Clouds/Waterland
*100 copies limited edition* "Couldn't find any acoustic covers of these two masterpieces by Gigi Masin from 1989, so decided to give it a go with one of my biggest local musical idols, Olli Aarni who I am proud to call my friend. I consider the original tracks quite holy, so it took me years of courage to ask Olli to record these with me. Never had any goal to release these in any professional way, we just had an idea, for fun, to salute the golden era of YouTube when people made these poorly r…
Keyboards and Strings
Albert Alan Owen was born in Wales in 1948 to parents of Welsh and Latvian heritage. His family later moved to Zimbabwe, where his father took up a teaching position. There, Owen was deeply influenced by local music and culture, while also exploring American RnB and jazz. It was during this period that he became acutely aware of the harsh inequalities under British colonial rule, which instilled in him a lifelong aversion to discrimination and racism.
In 1967, Owen returned to Europe to pursue h…
Motor Tapes
Closing the achingly long four years wait since her last full-length, the American composer/percussionist Sarah Hennies returns with “Motor Tapes”, her second release with New World Records. Comprising three astounding new pieces, made in collaboration with three acclaimed ensembles - ensemble 0, Talea Ensemble, and Ensemble Dedalus - that simultaneously encounter her moving into new uncharted territory, while remaining rooted in her singular practice, exploring musical, sociopolitical, and psyc…
Ensemble(s)
Seen from the outside, Ensemble(s) is in a sense a kind of compilation of unreleased or rare pieces covering nearly three decades. Five essential pieces that count in the evolution of the Jean-Luc Fafchamps' writing. Post-spectral works that definitively position Fafchamps as one of the important European composers. It also weaves subtle links between him and Jean-Paul Dessy and Musiques Nouvelles, once created by Henri Pousseur. This disc is undoubtedly the best introduction to his work. Perfor…
Mature Hybird Talking
On Mature Hybird Talking Frank Gratkowski, one of the world’s most advanced and original voices in the field of improvised music, teams up for the first time with one of the leading ensembles for composed contemporary music. He dedicates this 45-minute piece to James Joyce and Iannis Xenakis, who both had a major impact on him. Inspired by the rhythm and sound of Joyce's language, Gratkowski and the Ensemble Modern create a widely ramified, sensitive and incredibly vital musical organism. Energy…
Piano
Piano is an album of three pieces, 'A Luca Marenzio ll', 'Ma fin est mon commencement', and 'Gebrechlichkeit', written by Slovak composer Adrián Demoč between 2018 and 2023. 'Ma fin est mon commencement' and 'Gebrechlichkeit' were written with three performance options in mind: specific instrumentation, open instrumentation with a similar quality of timbre and register, and a "monochromatic polyphonic" instrument, preferably the piano. 'A Luca Marenzio ll' was originally written as 'A Luca Maren…
Renewal Manifestation
Builder’s anticipated 2024 release is a unique blend of contemporary classical and ambient music. Renewal Manifestation approaches the organ like a living creature - being taught to breathe and sigh. Written for organ, alto saxophone, and Crush string trio, the music brings forth an immense wave of spirit and sound that washes over the listener. As author and critic Tim Rutherford - Johnson writes (The Wire, Tempo, Positionen, Nutida Musik) : “In Renewal Manifestation, Calum Builder, an Australi…
Resonant Trees
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Resonant Trees, the first vinyl release from French composer-performer Léo Dupleix. An active member of the international community of younger musicians working with just intonation, Dupleix has composed works for solo instrumentalists and ensembles in Europe and Japan, as well as performing extensively on harpsichord, piano and electronics. His music is distinguished by a formal clarity and elegance of surface, gently shaping pure intervals into delicate mel…
Wanderer
Trio improvisations with Sophie Agnel - piano, Bertrand Gauguet - alto & soprano saxophones and Andrea Neumann - piano frame, electronic devices
Ogura Plays Ogura
Following her critically acclaimed Stockhausen-album, Japanese, Frankfurt-based pianist Miharu Ogura (b. 1996) now displays her skills not only at the piano but also as a composer. This latest musical endeavour unveils five intricately crafted compositions, each a testament to Ogura's musical brilliance, delivered with her usual delicacy, preciseness, and soulfulness. In the international press, Ogura’s remarkable performances have drawn comparisons to David Tudor and Aloys Kontarsky, and this n…
Le Purgatoire
"Purgatory is part of a large cycle called Sunset Time which consists of seven days of ritual music. Rituality is one of Pape’s stylistic traits that is often expressed with imaginative and fantastic sound revelations, with unpredictable sound sequences, with powerful flows of voices and instruments in a continuous timbral transfiguration. Surreal and dreamlike sounds accompany the journey of Dante and Virgil and of the other characters they meet, following them to the threshold of Paradise, sou…
Organic Music Tapes Vol.3
*100 copies limited edition* In keeping with tradition, the new year brings another offering from Portuguese pianist and composer Tiago Sousa. "Organic Music Tapes Vol.3," the third instalment in Tiago’s ongoing series, continues to develop a freeform dual approach to organic and fluid compositions for Piano and Organ - this time adding a real church tube organ to the proceedings.
