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A Mineral Compound: Fountain Of Youth is an expansive compilation released on Light Sounds Dark, renowned for unearthing the obscure corners of experimental music. This 3LP set ventures deep into a shadowy sonic world, fusing DIY electronics, avant-noise, post-punk, ambient, industrial, and classical influences. Listeners are enveloped in nearly two hours of dense, faceless murk curated from Light Sounds Dark’s mysterious vaults—a journey through dank, musty soundscapes shaped by private-press o…
First-time vinyl reissue is limited to 750 numbered copies. Comes with booklet. Terry Fox was a first generation Bay Area conceptual artist. Beginning in the 1970s, he worked extensively with sound, especially the use of piano wires detached from their native instrument and anchored between opposing walls of the performance space. Linkage, Fox's first album, was originally released in 1982 to accompany an installation at Kunstmuseum Luzern in Switzerland. The record would mark Fox's first attemp…
Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex – a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall – have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. Blueprints For A Blackout, The Ex's fifth album and first double LP, combines caustic studio experimentations and loose songs from their gripping live-set at the time. The band…
Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex – a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall – have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. On 1985's Pokkeherrie (Dutch for "terrible noise"), The Ex return to the more stripped-down instrumentation on their early LPs. A key lineup change would also see the arrival o…
In 1977 an obscure Italian private label issued a record that sounded like it came from outer space. A long and dense trance-inducing drone of sustained notes, rich with overtones and harmonic embellishments, coming from a space so vast and unexplored that seemed almost of non-human, even electronic nature
Fluence is the brainchild and first release of sound artist / provocateur Pascal Comelade. Recorded in Montpellier, France in 1974-1975, the project consists of exploratory electronic pieces in the Fripp & Eno vernacular with a Kosmische tinge. 'A Few Reasons To Stay / A Few Reasons To Split,' a title inspired by Swiss conceptual artist Urs Lüthi, features Comelade's kaleidoscopic arpeggios and Richard Pinhas' howling guitar, which variously resembles a dreamlike cello and ghostly human moans. '…
Ike Yard remain a legendary band of early '80s New York City – at once immensely influential, yet obscured by a far-too-brief initial phase. Their debut EP, the dark and absorbing Night After Night, sounds almost like a different group, so rapidly would Ike Yard evolve towards the calmly menacing electro throb of their self-titled LP. Originally released on Factory in 1982, the album put Ike Yard's indelible mark on the synth-driven experimental rock scene then emerging all over the planet. Whi…
Francesco Messina is perhaps best known for his collaboration with fellow composer Raul Lovisoni on the album Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo, originally released on seminal Italian label Cramps in 1979. Along with contemporaries Franco Battiato, Juri Camisasca and Giusto Pio, Messina would help reshape the world of modern composition with an organic rawness and haunting beauty.In 1979, Messina was asked to perform at the Teatro Quartiere in Milan. As the composer writes in the liner notes, "Due…
David Cunningham was born in Ireland in 1954. His work ranges from pop music to gallery installations including several collaborations with visual artists. His first significant commercial success came with The Flying Lizards' single "Money," an international hit in 1979.
Originally released in 1976, Cunningham's first solo album Grey Scale has become a landmark statement of DIY minimalist composition – continuing in the vein of the wild explosion of arthouse experimentation from the early '70s.…
In the early 90s there were a few like minded friends making a unique style of lo-fi pop music. At the core of this non-scene were Sukpatch, Land of the Loops and The Ah Club, who all tended to play on each other's recordings. As the decade went on each of them learned how to use their instruments better, smoothing over the edges, but in typical fashion, the early home recordings had a special feeling that couldn’t be replicated with cleaner fidelity and nicer equipment. Sukpatch especially were…
In 1969 both Anthony Moore and David Larcher were at the start of their respective careers and both were inspired by the ideas of the avant garde and the new technologies becoming available to them. David experimented with the various techniques being explored in the medium of film making and Anthony tested the limits of what could be done with tape recorders. It was an open and co-operative exploration. The results of their first collaboration was the film Mare’s Tail - an unusually long 2:30 h…
Huge Tip! A true exploration in spiritual jazz that follows Work Money Death's acclaimed previous albums, with pianist Richard Ormrod, bassist Neil Innes and drummer Sam Hobbs creating a powerful trio foundation for Tony Burkill's soulful tenor saxophone. Blending influences from Indian ragas to African rhythms, its intricate layersiharmonium, congas, trilling fluteibring warmth and depth to tracks like 'Headwaters Of The Soul' and 'The Fast Flowing River.' Spiritual jazz at its most immersive a…
2025 Stock. A true exploration in spiritual jazz that follows A transcendental journey that takes in meditative musical mantras, sprawling tenor sax improvisation and mesmeric percussion, the new album by Work Money Death (the group that backed ATA artist Tony Burkill on his 2017 debut record of the same name) seeks to reinterpret the sound of artists such as Pharoah Sanders & Alice Coltrane over two tracks: the brooding tension of A-Side “Dusk” and the sanguine & uplifting “Dawn” on the B-Side.…
Taking a short sabbatical from their journey into the spiritual stratosphere and beyond, Work Money Death landed on terra firma just long enough to record a follow up to the critically acclaimed “The Space In Which The Uncontrollable Unknown Resides Can Be The Place From Which Creation Arises”. The new album “Thought, Action, Reaction, Interaction” explores many of the meditative motifs that mould this unique group in their quest for the perfect sound and space. Those who are familiar with Work …
Black Vinyl Edition. Wümme, Lower Saxony. 1972. A converted schoolhouse. Inside: a tangle of cables, reel-to-reel machines, custom electronics soldered together by hands that refused manuals. This was not a professional recording studio. This was Faust's laboratory—and So Far was the experiment that proved you could rewire rock music's circuitry without killing the patient. Six months earlier, Faust had released their self-titled debut—a savage dismantling of what a rock album could be. Tape edi…
Light Sounds Dark proudly presents Construction of a Planet, a visionary sonic journey that challenges the boundaries of experimental sound and ambient exploration. Conceived as a transmission from otherworldly dimensions, this release unfolds like the blueprint of an imagined cosmos—layer by layer, texture by texture. Drawing upon an eclectic range of influences, Construction of a Planet is not merely an album—it is an immersive experience. Across its evolving structures, listeners are invited …
"This is special for me. Evan Parker and Paul Rogers have given their permission for this release. I asked Evan if he would write some notes but he wants me to do it – my memory of the gig. That was 33 years ago (1992), so I don’t remember much. It was at the old Vortex on Stoke Newington Church Street; I must have been sitting with Candy on a little table in front of the low stage. A Marantz cassette recorder in front of me and a cheap mic stand with a single stereo mic in front of that. The ma…
In 1980 Bobby Wellins was commissioned to write a suite of music, which he called ‘The Endangered Species’ because, in his words: “Some years ago there was an oil spillage which washed ashore in Bognar Regis where I live. The guillemots were being pulled out in a dreadful state. One reads about such things, but to see for oneself a bird's life being taken away from it is quite horrific. Their lives are short enough anyway. It brought home to me very directly the damage we are inflicting on ourse…