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Reading Group is thrilled to introduce the debut LP from a new improvising group of three singular artists: Fred Moten (voice), Brandon López (double bass), and Gerald Cleaver (drums). López and Cleaver have been improvising together as a duo for a number of years, over which they’ve developed a secret, unspoken language of organically growing repetitive figures in a wide range of sonic palettes. López and Cleaver have long been recognized as some of the most vital voices in contemporary experim…
Look Like
*In process of stocking* Look Like is the first complete solo release from bassist and vocalist Kelsey Mines. A series of improvised solo-duets, Look Like explores how listening to our on-going internal dialogue helps us conjure honest, outward expressions.
Oracle
Joanna Mattrey & gabby fluke-mogul, two of the most radical & revolutionary New York-based improvisers, join forces in the birth of Oracle. Rejoicing in the strange magic of sound, the duo weaves together new worlds while simultaneously destroying the ones that no longer serve them. Oracle is a declaration, a remedy, and a revelation.
Dandelion
Tip! *200 copies limited edition* “If the measure of freedom is measured by the resilience of an elastic band, they get close to the point where the rubber is about to snap, but it is exactly at that spot, where they recognise something and react to that with a refreshing lack of explicitness, that you can feel the result, and unfolded potential, of a shared intimacy.” - Guy Peters
Nurturing Exhibitions
*Limited edition of 200 copies. Includes a 48 pages art book and 2CD.* Six musical compositions by Phill Niblock, soil and cutting tree of Amanatsu orange from Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm, wooden pedestals, speakers, wooden benches, wooden planter, acrylic case, water, sunlight. An exhibition by Mathieu Copeland.
Nurturing Exhibitions was one of two concomitant exhibitions that formed Exhibition Cuttings at Le Forum / Fondation Hermès in Tokyo, Japan between April 23rd (Fri.) and July 18th (Su…
Double Action
Twin Cosmos is not only the name of the musical output of fraternal twins Morihito & Yasuhito Ito, but more philosophically, an album that encapsulates, “the universe of twins”.
The pair were born 1953 in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture. A port city 50 kilometres west of Nagoya, famous for its chemical plants. Despite their surroundings, they grew up in an environment that fostered learning and self-expression. From an early age, they began to carve out their own paths.
Morihito was fascinated with sc…
Dust
*2022 stock.* Dust is a piece composed by the Swiss artist Antoine Chessex. A slow meta-physical progression, the junction of tense violins and a revoxian dust, juxtaposing, overlapping, resorbing and accompanying each other, before exploding in a powerful final catharsis. Like a proposal for departure towards infinity, a before-after Big Bang, highly successful, disturbing at times as is the vast unknown… the music of a ship leaving for the limits of the cosmos perhaps, in any case it can reson…
The Locked Room
Tip! *In process of stocking. Limited edition of 300 copies.* The Locked Room imagines a protagonist who experiences the outside world as an endless escape room, a place where, in the early hours, every passing tail-light, train in the distance, hunched bike rider or crying bird might be a possible riddle, leading to a passage or the discovery of a key.
Once opened, however, a room locked from the other side could just be the same room as the one you're in - only slightly different. And maybe t…
Parasite
Tip! *2022 stock. 300 copies limited edition* Splitrec presents Parasite solo prepared guitar works by Rhys Mottley.
Submental
Tip! *2022 stock* 180º is a new group formed in August 2018 - Nick Ashwood acoustic guitar, Jim Denley bass flute, and Amanda Stewart voice and text. Amanda and Jim first met in the late 1980s, founding Machine for Making Sense in 1989, as well as performing numerous duos over the years — a long and fruitful association. They’ve always been interested in what their music instinct can learn from language and vice versa.
Nick is from the southern tip of Tasmania. Jim and Nick have been developing …
back, before
Tip! This fourth release by Great Waitress titled back, before was recorded before the pandemic and lockdowns in 2018, and has taken four years to get to production. A live set was beautifully recorded by Peter Farrar at the Annandale Creative Arts Centre in Sydney and mixed and mastered by Joe Talia.
