Gyromancy
Mnemonists eventually evolved into the incredible Biota band. Before they did they released a series of LPs, including the art work that surrounds and informs their approach to improvisation. As Mnemonists their work is darker and more ominous than that of Biota, but the process was still the same: post-processing live improvisation to construct larger works that stood on their own two feet as compositional pieces. Think AMM, Organum, Faust; Mnemonists embraced their strategies but created somet…
M’Uoaz
1997 release ** "Japanese bassist Tetsu Saitoh stands out as a new hope from across the ocean. He's the new ray in the sea of bodies that play the same standard fare. These two recordings, released on his own Scissors label, outline the here and now in his present body of work. On "M'uoaz", Tetsu is surrounded by an all-star cast, which includes saxophonist Michel Doneda and percussionist Alain Joule. [Vocalist Antonella Talamonti joins the trio on one track.] The music is rather sparse. Joule i…
The seasons: Vermont
1998 release ** The Seasons: Vermont is a soundscape of Vermont as charted through the changes of its yearly soundings. It is a composition in four parts (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring) for magnetic tape collage with an unspecified live instrumental/vocal ensemble. Though the actual composing of the music was completed between 1980 and 1982, it is the realization of a ten-year composition project. Goldstein listened closely and became attuned to what was the particular sound quality of each sea…
Adventura Anatomica
** longtime sold out at source, few copies restocked ** A fairy tale world comes to life in sublime fashion on Maja Ratkje’s latest collaboration Adventura Anatomica, a musical work for theatre she created with choreographer/danser Odd Johan Fritzøe and stage designer in November 2005. This is a world of bittersweet fairytales, of wolves and innocent maidens losing their way in a dark wood, a world of fear and despair and joyful ecstasy. In any case, emotions such as these coexist closely in Rat…
Hair Police
'Basement noise dirge death skuzz hell. Compiles the long out of print hospital cassette and mortuary servants ep while adding new exclusive mud-noise constructions from the drawn dead sessions.' Hospital Productions.
Poire-Z
1999 release ** "Released in 1999 as a wave of electronic-based free improvisation was slowly overtaking the world of avant-garde music, Poire_Z appeared as the first such record by a supergroup of sorts. The duo Voice Crack (Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang), Günter Müller, and ErikM's proposition was of a highly introspective, slowly building shroud of electronically derived sounds: the popping of M's vinyls, the clicks and crackles of Voice Crack's electrical devices, Müller's cheap electronics,…
Accidental
Fred Frith has been heard in all possible contexts, from solo improviser to composer of orchestral music, but he remains at his best when trapped in a studio, alone or with a few musicians, building layered pieces. This process previously yielded stunning albums such as the delicate Middle of the Moment or the avant rocking Speechless. Accidental features Frith performing all instruments and voices, mostly guitars, violin, junk percussion, and random radio tuning. This music was commissioned by …
La Voce Ed Il Sintetizzatore
After almost forty years of creative activity, the name Enore Zaffiri still sounds "new", as his extraordinary artistic output has remained to a great extent unreleased. Pioneer of multimedia, electronic and ambient music (he founded the Turin Studio of Electronic Music in 1964) Zaffiri used the electronic instrument to find a new musical perspective based on a structuralist principle derived from Euclidean geometrics. In this works, dated between 1973 and 1988 he approche the combination of the…
Staggered Stasis
2004 release ** "Over the last two decades, Ellen Fullman has been perfecting her Long String Instrument. This unique instrument of her own design is some 80 feet in length and played by literally walking through it. The resulting sounds are beautiful gliding tones with a rich harmonic content. The CD presents two works from her time in Austin, Texas in the late 1980's which beautifully display a sound you can get inside of. These long tracks envelope you in their cascading overtones. Even thoug…
Noe’s Lullaby
“Noe’s Lullaby is a mysterious recording in several senses of the word. Portuguese composer David Maranha has chosen to be obscure regarding instrumentation, listing the performers (a septet) but not what they’re using to produce the sounds. From the aural evidence and what one can discern from past projects of his, it appears that such devices as stroked metal strings, wine glasses, harmoniums, guitars, and percussion (all with perhaps some electronic modulation) are among them. The music itsel…
Fluxsweet
CD audio with the 6 pieces. DVD video with the 5 first pieces. 1. PLAY PAPER by Alison Knowles (2003). 'Consider fragments of onion skins as musical notations. Perform with handmade musical instruments and toys.' Performed by Alison Knowles, Larry Miller and Taketo Shimada. 2. MUSIC BOX (homage to FLUX MUSIC BOX by Joe Jones) by Taketo Shimada (2004). 'Modify two or more music boxes and play them simultaneously with the recording of Joe Jones FLUX MUSIC BOX, if possible use children to play the …