Reissues
Symphony No. 3: Siddhartha Gautama O El Poder De La Nada
When psycho-spatial composer Nelson Gastaldi passed away in 2009 at the age of 77, he left behind a unique musical legacy that is only now beginning to be unveiled. A self-described “musical nihilist with noble and mystic origins” (as well as an accomplished visual artist), Gastaldi supported himself and his family with a job at an electric company in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while creating an astonishing body of work that went virtually unheard during his lifetime. Synthesizing his wide-ranging…
I Saw The Outer Limits
Mind-stretching analog synth wizardry from the legendary Matsuo Ohno, sound designer for Astro Boy and many other Japanese films and TV programs. His first non-soundtrack release, from 1978, is a massive, undulating galaxy re-released here on CD with a bonus mini-CD reissue of a rare 1970 flexi-disc Play On Animals, rated as one of 2011's top releases by Byron Coley of The Wire. This reissue of his stellar 1978 LP I Saw The Outer Limits presents him at the peak of his powers, combining his maste…
ØØ Void
Double LP edition: Lengths of stretched distortion rattle the grey matter, unnervingly slow and severe. With Sunn O)))’s second album, ØØ Void, the sonic misery nurtured to functionality by Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley stays simple and repetitive, a tabula rasa having yet to realize the full scope of its potential. With this album, Sunn O))) worked as a three-piece, collaborator Stuart Dalquist coming up with its opener, “Richard,” which is a solid fourteen and a half minutes of be…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 3
Wergo presents the third volume of the Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series. Recorded between 1960 and 1973, the original LPs from which these CDs were taken have long been collector's items. These rare and historically important recordings of international avantgarde music have been carefully digitized and remastered by the Earle Brown Music Foundation. The series presents the extraordinary world of contemporary and avant-garde music that fl ourished in Europe, the United States, Latin …
FRKYS Vol. 8
"Volume 8 in the ongoing FRKWYS series on RVNG Intl. is a double album-length collaboration between Blues Control and Laraaji. Following the 'fodder first' tradition of previous FRKWYS installments, Vol. 8 was birthed over e-mail dialogue between RVNG and Russ Waterhouse and Lea Cho of Blues Control. Blues Control's evolved output gracefully arcs with influence and innovation that gleams electronic, New Age, and hard rock terrains. Laraaji's name came up early in that conversation and felt intri…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 1
Featuring The Manhattan Percussion Ensemble, John Cage (conductor), Paul Price (conductor), Christoph Caskel (percussion), David Tudor (piano), Aloys Kontarsky (piano), Bernhard Kontarsky (celesta), MEV (Ala Bryant, Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum & Ivan Vandor), AMM (Cornelius Cardew, Lou Gare, Christopher Hobbs, Eddie Prevost & Keith Rowe). "Wergo's Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series focuses on the extraordinary world of contemporary and avant-garde music that flou…
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series Vol. 4
"Wergo's reissues of the legendary Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series have been a big hit with fans of contemporary music around the world. Each set is a treasure-trove of works by a wide range of composers, performed by some of the finest musicians of the time. The three CDs of volume four feature string quartets by Boulez, Scelsi and Earle Brown, works for chamber orchestra by Xenakis, Aldo Clementi, Bo Nilsson, Wlodzimierz Kotonski and Yuji Takahashi and works by Milko Kelemen, Niccolo Cas…
Kibbutz
Outstanding reissue, one of the best Merzbow albums ever made, originally released in 1983 on cassette by the Milanese label Adn, Kibbutz is a mélange of sounds made by Masami Akita aka Merzbow on drums, guitar and effects supported, in those years, by Kiyoshi Mizutani at the keyboards and recorded at Kitijoji Music Studio in Tokyo. In this first period, the sounds produced by the duo were amplified up to the distortion producing long sonic-anti psychedelic jam session. The three tracks on Kibb…
The Resurrection And Revenge Of The Clayton Peacock
Michael Chapman, one of the finest acoustic guitar innovators borne of the late '70s UK folk scene, was in Philadelphia early 2010, paying tribute to his good friend, the late Jack Rose, a mighty six-string alchemist in his own right, and a youngster wholly inspired by Chapman's critical recordings. While sharing in the good light of friendship backstage, we asked Michael if he'd ever recorded an LP of purely improvised guitar music. It seemed feasible, as the current state of acou…
Audio Combine
restocked: The music comprising John Bischoff’s new CD ‘Audio Combine’, just released on New World Records, is beautiful, fascinating, thoroughly enjoyable. Philip Perkins’s engineering and production values are superb.The five tracks on the disc are diverse, representing Bischoff compositions from 2004 to mid-2011. The third track ‘Local Color’ evokes traditional chinese zhong bells, but also especially calls into question the ‘who’ of music performance [in asmuch as some of the bells are compu…
