Ambulance
Holy Tongue (Valentina Magaletti, Al Wootton & Susumu Mukai) follow up their critically acclaimed album with a two track 7” on Trule. On the A Side ‘Ambulance Dub’ creeps in like John Carpenter at Firehouse. The B Side ‘The Bigger Tutti’ goes full on Steppers punk. They are all snakes now.
Orthodox Approach
1995 release ** "Years ago there was a concert with the Zug percussionist Beat Föllmi in a factory in Cham that was supposed to be demolished, which was recorded on a CD with the title “unorthodox approach”. It was all about free improvisation and an extensive and unusual set of sound instruments: the most powerful piece was a gong over two meters in diameter. Today – 1996 – the same percussionist titles his latest recording “orthodox approach”. The change from “unorthodox” to “orthodox” is not …
Too Cold
*2025 stock* Something about eating roses Sean… First it’s 2004. Anthony doesn’t even have a piano for that trio gig… Oh no! Nonetheless, something happens in that old damp cellar of Cave12 and some connections are made for ever. In 2006 “The Same Girl” comes over to Australia with Gilles Aubry and myself; we spend a few nights at your place on Hardware Lane. It’s now 2007, it’s around my birthday and we’re emailing about a Buttercup Metal Polish tour. You offer to help out for some contacts and…
ex-DJ
*100 copies limited edition* In December 2023, dj sniff (US/JP), Mariam Rezaei (UK), SlowPitchSound (CA), and DJ Rex Chen (TW) met for the first time in Taipei to take part in "ex-DJ," a music program curated by dj sniff for the Taipei Biennial. The aim of this project was to highlight a musical practice that equally drew influences from experimental music, free improvisation, and hip hop. This collaborative initiative unfolded over a 10-day period within the Taipei Fine Arts Museum's specially …
Bereft
Limited edition of 116. One-sided LP. In these times of double lives it happens fairly frequently that acquaintances from outside "the world of experimental music" send short video’s of all kinds of circus acts, people making music in a river, singing in a helicopter, their pets sounding like the intro of an 80’s hit, etcetera. Often these outings are sent in an ironic way, as often liked by us in a painful, deadly serious way. There must be thousands of video’s of Japanese percussionist Ryosuke…
Lucha Libre
*200 copies limited edition* Valentina Magaletti flies solo again with 4 impeccable post-punk / dub / wave infused workouts. The lo-fi and forlorn And There Is Us opens the set with awkward drum machine, twinkly piano notes, and analogue synth tones sitting under echoing voices which carry across to Noiaz with its rolling, drill-like drum patterns. Lotta on the B side gets busier with guitar, field recordings and a laid-back groove before the pace picks up for the closing track Drum Jump where a…
The Music of Stones
Tip, tip tip! *2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* Listening to the music of Stephan Micus – which is as itinerant and wide ranging as his life – is one of the most profound experiences possible today. Beyond categories and labels, this German artist was already way ahead of trends when he released his first album in 1976. Fifteen recordings later The Garden of Mirrors, his first CD since the phenomenal Athos, seems on the surface to be heading in a stylistic direction pointing towards the Orient. But…
Tape Reworks, Vol. 2
Tape Reworks, Vol. 2 is the fourth project by Langham Research Centre released on Nonclassical. Following the success of their Tape Works, Vol. 1 and subsequent TapeReworks, Vol. 1 (which featured remixes by Jim O'Rourke and Group A), this EP presentstwo remixes of tracks from Tape Works, Vol. 2: 'Movable Fields', remixed by Kara-Lis Coverdale, and 'Nachholbedürfnis', remixed by Beatriz Ferreyra. Kara-Lis Coverdale's 'Movable Fields' is an icy soundscape, gently moving at a glacial pace, evoking…
Sea Songs
This is the 3rd appearance of Odesa-based Hennadii Boichenko (ex-Indirect) on Muscut, after his contribution as a part of the Indirect band (Ab Pharmacy / Waltz - 2014, Ode To The Sea - 2016 with Nikolaienko). 7” single, “Sea Songs,” - is a record mixed and tape mastered by Dmytro Nikolaienko. This is also the first episode of a newly started series of analog production chain releases with master reel tape transfer to lathe cut (the label has only been sending digital master files to the record …
Lava
"Lava is an ode to the connections between sound, emotion and human experience, exploring the interplay of sonic duality. The overlapping duos within the trio framework brought forth uncharted possibilities, allowing each of us to weave our individuality into the improvisations." - Maria, Bonnie and Helen
