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Experimental /

Autonomie Min​é​rale
Tip! Autonomie Minérale is the apex of a triptych that sprang up in less than three years, with a feeling of urgency. There is nothing fortuitous about this name, “Tachycardie.” Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy, is a musician and a composer (Pneu, I N S T I T U T R I C E, La Colonie de vacances) as well as a plastic artist (InfraOrdinaire), and in this project he continues his very singular exploration of the depths of sonic matter. After Probables (2019) and Sommé-e (2020), his previous intuitions have d…
Off-Road
Tip! *2022 stock. In process of stocking* Their second duo recording, the follow-up to 1999's Apertura. Off-Road finds the two of them forsaking their earlier, glacially meditative m.o. for a shower of digitally recomposed slivers, the metal-on-metal timbre of a saxophone equipped with contact mics, Grubbs's chiming electric guitar, and Gustafsson's pro rhythm analog synthesizer clipped to the bell of his horn.
Débordements
Soundscapes, drones, disruptive aberrations, textures and perplexingly absorbing interactions between French guitarist, graphic and sound artist Xavier Mussat and saxophonist Quentin Rollet, performing live at Instants Chavires, in Montreuil, France, in 2020, for eight diverse and unusual improvisations.
Grande Massa D'Agua
*In process of stocking* Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas have long been key players in the experimental and underground music scene in São Paulo, Brazil and have recently relocated in Berlin. Grande Massa D'Agua (Great Body of Water) is their second album as a duo and it sees them continue to explore themes related to water as they dive into uncharted musical depths. In discussing the duo's relationship with water, Mauricio said: “...In the beginning of the pandemic we decided to take a turn a…
[ru​:​t]
Is there a music that can be understood in any culture on this planet? Is it possible to co-compose a music from basic elements which are valid in most musical cultures? What are such basic elements? Do fundamental musical particles even exist and what could they be? Driven by such questions, Metaculture created an improvised music that builds upon basic musical elements and on the individual musical histories of the ensemble members. The ensemble spirit is fed by a common interest in all kinds …
The Loft Sessions
"Pulses, subtle interactions within common noise-sound surfaces that glide along in a leisurely, relaxed manner and yet are always in a state of flux. This is how briefly and succinctly the music of the quartet around the pianist and synthesiser player Philip Zoubek, the trumpeter Franz Hautzinger, the electronic musician Ignaz Schick and the drummer and percussionist Tony Buck could be put into words. One could add to this brief description: diverse percussion sounds, bowed sounds, glissandi, s…
Then Through Now
Henry Dagg and Evan Parker improvised together for the first time as part of the Free Range series in Canterbury, Kent, on December 2, 2021. For the performance, Evan played soprano saxophone, and Henry developed a new electronic instrument called the Stage Cage, to both process Evan’s live sound as well as generate its own sounds. The Stage Cage includes four valve test-oscillators, a pair of ring modulators, frequency shifter, chromatic zither, and a variable tape delay system (consisting of t…
Music for Counterflows
For the 2021 online edition of the Counterflows festival, Glasgow-based Kay Logan (aka Helena Celle) created the hour-long electronic Music for Counterflows, accompanied by an interview with Stewart Smith. For the CD and digital release, the music has been mastered by Stephan Mathieu, and the interview along with visual artwork by Kay are included in a 20 page booklet. The first Helena Celle album, If I Can’t Handle Me At My Best, You Don’t Deserve You At Your Worst, was released on the Night Sc…
Not One, Not Two
Y Bülbül is back on the controls accompanied by Yumurta, a percussionist from Istanbul. Pingipung introduced the London based artist in 2020 with his psychedelic, synth-laden debut “Fever”.  “Not One, Not Two” is based on a one-way transmission of improvised drum recordings from an industrial estate in Maslak, Istanbul to another one in Tottenham, London, where Y Bülbül laid down fragmented layers of bass, synths, guitars and field recordings over Yumurta’s singular drum takes. The result is…
Live In Antwerp
*In process of stocking* Nuke Watch wade out into liquified ephemera and ride their muggy percussive loops to safety. A foamy, landfill jazz collage originally performed in Antwerp now committed to tape.
