Naima
Swiss musician Roland Dahinden is not your typical trombonist. Equally at home in New Music, Jazz and Improvisation, he is a favorite interpreter of Anthony Braxton, John Cage, Christian Wolff and Alvin Lucier, as well as being acclaimed for performances in the trombone/piano duo with Hildegard Kleeb. On disc, Dahinden is well known for his Hat Art recording devoted to Cage and Wolff. This disc is the first release of his own compositions and interpretations of John Coltrane's classic Nai…
The Great Works For Voice
Mode's reissue of Christine Schadeberg's 1995 recital of vocal music by Luciano Berio is a welcome addition to the catalog. While her performances don't make the listener forget the individuality and panache of Cathy Berberian, for whom most of these pieces were written, Schadeberg more than holds her own in her technical and expressive mastery of the music. Her voice is not large, but is remarkably flexible and secure, and her tone is pure. These performances are models of precision and clarity…
Sonic Encounters
The second recording from Margaret Leng-Tan, the "diva of the avant-garde", featuring works by three composers whom she specializes in: John Cage (USA), Somei Satoh (Japan) and Ge Gan-ru (China/USA). With Sonic Encounters: The New Piano, she explores the effect of Asian aestehtics on contemporary American composers and the influence of American composers on their Asian counterparts.The first recordings of two early works by Cage impart a hard-edged brilliance not usually associated with the prep…
Works for piano 1949-1987
in this edition we hear for the first time the complete solo piano works from between 1949 and 1987 of the swiss avant-garde composer Hermann Meier. Before the time of the three movement sonata meier composed several dodecaphonic works some of which were cyclic. these were not considered for this CD, since the sonata contains structurally a replica of all that meier wrote before. the sonata coincides with the first serial sketches and visions, together with integral thinking using rows and is as…
Mani
Mani is the very first recordings of the new collection Contra Naturam, a collaboration between Ictus Ensemble and Sub Rosa. Mani is released as a double-CD; Includes 24-page booklet.The concept of Contra Naturam: The "magic of the record" befits contemporary music, which starts by adhering to an open, flexible sonic space where magnetic bolts of lightning shoot through. In that respect, at least, it has always been pop. The record lifts the curtain on a virtual stage; it creates its own sp…
Criss-Cross / Hanover
**2020 small repress** Black Truffle present the premier recordings of two recent works by legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier. Lucier has been crafting elegant explorations of the behavior of sound in physical space since the 1960s and is perhaps best known for his 1970 piece I Am Sitting In a Room (LCD 1013CD). He has written a remarkable catalog of instrumental works that focus on phenomena produced by the interference between closely tuned pitches, often using pure electron…
Tonaliens
Tonaliens is a Berlin-based group investigating the inner dimensions and outer limits of Just Intonation. It was formed in 2014 by Amelia Cuni (voice), Werner Durand (invented wind instruments), Robin Hayward (microtonal tuba), Hilary Jeffery (trombone), and Ralf Meinz (live sound, electronics). The group came together shortly after the release of the software version of the Hayward Tuning Vine, an interface for exploring microtonal tuning that allows for direct and intuitive interaction with th…
Für Alina
Compilation of Mississippi's favorite Arvo Part pieces. All sparse and beautiful arrangements. Some solo piano pieces, some duets with piano, violin cello and viola and one string quartet. The pieces on this record are all unique to the style of Arvo Part—deceptively simple compositions that force you to live in the moment you are listening to them. A Part quote from the back of the record: "You can kill people with sound. And if you can kill, then maybe there is also the sound that is op…
The Zürich Concert
Just when you think you are grasping the breadth and quality of the music of Julius Eastman (1940 - 1990), a recording such as Julius Eastman: The Zürich Concert shows up, and you have to go back and reassess his work and wonder what will show up next. This recording is from a 1980 solo seventy-minute improvisatory concert in Zürich, a cherished cassette made by a friend of Eastman's, who recently realized its uniqueness and decided that he should share it.The Zürich Concert was performed on Oct…
17 Stücke
Helmut Kaplan is multimedia artist that belongs to distinctive art scene of styrian capital of Graz. His medium of expression belongs to visual arts (mostly comic), as part of Tonto association, which once included legendary record label with artists that are already seen on GOD roster (Robert Lepenik, Winfried Ritsch, Kauders, Bernhard Lang, Peter Ablinger). He was part of bands like Fleischpost and skin and since middle '90s he is interested in different loop structures through different med…
Klang Der Wandlungen
From the liner notes by Jakob Ullmann (translated by Peter Gebert and Molly McDolan): "It was during a break in the inaugural meeting of the East German section of the IGNM (International Society for Contemporary Music) in March of 1990 when Reinhard Oehlschlägel, the long-standing music editor of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne, suggested taking advantage of the fact that John Cage was to attend the summer courses in Darmstadt as a special guest by inviting John Cage to East Berlin. . . . Making Gia…
Winter Music (1957)
John Cage’s 1957 composition in a visceral realisation for four pianos, played by John Tilbury, Philip Thomas, Mark Knoop and Catherine Laws.
