Music from United States

Tracklisting: "Circe," "The Nile," "Brazilian Sun," "We Travel the Spaceways," "Calling Planet Earth," "Dancing Shadows," "The Rainmaker," "When Sun Comes Out." First two tracks probably made during the same session at the Choreographers' Workshop, late 1962 or 1963. Remaining tracks recorded during different sessions around the same period. The master tape of side B is in stereo; all known pressings of the album are in mono, however. The master tape also includes a rejected take of an unidentif…

In 1966 ten New York artists and thirty engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories collaborated on a series of innovative dance, music and theater performances, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, held in October at the 69th Regiment Armory, New York City. The artists included were John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Öyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor and Robert Whitman. Archival material has been assembled into ten films, …

A is Sunburned's second album with producer Kieran Hebden, a.k.a. Four Tet. Directed by Kieran like actors in a film, Sunburned is taken off the bandana smokestage of their previous collaboration -- Fire Escape -- and put onto a sweat-soaked 4am lysergic dance floor. Kieran uses the band like his live instrument laptop and sampler. The results are truly stunning which makes this record into one of the best moments of each artist's respective musical careers. With artwork by California vis…

Long-awaited gem featuring John Tilbury performing five solo piano compositions by little-recorded Fluxus minimalist Terry Jennings (1940-1981), followed by a forty-minute realization of John Cage's Electronic Music for Piano with Sebastian Lexer on electronics. Recorded in London, November 2007 and September 2009. Tilbury - best known for his membership in AMM and renowned for recordings of Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Morton Feldman, Howard Skempton and Christian Wolff - brings his unique sensibili…

Urs Leimgruber (soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone), Alexander Schubert (electronics, violin), Oliver Schwerdt (piano, percussion, organ) and Christian Lillinger (drums, percussion). Recorded April 17th 2008, Leipzig.

Destined to be one of the top album of the year, finally Joanna Newsom releases her first album since late 2006's Ys, making up for lost time with a disc for 2008, one for 2009 and one for today. Featuring Ryan Francesconi and Neal Morgan from Joanna's Ys Street Band, Have One On Me is an extravagantly packaged (and extravagantly nicely-priced) collection of fantastic new Joanna Newsom songs -- her most colorful record to date.

If there's one person I revere when talking about noise it's Dominick Fernow, better known to the shadowy corners of the noise world as Prurient. There's something about his approach to the sound which for me puts him at the top of the tree, forcing music that could easily be simple, throwaway distorted jams into so much more. His last full length album proper 'Pleasure Ground' cemented this for me as Fernow buried layer upon layer of woozy synthesizer melody beneath his token screams and distor…

Eleh has been an enigma since the first record under that name was released in 2006. In numbered editions with letterpressed sleeves, usually on Important Records from the U.S.A., these vinyl-only releases were evidently a labour of love and attention. Further recordings have been released on the labels Taiga and Touch, making 11 vinyl editions in all. Eleh began as long ago as 1999 as an exploration of analog synthesis, emphasising low frequency oscillation and resonant acoustic phenomen…

Two masterpieces of the early 70s by released by Die Schachtel for the first time ever. Using VCS3 live electronics and environmental sounds, Alvin Curran created a hypnotic and meditative transcendency of minimalist beauty. Limited deluxe vinyl LP edition."The two works presented here are “seminal” pieces of two genres from which a great part of my musical practice springs and to this day continues to evolve from. Under the Fig Tree is in fact the realization of one monophonic piece  contained …

A pretty darn incredible record from Sun Ra -- with a soulful, spiritual approach that's missing from most of his other albums of the time! The album features Ra playing a good deal of organ (dubbed "intergalactic organ" in this case!) -- grooving soulfully on some short tracks that almost hit a soul jazz mode, and which recall the late 60s experiments of organist Freddie Roach.

