Cantegral Segment(s) 16.17.18.19. / Transform (Stream) / Transphalba / Volta (Kernel)
Like Hunt’s composition “Lattice,” released on Texas Music in the same year, the four pieces included on Cantegral Segment(s) (IR-0032, 1979) represent a culmination and transformation of Hunt’s investigations from across the decade. The “Cantegral Segments” are a body of scores (or strategies) derived from and developed alongside the evolving compositional procedure Hunt called Haramand Plane, first used in a large-scale performance of that name from 1972 that employed elaborate homemade audio …
Texas Music
Tip! One of the first Irida releases, Texas Music (IRIDA 0026, 1979), collects compositions by Jerry Hunt (hailing from Dallas), Philip Krumm (based in San Antonio), and Jerry Willingham (“in and out” of Austin). The record was produced in two editions: one for mass consumption in a corrugated plain brown sleeve featuring a single fish stamp on the cover by the artist David McManaway, and a small “fundraising edition” sold in the same packaging at a higher price with a numbered print by McManawa…
Music of Dary John Mizelle
Music of Dary John Mizelle is a recording of three densely layered compositions by the eponymous Oklahoma-born composer. Originally trained in trombone performance, Mizelle was a graduate student in composition at the University of California, Davis, under Larry Austin. The two, alongside Stanley Lunetta, had founded the free improvisation group New Music Ensemble in 1963 on campus with the intention of exploring the outer limits of performance and composition. Mizelle became the youngest member…
Music Of BL Lacerta
Tip! Music of BL Lacerta is an album of spontaneous music featuring two live performances, one at the University of North Texas art gallery and one at the Second National Tuba-Euphonium Symposium-Workshop, and a stray studio recording done at a facility in Lexington, Kentucky. The collective BL Lacerta, whose name is derived from a distant astronomical constellation, formed in 1976 (Lacerta also translates to “lizard,” accounting for the group’s reptilian cartoon logo). They began as classical m…
James Fulkerson
James Fulkerson’s release on Irida, Works (IRIDA 0017, 1980), is the first collection of the trombonist’s own compositions, all of which he had written and developed in the mid-’70s. Just as Jerry Hunt had done with Cantegral Segment(s), Fulkerson problematized the presentation of his work as a record in the liner notes, where he noted the complex and intense relationship he had developed with the pieces over countless concerts and rehearsals: “I was overwhelmed with the sense of disparity betwe…
No grief without joy
*Limited Edition Handmade CDR in cardboard string sleeve with liner notes and album art.* "A collection of five pieces, made between 2016 and 2019, in a short period that echoes, in part, the grief after my mother’s passing at the end of 2015. These pieces bring together artists from (a.o) Cape Town, The Hague, Toronto, Torino, and Johannesburg. Listening back to these earlier pieces I can discern feelings of emptiness, fleeting moments of joy and play. It is the unending sense of absence versus…
Peach and Tomato
Leonor Falcón and Sana Nagano met in graduate school at Queens College in 2015, and have since collaborated in many projects. On this release, ‘Peach and Tomato,’ the duo offers fresh new compositions that display both their sense of imagination, and their deep appreciation for classical influences. This is particularly true with their version of two movements from the Prokofiev Sonata for Two Violins and the composition Etude 1 and 2, an homage to Bela Bartok and a fluent conversation between t…
Solo For Cello
The Trilogy Tapes’ first CD presents a studio recording of Jack Sheen’s Solo for Cello, a 35’ work written for Anton Lukoszevieze, the cellist, artist, and Director of the group Apartment House, renowned for their recent recordings of John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Jim O’Rourke, amongst many others.
