Sound Art / Avant-Garde

THEY SAID! simmers, boils and simmers again on the 1981 solo vocal composition Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc. Language, listening and voice are at the core of the essay. As is the relationship between Julius Eastman and Joan d’Arc which, as readers, we’re invited not to divide into two individual histories but encouraged to consider a singular position which both figures may have inhabited across distances. The essay opens with an exclamation mark which weaves through the text, aliv…

”Music From The Soil, Music For Everyone"

In 1982, Bill Fontana mounted a monumental outdoor sound installation called Landscape Sculpture with Fog Horns that would near-impossible to realize today. Live audio feeds from eight foghorns around the San Francisco Bay were routed to a central listening arena on city’s waterfront at Fort Mason. As a pioneer in the developing field of Sound Art, Fontana’s fusion of sound and sculpture was virtually unheard of, much less on the region-encompassing scale that he was working with for Landscape S…

*2024 stock* This 7-inch record contains two audio adaptations by Josie Perry of her performances 'Retainers' and 'Toy Shop'. Josie is based in Glasgow and works mainly between drawing, sculpture, performance and publishing. The performances connected to this vinyl were part of a series made between 2019-20 involving absurd narration, audio loops and suggestive props. 'Beautifully Formed' is a short extract from the longer piece 'Retainers', while 'Toy Shop' uses the full transcript. Both works …

** 500 copies** Die Tödliche Doris was born out of West Berlin’s lively post-punk community in the early ‘80s. Along with Einstürzende Neubauten, Malaria, Sprung Aus Den Wolken and Frieder Butzmann, Die Tödliche Doris ranks amongst the Geniale Dilletanten – which roughly translates as “ingenious dilettantes” – who sought to democratize cultural productions beyond the grip of both Western capitalism and GDR socialism. The Geniale Dilletanten became synonymous with a free-for-all approach to music…

*2024 stock* Anthology of Cage's "protominimalist" compositions, from "Prelude for meditation" of 1944 to 1952, the year of the silent piece 4'33". In between beautiful and magical pages such as "In a landscape" and "A room"... Performers Boris Berman, Paul Hillier, Juan Hidalgo and others.

"Maggot Brain is a full-color, quarterly magazine edited by noted Detroit scribe Mike McGonigal: 100+ pages packed with phenomenal content -- art, music, literature, unpublished archival material, and more -- with a simple promise to only exist on the printed page. Cover story: Why feminist punk pioneers the Raincoats still matter. Unseen, amazing photos of AC/DC from their first US tour in 1977. Celebrated indie auteur filmmaker Jim Jarmusch's playful newspaper collages -- great interview plus …

Efficient Space publication Enthusiasms revives with Issue #03. 92 pages covering Ao-tearoa DIY folk proliferator Maxine Funke, the vocal magick of Cucina Povera, Australian devotional jazz mystery Singing Dust, Osaka portal EM Records, unsung dub specialist Sheriff Lindo and the living practice of e fishpool. View post-punk trailblazers through the lens of Rotterdam polaroid photographer Peter Graute, while Swiss artist Elise Gagnebin-de Bons exhibits her series of collages purposed for Ghost R…

The cover story is a multi-part Prince feature with reprints of rare writings by the great writers Ann Powers, Michael A. Gonzales, and Greil Marcus. Plus, also too: Mary Lattimore -- the great LA-based harpist interviewed by RJ Smith. Audrey Golden's Thought I Heard You Speak book on the role of women in Factory Records is celebrated with an interview by Jessica Beard. Negativland -- amazing huge very very in-depth feature on the whole 'Helter Stupid' debacle -- strap on in for this one, by Cor…

Cover boy Harry Smith shines thanks to a cheeky, never-before published photo by Allen Ginsberg. We celebrate the life and work of the self-described 'ethnopharmacologist' just in time for the release of John Szwed's illuminating biography and Smith's first one-person art exhibition, at the Whitney, with three killer, well-illustrated features (on his Anthology of American Folk Music, an interview by Marc Masters with Szwed, and a terrific dive into Smith's relationship with fellow visual artist…

