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That said, "Weather Sky" is another thing altogether. Bruno Meillier invited Toshi to play a duo concert in St Etienne with AMM's no-concessions table guitar master Keith Rowe, and took them into the studio the day after to record for Erstwhile. Sensitivity to pitch is less important here (Rowe, remember, hasn't tuned his guitar since the early 1960s): the album's three tracks are real slow-burners. Rowe can be agile and aggressive when he wants to, but his preferred working method is to lay dow…
The five tracks on neuschnee form an ambitious meta-song suite, with the various lyrics and musical styles combining to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The design is again from Berlin designer Marion Gerth, previously responsible for The Magic ID-till my breath gives out on ErstPop. The front cover juxtaposes a satellite picture of snow with the Mao Zedong poem 'Snow', which the musicians discovered in a book bought while on tour in Beijing. "After a long phase of experimental…
Sachiko M and Ami Yoshida, both from Tokyo, met in 1997 and formed the duo of Cosmos the following year. Sachiko M has developed a unique style utilizing a memory-free sampler, creating pure, piercing sine waves with the device's built-in test tones and noise. She has also recently begun exploring the use of contact microphones, as documented on the second track of Tears. Sachiko has worked extensively as a solo artist, in groups such as Filament, I.S.O., and Hoahio, and in duo with Toshimaru Na…
"The first word that came to mind on playing Extracts was understatement, with an almost oriental minimalism and profundity on display. At times I was forced to check whether sounds were coming from the speakers or from outside. However, this is a far cry from the Radu Malfatti school of implied music since it is very much about close group interplay. Simon H. Fell's sonorous bass is of particular note, underpinning, colouring and giving the proceedings a kind of still, stately authority. Likewi…
Don Cherry's downtown Paris funk masterwork Home Boy, Sister Out, produced in 1985 by Ramuntcho Matta and originally released by Barclay in France only, finally gets a worldwide release on Wewantsounds. Featuring French post-punk muse Elli Medeiros, avant-garde poet Brion Gysin, and cult Senegalese drummer Abdoulaye Prosper Niang (Xalam), this is a unique soundbite of Paris in the early '80s at its coolest when funk, jazz, and new wave were mingling with sounds from Africa, Jamaica, and Latin Am…
splendid double CD set documenting César Bolaños - one of the leading artists of the Latin American avant-garde of the mid 20th century - amazing early electronic work. The recordings bring together for the first time a definitive edition of his work on a double CD, the music have been digitalised directly from the original tapes and really have a fabulous clarity. So much music these days is labelled as experimental but I often I ask myself if it's creators are genuinely experimenting. That ce…
This CD is pure aural pleasure. The Santur sounds (something) like a Chinese chen (or perhaps a Korean Kay-a-gum), but it has (a bit) more body. Kupper composes with high merit, leading the listener on a trek that won't soon be forgotten. You must be focussed on LISTENING, or you'll religate it (incorrectly) to the "background" stack...Leo Kupper was born in Belgium in 1935. He worked with He…
Both pieces are intended to aid the listener in times of spiritual change, but are just fine for 'everyday' use as well. Highly recommended." Charles S. Russell, Ear Magazine The two works on this cd - Tara's Room and The Beauty of Sorrow were composed and performed by Pauline Oliveros and recorded in May 1987. Previously only available as a cassette and long out of print." (Deep Listening) "The beauty of sorrow" was played by the composer on a small accordion tuned in just intonation and using …
The long awaited soundtrack of the Ghostdance music and dance collaboration between Oliveros and Paula Josa-Jones, commissioned by Lincoln Center Out-of -Doors. "The Gkostdance collaboration with choreographer Paula Josa Jones began in Monterrey Mexico supported in turn by two month US/Mexico Exchange Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and FONCA. Together with our host—composer/ ethnomusicologist Arturo Salinas—we attended El Dia de los muertos in Chalco to help inform our work…
Masahiko Togashi was a pivotal figure in the development of the Japanese free jazz scene in late 60s. Percussionist and composer, he lost the use of the legs in an accident which nevertheless didn’t not prevent him from continuing an astonishing career that includes long and established collaborations with figures of the likes of Steve Lacy, Charlie Haden, Mal Waldron and Paul Bley. This session, recorded in Paris at the Ramèse Studio Du Village in 1979, sees an explosive collaboration by the t…
Masami Akita continues his work as the world's premiere extreme dynamicist on 'Circular Reference,' his latest full-length and first for No Holiday. It's a torrent of synthesized tones colliding against punishing layers of feedback and midrange noise. But there are also snatches of lurching rhythms to be found, as well as moments of relative uneasy calm. More than anything, it's distinctly Merzbow. Released on 2xLP and CD formats, the latest from this titan of noise is sure to please longtime li…
CD Digipack. In early 1967, John Coltrane died. Christian Vander was twenty years old, living in something close to poverty in Paris, and Coltrane's death pulled the ground from under him. He went to Italy, to Milan and Turin, and spent nearly two years in a state of deliberate self-destruction. One morning in Turin he woke up and decided to stop. He returned to Paris, met bassist Laurent Thibault, and began working on something that had no name yet.
