Trillium E
*2025 stock* Trillium E is the first-ever studio recording of a Braxton opera, and documents a surreal and witty installment in Braxton’s ongoing Trillium cycle. Available as a four-disc box set in both physical and digital forms, it includes a 72-page booklet with libretto, photos, and critical essays. Each of Trillium E’s four acts features a different episode: a genie in a bottle, the invention of human cloning, interplanetary space travel, and the exploration of a jungle pyramid. The perform…
Tönendes licht
In tönendes licht., Klaus Lang imagines the Gothic cathedral as a resonating body shaped by the architectural principles of hierarchy and proportion. Performed by Wolfgang Kogert and the Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Peter Rundel, the work creates a unique interplay between the physical structure of the cathedral and the ephemeral presence of the music, evoking the medieval understanding of light and sound as pathways to the divine. Inspired by the ideals of Gothic art, Lang explores the conce…
Left, Alone
*2025 stock* Left, alone is Winter & Winter's seventh release of works by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen. The collaboration began in 2009 with »Schnee«, followed by »/Walden/Wald/«, »Zählen und Erzählen« [with Four Pieces for Orchestra, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Ten Studies for Piano], »Gifts and Greetings« for the 40th anniversary of the Arditti String Quartet, »let me tell you« with Barbara Hanningan, Andris Nelsons and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, which is one…
Dach
*2024 stock* When two worlds collide, you clean up afterwards. That's how the first impression of Dach, the joint work by the Frankfurt sound collective Ensemble Modern and Paul Frick, known from Brandt Brauer Frick, feels. Few people know that Paul studied classical composition and that it is therefore not particularly surprising that, in addition to his work with BBF and Tangerine Dream, where he has been dribbling synthesiser capers with the electronic music legend from Spandau for some time …
Hereafter
Sofa is proud to mark its 100th release with the stunningly beautiful double album Hereafter, a new major work from guitarist/composer Kim Myhr, written for the 15-piece Stavanger-based ensemble Kitchen Orchestra. “Hereafter can be seen as a meditation on mortality and transience”, Myhr explains. “It was written at a time where the prime minister of Norway told the country’s population that ‘you have to be prepared to lose someone dear to you’. It was like taken out of Tarkovsky’s “Sacrifice”. T…
Paesaggi con macerie
“Not all artists manifest social and political ideals. This is a contradictory fact in itself, since they are committed to improving society,” says Salvatore Sciarrino in his album Paesaggi con macerie, which presents four remarkable recordings for ensemble or voice and ensemble, written between 1986 and 2022 and performed by mezzo soprano Monica Bacelli and Icarus vs Muzak conducted by Marco Angius.
musique noire
Julia Purgina’s works tell musical stories. Abstract stories, which usually initiate her working process. It is her goal “to write works that are clearly located in the present through their musical language and by speaking of the present, but which both touch people in their innermost being and force them to reflect. In a way that would be ultimately timeless,” said the composer in an interview for the Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung. Through the musical description of mysterious characters, clouds …
Born In Waves
“Born in Waves is Estonian composer Elis Hallik’s first album, a gateway into the sounds and thoughts of an original artist. The album mainly features chamber compositions that represent important ideas from her oeuvre over the past decade. A versatile soundscape unravels before the listener through nine pieces, shaped by composition studies in Estonia and France, and in particular by her contact with the expressive means of spectral and electronic music. At the heart of her musical thought are …
My Strong Will
My Strong Will is a new album of "Ethiopian Classical Music" by Girma Yifrashewa. Recorded with Bulgarian musicians and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria, the album is a return to where Yifrashewa completed his own conservatory training in the late 1980s and early 1990s, across both sides of the fall of Communism. Guided by Yifrashewa's piano, these chamber works bring the music of Ethiopia into a Western Classical format, uncovering meditative and emotional new vistas for both…
Neha
Neha is an album by Adrián Demoč featuring the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and Ostrava New Orchestra. Each work extends beyond twenty-five minutes, exploring soft layers of orchestral sound, calmly repeating motifs, and silences that articulate the music’s emotional contour. The pieces are defined by their meditative atmosphere and gradual, unforced transformations.
Apophany
If you were to connect seemingly unrelated things – Heavy Metal and the symphony orchestra, for example – you might be guilty of apophenia. That friction between opposites has never been a problem for Nick Vasallo, though – his music is equally at home in both worlds. Melding Xenakis, Varese, Extreme Metal, and Dark Ambient with gothic charm, Vasallo conjures up a muscular sonic battle that leads you on an inexorable musical journey to a conclusion where surrender is your best option. Catharsis …
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…
Pacifica
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Pacifica is a major new composition by the world-famous guitarist, improvisor and composer, Fred Frith. Over an hour in length and composed for a large ensemble of winds, strings and percussion, Pacifica sets the poetry of Pablo Neruda into a seductive and hypnotizing sound world that slowly metamorphoses into something altogether different. Lyrical written passages, inspired improvisations, sensual vocals and provocative sound effects all come together into…
Hoch-Zeiten
*2022 Stock.* Hoch-Zeiten (High-Times, 2001/02, 5th scene of Sonntag aus Licht) for orchestra and choir. The 5th scene of Sonntag aus Licht is actually a 2-part conception. One part is staged as an instrumental orchestral work, and the other is a simultaneous a cappella choral work performed in another room. However, sounds from the orchestral part are piped into the choral work, and vice-versa. This CD presents the orchestra point of view (WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne), followed by that of th…
Hoch-Zeiten für orchester
*2022 Stock.* Hoch-Zeiten für orchester (High-Times for orchestra) features each of the orchestral sub-groups from Hoch-Zeiten (presented in its staged form on the Stockhausen Edition no. 73) as individual tracks. These tracks essentially allow the listener to hear the orchestral parts more clearly in smaller ensembles. Musically, each ensemble explores static harmonies but with a dynamic emphasis on polyphonic embellishment and articulation. A version for the complete ensemble (all together as …
Complete Music with Saxophones
Twenty-four tracks of saxophone music by Henry Cowell and Percy Grainger, many of them first recordings, for saxophone ensembles, piano and orchestra, directed and played by Ulrich Krieger with guest ensembles and the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra.
Strange and Sacred Noise
John Luther Adams's Strange and Sacred Noise, a nine-movement work for percussion quartet, in the composer-supervised first recording by Percussion Group Cincinnati, with a 60-minute interview with the composer.
Music for Strings
Lou Harrison's Suite No. 2 for Strings, Suite for Symphonic Strings and Concerto for Pipa with String Orchestra, three first recordings in their categories, played by Wu Man and The New Professionals Orchestra, London, conducted by Rebecca Miller.
La Terre et le Feu
Composer-supervised first recordings of Joël-François Durand's music on the four elements: La terre et le feu for oboe and ensemble, Les raisons des forces mouvantes for organ, La mesure des choses III and Athanor for orchestra.
Labyrinthe de Minotaur
Alain Bancquart's large-scale microtonal cycle on the myth of the Minotaur, on texts by Marie-Claire Bancquart, recorded at its world premiere of the complete version at Radio France on 27 May 2000.