Reissues
Soleil Explosant
First CD in a while from the Romanian composers Dumitrescu and Avram (potenially associated with the European "spectralism" contingent, what The Wire referred to as "the altered harmonic dimensions and numinous sonorities of the European avant garde composition movement"). Iancu Dumitrescu: "Remote Pulsar (I)" (computer assisted music), "Movemur (III)" (spectral music for viola solo, performed by: Cornelia Petroiu), and "Numerologie Sect*te (I)" (computer assisted music). Ana-Maria Avram : "Inca…
monades
Two pieces by Dumitrescu: "Au Dela de Movemur" (for orchestra & strings) & "Monades (Gamma & Epsilon)" (for 6 monocords, crystals & metallic objects). Avram is a young Rumanian composer, and of similar interest, with 3 pieces: "Ekagrata" (for orchestra), "Signum Geminai" (for ensemble and tape) & "Zodiaque III" (for prepared piano, percussion and tape).
Tapestries
Hugh Davies was one of the masters of contemporary experimental music. His tireless search for musical invention and his historical accuracy led him to explore different fields in music. This one is a selection of his lesser known electronic pieces, that he choose to represent his own approach to the matter. Now that he’s not more with us this collection remains as an outstanding picture of his creativity in music. In the broader sense, as he was used to do. 16 pages booklet with liner notes b…
Streichquartett N°4 Opus 33
String Quartet No 4, opus 33 (1976-87). Performed by the Arditti String Quartet. "infinite to be cannot be infinite, infinite anti-be could be infinite" (for nine string quartets or a string quartet surrounded by an imaginary 128 string-"viola da gamba"). "Among contemporary composers, Horatiu Radulescu is one who has something essential to express about the enigma of time: multi-layered lines of events, their structuring, perception and potential for poetic-religious message are -- together wit…
Clepsydra, Astray
**Restock of a rare, must-have record for contemporary music lovers. Comes with 4-page 12" booklet ** Great dense orchestral scraping and bowing from 1982 & 1983 by Romanian composer Horatiu Radulescu (1942-2008), among the great masters of Spectralism and subharmonics. This absorbing LP includes two groundbreaking works centered around the 'Sound Icons' - pianos standing on their sides, played with bows between the strings. On side A is the hypnotic, otherworldly Clepsydra for 16 Sound Icons (E…
s/t
an awesome album by Vaggione whose music (instrumental and electroacoustic) is regularly played worldwide in major centers of contemporary music. awards includes the first newcomp computer music prize (usa, 1983), bourges prizes (1982, 1986, 1988), iscm-trinac prize (1985), daad berlin kunstlerprogram award (1987), international computer music association (icma) commission award (1992), euphonie d'or (bourges 1992).
La maquina de cantar
Argentinian born electronic composer Horacio vaggione (known to some for his involvement with the Alea group) threw together this 2 track masterpiece of multilayered sci-fi epic glop in 1978 for the Cramps label's relished Nova Musicha series... Relying solely on an IBM computer, the title track from 1971 retains the massive energy and unrelenting use of texture and sonic layering that have occasionally given him comparisons to the work of Conrad Schnitzler. The closing piece, 'Ending', is a cla…
Requiem für meine Frau Beate. Musik der 56. Aktion
Alga Marghen proudly present the documentation of Requiem für meine Frau Beate, which took place in the Chiesa di Santa Lucia in Bologna, Italy, in 1977 shortly after Beate Nitsch's death. This was not only one of the strongest and most powerful aktionen by Hermann Nitsch but also a crucial point in the development of his art. Beginning in 1977, Beate Nitsch was travelling in Schwarzwald. She has been inaugurating a nursery-school and wanted to meet some relatives in Stuttgart when, near Ulm, sh…
Musik der 66. aktion
Alga Marghen proudly present the documentation of Requiem fur meine Frau Beate, which took place in the Chiesa di Santa Lucia in Bologna, Italy, in 1977 shortly after Beate Nitsch's death. This was not only one of the strongest and most powerful aktionen by Hermann Nitsch but also a crucial point in the development of his art. Begining 1977, Beate Nitsch was travelling in Schwarzwald. She has been inaugurating a nursery-school and wanted to meet some relatives in Stuttgart when, near Ulm, she h…
New American Ethnic Music Volume 4 : Ascent to the sun
The final release in the New American Ethnic Music series (but not the last Henry Flynt on Recorded) is Ascent to the Sun, a brilliant, sparkling hillbilly raga in the family of You Are My Everlovin' but with a unique double violin approach and a mind-bending structure all its own. The piece covers incredible ground in terms of specificity of mood and sentiment, and is deeply listenable and experimental at once. It is a new creation by Flynt circa 2004, engineered by Tim Barnes