Tip! *25 copies limited release* Xing presents the new LP Livre d'images sans images by Mette Edvardsen & Iben Edvardsen, tenth release of XONG collection - artist records. The release is on white vinyl, in a limited numbered edition of 300 copies. The collector's edition consists of 25 copies accompanied by a unique poster, hand drawn with black marker by the two artists, mother and daughter, folded like a map, echoing the activity of the performance. Livre d'images sans images by Mette Edvards…

*50 copies limited edition* Conceived as a widespread configuration of onomatopoeic fantasies, inaugurated in New York in early 2023, «gggglllloooossssaaaa» probes the realms of voice and sound and their role as catalysts of untamed narratives. On this occasion, it materialises as a 90-minute polyphony of voices on the verge of becoming "spatial (dis)orientation device(s)” - a sonic self-portrait summoning inner densities and latencies.

*2023 stock* The New York loft jazz scene of the 1970s was a pivotal period for uncompromising, artist-produced work. Faced with a flagging jazz economy, a group of young avant-garde improvisers chose to eschew the commercial sphere and develop alternative venues in the abandoned factories and warehouses of Lower Manhattan. Loft Jazz provides the first book-length study of this period, tracing its history amid a series of overlapping discourses surrounding collectivism, urban renewal, experiment…

"On The Cover: Amazing unseen image of Bikini Kill live at CBGB in 1990, by Mike Galinsky, with accompanying lengthy photo essay exploring indie-rock in the early 1990s, including behind-the-scenes, unpublished black-and-white film images of Sonic Youth, Unwound, Mary Timony, Sleepyhead, Half Japanese, and more. Columns: Luc Sante's ridiculously good 'Pinakothek' column where he goes off on one image; John Colpits AKA Kid Millions on Miles Cooper Seaton (RIP); The forgotten brilliance of bluesy …

On the cover: This issue is dedicated to the memory of astral traveling saxophone colossus Pharoah Sanders, with a tremendous evaluation of his most important work by the great music writer Andy Beta as the cover feature, rare images by Leni Sinclair, and a brief remembrance by film director Jeff Feuerzeig. Columns: Lucy Sante - New column is about her collage practice, which was unknown until recently. Unsurprisingly it's great work; Mimi Lipson - Returns with another advice column filled with …

"Maggot Brain is a full-color, quarterly magazine edited by noted Detroit scribe Mike McGonigal: 100+ pages packed with phenomenal content -- art, music, literature, unpublished archival material, and more -- with a simple promise to only exist on the printed page. Contents: Luc Sante on 'Crawdaddy' magazine; Debut publication of often hilarious and always droll memoirs by Stuart Moxham (Young Marble Giants, Gist, solo, etc); Murat Cem Mengüç' dramatic tale of when Sun Ra and the Arkestra visite…

Ira Cohen (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Ira Cohen was born to deaf parents and instead of just developing speech, began developing his vision early, learning to spell with his fingers. In 1961 he took a Yugoslavian freighter to Tangiers where he lived for four years and published Gnaoua, a magazine devoted to exorcism, introducing the work of Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs and other members of the Interzone mob. In 1970 he wen…

14 pieces originally written for dance and other practical situations, here reassigned and reconstructed for choreographer Amanda Miller and the Nederland Dans Theater. These are loop-based, textural, mood pieces, and invocations of spaces and landscapes, with some fine steel guitar playing. Mostly this is Fred multi-instrumenting, with pianist Daan Vanderwalle, percussionist Willie Wynant, the Arte Sax quartet and Lotte Anker, the Arditti Quartet, Kiku Day, occasional shakuhachi, and vio…

*2023 stock* This innovative collection of articles offers a major comprehensive overview of new developments in cultural theory as applied to Western music. Addressing a broad range of primarily twentieth-century music, the authors examine two related phenomena: musical borrowings or appropriations, and how music has been used to construct, evoke, or represent difference of a musical or a sociocultural kind. The essays scrutinize a diverse body of music and discuss a range of significant exampl…

*2023 stock* This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1961.

