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Scattered Remains: Early Rarities
2024 stock. Keeping track of the musical output of Daniel Menche has never been easy. Besides his numerous albums and singles, released by an eclectic range of labels, he has contributed countless tracks to compilations, many of which reached only the smallest of audiences. “Scattered Remains” tracks his progress from 1995 through 1999, collecting the best of these pieces, now fully remastered, onto two full-length CDs. With the passing of time it has become nearly impossible to find many the or…
Syrinjia
2024 stock. Syrinjia was first issued in 1998 as a limited edition of 850 vinyl LPs. It has been sold out since winter 2002. Bryn Jones (Muslimgauze) always intended for us to release it on compact disc after the vinyl edition was gone, and today we’re happy to announce the fulfillment of his dream with the release of “Syrinjia” as a double CD. Ever the prolific composer, he recorded 20 songs for the album, of which only the first nine were included on the LP, leaving the rest to be released at …
Fifteen Saxophones
First ever CD reissue of this little known classic from founding Philip Glass Ensemble member Richard 'Dickie' Landry. Following two jazz LPs issued on the Chatham Square label (which he co-ran), Dickie Landry released Fifteen Saxophones, a set of 1974 recordings done with engineer Kurt Munkacsi, on the Northern Lights and Wergo labels in 1978. Fifteen Saxophones simultaneously demonstrates Landry's boundary-pushing saxophone and his understanding of the minimalists' long-form treatises on sound…
Out of the blue
CD Edition. “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s debut album Out of the Blue — newly remastered with original cover art — which was among the first to releases on Lovely Music in 1978 alongside Robert Ashley Private Parts, David Behrman On the Other Ocean, Jon Hassell Vernal Equinox, Meredith Monk Key, and Peter Gordon Star Jaws. Disarmingly direct, funky, and profound, Out of the Blue is an equanimous, wide-open exploration of Tyranny’s musical world: equal parts song cycle, tone poem, keyboard fantasia, and…
Unseen Worlds
Laurie Spiegel’s second full-length album, Unseen Worlds, arrived just over ten years after her debut album. Having realized the pieces found on The Expanding Universe (1980) on an instrument no longer available to her, the GROOVE System at Bell Laboratories, Spiegel moved on to composing and developing for the Alles Machine, alphaSyntauri, McLeyvier and various other instruments before creating an instrument entirely her own. Spiegel created “Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument” on a Macint…
Il Bestiario
Limited to 500 copies. Packaged in a tip-on, mini-LP sleeve with original artwork. "First time available since its original release on the Italian Ri-Fi label, Maria Monti's 1974 LP Il Bestario is a rare item even in its native country. The music of Il Bestiario is a prime example of 'the new art-song' of the 1970s, as Alvin Curran calls it - lush, dynamic and full of intelligence and beauty. In addition to lyrics by the infamous poet Aldo Braibanti, Il Bestiario features arrangements and synthe…
Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d‘amore
*In process of stocking* Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker have emerged as one of the most interesting duos in contemporary improvised music. First introduced to Unseen Worlds through their performance on the Philip Corner recording "Extreemizms: early & late", Tarozzi and Walker elevated recent recordings, Eliane Radigue "Occam Ocean 3", Pascal Criton "Infra", and Tarozzi’s own "Mi specchio e rifletto" to greatness. Their finely tuned sound makes even the most adventurous tones compelling.
