S/T
Neuter River is a new project from Jan St. Werner of Mouse On Mars, one which concerns itself with the more experimental, far-out sounds within the producer's repertoire. The label describes the LP thusly: "Neuter River is not exactly a band or a person, it's the remains of an idea, a shifting light cube at the end of a ragged kaleidoscope. Atonal precission / pentatonic noise." Quite what that means will be unclear even after you've heard the record, but then it's the extremity of the abstract …
New Monuments
Formed for the purpose of playing 2008's Instal Fest, this trio comprises C Spencer Yeh (of Burning Star Core), Ben Hall (of Graveyards) and Don Dietrich (of Borbetomagus), coming together for the common cause of relentless, ear-blasting improv. Sax-toting noise legend Dietrich is no stranger to the more abrasive school of free improv, having been operating in the field since the early 1980s, but the comparatively fresh-faced Yeh and Hall hold their own here (manning violin and traps, respective…
Sy
2009 release ** Weltraum play and record music since 2003. Their Traum/Trauma ep has been released by Lona Records in 2006. In 2008 Weltraum became a trio (electronics, guitar, drums) and shifted their musical research towards rythmical blocks, prefering dry and sharp timbers. No melody, no meaning. They actively move in Napoli, collaborating with A Spirale, Ne travaillez jamais, One starving day, (etre)..., giving life to several impro projects (Asp/SEC_, Aspec(t), Strongly imploded, endorgan) …
0509
2009 release ** Limited edition of 100 hand-numbered copies. "RCF's '0509' cd is the first release by the Misengarde label, an awesome improvised album between the so-called onkyo and noise tout-court, Asmus Tietchens and Keith Rowe; RCF (Ciro Fioratti) wander lonely through his mc505 frequencies in order to make them talk freely, finding a hidden life and reacting against the machine wild language. The disc had been recorded in May 2009 playing the mc505, a mixer and a small multi fx rack; no e…
Birchville Cat Motel & Yellow Swans
Yellow Swans & Birchville Cat Motel is the first collaboration between these two underground phenomenons. Both groups have amassed sturdy back catalogs and a great deal of critical acclaim. This collaboration was recorded entirely in New Zealand both live and in the studio.
Temporal
Their third collaborational work following 'Tinnitus VU' mini CD on Touch and the full length 'Tocsin' album on Die Stadt (DS77). Z'EV started out with reworking basic sound material from the Organum archive back in 2006, which resulted in a collaborative mixing of the material until early 2008. The finishing touches were then left to David Jackman between March and June 2008. The overall tone on 'temporal' owes more to the 'classic' Organum sound than to Organum latest works, the trilogy : 'San…
The Echo From The Purple Dawn
The Echo From The Purple Dawn is a brand new full length from C.C.C.C. member Hiroshi Hasegawa's solo project, Astro. Using a battery of oscillators, ring modulators and field recordings, Hasegawa has created an engaging and versatile album that masterfully drifts between spaced-out analog dream drone and a more extreme form of harsher droning. As Astro, Hasegawa is able to combine some of the harsher influences of C.C.C.C. into the world of analog space music to create the signature sounds of A…
Dolphin Sonar
Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita had been at the foreground of experimental music for over 25 years. Inspired by psycedelic rock, free jazz, early electronic composition as well the physical arts, especial Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, Masami Akita has created a musical language all his own. Dolphin Sonar is Merzbow's full length protest album against the annual brutal slaughtering of some 2,500 dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture Japan. This is an angry album full of beats…
Some Blood Will Stick
Hototogisu is Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). They've been laying down billowing sheets of Teutonic guitar drone-noise since 2003 with the thickest possible helpings of vocals and electronics. Some Blood Will Stick is a collection of tracks from their ultra-limited self produced label Heavy Blossom. Songs were taken from Swoon Scream (2004) and Awful Symmetry (2005) with one additional track. What makes this disc more than a simple re-release is the ext…
Hasardi
For their second official CD release (after a handful of cassettes and CD-Rs) this Helsinki quintet of horns, guitars, drums, and vocals forsake any sense of live atmosphere by mashing four years of recordings into a disorienting, rude collage of over the top takes on multiple forms of extreme music. More early 90s, Bad Vugum-damaged rock than 00s Fonal psych-folk, Hasardi is a tangent of the punk/hardcore continuum that veers wildly and often into free jazz, noise and just general weirdness. Ha…
