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Fred Van Hove At 80
Stunning! **300 copies** Pianist and composer Fred Van Hove (°1937) was involved in the Big Bang of European free improvisation (Machine Gun by the Peter Brötzmann Octet), but also became one of Europe’s finest and most underestimated improvisers. Mostly known for his 70’s trio with Brötzmann and Han Bennink, Van Hove’s trajectory over the past four decades has been one of the brilliant, but unsung stories of the music.The new Dropa Disc release Fred Van Hove At 80 is an effort to rectify this i…
The Quintessence
The "Nightingale of the Andes", the voice of birds and earthquakes, the Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac was the most singular and vivacious of recording artists. Her other-worldly vocal gymnastics, a freakish four octave range delivered with sensitivity and power, were without peer in her day and still sound like nothing on Earth. Her natural versatility was such that the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla advised her to sing spontaneously and to avoid formal music teaching at all costs.The Quintessenc…
African High Life
Pioneering percussionist Solomon Ilori was one of the first Nigerian artists to record with American jazz musicians, travelling to New York in 1958 to introduce African music to American audiences. After appearing on Art Blakey’s 1962 LP The African Beat for Blue Note; he recorded African High Life with members of Blakey’s ensemble, including guitarist Jay Berliner, bassist Ahmed Abdul Malik, Hosea Taylor on alto sax and flute, and percussionists Montego Joe, Robert Crowder and Garvin Masseaux. …
Gestrüpp
On this seven track album we hear MinaeMinae (alias Bastian Epple) playfully scurry through his dense soundscapes on a tightrope. The sounds lying somewhere on the crossroads of psychedelic trance, exotica, ambient and melodic dance music – veering further off orbit with nontypical rhythms and dystopian percussive patterns.
MinaeMinae understands musical material similar to documentary footage which he would cut up, repitch, and rearrange freely. Most of his tracks are a mix of analog, synthetic…
Exmagma
*sold out at source* Exmagma's eponymous first album, recorded in 1972 and released in 1973, reminds a lot of late '60s Soft Machine. Others compare the album to Wolfgang Dauner's output or tracks by Et Cetera. Exmagma's music goes beyond jazz and rock, using a wealth of effects and electronic gadgets. This reissue comes with a replica of the original 8-page insert and sticker.
Kollektiv
Here are one of the true hidden gems to come out of the 70's German underground scene. Kollektiv produced an incomparable, unmistakeable sound with echoes of Organisation, Neu and early Kraftwerk: spacey but melodic, elevated yet rocking, innovative: progressive in the best sense, consequent in the realisation of intent, forging new musical territory without denying its roots. Electronically alienated by echo, ring modulators, octavoice, vibrators and sound filters, their music truly sounds like…
Fur Ein 3/4 Stundchen
Long Hair proudly presents one of the most sought after German albums of the early seventies, now for the first time officially re-released on LP: Tortilla Flat's 'Für Ein 3/4 Stündchen', originally recorded in winter 1974 and released in early 1975 as a private pressing. The instrumental album is very flute and electric piano driven, with very exciting guitar playing accompanied by rocking drumming with slightly jazzy influences and nimble bass lines, very tight! Music is very unique, not typic…
The Ultimate Collection
**CD collection in gatefold sleeve LP-cover size** "This set contains all previously released Improved Sound Limited 5 CDs (eponymous double album, Catch a Singing Bird On the Road, Rathbone Hotel, Road Trax, The Final Foreword) and one bonus CD entitled Bell Cantos, Ezra Pound Revisited with music the band recorded in 1969 for Bavarian Radio with heavy fuzz guitar, moog synthesizer, music of that time, a little bit experimental but constantly melodic (no white noise). This is the ultimate colle…
Blake's New Jerusalem
* New remastered 180 gram vinyl LP edition of the classic 1978 album by Tim Blake. Mastered & cut at Abbey Road Studios. Fully restored artwork and liner notes with exclusive interview. * Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a newly re-mastered LP edition of the classic 1978 ambient masterpiece Blake’s New Jerusalem by Tim Blake. Tim first came to prominence as a member of Gong, where his synthesiser experimentation and mastery was demonstrated on albums such as Flying Teap…
Due Matte
**Limited edition of 50 cassette tapes with extractable paper crochet holy image on white matte rough paper. Includes digital download**Two of the most important artists of UK underground music: Valentina Magaletti (Tomaga, Vanishing Twins, etc) and Marlene Ribeiro (Gnod, Negrabranca) were invited to contribute to Hysteria, an artistic residency in Porto 2019. "Due Matte" is the fruit of it: an interaction game between styles and sounds, mesmeric in its echoes of distant landscapes and envelopin…
The 3 Generations Trio
The 3 Generations Trio' features the high priest of minimalism himself, Terry Riley, on synthesizer, piano, vocals and harmonizer, Gyan Riley on electric and acoustic guitars and Tracy Silverman on acoustic and electric violins. This work is a fascinating sonic trip (often driven by Riley's unique vocal ragas) through Asian and African traditions as well as western classical and jazz, reworked through modern aesthetics.
