Partial Infinite Sequence
**250 copies** The sound of the violin is a product of tension and release; the hair of the bow pulls back the violin’s string over and over again and, when the tension gets too great, it releases. The resulting vibration disturbs the air around it which travels in waves, exciting our ear drums and becoming sound. This confrontation of energy with air—the alternation of potential and kinetic energy—occurs over and over again in microcosm: catching, holding, tensing, and releasing. As listeners, …
Anadyomene
The eclectic sensitivity of the composer Roberto Laneri (Prima Materia) looks unparalleled in the Italian avant-garde context. Anadyomene, published for the first time in 1987, shows the myth of Venus in a dystopian and dreamlike world. Laneri conceives a sound poem that opens up to the archetypal dimension of the water creation, through the symbol of bivalve conch, the myth of the feminine power is narrated thanks to the verses of the renaissance poet Angelo Poliziano. Creating a daring connect…
Miniatures One & Two
Featuring artists as diverse as The Residents, Robert Fripp, XTC’s Andy Partridge, Pete Seeger, Robert Wyatt and The Pretenders’ Martin Chambers, as well as cover artwork contributed by Ralph Steadman, Morgan Fisher’s 1980 release “Miniatures” truly was a first.
Overwhelmed with concepts for potential releases, Fisher decided to see how many of these ideas he might be able to squeeze onto just one album. Rather than performing everything himself, he invited 50 musicians he admired to send in tra…
Emotion/Repetition
wildly-underrated Italian album from 2008, it lies somewhere twixt kraut-rock and Terry Riley's Rainbow in Curved Air. One could mention here Eroc Dolphy and Delia Derbyshire to lend avantgarde kudos...
Dix Ailes
"Dix Ailes is a musical proposal for 2 female voices, 1 percussionist, 1 electronic device and 1 place with high reverberation. Between minimalist music and pure pop, Dix Ailes plays on an acoustic illusion, that of making indistinguishable the origin of the sound (instrumental, loudspeaking or architectural), based on work on harmonics, frequency vibrations, the physical resonance of the place, psycho-acoustics.Essentially centered on the voice, Dix Ailes addresses the notions of empty and full…
Wall of Sounds: Drones, Patterns, Noises
Wall of Sound is a music of sonic sensations. It is a physical and sensual approach to the phenomenon of thick sound worlds. Sound waves become physical objects, four-dimensional sonic sculptures to be experienced, bodily and mentally. Ulrich Krieger's Wall Of Sound is a series of CDs about music that invites the listener to indulge themselves in sound. It doesn't guide an audience through a narrative, like a song, but offers the listener slow changing and developing soundscapes, acoustic sculpt…
Comix
Spittle Records present a reissue of Comix's self-titled album, originally released in 1981. One of the most treasured French minimal wave records is back on vinyl. Comix, a duo of guitarist/composer André Demay and DJ/singer Natan Hercberg, are a one album project. Their first single "Touche Pas Mon Sexe", recorded in 1979, has been refused by several record companies, but duo finally found home on French branch of Virgin. They released two singles and one full-length LP in 1981, and appeared o…
Awirë
Cyril Bondi, Pierre-Yves Martel and Christoph Schiller formed a trio in 2017 and recorded a set of studio pieces which became the CD Tse, which was released on Another Timbre in 2018. The CD was very successful and has nearly sold out. On the back of that CD, the trio did a brief tour of Europe in October 2018, and played at Cafe OTO in London together with violinist Angharad Davies. The trio played a set, followed by a solo by Angharad, and then for the final piece the trio joined forces with A…
Femenine (Apartment House)
Apartment House give new life to Julius Eastman’s irrepressible ensemble piece from 1974. Unbounded energy and clarity of sound. Unmissable. Read the following interview with the Apartment House's director, cellist cellist Anton LukoszeviezeWhen did you first play Julius Eastman's music, and when had you become aware of it?I first performed Eastman's music in 2016, which was a revelation for me, as the extant scores are rather fragmentary and incomplete, some are even just transcriptions from ar…
Autumn Resonances / Domino Figures
The LP release presents the reissue of a little-known, but extremely beauty, Post-Minimalism album composed by Wayne Siegel when he was mid-twenties. Moved from US to Denmark, between 1979 and 1980, he began to investigate possibilities of a very personal language, contributing to mould the heterogeneous kaleidoscope of Post-Minimalism results. These works are constructed around a relentless musical process that consists of delaying and repeating every element in a certain measure, without inten…
Fruhruin
Asmus Tietchens and Thomas Köner exercise a collective marketing genius with their decision to end a fruitful collaborative series in brute, anticlimactic style, issuing this limited, (naturally) expensive box meant to house the duo's previous four discs. Such closure is especially disappointing as it arrives just behind last year's n, Kontakt der Jünglinge's most dense and engrossing work to date, a haunting deepspace symphony of icy gleam and relentless sprawl, one of my late-year favorites. F…
A Secret Place
The Tobacconists are Scott Foust (Idea Fire Company/Swill Radio) and Frans de Waard (Kapotte Muziek/Korm Plastics). In 2005, Frans joined Idea Fire Company on their European tour (as documented on the "Vital - Live In Europe" CD). Four years later, Scott F. returned to Europe to screen his feature film "Here's To Love" and reconnected with Frans to form The Tobacconists. An intensive week of rehearsals yielded six new pieces of music, followed by a European tour and a proper studio recording. Th…
Guitares Derive
A host of independent labels sprang up in France during the pivotal period of the 60s and 70s in the course of the cultural and musical revolution then unfolding; labels like the legendary Saravah, BYG, Futura, but also Shandar, a cult label par excellence set up in 1971 by gallery owner Chantal Darcy in collaboration with the journalist Daniel Caux (1945-2008) as artistic director. Just a glimpse at the Shandar catalogue makes one’s head spin, as all of its productions have become key musical r…
Live at Federal Hall National Memorial, 1981
Arnold Dreyblatt is one of the most engaging of the second generation of New York minimalists. During a three decade career he has developed a distinctive -- and delightfully accessible -- approach to composition and performance. Employing modified and invented instruments and a unique tuning system, his music is a vigorously rhythmic and richly textured romp through the natural overtone series. This live CD celebrates the 25th anniversary of Dreyblatt's historic concert at Federal Hall in New Y…
Futatsu
Vienna resident Radu Malfatti, who turns 60 in December, is a trombonist and composer with a long and impressive career. In the nineties he established the unique compositional/improvisational style, using very few sounds, that he continues to develop. Thirty-something guitarist Taku Sugimoto has since the late nineties followed a similar path, pursuing a playing style marked by extreme sonic spareness. His work has received critical acclaim in Japan and abroad and has greatly influenced many yo…