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Cloud
restocked: The four gentlemen of the guitar are: Keith Rowe guitar, electronics. Oren Ambarchi guitar, electronics. Christian Fennesz guitar, computer. Toshimaru Nakamura no-input mixing board. 'Keith Rowe, Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz and Toshimaru Nakamura are four of the most prominent and influential musicians in experimental music today, each with extensive discographies and distinctive styles. In mid-2004, they formed the Four Gentlemen of the Guitar (4g), and played a series of shows …
Aso
Ami Yoshida and Christof Kurzmann are both well-respected artists within the international community, each performing in a wide range of contexts from abstract to pure pop. Both are best known for their long-running duos, Yoshida for Cosmos (with Sachiko M) and Kurzmann for schnee (with Burkhard Stangl). This project finds them in far less comfortable territory, and a s o is the outcome of two years of hard work.Ami Yoshida strives to create a pure sound, abstracting her voice until it becomes a…
do
A groundbreaking release from two youngish Japanese improvisers. Sachiko M plays sample-less sampler, and Nakamura uses the no-input mixing board--both instruments which conceptually produce no sound, yet these two conjure it out, somehow."Do" was recorded live in Europe and Tokyo last summer, and features three improvisations varying in length from just over two minutes to slightly under 40. While the shorter tracks are worthwhile and hold moments of greatness, it is the first, very long track …
Right after
Right After is a remarkably subtle album of duo electronics by two relatively young Italians with roots in avant-garde improvisation. While Giuseppe Ielasi began his career as a guitarist and Domenico Sciajno was an improvising bassist of note, both gradually moved into the area of pure electronics and sound manipulation. A fine balance of pristine, crystalline sounds and earthy scrabbling noises is shown from the first track, ²at a greater distance² which offsets pinging, high pitched tones tha…
Looking Around
Christian Wolff, prepared piano, whistles, stones. Michael Pisaro, electric guitar, harmonica, stones. Recorded in 2014. Chistian Wolff (1934), American composer of avant-garde music. Michael Pisaro (1961), guitarist andcomposer, member of Wandelweiser. The album was mastered by Joe Panzner and designed by Yuko Zama
Bits, bots and signs
Ever since Otomo got into his minimal misuse of stereo equipment phase, a collaboration with Swiss toaster torturers Voice Crack was on the cards. Although Otomo's refraction of high end sinewaves around cranial interiors may not seem like an ideal partner for Norbert Mšslang and Andy Guhl's usual industrial clang, attempts have obviously been made to find a common ground. There's an intense focus upon the fine detail of the unfolding electronic fields, with the Swiss duo providing a constantly …
The Actress
Erstwhile presents The Actress, Vanessa Rossetto's solo album. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, designed by Matthew Revert. Double CD, six-panel digipak.
2 seconds / b minor / wave
Michael Pisaro and Taku Sugimoto are not generally closely associated, but have quite a bit in common. Both are composers whose primary instrument is the guitar, both have close ties to the Wandelweiser collective (Pisaro is a longtime member), and both have pursued their unique paths without much concern as to how the rest of the world will perceive them. 2 seconds/b minor/wave marks their first collaboration, but these aesthetic overlaps allow their independently conceived recorded parts to fi…
Imaoto
Since the early nineties, Vienna-based Radu Malfatti has been investigating the edges of ultraminimalism in both his composed and improvised work. On Imaoto, he is joined by empathetic explorer Klaus Filip to create an instant classic. Malfatti and Filip have performed a handful of duo concerts over the years, with the first in 2003. In 2006, they played a remarkable set in Maria Chavez's Houndstooth store in NYC, a very memorable show for the couple of dozen listeners in attendance as well as f…
The Room Extended
"I first noticed the tremor in Keith Rowe's right hand on a visit to his home in Vallet in the summer of 2014. Presumably it had existed for some time although while I was in Paris (from February 2013) we saw Keith several times a year and I hadn't picked up anything before. When I returned to Vallet in November for two concerts in honor of Christian Wolff's 80th birthday, Wolff at one point asked him directly about the shaking and Keith replied that they were having examinations but it might we…
Contact
Keith Rowe (guitar, electronics) and Sachiko M (sine wave, contact microphone). Recorded by Taku Unami at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo on september 21 and september 23, 2008. Mixed by Taku Unami. Mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura.
