Chamber Music for Lawn Mowers
*180 copies limited edition*
Did you know, a clean-cut lawn is a desire we inherited from the British? Yes, the British dumped this pleasure into our collective consciousness. Those humorless Victorians who enjoyed having their black pudding on the lawn. They came to this uninspired impression while mis-looking at Italian paintings. Yes indeed, while gazing at these paintings they mistook green lanes for green lawns. Thus it became hip. Every stuffed truffle commanded his gardener to cut the gra…
Kalpa
Kommun, led by Swedish guitarist Finn Loxbo, resides in the tension between the experience of circular time; an elongated now, and the expectations contained within our linear perception of time. The ensemble explores the tension between the individual’s own lines and the collective meaning-making. Every sound is equally important, concrete in itself, as much a building block as a decoration. The ensemble collectively improvises phrases that are formed together as a singular element. They are di…
Gyropedie
“Gyropedie,” Anne Guthrie’s third record for Students of Decay, takes us further into her hermetic practice, wherein expertly captured field recordings, French horn, and electronics are woven into potent and richly imagined electroacoustic environments. In Guthrie’s own words, “Quite literally a record of pilgrimage from East to West. Remnants of Midwest and East Coast soundmarks, instruments sold to lighten the travel load, sketched out and then buried under the new. Winter birds and crunching …
For Translucence
The debut album from Whitney Johnson & Lia Kohl has evolved over several years from their initial practice of free improvisation on viola and cello into (for the moment), this: a neophonic orchestral expression. At once stimulating and soothing, For Translucence is a living, breathing meditation in which layers of acoustic strings, synthesizers, field recordings, radio and sine waves illuminate each other as they twine and grow.
Top Natural Drum
Following releases on West Mineral and Lillerne Tapes, Iggy Romeu’s inimitable Mister Water Wet project makes its Soda Gong debut. “Top Natural Drum” feels like a double entendre ode to digging culture, drawing equally from the plantlife in the dirt and the grooves in the stacks. Tracks like opener “Soak” concoct a haze of resonant ceramic/wooden percs, skittering drum programming, and addictive yet diffuse melodic and harmonic textures. Dusty-fingered nodders like “Caged at Last”, “Classicfit,”…
Schokolino Choco Loco
"As I sit down to pen these words for Stilluppsteypa's latest vinyl release on the enigmatic Futura Resistenza label, I find myself jumping back a year or two, reminded of the profound impact this Icelandic ensemble has had on the northern landscape of experimental arts for four decades. Emerging in the early 1990s, Stilluppsteypa began their journey as a punk-oriented band with multiple members. However, their insatiable curiosity for the unconventional soon led them to explore more abstract an…
A Pauper's Guide To John Cage
2011 release ** Packaged in oversize paper sleeve. "A Pauper's Guide to John Cage, on the budget Another Timbre Byways imprint, originally intended to feature lesser-known musicians. Across its 44 minutes, it features two compositions by Anett Németh played by the composer herself alone on a range of instruments and equipment. The album opens with the brilliantly-named title piece, which has an underlying drone/hum (maybe produced by "domestic electronics") over which Németh plays well-spaced pi…
Rilievo
"For many years, I collected every new Merzbow release. I stopped when I realised I couldn’t keep up with playing them; some were still in their shrinkwrap after a year. I didn’t keep up with Merzbow’s output in the last 15 years and only heard what I was sent. I had no idea what a collaboration between Merzbow’s Masami Akita and Agencement’s Hideaki Shimada would be like. The latter is a violin player whose first two LPs from the late 1980s are classics with hectic playing and might include som…
Xenofonia
2003 release ** "Xenofonia combines choir, harpsichord, percussion, glitch and environmental recordings. Migrating bird-calls and human voices play a central role heard a cappella or accompanied. Singing often ventures beyond the limits of language. The formidable choral force of ex-miners Snowdown Colliery Male Voice Choir, the intimate voice of Matthias Grübel from German duo Phonºnoir, British vocal trio Juice Vocal Ensemble, and background vocals by Elaine Mitchener and Jade Pybus are heard …
Elkwort
*200 hand-numbered copies limited edition* Ben McElroy is a folk/experimental/ambient artist based in the UK. He has released prolific albums since his 2016 debut "Bird Stone" for Whitelabrecs. Notable releases since then include 2018s "The Word Cricket Made Her Happy" for eilean rec. and 2022s "How I Learnt to Disengage From The pack" on The Slow Music Movement (which was folk album of the month in the Guardian). Ben also performs live around the UK (and potentially further in the future). "Thi…
Palace
The electroacoustic composition Palace combines the autobiographical, the carefully stored, the long lost and the accidentally forgotten with the spontaneity of rediscovery and reinvention.
