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.
Amiandos
Yannis Kyriakides evokes memories of a site and of the workers of the mines of Amiandos, reflecting on a past not that far gone. In 7 pieces he tells profound stories of loss, and of the fascination for a magnificent and malignant stone. Amiandos is Kyriakides 8th album on Unsounds records.
Taurhiphanie / Voyage Absolu Des Unari Vers Andromède / Gendy 3 / S.709
Iannis Xenakis's late electroacoustic music became electronic: all sounds are synthetic "explicit computer music" as Peter Hoffmann called it. The music presented here shows Xenakis's way back from spatialized immersive music and multimedia spectacle to simple loudspeaker music. The sound does not move anymore, there are no synchronized visuals: nothing remains but structured noise. Xenakis used two inventions he had already presented in the context of the Polytopes: sounds created by stochastic…
Transmutation of Things
There is a venerable history of popular songs used as the starting point for elaborate classical compositions, but 500 years ago Josquin and Dufay never imagined using a gargantuan digital orchestra with up to 300 layered tracks pushing architectural proportion and human perception to the max. And yet, that is exactly what composer, MC Maguire, does in his Toronto studio. It’s daunting, it’s overwhelming, and it has to be heard (preferably loud) to be believed. Dubbed “the most irritating and sp…
Spiral - Pole
Karlheinz Stockhausen – Spiral was composed in 1968 while Stockhausen was living in Connecticut (United States). It was developed through his association with a guitarist student, Michael Lorimer, and originally dedicated to him (tho never performed by him). Spiral had it's greatest success when it was premiered by the oboist Heinz Holliger (and subsequently performed more than 1300 times!) at the Osaka 1970 World's Fair Expo in Stockhausen's own performance pavilion, a speaker-lined spheric…
La Legende D'Eer
Tip! Individual LP from the Electroacoustic Works boxset. The second release in the Perihel series is one of the most famous electroacoustic compositions by Iannis Xenakis. When Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), who had fought against the occupation as part of the communist resistance, moved to Paris in 1947 it was the start of a highly creative and impressive career. Xenakis not only studied composition with Olivier Messiaen and became one of the most innovative composers of the 20th century, he also…
BFHC
Limited edition of 100 copies. On her second album (first one on Umor Rex), the Minsk born / Paris based artist Lina Filipovich continues her experiments on deconstruction and re-appropriation of classical pieces. BFHC includes seven electronic interpretations of the works of Baroque composers such as Bach, Handel, Frescobaldi, Carleton and Couperin. Inspired by memories of her experience of interpreting Bach's pieces in early childhood, Filipovich explores the desire to push the limits of perfo…
Silver Apples of the Moon / The Wild Bull
Silver Apples of the Moon' is without a doubt the best known work from influential composer and electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick. It was originally commissioned by Nonesuch records back in 1967, when electronic music was more of a series of ideas than a recognised art form, and since then it has achieved well deserved classic status, influencing so much that would come after it is impossible to conceive. Subotnick's instrument of choice was the Buchla modular synthesizer, a gigantic pat…
Flicker Tone Pulse (Electronic Music 2001-2016)
A prolific composer, performer, and author, Curtis Roads says he “pursues research in the interdisciplinary territory spanning music and technology.” He was Editor and Associate Editor of Computer Music Journal (The MIT Press) from 1978 to 2000, co-founded the International Computer Music Association in 1979, and was a pioneer in the development of granular synthesis. Roads developed the Creatophone, a system for spatial projection of sound in concert, as well as the Creatovox, an expressive new…
Volume 1: Electronic Works
*2022 stock* Although this might be labelled 'Volume 1', this large collection of Morton Subotnick's work (featuring three of his pieces - 'Touch', 'A Sky of Cloudless Sulphur' and 'Gestures') actually showcases some of his most recent compositions. The pioneering electronic composer shot into the public eye with his very well known album 'Silver Apples of the Moon', but his work didn't end there and here we get 'Touch' which was composed just after 'The Wild Bull' in 1969 set next to 'A Sky of …
Pulse Music
