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The Tale Of Genji
Another favorite from the Haromi Hosono canon. This was the score for the first animated adaptation of The Tale of Genji, a sprawling piece of 11th century literature written by noblewoman Shikibu Murasaki, considered by many to be the first modern novel in recorded history. (Isao Tomita later write his own symphonic adaptation of the story.) The anime was directed by Gisaburō Sugii, and while it only covers a small part of the epic storyline, the score is highly ambitious.
Unlike much of Hosono…
Medicine Compilation From The Quiet Lodge
Double LP edition. A classic from Haruomi Hosono’s late ’80s and ’90s abstract electronica period, Medicine Compilation From The Quiet Lodge is a sublimely inviting ambient album with touches of acid house, downtempo pop, and ethereal trip-hop. Standout “Laughter Meditation” opens up the album with gorgeous zither and kalimba from Laraaji, a peaceful 4-to-the-floor beat, and spoken word. Medicine Compilation from the Quiet Lodge features ultimate ambient music that invites listeners to another w…
Improvisation Sep. 1975
**Ltd. 300 copies, perfect replica of the original packaging and newly remastered for optimal sound.** Toshi Ichiyanagi, Michael Ranta and Takehisa Kosugi originally got together in the summer of 1975 for an open-air concert in Sapporo. The concert felt like a great success but was unfortunately not recorded. As the desire arose to record together, they managed to arrange a studio session in the NHK Studio in Tokyo, with presence of sound engineers. What was supposed to be a soundcheck for this …
Intents and Purposes
Originally released in 1967 on RCA label and performed by a stellar 10 piece group, “Intents and Purposes” can be described not only as a strong example of Dixon’s music vision but as a legendary album and a true masterpiece in the whole history of creative music!
Mulatu of Ethiopia
Strut present the first official reissue of a landmark album in the field of African music, Mulatu Astatke’s ‘Mulatu Of Ethiopia’ from 1972.
Itinera
**200 copies ** When Timo Van Luijk isn’t working under his own name, he works under the alias Af Ursin - a project focused on structured improvisation, combining electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Itinera is his eight full length release under the moniker since 2002. The album is a stunning and challenging marvel, hearkening back to another less compromising era of electronic music - one of rigorous and complex arrangements of structure and tone. While drawing on a number of sources for i…
Mass Against Rock Music
Elizabeth Clare Prophet's "Mass Against Rock Music" comprises recordings that document Prophet's spiritual campaign against the negative influences of rock music. These masses were hypnotic drone chants aimed at promoting spiritual protection and purity.
Prophet claimed to be a messenger of spiritual hierarchy known as the Ascended Masters, who she asserted communicated with her and through her. The teachings covered topics such as karma, reincarnation, and spiritual enlightenment, taking inspir…
Breakthrough
Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian writer and intellectual (1909-1974). Throughout his life, he held a strong interest in the field of parapsychology and was particularly intrigued by the possibility of an afterlife. Raudive devoted much of his research to investigating Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) and in 1971 published a book on the subject entitled "Breakthrough". EVP refers to instances of audible voices on electronic recordings, which are often interpreted as originating from a paranormal sou…
Organic Music Tapes Vol. 1
As its almost tradition now we start the year with a meditative album from Portuguese pianist and composer Tiago Sousa. Using the piano as its primary tool of expression, Tiago has been slowly cementing his place as one of the most distinct voices to emerge out of the modern wellspring of piano driven minimalism. After last years Angst (CREP81, Discrepant) and 2015’s Um Piano nas Barricadas (CREP23, Discrepant), Tiago returns with a deeply meditative album of synesthetic organic musical patterns…
Organic Music Tapes vol 2
*100 copies limited edition* As its now tradition we start the year with yet another fluid album from Portuguese pianist and composer Tiago Sousa. Presenting now the second volume of his ongoing series Organic Music Tapes, Tiago now adds the electric organ to his trademark piano compositions, broadening his palette of sounds into an even more fluid and organic world with references to American minimalism of the 60’s, in particular Terry Riley and Steve Reich’s influence both looms heavily over t…
Organic Music Tapes Vol.3
*100 copies limited edition* In keeping with tradition, the new year brings another offering from Portuguese pianist and composer Tiago Sousa. "Organic Music Tapes Vol.3," the third instalment in Tiago’s ongoing series, continues to develop a freeform dual approach to organic and fluid compositions for Piano and Organ - this time adding a real church tube organ to the proceedings.