Rotten Luck
Yes Indeed The emphatic duo of Laurie Tompkins and Otto Willberg return for their third release, rotten luck - a record we fell in love with watching the duo, synth player and bass shredder, gleefully headbanging in time, shrouded in the much beloved fog of spanners club. Their first lp exorcise, clobbered those that dared drop the needle with a brand of shrieking dadaism that lay impermeable but to the insane. It freaked us out, that cacophony soup.  On "Rotten Luck" there are tunes instead, go…
Anagrammi
*2022 stock* "The piano: the perfect balance between harmony and melody. Processing a piano is always an adventure; having 24 recordings of free improvisations performed by Francesco Arrighi and Mara Lepore is an incredible sound palette to have available. These recordings were deconstructed into individual phrases and micro fragments and then reassembled, both serially and in parallell, to follow a unifying compositional idea. At the same time the tracks were dilated and processed with filters,…
Fire Point
Tip! *Edition of 100.* Fire Point is multicolored and elusive. The sounds contained therein are agitated, fluid and amorphous, as if listening to the sonic realizations of various characteristics of multiple landscapes. Branches intersect, tree foliage collectively billows, and groundwater seeps into the encompassing substrate. The interactions of these three musicians are effortless, and is the result of both remote and physically-collaborative engagements. Starting with percussion tracks laid …
Old Light
Tip! Surveying late 20th century underground music - sounds that largely emerged before the internet delivered the illusion of interconnectedness - the most noteworthy often sprang from second cities, small towns, and backwaters, rather than cultured metropolitan centres like New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo. Boredom, marginalisation, and relative isolation seem to have been essential, counterintuitive components to the becoming of great art. Nowhere was this more true than in NZ/Aotearoa, the…
Permanent Draft
*300 copies limited edition* Conceived as a manifesto for eponymous all-female label Permanent Draft, this limited flexi comes with a booklet of poetry and pictures based on the prime number 13. Permanent Draft aims to highlight works showing a certain taste for fragmentary, irrepressible creative eruption and lo-fi experiments. Leaving the grandiose apart to pay and bring attention to the sounds, details and anecdotes of everyday life, picking up raw material from the ordinary. Bitter truths, m…
Shattered Reel(m)s
Tip! *200 copies limited edition* «a desperate act of randomness» the tape recorder’s on/off switch «am I lying to myself ?» «wings on the pavement» «put your ear against the wall» «can you hear them crying ?» «remember me to push you away» «escape the making of the world» another short percussive pattern «he walks, greeting my fall» tiny bells «I hate glass» a rumble crush  - carbonic acid «I am nothing» a drone - a rusty motor - a fly - resonance feedback «there is nothing here» the sound of a…
La Mort Aura Tes Yeux
Tip! *In process of stocking. Limited edition of 500 copies, offset printed covers with risoprinted interview.* "Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee". We're very proud to present the most exciting all-acoustic percussion based releases in years. Alexis Degrenier handles time and space as the master drummer that he is, with the finest of touches. Each breath, friction, percussion, whether manual or progammed (metronomes, clocks) is skillfully executed and high-spirited. Degrenier's poetic appr…
Black Box 3
* Edition of 500 * Arbitrary presents the third in the Black Box series of releases by Mads Emil Nielsen. The release, which showcases a more sample- and grid-based side of the Danish musician/composer’s work, is part of a sequence of publications with music and audio originally made for theatre, radio soundtracks and more. Black Box 3 is based on sound pieces produced for Sprækker (Cracks), a dance performance & installation in Denmark, 2021. The starting points for these pieces are improvisati…
Nemo Point Soundmap for Terrestrial Melanoheliophobics
Representing Ahad's Flux Worlds 1, the lengthily titled 'Nemo Point Soundmap...' album is the very latest solo offering from this Hungarian sonic traveller now based in Berlin, Zsolt Sőrés. Spread over the two discs are seven pieces that take a combination of viola, bass, piano strings, voice, mellotron, dictaphone, percussion and all manner of other instrumentation and objects into a realm where inner space folds in on itself and unwittingly assumes the guise of multitudinous journeys to those …
Tathata
Tathata is a central concept in Buddhism, literally translated from sanskrit as 'thusness' or 'suchness'. Tathata expresses appreciation of the true nature of reality in any given moment. As no moment is exactly the same, each one can be savored for what occurs at that precise time, whether it is thought of as being good or bad. However, Jeph Jerman and Doug Theriault are trying to give us the possibility to meditate on this word, they recorded three long improvised pieces for the same-titled al…