Transformations I
R. Iwanski presents new sound project explorating experimental approach to ethnic instruments like zanza, kalimba and other idiophones of African origin. Advanced electronic techniques are mainly used to process various acoustic sources - in order to create organic electroacoustic music.
The Great Wall / Chanta Khat
* Original 1991 edition on Ranta's own Asian Sound Records imprint * Michael Ranta has collaborated with Takehisa Kosugi, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Jean-Claude Eloy, Conny Plank, Mike Lewis, and Hartmut Geerken, just to name a few. He was also assistant to Harry Partch and performer in the Gate 5 Ensemble in the 1960s. Additionally, Ranta performed in Stockhausen's ensemble during the 1970 World Expo in Osaka. Ranta's resume also includes recordings by Helmut Lachenmann, Herbert Brün, Toru Takemitsu, Jo…
Azabu
Edition of 500. CD and 8 page booklet in gatefold cardboard sleeve * Even though only being fully terminated 50 years after its conception, 'Azabu' can be regarded as the starting point of Michael Ranta’s creative self-discovery. The recordings that form the base of 'Azabu' were mostly made in the Tokyo district with the same name (Azabu-Juban). Next to abstracted field recordings 'Azabu' is also pervaded by a rich variety of percussion, string and wind instruments, all played by Ranta himself.
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Minna Miteru 2
*Includes printed inner sleeves & 32 page booklet.* Following the "Minna Miteru" compilation, released in 2020, Morr Music announces a sequel, dedicated to Japanese indie music, overflowing with surprises and welcome discoveries. Like its predecessor, "Minna Miteru 2" is compiled by Saya of Tenniscoats, with the support of Markus Acher (The Notwist). It’s also another part of the Minna Miteru universe, alongside retrospective albums by The Andersens ("There Is A Sound", 2020) and yumbo ("The Fru…
Anthology of Electronic Music From Scandinavia
**200 copies** The electronic music emanating from the Scandinavian region encompasses a vast universe and has a long tradition behind it. In 1964 the electronic music studio EMS in Stockholm opened as a conventional analogue studio, its primary intention being to build the world’s most advanced hybrid studio and to conduct an international research program into sound and sound perception. Since then the Scandinavian electronic music scene has continued to flourish decade upon decade, culminatin…
Cancer in the Soft Breeze
Contemporary and historical Porest recordings channelled from behind the somnambulistic event horizon. The now sound... The bleak oblique. The minimal and the maximal. Filmic chamber drones, meditative radio massage and forged spiritual violence bury pop ephemera into the swirling murk of de facto instrumental nihilism and orchestral context-free drama. Layered field and radio recordings back electro-acoustic experiments via electric saz, strings, balypso, reeds & synths. Big drones, small ensem…
Zomianscape I & II
Kink Gong works with what is unknown to him, as an artist who’s attracted by beauty and strangeness. Like a stranger, he has been deeply curious about recording ethnic minority music isolated from dominating cultures within South-east Asia, thus working with musicians taking part in specific cultural communities to make almost 200 albums. Like an artist, he has been leaning towards strange marriages, building on these raw materials. They are lived moments that combine space, people and music, as…
Aestum
** Limited Purple Vinyl. Wide front-back artwork and inlay print by Emma Pryde ** Aestum’s self-titled debut album is an in-depth journey into supreme and tranceformative soundscapes. Oscillating around the apex of spacious power ambient and drone, the compositions recorded during 2020 combine monolithic electronica with decaying fantasies and slow-motion euphoria. The imagination for the album was inspired by the idea of panortosia (universal reform) as described in old scholar books devoted to…
Sylva Sylvarum
Black Truffle is pleased to present Sylva Sylvarum, an epic new work from Ora Clementi, the collaborative project of crys cole and James Rushford. Primarily conceived and recorded over several months together in Melbourne, Sylva Sylvarum is a stunning step forward from the mumbled, creaking sound world of the duo’s debut, Cover You Will Softer Me (Penultimate Press, 2014). From the opening ‘Peach of Immortality’, which takes an unpredictable journey from layers of chiming bells, vocal harmonies …
The Loa Of Music
2021 small repress. Italian experimental music is notoriously resistant to definition and location. If ever there was an object to encapsulate the spirit of that movement, it is the composer and musician Roberto Musci’s debut album from 1984 - The Loa Of Music. Recorded after a decade traveling the world - drifting between African, Indian, and the Near & Far East - studying music, making field recordings, and collecting instruments, not only is it a perfect culmination of such an experience, but…
Retusa – Santuario de Mariposas
Santuario de Mariposas aims to explore the audio characteristics of musical instruments of pre-Columbian origin. They are complemented by a variety of instruments of an ethnographic order, associated with indigenous groups throughout Mexico. After more than 40 years of atnomusical research, Itxoneztli recorded this album trying to give life to sleeping instruments and reflect what the music of the Mexicas ancestors was like.
