Experimental / Avant-Garde

Sofa Music is thrilled to invite a new artist on board the Sofa catalogue with the adventurous album Undulate from the danish, Oslo-based artist Niklas Adam. When the Sofa team first heard Adam's music, there was no discussion about including the album in our catalogue. His music deserves to be heard: it's an album that grows on you with its complexity of beautiful and genorous sounds. It's a concert. It's a lecture. It's a drum solo, a homage to Tudor, an opaque invitation, it's a conversation …

**numbered edition of 25 copies** Clarity Cycles focuses on various sized glass instruments made by Jeremy Popelka in mid to late 2018. They were played by Jon Mueller using various drum, gong and cymbal mallets and recorded and mixed throughout late 2018 and early 2019. The cover photographs were taken by Jeremy Popelka at his studio in Sturgeon Bay, WI, where the instruments were made and the recording session took place. Jeremy Popelka is an artist based in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, USA. Over …

Post-metal avantgarde power force Sumac - based around Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom) - follow up their collaboration with legendary Japanese guitarist and singer / performer Keiji Haino on Thrill Jockey - American Dollar Bill - Keep Facing Sideways, You Are Too Hideous To Look at Face On (2018), with another monolith, heavy and experimental at the same time.Personnel: Keiji Haino - guitar, voice, flute, taepyeongso; Aaron Turner - guitar; Nick Yacyshyn - drums; Brian Cook - bass.

**300 copies on bone coloured vinyl** Six self-recorded improvised drone rock waves from Eric Quach (Thisquietarmy) and Aidan Girt (Godspeed You! Black Emperor). Chords loop, pedals get pushed, pounding drum parts get added and subtracted, it starts quiet and gets loud. Eric no longer needs to worry about the rhythm, Aidan no longer has to worry about the song structure. All four ears stay cocked and listening even if neither of them are very good at keeping eye contact. One life to live, pound …

Trost starts a new 7" series called Jukebox Series, specially for one-time collaborations & projects. The paper-sleeve stays the same, labels are changing, and there's artwork by Lasse Marhaug. This time Christof Kurzmann teams up with Sofia Jernberg (Fire Orchestra) on one side, and with Ken Vandermark and Martin Brandlmayr (Radian) on the other for two versions of the beautiful song "Beggars." The lyrics are written by Joe McPhee.

 "A dark, brooding masterpiece of Zeuhl influenced music, Les Morts Vont Vite is actually much closer to the chamber rock of Univers Zero, Art Zoyd or Present than it is to Magma. Ann Stewarts quasi-operatic vocals have something in common with Stella Vander's contributions to Magma, but there are no choral arrangements or massed chanting here. Instead, the vocals are frequently played off the innovative trombone (an unusual instrument in a rock context) or the squalling, distorted guitar lines.…

SUMAC is a new band who’s main core consists of Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, Mamiffer) and drummer Nick Yacyshyn from Baptists. Bass player Brian Cook (Russian Circles, Botch, These Arms Are Snakes) also joins the duo (as an auxiliary member) and did all the bass tracking on the band’s debut album entitled “The Deal”. An album consisting of steamroller crushing heaviness and methodical free-range technicality. SUMAC came to form when Aaron Turner had the urge to create music that’s heavy a…

"Alchemic Heart is a special project presented by Vampillia who have colored these two colossal compositions with beautiful contributions by members of the Boredoms, Jarboe (ex-Swans), Inswarm and Japanese Noise-God Merzbow. Layered strings, piano, bass, noise and voices are weaved mysteriously and expand as two magnificently parallel aesthetic worlds. Comprised of two pieces, 'Sea'/'Land,' a primitive landscape is created via listening and destroyed when the pieces are complete. Vampilli…

RESTOCKED! By 1982, recommended was in its fourth year. the catalog had expanded and the label was firmly established. a sampler seemed an obvious and necessary next step. we asked the most interesting groups in our catalog to record something new. the result was two hours of music released as a double lp in a hand silk-screened sleeve that was a time capsule - a tidy slice taken across a fascinating forking of musical paths that captured a moment of growth that foresaw a variety of possible fut…

The 4th album from the band that I consider to be possibly the finest Italian progressive rock band of the 1970's, & certainly a band in the top tier of all early 1970's progressive bands worldwide! Area combined jazz/rock/stolen ethnic music (mostly from Eastern Europe and the Middle East)/the avant garde and more. Superb playing from all (vocals/organ, guitar, electric piano/synths, bass & drums). This includes a thick booklet with rare photos, notes, etc. While everyone shines, the vocalist, …

The meeting of composer Arnold Dreyblatt and psych-folk trio Megafaun shouldn’t be seen as unlikely just because it’s cross-generational, or even (arguably) cross-genre. Such categorizations have to be set aside before taking in their Appalachian Excitation. Born in New York in 1953, Dreyblatt came up under such lauded experimental groundbreakers as Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young, obtaining a Master’s degree in composition from Wesleyan University. Now based in Berlin, where h…

