kenny Barron, Reggie Workman and Joe Chambers. Tone Poet reissue, 2026.
Japanese UHQCD reissue (UCCQ-9640, 2024) of McCoy Tyner's 1969 Blue Note album, a hornless quartet with Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Lewis and Freddie Waits recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 17 May 1968.
McCoy Tyner septet with Andrew White, Ted Dunbar, Buster Williams, Billy Hart, Mtume and vocalist Songai Sandra Smith, recorded on 10 September 1970 for Blue Note and first released in 1974. Tone Poet 180g LP.
Wayne Shorter quartet with Herbie Hancock, Cecil McBee and Joe Chambers, recorded on 14 June 1965 for Blue Note and first released in 1980. Japanese UHQCD, UCCQ-9742 (2024).
Wayne Shorter quartet with Herbie Hancock, Reggie Workman and Joe Chambers, recorded on 3 and 24 February 1966 for Blue Note and first released in 1967. Japanese UHQCD, UCCQ-9645 (2024).
Jackie McLean quintet sessions for Blue Note: five tracks recorded on 11 February 1963 with Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren and Tony Williams, one from 2 May 1959. First issued in 1980. Tone Poet 180g LP.
Jackie McLean quartet session with Sonny Clark, Butch Warren and Art Taylor, recorded on 28 September 1962 for Blue Note and first issued in Japan in 1979. Tone Poet 180g LP reissue.
Jackie McLean's One Step Beyond, a quintet session with Grachan Moncur III, Bobby Hutcherson, Eddie Khan and Tony Williams, recorded on April 30, 1963 at Van Gelder Studio and first released by Blue Note in 1964.
Jackie McLean's A Fickle Sonance, a quintet session with Tommy Turrentine, Sonny Clark, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins, recorded on October 26, 1961 at Van Gelder Studio and first released by Blue Note in 1962.
Elvin Jones' first Blue Note album as a leader, a piano-less trio with Joe Farrell and Jimmy Garrison recorded on April 8, 1968 at Van Gelder Studio, produced by Duke Pearson and first released in 1968.
Bobby Hutcherson's Medina, recorded on August 11, 1969 at Van Gelder Studio with Harold Land, Stanley Cowell, Reggie Johnson and Joe Chambers, unissued until Blue Note released it in 1980 in the LT series (LT-1086).
Andrew Hill's Judgment!, a quartet session recorded on January 8, 1964 at Van Gelder Studio with Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis and Elvin Jones, produced by Alfred Lion and first released by Blue Note in 1964.
Andrew Hill's Compulsion!!!!!, recorded on October 8, 1965 at Van Gelder Studio with Freddie Hubbard, John Gilmore, Cecil McBee, Richard Davis, Joe Chambers, Renaud Simmons and Nadi Qamar, first released by Blue Note in 1967.
A previously unreleased solo violin performance by the founder of the Taj Mahal Travellers and legendary Fluxus conceptualist. Active since the 1960s, Takeisha Kosugi has more recently served as the music director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Troupe. He is currently involved with the composing and performance of impromptu music and electronic multimedia music. To be brief, Kosugi is one of the most important and influential Japanese experimental avant-gardists, alongside the likes of Yasunao T…
Originally released in 1989, Violin Solo documents Takehisa Kosugi's improvisations with electric violin and miscellaneous sounding objects, recorded September 3-4, 1989. Kosugi's approach has a sense of emerging from the bottom of a spiritual unconscious. From this place comes a music based more on the feeling of sounds than conscious arrangement. Memory, physical action, tactile perceptions, environmental conditions, and awareness of subconscious microcosmic and macrocosmic extremes inform his…
Music for four saxophones (Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Steve Potts & Trevor Watts) with guitar (Derek Bailey) & synthesizer (Michel Waisvisz). Plus highlights from an earlier London concert by Lacy, Potts, Bailey, Kent Carter & John Stevens. Improvisations on original compositions. Reissue of Emanem 3310 (plus an extra piece from the same concert) and the better half of Emanem 304.
