The Third of May
Kim David Bots and Lyckle de Jong met in the water-basin of one of the earliest concrete structures in the Netherlands, a bunker that was part of Amsterdam’s defensive line, built around the 1890’s. Something that used to house water was now empty. For three days they recorded improvised music that is still on a hard drive somewhere. Since then they have performed and recorded together, with a bunch of releases still to come. The third of May was written and recorded in 2020 over the course of s…
Cupar Grain Silo
'Cupar Grain Silo' is Sam Annand's first release on the Blackford Hill label. Its nine tracks blur the lines between ambient electronica and sonic history, as synthesised melodies and rhythms reverberate through the extreme acoustics of the disused Cupar Grain Silo in Scotland. Built in 1964 as a sugar store, the silo towers 60 metres above the surrounding Fife countryside. Its industrial life was short: in 1971 it was closed, and barring a short period as a grain store, remained empty for decad…
Tempus Fugit: Rare and Unreleased
Edition of 300 copies, one-time pressing. Deluxe Japanese edition. Robert Haigh made his trilogy of piano solo albums (‘Notes and Crossings’, ‘Anonymous Lights’, and ‘Strange and Secret Things’) during 2009-2011 and ‘The Silence of Ghosts’ in 2015 for Siren Records. The tracks for each of these releases were carefully selected with consideration for the flow and development of the project. Inevitably, for various reasons, some tracks did not fit a particular album and they have remained unreleas…
Red River
Kolkata-based musician Nilotpal Das aka Bios Contrast's new album 'Red River', arrives as a narrative sequel to his 'Dragon Rising' LP on Hong Kong DIY label Mouhoi. The concept behind the record is a speculative historical drama and myth taking place during the deadly Kalinga War in the Mauryan Empire of India. Following his intensive 24-hour harmonium drone compositions, Das's 'Red River' uses recordings of Bell 407, a civil utility helicopter as the main body of the record together with a 47-…
Drop The Beat
*2024 stock* Which significance does rhythm have for us? Focus? Means to an end? The main parameter or one parameter of many?How much time do we spend on rhythmic organisation while composing? Is our music danceable?Which sounds do we use to generate beats? How do our electronic “percussion instruments” sound? How is groove generated? Does my computer groove? Can digital groove be distinguished from analogue groove? What do our pulse grids look like? Music on the timing grid, microtiming, quant…
Hotel 10KM
Huge Tip! * Limited edition of 100 copies only. Special folded cover * Less a tapestry than an errant strand of lunatic fringe, Yado Tasu – Hotel 10KM ’s pulls us through a jungle of abandoned airwaves, smoky jazz clubs, and lost VHS tape with the guiding hand of Yado Tasu’s distinct brand of kitchen-sink bedroom-funk. Imagine a soundtrack Richie Unterberger might dream up for his conversation pit and you’re almost there. More than just record-collector music, Yado Tasu – Hotel 10KM is the grogg…
Migratory
Japanese vibraphonist and marimba player Masayoshi Fujita returns with Migratory, his masterful new solo album, where his sonic explorations into the unknown continue. In 2020, after 13 years of living in Berlin, Fujita returned to his native Japan with his wife and their three children, fulfilling his life-long dream of living and composing music in the midst of nature. The family found their new home in the mountain hills along the coast of Kami-cho, Hyōgo, three hours west of Kyoto. [...]
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Unmapping The Distance Keeps Getting Closer
12k is very happy to help usher in the return of Ezekiel Honig, a New York City-based artist and founder of both the Anticipate Recordings and Microcosm labels, which have released music from Sawako, Nicola Ratti and Mark Templeton, among others, throughout the 2000s.
Honig returns with Unmapping the Distance Keeps Getting Closer, an album of very stark, and often dark and vulnerable music. Honig describes the work in the context of the feeling of listening while walking through the city, and th…
Divine Comédie
Last copies...Super tip! Divine Comédie stands as a magnum opus crafted by two of the foremost composers of their era, boasting a musical ambition akin to Dante’s poem and its visual interpretation by Sandro Botticelli or Gustave Doré. For a long time, this triptych was presented as a two-sided work in which Bernard Parmegiani’s Hell and François Bayle’s Purgatory responded to and extended each other, guided by Michel Hermon’s voice through the listener’s imagination. Because Paradise, a mixed p…
Diabolus In Musica – 2008-2024 (Book)
Jean-Christophe Thomas analyzes François Bayle's complete work in 52 recurring features (book augmented with 151 sound examples to download).
