Itsunomanika
Paolo Angeli and ex-After Dinner/Volapuk violinist/singer Takumi Fukushima present an integrated, complex and largely composed programme of deft, focused pieces that make the most of their not inconsiderable individual talents and instruments; mostly sounding like a much larger ensemble. The sonorities of Paolo’s extended, customised, prepared giant Sardinian guitar doing extraordinary, and sometimes chameleonic, work as bass, chord accompaniment, melody instrument, viola/cello, and even percuss…
S'Û
An amazing record. It’s beautifully recorded and almost impossible to believe that such a layered and polyphonic music, with chords, percussion, lead lines, bass lines, harmonies, string sections and sometimes voice could all be produced by one person in real time, without overdubs or loops. But it is. The instrument, a specially designed and augmented Sardinian guitar (almost the size of a cello) is equipped with motors, pedals, individual string mic’ing, and extra appendages; and of course the…
A Face We All Know
'A Face We All Know' breaks new ground altogether. This is a single work with texts by Chris Cutler, Rainald Geotz and Thomas Pynchon and documents the last days of a political nightmare. Start here with Cassiber.
Re-Up
Double LP version. Munster Records present a reissue of Étant Donnés's Re-Up, originally released in 1999. For Re-Up, France's Étant Donnés (Eric & Marc Hurtado) brought in Alan Vega, Lydia Lunch and Genesis P-Orridge to provide lyrics and vocals for specific contributions. Vega, featured on the first four tracks, juxtaposes his stream-of-conscious vocals with the phasing pulses and analog crackles and sighs on "Shadows Lights", responding to the rhythmic ticking and splintering synth on the …
Leisure & The Elderly
** Edition of 300 copies in a silk-screened sleeve. ** As reported by Stefan Neville: "Clayton 'CJA' Noone and Jon 'Sugar Jon' Arcus are some of my oldest and dearest friends. I've been listening to their band Armpit pouring out infinite sweat and toe jams for 20+ years and I still can't work out what Armpit even is. They are the wrongest band I've ever heard. We were all part of the same gang in early 1990s Hamilton, New Zealand. Armpit would always happen in rooms next door. They would keep me…
Ubique
Last copies! ** Edition of 250 copies in incredible diorama-style hand-made sleeve. **One more top mysterious trace from the Little Skull legacy: Dean Brown's album Ubique (i.e. "everywhere" in Latin) marks the passing of time and people. This sense of loss is very present though the whole record; not getting around to saying the things we meant to say and making sense of the leftovers. Screaming calmly, Dean Brown's Little Skull has shrunk, even more, until his head is almost just sore meat - t…
Jukebox-Series 006
Trost continues its Trost Jukebox Series of 7"s. Okkyung Lee - cello; Lasse Marhaug - electronics. Recorded at Lasse's studio in Oslo. No overdubs, minimal editing. Mastered by Martin Siewert. Artwork by Lasse Marhaug.
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
Continuing the twisted pop explorations of Here Come the Warm Jets, Brian Eno's follow up album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), is more subdued and cerebral, and a bit darker when he does cut loose, but it's no less thrilling once the music reveals itself. It's a loose concept album about espionage, the Chinese Communist revolution, and dream associations, with the more stream-of-consciousness lyrics beginning to resemble the sorts of random connections made in dream states. Eno's richly l…
Calling Out Of Context
"The compilation that started the renaissance. In 2002 Audika Records entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with the estate of Arthur Russell to compile and issue previously unreleased and out of print material from Arthur's vast archive. This first album Calling Out of Context, features 12 previously unreleased tracks of Buddhist Bubblegum Alt Disco Pop recorded during Arthur's prime years 1985-90."
