Emisphere 2CD
'Emisphere' is the last album from Paul Chain to be completely improvised. As usual, the tracks tend to be long, many being near or above the 15 minute mark, with a large use of the Hammond Organ throughout, and introduces some electronic elements as well. Released in 1996 by Paul Chain playing all instruments with the occasional help of Sandra Silver on vocals.
Additive Inverse
* Stunning collaborative work of field recordings and electronics by Jos Smolders and Jim O'Rourke * What if sounds were to fold in on themselves? Quite quickly after being 'born', even. Only to be released back into the 'normal' world of linear projection and moving waveforms from a resonant source to the ear drum to hearing and listening, some album length later? Through a looking glass of sorts, as if emerging from an anechoic chamber through the backdoor. From absolute silence into all heari…
Choosing Freedom
With this work Gagi Petrovic chooses to explore beyond abstraction, dwell within it, to find an inner celebration of what it means to let go of expectations and let music ring free. Free from arbitrary expectations, emotional manipulations and conservative evasions regarding what music "should" be. For this purpose he created his own musical instrument. The custom-built Gest allows the performer to design and play electronic music in an intuitive way, turning hand gestures and light sensors into…
Tara's room
Pauline Oliveros's Tara's Room has long been a favorite at Important Records and here they rerelease it on tape for the very first time. Originally released on cassette in 1987 following the 1986 release of Sounding / Way with Guy Klucevsek, also reissued by Important Records. This cassette edition features two long sides of infinite depth and sensitivity. Oliveros performs these pieces using a just intonation accordion and her Expanded Instrument System in order to bend both time and pitch. "Bo…
Sounding / Way
* This replica tape presents Pauline Oliveros & Guy Klucevsek's collaborative Sounding / Way as it was originally released, on tape, in 1986. Sounding / Way is being released at the same time as Oliveros' profound Tara's Room is released on tape for the first time since its original release in 1987 * Pauline Oliveros and Guy Klucevsek's Sounding / Way was originally released on cassette in 1987 and has been out of print ever since. The Sounding / Way concept was simple. Each artist would write a…
Observation of Breath
Do you remember the last time you were breathing consciously? Either way, you are likely doing it now. On his new album »Observation of Breath« for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label, Lawrence English worked exclusively with an organ for four compositions that are exercises in »maximal minimalism,« as their creator himself notes in a nod to Charlemagne Palestine, who coined this term. While it seems somewhat fitting that those four pieces based on a steady flow of air were conceived and recorde…
DarkSonicTales
DarkSonicTales is a project by Rolf Gisler and his eponymous album his first for Hallow Ground. Having been granted an artist residency by the label in a 300 year-old farm house in the Swiss countryside in autumn 2019, the Lucerne-based musician and sound artist explored the peculiar sonic environment of the building and its surroundings through the use of field recordings, modular synthesizers, guitar, bass, kalimbas, a singing saw as well as self-built instruments. The seven tracks, which were…
On Time Out of Time
** 2021 Stock ** On Time Out of Time is a suite of works originally commissioned for the 2017 installations ‘ER=EPR’ and 'Orbihedron' by artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand (in collaboration with Jean-Marc Chomaz and LIGO) for the exhibition, ‘Limits of Knowing’ at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin by curator, Isabel de Sena.
These works utilize, among other things, exclusive source recordings from the interferometers of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) capturing the s…
Dog Mountain
Tip! * 180 gram Vinyl * Dog Mountain is the second release by the Zurich-based producer and composer Laurin Huber on Hallow Ground. After last year’s »Juncture« saw the Edipo Re co-founder work mostly with synthesizers and programmed rhythms, the four tracks are much more restrained, drawing on tape loops and feedback, recordings of acoustic guitar and synthesizers such as the Korg MS-10 as well as field recordings that relate to the overarching topic that informed the making of the record. Whil…
Narayan
** Edition of 300 ** Wildly unexpected and crushingly good turn of drone metal from Tape Loop Orchestra’s Andrew Hargreaves and collaborator ‘Metal’ Dave Rothary, with artwork by illustrator of the grim, John Powell-Jones. Narayan commit a pair of monstrous tracks years in the making and left to marinate in the vault until the stars aligned. With lockdown finally bringing the world to its knees and their pace, the time has finally come for ‘Narayan’ to seep out; presenting one side of claw-hande…
Soliloquies 1984-1994
** Edition of 150 ** A selection of 12 compositions that reveal the more intimate side of Paul Chain’s multifaceted artistic personality: electronic music. Closely connected with “Opera Decima”, “Dies Irae” and “Emisphere”, these tracks were performed by Paul Chain between 1984 and 1994. Never Officially Released Digitally Remastered From The Legendary “Relative Tapes”.