J’accuse Ted Hughes
Another great installment in Sonic Youth's SYR series, this one features two engrossing, lengthy pieces : 'J'Accuse Ted Hughes' and 'Agnes B Musique'. The former was recorded at All Tomorrow's Parties 2001, when the band were premiering material from their NYC Ghosts & Flowers album, and takes the form of a ragged twenty-two minute noise jam featuring free association lyrics by Kim Gordon ("I sent my poem to Good Housekeeping. They paid me ten dollars" she imparts). Meanwhile, the more composed,…
Cicatrici
2004 release ** OvO is a project of music and life. OvO are Stefania Pedretti (also singer and guitar player of Allun) and Bruno Dorella (ex Wolfango, Bugo, Lava, now involved in many bands and boss of Bar La Muerte records), often joined by friends that belong to many different musical scenes. Bruno and Stefania basically started this project to stay together: they were used to follow their partner's different bands on tour, but they were also sick of the problems that every band has connected …
crows of the world vol 1
2007 release ** "First entry in an on-going 'annual report' style compilation, programmed with the same sensibilities as 2005's Invisible Pyramid compilation by label guru Chris Moon. This entries' line-up includes: Keijo's Free Players, Brad Rose's North Sea, Western Automatic, the Ilya Monosov / Preston Swrinoff duo, Andrea Belfi (previously heard on the Invisible Pyramid comp), Paper Wings (Antony Milton + Anthony Guerra), Northern Cross (new Geoff Mullen + Kris Lapke duo), Brasil & the Gallo…
Vox Ex Machina
2005 release (RARE) ** Curated by Jaap Blonk this is volume 15 in the Leonardo Music Journal CD series. Selections include ‘Kana’ by Tomomi Adachi, ‘O Som Que Circula Nas Veia’ by Americo Jorge M. Rodrigues, excerpt from ‘Mushroom Clouds’ by Christian Bok, ‘Vielleicht’ by Sprechakte X/treme, ‘OOA’ by Vincent Barras and Jacques Demierre, ‘… due Giorni Dopp’ by Ricardo Dal Farra, ‘Al Amin Dada’ by Jelle Meander, ‘En Do’ by Jorg Piringer, ‘Eighteen Earrers’ by Kenneth Goldsmith, ‘Voix Imprrsonel’ b…
Compromize
1992 release ** Ten years ago the Wahrnehmungen label from Mainz, Germany, founded by the group PD was renamed Selektion (and PD changed to P16.D4). In 1984 artists joined Selektion to form a new kind of artistic project for music (S.B.O.T.H.I., SLP) as well as for visual arts. In this very recording, almost all members have, in various combinations, made their approach to an organization of sound. It is the state of things of Selektion's audio productions.Selektion are: M. Caspers, G. Lörcher, …
buda_rom
2002 release ** "This album features the Swiss three-quarters of the Swiss-French electro-acoustic improv group poire_z. It consists of live recordings from Budapest and Rome in late 2000. There are three "buda" tracks, each one lasting over ten minutes, and four "roma" tracks of three minutes and under -- the latter have also been remixed by Günter Müller and Norbert Möslang to serve as bridges between the main pieces. Müller has been performing with Voice Crack (Möslang and Andy Guhl) since 19…
Eleven Live Collaborations
Live collaboration between Japanoise legend Merzbow and german artist Achim Wollscheid. Recorded at Spiral Hall, Tokyo.
Merzbear
Author, activist, painter, and sound artist Masami Akita has been at the foreground of experimental music for over twenty-five years. Inspired by psychedelic rock, free jazz, and early electronic composition as well the physical arts (especially Kurt Schwitters's Merzbau), Masami Akita has created a musical language all his own. Merzbear, the sixth Merzbow release in his utterly essential Merz series for Important Records, pulses and pounds with distorted droning guitar feedback, pulsing noise b…
Seven reasons for tears
Reissue of classic and long hard to find Purge/Sound League album from 1987 by Borbetomagus. Quartet session with the power-bass addition of Adam Nodelman. 1993 CD release “Seven Reasons for Tears beautifully documents the most simultaneously fierce and accessible periods of the band’s history. Converts and heathens can both bathe luxuriously in the radioactive improv-beauty-stream that lights up a room when the record is played at ‘special’ volume. Tears is the living spirit of Borbetomagus’ nu…
Agents At Midnight
2006 release ** "Agents at Midnight, eh? Sounds like the kind of film noir title Barry Adamson might like. But the music doesn't: it's a collection of raw, powerful improvisations for saxophone (Chang) and electronics (and harmonica) (Howard), a fine example of how the fences that used to separate Noise and Improv have been bulldozed into the dirt by the younguns across the pond (and a few of them here in Europe too). Chang's playing – alto sax, is it? not always easy to tell for sure – is rough…