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Split LP
Limited edition split album from two of Earth’s avant-garde super powers: Asmus Tietchens and Kouhei Matsunaga. Last summer Important released some highly praised records with Kouhei Matsunaga including a collaborative CD with Sean Booth (Autechre) and Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic), a split LP with Mika Vainio and a full length CD of his own solo work. The breath and quality of Kouhei's work was apparent across these three releases and his compositions for this split LP serve to create connections be…
Simultaneous Quodlibet
Limited pressing of 500 copies on LP: Matmos, Wobbly & J Lesser present: Simultaneous Quodlibet. These pieces originated in improvised recordings which were then taken to Snowghost Studios in Montana & overdubbed with additional instruments, synths, drums, bass and organs. They were then edited down over the course of a few months until becoming a fully realised studio album of carefully constructed and meticulously composed pieces rooted in music that could only have been performed spontaneousl…
Nihil Obstat
Gorgeous new full length from Dutch lutenist Jozef Van Wissem. Wissem's long form, graceful melodic lute layers, preceded by suspenseful deep bass movements, create a transcendental and pastoral. Wissem's is a world where hypnotic minimalist figures are repeated to slow the act of listening. Nihil Obstat (Nothing Hinders) is performed on Wissem's custom black lute built by Michael Schreiner. LP pressed in an edition of 800.
"New classical lute music that sound as if it always existed, as if it h…
Radiator
Beautiful new work from Kevin Doria (Growing). If Eliane Radigue and Kevin Drumm made a record together it might sound something like Total Life. Kevin Doria creates a sound world with deep inner dynamics shrouded by distortion. Whether you stay on the surface or listen deeply, the energy in this work is vivid. Recorded and mixed at home in the winter of 2012, RADIATOR represents the first proper full length release by Total Life for Important Records. RADIATOR is inspired by standing on the ga…
Alessandro Cortini and Merzbow
Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) and Japanese noise legend Massami Akita (Merzbow) bask in their mutual love for the EMS Synthi, a British synthesizer from the early 70's notorious for it's patch matrix, portability and distinct tone. Astonishingly, these two disparate artists meld into a single sound as they flex the analog circuitry of the EMS Synthi in new ways; giving this classic synth a modern workout and proving that, in capable hands, a 40 year old analog synthesizer is a tool for th…
Cool Cruel Mouth
"Cool Cruel Mouth" is Larsen's 9th full length studio album and marks 15 years of activity with a fine collection of textural, cinematic, haunting, nocturnal songs. Written and recorded in 2010. "Cool Cruel Mouth" finds the band as a 5 piece with the full time addition of lyricist Little Annie "Anxiety" Bandez as the official voice of Larsen. Also featured on "Cool Cruel Mouth" is inimitable Baby Dee playing piano on one of the two featured instrumentals as well as on her own composition "Unhear…
Self VA.
This is Important's third release in a 4 record Important feature on the work of the enigmaticJapanese artist Kouhei Matsunaga. Self VA is Kouhei's 2nd album. His first was released on the Mille Plateaux label in 1998. Since then he has kept busy with numerous collaboations as well as his work with NHK (Raster Noton). Kouhei seamlessly weaves all of his work together in seemingly effortless fashion. Collaborations on Self V.A. include Leif Elggren, NHK, Sensational (Jungle Brothers), RLW and mor…
Ex Patris
The title Ex Patris (from the fathers) plays on the idiomatic baroque lute compositions presented here which emulate the classical repertoire. It also refers to this almost forgotten instrument, which was passed on by the fathers. The Jozef Van Wissem's aim is to bring back and liberate the lute. The four compositions on Ex Patris form a circular narrative of interlocking repetitive melodic series. The follow up to Important release “ It is all that is made” kicks off with the pro apocalyptic tr…
In V. Tro
The album combines both the live recording of the first ever Larsen & Z'ev In V.Tro live performances with extreme aural-mixes of Larsen's In V.Tro studio sessions by Z'ev.
