cubes
*Limited Edition Handmade CDR in cardboard string sleeve with liner notes and album art.* "cubes (2020) commissioned, interpreted and recorded by Erik Carlson and Greg Stuart, is a set of instructions for constructing sound and recording events. The score consists of 24 “cubes,” rectangular figures containing various graphics, which are the building blocks of sound for the piece. Throughout the process of realization, Erik and Greg devised and structured these building blocks depending on variou…
Muted Stones: A Tribute to Yadollah Roayee
*Limited Edition Handmade CDR in cardboard string sleeve with liner notes and album art.* "During the period spanning from 2016 to 2020, I underwent a profound realization that led me to feel lost within myself. As each year passed, I found myself feeling a sense of rupture and absence, far from home. In search for comfort, I turned to my native language of Farsi. However, even within the confines of my language, I was unable to escape the feeling of fragmentation. Each sentence I read seemed to…
Scapegoat
‘Scapegoat’ is the new album by Triola, the project led by the prolific Tokyo-based composer & experimental string musician Atsuko Hatano, featuring the Japanese violinist Anzu Suhara. Conceived as a string project, with Hatano on viola, cello, bass and Suhara on violin, Triola involves a rotating ensemble of guest musicians, including the likes of Chicago-born musician, composer & producer Jim O’Rourke (Drag City, Sonic Youth, Steamroom), the composer & musician Eiko Ishibashi (Drag City, Black…
Desolation Pops
"James Moore (b. 1979) is a composer with an eye toward the world of games and experimental theater. He’s an electric guitarist who’s willing and eager to treat his instrument as a playground, not a reverent, static tradition. He’s a tinkerer, a charmer, and a fella who’s always up for another round at the bar of wacky ideas and intellectual questioning. He’s excited for new and unexpected opportunities for collaboration, but always maintains a voice that seems to stay recognizably his own throu…
Current
The string quartet Current that provides the centerpiece of Adams’ new album dates from 2016, when Spektral Quartet commissioned the composer to write a short work that became the 12-minute study Quartet Movement. Though that piece stands alone, Adams sensed that it might also be used as the basis for something larger, so over the next few years he expanded its scope. The present five-movement work, completed in 2019, was co-commissioned by Spektral Quartet and Cal Performances, with additional …
Ridgeway
A set of compositions by composer Kate Moore written around the concept of connecting memory of places and sensory experience, the album centres on the two major pieces, Ridgeway (2009) and The Dam (2015). Moore is at her most expressive in those immersive, visceral works, as she refers to personal experience and memories. In the title piece, Ridgeway, the giant white horse of Uffington, set in the dramatic prehistoric landscape where Moore lived for a time as a child, comes to life as in a powe…
Evening Star, Vesper Bell
Beautiful 54-minute work by Magnus Granberg, written for and wonderfully played by Apartment House. As with almost all of Granberg's compositions, a strong ability in improvisation is essential as the score presents musicians with pools of musical material from which they have to select sounds according to what they are hearing in the moment from the other musicians. Sumptuously gorgeous music.
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
Brian Eno Performed by Dedalus Ensemble
With Discreet Music (1975), Music for Airports (1978), and Thursday Afternoon (1985), Brian Eno invented a new music genre, ambient music, which he defined as "able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." These versions performed and arranged by Dedalus Ensemble, according to the musicians and the critics who listened to it, goes beyond what you expect from it. A mental base that takes you far away. One…
Spiralis Aurea
Venturing into untapped realms of creative exploration, the Genoa born, Bologna based, guitarist and electroacoustic composer, Stefano Pilia, returns to Die Schachtel with “Spiralis Aurea”, a double LP of material that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind.
Clear and Hazy Moons
Another young composer who you’ve probably not heard of, but whose music you really should get to know. Four stunning pieces, three played by Apartment House, and one by the Rothko Collective. Brilliant music that really shouldn’t be possible from someone so young.
Vesperi
Another Timbre is back with yet another incredible statement from the contemporary landscape of experimental sound, “Vesperi”, the debut album by the Italian composer Marco Baldini from the Florence-based ensemble, Blutwurst. A striking series of minimal works for acoustic instruments, drawing their inspiration from early music and North Indian (Hindustani) classical music, and executed by two remarkable ensembles - a quartet of two cellos and two double bass, and a trio of cello, double bass, a…
Revolver
*2023 stock* Inspired by the kinetic physicality and aesthetics of balance found in Ken Unsworth's work, the music embodies a feeling of suspension between movement and stasis. Evolving and revolving melodies, poised skilfully in polyrhythmic structures, the music creates an intoxicating and emotional impression. There is a feeling of constant motion and flow of sonic currents that typifies much of Kate Moore's music.
The music shifts from the material world, the gradually shifting stone-like cy…
Rocco e Rollo
*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* "Gottschalk’s works and if you are looking for new-to-you works, this album would be a welcome one to the audio library. The title work of the album starts an eerie flicker of sound from hollow trills that swell to the orchestra’s entrance with a similar character and trills echoed. As the first movement continues, Parisi’s aptitude for both conventional and contemporary techniques are apparent with technical passages sounding effortless as he spans the range…
For Saxophones
*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* "As a chamber music ensemble the saxophone quartet has a surprisingly long pedigree. The first work for it was written in 1857, less than twenty years after Adolphe Sax invented it, a Saxophone Quartette Club was founded in New York in 1879, and by 1896 a California Saxophone Quartet was on tour. While the modern saxophone quartet is now most likely to be associated with the jazz tradition, the standard ensemble of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones…
When the Streets Were Quiet
Tip! *In process of stocking* "On "When the Streets Were Quiet", composer, bassist, and bandleader Max Johnson turns the focus to his finely wrought chamber music. Active in many contexts, Johnson is voraciously eclectic and impressively versatile. The works on this collection betray little overt reference to his wide range of stylistic activities, instead zeroing in on his craft centered approach to composition. With an emphasis on counterpoint, imitative textures, structural markers defined by…
Goodbyes
Gondwana Records announces 'Goodbyes' the debut album from Estonian pianist and composer, Hanakiv, a deeply beautiful, meditative piano album featuring special guest Alabaster dePlume.
Lifelong Ambitions
*2022 stock* "Leroy Jenkins, free jazz's greatest violinist, has always worked best in intimate situations with equally talented partners. He certainly had the optimum conditions on this duet date pairing him with outstanding pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor Muhal Richard Abrams. The duo played six Jenkins compositions for the session, which was recorded live. Abrams and Jenkins frequently alternate roles, letting each other set the pace, never colliding, and forging a highly effective…
Solo Piano
With Solo Piano, Glass presents himself “unplugged” - no electronic keyboards or synthesizers, and no overdubs, either - just solo piano. “Metamorphosis” was written in 1988 and takes its name from a play based on Kafka's short story. Its second track, “Metamorphosis Two”, formed the basis of one of the main musical themes in the film “The Hours”. It is also the song that the American rock band Pearl Jam uses as their introduction music to concerts. “Mad Rush” was written for the occasion of the…
Acustica < > Elettrica
*2022 stock* 'We can appreciate some musical works for a variety of reasons. Some unleash a narrative that can read our present and its problems very well, others prefer to move on abstract codes, whether experimental or electronic. Still others may propose ethnographic readings as much aimed at an examination of the past and tradition as they try to probe the future through spatial or psychedelic atmospheres. Then there are proposals capable of going beyond any stylistic framework and floating …