Sten Hanson has been working with experimental music, literature and art since the beginning of the 1960's, cultivating both instrumental, vocal and electro-acoustic music for performance on radio and television, on outdoor occasions or from the concert platform. From an early stage he was aware of the importance of tape-recording techniques in the renewal and development of poetry’s resources. Text-sound-visual image, often combined with intensely personal 'live" performances, are vital ingredi…
The works here come from four decades, which in Swedish folklore is called an "adult man´s lifetime". Four decades is a long time, even if it may seem scarily short when you look back on it. Of course the artist is not the same person at 70 as at 30. Knowing that, I have made it a principle never to go back and reverse old works, even if I'm not too happy with them. Doing that you can be almost certain to make the works worse and not better, as one can learn from countless historical examples.In…
Awesome anthology of Sten Hanson text-sound composition..."Fylkingen has, in the course of its many years of activity, become a familiar factor in Swedish, as well as international, musical life, a unique forum for the presentation of experimental art. Since very early it began to work in collaboration with an electronic music studio in Stockholm for the creation of technically satisfactory performance possibilities. The movement within Sweden in sound poetry/text-sound composition took hold in …
England's Bob Cobbing and France's Henri Chopin. A sound poet -- or text-sound composer as the Swedish like to call this art form -- of exquisite talent, Hanson has scattered an impressive number of works on compilation albums and the odd solo LP or CD, most of which remain very hard to find. In 2002, Firework Edition Records released Text-Sound Gems & Trinkets, a solid collection of 25 of Hanson's recordings for a total duration of 73 minutes. Presented in chronological order, the short pieces …
2nd volume. The unissued duo works by Stevens (cornet, voice, percussion) and Watts (ss) are way out and an invigorating reminder of the outlandish possibilities of free improvisation, especially "DAA-OOM" ("a loose composition inspired by the music of both the central African pygmies and Albert Ayler -- even 23 years later, the rawness of these pieces is somewhat startling." -- Martin Davidson).
Two of the last performances by the SME which then comprised John Stevens (percussion & pocket trumpet), Roger Smith (guitar) and John Butcher (soprano & tenor saxophones). A new direction for the music that was sadly terminated later that year (1994) by Stevens' untimely death. Added to this reissue are two short pieces from the previous year, when Neil Metcalfe (flute) was also in the group, and some perceptive comments by Stevens. Reissue of Acta CD 8 with extra material. 63 minutes. Reissue …
John Stevens (percussion & cornet), Nigel Coombes (violin), Roger Smith (guitar), Colin Wood (cello). The first recording of the 'string' version of the SME, that lasted (minus Wood) until 1992." "We had a willow tree in the back garden and I used to look at the willow tree and the grass and think, well we could be like this. We could be very close to nature if we learned how to just purely interact..." John Stevens. Reissue plus 35 minutes of extra material from the same session. Originally re…
All previously unissued recordings, mainly made up of the duo of John Stevens (percussion) and Evan Parker (ss, ts), with Peter Kowald (b) on about a third of it. This marks the earliest to date recordings of Parker and is a tremendous snapshot of some ancient history. "Parker and Stevens seemed to break through to a deeper level of hearing, where a sound was not set against other sounds but rather against the silence around it, so that one gained heightened awareness of its growth and decay, it…
Realized at and commissioned by Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM). Premiered April 25, 2004, salle Olivier Messiaen, Maison de la Radio (Paris, France). Comes within 108-page book with original texts in French translated in English including interview/discussion between Alexandre Yterce, Florence Gonot & Jacques Lejeune; also including is a full list of works by the composer.
The Cahiers Sonopsys will question some composers of this Musique Concrète / Acousmatique which, since 1948, the year…
2024 stock 33 1/3 is Smegma''s tribute to their 20th century avant-garde and out-jazz influences. The title is one part reference to the happy revival of passionate vinyl listening in the 21st century and one part celebration of their long hard slog of 33 1/3 years of being one of the most free thinking and original American underground groups. Their focus, ideas and determination has brought them through more than three decades and to this day they remain unparalleled, original and highly influ…
The second in the series of Harbinger Sound's efforts to present the Smegma back catalog. This album originally came out in the UK only back in 1987 and is backed by the studio side from the 1988 cassette release, Morass. Twenty-one tracks in total. Dedicated to Tom (Pig Champion) Roberts. Limited to #1000 copies. CD features an eight-page booklet with photos and a pre-1988 Smegma discography