*CD gatefold wallet with tip in booklet* Presented together for the first time, American composer John McGuire’s Pulse Music series (1975-1979) blurs the popular narrative that Minimalism was a reaction against Europe’s angular, intellectual, inscrutable high-modernism. McGuire, born in California, studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles and UC Berkeley before going to Europe to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Gottfried Michael Koenig. His compositions lock seria…
Electroacoustic Music, Vol. 2
Bruno Strobl has a soft spot for sounds – for decades, he has been tinkering with them, changing them, playing with them. In the past by means of analog sound processing machines, for a long time by computer software and electronic instruments. Mostly, however, it is an analog sound that he takes as a starting point. Three sound generators are the core of his interest for the pieces collected on this CD. Three working tools moreover: a circular saw of the craftsman, four old water mills of the L…
Elektronische Musik 1987-2018
From early beginnings to the present: The composer Bruno Strobl began his studies in composition comparatively late. First came his degree as a classroom teacher, the profession in which he worked until retirement, guiding countless pupils towards music, including contemporary art mu-sic. His own interest in electroacoustic music was triggered during his studies in the 1980s, and one of his early pieces for tape, Hiatus, can be heard on this CD. The Latin “hiatus” means gap, and the basis of thi…
General Theory Of Relativity
Wojciech Błażejczyk’s music feeds on scientific theories, internet streams and civilization waves or scrap. It sometimes looks like a nerd’s diary. Full of different colors and fonts, notes, charts, exclamations and underlined words. This diary is the composer’s reaction to what surrounds him every day. Global news often appear together with local events, fake facts – with perceptual illusions, war strategy – with a pacifist message. All of that put in a new music idiom spiced up with a pinch of…
Interialcell
Aleksandra Gryka is undoubtedly one of the most enigmatic and fascinating figures of the young generation of Polish composers. She does not comment on her works, does not give interviews, and does not provide critics with an insight into her scores (which even causes the occasional international scandal). She is also mysterious in her music: her works are like planets with their own atmosphere and laws. The narrative is usually torn, fragmentary and always incom plete, it leaves the listener uns…
Tombstones
Tombstones is a collection of twenty songs composed by American composer Michael Pisaro-Liu between 2006 and 2010, journeying into experimental pop with pieces that are "experimental or indeterminate but still a song". This disc features eleven songs under the artistic direction of the Lille-based pianist Barbara Dang. Dang and six members of the Muzzix collective (Yoann Bellefont, Ivann Cruz, Raphaël Godeau, Peter Orins, Christian Pruvost, Maryline Pruvost) recorded the pieces in June 2020, wit…
Synthi-Fou / Dienstags-Abschied
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Synthi-Fou / Dienstags-Abschied ” "A double –CD like this one falls right into that crystal clarity, giving yet more insight into how his art is achieved, piece by piece, structurally – but as it is with human beings or a flower or an Earth sun rise, the result is much more and something else altogether than the sum of all the parts… and somewhere in that realm lies the real mystery; that elusive, vibrant core of beauty and truth which can’t be accounted fo…
Oktophonie
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Oktophonie ” Realized at the Studio für Elektronische Musik, WDR, August 23 - November 30, 1990 & Aug. 5-30, 1991. " (...) Stockhausen also points out that the production and spatialization are described in the separate OCTOPHONY score. This score is indeed a very meticulous and detailed one, indispensable for aficionados who will want to enter the inner workings of the OCTOPHONY structure. It is an extreme score in this aspect, in the minute details of its…
Donnerstag Aus Licht
Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Donnerstag aus Licht” (“Thursday from Light”); opera in three acts, a greeting and a farewell for 15 musical interpreters (4 solo voices, 8 instrumental soloists, 3 solo dancers), chorus, orchestra and magnetic tapes (1978 – 1980) " It arises in a silvery, calm motion of wind instruments – obviously preparing us for something of importance and vast durations. It is “Donnerstag-Gruss” (“Thursday Greeting”); the start of “Donnerstag aus Licht” (“Thursday from Light”); the …