James Rushford
Members: Ora Clementi
Turzets
The latest in a prolific string of solo and collaborative releases by James Rushford, Turzets collects a pair of new works primarily created and recorded last year while the Australian composer-performer was in residence at La Becque, an art center on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The side-length piece “Fallaway Whisk” explores hesitation in its many forms—reticence of speech, sonic restraint—using live, abstracted translations of text from English to German against a lush and swelling soundscape.…
Gondolas
Erstwhile Records announces ’Gondolas‘ by Graham Lambkin and James Rushford. Two very unique voices, two hours of sonic magic.
Block Gifts
*300 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Block Gifts is a collection of three works for organs composed by James Rushford between 2015 and 2018. Using harmonium, portative organ and electric organ, each piece is linked by Rushford’s idiosyncratic combination of strict intervallic systems in different tunings (Werckmeister, quarter-tone, equal temperament), and haptically-informed rhythmic and expressive freedom. Creaks, stutters and sweeping fingers on keys become instrumental sounds…
Sylva Sylvarum
Black Truffle is pleased to present Sylva Sylvarum, an epic new work from Ora Clementi, the collaborative project of crys cole and James Rushford. Primarily conceived and recorded over several months together in Melbourne, Sylva Sylvarum is a stunning step forward from the mumbled, creaking sound world of the duo’s debut, Cover You Will Softer Me (Penultimate Press, 2014). From the opening ‘Peach of Immortality’, which takes an unpredictable journey from layers of chiming bells, vocal harmonies …
Lake from the Louvers
** 140g black vinyl hosued in printed inner and outer sleeves with gloass varnish ** Lake from the Louvers is a new solo work for concrete sounds, electronics and instruments from Australian composer-performer James Rushford, who has spent the last fifteen years honing his singular approach to composition and performance through solo works and collaborations with artists such as Oren Ambarchi, Crys Cole, Will Guthrie, Graham Lambkin and Klaus Lang. Created primarily during a stay at the La Becqu…
Real Real World
Real Real World is the first collaborative effort from Nantes-based Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie and Australian keyboardist/composer James Rushford. Primarily recorded in a fluid, spontaneous studio session in Nantes, with overdubs added later in Melbourne and Nantes, Real Real World presents five spacious, unhurried pieces that inhabit a unique sound world characterised by wheezing, half-voiced organ chords, chiming metal percussion, and eruptions of small sounds. Beginning wit…
Música Callada / See the Welter
The imagery of musical forms emptied of earthly meaning, of solitude, and of a connection to the divine were irresistible to Federico Mompou. A desire to be alone had shaped Mompou’s early musical direction: as natural shyness ended his ambitions to be piano virtuoso, after studies at the Paris Conservatoire he turned to composition instead. His approach remained introspective – far removed from the overt and public expressions of the avant-garde, both before and after the Second World War – and…
Afternoon-Dusk
**300 copies** "Ned Collette's last album, the 2LP set Old Chestnut, was hailed as a masterpiece by almost everyone who heard it. Part of this was due to the darkly delicate lyrics and vocals of Ned himself (akin to the work of Graeme Jefferies, ca. This Kind of Punishment), but much was also due to the elegant lyricism of the music, which had a fantastic prog / folk heft as impossible to peg as it was to ignore. With this new LP, Collette (an Australian ex-pat, now based in Berlin) goes all-ins…
The Body's Night
Black Truffle announce the release of Australian composer-performer James Rushford's The Body's Night. Known to many through his collaborative works with Oren Ambarchi, crys cole, Kassel Jaeger, Klaus Lang, Joe Talia, and many others, this LP is Rushford's first solo release in a decade and the very first he has composed, performed, and recorded entirely alone. Primarily recorded in Los Angeles in 2017, The Body's Night is a single electro-acoustic suite stretching over thirty minutes, utilizing…
Face Time
Face Time is the second release from the trio of Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger, and James Rushford, following on from their 2016 debut Pale Calling (BT 020LP). Recorded at the GRM studios in Paris in June 2017, the record immediately returns to the idiosyncratic sound-world of the trio's first release, a simmering stew of electronic smears, pitched-down animal moans, and mysteriously emotive microtonal organ chords. But before long the record takes an unexpected turn, as sounds that initially ent…
Pale Calling
**restocked** Pale Calling presents the fruits of the first collaboration between Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger and James Rushford, recorded at GRM studios, Paris in 2014. Although drawing on aspects of each member's solo works, the trio mark out their own unique territory, a mysterious space of slowly cycling electronics, distracted vocal mumbles and often unidentifiable field recordings. These two side-long pieces are composed of distinct layers that gently rise up and recede, obeying a dream-l…
Cover You Will Soften Me
Ora Clementi is the pen name of Canadian sound artist and improvisor Crys Cole and Australian performer and composer James Rushford. crys has previously collaborated with Keith Rowe and Oren Ambarchi (Bocian records) whilst James worked alongside Joe Talia on the highly acclaimed 'Manhunter' LP (Kye). Penultimate Press is proud to unveil this duo's new hermetic world of sound, song and speech. Employing farfisa, contact mics, percussion, viola, recordings of James' pet chickens, ocarinas, pia…
Manhunter
Manhunter is the brand new LP by Australia's James Rushford and Joe Talia. The duo's previous work, Palisades (2009) and Paper Fault Line (2011), showcased a gestural and timbrally rich music, bristling with keen detail and sharp edits. Manhunter stands in stark contrast - an ebbing two-part suite for waning greyscale electronics, dehumanized drum machine, amorphous vocal fragments, and sundry devices, woven together in a fabric of despair. The exquisite bleakness of Manhunter ties it to La M…
Wreckage
Wreckage is a collaborative work between Australian composers Oren Ambarchi and James Rushford. Cycling through a set of asymmetrical harmonic and rhythmic patterns, the composition is a study in displacement. The material, though repetitive, shifts itself in unpredictable ways to create an amorphous, and extremely delicate, sonic world. Wreckage draws upon both avant-garde and avant pop sensibilities, influenced by a variety of artists including Morton Feldman, Luciano Cilio and Luigi Non…
Paper Fault Line
James Rushford and Joe Talia are two of the most exciting musicians active in the Australian experimental scene, engaged in major collaborative projects with figures such as Jon Rose and Oren Ambarchi. On Paper Fault Line, they use strategies from contemporary composition, improvisation and electro-acoustics to create a sensuous and approachable, yet subtly disturbing, 30-minute suite. Eschewing the homogenized sound palette and dynamic conventions of post-GRM musique concrete, the record is str…
Vellus
Incorporating wildly coloured orchestrations and unusual performance actions, set against intense monochromes of noises and whispers, Vellus is a collection of chamber works that obsessively deals with the privacy of ritual, memory and the self. Diverse takes on instrumental concrète by this young Australian composer. 'Lucas Stumbles' (2007) for percussion (Eugene Ughettti, Greg Sully, Mathias Schack-Arnott, Anna Webb) and electronics (James Rushford). 'Respite in the Woodland' (2007) with Aviva…