Embedded Listening by Felaia
The first full length solo album by musician and visual artist Felia Gram-Hanssen. Taking on different roles as field recordist, singer, producer and drummer Gram-Hanssen weaves together different parts of her praxis, which results in a diverse sound environment somewhere between drone rock and music concrete. It has been more than six years in the making and now we are so happy to finally release this beautiful work.In the title Gram-Hanssen introduces her own doppeltgänger Felaia, the albums f…
All The Way Down
Limited Edition "Snapshots, pictures, glimpses of life and notes on a crumpled sheet. Framing memories to keep them, mostly remembering those that are less important. Unconscious moments, instants that didn't have attention that unexpectedly resurface in a recurring dream. Some faces transfigure, other images lose definition, leave the frame for a few seconds and lean on a desk covered with notes and drafts. Matteo and Stefano offer a really personal and felt contribution to Torto Editions and R…
Inauspicious
*200 copies limited edition* In a recent interview, the california artist Jim Haynes was asked to name his top five noise albums. In quick fashion, he listed Off Kill the King, Send, Desnos, Persona, and Carcinosi. Since then, he's equivocated on which albums to choose, but the artists behind such works remain as the adjacent signposts and landmarks to his own constructions of industrial noise. How those records connect to the output from haynes is found in their unique combination of smoldering…
India Vibrations (Revisited)
Tomáš Niesner has been making a name for himself in recent years by way of his solo ambient/drone excursions and the intricate melodicism of his collaborations with Jakub Šimanský. But it was “India Vibrations,” a digital self-release of lo-fi manipulated field recordings captured during a trip across North India, that really caught my ear: the cacophony of street festivals juxtaposed with the solemnity of houses of worship, all recorded on an “obsolete cellphone” and then looped and layered, ab…
Con Richard (Por La Adversidad A Las Estrellas)
*175 (hand-numbered) copies limited edition* "The hum of traffic from afar brings back fragments of memories from the past. Lately I've been visited by memories from a simpler time, NYC in the early years of the century, and my friend Richard Garet is often on them. We shared many musical and artistic adventures then before geography made physical contact impossible, the musicality of memory became evident and prompted a piece that doesn't describe or narrates a story but that mixes the grey sou…
Turning in Space
*200 copies limited edition* Turning in Space, a new cassette box set by Áine O’Dwyer, compiles a series of sonic choreographies conducted at the artist’s living and studio space in suburban East London. Since summer 2015, O’Dwyer has been a resident of the Lady Helen Seymour House, a former hospital, in a building-wide unit that gives the artist a stereophonic impression of the auditory surround. Inspired by the “natural musics” of the house’s structure (its acoustics, creaks, and room tone) an…
NEY
*175 copies limited edition* NEY, a self-titled debut, is an unbridled exploration of a band’s beginning, a tapestry of intimate field recordings, deconstructed fragments and spontaneous encounters, pieced together in two long-form recordings. During the isolated years of the pandemic, Lisa Fabian, aka Mondlane on ‘The Blue Hour’, traced thoughts, sung melodies and fleeting sentiments into an archive of extemporary field recordings and scattered written notes. In dealing with the loss of a loved…
Worlding With Earth
The post-Anthropocene planet isn’t going to be one without humans. It’s going to be a planet where the interdependencies of nature and man are realigned, the lines between the organic and synthetic blur, and we ultimately become something more-than-human. The rich, mulchy sonic environments of Slowfoam’s Worlding without Earth are the optimistic soundtrack to this realignment, subsuming the human, natural, and synthetic into one shimmering whole. Coming together over the last three years, this l…
Smolders / Delaere / Nijs
*300 copies limited release* In 2021 Nijs and Smolders started a series of free improvisations. Each came from a different background and wanted to explore musical horizons that they were not used to. As a next step they decided to record an album of composed tracks. The experimental platform shifted from long improv sessions to composition and structure, with the work of Delaere as a source of inspiration. The material of his work, the unevenness, the detail of pigments clashing, superimposing …
Expended Desert
*200 copies limted edition* Fern Recordings presents Expended Desert, a collaboration between Sam Dunscombe and Michiko Ogawa.