Angelica Music
The music of Christian Wolff has long occupied the fertile borderland between composition and improvisation, as both are usually understood. More a set of suggestions than a writ of prescriptions, his scores can take the form of graphic symbols floating freely against a white background—as in 1968’s Edges—or of pitches notated and other parameters left unspecified, as in the Exercises. He is on record as having said that a score is only a means to an end, the latter consisting of the performance…
Lunar
Secret Colors offers up his latest, a bubbling album called ‘Lunar’. Homespun ambient soundscapes taking you on a space trek without any sort of cliche spacey noise. Glitchy without being abrasive, hollowed out yet wholly satisfying. You’ll find a new jungle planet with this as the soundtrack. Its about to get humid. (Leftist Nautical Antiques)
My favourite Fairytale
Welcome to the wondrous world of Eva Van Deuren's one-girl project Orphan Fairytale. She creates a fairylike, mystic and hypnotizing sound world using only self-made electronics, toy instruments , cassette loops and small keyboards. The music show a great deal of playfulness. Dreamlike patterns are enriched by carefully placed notes and tones. After almost 10 years of performing and recording, the time has come for a round-up and Aguirre is happy to present a wonderful set of four sidelong piece…
Ou du Monde
Upgrade of the original cassette release on Sweat Lodge Guru. Moscow multi-instrumentalist Ivan Karib who also plays in Kon Tiki Gemini makes wondrous spaced-out and multi-layered electronics that float somewhere between Ducktails and Sean McCann. The tropics invade Russia and clatter to the floor. ghost guitars ring hollow, looping around endlessly searching for synthetic embrase. Sweat Lodge Guru described the recordings as "Music crafted for the sunny and tropical paradises of our min…
Ascent
**200 copies** Roberto Crippa is an italian sound-artist based in London and here is his third album. The refined work of "Ascent" is a deep dive into a dense and gloomy mixture of boulder rhytms, distressing atmospheres and sinister clangors. Although it could be easily ascribed to the industrial genre as well to more sleepy, nebulous and crumpled drifts of (post)techno realms, there’s something strongly personal and idiosyncratic that flows as decisive detail through the grooves of this record…
Slow Music
Records are almost always more than they seem. For all the sound and joy that they bring, they are works of art in multiple that indicate vast networks of happening, history, and ideas; beacons to be chased, leading to understanding beyond themselves. Particularly in the case of historical works, whether they emerge from dusty crates or as reissues and archival releases, these objects can reveal unexpected creative intersections that defy our notions of what was. Aguirre’s first-time reissue of …
Csoma
Beautiful new album by the legendary performer, media artist and influential figure of European minimalism.
Rerex
James Ferraro is an experimental musician, composer and virtual atmospherist born in Bronx, NY. Ferraro has released material under a wide array of aliases, and was a member of the Californian two-piece avant-garde project The Skaters. His album Far Side Virtual was chosen as Album of the Year by the UK's Wire Magazine in 2011. Ferraro has been producing small runs of releases on cassette, CD-R, and VHS with a wide variety of styles all representing different dreams of a demonic mind tower spann…
Aeons
Pulse Emitter joins the Aguirre catalogue with a stunning new album full of clear cosmic tones for the new space age. Aeons, as the title suggests, is about different periods in time. Pangaea is ancient earth, Hermits is based on a panel of the Ghent Altarpiece representing Renaissance Europe, Spaceship is the future, and Immortality is an even more distant future where consciousness has been uploaded to computers and people live without bodies. Pulse Emitter (Daryl Groetsch from Portland, Orego…