Landmarks
Eight collaborative compositions for organ and percussion by the longstanding Canadian duo, who also appeared on Isaiah’s previous, and now sold out, CD ‘Bow’.
Hope Lies Fallow
Six pieces developed by Johnny and Keir from music by Hildegard van Bingen and Orlando de Lassus. Three violin duets, + three tracks for violins and the voice of Celeste Oram.
Gold
* Digipack CD* The lightning rod for Alabaster DePlume’s luminous follow up to the widely-acclaimed 2020 release To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 was personal. “Someone was going through a thing,” says the Mancunian poet-performer. “I said, ‘go forward in the courage of your love’. And then I thought 'yeah, that's what I need to hear as well’.” Gold is a sonorous double album that celebrates the communal act of making music and the relationships that can be explored when you purposefully avoid …
Michael Pisaro-Liu: Radiolarians
Radiolorians (2018) finds Pisaro-Liu drawing inspiration from another gifted observer of this world-in-variation, the German zoologist, naturalist, and philosopher Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), who promoted and popularized evolutionary thought via extensive monographs and artful renderings of insects, animals, sea creatures, and embryos. For Radiolarians, Pisaro-Liu creates what he terms “transcriptions” of individual radiolaria species depicted in Haeckel’s drawings. Radiolarians comprises fourtee…
World in World
Black Truffle is pleased to announce World in World, the latest solo offering from prolific Berlin-based guitarist-composer Julia Reidy. Where the recent trilogy of LP releases – brace, brace (Slip, 2019), In Real Life (Black Truffle, 2019), and Vanish (Editions Mego, 2020) – focussed on increasingly lush electronic settings for Reidy’s propulsive fingerpicking and auto-tuned vocals, arranged into wide-ranging side-long epics, World in World finds Reidy refocusing on the core elements of their a…
Caspar
This habit some experimental musicians have of applying forced context or stories to what is essentially pure improvised music does sometimes perplex me. Here Janek references Kaspar Hauser with the title and in the sleeve notes. He also states the intention “…to de- and reformulate the idea of beauty”. When referencing the case of Kaspar Hauser, I assume Janek sees himself as “…set free…” from traditional technique, and aims, on this disc at least, to “…redefine by discover[y] and recover the p…
58'
58' was composed in 2010 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of d-zAkord. I wanted a very minimalist piece with few sound events and long silences. At that time we presented t'Drone(s)Scape', a sound/living installation lasting 3 hours. The public was invited to sit or lie down in the center of the sonic maelstrom for a multicast travel. It is in this context that 58' was imagined.
Although unconventional, the 58' score is extremely precise. The musicians follow a graphic score, with time p…
Approdi 3, Avanguardie Musicali a Napoli - Volume III
**300 copies** Konsequenz has released a new anthology that offers another incredible window into the Napoli’s remarkable experimental endeavours, another essential artifact for any fan of Italian border and avant-garde musics.
Avant-garde and experimental musics are intrinsically connected to community, collectivism, support, and collaboration. Audiences and artists, stretching to every corner of the globe, continuously rely on each other to push into ever more ambitious realms. This spirit of …
Music For The Kama Sutra
*2022 stock* Robert Hughes, composer and author, is a graduate of the University of Buffalo (now SUNY Buffalo) and composition student of Aaron Copland, Carlos, Chavez, Luigi Dallapiccola, and Lou Harrison. He has written for symphony orchestra, chamber ensemble, voices, performance art events and a wide variety of media, including twenty film scores and a large body of electronic music. His compositions include commissions from the San Francisco Symphony, Cabrillo Music Festival, Oakland Sympho…
Sonatas And Interludes For Prepared Piano
**2022 stock** Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, a cycle of 20 short pieces for prepared piano (a piano modified by inserting nuts and bolts and other objects between the piano strings in order to produce percussive and otherworldly sound effects) by American composer John Cage. Created in 1946–48 after the composer had been introduced to Indian visual and performing arts, the cycle was intended to represent the so-called permanent emotions—the heroic, the erotic, the wondrous, the comi…
Because a circle is not enough
music for bowed string instruments consists mostly of music composed by Malcolm Goldstein (b. 1936) between 2018 and 2019 while living in Montréal, Québec. The impulse to compose this series came from Goldstein’s experience as a teacher and performer of Béla Bartók’s 44 Duos for Two Violins (1931). Whereas Bartók’s series features a clear progression to the pieces, gradually increasing in technical and musical complexity from beginning to end, music for bowed string instruments has no such seque…
Together on the Way
A concert-length work for pipe organ, piano and percussion, created by the composer and the GBSR Duo (Siwan Rhys and George Barton) at the recent Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Wonderfully brooding music, beautifully played.
Discreet Angel
Three works written over 25 years ago by a virtually unknown Canadian composer. The pieces were originally performed just once or twice, but have recently re-emerged and sound extraordinarily contemporary. New recordings by Apartment House and Cristian Alvear, as well as one historic recording by the composer himself. Brilliant stuff.
Luft.Inneres
Four chamber works for strings by Korean composer Kunsu Shim, plus six short pieces written for Kunsu by composer friends.
Performed by the Luna String Quartet.
Cycle & Song
Jack Symonds is a composer, conductor, pianist & the Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Opera. SCO is a resident company at Carriagworks, Australia’s answer to The Park Avenue Amoury. His productions are always daring, both musically & theatrically. They tend to garner 5-star reviews and affronted walkouts in equal measure. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London & the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he received the university medal. He has written pieces for Jane She…
Intermediate Obscurities III (Live At Spontaneous Music Festival October 5th 2019)
**200 copies limited edition** Live recording from Dirk Serries’ Tonus project, which explores long-form, minimal, graphic score pieces.
Dimanche | Masques | Cartoon Circus
**150 copies limited edition** "Although he had accepted my request for an interview about his practice as a rhythmist, Fernand Schirren observed me with a more interrogative look than my questions could ever warrant. From the outset, he warned me that he preferred to be called ‘Schirren’ without the addition of his first name, which he despised. It is of course a contraction of Ferdinand, the name of his father, a painter, but we did not discuss the reasons for his aversion any further. On the …
Voces
Voces documents many of Walter Zimmermann’s compositions for voices from 1979–2016. The words set range from Meister Eckhart and Hadewijch to Lermontov, Mandelstam, Jabès, Tranströmer, Ingold and Robert Creeley (with his voice accompanying the musicians). Performers include: Claudia Barainsky, the musicians of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (including David Tudor & Takehisha Kosugi), Tehila Nini Goldstein, KNM Ensemble, Meitar Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Peter Schöne / Jan Phili…
Mind Is Moving (IX)
Mind is moving (IX) is a composition for guitar by Michael Pisaro-Liu, affiliated with the avant-garde composers group The Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble. Pisaro's work can be characterized as experimental minimalism, often utilizing silence, a minimum of musical material, and extended composition durations. This version is executed by Slovenian guitarist Primož Sukič.
The Works for Piano 11: Cheap Imitation
All of these works by Cage are influenced by Satie. Cage’s friend and colleague Morton Feldman made an arrangement of Cage’s solo piano “Cheap Imitation” for a trio of piano, flutes/piccolo and glockenspiel. Feldman’s admiration for the pianist Aki Takahashi caused him to gift this arrangement to her. And, full circle, we have the repertoire of this album. The major discovery is Feldman’s arrangement of Cheap Imitation for this very Feldmanesque instrumental ensemble. It is unknown why Feldman …