Reissues
Nine Death Stages
* Edition of 325 copies, silkscreened sleeve w/ obi (black or kraft), postcard * Kusōzu : Nine Death Stages is the second album by the Tokyo trio Archeus, which consists of Keiko Higuchi (voice, percussion, trombone, shamisen), Shizuo Uchida (bass strings), and Tomo (hurdy gurdy, voice). It follows their debut, self-titled and self-released CD and cassette from 2021 and is further proof – if any were needed – that these musicians, who’ve known each other for some time, but only started playing t…
Symphony No. 107 - The Bard
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Symphony No. 107 –The Bard, a previously unheard archival recording of the legendary improvising ensemble MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva), captured in concert at Bard College, New York in 2012. Formed by a group of American expat composers in Rome in 1966, the MEV ensemble played an important role in the development of free improvisation, bridging the live electronics tradition begun by John Cage and David Tudor and the high-energy squall of free jazz. Early re…
Prophet
Featuring what may be his only recordings on the Prophet keyboard, these once lost performances expand the omniverse of Ra across a stellar set of lengthy cuts! All recorded in a single day and finally making their terrestrial debut! What happens when a Prophet meets a Prophet? The answer lies within these grooves. Amongst the hundreds of recordings issued by Sun Ra and his Arkestra, under their various guises, the majority were recorded in concert or in makeshift studios such as their early 19…
Patterns of Consciousness
2023 repress, edition of 500 copies, gatefold sleeve. Essential re-press of Caterina Barbieri's debut double LP. Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full-length from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Gorgeous high resolution analog textures and algorithmic melodies unfold under Barbieri's careful control, exploring the basic nature of sound and consciousness. These pieces are minimal in arrangement but maximal in presence asserting Barbieri as a unique voice in contemporary e…
Arthur Pétronio
Edition of 500. With fold-out poster and original sleeve design by Alain Geronnez. Arthur Petronio (1897-1983) was a French-Italian musician, poet and painter. Lived in Belgium and The Netherlands between 1910 and 1924 and since then in France. Young violin virtuoso studying with Belgian master violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Played solo violin for Belgian King Leopold II, at the age of 9. Attracted to the avant-garde and visionary ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk. Develops and presents his “Verbophonie” in 191…
Reality Gates
Soave Records dusts off in limited edition the psych/synth album by Doctor Steven T. Birchall recorded in 1973 in Indiana, U.S.A. with the following equipment: VCS-3 (The Putney) by EMS, Ampex MM-1000 16 trk, dbx noise reduction, SpectrasSonics Console, Studer A80 Recorder, Eventide Clockworks, Instant Phaser, Cooper Time Cube, EMT Reverb. The absolutely penetrating high tones of the opening track 'Music Of The Spheres' announce us that we are on board, passengers in the hands, or perhaps better…
Kwanza
These 1969 recordings (released 5 years later) combine Archie Shepp’s free jazz bonafides and a blend of blues and funk through an African lens, all in a big band setting. The all-star brass section, featuring James Spaulding and Charles Davis on sax along with trombonist Graham Moncur III lead the way on stand outs including “New Africa” and “Spoo Pee Doo.” This Verve By Request LP features transfers from analog tapes and remastered on 180-gram vinyl, pressed at Third Man in Detroit.
