Mythologies
** 300 copies ** "Very ponderously, I approach the review stage of this box-fresh drone-log by Masaya Ozaki and Kaito Nakahori, and it’s the release that’s made me sit up and think the most in now my 209th site article. There are intriguing sounds dotted and masked all over it, like the strange scrapes of Entropy that seem to mirror the dredging of a beer barrel. Has the liquid of life dried up already? Surely not…if you’ve ever heard Catalog Des Arbres on the Touch label you’ll be familiar with…
Arc 1
Finnish label Sähkö Recordings is launching a new archival series of unreleased work from its co-founder Mika Vainio. The late Vainio left behind plenty of unreleased material after his passing in 2017. Arc 1 represents the first in a series of releases that draw on Vainio’s archives. The material here was constructed for a 1994 radio project, entitled Ambient City, that Vainio performed as Ø. Both sides here begin with perturbed ambient synth-scapes - grumbling LFOs, digital noise, that sort of…
Not Knowing
**200 copies** "Not knowing is my fifth accordion solo and a new challenge for the instrument itself, here treated as an object in space. Whereas in the other recordings the centre of attention was put in materiality, structure or deconstruction, with microphones extremely close to the instrument, almost inside it, here the point of inflexion is the architecture and space as an essential part of the recording. It's still with an exploratory intention that I try to blur the limits of what to expe…
Humlebier
"This cassette contains different versions of a kind of static music consisting of humming sound formations. Various parts are combined in constantly different ways and activated or paused at a slowly changing pace. The three versions have different tempos with different characters ensuing. Simple looped motifs repeating themselves form the basis. Some of these are capable of modifying the pitch of each other. I have acted as a musician playing the computer sequencer by changing tempo, allowing …
Infinity
Infinity is the new release by Melbourne-based Leo James, and the second Patience production. Leo scratches a longstanding itch and delivers two sidelong excursions that inhabit a similar sonic space but spin off in opposite directions on the continuum. Desert Nightflower hums with vitality in a seemingly lifeless landscape. Impressionistically tracing the lifecycle of a flower’s bloom in the desert night – from the searing afternoon sun through dusk’s chill, the midnight blossoming and symbioti…
Quiet Ends
The penumbra diffuses mysterious textures and a melancholic hypnotic atmosphere conductive to introspection. Another absolutely gorgeous recording from Timo van Luijk
Dry Lake
**300 copies** Il Grande Silenzio is a project by Japanese artists Atsuo Ogawa and Minoru Sato. On 'Dry Lake' they offer two minimal compositions that feature banjo, field recordings and electronics.
Sterminato Piano
*175 copies on Orange vinyl.* I've known Fabio Orsi for almost fifteen years now, artistically and humanly. Since the days of "Osci" his first album released by SmallVoices, my label at that time, up to some essential records published by A Silent Place, another label that I managed, in a period that seems almost unrepeatable. Each of his work, whether in music or photography, is always a certainty for me, but lately also a surprise; in fact Fabio Orsi has learned to surprise himself and surpris…
Arctica
Pionneering production from the Düsseldorf mid 80s electronic underground world. Transferred for the first ever time from the original cassette to vinyl and CD. Konrad Kraft (Detlef Funder) is one of the still overlooked producers of Düsseldorfs fertile electronic music scene. Arctica was originally released on Cassette on Funder's imprint SDV Tonträger in 1987 in a handmade edition of about 50 copies only. Reduced to its essential musical elements, Arctica certainly contains some of the most un…
Volume Two
On the 2nd of two entrancing Beast volumes, modular maverick Koen Holtkamp (Mountains) further distinguishes his new, rhythmelodic velocity in four studio-based iterations, making a subtle contrast with the live performances of Volume 1, and beautifully exemplifying the distance travelled from his earlier works released by Type, Thrill Jockey and Umor Rex since the late ‘00s. Hemming the finest line between the ‘Process Music’ approach of ‘70s minimal/maximalists Jon Gibson and Steve Reich, and…
Volume One
Pre-Echo Press present Beast, a new project and moniker from acclaimed sound/visual artist, Koen Holtkamp (Mountains). A somewhat radical departure from Holtkamp's previous working modes -- where sound has typically been treated as an edifice to be sculpted -- the works here are far more concerned with the generative possibilities of rhythm. The pieces on Beast developed out of Holtkamp's creation in 2016 of an audio-visual performance that centers on the physical properties of light via 3…