The Master Musicians Of India
Seminal recording (originally released in 1964) by the two men most responsible for opening the West to Indian music. Master of the sitar, Ravi Shankar (age 91) is, of course, famous for his legendary influence on the Beatles, but this recording was made for the American jazz label Prestige prior to their meeting. Perhaps lesser intertwined with the pop music world, Ali Akbar-Khan is nonetheless one of India’s greatest musicians, and the world’s best sarod player. Shankar and Khan play to…
From The Kitchen Archives No. 5 - Pianos in The Kitchen
The 5th volume from NYC's The Kitchen performance center focuses on piano music from performers Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Charlemagne Palestine, Anthony Davis, Harold Budd, and Dennis Russel Davies. Pianos in The Kitchen brings together select concert recordings of solo piano works performed at The Kitchen from 1976 through 1983, including works from the 1976 Bösendorfer Festival and the 1983 series of benefit concerts that supported the purchase of a new Steinway Baby Grand piano for the…
Your Eyes Are My Eyes
Cold Phoenix were an italian dark wave / post punk group from Bologna, formed in 1985 by Vittorio Barion (bass), Alessandro Paltretti (guitar,vocals), Alessandro Ruggeri (drums) and Alberto Verri (keyboards). Their story is simply the story of 4 young guys, with a great passion for our beloved dark tunes, in fact all the tracks were composed ad the age of 19..just two years later, after the release of their only 12'' EP 'Your Eyes Are My Eyes', few live acts and even video appareances on Rai Tel…
Collected Works Of
LP edition: Psychedelic drone sounds, experimental electro-acoustics, minimal music and deep listening from the years 2000 - 2007 by Ilya Monosov, who is a member of the Frogpeak artist collective and one-half of the psychedelic noise group The Shining Path and the improv duo Monosov/Swirnoff. Ilya Monosov has collaborated with Bob Cobbing, Charles Curtis, Duane Pitre, Marc Schulz (in Ben Patterson's installation at the 40th Anniversary of Fluxus), Larry Polansky, Andrew Deutsch (with Paul…
Ted Lucas
The long-overdue reissue of Ted Lucas' one solo LP (1975) is a collaborative effort between Yoga Records, Sebastian Speaks, and Riverman Music. It took a long time because we wanted to get it right. We want to say thanks for your patience. Time for the world to hear this masterpiece! Ted Lucas flirted with fame in the late 60s in the Spike Drivers and Misty Wizards, studied with Ravi Shankar, went home to Detroit and played sitar for Motown, and recorded his album, referred to by family and frie…
Group: Xex
Xex were an all-synthesizer band from South River, New Jersey who recorded their debut album group:xex in 1980. Formed when a trio of high school misfits with funny names (Waw Pierogi, Thumbalina Gugielmo and Alex Zander) teamed up with some friends from Rutgers CollegePerformed entirely on then-state-of-the-art Arps, synths and electronic drums – no guitars anywhere – group: xex aims for the future, but comes across now like a time capsule from the deepest, darkest Reagan years. Each song burro…
No Inzro
Mannequin continues its archeological mission bringing back to the modern format of the CD the cult italian new wave band Degada Saf, with their LP No Inzro from 1984. Degada Saf were a transgressive-dada-ist musical combo coming from Veneto. The project has seen the light back in the 80s thanks to the reunion of two charismatic experimental sound makers, Fausto Crocetta and Luigi Campalani (with additional sounds provided by Fabio Basso, Gianni Baggio and Stefano Dal Col). The music of …
Sleeping City
“Sleeping City” is the highly anticipated and Anna’s second release in co-operation with the Mannequin label from Rome, Italy. Intelligence Dept. were Davide Carlotti (synthesisers, sax, backing vocals), Susanna Zaghi (vocals, lyrics), Stefano Panzera (bass) and Gian Paolo Di Federico (synthesisers, drum machine programming) from Ferrara, Italy. They only ever officially released three, yet totally amazing tracks on the “A White Chance” LP compilation in 1984 (White Studio Recording, WS 001; Wh…
Danza Meccanica - Italian Synth Wave Vol. 2 1981 - 1987
"Mannequin is sincerly proud to announce the second volume of the much acclaimed italian New Wave Italian compilation. "Danza Meccanica" is the latest, unmissable chapter in the story of Italian post punk - the less traditionally rock branch. It outlines the approach taken by ten more or less unknown groups who all deserve rediscovery and to be remembered alongside luckier outfits. Ten tracks that spell out the manifesto of a scene fascinated by electronic innovation, a scene that used the sound…
Loving Machinery EP
Formed in 1981, Central Unit were among the first in Italy to manipulate synths, drum machines and other electronic devices (as far as we know they were one of the few bands in the world able to program a Korg-KR55 drum machine) to create atmospheric soundscapes combined with mechanical basslines and relentless bass guitar meanderings, with slothy saxophone murmurs peeping out here and there