A Pink Sunset for No One
With each successive release, the self-sustaining universe that is Sarah Lipstate’s output as Noveller pushes outward. Her instrumental sound—built from guitar loops run through pedals—has evolved well past its drone-anchored early incarnation. That relied on layers of distortion to create meditative spaces that enveloped the listener; more recently, synths and percussion have entered her sprawling compositions. A Pink Sunset for No One is ruled by a newly epic sense of scale and narrative. For …
Six Gun Shots - Deconceptualize 2
** Edition of 100 ** Corvo presents Six Gun Shots - Deconceptualize 2 by Stefan Röme. Six shots ring out in a deadly rhythm – in my memory. For this sound piece, a sampled gunshot from the sound library freesound.org was arranged in a sequence of six in Audacity. The individual shots differ in filtering and in their relation to each other in time. All six shots are repeated in the beginning and end. Each shot opens up a different drone, processed with the free audio software »Paul’s Stretch« so …
Coast/range/arc//
Loscil's dreamy 2011 ambient classic "coast/ range/ arc/" gets the deluxe reissue treatment with a fresh remaster and an additional track. Originally released in 2011, "coast/ range/ arc/" is a dense, evocative ambient record - the kind of album that set the stage for plenty of music that now clogs up playlists, but has rarely been done more effectively. Stylistic touchstones might be Thomas Köner, Angelo Badalamenti and Stars of the Lid (to a degree), but Scott Morgan takes things to shadowier…
Red / Machinic Fantasies
** 2021 Stock ** XI Records presents Involution by Cecilia Lopez. Red is more than a musical composition. It roots lie in its physicality. Nestled on a large cargo-like cable web are an array of small speakers and contact microphones. As this web sways the speakers and microphones come in and out of proximity and form an evolving feedback network, which slowly reveal themselves as a myriad of permutations accompanied by sympathetic synthesizer tones. Zero-input mixing works seem to be very popul…
Involution
From the liner notes by Dean Rosenthal: XI Records announce the release of Dave Seidel's new double-CD, Involution. The work contained on this recording represents Dave Seidel's second foray into the realm of releasing a full-length recording. But this new milestone was not reached until he had long immersed himself in the experimental scene in NYC in the 1980s and 1990s, working closely with established experimental music pioneers Lois V Vierk and Guy Klucevsek among others. Seidel's own compos…
A Shadow in Time
** 2021 Stock ** In A Shadow In Time, William Basinski plunges deeper than ever for the plaintive, solitary eulogy to David Bowie, aptly titled “For David Robert Jones.” Conversely, the title track, “A Shadow In Time,” is a subtle, celestial escalation of melody and drone. The result is one of the most truly transcendent pieces of music he has ever committed to – or wrung from – tape. Recorded at 2062, Los Angeles. Engineer: Preston Wendel. Mastering: Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering. Photo: Den…
Lamentations
** 2021 Stock ** William Basinski’s reputation as the foremost producer of profound meditations on death and decay has long been established, but on his new album, Lamentations, he transforms operatic tragedy into abyssal beauty. More than any other work since The Disintegration Loops, there is an ominous grief throughout the album, and that sense of loss lingers like an emotional vapor. Captured and constructed from tape loops and studies from Basinski’s archives – dating back to 1979 – Lamenta…
Heimito Künst
Synthesizers, field recordings, magnetic tapes together with percussion, various microphones and stringed instruments fill the listening of this musical elegy. In his debut album Heimito Künst takes us inside kaleidoscopic sound visions in which, between references to the darkest and most disturbing kraut sound and experimental sequence plans based on noise polyrhythms, he makes us glimpse wave structures that lead us directly to breathe the author's panic dust . The album was recorded live with…
Monocoastal - 10th Anniversary
** Edition of 500. Clear vinyl in a gatefold jacket with essay by Marc Weidenbaum. ** Marcus Fischer’s Monocoastal is one of the most defining moments in the arc of 12k’s evolution. Released over 10 years ago (CD, 12k1063) and long-since out of print, Monocoastal shaped the sound to come for the label for a decade and beyond. It was also Marcus Fischer’s debut release and he would go on to become one of the staple roster members of 12k as a tour partner and collaborator. 12k is very excited to r…