Aatma
**150 copies** Aatma is the re-imagining of my recent journey into Mumbai through sound, place, and moment with a Nagra SD recorder. The work was composed immediately upon my return while these things were, in a very real sense, still resonating in my mind. Part 1 is the arrival. Echoes of the shanka can be heard from a distant past across the Arabian Sea, as waves wash debris ashore and push you deep into the tumult of the city. Here you may experience the current of life and ride old trains in…
Shakuhachi for Latin Lovers
* Edition of 70 * Clive Bell’s roots in British experimental music run deep. Many will know him for his frequent contributions as a writer for The Wire magazine, while others will know him for his sonic explorations that date back into the 1970s, both solo as well as in collaboration with New Jazz Syndicate, Peter Cusack, Jac Berrocal, Steve Beresford, Jah Wobble, David Ross, David Toop, Mike Cooper, and countless others.Bell is an accomplished player of the shakuhachi (Japanese flute), khene (T…
Gritty, Odd & Good
A new weird, pseudo-music compilation curated by avant-garde experimental composer and audio artist Francisco López. As far as creation itself is concerned, big cities do not manifest anymore as the catalytic cultural centers they used to be. Their iconic status as hip locations seems more symbolic than real. The combined mighty forces of neocapitalist gentrification and telecommunication / information decentralization might have generated a substantially different landscape of geographical cult…
Smirne
Inspired by the philosophy of George Gurdjieff, whose mystic meditations surely linger in the magick of their work, Smirne was born as a open minded experimental project. Generated by the fusion of different realities, the line-up at the time of the debut is composed of Andrea Reali and Tiziano Doria, members of Lavorazioni Carni Rosse, together with Anna Vezzosi and Cesare Lopopolo, from the electro-acoustic duo Rosso Polare. A thin line between improvisation, electronic exploration and Aegean …
Vuelo Por Las Alturas De La Alhambra
* Edition of 400 * Vuelo por las Alturas de Alhambra was originally published in 1988 on Discos Esplendor Geométrico and it is a hidden gem in the catalogue of this influential Spanish label. The album unfolds a series of subtle and mesmerizing compositions inspired by the legacy of Al-Andalus, the muslim Spanish civilisation. Both a polymath and erudite musician, Jabir decided to pay homage to the marriage of spirituality and science present in that bygone era. For that aim, he relied on a vast…
Etrusca 3D
Etrusca 3D is a new band that merges two current Audio and visual artists from the 21st Century, Francesco Cavaliere and Spencer Clark. The album is the first to be released by Spencer Clark's label Pacific City Discs, as a subsidiary and in collaboration with Discrepant.
Etrusca 3D is the juxtaposition of two imagineers friendship, as Francesco says, 'because I am Etruscan and you (Spencer) are 3D." There is a piece of the future of Etruscan civilization contained within this disc. It is with S…
Infinity Suite
In common parlance the term Infinity Suite refers to a luxury hotel apartment comprised of several adjoining rooms. But my usage of the term here invokes the notion of infinite realities as resonating through dream and memory. An interconnected suite of spaces populated with vivid sounds and images spanning across periods of one’s life. My experience here focuses on the Indian city of Varanasi, but this sense of reality drifting I found there could’ve taken place anywhere. I focused on Varanasi …
Breaking the Surface
Two of Annea Lockwood's dramatic works dealing with issues of spiritual wholeness. Duende (1997), about shamanic transformation, is written with and performed by Thomas Buckner. Lockwood selected sounds which reminded her of certain vocal transformations heard in recordings of shamanic ceremonies. In such singing, changes in the voice mirror and also help to bring about changes in the singer's mind and awareness. Within an improvisational framework, Buckner explores the possibility of change of …
Minna Miteru
**2CD version** In collaboration with Markus Acher’s Alien Transistor label, Morr Music presents a collection of hard-to-find Japanese independent music, compiled by Saya, who plays with Ueno Takashi in the iconic duo Tenniscoats. They are part of a current music scene, which is little known outside of Japan. "Minna Miteru"“ focuses on that very scene: the featured bands and musicians share a certain idea of DIY, and are also connected through frequent collaborations and mutual appreciation.