“Jack Sheen’s Solo for Cello and fixed audio is an extended exploration of the resonant body of the cello, but also a kind of flickering, glitchy and incessant ‘moto perpetuo’, of extreme intensity…
One Arm Bandits
"One Arm Bandits is an hour-long piece in four parts, scored for four cellists. The cellists play only open strings, thus using only their right arms, never fingering the strings with the left hand. Recorded in Alvin Lucier's dining room, this work features cellists Tyler J. Borden, Laura Cetilia, Charles Curtis and Judith Hamann. Lucier oversaw and produced the recording, and approved the final takes. One Arm Bandits was an important project for Alvin Lucier. The idea for the piece goes back to…
Sound Plantings
Jonas Gerigk is a double bass player who is active as a composer/performer in the fields of improvised music. In addition, he collaborates in projects of contemporary composers and is involved in the realization of their works. A main focus of his work deals with the term Explorative Music. He is doing intensive research on the expansion of the sound spectrum of the acoustic double bass. With a physical as well as technical approach and the use of objects he explores the variety of timbres of hi…
Echo Stane
Nine solos for Hardanger fiddle that trace a fascinating journey between tradition and experimentation, composed and performed by Sarah-Jane Summers, a virtuosic Scottish musician based in Norway. With Echo Stane, Summers employs the Hardanger fiddle – the national instrument of her adopted country – as a bridge across the North Sea, connecting the musical heritage of the Scottish Highlands with Norwegian folk traditions while pushing both toward the avant-garde.
Summers grew up in rural Inverne…
becoming in shadows ~ of being touched
It's hard to parse exactly what you're listening to when you immerse yourself in Jason Doell's new recording, Becoming In Shadows ~ Of Being Touched. The old adage about never judging a book by its cover may often hold true but somehow Xuan Ye's beautiful design speaks volumes about both the sonics and structure of this bewildering document by the Toronto-based composer and sound artist. Though the imagery is blatantly computer-generated, it's rife with references to vegetation, bones, water, an…
Haizetxe
*300 copies limited edition* Timeless minimalist approach to composition braced by repetition and playfulness. Alberto Lizarralde’s music reflects calm, focus and intimacy. Ethereal and atmospheric, his pieces operate within the digital as well as the analogue realm in equal measures. Sampling, Midi sequencing and field recordings are the instrumentation used in these 15 songs recorded on a four track reel to reel tape. Highest possible recommendation for fans of Suso Saiz, Jon Hassell, Eno or H…
Was ficht dich an?
impakt Records presents the new record by Huhn | Schönegg | Mahnig "Was ficht dich an?" with Leonhard Huhn (alto saxophone), Stefan Schönegg (double bass) and Dominik Mahnig (drums).
plays Herzog | Muche | Nillesen
impakt Records presents the new record by T.ON "plays Herzog | Muche | Nillesen" with Constantin Herzog (double bass), Matthias Muche (trombone) and Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drum).
2 compositions by Frank Gratkowski
Fo[u]r Alto is the quadrupling of the alto saxophone as a unified body of sound. Since the ensemble was founded in 2008, the four Berlin saxophonists Frank Gratkowski, Christian Weidner, Leonhard Huhn (until 2018 Benjamin Weidekamp) and Florian Bergmann have found an unmistakable sound language characterised by artistic uncompromisingness and continuous musical research. In autumn 2012, they released their first CD "4 compositions by Frank Gratkowski" on the English label Leo Records. Now follow…
Natural World
Natural World by Laurence Crane offers an expansive and quietly subversive study in sonic ecology, blending piano, soprano, and field recordings. Written for Juliet Fraser and Mark Knoop, the piece unfolds over three movements, combining encyclopedic texts, birdsong, and elemental musical motives in a measured fifty-five-minute reflection on beauty and environmental fragility.
Neha
Neha is an album by Adrián Demoč featuring the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and Ostrava New Orchestra. Each work extends beyond twenty-five minutes, exploring soft layers of orchestral sound, calmly repeating motifs, and silences that articulate the music’s emotional contour. The pieces are defined by their meditative atmosphere and gradual, unforced transformations.
Pruebas de Existencia
Marcos Díaz has been part of Buenos Aires underground for many years, being in projects like Bosques and making solo music under the pseudonym Entidad Animada (animated entity). Under this project, Marcos has explored sounds that involve a mix of feedback/distortion through synthesizers, guitars and drum machines that hint at the influence of Stereolab, Spacemen 3, and mid-nineties shoegaze. However, there are also ambient soundscapes with a slight rubbed of the ritualistic psychedelia of the Po…
Alvin Lucier: Navigations
“It is not enough just to play the right notes at the right time in the right way; one must also have the right consciousness. It places the performer in the role of explorer of the interior in order to produce, and being still in order to be active.” — Pauline Oliveros "These words, spoken by Pauline Oliveros, remind us of how fundamental an influence Alvin Lucier has had on the development of new music and its interpretation; they remind us of our role as explorers of sound, and of the irresis…