Actions – Remarks: John Cage’s Variations
John Cage’s Variations and the expansion of the score, sonic materials, space, and the environment. Book edited by Cat Hope and Lindsay Vickery, including CD recording of the 8 John Cage ‘Variations’ (1958–76), recorded by the Australian ensemble Decibel.
Spektralmaskin
"Spektralmaskin, a collaborative album by the Norwegian musicians Jo David Meyer Lysne and Peder Simonsen, owes its name to a sort of prospecting: the process of sliding e-bows—small magnetic motors of adjustable speeds used to sustain sounds, here of Lysne’s own design—along guitar strings to produce harmonics. As these harmonics can occur erratically, the technique rewards the musician patient enough to scoot the e-bow about the string, waiting for the delicate sounds to crest. The duo’s fasci…
Music of Curt Cacioppo
1988 release ** Highly enjoyable album by American pianist and composer, with four piano pieces performed by Cacioppo himself plus the Monsterslayer string quartet based on Navajo cosmology performed by the Emerson String Quartet. "The principal material of the work evolved out of a system of scales, intervals, chords and rhythms that I derived from numerological, directional and other elements of Navajo cosmology. Although the connected movements more or less follow sonata form, song form, sche…
For Piano I / For Pianist / Burdocks (LP)
Original 1972 LP of Christian Wolff's seminal chance compositions featuring David Tudor, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, etc. on Wergo’s legendary Studio Reihe Neuer Musik series. Complete with insert.
"Concord" Sonata (LP)
First 1962 edition on Time Records' important Series 2000 (Cage, Stockhausen, Kagel, Berio, Wolff, etc.) of one of the most influential compositions on the American avant-garde by maverick composer Charles Ives, performed by Stockhausen's pianist of choice Aloys Kontarsky.
Winter Music
John Cage's importance for a comprehensive aesthetic reorientation of New Music after the Second World War can hardly be overestimated. His self-discovery and compositional articulation took place particularly in the field of piano music: in the art-merging experimental laboratory of New York around the dancer Merce Cunningham, the painter Robert Rauschenberg and the congenial performer and pianist David Tudor.
It is good fortune that Sabine Liebner, who has already released several internationa…
Fragmente - Stille, An Diotima
** Edition of 300 copies, gold foil printed sleeve, includes 12-page booklet and 2 leporello inserts printed on translucent paper ** Since their founding during the early years of the new millennium, the Italian imprint, Holidays Records, has stood at the vanguard of forward-thinking sound, building a carefully curated catalog of releases that collectively build context and conversation across numerous avenues of exploration - contemporary and historical sitting side by side - within the wider f…
Explicit Isolation
Tip! Explicit isolation is the third album by the international collective E/I, led by composer and percussionist Szymon Pimpon Gąsiorek. The group’s seven core members came together while studying at Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory and the Royal Danish Academy of Music. For this latest release, they are joined by Slovenian musicians Samo Kutin (hurdy-gurdy) and Kaja Draksler (organ), alongside Danish tuba player Rasmus Svale. The three compositions distill sound down to its essential e…
Le Jardin Des Plantes
Anton Lukoszevieze, cellist, composer and interdisciplinary artist, founder of Apartment House. Le Jardin des Plantes, in four parts, for cello and electronics. A place in Paris and a novel by Claude Simon. Memory spaces, a source, a scrying of time.
Theatre Of The Mind
*200 copies limited edition* Theatre of the Mind is a work for bass clarinet and electronics by Swiss composer Roland Dahinden. It was commissioned by the Dutch Foundation Mousai, an organisation that uses contemporary music as a platform to explore and work with issues of mental health. It was written for bass clarinettist Gareth Davis. Roland's composition takes elements of his mixed background performing in jazz and improvised combinations with Miles Davis and Anthony Braxton while at the sam…
Éthiopiques 21: Piano Solo
*2024 stock* An outstanding pianist and a remarkable composer, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou, now a Christian nun in a Jerusalem monastery, recorded her own piano solo works, seeped in Ethiopian culture. Their rich, personal poetry brings to mind Carlos d’Alessio’s «India Song». A rare curiosity indeed, with beautiful melodies and a charming interpretation.