Live in Luxembourg, December 3rd 2021
*300 copies limited edition* This record contains four tracks taken from a live performance which took place on December 3rd 2021 at the vinyl harvest record store in Esch-sur-Alzette Luxembourg. The concert was curated by non-profit organisation I am esch twenty too and the label mint.conception.recordings. I am esch twenty too was founded in 2020 as an alternative suggestion to the city of Esch-sur-Alzette being European Capital of Culture 2022 and its role and program. The budget for this con…
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…
Archaisms I
Sorey and Rudolph began performing as a percussion duet in 2018. Sorey states “we seemed so in sync with each other, in part, perhaps, because we are both composers as well as percussionists.” Archaisms 1 is the recorded document of that concert. Sorey & Rudolph brought their unique and evolved rhythm and sonic languages to the fore, through inspired and spirited dialogue. The music flows as one complete piece with several movements or sections. This music exists on its own terms reflecting the …
Roads
Ted Byrnes is a drummer/percussionist living in Los Angeles. An alumnus of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, he comes from a jazz background and has since made his home in the worlds of free improvisation, new music, electro-acoustic music, and noise. Ted primarily works in ad hoc improvisational settings, but has long standing improvisational groups including duos with Jeff Parker, Chris Cooper, Charlie Mumma, Sam McKinlay, William Hutson, and a trio with Jacob Wick and Michael Foster…
Danza Del Piri-Piri
On his third album Comité Hypnotisé let you belly flop into his eleven chambers of the ‘Danza Del Piri-Piri: expanding the feral and contagious universe he started to build a lifetime ago. Levitating and shimmering a glistering way through deep old skool 70’s sitar vibes and jitterbug grooves. This boogieman aka the Millionaire-mind and and part of the Evil Superstars has carved some hot smoked out bass and organ flared cuts on wax, ready to never leave you again. Whether it is with woodchopped …
Mesmerizer
Going past musical genres and instead straight towards something more elemental - Selvhenter’s music creates a strikingly direct, physical experience of sound composed of polyrhythms, acoustic and electric melodies, heavy music and improvised beauty. Since forming in Copenhagen in 2010, drummers Jaleh Negari and Anja Jacobsen, saxophonist Sonja LaBianca and trombonist Maria Bertel have forged a unique approach to making music that starts with their instrumental setup: two drummers that interlock…
22 / 23
Gerald Cleaver’s newest album, 22/23, journeys through genre, exploring the future and recalling history, in his most place-based album yet. Born and raised in Detroit, Cleaver is a product of the Motor City’s rich musical history. Long the manufacturing capital of America, Detroit citizens have never been afraid of imagination: technological innovation, a strong labor movement, techno-utopianism or afrofuturism. This spirit of innovation is felt on Cleaver’s newest album, particularly on songs …
Music for Counterflows
For the 2021 online edition of the Counterflows festival, Glasgow-based Kay Logan (aka Helena Celle) created the hour-long electronic Music for Counterflows, accompanied by an interview with Stewart Smith. For the CD and digital release, the music has been mastered by Stephan Mathieu, and the interview along with visual artwork by Kay are included in a 20 page booklet. The first Helena Celle album, If I Can’t Handle Me At My Best, You Don’t Deserve You At Your Worst, was released on the Night Sc…
Top Natural Drum
Following releases on West Mineral and Lillerne Tapes, Iggy Romeu’s inimitable Mister Water Wet project makes its Soda Gong debut. “Top Natural Drum” feels like a double entendre ode to digging culture, drawing equally from the plantlife in the dirt and the grooves in the stacks. Tracks like opener “Soak” concoct a haze of resonant ceramic/wooden percs, skittering drum programming, and addictive yet diffuse melodic and harmonic textures. Dusty-fingered nodders like “Caged at Last”, “Classicfit,”…
¡Ay!
Tip! Lucrecia Dalt channels innate sensory echoes of growing up in Colombia on her new album ¡Ay!, where traditional instrumentation encounters adventurous impulse and sci-fi meditations on atemporality in an exclamation of liminal delight. Dalt’s introspective approach to composition, last surfaced on her entrancing 2020 album No era sólida, refracts across ¡Ay! in a subconscious spectrum of the music genres she absorbed as a child. Treasured sounds and syncopations of bolero, mambo, salsa, and…