Reissue of an extremely rare and essential Sunroof! CD-R released during a European tour in 2003 on Matthew Bower's own imprint, Rural Electrification Program (REP). On this LP, Bower is joined on guitar by Mick Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra and Flower-Corsano Duo) and the result was once qualified as Sunroof's rock record and its tribute to Neil Young and AC/DC (hence the title). RockPower is a very singular record because it documents a very short time period in the M. Bower/Sunroof! evolut…

Lyrically Freermasonry consists of a series of poems and discourses. Early on in Freermasonry during 'SOL,' the Mother allusion is referenced out of Faust Part Two. It's a small portion and short moment. Faust does an invocation to the Mothers, but the execution is as trickery through occult charlatanism and not truly believed ritual. Goethe found passages about dark goddess figures known as Mothers in the writings of Plutarch. The metaphor is ambiguous, generally associated with creative dar…

Acid Mothers leader and Reynols legend meet once again for a wild psych out explosion! Kawabata and Courtis previously worked together on 2006's Kokura for Riot Season, here they return for a raging trip of psychedelic noise rock recorded in February 2011, in Osaka, Japan. Both Kawabata and Courtis are playing guitar, but with Anla bringing tapes and vocals to the mix and Makoto bow and effects. Namba Lightbeam, the first of two 20 minute pieces, opens with a eastern sounding drone sound,…

This one was their second album in 1975, featuring Richard Pinhas from Heldon and the most electronic effort of Lard Free. We can't hear bass guitar here anymore. The instruments on this item are mostly synths, in addition yet piano, drums, vibes, guitar - and clarinet as the first time guest on the recordings of LF. And the trips are longer (two LP-side-long trips here) than on earlier stuff. We can understand approaching to more meditative and athmospheric electronics with urbanis…

Lard Free's second LP, I'm Around About Midnight, was recorded in Paris in a three day session and released in 1975 also on Vamp. There is a totally different line-up from that of the first LP and it features long time friend Richard Pinhas, with whom Artman explores (in his own way) some sound passages of strong Heldon inspiration, although in a less immediate register, building an organic layered sound that emanates a certain shadowy formal beauty. The strong Artman-Pinhas connection is …

The second volume of live Mars recordings from Feeding Tube. This one was recorded at the band's penultimate show, August 4, 1978, with spectral help from Rudolph Grey on the side-long take of "NN End." The quartet is at the full height of their power here, manipulating the language of tongue explosions both instrumentally and vocally. Recorded by Brian Eno, the sound is an advance from the galacto-fidelity of the Artists Space LP, and the performance is a staggering example of Mars in their…

LP version. Sub Rosa presents this cult album that has not been available in years. Re-released with new artwork, this is the 1980 version of Symphonie Pour Le Jour Où Brûleront Les Cités (the original version was released in 1976 and was later re-recorded). Pioneering Rock In Opposition filled with clashing percussion, frenetic orchestral motifs and apocalyptic brass. Not for the squeamish. It features the line-up of Thierry Zaboïtzeff (cello), Alain Eckert (guitar), Gilles Renard (saxoph…

This is an identical 180-gram vinyl reissue of the 1973 Vertigo release, wich is possibly Magma's great opus. Whether one prefers one of their other studio or live releases to it, there is no doubt that Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh is the most original, definitive Magma album around (although this reviewer personally prefers the Mekanik Kommandoh version!).Featuring a cast of thousands including a choir, brass section, flute and tuned percussion, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh marries the stripped…

first-time ever legit ri for this lost gem from the late '60s euro psychedelic underground. belgium-based portuguese soul brothers tony & waldo lam (better know as jess & james) join forces which american jazz man scott bradford and belgian mad scientist & electronics grand daddy Arsene Souffriau for a crazy trip of groovy free-rock and soul into electronics trip in the best pierre henry's 'jerks electroniques pour la messe du temps present,' cecil leuter's 'pop electronique,' jp massiera's male…

Unless Sun Ra's most out there moments, one of many behavioral components from Chaos 1978-86, were beamed alongside televised presidential messages for years, or the ravenous fire from Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar had a heated soundtrack of its own on the Billboard charts, it's hard to imagine anyone being ready for this crazy shit in the early 80s. The appropriately named Wicked Witch, a richly decadent and spooky avant-garde affair of off-kilter rhythm and blues-based x-spunk, was the masterm…

Smegma has been around, in one form or another, since 1973, issuing an average of a record a year out of odd tape-loops and jarring-yet-ambient original instrumentation long before electronic sampling was even a glimmer in Mr. and Mrs. Casio's eyes. They achieved a small degree of noteriety in the '80s as one of that proud elite of North American new-music acts hiply obscure enough to have European-only record deals. They're also known among the anti-pop sound exchangers of the international cas…

Split/collaborative release between Denmark's Family Underground with Finland's Rauhan Orkesteri. Rec. April 19, 2005 @ Cinema Nova.