Evolving from the foundation laid in the first two volumes, Sousa introduces the pipe organ into his signature piano…
Winter Pages, Bright Music
Ned Rorem's music strives for clarity. He distrusts the convoluted, the pompous, the grandiose. To some degree this is a legacy of his years in Paris and his exposure to figures such as Poulenc, Auric, and Cocteau. However, Rorem treated the neoclassical aesthetic not with French irony and emotional distance, but with American openness and first-name intimacy, adding clarity of emotional expression to intelligibility of means. Winter Pages and Bright Music exemplify Rorem's subtle, direct style …
Chamber Works
The woodwind quintet is to the wind instruments as the string quartet is to the strings. Composers have treated the heterogenous ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn as a unity for so long now that it has become a musical commonplace. The challenge in composing for the woodwind quintet is to weave a consistent musical fabric while respecting the disparate characters of the five instruments. The four composers represented on this recording meet this challenge with imagination and …
Third Stone From The Sun
It is a monumental task to interpret the music of Jimi Hendrix on the flute. The incredible flute virtuoso Robert Dick has managed to do it with ease, finesse, and soul. There is almost no sound that he cannot create on the flute with his amazing technique. Chords, slides, colors, drum and bass sounds, all had to be created acoustically. There are no electronically altered flute sounds on this recording.
This recording represents a statement that Robert Dick has long dreamed of making. Like man…
Electroacoustic Music
This CD presents two of the less often heard, most extreme and hardest to categorize sides of Roger Reynolds. The music for Ivanov is collaborative, utilitarian music for the theater. Versions/Stages is abstract experiment, music inspired by the desire to investigate compositional phenomena. Both are works seemingly far removed from Reynolds's concert music, and, additionally, they reveal yet another facet of the composer, his quarter-century contact with Japan.
The only instructions that Tada…
American Works For Balinese Gamelan Orchestra
This recording is the product of a remarkable intercultural musical experiment. It contains five strikingly varied works, each one the fruit of musical cross-pollination between America and the island of Bali. The three American composers represented here－Evan Ziporyn, Michael Tenzer and Wayne Vitale, along with their peers in the Sekar Jaya ensemble－have, since 1979, devoted an extraordinary amount of effort, intelligence, and talent to the study and performance of traditional Balinese music. T…
Portraits and other Works
Virgil Thomson's piano music can best be described as pure direct American plainsong. Hymn tunes get transposed, rhythms overturn or collide, often with comic results; cowboy songs turn into fugues. Thomson made use of all materials, from Sunday School ditties he learned as a child in Kansas City, to the tangos he heard in Paris in the Twenties, to the counterpoint of his formal musical education. Thomson's portraits often have the feeling of line drawings by a visual artist. This is because he …
Songs, Capriccios, and Octoechoes
Michelle Ekizian (b 1956) and Louis Karchin (b 1951) represent a generation of American composers that has seen postwar American serialism enriched by other compositional approaches, both new and old. The process of stylistic synthesis and individualization, evidenced in the works presented here and in others, continues unabated today.
Written in between the first and second installments of her ongoing orchestral cycle, The Exiled Heart Series, which now includes “The Exiled Heart” (1986), “Morn…
Untitled
The spontaneous exploration of musical ideas can be exciting, rewarding, and challenging for both the performer and the audience; jazz musicians demonstrate this constantly. Most of the participants in this recording project have had extensive experience in jazz. In their work here, they are exploring the conceptual similarities and connections between improvised music and concert music, an extension and development of both European and American traditions.
Each of the written compositions (Some…
Why I Like Coffee
Composer and pianist Bob Nell is best known for his work with Kelly Roberty and Brad Edwards, collectively known as The N/R/E Trio, with whom he performs regularly throughout the Midwest and Canada, backing such jazz luminaries as Eddie Harris, Ray Brown, Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, David "Fathead" Newman, Bobby Hutcherson, Nat Adderley, Emily Remler, Michele Hendricks, Sonny Fortune, Hank Crawford, and many others.
I first heard about Bob Nell shortly after moving to Seattle; he spent some tim…