Reissues
A Divina Comédia Ou Ando Meio Desligado
"..Along with the fascinating cover art - which finds the middle ground between the lurid, low-budget, exploitation cinema of filmmakers like Jean Rollin or Mario Bava, with the higher aspirations of gothic literature, ala Edger Allen Poe - the literal English translation of the title suggests further hints towards the notions behind the album, with A Divina Comédia (ou Ando Meio Desligado) interpreted as The Divine Comedy (or I Walk a bit Disconnected), with the reference to walking disconnecte…
Jazz By Sun Ra
This essential title is also available under the moniker of Sun Song (1956). Regardless of its name, this long player contains some of Sun Ra's most complex but most accessible efforts. Ra had been an active performer since the late 1940s, recording with his various combos or "Arkestra(s)," as he dubbed them. Since this was the first widely distributed platter that the artist cut, it is often erroneously referred to as his debut. The tracks were documented by then-unknown Tom Wilson. If the name…
João Gilberto
Originally released in 1973, Joao Gilberto aka The White Album, is as a timeless classic of the genre and one of Joao's definitive masterpieces. Featuring only the minimalist drumming of NY jazz drummer Sonny Carr (and the backing vocals of 'Miucha', Gilberto's second wife and sister of Chico Buarque on the final track), Joao spins a delicate web of sound that from the first notes of Tom Jobim's anthem 'Aguas De Marco' has the listener dreaming of Bahia, even though the album was recorded in a N…
Angels And Demons At Play
Angels And Demons At Play was compiled from two different sessions, recorded four years apart (1956 and 1960), that reflect Sun Ra's evolution from hard Chicago bop towards exotic styles that transcended easy categorization. The album was released in 1965 with a distinctive sleeve design by Sun Ra, featuring an identical illustration on both sides, and no sleeve notes. Besides the leader, there's overlapping personnel at the two sessions, yet the two LP sides were somewhat incongruous, demonstra…
Just Outta This World - Rare Tracks 1955-1961
Herman Poole Blount, better known to the world as Sun Ra, lived more musical lives in his 79 years on this planet (and others) than seems possible. This collection compile singles of rare hard to find early Sun Ra productions and performances from Juanita Rogers, Yochanan, Little Mack, and Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra, from 1955-1961. A must have for all true Sun Ra collectors, this is an impressive retrospective on the early days of this legendary music guru.
K-Priss
"As a member of 70’s proggers Heldon, Georges Grünblatt made the unusual journey from psych rocker to full time psychiatrist. But not before his one and only 1980 album K-Priss bombed commercially. The solo offering was recorded in the autumn of 1977 for Polydor with his Heldon contemporaries; the influential guitarist Richard Pinhas, Francois Auger, Didier Batard and others, while Jean-Louis Rizet, one half of the one-off prog collaborative Besombes and Rizet who put out the spacey masterpiece …
1977-1981
Restocked, reduced price. A collection of rare free-jazz pieces performed by John Zorn and selected by the American guitarist and music critic Eugene Chadbourne. Come out in 1998 to accompany the book release “Sonora: John Zorn” (Materiali Sonori), the album is presented here for the first time in an exclusive release in limited edition on vinyl.The special issue includes the original book that features exclusive interviews, essays and photos about the artist’s entire oeuvre up to 1988.
Les Choses de la Vie
First ever LP reissue of this timeless masterpiece by Philippe Sarde, the most versatile and talented french film composer. Les choses de la vie, an outstanding score which offers both the wonderful « Chanson d'Hélène » and most of the musical features which appeared later in Philippe Sarde's musical career : Nostalgia, melancholy, experiment and sound discord. Les choses de la vie is the film which confirms Sautet as a genuine author and Philippe Sarde as a rising composer. This is also the st…
Percussion und Elektronik
Quite hard-to-find - I've had the original on my personal wantlist for ages - set of "Percussion und Elektronik" works from German Composer Klaus Hashagen, notable for being the only non-Roland Kayn Electronic title on Colosseum - the label that issued the latter's run of mammoth LP boxes.On the surface a square, Academic "Drumsploitation" number, this is in fact a beast of pointillist Live-Electronics; the A-side's opening number "Percussion VI - musik für tonband (1959-1973)" offers a fine moo…
Elettroformule
First in a series of 4 late-summer 2009 blasters from Mr. P.C. C.P. - a reproduction of this über-obscure 1969 Italian Leo-label library R@ER - in Mono, no less - from Giuliano Sorgini. If you already have Sorgini’s name on your radar, most likely you’re either :: (1) a collector of Italian library-music LPs, of which he has many under his belt as "Raskovich" or (2) an avid fan of Spanish director Jorge Grau’s 1975 film “Non Si Seve Profanare il Sonno dei Morti” - aka “The Living Dead at…