In the elegant liner notes, Chris Abrahams writes of Great Waitress transcending “ ...the individual contributions of Mayas, Altman and Brooks. It's an identity made from a multi-dimensional count…
Threads
The new solo album, threads by the California-based trombone player Mattie Barbier is a multilayered personal investigation. It was recorded in The Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangley, Colorado in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic.
a feeling of place. a calm space to be present in during a space of chaos. of quarantining in a very conservative place as a non-binary person where your welcomeness is tenuous. of uncertainty of where non-binaryness fits as a parent- of still being a dad? or treat…
Superpositions
*2022 stock. Limited edition of 100 copies.* Witness the common phenomenon of feedback such as produced inadvertently through poorly configured microphones and loudspeakers in public amplification situations: the sound coming from the speakers finds its way back into the microphones and produces an uncomfortable squealing sound. The component elements are electronic and acoustic, the latter involving air movement and vibration of physical objects. But internal electronic feedback is quite a curi…
Tree of Life
Midori Takada's 1999 album Tree Of Life is set to be made available on vinyl for the first time as part of a forthcoming reissue from WRWTFWW Records. The record, which was only Takada's second solo LP after the release of 1983 debut Through The Looking Glass, was originally made available on CD only by Japanese label BAJ Records. The album has been specially mastered at half speed for this updated release. Reissues of Takada's music by WRWTFWW, including her work with Mkawju Ensemble, triggered…
Models of Duration
*Limited edition of 400 copies.* The latest from the uncompromising John McCowen is a split release between Dinzu Artefacts and Astral Spirits. Models of Duration follows the same trajectory as McCowen's other amazing solo releases - Solo Contra (International Anthem, 2017), 4 Chairs in 3 Dimensons (Astral Spirits, 2018), Mundanas I - V (Editions Wandelweiser, 2018) but is also a whole world beyond those. McCowen continues to focus on extended possibilities of the clarinet family as well as acou…
To Sail, To Sail
One of the most profound solo statements to date from a musical master who has been crossing musical borders for over three decades! Concentrating exclusively on the acoustic guitar, Fred Frith stretches himself and the instrument like never before, performing with the eloquence and grace of a master in peak form. With a prodigious technique and elegant sense of maturity he draws upon a lifetime of study and experience to bring together influences as diverse as classical, blues, folk, gypsy and …
Out of the Cage
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock* "Madam Press is a quintet from Denmark created by five talented women whose main goal is to experiment within coherent musical structures. In fact, the first thing that struck me when comparing Madam Press´ music with other improvisational outfits was the emphasis that some of the musical pieces here have in achieving melodies and twisting them beyond recognition. That is, while other improvisational musicians try to extract sounds from their instruments this…
Denmark's Intuitive Music Conference 1997
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock* "This disk documents the music made at the opening of DIMC '97 by a dozen delegates, most of whom had never played together before. Assuming there was no conductor (none is credited) and no pre-arranged sequence of events, the result is pretty astonishing.
Twelve strangers improvising together is a recipe for disaster; what usually happens is this. The music begins tentatively, unstructured, with no-one wishing to tread on toes. Slowly, pressure builds up as …
Zwarte Vijvers
*In process of stocking.* The album consists of two tracks that shows Èlg’s excellent capacity to blend songs, improvisation and music concrete in one sonic cocktail which can be digested either as a cassette or digital.
Recorded in 2018 at Next festival in Bratislava, Zwarte Vijvers is two side long pieces by Belgian singer-mangler Èlg, a consistently underrated musician who made my favourite release on Hundebiss records about ten years ago, and who collaborated with the late Ghédalia Tazartès …
Refuge
Alexandra Grimal’s new record is an exploration of her inner improvised language in resonance with the very special acoustic of the castle of Chambord. Refuge was recorded in the double revolution staircase in the castle of Chambord in September 2020.