Sam Dunscombe (field recordings, synthesis)Michiko Ogawa (shō, hammond organ)December 2022
Locations:Roadside, Joshua Tree National ParkRailway siding, LudlowNorth Shore Yacht Club, Salton SeaSoundwalk, Slab CityAdelanto Solar Park, Victorville
Tropic of Capricorn
Tropic of Capricorn is the second album by Lawrence English and Werner Dafeldecker. Based on field recordings made by the prolific Room40 owner that were subtly but decisively altered with electroacoustic techniques through the German improv legend, these two long-form pieces blur the lines between acoustic ecology and aesthetic interventions, concrete local sound worlds and boundary-defying art. They put a focus on our relationship with nature as listeners as much as they call into question whe…
Local Exoticism
Tip! *60 copies limited edition* Also known as Tachycardie, and part of Pneu, Kick5ive, Binidu, La Colonie de Vacances, the musician, field recordist, drummer and Presque Tout co-founder Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy wears many hats. With 'local exoticism' it is the attentive listener who is summoned and twists the notions of exoticism in a sonic investigation of the Loire river’s shores. “The idea behind this project is to go against the accepted principle of exoticism, and the envy that this notion c…
Marginal Habitats
Marginal HabitatsBy Cassia Streb----------------------------------Sound and composition by Cassia Streb (viola and small objects)Audio editing help from Colbert DavisAudio mixing by Tim FeeneyCover design by Cecyl Ruehlen-----------------------------------Recorded in the Joshua Tree National Park and in Highland Park, Los Angeles, 2022
With thanks to Cecyl Ruehlen for suggesting the album in the first place
Riverside Ishiyama
*100 copies limited edition* Embracing the impermanency of the world and its ever-fluctuating dynamics, salad offers an intimate portrait of life and the sounds that animate it. Riverside Ishiyama opens a window into a typical Japanese apartment, rich with the activities of daily life and the delicate interactions between a new mother and child. The tinkering and whirring of these subtle, incidental sounds commingle with birdsong and the bustling city outside — altogether engrossing the listener…
Ad Invisibilia
* Limited edition of 100 copies, gold etched title on front cover * Since their founding during the early years of the new millennium, the Italian imprint, Holidays Records, has stood at the vanguard of forward-thinking sound, building a carefully curated catalog of releases that collectively build context and conversation across numerous avenues of exploration - contemporary and historical sitting side by side - within the wider field of experimental and improvised music. Every step of the way,…
Rosume
Italian sound artist Ezio Piermattei returns with a new tape. Atopic sound reality made of voice, tapes, unrecognizable guitars, post horn, organ. Stratifications through subtractions, autobiographism wrapped in abstraction, musique concrète and idiosyncrasies transcoloring in tones of contemporary darkness.
Hverdag
Fragile yet intense compositions for acoustic instruments and field recordings. Recorded on tape and carefully dubbed from the original cassette master.
Terrain Vague
Arbitrary presents Terrain Vague – the debut of Danish group Mesmer. The album is a series of (deconstructed) live-recordings taken from three live concerts. The sounds on this record are taken from two years’ worth of sound research and creative outbursts with inspiration from field trips to the outskirts of Copenhagen. Intrigued by the auditive landscapes of places where nature and culture meet and challenge each other. Listening to the field-recordings led Mesmer to interpret the moods, music…
There is only love and fear
Berlin-based British composer, percussionist, and instrument maker Bex Burch was invited to spend a month in the US by International Anthem in Summer 2022. Burch immersed herself in the label's creative community and listened to what it gave her, making field recordings and allowing There Is Only Love and Fear to emerge from the collaborations and environments she encountered. Sessions for the album spanned multiple non-traditional recording spaces including a storefront in Bridgeport, Chicago a…
Schemata
*100 copies limited edition.* Tsss Tapes presents Schemata by Eventless Plot. Composed, recorded and edited by Eventless Plot. Mastered by Spyros Emmanouilidis