"Four years ago, Audika Records began releasing the exceptionally varied, long sought-af…
Divers
The dreamer dreams again with her 4th album of otherworldly microcosms, 'Divers', recorded by Steve Albini and featuring contributions by Nico Muhly and The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, arriving five years since her last opus for Drag City. Still possessed by a voice that teeters between sublime and ridiculous (I honestly laughed out loud at the first song), Joanna Newsom remains a precious spirit within the indie folk paradigm, blessed with an air of stately patience and poised, imma…
FAT and the Masters of Haha
FAT and the Masters of Haha is a 73-minute release of FAT's recording with the southern Moroccan Berber group Aouad Mia, master rebab player Rais Lahcen Benlamouden, and other Berber singers and percussionists. It was recorded in Agadir, Morocco, in 1991 after development during FAT's numerous visits to Morocco over the previous three years. Aouad Mia's music is improvised but extremely tight and crisp, and combined with FAT, the music ranges from ferocious looped attacks through complex melodic…
Bitter Music
It is an astonishing gift of fate when a creative artist, known to the world for a particular achievement, is suddenly shown in a quite different light thanks to the existence of a single document that has somehow escaped the ruthless culling mechanisms of time. Harry Partch's Bitter Music is such a document, a “diary of eight months spent in transient shelters and camps, hobo jungles, basement rooms, and on the open road”. This long-lost journal of Harry Partch's wanderings during the Great Dep…
Hathir Sakta
Simply put, Malkuth are a Leviathan; rising from the West, to lay waste to the Eastern lands—fierce and spiteful, having been awakened from centuries of contemplative slumber. In comparison to their two full-lengths on Hospital Productions, Hathir Sakta (and its accompanying disc on Prison Tatt Records, Tamahprabha, the set originally intended as one double LP) finds Malkuth in relative or even greater form, this material having been simmered to perfection, its ferocity seasoned to epic proporti…
Gestalt & Death
2012 release ** Limited hand-numbered edition of 500 copies in cardboard sleeve. "Dead Country (Sevket Akinci, electric guitar. Umut Çaglar, electric guitar, monophonic synth, tape delay. Murat Çopur, electric bass. Kerem Öktem, drums, percussion) + Alfred 23 Harth, alto sax, clarinet, vocal, electronics. Recorded at Deneyevi, Maslak by Ergin Ozler on the 21st of november 2011, artwork and design by Mazen Kerbaj.
Live
* Edition of 200 * Convergence was formed in 1976 (and disbanded around 1980), with written music for the ensemble scarce, improvisational sessions became more frequent. Their first few concerts at The Music Gallery had a somewhat haphazard and random mix of students, some of whom didn’t quite get the notion of free improv. Recorded live at the Music Gallery in September 1979, their instrumentation includes trumpet, trombone, piano, percussion, home-made instruments and toy instruments, which p…
IMPREC300
IMPREC300 is a vinyl only collection of exclusive live tracks from a handful of Important bands including Master Musicians of Bukkake, Grails, Mugstar, Cave, NHK yx, Bardo Pond, Chord & Bass Communion.
Important was started in 2001 in a small house on the beach along the New Hampshire seacoast. The first two releases, from Daniel Johnston and Merzbow, stated the breadth of intentions and we set out to run a label that would function much like a good record shop with a wide range of interesting r…
Split
2010 release. Wheezing skyward-born machine groans and gasped tremolo root to a kinetic pulse, while distant melody zones ascend to circulate around the bass flex on this face-chewer by Neil Campbell. On the flip is the first vinyl cut by Glockenspiel; flocculent tones weave with tom rub and bowed metal harmonics, drifting on the back of a drum dub to the heart of a snow-blind haze of feedback, amplified string scrape, and analog electronics. Art by Noah Campbell.
Tre
Brand new album by the experimental duo made up by Xabier Iriondo and Paolo Cantù. Lots of adjectives could define this album made by Paolo Cantu and Xabier Iriondo, talentuous italian musician who also worked to A Short Apnea, Tasaday, Minute War Madness, Four gardens in one. This project began more by an idea, a conversation or a project but the audio result is impressive.
Parallèles
Reissue of a magnificent, impossible-to-categorize French classic originally released on the hopelessly obscure d'Avantage label in 1976. Pretty much the definition of musical anarchy, "Paralleles" begins with an atonal duo for trombones, wends its was through accompanied poetry readings and cornet solos, vamps into a rap delivered by Vince Taylor (France's answer to Eddie Cochran and Bowie's inspiration for Ziggy Stardust!) on 'Rock N Roll Station' (which Nurse With Wound deconstructed later on…
(un)sentimental
Though each member of the 13th Assembly is acclaimed in their own right this group is very much a singular musical experience. A planned NPR piece should help raise exposure for this sublime recording.
The Thirteenth Assembly began as a touring collective made up of four musicians and four musically distinct small ensembles: Tomas and Taylor's duo; Mary and Jessica's duo; Taylor's trio with Mary and Tomas; and the collaborative quartet featured on this recording. The group is a microcosm of an e…