Reissues
Corona - For Away - Piano Distance - Undisturbed Rest
Performed by Roger Woodward (piano). Recorded Decca Studio No.3, West Hampstead, London, 4 May 1973. This is the first International CD release featuring this recording. Was first released on Decca's HEAD label in 1974. For Takemitsu, sound can be beautiful without being significant, can signify beauty without making 'sense'. The quality of the music is thus elusive: it is not something one must necessarily 'understand', but perhaps rather absorb and accept. His works have, all the same, qualiti…
Complete Piano Works
Tōru Takemitsu was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Though largely self-taught, Takemitsu is recognised for his skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre, drawing from a wide range of influences, including jazz, popular music, avant-garde procedures and traditional Japanese music, in a harmonic idiom largely derived from the music of Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen. In 1958, the international attention he drew with his Requiem for st…
Come un Vecchio Incensiere all'Alba di un Villaggio Deserto
Transcendent and phantasmagorical work from one of the premier visionaries of the Italian cosmic rock continuum that includes the likes of Franco Battiato, Pierrot Lunaire, Franco Leprino and Arturo Stalteri (to name check just a few), and his work here on "Comme Un Vecchio...", while absent some of the blasted rockist momentum of his debut LP "Aria" ripples and shudders across your consciousness with such palpable psychotropic force, a contact high is almost a forgone conclusion. The deeply fol…
in C
Features three Terry Riley pieces: "In C", "In DO(M)", "In Moscow". "In April 2000 the American composer and performer on the keyboard Terry Riley performed in Moscow: one evening at Moscow Conservatory's Rachmaninoff Hall, which was the closing evening of the SKIF #4 (the Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival), and in two days at a large-scale concert at the Cultural Center 'DOM', which was the opening concert of the 13th 'Alternativa' festival of contemporary music. At the opening concert of…
Como Una Ola De Fuerza Y Luz / Sofferte Onde Serene / Contrappun
Luigi Nono began Como una ola de fuerza y luz (Like a wave of strength and light) as a piece for piano and orchestra in 1971, at the instigation of Maurizio Pollini. While the composition was in progress, Nono learned of the death of a young Chilean revolutionary and recast the work in his memory, with added parts for soprano soloist and tape. The resulting half hour work is clearly a lament, encompassing various expressions of grief, from stunned sorrow to anguish to the fiercest rage. As a kin…
Onze Danses Pour Combattre La Migraine
Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine (French for "Eleven Dances for Fighting Migraine") is the debut album by Belgian avant-garde rock band Aksak Maboul. It was largely the work of one of the band's co-founders, Marc Hollander and was credited to Marc Hollander/Aksak Maboul. It was released on LP in 1977 on a Belgian independent record label, Kamikaze Records, and later re-released twice on Hollander's own Crammed Discs label: on LP in 1981, and on CD in 2003. Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Mig…
Clear or Cloudy
With the passing of Gyorgy Ligeti on 12 June, 2006 at the age of 83 in Vienna following a lengthy illness, the musical world has lost a true maverick. An independent thinker, Ligeti charted a singular route in his music with the evolution of a voice that is hard to ignore. In this respect one is tempted to put him alongside figures such as Boulez, Cage, Stockhausen and Xenakis when considering the major shapers of late 20th century composition.
Tre
Archimedes Badkar (Archimedes Bathtub) was a Swedish group formed by percussionist/pianist/composer Per Tjernberg that existed between 1972 -1980, recording four LPs (including a 2 LP set) that has since achieved cult status in several camps. World Music was not yet a household term, but for once that description seems perfect for what Archimedes Badkar must definitely be regarded as one of the pioneering bands. Several of the members had travelled and studied music in North and South India, Mor…
Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui
The sixth edition of the SYR series is a live recording of the April 12, 2003 benefit concert held at and for The Anthology Film Archives, the international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of avant-garde and independent cinema. In addition to screening films for the public, AFA houses a film museum, research library and art gallery.
