New American Music, Vol. 3
*2024 stock. Custon CDr* Works by Talib Rasul Hakim, William Bolcom, Howard Swanson and Frederic Rzewski are presented here. Highlights include Bolcom’s "Whisper Moon" for chamber ensemble and three of Rzewski’s songs, whose lyrics are drawn from words by Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes and Guatemalan revolutionary Otto Rene Castille.
New American Music, Vol. 2
*2024 stock. Custon CDr* Trumpets and trombones twist through dense pockets of sound in Lucia Dlugoszewski “Angels of the Inmost Heaven”; the voice of a lone guitarist punctures the silence in James Fulkerson’s “Patterns” II and VII; flute, bassoons, viola and vibraphone are intended to “turn some dancers on” in Carman Moore’s “Youth in a Merciful House”; and a guitarist laments to the hum of an Elizabethan-type string and woodwind consort in Stanley Silverman’s “Planh.” This is a thoughtfully b…
Three Cellos
The inaugural release in Greyfade’s innovative new FOLIO music release format, composer Kenneth Kirschner’s Three Cellos is the culmination of a five-year collaboration between Kirschner, arranger & producer Joseph Branciforte, and cellist Christopher Gross.
Music By Jean Eichelberger Ivey For Voices, Instruments, And Tape
*2024 stock. Custom CDr* This 1973 recording combines live performance and tape in order to “offer the best of both worlds, plus a dimension which neither live performer nor tape can reach alone.” There are four pieces on the album: “Terminus” and “Aldebaran” are each for a solo performer and tape, “Three Songs of Night” is for a large ensemble with intermittent tape, and “Cortege—for Charles Kent” is an entirely electronic piece. Liner notes contain a biography of composer Jean Eichelberger Ive…
Dots Kinematics For Electronics & Chamber Orchestra Version II
The name Painjerk, the musical project of Kohei Gomi, didn’t come to mind for a long time. Offhand, I’d say it is likely that I reviewed very few of his releases. Many of those he released himself, and the ones of Harbinger Sound, Editions Mego, Alternative Tentacles and Hospital never reached me. He’s among the few musicians leaving the harsh noise behind and doing other projects. He calls it the “exploration and practice of kinematics of electro-acoustics using unorthodox methodologies, mainly…
(Amsterdam) Memory Space
*2024 stock* The openness of Lucier's instructions belie the difficulty in dealing with the idea of how one can translate a sound from one medium into another and what kind of transformation of information takes place in that exchange. While interpreting this work, a musician becomes intensely aware of the processes by which one listens, both consciously and subconsciously; how one is constantly decoding sounds in one’s environment, filtering out essential and non-essential information, discerni…
Spielt Eigene Kompositionen
2024 Stock. First volume of solo piano compositions by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, finally back in print. Born to an aristocratic family in Addis Ababa in December of 1923, Emahoy spent much of her youth and young adulthood studying classical music in Europe. She returned to Ethiopia in the 40s, where the war interrupted her musical studies. In 1948 during a church service in Ethiopia, she found her faith and began years of religious training. Throughout her physical and spiritual journeys, Ema…
Beginner's Mind
Over the years, the venerable New York based imprint, Mode Records, has operated to give Walter Zimmermann a solid platform, issuing both new work and reissuing lost classics. Mode continues this essential project with the first-ever LP reissue of Zimmermann’s first recording, the 1978 solo piano classic “Beginner’s Mind”, which will also be available soon in CD format.
his master's voice / aus den fliegenden blättern eines fahrenden waldhornisten / lose verbunden -- Performed by Kei Kondo and Takahiro Kuroda
*300 copies limited edition* Eva-Maria Houben (born in 1955) is a German composer, organist, pianist and musicologist. She is a member of the Wandelweiser Group. Her compositions, performed by herself and many other musicians, have been released on CDs and LPs as well as digitally by Edition Wandelweiser and other international labels. On May 15, 2023, composer Takahiro Kuroda (born in 1989) presented the concert "Square of Thoughts Vol. 2: Eva-Maria Houben and Horn + x" in the performance space…
echo fantasy lI -- Performed by Takahiro Kuroda and Kei Kondo
*300 copies limited edition* Eva-Maria Houben (born in 1955) is a German composer, organist, pianist and musicologist. She is a member of the Wandelweiser Group. Her compositions, performed by herself and many other musicians, have been released on CDs and LPs as well as digitally by Edition Wandelweiser and other international labels. On May 15, 2023, composer Takahiro Kuroda (born in 1989) presented the concert "Square of Thoughts Vol. 2: Eva-Maria Houben and Horn + x" in the performance space…
Come, Angel
Kontakt Audio and Infinite Fog Productions proudly present the 25-th anniversary reissue of the one of most unique albums on avantgarde/neoclassic music - Ihor Tsymbrovsky - Come, Angel.