With…
1980
Starting at a very young age, Katrina Krimsky developed her musical self along a pathway of strong classical, pianistic training. Highlights of her playing on the classical side include her wonderful recording of Samuel Barber’s monumental Sonata for Piano, Op. 26, (Transonic Records 3008, 1975), a composition that is a virtual dictionary of early and mid-Twentieth Century composition techniques, first performed by Vladimir Horowitz in 1949 and 1950. Another example is her equally wonderful reco…
Trust in Rock
2CD Edition. Trust in Rock documents the last evening of an epic concert series held at Berkeley’s University Art Museum in November 1976, featuring an all-star ensemble of the Bay Area’s most unclassifiable musicians performing works by “Blue” Gene Tyranny and Peter Gordon. Tyranny’s cycle “No Job, No Warm, No Nothing” contains songs “concerned with influence, trust, self-reliance, and having to re-do what is true for you;” three songs by Gordon, with lyrics by Kathy Acker, are complimented by …
Christian Wolff / Keith Rowe
In September 2011, Erstwhile producer Jon Abbey was invited to curate two weeks of shows at John Zorn's legendary Manhattan venue The Stone, which he used as an opportunity to invite many of his favorite musicians from Japan, Europe and the US to perform. A second three night festival at Issue Project Room was later appended onto the end, making the AMPLIFY 2011: stones festival a 35 set, 17 night extravaganza in all. Four of those thirty-five sets will now be available in the ErstLive se…
Green Just As I Could See
Four extended electroacoustic works from Berlin's inside pianist and mixing board artist Andrea Neumann and Baltimore's Bonnie Jones on electronics, minimal and edgy pieces of unusual and absorbing character."ANDREA NEUMANN (b. 1968, Freiburg) studied piano at the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin. Since 1996 she has been primarily active as improviser and composer in the areas of experimental and new music. In the process of exploring the piano for new sound possibilities, she has reduced t…
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…
120 Pieces of Sound
Jürg Frey’s unique compositional approach places him at the cutting edge of contemporary classical music while simultaneously maintaining a touch of impressionistic/romantic aesthetics in its roots. Since the late 90's, Frey started to work with 'lists' as a basis of his compositions, sometimes words, sometimes chords, from which he developed and organized the musical materials. In recent years, Frey's focus on 'lists' has extended more toward the connections of items with each other, forming me…
The Earth and the Sky
Erstwhile is proud to announce the first release on the new ErstClass imprint, an epic collection of Michael Pisaro's work for piano from 1994-2016, 11 pieces totalling 223 minutes. The pieces are performed by the brilliant Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt (Current 93, Walter Marchetti, Robert Ashley, etc.) with close oversight by Pisaro as well as his own musical input at times. The gorgeous 8-panel digipak was designed by Yuko Zama (also the lead producer), and the 8 page booklet features liner…
sisbiosis
*In process of stocking* Erstwhile presents sisbiosis, collaboration album by Clara de Asís and Ryoko Akama, mastered by Taku Unami. Photography by Clara de Asis (black and white) and Ryoko Akama (color). Six-panel digipak.
Clara de Asís - electronics, percussion, field recordingsRyoko Akama - amplified objects, field recordings
Track 1, 2: recorded and mixed by Clara de Asís in Leymen, France in May 2022
Track 3, 4, 5: materials recorded by Ryoko Akama and Clara de Asís in Leymen, France and Ho…
Amorphous spores
Unusual sound work from the Japanese duo of Takahiro Kawaguchi and Utah Kawasaki (Astro Twin), using self-made instruments and electronics to create unexpected sonic emissions that follow curious paths that are separated by periods of quiet or textural sound.
Takahiro Kawaguchi was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1980. He works in Osaka and Tokyo in various electroacoustic genres, using field recordings or creating sound installations, or presenting sound live. The common concept of all his works is: "…
The Breadwinner
Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet are editors of the best variety, so recording sound was only half the story. Through tape manipulation and various editing techniques, The Breadwinner falls even closer in line with The Anti-Naturals theory by appropriating the mundane (for aesthetic reasons, of course). The result sounds like an inadvertent exploration of dislocation and displacement, much differently than musique conrète and minimalist compositions or the real-time experiments of, say, nmper…
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…
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.
Absence
"Friday the 6th of November 2015 was an important day for me. Christian Kobi had invited me to take part in his »zoom in« festival in Bern. Earlier that day I visited the Kunst Museum, looking at the work of Cuno Amiet (1868-1961), recalling the work of an earlier Camille Pissarro, interesting contributions from Felix Vallotton (1835-1925), also an very important exhibition of how photography had influenced Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) called “Lautrec’s Photographic Eye”.
What struck me was how …