Sun Ra was a innovative jazz composer, pianist, synthesizer player, poet and philosophiser who was fascinated by cosmic philosophy. Ra’s fascination with all things ‘cosmic’ combined with his instrumental ability lead to the creation of off-kilter, avant-garde and highly experimental music. ‘The Night of the Purple Moon’ originally cut in 1970 showcases Sun Ra playing the Roksichord (a then state-of-the-art solid-state electronic keyboard manufac…

Early work by Ra and the Arkestra, recorded in 1958 in Chicago, but not issued until the end of 60s, as one of the best rare sides on Saturn Records! The material's fairly straight, but with a cool off-kilter groove, and some very nice arrangements. The lineup's as classic as can be, and include Gilmore, Pat Patrick, James Spaulding, Marshall Allen, and Hobart Dotson. Hattie Randolph sings on 2 tracks, and Ra plays a bit of celeste. Titles are mostly all standards, given the Ra twist -- and titl…

One of the key but underappreciated episodes in avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra's Atlantis sounds far out even today. Rather than a full-on assault on the senses, Atlantis is an exercise in build-up, with long, almost forlorn passages of Ra on electric keyboards setting a vast echo chamber for his Arkestra to spring forth within. Captured during one of the most adventurous periods for Sun Ra, *Atlantis* features the orchestral perfection of the best big bands of the century-and then proceeds towards mu…

Back in stock! 1966's Strange Strings is the zenith of Sun Ra's analysis of string instruments and, as its title suggests, the album documents Ra's exploration of their outer limits, charting a kind of vivisection of the timbral make up of the traditional string section. The introductory piece 'Worlds Approaching' sets jolting cellos alongside plodding timpanis and some wild brass and woodwinds which out-weird anything on the string front, but by the time we get to the more overtly exploratory t…

This disc brings together the Sun Ra recordings "Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy" and "Art Forms Of Dimensions Tomorrow" (recorded in 1963 and '61-'62 respectively). Cosmic Tones functions as a kind of blueprint for the sort of large-scale jazz weirdness that would inform much of Sun-Ra's subsequent works, featuring the woozy reeds of 'And Otherness' and the afro-jazz experiments of 'Thither And Yon'. On 'Adventure Equation' a space echo treatment on the recording which is reprised for the sax f…

Originally titled Rocket Number Nine. Tracklisting: Onward, Somewhere in Space, Interplanetary Music, Interstellar Low Ways, Space Loneliness, Space Aura, Rocket Number Nine Take off for the Planet Venus. Recorded at various locations, Chicago, late 1960.

"Formed in the summer of 1964, although the New York Art Quartet existed for barely a year and a half, great interest remains in their work. They consisted of co-leaders John Tchicai (alto sax), who participated in John Coltrane's ground-breaking Ascension album and Roswell Rudd (trombone), considered to be the first free-jazz trombonist, along with bassist Don Moore and drummer Milford Graves. The band participated in the legendary 'October Revolution in Jazz', which journalist Bill Shoemaker c…

About 15 years too late! Finally out. This is the first 7" in a yearlong monthly series of limited 7"es that will really be all over the place. anything goes: from the acid of Pierre Elitair to the mincecore of Agathocles or a prank by Frieder Butzmann! This first one could actually be an lp! As usual with noisecore, grind or mince, this one has more tracks on it than 5 lp's together! 10 songs by each band, Agathocles drills holes in your skull and pours in a cocktail of assgrinding diarrhea rec…

Formed in 1989 by Richard Ramirez, Black Leather Jesus has become Texas (and one of the United States) best known harsh noise groups around. Sadomasochism, gay porn, and depraved topics are themes seen in their works over the years. Best known for their work in the underground tape culture, BLJ continue with their perverse sound. The group also consists of members of T.E.F., In the Land of Archers, Respirator, and others. As usual the LP comes in a deluxe silver silkscreen on black cardboard sle…

'Guitars warped so hard they dissolve into pure consciousness ! Seriously, this record had to happen because these two are the NOW of transcendental guitar weirdness. In families like ours where deformed music of one kind or another pours out of the speakers all day long, Toronto's Aidan Baker is a household name. He is no doubt one of the most imaginative experimental musicians of the new generation, quickly creating a universe of limitless sound with his bursting discography. He offers …