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Visions de l\'Amen
Last things and Christian visions: György Kurtág's reflections on Heinrich Schütz, and Olivier Messiaen in search of the "Amen."
Oboe plus
Right at the start we are welcomed by Le sexe du noyé by Walter Feldmann, which (besides requiring exceptional technical skill) keeps a tight rein on the oboist, even as far as inhaling and minute movements are concerned. But Matthias Arter does not play the oboe only but also other members of the customary concert instrument's family, like the musette (sopranino oboe) he uses in the last part of his own composition Changes. And he has a lot more to offer even than a great variety of different p…
Natura renovatur
Giacinto Scelsi (1905-88) has featured prominently in my music writing life for a decade and a half, ever since I wrote Discovering Scelsi on my first computer for Piano Journal (Oct. 1986), one of the first UK articles about this fascinating and elusive composer.There are particular reasons why the Scelsi CD in the latest, indispensable batch from Kairos prompted a trawl of my files. Scelsi applauded my analysis of his piano music and we had a cordial correspondence, after which I met him tw…
Musica Viva 02
Musica Viva 02: Space and sound, modernism and pluralism, "perfect harmony" and, finally, the fascination of collectively organized fireflies.
Carliol
'John Butcher: tenor or soprano saxophones - plus feedback, motors, embedded harp speaker. Rhodri Davies: pedal harp, lever harp with embedded speaker and electric harp, aeolian electric harp. John Butcher is one of the leading sax players on the free improvisation scene. Rhodri Davies transcends conventional ideas about the harp--an instrument rarely associated with improvised music--in his wide-ranging projects. The two British musicians have worked together in a variety of contexts sin…
Käärmeenkääntöpiiri
Perhaps this collaboration was destined to happen, and we’re overjoyed that it is happening here! Tampere, Finland’s Uton (Jani Hirvonen) and Taranto, Italy’s Valerio Cosi (who is ½ of Pulga after all) are two of the most creative and most prolific musicians working in experimental music at the moment, and on Käärmeenkääntopiiri, Uton and Valerio have mastered a sound that combines elements of psychedelia, free jazz, krautrock, environmental sounds, drones and more for an ecstatic listening expe…
The Sapphire Nature
2002 release ** "One of the world's premier noise percussionists and a learned scholar of Kabbalah, Torah and Talmud, Z'ev has been a vital force in the downtown scene since the late 1970s. In addition to his collaborations with Glenn Branca, Rudolph Grey and his fascinating solo work, Z'ev is also a prolific writer and musical thinker. He has written on subjects ranging from music composition, ritual performance and has also translated several esoteric Tibetan and Hebrew texts into English. His…
Orchestral Works & Chamber Music
Music and the freedom of art: Wolfgang Rihm's aim is not to produce empty sound structures but to hit the bull's eye with direct and unexpected force.
Intimate rituals
This Romanian-born composer is noted for having developed the technique of 'spectral composition' during the 1960s. According to the man himself, this is defined as a "variable distribution of the spectral energy, synthesis of the global sound sources, micro- and macro-form as sound-process, four simultaneous layers of perception and of speed, and spectral scordaturae, i.e. rows of unequal intervals corresponding to harmonic scales." If you're any the wiser as to what he's on about do drop us a …
THIS PLACE IS DREAMING
An attempt to convert Brussels' sonic reality into music. Mutated environmental sound materials gathered in Brussels, remixes of interviews with inhabitants and extracts of installations are flanked with atmospheric compositions made with sounds from other cities and countries.
Bryant park Moratorium Rally
An October afternoon in 1969. Midtown Manhattan. A rally in Bryant Park against the Vietnam War. Down 42nd Street towards Times Square, Tony Conrad is adjusting microphones in his 5th floor loft, one directed at the TV set -- where it will pick up live local news coverage -- the other pointing out the window, where the echo of speeches and crowd noise mingles with the oceanic rush of crosstown traffic. As the event is about to begin, he rolls tape. Thirty-four years later, we hear what he heard.…
The Disintegration Loops IV
And then, the man remained alone with more doubts than ever before. Music had flown through the years, the tapes definitively gone. IV draws the final line in this groundbreaking 'disintegration' cycle and it does it with a high grade of acute intensity and a totally developed loop aesthetic...moreover, the final track is sort of a reprise of the first segment in I, like putting an end to a whole giant texture. Basinski's repetitions are truly addictive; I could listen for days, each repe…
Qvaris
Their first label release in many years & represents their most polished work to date. One of the most enigmatic, mysterious, & defiantly anti-commercial groups to emerge from the NYC loft scene during the '90s. Incorporating elements of folk, drone, psychedelia, free jazz, noise, & just about everything else, NNCK has nevertheless carved out a distinctive sound despite the seemingly random component elements.
Hibernum
Exclusive work by Italian noise legend Maurizio Bianchi.A marginal division of the whole existence in four palpable seasons, marked by pestilential changes in emotional hemisphere. At the end, the hibernating organisms organize a reproducing molecule of environmental for a silent "hybernum".‘Hibernum’ contains 3 lengthy, slowly shifting atmospheres for private meditation.
Or
After the pruitt igoe e.p, kangding ray returns with his third album for raster-noton, pushing further his explorations on the edge of digital and analog sounds. With or, kangding ray continues to blur the borders between experimental and bass music, and brings his signature sound to another level, somewhere at the darkest fringe of club culture. With the massive metallic beats of « athem », the frightening distorded waves of « mojave », the elevated groove of « odd sympathy », the modulated gui…
Sooner or later
Long out of print, now reissued in limited edition metal boxes by Bob himself,Sooner or Later is a powerful piece (for sampler) derived from the sounds of a Salvadorian boy burying his father: a shovel striking rock, a voice, a buzzing fly. Some guitar sounds by Fred Frith are added in part two. This tells only of the sources; what Bob does with them is compelling and hypnotic.categories CC, SAPT, EL, C
Pléiades
Featured works: "Pléiades" and Psappha." Performed by Kroumata Percussion Ensemble; Gert Mortensen, percussion. "Xenakis has been very interested in percussion music -- ever since his orchestral piece 'Terretektorh (1966) in which the instrumental forces are spread throughout the hall, by way of 'Psappha' (1975) for a lone percussion virtuoso all the way to 'Pléiades' (1979) for six percussionists -- perhaps the largest composition in the entire percussion repertoire, and the most daring …
Einem Luftigen Akustischen Kosmos Entgegen
Collaboration performance by this two infamous german visual artists, writers & sound-poets, recorded at Lyrik-Kabinett München, June 1991. This is Carlfriedrich Claus' only sound-collaboration ever. Both artists prepared a 60-minute backing-tape and wrote a detailled score for live-performed poetry and voice-operations. In addition to these fixed compositions they left room for spontaneous improvisation and the use of small cymbals ('tschinkas'). This is like nothing else. Very serious, …
33 RPM: 10 Hours Of Sound From France
An exhibition companion compilation to SFMOMA's 2003 listening room program 33 RPM: 10 Hours of Sound From France, curated by Laurent Dailleau. 33 RPM's Compact Disc companion features compositions from Kasper Toeplitz, Kristoff K. Roll, Jean-Claude Risset, Lionel Marchetti, Christophe Havel, Laurent Dailleau, Mathieu Chamagne, pizMO, Jean-Philippe Gross, and Mimetic. Comes with a 24 page booklet and original program details.