Green vinyl with grey. Pengo is: John Schoen, Jason Finkbeiner, R. Nuuja. Pengo comes from Rochester, NY and are simply a dark-bright beacon of madness in the subterranean swamp of psychedelic junk collectors. They're kind of elusive, having issued only an LP prior to this release (it had been a year since we're working on this album) + a few CD-Rs and tapes. Got affiliations with Coffee & the Doyle EAE... wild stuff/weird vibes!

They call their home studio the Space Room; they name their pieces after galaxies and nebulas; and their cat appears to be an alien. Please act surprised when you learn that this duo from Torino, Italy, plays space music -- not your ordinary brand, though: experimental space music. Maurizio Opalio and Roberto Opalio are exploring the cosmos through epic improvised journeys involving astral percussion, electric astral guitar drones, and space toys. Their territory is somewhere past the fringes of…

'First reedition. Recorded in 1981. Originally released in 1982. Lydia Lunch: vocals, piano. Dix Denney: guitar. Greg Williams: bass. Cliff Martinez: drums, percussion. Digipack.'

Intro sampler collection of Glenn's various guitar orchestra classics for the uninitiated. Glenn has personally selected a track listing representative of his absolute unique-on-this-planet vision, with material ranging from the delicate celestial beauty of Symphony No. 3 to the demonical, otherworldly terror unfurled in No. 10. Selections is the ultimate 'in' to Branca's work if you're yet unacquainted with the most influential composer of the era.

Essential collection of previously vinyl only Nadja tracks which work brilliantly as a 2CD album. All of these tracks originally appeared on limited vinyl or cd releases between 2007 and 2009 and are now out of print. 'Jornada del Muerto' originally appeared on the Trinity CD (Die Stadt Musik) and 'Perichoresis' on the Trinitarian LP (Important Records), both of which releases featured solo tracks by Aidan and Leah and one Nadja track. 'Spahn' appeared on Tumpisa (Accident Prone Records), a …

Originally released on CD in 2004, this new edition of 4/23/03 is now pressed on two slabs of American vinyl pressed by United Record Pressing and housed within a handsome two color silkscreened gatefold jacket bearing artwork replicating that from the album's CD incarnation. The album, from an edition of approximately 700 copies, presents the entire contents of the original CD version plus a 'new' additional track from the original record¬ing sessions. All copies of the 4/23/03 2xLP are …

Very rare and almost impossible to find amazing collection of (mainly graphic) scores/ideas/projects edited in 1978 by Bob Davis and Rich Gold for the Center For Contemporary Music with contributions by almost 100 artists including Robert Ashley, Don Buchla, Joel Chadabe, Rhys Chatham, Jon Gibson, Jacqueline Humbert, Tom Johnson, Ron Kuivila, Joan La Barbara, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, Maggi Payne, Steve Reich, Frederick Rzewski, Larry Austin, Charles Amirkhanian, Jacques Beka…

16th volume of the Soundings collection of scores and texts edited by Peter Garland published in 1990 and including works by John Zorn, Sarah Hopkins, Lois V Vierk, Mary Jane Leach, Mamoru Fujieda, Charles Amirkhanian, Gordon Mumma, Gordon Monahan, John Bergamo and Garland himself.

Original 1976 LP on Denon with Cage's landmark 1946-48 compositions for prepared piano superbly performed by Yuji Takahashi in 1975. With insert.

First edition on Cramps released in 1990 as a double-CD set of the full 1977 legendary live performance in Milano which created quite a riot.

2011 re-issue on Ampersand of the 1990 2CD set with the legendary extreme live vocal performance by the composer in Milano in 1977, which caused quite a riot. With slipcase.

Rare first catalogue of Cage’s works published by Peters & Henman Press in 1962.

Still sealed Italian edition of the 1976 book of conversations with Daniel Charles, translated by Walter Marchetti and published by Multhipla in 1977.

Very rare introduction to Scrath Music edited by Cardew including "scores" by the composer himself, Lou Gare, David Jackman, Christopher Hobbs, Howard Skempton, Tom Phillips and many other British musicians and artists, published by Latimer in 1972.

Rare 1992 program published by Istituto della Voce / Comune di Roma / RAI with biographies and lyrics by the two Nuova Consonanza-relaated avant-garde composers.

Rare mid-1980's re-issue of the amazing 5LP box set on Wergo with a selection of the composer's many masterpieces spanning from 1953 to 1972, including electronic music and compositions for organ, string quartet, various ensembles, choir and orchestra. Absoutely essential. With booklet.

Unofficial 1995 7" release in a limited edition of 200 copies on Dolor Del Estamago / Stomach Ache with a recording of the 1975 percussion piece performed by William Winant.