“Chance procedures were used to assign each of the pianists five of the twenty pages of the score. The pianists agreed an overall duration of 40 minutes and prepared their parts independently. At the recording there was no rehearsal and the piece was played once only.” Winter Music was written in 1957 at a time when Cage was exploring different ways …
L'âme Est Sans Retenue I
Swiss composer Jürg Frey's six hour long electronic tape piece L'àme Est Sans Retenue I was recorded and assembled in 1997/98 and is now being released for the first time. It is the longest piece Frey has ever composed in his over 40 year career.In this piece, Frey utilized the sounds of field recordings he made in Berlin in 1997 as the source materials, alternately inserted between long stretches of silence. Frey was particularly focusing around that time on how the dynamic relation between sou…
Occam Ocean Vol. 1
**Mindblowing edition, comes with a 40 page booklet** What can be said about Éliane Radigue? International treasure? Sonic saint? The most important composer living today? Even these grand designations fall short of doing the composer the justice she deserves. Born in 1932, beginning her life in music in Paris during the late 1950 and early 60’s, working under Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, for more than half a century she has carved a singular path in sound, sculpting one of the most astoni…
Risonanze Erranti
*Super Audio CD* The poetic significance of Luigi Nono's Risonanze Erranti (1985-87) should be interpreted in the light of the reflections developed since the summer of 1975 with the venetian friend and philosopher massimo cacciari, to whom the work is dedicated.after Al Gran Sole carico d'amore (in the bright sunshine heavy with love) (1972-74) nono, obsessed by a sense of anguish owed to his solitude and his activism frustrated by the stagnation of italian music institutions, felt the need to …
And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma
The history of American avant-garde music is a snarled knot, twisting through the decades, spanning genre, practice, and approach. Most narratives plant its origins within the post-war period, orbiting around John Cage, Morton Feldman, and those artists springing from the movements of Fluxus and free-jazz. American creative innovation issued unquestionable influence over the later half of 20th century, but the root of its radicalism was earlier, with its origins often misplaced. Rather growing f…
Cine Opera
Limited edition of 500 copies worldwide, each hand-signed and individually numbered by Michael Nyman. Cine Opera represents Michael Nyman at a creative peak, bringing together the old and the new, a powerful statement on the timeless nature of his work, his continuing relevance, and his enduring success in multiple artistic fields. La Traversée de Paris was first commissioned in 1989 to mark France’s bi-centennial celebrations. Nyman continued to use tracks from La Traversée de Paris in other pr…
Ode (owed) to O
Reading (Story of) O brings together (Story of) O a graphic and semantic reworking of the original story (English and French words coexisting on the page) accompanied by two fictional texts (Story of) A and (Story of) E, and Reading O, a few simple strategies and choices for reading—alone or with others, in private or to an audience, so that you may find your way through it as through you own story. This is the first collective reading in English and French with 9 readers, it lasted 48 mins. …
Chants
This really is a special one. Solo voice carries so many connotations, of speech, of song, of chant, of prayer. It’s the most directly human, personal, unmediated instrument of all. It’s the way we speak to each other, comfort each other, entertain ourselves, reassure ourselves, talk to our gods. Kurka’s singing throughout is quite extraordinary: so refined, balanced, unadorned and controlled. Absolutely nothing is wasted or unnecessary.
Antoine Beuger Christopher Fox Eva-Maria Houben Th…
Music For 18 Musicians: Tokyo Opera City, Tokyo, Japan, May 21st
A stunning version of Steve Reich's masterpiece of musical minimalism Music For 18 Musicians (1974-1976), performed live at Tokyo Opera House in 2008 by Ensemble Modern and Synergy Vocals, featuring the composer as guest performer. LP housed in a deluxe die cut jacket with printed insert. In the 1960s, with Terry Riley and Philip Glass, Reich gave pulse back to experimental music. He discovered the tape-based techniques of looping and phasing, using recordings of fragments of speech, and then mo…