By 1969 Magma existed as a group. By 1970 the…
Raven is the first new Organum album release since that of Sorrow in 2010 (Siren Records) and was recorded in 2017.For the realisation of Raven, Organum was comprised of David Jackman, Alan Jones, and Daisuke Suzuki.The first Organum 12-inch release 'Tower of Silence' (LAYLAH-1985) was a work of multi-layered bowed sound and scraping metallic objects, but there was an innate silence within this wall of noise - as Basho’s Haiku poem echos :“Deep silence, the shrill of cicadas, seeps into rocks.” …
On The Mild Temper, Kevin Drumm stretches his language of drones, electronics and micro‑acoustics across six hours, fashioning vast, slow‑shifting fields of frequency where restraint becomes a kind of pressure and detail blooms only if you stay. Mastered by Jim O'Rourke.
'Nyarlathotep was an earthbound deity in the mythos of writer H. P. Lovecraft. Unlike the other gods in these stories, Nyarlathotep appears in humanoid form and can speak human languages. This being, as an abstract concept, provides a fitting name for an album that brings largely forgotten and mysterious music to human ears. Indeed, this album is a newly remastered reissue that was originally released in 1997 by the KADATH label, and gathers eight offerings of experimental underground music of t…
An elegant decay amassed from the sounds of detritus. That may be an apt introduction to the work of Jo Montgomerie. Of course, The Helen Scarsdale Agency has a long standing infatuation with disintegrated sound in various forms. So, it makes perfect sense we should publish her work! That said, Montgomerie has a fascinating strategy to her long-form smears of blackened mascara ambient and smoldered noise. As a teenager she was a classically trained musician with an eye towards a career as a conc…
Junk DNA is the newly christened project from Brian Pyle, a man of many ongoing pursuits including Ensemble Economique, The Starving Weirdos, and RV Paintings. Born and raised in wilds of California, Pyle has recently been splitting his time in Vilnius, Lithuania, with his Junk DNA debut Kopk Kopa contemplating his time and place within Lithuania. It is true that much of Pyle’s works is reflective about the human condition responding to a particular environment. The slow burn of Humboldt fog, in…
Heavenly Arms – featuring Otomo Yoshihide – is a bold new sonic journey that bridges experimental sound, improvisation, and emotional resonance. The record, released in collaboration with the visionary Japanese composer and guitarist Otomo Yoshihide, showcases a meeting of worlds where free improvisation collides with delicate melodic structures.
Across its tracks, Heavenly Arms captures the raw immediacy of live interaction while preserving an intimate, cinematic atmosphere. The album moves f…
Jim O'Rourke plays a lot with Japanese Free jazz legend Akira Sakata in various formations. Together with Italian composer and pianist Giovanni di Domenico and the drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto they form this powerful band. This is their first release, combining contemporary Avantgarde and Free Jazz in a beautiful way.Line-up:Akira Sakata - sax, clarinet, voiceJim O’Rourke - double bassGiovanni di Domenico – piano, hohner pianetTatsuhisa Yamamoto - drumsRecorded at Pit Inn Tokyo on 10 January 2017
Claire Rousay completes her trilogy with A Little Death, where field recordings intertwine with strings and piano like voices in a chamber ensemble. A return to her core practice after sentiment's pop forms, the album transforms tactile samples into emotional archaeology—fragile, honest, vital.