New American Ethnic Music Volume 3 : Hillbilly tape music
Third volume in the New Americam Ethnic Music series, following: You Are My Everlovin' & Spindizzy. Featuring recordings from 1971 through 1978, this focuses on shorter tracks that explore the third-ear mania of looped violin playing as well as could be imagined. Breathtaking stuff and essential for all followers of the Tony Conrad/post-minimalism timeline. "This is an amazing document of the nihilist father of concept art and inventor of electronic Hillbilly music. The record shows more t…
New American Ethnic Music Volume 2 : Spindizzy
second release in this series documenting the archival recordings of this previously obscure, genius musician. Volume one received broad critical acclaim, including a top ten critics pick for 2001 in THE WIRE and numerous other reviews and articles. Volume 3 in the series, Hillbilly Tape Music, will follow shortly. Before the publication of his music, Flynt was most often known as an (often distorted) footnote in art history, as the man who invented Concept Art, Flynt's name in the early sixties…
New American Ethnic Music Volume 1
The classic double CD release that really renewed the interest in Henry's Flynt's idiosyncratic music (linked to Conceptual art and minimalism) -- at least 10 other CDs have followed since the release of this one. It is listed as #6 on Alan Lichts' "Minimal Top Ten" list, which says a lot. First volume in the series subtitled: New American Ethnic Music. "Recorded in '80 and '81, two mind-blowing disks delivering flowing, trance-inducing violin solos of extreme beauty and seriousness. In these in…
Purified by the fire
a drone masterpiece, The psychedelic sounds of musical pioneer Henry Flynt's drone works with collaborator C.C. Hennix are quietly becoming the stuff of legend. Over some 40 plus minutes, we are treated to a true tour de force that's part Hindustani inflected musical miasma and part warped hillbilly vibrational swing that sways in and out of auditory focus. This is vertiginous music for the third ear. Line Up: Henry Flynt (Violin); C.C. Hennix (Pandit Pran Nath Tamboura)
Raga electric
This album is another chapter in the life of avant-hillbilly Henry Flynt, this time documenting his more experimental recordings. The centrepiece of the record is a slightly unnerving collection of howls, judders and raspberries unnervingly titled ‘Central Park Transverse Vocal #1-4’ – luckily there is more on the cd than this though, I can’t say the squealing does a lot for me other than irritate. However, ‘Raga Electric’ is clearly the standout track and does pretty much exactly what it says o…
Paysages Planétaires
In 2000, Henri Pousseur was asked by Philippe Samyn, a Brussels-based architect who liked to work in collaboration with other artforms, to lend his support to the plan for the construction of a business complex by one of the most important building enterprises in the country. There were four low buildings arranged like different parts of a medieval castle-village, grouped around a kind of large open central court. Leaning on the suggested image, Pousseur immediately suggested that the fir…
Enclosure 7
Harry Partch (like his friend Anaïs Nin) considered his life's work to be a letter to the world. His last act was going to be to add the enclosures. He never got around to it. After 20 years of working on the Partch archives, Philip Blackburn has now completed the seven-part 'Enclosures' series as it were on his behalf. Enclosure 7, the culminating DVD of this multimedia series, is a monumental tribute to the most significant works of this American original and iconoclast. It includes n…
Enclosure 2
This massive 4CD set is the second "enclosure" in the series. It is sub-titled "Historic Speech-Music Recordings from the Harry Partch archives," and includes "archival recordings, including works from the 30s & 40s, a lecture on just intonation, excerpts from the 1935 hobo journal Bitter Music, and a sound documentary featuring Partch at the piano
Unfolding
No Obi. Awesome CD release documenting the 'magic' world of Harry Bertoia sound scuptures. This reissues two of this American genius's many self-released LPs as a great public service. His "sounding sculptures" consist of "ranks of tall slender rods, placed either upright or at special slants in rectangular formations. These metallic faces are not rigid, but 'give' when stroked -- at the same time releasing lingering musical chords of a weirdly haunting nature."
Minimum: Maximum / Orient: Occident
Perhaps best known for his piano work Book of Sounds these two works by German composer Hans Otte were composed in the 1970s. In that decade his aesthetic creed became increasingly clear: "the search for the character and individuality of sound as such, which must be rediscovered and re-experienced independent of superimposed structures. The composer understands the dialogue with sounds as the discovery of their nature." (Ute Schalz-Laurenze)While Hans Otte was an enthusiastic, one might say vis…