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…
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…
A Basement Suite
“Even without detecting in the figure of the refugee or exile the emblematic figure of our time, the loosening of the bonds with a place of origin is no longer rewarded by a search for a promised land. The loss of a deep-rootedness that would provide an identity is no longer perceived as a lack that needs to be filled. We strangers in our own land, and conversely we feel at home everywhere.”Mario Perniola, Ritual Thinking (tr. Massimo Verdicchio)The Italian philosopher Mario Perniola, in his 200…
Spring & Neap
In 1996 I went on a tour of Japan with Orchestra Carbon; a highlight was the Music Merge Festival in Tokyo. A colorful selection of wonderful musicians from the international scene met there for three days at the Shinjuku Pit Inn: Michiyo Yagi, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Jim O'Rourke, Yumiko Tanaka, David Grubbs and others. In addition to performing with Orchestra Carbon and my solo Tectonics, I was allowed to develop a new algorithmic template for a small orchestra of festival soloists under m…
Echo Stane
Nine solos for Hardanger fiddle, composed and performed by Sarah-Jane Summers, a virtuosic Scottish musician based in Norway. Sarah-Jane's music stretches from traditional folk music to experimental work. This album is one of experimental solos, but nonetheless contains references to traditional music both in the titles of the pieces, and sometimes in the music itself.
Piano Songs
Celebrating Meredith Monk as composer, these Piano Songs give us a world at once playful and earnest. Written or derived from work composed between 1971 and 2006, the pieces inhabit Monk’s unique universe, as played by two of new music’s most distinguished interpreters, pianists Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker. These pieces are ‘songs’ because they have strong roots in Monk’s pieces for voice, and because they are direct, specific, and imagistic. Meredith Monk on composing for two pianos: “I de…
On Behalf Of Nature
For five decades, vocalist-composer Meredith Monk has explored what she calls “primordial utterance,” or non-verbal vocal sound that lay beneath and beyond language, expressing “that for which we have no words.” This exploration has led her to create music that The New Yorker describes as simultaneously “visceral and ethereal, raw and rapt,” an art that “sings, dances and meditates on timeless forces.” With her latest, multivalent ECM New Series album, Monk aimed to address ecology and climate c…
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…
Chorales
*300 copies limited edition* Meditative solo piano excursions by Albert Alan Owen. The first widely available new work for many decades sees the British composer return to his principle instrument for a series of beautifully unadorned piano miniatures. The minimalist approach and effortless serenity put me in mind of the recent return of another veteran, Laraaji, who's Sun Piano LP from 2020 shared a similarly emotional weight. Strange how it's minimal music that often possesses the most affecti…
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).
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…
Battleship Potemkin
*300 copies limited edition* Nearly a century has passed since the release of Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», Bronenosets Potyomkin). We must speak out, now. Time has come. When the meat is rotten and maggots run across your plate, what's left to do? Remnant memories of times almost forgotten, or of traditions from back home, linger in the body military depleted. Our daily bread served as a timely reminder of shared humanity: a first step in an uprising …
Quaderno Di Strada
"Sciarrino is an important, and distinctive, figure in the Italian avant-garde. The present work is a setting of thirteen brief texts (its subtitle is ’12 canti e un proverbio’, twelve songs and a proverb) for baritone and 14 instrumentalists – the booklet notes say fifteen, but only fourteen are named. It puts before its hearer fragmentary, skittering sounds, sudden changes of dynamics, as sounds loom out of silence and disappear just as quickly. There are fluttery, fugitive sounds, repetitive …
Tuscany
*2023 Repress* Los Angeles based pianist, producer, and songwriter John Carroll Kirby traveled to Pietrasanta, Italy in the summer of 2018 on a self-imposed writing trip. During his stay he composed Tuscany, a two side-long solo piano exploration of this particular geographical envelope, a place where nature is shaped into form.Kirby would cycle 12 kilometers each day to Cascata di Malbacco, a waterfall with jade pools and silver stone, and the inspiration for Side A of Tuscany. His own Cascata …
Sketches For Francis
"Atmospheric music that envelops you and transports you to wide linear horizons, distant, desert and strange lands. I particularly liked the organic sounds of the introduction of Sketch I." - Christine Ott
Theodore Wild Ride
Theodore Wild Ride started from the collaboration between French keyboardists Christine Ott (regular collaborator of Yann Tiersen, Tindersticks, Oiseaux-Tempête...), Mathieu Gabry (Snowdrops) and Oed player Ophir Levy. Theodore Wild Ride celebrates musical freedom and redefines the relationship between space and time with a special, unexpected orchestration.
The Further We Ventured
In recent years, pianist and producer Mirek Coutigny has worked on his own world of sound with electronic and acoustic instruments. He improvised on sketches that he wrote over the last 10 years and reworked them for piano, strings, percussion and electronics.The common thread running through “The Further We Ventured” is a fascination for the “suburbs”, more specific, the contrast between the often similar facades and the diversity of stories behind those facades.This is also reflected in the co…
Neha
Two orchestral works by Adrián Demoč, the highly-acclaimed Slovak composer currently based in Spain. The title track 'Neha' (2018) creates a shimmering tension by overlaying 'well-tempered' chords with the same chords using natural harmonics outside of the tempered tuning system. This doubling creates a gentle trembling of interferences. The second piece, 'Popínavá hudba', evolves from a single melodic line, which is repeated with slight variations such that it curves and is bent into fascinatin…
Sound Pieces
Apartment House realise seven works by the pioneering US experimental composer. The first six pieces are text scores for open instrumentation, while 'Peace/Tree' is a seven movement work for violin, cello and piano that specifies pitches, while still leaving a lot of freedom of interpretation. The download also includes an alternative realisation of 'Quintessential' that didn't fit on the CD