Goebbels/Glass/Radigue
*2024 stock* Erwan Keravec's 4th opus devoted to contemporary music, Goebbels/Glass/Radigue features a trio of contemporary music maestros. Evocative, minimal or sensitive, 3 very different ways of imagining music. Heiner Goebbels places the bagpipes in the mountains, then abruptly in an industrial landscape, all the while quoting Bach, while Philip Glass' music uses the repetition of 5 notes served by continuous breathing. Finally, Eliane Radigue brings the instrument closer to intimacy.
8 Sonneurs pour Philip Glass
"My reasons for writing pieces are often very surprising.... Two Pages, you'll recall, is a unison. Someone asked me if I was trying to follow the evolution of music history and if, then, my next piece would follow that logic and be fifths. So I wrote Music In Fifths. All movement is parallel, so I had to do one with contrary motion. After Music In Contrary Motion came its opposite, Music In Similar Motion. It was all very simple. In 1969, nobody knew me or really cared what I could write, so I …
In C | 20 Sonneurs
*2024 stock* It's quite unusual for me to take on an existing piece. Since I've been interested in contemporary music, I've devoted myself to commissioning new pieces. This time, it's a bit different. I wanted to extend the ringers' quartet into a form reminiscent of a bagad. In C (1964) consists of 53 ordered patterns. The musicians repeat them freely and move on to the next. Terry Riley simply explains that each musician must be neither too far behind nor too far ahead of the others. This grea…
Six Pianos / Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ
Six Pianos is a minimalist piece for six pianos by the American composer Steve Reich. It was completed in March 1973. Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ – again – emerged in the same year. The piece is scored for glockenspiels, marimbas, metallophone (vibraphone without resonator fans), women's voices and organ. The piece is in four sections, played without a break, marked off by changes in key and meter.
Transits: Volume 1
Big tip! American percussionist and composer Michael Ranta is a legendary figure who has worked with some of the most significant names of 20th century music but despite this and impressive body of work of his own, he has remained an obscure figure....
Important Records and is pleased to present Transits: Volume 1 the first in a series of releases by composer/percussionist Sarah Hennies documenting never before heard chamber works mostly composed in the 1970s while Ranta was living in Taiwan.
B…
Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence
2024 Stock. Wild Up — the multiple-time GRAMMY®-nominated contemporary music ensemble that has been called “a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant … fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family” by The New York Times and turned in a stunning NPR Tiny Desk performance last year — announces Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence, out June 21, 2024 via New Amsterdam Records.
Opening track, “Our Father, is an accompanied duet with both vocal parts performed by Davóne Tines. With open harmonies th…
Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?
2024 Stock. Wild Up’s Anthology engages with the complex history of Julius Eastman’s legacy and ideas, including the titles of his work. Each person involved in making this Anthology negotiates their position and relationship to the n-word; thus, the word appears in several permutations throughout. We chose to use Eastman’s given titles in the track listing to honor the composer’s intentions. With this seven-volume project, Wild Up aims to be part of the ongoing social, political, and artistic d…
Julius Eastman Vol. 2: Joy Boy
2024 Stock. On June 17, 2022, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based new music collective Wild Up will release Julius Eastman Vol. 2: Joy Boy, the follow-up to last year’s Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine, a record that was hailed “a masterpiece” (The New York Times), “instantly recognizable” (Vogue), “absorbing” (Pitchfork, in its 8.1 review), and “singularly jubilant” (NPR, who placed Femenine among its top 10 records of 2021, across all genres).
Arriving, once more, on New Amsterdam Records, Julius E…
Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine
2024 Stock. Out now, Los Angeles-based musical collective, Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine is the opening entry in Wild Up’s multi-volume anthology celebrating Julius Eastman, the late composer whose amalgamated musical vision was repeatedly dismissed during its day, but is now being unearthed to critical acclaim. Championed by The New York Times for their “boisterously theatrical sensibility,” Wild Up slowly comes alive inside this recording of “Femenine,” the epitome of Eastman’s longform “org…