Soba To Bara
Free improvisation has rarely seen significant new movements as influential as the small group of Tokyo musicians once labeled as "onkyo", who have now been a primary driving force in contemporary improvisation for a full decade. Over that decade, these musicians have been responsible for some of the strongest and most radical work on Erstwhile, and Soba To Bara sits firmly in that lineage.Ami Yoshida strives to create a pure sound, abstracting her voice until it becomes almost completely unreco…
Motubachii
'Throughout their careers, both Annette krebs and taku unami have explored the areas between composition and improvisation, innovation and repetition, music and ambient sound. On motubachii, their distinctive styles come together to form a whole that is monolithic yet widely varied, simple yet impossible to fully grasp. Annette krebs studied music and concert guitar in Frankfurt-Main, and has lived in Berlin since 1993. She has worked intensively in the crossover area between improvisation and c…
bot box boxes
"After several years of not doing anything since Erstwhile first asked me to do a solo album, I suddenly had the idea to record it last week and it was released within a week or so. I know some of you are thinking "Anyone can do this...", but in the DIY spirit of doing what anyone can do with what anyone can get, and without any special skills or funds, I tackled improvisation head on, using mostly newspapers and cardboard boxes, which turned out to be this triple CD set." - Taku Unami
"For the…
Twice
** Six-panel digipak, photos by Yan Jun/Zhu Wenbo, design by Yuko Zama ** Erstwhile Records presents Twice by Yan Jun and Zhu Wenbo. Yan Jun: recorded in Beijing, Feb 2021. Zhu Wenbo: recorded in Qingdao and Beijing, Sept 2020 - Feb 2021. Photos/image scans by Yan Jun/Zhu Wenbo. Design by Yuko Zama. Produced by Jon Abbey.
Community
Erstwhile is proud to announce the release of Community, the new solo release by Graham Lambkin, his fifth solo record, following 2011’s Amateur Doubles. “Community is a music steeped in sociological review. It sits as a keen barometer, taking the temperature of the world around it. Community is both willing servant and social mirror - it performs its basic civic duty without fuss, then shatters.” (José Perez)
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and designed by Lambkin, Community arrives in a delux…
Photographs
Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet stand side by side in the vanguard of contemporary sound exploration. Since the initiation of their collaborative endeavors in 2006, the duo have crafted a nice combination of audio vérité and musique concrète, together building a highly personal body of work. 2008's critically acclaimed The Breadwinner illuminated the artistic potential found in mundane and commonplace circumstances. 2010's Air Supply showcased a darker side, nudging the civilian themes of it…
Touching
"Erstaeu 003 is, at once, the most "traditional" of the first three releases and, perhaps because of that, the most difficult to approach, at least for this listener. My previous experience with Graham Stephenson's work (I think this is my first exposure to Aaron Zarzutzki) has often followed the pattern of initial opaqueness followed by gradual transparency, eventually resulting in enjoyment and appreciation. I say "traditional" a bit tongue in cheek, although the set here, trumpet and electron…
Detour
A stunning construction and a fantastic recording, seemingly endless layers of depth and ways to listen. A composition using field recordings by Toshiya Tsunoda and Manfred Werder, recorded in Japan in 2013. A bit past the 40-minute mark, there's a clear fade-out of the activity above and a shift into a different zone--perhaps it's simply going from the Miura Peninsula into Tokyo (the detour?). A strong, somewhat harsh electrical buzz is the main element, sounding like an exposed wire-box on…
Gondolas
Erstwhile Records announces ’Gondolas‘ by Graham Lambkin and James Rushford. Two very unique voices, two hours of sonic magic.