Music from Switzerland

Composer, alone by Jürg Frey (performed by Reinier van Houdt) is a luminous retrospective stretching across three discs and 35 years. Twelve solo piano pieces—fragile yet substantial—trace Frey's evolution, distilling time and silence into crystalline musical objects. Van Houdt’s touch brings warmth and clarity, illuminating the invisible architecture within Frey’s sensitive landscapes.

Renowned sound artist, composer, and performer Jason Kahn announces the release of his new album All Across the Universe, a work that bridges places, time, and the profound resonance of lived experience.  The foundations of this project were laid during Kahn’s artist residency at Ting Shuo Hear Say in Tainan, Taiwan, where the initial recordings were made between September 8–26, 2023. Immersed in the vibrant sonic and cultural landscape of the city, Kahn drew from encounters with the environment…

2009 release ** "Two sets of pieces written for the duo Contour (Stephen Altoff-trumpet, Lee Forrest Ferguson-percussion), a potentially unwieldy combination. Frey's "22 sächelchen" (small things) is rather just that, 22 miniatures lasting 32 1/2 minutes that vary from quiet reductionism to outright fanfares. I guess some of the latter sort are a bit...shocking, at least in a Wandelweiser context. But there are also oblique references to jazz (the mute in #11), processional music (the tympani in…

This bundle includes the latest Blume releases, two groundbreaking archival discoveries that illuminate the hidden connections between American experimental music's founding generation and contemporary European avant-garde. Doris Dennison's Earth Interval (1956) emerges from seven decades of obscurity - a pioneering percussion composition by John Cage's forgotten collaborator, brilliantly realized by Third Coast Percussion. Swiss composer Jürg Frey's first LP presents his crystalline Wandelweise…

** 200 copies. Color Vinyl. 140gr Audiophile pressing. Including printed inner sleeve housing a Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve, plus an original insert that functions as Obi. Comes with exact replicas of the original postcard graphic scores. ** Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joinin…

*250 copies limited edition* Tokyo-based guitarist/composer Taku Sugimoto and cellist/composer Stefan Thut, who lives in Solothurn, Switzerland, have a long association, performing together when Sugimoto visits Switzerland and when Thut comes to Japan. Their duo CD "Taku Sugimoto / Stefan Thut," which was released on the Ftarri label in 2018, was highly praised. The new duo CD by Sugimoto and Thut, "atwain," documents their performance of a single 39-minute work on the riverside in Solothurn in …

2025 stock There is a distinguished tradition of solo bass albums on ECM, but Provenance is the first to be devoted to the electric bass guitar. Björn Meyer, Swedish-born and Swiss-based, has shaped a unique voice for his instrument inside the most diverse contexts, working alongside Persian harpist and singer Asita Hamidi, Swedish nyckelharpa player Johan Hedin, and Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem. For a decade he was a member of Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, in which his bass guitar was frequently th…

Recorded on September 13-14, 2023 at Ting ShuoHear Say in Tainan, Taiwan. Recording, mixing, mastering and cover designby Jason Kahn. Much gratitude to Alice Hui-Sheng Chang and Nigel Brown for all their help and warm hospitality during my stay in Tainan as resident artist at Ting Shuo Hear Say. Also many thanks for the generous financial support from Stadt Zürich Kultur, Pro Helvetia, and Fondation SUISA which made my trip to Tainan possible.

Jürg Frey, the Swiss composer, clarinetist, and central figure in the Wandelweiser collective, presents three recent chamber works—all written for and performed by the Prague Quiet Music Collective, with one piece featuring the Norwegian new music group asamisimasa. These compositions mark a significant evolution in Frey's aesthetic. As Ian Mikyska of the Prague collective explains, "Jürg is neither writing the music he used to write nor writing the music that anyone expects of him"—moving beyon…

Tip! "I first played with Magda in 2012 in Zürich. Since then, we've had further concerts together in Germany, Australia and Switzerland. It would be fitting that this, our first release, would be recorded at the Werkstatt für Improvisierte Musik Zürich, the same room where we originally first played together thirteen years ago." - Jason Kahn Jason Kahn // electronicsMagda Mayas // piano, objects

*100 copies limited edition* Since moving to Europe from Los Angeles in 1990 Jason Kahn has been a fixture on the European improvised and experimental music scenes. He lives in Zürich since 2000, where he is also active as a writer and visual artist. Tours and exhibitions throughout Europa, the USA, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Russia, Turkey, Singapore, …

*200 copies limited edition* Sax player Katsura Yamauchi (born in 1954) is based in Oita, Japan. He began performing in earnest in the early 2000s, and since then has toured in Japan, Europe, North America, Southeast Asia and Taiwan and continued to expand his distinctive musical activities. Jason Kahn (percussion, voice, electronics, guitar) was born in New York in 1960 and lives in Zurich. He has performed throughout the world and been a prominent figure on the improvised/experimental music sc…

Composed by Stefan Thut in 2021Written for Joseph Kudirka's collection of music for music boxlater the score has been read in various other ways Side a was recorded by Jaike Stambach in Berlin in May 2022.Joseph Kudirka: music box Side b was recorded by Stefan Thut in Solothurn in May 2023Cristián Alvear: guitarChristian Kobi: soprano saxophoneJoseph Kudirka: synthesizerStefan Thut: celloMara Winter: flute

Ian Antonio discovered Jürg Frey via algorithm. About 15 years ago, SoundCloud kept leading him to the same piece, maybe Circular Music No. 2. "I wouldn't notice the piece starting but then realize I was in fact listening to it closely," he recalls. "The stillness and closeness and warmth were somewhat new to me." At the time, Antonio played "a lot of very loud and often very fast music" with groups like Wet Ink, Talujon, Zs, and Yarn/Wire. Frey's music was "very much the opposite." This double …

Tip! Just continue as usual.   Recorded June to September '22 for a 16 channel diffusion at Bellevaux Lausanne 23 September '22 Revamped for stereo '23 All recorded and decomposed by Dave Phillips Thank you Francisco Meirino, Gwen Grossfeld, Guillermo Pizarro

*200 copies limited edition* Eight pieces of free vocal improvisation by the duo of Jason Kahn and Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, who have been working together since 2015. "I Smile When the Sound Is Singing Through the Space" is their second release and was recorded during Jason Kahn's one-month artist residency in September 2023 at Ting Shuo Hear Say in Tainan, Taiwan.

*Text in French*  A staircase drips, not with water but with sound: book / CD dedicated to Fritz Hauser's impressive "sound drawing" for the Vincent van Gogh Foundation in Arles.

Swiss composer Jürg Frey writes masterful soundscapes, calm and vast. With his sensitive ear for colour, sound and precision, he composes music of great serenity and lyricism; a poetic weightlessness in search of silence in sound. “My music is slow, sometimes static, often delicately shifting between standstill and movement. And yet, after more than an hour, this music has arrived at another place. Standstill, little happens, — it is this atmosphere from which my music emerges and to which it al…

Tip! Three pieces spanning free improvisation, noise and extended saxophone technique by long-time collaborators Jason Kahn and Ulrich Krieger.

s of their "Liederbuch" tour, which took the Welttraumforscher from Milano to London or Vienna during the last two years, they developed completely new versions of songs such as "Der Traum der Welt", "This Could Be The Greatest Love in Town" or "Alpha Beta Centauri" in the summer of 2023. These special tracks as well as two unreleased songs can be found on their new cassette, which with the title "1981" refers to the founding year of the Welttraumforscher. After 19 years (2004 saw the release of…