Melodies
*In process of stocking* An extraordinary project arising from Frank Denyer’s ethno-musicological studies in the 1970’s, which forced him to go back to basics and ask himself ‘what is a melody?’ and ‘what is a note?’ Frank answered these questions by composing a series of 25 pieces starting from single-note melodies, through melodies with 2, 3 or 4 notes, ending with more complex pieces with 14- and 15-note melodies. A wonderful double CD, with a 24-page booklet containing an essay by Frank de…
Skal_Ghost
*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* 12k continues in its tradition of collaborative releases presenting a first-time pairing between German artist Arovane and 12k’s Taylor Deupree. Having become aquainted through their shared love of music technology, Uwe Zahn (Arovane) and Taylor Deupree only found it natural to work on a project together based around one of their favorite synthesizers. As Zahn recalls: “After a long email conversation, Taylor and I came up with the idea of recording an albu…
Tail Of Diffraction
*2023 stock* Minamo returns to 12k following 2020’s Superstition where they paried up with singer/songwriter Moskitoo. On Tail of Diffraction the duo joins long-time friend Asuna. A new name to 12k but not to the world of ambient and experimental music where Asuna’s 100 Keyboards has toured stages around the world. Minamo and Asuna have shared the stage many times in concerts and tours over years, however, this is their first recording together. These artists are well known for their mix of elec…
The Prospect
*2023 stock* Giuseppe Ielasi is back following his 2020 release Five Wooden Frames. There he returned to the guitar exploring shifting and modulating loops and the interplay of tuning and drifting to create five stark yet ethereal pieces. On The Prospect, Ielasi sticks to solo guitar but this time in a much more pure form. Each of the two pieces consists of parallel electric guitar lines recorded simply through a tube amplifier free of studio tricks or heavy editing. Like much music written over…
Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo
2025 Repress. One of the most sought-after jewels from Italy's legendary Cramps Records finally gets the reissue treatment it deserves! Raul Lovisoni and Francesco Messina's stunning 1979 masterpiece Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo – produced by the one and only electronic pioneer Franco Battiato – returns in a faithful reproduction that honors the original sleeve design.
This is Italian Minimalism at its most delicate and transcendent. Not the rigid academic exercises you might expect, but some…
Semi Mondi
Tip! A musician expresses himself with sound; it seems a triviality, but any thought or idea launched takes shape and can be heard, can be listened to. Thus in a spontaneous way, one after another, particles can end up coming together bearing fruit, creating environments and scenarios, evolving. In this case, Maurizio Abate decides to paint short sound pictures, which become real pieces. These pieces are submitted to the listening of friends, who by free associations name them following their ow…
l'Egitto prima delle Sabbie
*White vinyl repress* Mindblowing! The last album of what could be called Franco Battiato's "experimental prog" period, L'Egitto Prima Delle Sabbie consists of two sidelong compositions strictly arranged for piano only, without any vocals; and even more intriguingly, neither of the performers on the album are Battiato himself. He limited himself strictly to the roles of composer and producer. After Battiato's many different sonic explorations and efforts throughout the '70s, such an effort may s…
Lamunan
*300 copies limited edition* Forged alone in a cave on the island of Java, and recorded in a fortress in Poland, Antonina Nowacka’s “Lamunan” is an intimate exploration of a mysterious darkness and the earliest of musical forms. Nowacka has co-created raw electronics and audiovisuals as half of WIDT and the enigmatic Mentos Gulgendo, but her solo practice focuses solely on the voice’s inherent connection to mental states, its ability to speak wordlessly, and the apparatus of speech itself – lead…
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.
Nurturing Exhibitions
*Limited edition of 200 copies. Includes a 48 pages art book and 2CD.* Six musical compositions by Phill Niblock, soil and cutting tree of Amanatsu orange from Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm, wooden pedestals, speakers, wooden benches, wooden planter, acrylic case, water, sunlight. An exhibition by Mathieu Copeland.