1
Radboud Mens and Matthijs Kouw have collaborated since 2001, when they started working on an album firmly rooted in the ‘clicks ’n cuts’ movement of way back when. After collecting source material using only feedback produced with a mixer and minidisc recorder that was broadcasted live on Amsterdam’s Radio 100 to unsuspecting listeners, they started working on their album ‘Mens/Kouw’ (2002), which features both rhythmic pieces and more abstract elements. With the passing of time, they found them…
Uno Todo Tres
A beautiful drone like a line shaping in time, from silence to silence. Clara de Asís is an electroacoustic music composer and experimental guitarist, born in 1988 in Spain and based in France. Her musical practice is held away from any formal academicism, aiming to transcend conventional instrumental approaches. She works mainly on prepared electric guitar, focuses on exploring the specificities of her instrument, and develops them both in live situations and throughout electroacoustic composit…
El Khela Al'Akhdar
Tip! Twenty years after its initial release, Amon's "El Khela" still shines out like a pillar in the dark ambient field. Mysterious, catacombal, bleak, monumental, cryptic ambience. This new edition contains a remastered, repackaged and graphically renewed version of the original album + a second CD with rare, unreleased and reworked tracks. Coproduced by Eibon Records and Silentes, "El Khela Al'Akhdar" comes in digisleeve + 2 inner sleeves."This album from Amon (Andrea Marutti) is a particular …
Phi
First meeting of experimental musicians Keith Rowe & Radu Malfatti in a 3 disc set: one disc of compositions by Jurg Frey and Cornelius Cardew; one disc of their own compositions; and one disc of improvisation. Keith Rowe and Radu Malfatti are two of the most influential experimental musicians in recent decades, each with extensive bodies of highly distinctive work and a combined 80+ years at the forefront of their respective areas of exploration. On Φ, their first meeting ever is documented via…
Fabrication 2
'The first collaboration by these two renowned sound artists. Fabrication saw its beginning during the production of Re-Post-Refabricated, a project in which artists were selected by Richard Chartier to rework-create new works from his 1998 CD Postfabricated for its reissue in 2003. As it was intended as an open project, Asmus Tietchens continued to explore the source materials and suggested further formal collaboration. This evolved into the collaborative work Fabrication. The CD comes in a ful…
Schlingen Blängen
Schlingen Blängen is an invaluable addition to the slender but precious discography of Charlemagne Palestine, one of the legendary figures of the amazingly fertile New York and West Coast experimental music/art scene of the sixties and seventies. He is considered to be a seminal figure of early minimalism—as important as his better-documented contemporaries. His performances on the giant bells at St. Thomas Church and his evening-length Bösendorfer shows are still spoken of with awe by those who…
The Ninth Set
Irish composer Roger Doyle's first release on Die Stadt is his prize-winning work The Ninth Set, a 67 minute masterpiece in 5 parts. He was awarded the Magisterium Prize at this years's Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition in France for parts 4 and 5. The award, which is one of the most important prizes in the world for electronic music, is open to composers having at least 25 years of professional experience in the field, and its objective is 'the promotion and diffusion of …
Generators
As "Sleep" begins there is a suggestion made, a hypnotic motion meant only to seduce the mind into the belief that Darren Tate and Colin Potter are intent on relaxing muscle and slowing brain activity to a crawl. The hum of electronics blows easily until random sounds—coughing, restlessness, twisting and turning—bolt through the still waters of the track. Slowly developing melodic themes, almost too distant to piece together, stretch from their slumber and begin a slow crawl through the lamp-lit…
In Opposition To Our Acceleration
In Opposition to Our Acceleration mostly consists of soft, atmospheric sound art pieces, as usual fusing electronics, computer treatments, and improvisation on amplified objects. The characteristic mood swings of Illusion of Safety are nowhere to be found on this CD. Things develop slowly, softly, luring the listener into a catatonic state, an "illusion of safety" that endures throughout the disc's 74 minutes. The album has been put together from various live recordings ranging from quartet perf…