*2023 stock* The journal Source: Music of the Avant-garde was and remains a seminal source for materials on the heyday of experimental music and arts. Conceived in 1966 and published to 1973, it included some of the most important composers and artists of the time: John Cage, Harry Partch, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Steve Reich, and many others. A pathbreaking publication, Source documented crucial changes in performance practice an…

*50 copies limited edition* “Distant Water Exotic Landscape” is a generative audio and visual installation that explores the micro and macro perceptions of environmental cycle system through the transformational and transmittable materiality of water. It invites audience to (re-)consider the interdependencies among human, water and technology, as well as the liminal boundaries between natural and artificial environments. The installation creates an imaginary landscape on coloured paper, where th…

Between 1968 and 1971, in a loft on New York's Jefferson Street, the poet, photographer and filmmaker Ira Cohen created some of the most mythic images of the late 1960s. Inspired by his friends Jack Smith and Bill Devore, Cohen’s initial experiments with black light developed into an experimental ritual space he termed the Mylar Chamber―a simple room of hinged boards hung with reflective Mylar film. Through his extended network, and with the support of artist and set designer Robert LaVigne, Coh…

*100 copies limited edition, hand-numbered in printed box* Recital presents its first ever video edition of "Margrethe Fjorden". Produced in 1996 by Fluxus artist Eric Andersen, the citywide Intermedia event included performances from Alice Damas, Willem de Ridder, Larry Miller, and other artists from around the world. Inspired by the mysterious tale of Queen Margrethe the First (1353-1412), the multi-sensory event was comprised of three major themes: UNION, WOMAN, and FAITH. Over 4 hours of vid…

Absolute tip!  In the form of a richly illustrated compendium, Tape Leaders is an indispensable reference guide for anyone interested in electronic sound and its origins in Great Britain. For the first time a book sets out information on practically everyone active with experimental electronics and tape recording across the country, revealing the hidden history of early British electronic music. With an individual entry for each composer, starting with Daevid Allen and going through to Peter Zin…

This Life of Sounds portrays an important and previously unexplored corner of the history of new music in America: the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts int eh State University of New York at Buffalo. Composers Lukas Foss (the Center's founder), Lejaren Hiller, and Morton Feldman were the music directors over the life of "the Buffalo group," during the years 1964-1980. Based on Foss's plan, the Rockefeller Foundation provided annual fellowships for young composers and virtuoso instrumen…

In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called Minimalism. These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static harmony, focused single-mindedly on the process of gradual rhythmic change. Throughout his career, Reich has continued to reinvigorate the music world, drawing from a wide array of classical, popular, sacred, and non-western idioms. His works reflect the steady evolution of an original musical mind.W…

Xing presents the new LP Ehm by Canedicoda and Renato Grieco, seventh release of XONG collection - artist records.

Shortly after it was published in 1968 the SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas fell into my hands.  Intrigued by the egalitarian feminist principles set forth in the Manifesto, I wanted to incorporate them in the structure of a new piece that I was composing. The women's movement was surfacing and I felt the need to express my resonance with this energy. Marilyn Monroe had taken her own life.  Valerie Solanas had attempted to take the life of Andy Warhol. Both women seemed to be desperate and caug…

Another peach from the STROOM〰 label, this selection of avant-garde pop by NSRD catches the ace Belgian label looking beyond The Lowlands to one of Latvia’s most important, multi-disciplinary groups of the 1980s, sounding out a style somewhere between the slyvan, drizzly post punk of Vazz and the poetic art-pop of Lena Platonos, but with a chilly Baltic air all of its own. Circling core members Juris Boiko (1954-2002) and Hardijs Lediņš (1955-2004), NSRD or The Workshop for the Restoration of Un…