The event, which raised money for the Archives and celebrated the life and work of avant-garde film maker Stan Brakhage, featured Sonic Youth prov…
Heaven's End
Remastered CD reissue + additional CD with bonus tracks and Peel Session. Had Loop been present at Woodstock, they probably would have hatched a plan to obtain all the brown acid that Wavy Gravy warned spectators not to take. After hearing his declaration that "The brown acid's a bummer, man!," Robert Hampson and his droogs would have likely gone incognito as security staff, offering to rid the concert goers of the bad trips waiting to be had. They would have procedeed to ingest what they could …
Fade Out
Remastered CD reissue + additional CD with bonus tracks, guitar loops and Peel Session. Distinguishing one Loop record from another is nearly as tricky as doing the same for the Ramones or AC/DC. Since Loop more or less stuck to one thing, remaining consistently great and gradually developing an experimentalist streak throughout their brief lifespan, the actual sound of each record is what separates one from the next. Aside from increasing control over their instruments, there isn't a great deal…
Rosea
The back cover of the album sums it up: "music is difficult to describe, but surely full of Elves and Gnomes!" And that it is... subterranean drippings, disembodied cackles and the slow dragging of concrete . Behind it all, a pensive score of shimmering and hesitating to reveal itself too much for fear of scaring its hosts. A low, sparse cacaphony of the Old Country, drawn from times long before it was paved over for easy transit. Ora albums are rather obscure, so best of fortune in your own sy…
Trax Reprint 2: Notterossa/Rednight
Much more than a simple record label, the TRAX experience coordinated from 1981 to 1987 by Vittore Baroni and Piermario Ciani represented a very original contribution to the "networking culture" that, making its first steps with Fluxus, Mail Art and other avantgarde circuits of the Sixties and Seventies, largely anticipated the advent of Internet and its interactive modalities. Twenty years after the end of a project that involved over 500 international artists and musicians in the creation of p…
Different Shades Of Blue
This release is the reissue of the original one, once released in different form, as a limited edition cd-r on Tom Greenwood's U-Sound Archive (Vol. 19). Improvisation recorded on February 12th, 2004 at MCIAA's Space Room, Torino, Italy (no overdubs/ no outtakes). This new vinyl edition is a different version, remastered and re-edited of "Different shades of Blue". Furthermore, this special edition will include also the un-edited artwork originally made by Roberto Opalio and completely inspired …
From The Earth To The Spheres Vol. 6
My Cat Is An Alien also share a split CD with Turntable-manipulator Christian Marclay and cellist Okkyung Lee, and it is their live collaboration “Rubbing” that opens the album. Full of disjointed sounds, scratches and stabs of cello, the piece is a rollercoaster of sonic experimentation, the two players complementing each other to create a wonderfully playful piece of music. After A tentative sounding opening “Beyond The Limit Of The Stars/Beyond The Limit Of The Grooves” Slowly begins to becom…
The Sea swells a bit...
Aidan Baker is one of the most important emergent artist of the last years...! Probably this is the most important "musical" Aidan Baker release..., in fact here the sound is comparable to the best (obscure) psychedelic post-rock releases including great droning, hypnotic and honeiric atmospheres. Spontaneously composed by Aidan, who plays guitar (electric & acoustic), bass, tapeloops, drum machine and percussion in his droning 'fashion soup'. In this album Aidan uses (as usual) his guitar but a…
The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton
Here it is, the Mosaic’s awesome Anthony Braxton set, The Complete Arista Recordings, is a long-awaited dream-come-true for fans of the jazz avant-garde. The set’s liner notes were written by musician and scholar Mike Heffley, who gave Mosaic a draft that was twice as long as what they were able to use. Anthony Braxton is the sort of artist who triggers those heated “Is it jazz?” debates; whatever his music is, it is brilliant. By the time he signed with Arista Records in 1974 at the age of 29, …
Brigitte Fontaine
A fantastic album by this enigmatic French singer -- one of her first truly experimental albums! The record differs from some of her other albums quite a bit -- and has a very strange mix of styles that go from straight ahead (only a track or two), to wildly experimental. Although longtime partner Areski did contribute to this album, the record also features work by Saravah labelmate Jacques Higelin, plus French jazz players like Georges Arvanitas and Philippe Mate. Great stuff all 'round, and t…
Guitar soli
The debt that modern guitarist composers owe to the late Robbie Basho can hardly be overstated. Though Fahey invented the genre and Kottke proved its marketability, it was Basho's technique, vision, and self-image that resonated most strongly with Will Ackerman and the so-called New Age guitar movement he founded. It's a crime Basho's music hasn't been available on record for many years. Now older guitar fans can welcome back an old friend and newer ones can learn where it all came from on this …
America
Though America was released in 1971 as a single LP, finger-style guitarist John Fahey conceived it as a double album. This CD finally allows Fahey's full vision to be heard (an additional nine tracks are included here for the first time). It's a true treat for Fahey lovers. The title track features the guitarist on the 12-string guitar, sounding more resonant than ever on the seven-minute composition. "Dvorak" is based on the composer's Eighth Symphony, which Fahey tackles in fine fashion. Fahey…