Ecotone
*150 copies limited edition* Build Buildings is Brooklyn, New York, based Ben Tweel. He makes music with computers, instruments and household sounds. The sounds on “Ecotone” are sourced from acoustic guitars, lap harp, ukulele, mbira, and clarinet, and played through the gestural iPad program Samplr. He has released numerous albums since 2004, most recently 2022’s “Bring in the Lampstand and Light Its Lamps” on Audiobulb Records.
Soplo
Tip! *200 copies limited release* "Soplo" is the debut solo album from Berlin-based Mexican multimedia artist, sound designer, and DJ, Daniela Huerta -- and a true thing of beauty it is. A hallucinatory array of vaporous atmospheres, illusory rhythms, vanishing voices, and evocative environmental recordings, "Soplo" (Spanish for 'breath') ruminates on the enduring resonance of storytelling. Huerta places an interest in mythology at the center of her practice, using it as a springboard to explore…
Quixotism
LP version. Black Truffle presents a tenth anniversary reissue of Oren Ambarchi's Quixotism, originally released on Editions Mego in 2014. Recorded with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA, Quixotism presents the fruit of two years of work in the form of a single, LP-length piece in five parts. Quixotism takes the driving rhythmic aspect of works such as "Sagittarian Domain" to new levels, with the entirety of this long-form work built on a foundation of pulsing …
KPMM: 20 Signs You Have A Thyroid Problem
A treasury of 20 unheard cues from Baron Mordant. Housed in a beautiful spot gloss sleeve and pressed up on heavyweight vinyl
Towards a Music for Large Ensemble
*300 copies limited edition* Daniel M Karlsson is a long standing fixture of Stockholm’s experimental electronic music scene. He’s been an important part of its key infrastructure including Fylkingen, Norberg Festival and the fabled Elektronmusikstudion EMS where he now teaches various courses. A well known evangelist for the open source music coding platform SuperCollider, its rare for someone to spend more than five minutes in his company without getting a run down on how you, too can get Supe…
phase/transitions
Triple Point is an improvising trio whose core instrumentation is soprano saxophone, greis/electronics and V-accordion. The name refers to the point of equilibrium on a phase plot, which acts as metaphor for our improvisational dialogue. Their musical interaction is centered around an interplay between acoustics, physically-modeled acoustics (v-accordion) and electronics. Van Nort captures the sound of the other performers on-the-fly, either transforming these in the moment to create blended tex…
Ways Of The Voice
Rezas Populares do Brasil, Anamak, Amkéa and Annazone, are vocal works. All the sounds on this disc originate with the Brazilian singer Anna Maria Kieffer. Two works, Anamak and Amkéa, have an "orchestral accompaniment", composed of tropical bird songs. Making use of elements of electroacoustic music and sound poetry, the music expresses wonder at Brazil's tropical beauty and, ultimately, an intense love of the abstraction of words and musical forms.
Quartet For The End Of Space
This recording consists of 8 electro-acoustic compositions - 2 pieces by each of the 4 composers. The works span a vast sonic terrain, challenging listener and performer alike through a seamless blend of Deep Listening and Absolute Noise, moving between ever-fluid improvisation and carefully controlled sound manipulation. The quartet convened for two improvisational sessions between February and May of 2010, with López sitting in on a Triple Point (Oliveros/Van Nort/Braasch) recording session an…
Rounded With A Sleep
Electroacoustic music. Active in electronic composition since 1971, Noah Creshevsky delights in presenting extreme and unpredictable juxtapositions in which the integration of electronic and acoustic sources and processes creates virtual "superperformers" by using the sounds of traditional instruments pushed past human capacities. Creshevsky uses the term Hyperrealism to describe his electroacoustic language constructed from found sounds, handled in ways that are exaggerated or intense. Creshevs…
Yeschemkarogh
*20 copies limited edition* New ultragreen transparent tapes with two-sided j-card. Produced and released on tape by Nazlo International, unstopable and unlimited. Recorded in Armenia, designed in Serbia, printed in Georgia, dubbed in Berlin and assembled in Paris.