Electronic Virtuosity
Long in the works, here’s a replica of Oskar Sala’s 1970 “Debut” album (actually ; he did make his recorded debut on the 1961 “Electronics • Five Improvisations on Magnetic Tape” LP alongside Remi Gassmann’s score to a George Balanchine ballet production, but this the first full-length recording of his work) - a Selected Sound Library showcasing (showboating?) his “Electronic Virtuosity,” intended for “Radio Television Film Advertising Backgrounds.”In some ways the early-electronic equivalent of…
Ändere Die Welt, Sie Braucht Es
It’s raining “Musikalische Jugend Österreichs” titles! This collection of agit-prop tape music & raw tone-combination studies by the Austrian composer Wilhelm Zobl was recorded (with Eugeniusz Rudnik’s invaluable aid) at Studio Eksperymentalne & Vienna’s Institut Für Elektroakustik der Musikhoschule Wien in 1973 & 1971 (respectively) & remains (other than an appearance on a super-weird 1985 collection entitled “Antithesis” - where he appears alongside “Works of Electronic Music” alum Thanos Mikr…
K, Weeds
Issued “privately” (via his own “Discant Records” - the label’s sole release) in 1971, this was the recorded debut of composer & author (his “Techniques of the Contemporary Composer” was a big help in my post-collegiate years) David Cope, consisting of two side-length pieces for live instruments, demonic loud-whisper vocals, and analog electronic processing (according to the liner notes, Cope played back “early tapes of his own works,altered through a Moog synthesizer at the Electronic St…
Aaffluss Raaffluss
Killer 1988 “art-gallery” edition - each copy of the original LP was hand-painted by the composer in a loose, water-colour smear / drip style beautifully reproduced here, albeit utilizing the same image for each replica - covering a pair of beautiful, drifting piano pieces composed & executed by Giuseppe Morrocchi in 1980 & 1984.Seemingly influenced by Charlemagne Palestine’s “Strumming Music” approach - coupled perhaps with Lubomyr Melnyk’s “Continuous Mode” - the slow rise from decisive…
Pandémonium
Herein lies the entire recorded output - save for an appearance on the 1983 Broken Flag “Crusade” compilation tape - of French Musique Concrète composer Jean-Baptiste Barriere, issued as a pair of LPs on Atem magazine’s short-lived record label - where they sat, somewhat uncomfortably, alongside canonic RIO sides by Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, This Heat, Aqsak Maboul, Present, and Fall of Saigon.Composed from 1975-1976, then issued as two separate LPs in 1979, the “Pandemonium” suite encompas…
Luxicon II, Echospace
Gil Trythall’s two late-60s “Country” themed Moogsploitation LPs are of course the gilded arches that keep the genre airborne, but it’s this 1980 collection on the minuscule, West Virginia-based Pandora records imprint that’s always been the real show of Trythall’screative vision. While “Luxicon II's” gorgeous deep-bass filtering, runaway arpeggiations, & spot-on “Electro” -tinged drum-machine gork is the stuff of legend, I maintain that “Echospace” beats a good chunk of time-lag architect Terry…
People The Sky
Nicely timed replication of this 1969 Vanguard “Cardinal” series LP, offering a pair of side-length “Automatic” Buchla pieces by Composer / Producer Michael Czajkowski - then and now known mostly in music circles for his odd, post-production contributions to Buffy Saint-Marie’s “Illuminations” LP.Recorded at NYU’s famed Intermedia Center - see Charlemagne Palestine’s 60s Electronic Music, Morton Subotnick’s “Silver Apples” - this one falls squarely into the “hands-off” master-patch canon o…
Once
The soundtrack to a seldom-seen 1974 art film by Mort Hellig - featuring a total cast of 3, playing "Creation," "Humanity," and "Destruction," respectively - Israeli Composer Aminadav Aloni's peculiar, minimal Electronic Music cues come from a more compositional bent than much of the era's Synthetic dabblings. Over the course of 8 song-length segments of hand-played melodic refrain, a certain mood is established of laissez-faire, devil-may-care-ish-ness that is, frankly, quite welcome - s…
Paesaggi Intravisti
The sole solo release by Il Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza AND post-MEV ensemble "Elettronica Viva" member Walter Branchi, "composizione elettronica realizzata in occasione della mostra "Il luogo del lavoro" XVII Triennale di Milano." with Mauro Bortolotti - a student & assistant of Pietro Grossi at the latter's Florence studio. Branchi jointly founded the Studio R7 in 1967 w/ Franco Evangelista, Gino Marinuzzi Jr., "Syn-Ket" inventor & John Eaton collaborator Paolo "Paul" Ketoff, Eg…
Homo Faber, Dum Spiro Spero
Creel Pone treatment of this majorly slept-on set of dark, minimal, surrealist electro-acoustic & Musique Concrète pieces from the Polish composer Joanna Bruzdowicz, a member of the GRM under Pierre Schaeffer’s tutelage between 1968 & 1970 & long-term collaborator of Agnes Varda’s, for whom she scored several films from the mid-80’s on, including “Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse.” The LP in question (the only one to feature her electronic work) consists of the three-part “Homo Faber” suite - compose…