Evolving from the foundation laid in the first two volumes, Sousa introduces the pipe organ into his signature piano…
Rocco Federico Castellani Per Dei Suoni
*150 copeis limited edition* Recorded at "Dei Suoni" event, as unique track, splitted in two parts for the cassette release. Limited edition of 150 hand-numbered copies. Comes with an original polaroid.
Futility
Futility by Rafał Zapała is a provocative album that reimagines the concert experience, fusing music with technology to challenge the traditional performer-audience dynamic. Through compositions such as No Meaning Detected and Futility, Zapała explores themes of control, engagement and the communal aspect of music in the digital age. This album invites listeners to an interactive journey, questioning the conventional boundaries of art and its consumption. This production demonstrates Zapała's in…
Works for Saxophone
"The music of Toshio Hosokawa invites us on a poetic journey of knowledge he has made throughout his life by bringing the cultures of East and West into dialogue.” - Paco Yáñez
Germination
Inspired by the serene aesthetics of Japanese gardens and the avant-garde sounds of Edgard Varèse, Hervé’s work embodies a profound engagement with the environment, both natural and constructed. Featuring the compositions Germination, an ensemble piece with electronics that transcends traditional performance spaces, and Topos, an immersive soundscape blending music with the sounds of an imagined natural environment. The album concludes with Au Dehors, a composition that evolves like nature itsel…
Someone Will Remember Us
Since the nineties, Elisabeth Harnik’s work as an artist is characterised by two aspects: improvisation and composition. For Harnik, these two activities, which are usually treated as entirely separate entities in music, are two sides of the same coin. This already becomes evident in her improvisational playing, in which she frequently works with piano preparations and extended playing techniques. Exploring, juxtaposing, merging and fusing sounds, she marks out different paths through the sounds…
Geister
This double album with compositions from the last two decades offers an insight into the diverse musical soundscape of Joël-François Durand. From Mirror Land (2005) to Geister, schwebende Geister... (2020), Durand’s work shows a unique development characterised by his use of microtonality. The poetic dialogues of the Fernando Pessoa-inspired Quatuor à cordes No. 2: Cantar de Amigo (2020) and Durand’s ongoing exploration of microtonal spaces in La descente de l’ange (2022) reveal a dynamic and tr…
Khôra
The cycle Khôra, featuring saxophone quartet and microtonal accordion, explores the dynamic interplay between sound, philosophy, and space. Inspired by Plato’s Timaeus and Jacques Derrida’s reinterpretation of Khôra, the nine pieces challenge traditional notions of time and space. Performers from the SIGMA Project and accordionist Iñaki Alberdi create a fluid, immersive experience that goes beyond linear hierarchies. Capturing the essence of an ever-changing world, the album reflects Ernst Bloch…
A Curving Abacus
In 1968, Steve Reich coined the term Process Music to describe compositional designs that resemble “pulling back a swing, releasing it, and observing it gradually come to rest,” explaining that “once the musical process is set up and loaded it runs by itself.” In the mid-1970s, Brian Eno began using the expression Ambient Music to refer to atmospheric compositions that “must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular,” music that “must be as ign…