Larsen and Z'ev In V.tro is a soundtrack for micro-cinematic images of cellular studies captured by professors Dario Cantino and Antonio Barasa of the Istituto di Anatomia Umana Normale (Basic Human Anatomy Institute) between 1935 and 1985. Cantino and Barasa wanted to review the history and techniques of in vitro cultures as…
Mercury
CD version of the 2009 Mississippi Records release. Highly recommended to followers of the Blackshaw/Wissem line of acoustic instrumental composition that runs through the Imprec catalog. From the original notes: "Portland guitar virtuoso Marisa Anderson is back with a new set of home-recorded instrumentals. This time around we find Marisa exploring structures more based on the Appalachian folk tradition. The bluesy cadences of Marisa's other previous release -- Golden Hour -- are still the…
Melodies For A Savage Fix
Steve Gunn and Mike Gangloff (Pelt) combine six-and 12-string guitars with gongs, tanpura, singing bowls, shruti box, and banjo fora gorgeous collection of improvised compositions. The two artists took it pretty far off the beaten path for Melodies for a Savage Fix, sequestering themselves for an overnight session in the remote farmhouse/recording studio of noted roots-music engineer Joseph Dejarnette (Carolina Chocolate Drops, Bruce Greene, Curtis Eller) in the countryside of Floyd County, Virg…
KRMN
Working with the same source material, sound artists Maurizio Bianchi & Francisco Lopez create individual works produced from the impartial de-oxidation of sonorous carbon-containing modular compounds. "'KRMN-FL' and 'KRMN-MB' were both created with the same original source materials, jointly created by Maurizio Bianchi and Francisco Lopez.""Produced from the partial oxidation of carbon-containing compounds, carbon monoxide is a highly toxic gas and has no odor or color. It is the most common ty…
The Black Rain
Anoice's first album for Important had a modest (but critically affectionate) impact upon its release. However, sales of the record have been steady & strong since it originally came out in 2006. Now, six years later we're pleased to finally offer The Black Rain, Anoice's reaction to both the darkness & hope that engulfed Japan after the 2011 earthquake, Tsunami & nuclear meltdown. Black Rain was written throughout 2011 and recorded in Tokyo and London. The Black Rain is both a reflection on dis…
Golden Tree
Duo collaboration between the Japanese female accordionist à qui avec Gabriel, who previously released a solo album on John Zorn's Tzadik label, and Acid Mothers Temple guitarist and guitar-drone soundscape artist Kawabata Makoto. Kawabata's guitar traces heretical designs through the stoically beautiful illuminated manuscripts of à qui avec Gabriel's accordion and voice. The combination is deeply phantasmal.
Catch Me Daddy Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
"The crystal in men's heads / Blackened and fell to pieces. / The valleys went out. / The moorlands broke loose" --from "Heptonstall Old Church" by Ted Hughes. So begins Catch Me Daddy (2014), the award-winning feature film directed by Daniel Wolfe and written by Wolfe and his brother Matthew. The film's score consists of beautiful and bleak wind-ravaged music from Matthew Watson (aka Matthew Wolfe) and Daniel Thomas Freeman (whose 2011 debut album The Beauty of Doubting Yourself Norman Record…
The Watchers
The Watchers is a historic collaboration between Lubomyr Melnyk and James Blackshaw. These new pieces are being released as a CD/LP with material exclusive to each format. LP is pressed in an edition of 500.
"I first met Lubomyr Melnyk at a festival called Hea Uus Heli in October 2008. We were both scheduled to play that day and I was very excited to see him perform. Before the show I bought several LPs from him and mentioned as much. Lubomyr (more than modest and courteous, as he always is) as…
Patterns of Consciousness
**Packaged in a jewel box with full color artwork and a 4 panel booklet. Her debut album, first time on CD**. Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full-length from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Gorgeous high resolution analog textures and algorithmic melodies unfold under Barbieri's careful control, exploring the basic nature of sound and consciousness. These pieces are minimal in arrangement but maximal in presence asserting Barbieri as a unique voice in contemporary elec…
New York Nuts & Boston Baked Beans
Violinist/vocalist C Spencer Yeh & unrivaled saxophone elder-titan Paul Flaherty team up without the assistance of acclaimed drummer Chris Corsano for the first time.Along for the jamz is bonkers Boston trumpeteer Greg Kelley. After performing numerous times and honing a distinct group dynamic as a trio over many years with celebrated percussionist Chris Corsano, Yeh and Flaherty decided to try it out one-on-one. The record comprises of the best from two live sets from a short duo tour in the No…
Tryptichs: Variations On A Melody
Aidan Baker's (Nadja) Triptychs takes inspiration from Erik Satie's compositions Gymnopédies and his notion of "furniture music," which many consider a precursor to contemporary ambient music. Each "triptych" is based around a simple, slow-moving melodic line, which repeats three times with the addition of a harmonic line upon each repetition, culminating in a three part harmony. Various musicians from different ensembles and musical backgrounds -- Peter Broderick, Julia Kent, Leah Buckaref…
Drifters Sympathy
Brand new full length from Grails/Om member Emil Amos. While burying himself in old books on Cold War espionage and '70s Italian horror soundtracks, Emil Amos logged many hours into the night layering endless tracks of improv and then editing them into a cohesive sonic blanket over 2 years time. He emerged with his sixth full length record under the name Holy Sons called Drifter's Sympathy. Listeners will recognize Amos' signature hallucinatory/LSD-inspired mixing-style, heard on records like Bl…