Cora Emens is a sex educator and performer based in the Netherlands. This re-issued work of experimental music was compiled in the 80s by Cora's ex-partner, Willem de Ridder (one of the founders of Fluxus) in the Netherlands from the home studio recordings of Cora. Now available in double LP form (originally released on a Radio Art Foundation cassette) with an additional bonus track 'Earplay'. This is the first time it's been re-released in any format. The original tape was mixed by Willem de Ri…

includes The Original 'Hip Manual'! Plus Beatnik-Jazz Bonus Tracks: John Coltrane - Giant Steps, Ornette Coleman - Lonely Woman Attention, Lee Morgan - Nakatini Suite and The Horace Silver Quintet - Finger Poppin'. Attention, this is one of the non-music cult obscurities that came out of nowhere during decades of music history. This 1961 released fictional dialogue between a moderator and somebody involved in the late 1950s hipster / beatnik movement in which both discuss the meaning of words an…

Sikorsky is an ambitious and highly original orchestral piece for 18 musicians — 8 clarinets, 4 drum kits, 4 double basses, trumpet and the alto sax of its composer and arranger, Danish, Copenhagen-based Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard. As on his previous release Vesper (2012), Løkkegaard is fascinated with the sound of clarinets and the sound of a closely-voiced clarinet ensemble plays a major role on his fifth release.The title of the 30-minute composition is associated with the sound of the Sikorsky h…

*2022 stock* "These two need no introduction, but "Cambridge 1969," which takes up all of side one, is a completely unheralded classic.  For twenty minutes Yoko vibratoes her way around a single note while Lennon provides terrifying power-drone feedback accompaniment.  This is the ultimate punk/metal take on La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela's Black Album (which, considering Ono & Young's history together, might be both figurative and literal).  Towards the end John Stevens and John Tchichai chi…

A truly stunning accomplishment from Unseen Worlds, building on their long-standing relationship with the late, great "Blue" Gene Tyranny, comes 'Degrees of Freedom Found', a towering 6 CD box set of material recorded between1963-2019, hand selected from the archives by the artist before his passing in 2020. Spanning countless musical forms and as ever refusing to be nailed down, it’s a visionary excursion into the irreverent world of one of the most import musical figures of the last 50 years. …

*A numbered edition of 26 copies*  Live New Departures featured some of the UK’s finest modern jazz musicians together with poets Pete Brown (co-writer/Cream) and Michael Horovitz (Britain’s Beat Laureate). Live New Departures 1960-1967 ephemera map. An A 5 envelope filled with Live New Departures ephemera. Facsimile prints of programs, selections of letters, press sheets, flyers and much more. Live New Departures was a series of poetry, folk and jazz happenings - where interaction between artis…

* 2021 Stock. Language: English * The second volume of Jonas Mekas’s autobiography I Seem to Live. The New York Diaries, 1969–2011 continues with the meticulous description of his dense life in New York’s underground art scene. It begins with the seventies, a time when the Chelsea Hotel was a central hub of creativity and a temporary home for the filmmaker and critic. In 1970, Mekas cofounded Anthology Film Archives with Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, and Stan Brakhage. Later, he b…

What you hear on Fly is Yoko Ono's disarming combination of opacity and visceral, personal transparency in full bloom. It's one of the most unbridled, most captivating soul albums ever made. And that's right where she wants you: vulnerable, wide open to any-and-everything, ready to have your world tipped onto its head. She's a master of spinning your head around. First, you get the Bar Band from Hell of "Midsummer New York" to kick things off. It's about the last thing you'd expect from O…

Michael McClure’s mysticism is vigorously scientific. Even the familiar patterned shapes of his poems remind us of the stars in the night sky and those we see when we shut our eyes. In the dancing lines of his newest work—the title poem “Antechamber” most especially—are the whirl of galaxies, the radiance of molecules, the energy lines of the double helix coiling around its core. — New Directions, 1978

Foamola is an underground musical group from New York City, consisting of Sparrow and his wife, who went by the cyber alias Violet Snow. Also in the group is artist Lawrence Fishberg and Sparrow's daughter, poet Sylvia Gorelick. Their music has been described as "folk-minimalist", and as "anti-Plutarch pop"  “Foamola is the only anti-rock band named after an herbal arthritis remedy. All our music is original, with tunes by Lawrence Fishberg (keyboard, vocals) and lyrics by Sparrow (ocarina, item…