Nurturing Exhibitions was one of two concomitant exhibitions that formed Exhibition Cuttings at Le Forum / Fondation Hermès in Tokyo, Japan between April 23rd (Fri.) and July 18th (Su…
Borderland Melodies
Borderland Melodies, composed by Jürg Frey and interpreted by Apartment House, features three chamber works that exemplify Frey's subtle balance of melody, structure, and quiet innovation. The music explores gradual transformation, intertwining voices, and the shading of tone and silence, creating a meditative sound world where every phrase and rest feels considered and essential.
Naiads
Naiads by Martin Iddon, realized by Apartment House, is a cycle of five chamber works inspired by freshwater nymphs from Greek myth. Each piece constructs its own world of slow-blooming gestures and modestly veiled lyricism, balancing clarity and ambiguity as the ensemble circulates between unison playing, shifting tempos, and suspended harmonies. The result is a collection of subtly haunting, atmospheric music shaped with patient detail.
L'art de toucher
L’art de toucher by Evan Johnson features five chamber works that probe the outer limits of sound and silence. With a triptych for piccolo, violin, and percussion at its core, the album also presents finely wrought solo and trio pieces. Johnson’s sensitivity to musical detail shapes an experience full of ambiguity, microscopic interactions, and delicate intensity.
A Coiled Form
'A Coiled Form' by UK-based composer Bryn Harrison. The piece was originally composed as a shorter solo in 2020, and then revised and expanded in collaboration with violinist Sarah Saviet, who gives an astonishing virtuosic performance, to become a 50-minute solo work. It was released on CD by Another Timbre in November 2022.
Ritmiche Italiane - Percussions and Oddities from the Italian Avant-Garde (1976-1995)
Ritmiche Italiane transports the listeners through an anomaly in the fabric of musical space-time, connecting the distant past with the modern era and the plains of a lost continent with the cities of the Italian peninsula. The artists featured in the compilation strongly believed in the absence of barriers and conventions between genres, fully able to effortlessly put together West-African influences, World music, Jazz and crime movie soundtracks to achieve a boundless, meditative and hypnotic …
Frost
Reissue of an obscure Italian minimal album from the 80s. Recorded in Northern Italy in 1989 by Michele Tadini, this release effortlessly fuses ambient and library overtones with the influence of early digital electronic music, underlined by an ethereal atmosphere eerily reminiscent of the best soundtracks by John Carpenter. Seemingly unplaceable in time and space, it is both Italian and world-spanning.
A young, free-reined musician with a rich music vocabulary and avant-garde sensibilities pour…
Casa
Tip! 2022 Stock * Urpa i musell is pleased to present our new release, the third album by Ubaldo, Casa [UiM 004]. Ubaldo is the most personal project of Andreu G. Serra, the curious musician from the Ebro Delta, currently living in Brussels. Andreu has a variety of music projects to his name, each with a very different direction. In Bimbo Picasso he demonstrates a modern look at his punk roots; whereas Or Sobre Blau —collaboration with Kiran Leonard— is an intuitive dialogue established between …
Swarm Structure
*In process of stocking.* Swarm Structure is the fifth LP since Thought Broadcast began over a decade ago in New York City. This release is the first LP in several years after a steady stream of instantly gone tapes such as Extinction Circle, released just at the start of the pandemic. Swarm Structure is the next step for project's vision of urban nocturne and apocalyptic concrète; it is a raw demonstration in covert and lysergic minimal electronics and industrial rhythm, all rendered in TB's si…
The Locked Room
Tip! *In process of stocking. Limited edition of 300 copies.* The Locked Room imagines a protagonist who experiences the outside world as an endless escape room, a place where, in the early hours, every passing tail-light, train in the distance, hunched bike rider or crying bird might be a possible riddle, leading to a passage or the discovery of a key.
Once opened, however, a room locked from the other side could just be the same room as the one you're in - only slightly different. And maybe t…
Magic Moments
FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle, German meaning "voluntary self control") is a German band that was formed in Munich in 1980. It became involved in the underground-part of the German New-Wave-Scene of the early 1980s.
Magic Moments was originally released in 1982 on ZickZack Platten, this EP includes the four tracks "Wir steigen ein", "Trink wie ein Tier", "Herzschuß Melodie" & "Viel zu viel". The reissue is accompanied by a booklet with liner notes by Tim Klütz (in German).