In Palace, I interweave older archival recordings from my time as an Ives-playing pianist, field recordings, accidentally rediscovered leftovers and scraps of my daughter's singing and piano playing, as well as newly created live performed material using oscillators, feedbacks and all of the above – sampled, …
Nyctalopia
The trio Gaudenz Badrutt (electronics), Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto saxophone) and Frantz Loriot (viola) met for the first time at the Biel/Bienne-based “Joyful Noise” encounters in December 2018. Very quickly, the three agreed on a formal and sonic understanding, giving the trio a distinctive sound, combining and interweaving different sonic aesthetics, from electroacoustic to acoustic improvised music.
In February 2020, the trio continued its musical journey for a residency at Instants Chavirés i…
Full Yellow Cylinder
*150 copies limited edition* "It is not easy to draw inspiration from a great figure of music ... i don’t have her talent or anything like that ... But i still took the risk of trying something ... Even to go through the window in the eyes of some ... Too interested in poetry and the hypnotic force that emerges from her pieces ... Sometimes tinkered with implausible machines and fragile ... Gigantic in our eyes that are stuck blissfully behind our little screens ... Or instruments used as nobod…
ZERO,999...
After spending much of the last years focusing on the evolution of his own instrument, the drummophone, the release of ZERO,999… reveals a new paradigm in La Foresta's work and career. In this album he collects fragments of live performances and site-specific installations conducted over the last decade, with and without the drummophone — reimagining and repurposing them as compositional elements that he has interwoven with recent studio recordings and collaborations to form eleven viscerally po…
Edge Games
Although Berlin-based musical seekers Jules Reidy and Sam Dunscombe are friends who’ve worked together in numerous contexts over the last decade or so, Edge Games is their first, long overdue collaborative album. Over two expansive, mind-bending excursions the former’s microtonal guitar lines are woven into a gorgeously unstable mass of synthesis, field recordings, and clarinet produced by the latter, but it’s important to note that the recording process was deeply collaborative, with a rigorous…
Music & Graphic / Organ Improvisations
2025 stock Are we now in a position to experience within ourselves every kind of music as a harmonious system? In this case there would be only one music existing independent of the composer and the notation. Is it then the case, that the responsibility for the music has not only been shifted from the composer to the performer, but even further to the listener? The person who listens to this record will have to decide.
Zsigmond Szathmáry: organ
Pierrot lunaire Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds „Pierrot lunaire“ (Melodramen), op. 21
2025 stock WERGO's unique "studio reihe" series continues with a rather special CD release:
The present recording of Arnold Schoenberg's "Pierrot lunaire" was the first long-playing record released by the newly founded label WERGO in 1962, which laid the foundation of the label's decades-long story of success. This important recording –with the soprano Helga Pilarczyk and under the direction of Pierre Boulez – has not been available on CD up to now. Now the label releases this highlight from its…
Komposition Für Streichquartett / Komposition Für Violine / Disappearing Musics
2025 stock Jakob Ullmann's career can be measured by the obstacles placed in his path. It was in the teeth of these obstacles that he learnt his craft: they have left their mark on his artistic stance, and the fact that he ultimately overcame them proved the rightness of his approach. For a number of reasons, Ullmann's works failed to blend into the musical landscape of the former state of East Germany. Avoiding peremptory gestures and unalterable laws, his restrained scores seemed strange and a…
Musica Ricercata / Capriccio 1&2 / Invention / Monument · Selbstportrait · Bewegung
2025 stock "Musica Ricercata" of 1951-53 is a collection of 11 piano pieces which even with their traditional character went beyond what was considered appropriate for performance in Hungary in the early 1950s. The tenth piece, e.g., was considered too "decadent" because of the abundance of minor seconds. The short "Capriccios" and "Invention", written in 1947-48, reveal convincingly the emergence of Ligeti's musical identity. "Monument · Selbstportrait · Bewegung" (three pieces for two pianos) …
Zyklus Für Einen Schlagzeuger In Zwei Fassungen / Klavierstück X
2025 stock Under the title of “studio reihe neuer musik”, WERGO released outstanding recordings in the 1960s, thus creating a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the label's early days. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, WERGO now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.“studio reihe” now continues with works by Karlheinz Stockhausen:On this CD, “Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger” [“Cycle for One Percussionist”] can…