Marc'h Gouez
LP version. Includes eight-page booklet; 425 gsm brownboard outer sleeve; 180 gram vinyl. "Why would I sing in French? I have Breton culture, I speak Breton, I live in Brittany, and the Breton language is the language of this country..." So explained Kristen Noguès, of whom this is the first of the (rare) albums that she recorded Marc'h Gouez, is a fabulous voyage in space on each listening. Noguès learned the Breton language as a child, at the same time as the Celtic harp, -- taking lessons wit…
Blues and News
"I get something out of listening to Coltrane, Shepp, and Coleman; I'm really pleased that young players are trying to change things. If they go back the roots and come up with something new, that's fantastic." This comment was made by saxophonist Hal Singer to Gérard Terronès for the magazine Jazz Hot in 1968. Two years later, Terronès would issue Singer's album Blues and News, on his label Futura Records. Though born in 1919, Hal Singer claims, just like the precursors of free jazz, "to always…
Das Orgien Mysterientheater - Musik Des 6-Tage-Spiels 2022
24 years after Hermann Nitsch's first realization of the six-day play (1998), his Gesamtkunstwerk once again took place in July 2022, shortly after the artist passed away in April. "The six-day play of the Orgien Mysterien Theater, is to become the greatest and most important festival of mankind (it is an aesthetic ritual of the glorification of existence). It is at the same time a popular festival and a mystery of existence brought to consciousness. The festival of the orgien mysterien theatre …
Räumlichkeit
Bastian Epple makes an eagerly anticipated return to marionette under his elusive MinaeMinae guise that imagines rich sonic architectures for the journeying spirit to voyage to. Räumlichkeit is Epple’s debut album and third release to date following Gestrüpp from 2020, venturing further into melodic electronic nostalgia and percussive beat oriented soundscapes. Spanning fifteen vignettes that trapeze through uncharted winding trails and familiar spaces, the album’s recordings evoke a scenic sta…
Mondays At The Enfield Tennis Academy
Mondays at Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet is at last here. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depthful & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts fro…
Fläche & Figur (14 Duos Für Akkordeon Und Drumsets)
Rüdiger Carl and Sven-Åke Johansson are two fellow travelers on the path of experimental music who have worked together since the late 1960s in many formations, most notably as the wild-card Fluxus pranksters on Peter Brötzmann’s legendary 1969 recording Machine Gun, and on many more recordings and stagings of sonic interventions over the decades. In the words of Peter Margasak writing in the Chicago Reader in 2012: “Where to begin with percussionist and polymath Sven-Åke Johansson: Is he a beb…
Killing Time
*2023 Repress * Spittle Records present an expanded reissue of Massacre's Killing Time, originally released in 1981. Following the breakup of Cambridge's avant-rock legends, Henry Cow, guitarist Fred Frith moved to NYC in 1979, and soon found himself deep in the heart of the city's robust post-punk and free-jazz scenes. He performed with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher, from the group Material, as a power trio of sorts under the moniker of Massacre. The group quickly garnered a reputation around tow…
Il Suono delle Api / La Vibrazione del Cosmo
An absolutely stunning effort from one of the great journeymen of Italian experimentalism, Walter Maioli's 'Il Suono delle Api / La Vibrazione del Cosmo', issued by Villa Lontana Records, is electroacoustic music at its absolute, vibrant best. Pressed in two extremely limited editions on black and transparent vinyl and laden with rich tonalities, deep drones, and hypnotic arpeggiations, it's a truly mind-melting, free-standing sonic world that encounters Maioli at the top of his game.
Sound Anthology (LP)
From the celebrated imprint, Recorthings & Zona Archives, comes “Sound Anthology”, the first ever full length dedicated to the output of Maurizio Nannucci. Gathering sixteen pieces created between 1966 and 2013, the collection is an absolute revelation, blurring the boundaries between musique concrète and noise and unveiling one of Italy’s great journeymen of experimental sound practice lingering in our midst.
Frans Zwartjes (2LP)
** Numbered + handmade in an edition of 300 copies only; 180gr 2xLP vinyl in custom-made screen-printed outer ** Frans Zwartjes’ studio remains untouched since his passing in 2017. In early 2023, we returned to the studio and discovered a trunk of unlabelled 3/4 inch tapes, containing completely unheard music by Zwartjes. These works, largely synthesiser-based improvisations for films either unmade or unfinished, were played and recorded by Frans Zwartjes between the late 1960s, through his most…
French Archives Vol. III 1964-1989
An absolutely astounding accomplishment, Black Sweat's 4 LP Box set of previously unreleased material by Ariel Kalma - French Archives Vol. III - is a mind-melting immersion into the composer and saxophonist's radical experiments and stunning ambient harmonics made between 1974 and 1985. Venturing far beyond the territories for which he is most well-known, the collection takes great strides to accurately framing ambient and New Age musics as rightful extensions of the avant-garde, and is easily …
Lettera Cosmica
Huge Tip! Since the 1970s Mario De Leo works as a musician and visual artist. His mechanical paintings are hybrid works that reveal the cosmic spiritualism hidden in the meanders of electronics. With Riccardo Sinigaglia (Futuro Antico, Correnti Magnetiche, Doubling Riders) De Leo consolidates an artistic and human partnership with Lettera Cosmica, a work unpublished to date, produced and recorded in 1981. In a wacky electronic vision of the succession of time, the tracks trace the four seasons i…
File Under Popular: Theoretical and Critical Writings on Music (Book)
This substantial book was written in 1984/85, soon after the band broke up and while memories were still fresh. It was written very much from the perspective of the time – that’s more important than it may sound in such a project: hindsight has its own value, but it loses the essence of the moment, the context, the freshness; the feel of unfamiliarity. Originally written as a master’s degree thesis, it was updated and published in book form in 2000 by the Norwegian University of Science and Tech…