All Known All White
2024 stock. "My intention … was to explore those situations in which a loss of orientation leads us more deeply into the moment itself. There is a certain aquatic feel to the music, in which the performers are joined with a complex and sonorous fabric of computer generated sound. […] The work is twenty minutes long, divided into three roughly equal sections. In the first, the primary aim of the performers is to match, submit to and intensify the taped sounds. The second, in which the synthesized…
Passio
2024 stock. Pärt's long-form The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to St. John dramatizes the apostle John's account of the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. The form he adopts sounds as though it were centuries old, with its choral orchestration. But his choice of instruments, his choice of chords, his phrasing, and the basic construction of the piece itself are all based on 20th century ideas, most notably his own innovation, the "tintinnabuli" method. The overall sound is significantl…
Process And Passion
2024 stock. This is a recording that explores the "extra"- ordinary potential of the CD not only as a carrier of traditionally recorded instrumental sound (CD 1), but also offering a different view through binaural encoding of the same materials spatialized (CD 2). - Please note: the binaural recording is only available as part of the 2 cd set. not as a downloadFirst you are presented with two solo compositions-Kokoro and Focus a beam, emptied of thinking, outward…-and the duo Process and Passio…
50 Years
In 2012, the Wergo label celebrates its 50th anniversary. For half a century, Wergo has been synonymous with contemporary music. The label's catalog reads like a virtual who's-who of modern music, both in terms of composers and performers. From the beginning, the intent of founder Werner Goldschmidt (from whom the label derives its name) was to provide listeners with a snapshot of current musical activity and innovation. Goldschmidt's label and mission, now managed by the publisher Schott, is ma…
Songs of Ascension
“Songs of Ascension” is a major new recording from composer Meredith Monk and her vocal ensemble. Written in 2008, it is conceived as a continuous composition, a departure from Monk’s earlier collaged or episodic extended works. In recent years Meredith Monk’s been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet. On “Songs of Ascension” she teams up with a string quartet of New York players well versed in new music. With winds, percussion and two vocal groups added to her already extra…
Antoine Brumel: Earthquake Mass
Following on from their successful last recording, Josquin the Undead (GCDP32117) this new recording of Antione Brumel's Earthquake Mass is a welcome addition. Graindelavoix is an Antwerp-based music and art ensemble founded in 1999. Helmed by founder-director Bjorn Schmelzer, it is committed to offering a contemporary and critical interpretation of mainly historical, vocal repertoires. It would be difficult to find a composition that resembles the twelve-part mass Et ecce terrae motus by Antoin…
Feldman Edition 14: Complete Music for Cello & Piano
Huge Tip! This release brings together all of Morton Feldman’s compositions for cello and piano, including unpublished works and a first recording. Together, these works tell the story of Feldman’s music. They span 35 years — over half his lifetime — from when he was searching for his voice as a student to when he was opening new doors in the last years of his life. The album is bookended by two realizations the graphic score “Durations 2” (1960), giving an opportunity to hear what the flexibili…
Turzets
The latest in a prolific string of solo and collaborative releases by James Rushford, Turzets collects a pair of new works primarily created and recorded last year while the Australian composer-performer was in residence at La Becque, an art center on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The side-length piece “Fallaway Whisk” explores hesitation in its many forms—reticence of speech, sonic restraint—using live, abstracted translations of text from English to German against a lush and swelling soundscape.…
Maniera
With yet another striking and forward-thinking work of contemporary composition, Another Timbre returns with “Maniera”, their second outing with the Italian composer, Marco Baldini, following on from last year's brilliant “Vesperi” which sold out within weeks. Comprising seven works for various configurations of string ensemble, masterfully executed by Apartment House, that nod across time toward Italian polyphonic compositions of the 16th and early 17th centuries, the diverse history of Minimal…