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…
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…
Vanishing Points / A Cappella
CD digipack. In his “Pulse Music” compositions of the mid-1970s, composer John McGuire forged a unique interpretation of European serialism. A student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Gottfried Michael Koenig, McGuire moved to Cologne, Germany in 1970, where he become associated with the world-leading Studio for Electronic Music at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne. Like Stockhausen, McGuire found his musical imagination both constrained and inspired by the technology tha…
his master's voice / aus den fliegenden blättern eines fahrenden waldhornisten / lose verbunden -- Performed by Kei Kondo and Takahiro Kuroda
*300 copies limited edition* Eva-Maria Houben (born in 1955) is a German composer, organist, pianist and musicologist. She is a member of the Wandelweiser Group. Her compositions, performed by herself and many other musicians, have been released on CDs and LPs as well as digitally by Edition Wandelweiser and other international labels. On May 15, 2023, composer Takahiro Kuroda (born in 1989) presented the concert "Square of Thoughts Vol. 2: Eva-Maria Houben and Horn + x" in the performance space…
echo fantasy lI -- Performed by Takahiro Kuroda and Kei Kondo
*300 copies limited edition* Eva-Maria Houben (born in 1955) is a German composer, organist, pianist and musicologist. She is a member of the Wandelweiser Group. Her compositions, performed by herself and many other musicians, have been released on CDs and LPs as well as digitally by Edition Wandelweiser and other international labels. On May 15, 2023, composer Takahiro Kuroda (born in 1989) presented the concert "Square of Thoughts Vol. 2: Eva-Maria Houben and Horn + x" in the performance space…
Reverse Bloom
On the evening of July 13th, 2023, I trekked up to Arnold Hall for a very special performance at The Stone. I sat in the front row and took out my notebook then turned to my right and looked around the space. The dimly lit room buzzed with quiet activity and conversation. After a few more minutes, the lights went even lower and out walked three shadowy figures. Each clicked on a small bulb that lit their individual music stands. This was my third time seeing the Jessica Pavone String Ensemble. T…
Turzets
The latest in a prolific string of solo and collaborative releases by James Rushford, Turzets collects a pair of new works primarily created and recorded last year while the Australian composer-performer was in residence at La Becque, an art center on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The side-length piece “Fallaway Whisk” explores hesitation in its many forms—reticence of speech, sonic restraint—using live, abstracted translations of text from English to German against a lush and swelling soundscape.…
Maniera
With yet another striking and forward-thinking work of contemporary composition, Another Timbre returns with “Maniera”, their second outing with the Italian composer, Marco Baldini, following on from last year's brilliant “Vesperi” which sold out within weeks. Comprising seven works for various configurations of string ensemble, masterfully executed by Apartment House, that nod across time toward Italian polyphonic compositions of the 16th and early 17th centuries, the diverse history of Minimal…
Distant Musics
A portrait CD of the early music of US composer Paul Paccione, all 5 works being originally composed between 1980 and 1990. The pieces were recorded in 2023/2024 and are superbly played by Apartment House.
Cover artwork by Anton Lukoszevieze.
shades
Portrait CD of Boston-based composer Nomi Epstein, featuring three chamber works from 2011 to 2023. Two of the pieces ('shades' and 'Sextet') were recorded by Apartment House in 2023, and 'sounds for Berlin' is a concert recording from Berlin in 2019. Thanks to Samuel Dunscombe for the Berlin recording, and to Heather Frasch & Rebecca Lane for organising the Vibrant Matters concert series of which it was a part. The other two pieces were recorded in London by Simon Reynell.
Cover artwork by Amy …
things that happen again
A portrait CD of UK composer Paul Newland's music, with five pieces dating from 2009 to 2023, all recorded by Apartment House in 2023. A rich variety of music, ranging from string quartet, two different trio combinations, a short work for solo piano, and a score for open instrumentation, realised in this recording by a septet.Cover artwork by Paul Newland
Music for Save Rooms 1 & 2 (2CD)
* Double CD set containing both albums - Music for Save Rooms 1 & Music for Save Rooms 2. First edition of 150 copies * John Also Bennett’s Music for Save Rooms 1 & 2 compiles two volumes of minimal music conceived as infinitely looping and morphing compositions for “save rooms” - temporary safe spaces within video game maps. The compositions primarily stem from a week spent at work in a former military barn in the Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco, spurred on by multimedia artist and …
Whistle Posse
Louie Rice and Luciano Maggiore work together performing score-based works - both acoustic (without a PA system) and amplified (with a PA system). The duo was originally conceived to perform works by other artists as part of an event series at Cafe OTO in London. This series acted as a research period that went on to inform the action-based pieces that Rice and Maggiore are now writing themselves. These pieces explore physical actions and vocalisations in response to pre-defined prompts or rules…
Mapping the Valleys of the Uncanny
Daniel M Karlssons Mapping the valleys of the uncanny is an investigation into a process and method, colliding with questions relating to what can be known to be real, within the field of algorithmic composition. This music and text-based work examines the roles and signifiers of instrumentation and timbre as they unwittingly conspire to designate access, power, status, work and ultimately class. Paradoxically, Karlsson uses this critical-analytical standpoint as a means to build a large-scale i…
Arbos
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* "This CD features some great performances by Pärt specialists of a variety of shorter works. The clamorous Arbos for brass makes a startling opening for those who expect abstracted reverence; the lament, An den Wassern, has a startling ending that builds in intensity and volume only to break off mid-phrase. The static Pari Intervallo for organ leads into De Profundis, with its sense of slow but unstoppable movement (every note the same length, every measure the sa…
Miserere
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* For reasons perhaps too numerous to list here in full, Arvo Pärt’s Miserere remains my most cherished of the Estonian composer’s ever-growing book of masterworks. Suffice it to say that its magic lies in its stillness. For such an expansive piece—scored as it is for choir, soloists, organ, and ensemble—it is remarkably introspective. Its opening invocation of Psalm 51 fleshes out a corpus of spoken language made melody. A statement from the clarinet follows every w…
Te Deum
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* "Te Deum employs Pärt's signature tintinnabuli compositional style. Tintinnabuli is often described as a minimalistic compositional technique, as its harmonic logic departs from that of the tonal tradition of Western classical music, creating its own distinct harmonic system. Tintinnabulation is a process in which a chosen triad encircles a melody, manifesting itself in specific positions in relation to the melody according to a predetermined scheme of adjacency. I…
Litany
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* The starting point for Litany was a commission received from the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene, US. For this reason, Pärt selected an English text as the basis for his composition.
Arvo Pärt: “The English language lacks plasticity which is brought to music with long words. Working with a text in English, I had to make new discoveries and use melodic constructions that I normally don’t use in my music, to extract material from words and sentences. The text for Lita…
Alina
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* There have been other recordings of "Für Alina" and "Spiegel im Spiegel" but none like those on this disc, realized with the participation of the composer. Here Pärt, aided by exceptional interpreters, revisits those seminally important compositions which marked the birth of a new, "prismatic" period in his work, establishing a link between compositions embodying the fundamental traits of the "tintinnabuli style." Three interpretations of the duet ‘Spiegel im Spieg…
Orient & Occident
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* “An exceptional and musically important release” – Gramophone, Editor’s Choice. The long-awaited new album by the great Estonian composer brings new colours to his unique body of work. The purity and the sense of timelessness remain; the harmonic palette is subtly expanded. These recordings of “Orient & Occident”, “Ein Wallfahrtslied” and “Como cierva sedienta” have been widely praised.