Elegy For Rusted Souls
After their last release from 1982, the seminal "California Babylon", San Francisco industrial pioneers Factrix are back with a new studio album, recorded together with Italian duo Control Unit (whose critically acclaimed debut "The Fugitives" was released on Backwards last year). The quartet formed by Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, Silvia Kastel and Ninni Morgia moulds a new language of industrial music with guitars, bass and electronics, resulting in a fusion of acoustic and electric elements, pri…
Kilo
Finnish experimental electronic musician Mika Vainio's first solo album for Blast First sees him return to his classic power electronics/heavy beats approach that made Pan Sonic garner a worldwide reputation. The album developed from Vainio's recent live sets to make 10 tersely-titled tracks inspired by the shipping container industry. Four stars in Mojo: "heavy-freight," The Quietus describes it as "fearsome."
No Answer : Lower Floors
CD version. "No Answer : Lower Floors is the record of 2013 you need to be most worried about. No Answer : Lower Floors is further flesh to the shadowy silhouette cast by this Michigan art abstraction unit, perenially poised on the cusp of a precipice. Wolf Eyes will carry on forever but always remain mysteriously unfinished. The No Answer : Lower Floors material covers all bases: tough to toughest to tangled, all done in the Wolves' least convoluted smooth style. The vocals, delays, primit…
Convulsive Threshold
Two heavyweight explorers of sound and technology, Russell Haswell and Yasunao Tone, both undertaking separate rigorous experiments into the synthesis of sound and all its remits, converge for one helluva collaborative work. ‘Convulsive Threshold’ is the result of years of research and experimentation, Haswell’s systems of hybrid analogue/digital audio generation acting as one of the starting points for this relentess piece of material, which are then subjected to Tone’s MP3 Deviation tec…
Daytime viewing
Unseen Worlds follow a hugely appreciated reissue of Laurie Spiegel's 'The Expanding World' with this delightful slice of the 1979-81 avant-garde, rescued from private-press cassette. Amazing songs meditating on American daytime TV set to luscious Buchla synth arrangements. RIYL Robert Ashley, Julia Holter or Pinkcourtesyphone "Daytime Viewing (1979-80) is an extended narrative song, based on a casual analysis of daytime television drama and the audience phenomena such programming addresse…
The chord catalogue / Within fourths/Within fifths
Samuelel Vriezen (piano). Tom Johnson 'The Chord Catalogue'. All 8178 two-to thirteen-note chords possible within one octave. Samuel Vriezen 'Within Fourths/Within Fifths'. Progressions in one to five voices of all possible combinations of notes with each voice being limited to three steps, a perfect fourth apart from the neighboring voices (Within Fourths) or to four steps, a perfect fifth apart from the neighboring voices (Within Fifths). 'I like to think of The Chord Catalogue as a sor…
Lost in dreams - works for piano
Eva-Maria Houben (piano). 'Traumverloren I' (lost in dreams I) (2010). 'Klaviersonate nr. 10' (sonata for piano no. 10) (2013), 'les cloches du songe' (traumglocken - dream bells) I: in memoriam modest mussorgsky II: in memoriam george enescu III: in memoriam robert schumann IV: in memoriam franz liszt V: in memoriam olivier messiaen
Pointless Vanishing Point
** Edition of 200 copies ** Back on wax after a four-year hiatus, Claudio Rocchetti gives us a one-sider vinyl assembled at home - in Auerstr. 7, Berlin - with the inspiration of the work by Robert Smithson. Including a sample from Trilogie de la Mort by Eliane Radigue and some sounds provided on purpose by Al Doum, Von Tesla and Stefano Pilia, "Pointless Vanishing Point" is a three-parted journey into the recurring environment of awkward sounds and slow frequencies interrupted by a distant soun…
Physical Point
** Edition of 200 copies ** Lettera 22 is the duo of Matteo Castro and Riccardo Mazza, two main characters in the Italian noise and experimental scene, building incredible collages of field recordings and abused dynamics. The lucky few who attended their live set at the Dome in London for the Broken Flag 30th Anniversary - where they caused a speaker stack to fall over, almost setting fire to it - saw their potential unleashed and knows what we mean by saying that they have an incredible control…
Mermaids
** Edition of 250 copies ** Mermaids includes four tracks composed and recorded in early 2013. The concepts of the work are built around freedom - expressed by the use of the audio glitch - and unity framed in metaphors of water and transformation. All sound sources are mostly from the human voice. Jo Thomas is a London-based composer teaching sound design, composition and music technology at the University of East London. Her compositional work is primarily focused on the use of human voice, mi…
The Plain Truth
Presented in an elegant digipack featuring a new artwork based on the original cover pictures and fully approved by the author, "The Plain Truth" continues the series of reissues dedicated to the undisputed master of Italian Noise and Experimental Music. Officina Fonografica Italiana is particularly proud to introduce this title because it is one of the best entries in Maurizio Bianchi's ever-growing discography. Originally released in the U.K. as a 500 copies limited edition LP by Broken Flag i…
Ouvrez Vos Auditifs Canaux
For their third effort, originally released by Azteco Records in 1985, T.A.C. had grown to a six headed band, featuring a very peculiar sound on the verge of haunting minimalist structures and contemporary classical, scattered with electronic incursions of polluted radio frequencies and background buzzes, which give the music an eerie, dismantled feeling. Their autonomous and unorthodox path interbreeds post-industrial with a kaleidoscope of other inputs making use of an instrument array that se…
Dust Tears and Clouds (2CD)
Following the previous albums released, among others, by Last Visible Dog and Digitalis, "Dust Tears and Clouds" is the fifth full-lenght work born from the collaboration between Gianluca Becuzzi and Fabio Orsi. Becuzzi is an electronic / electroacoustic composer and sound artist active since the first half of the ’80s. Founder of the historic Darkwave / Industrial project Limbo, since 1999 his artistic production is characterized by a strong experimental imprint and by a clear tendency toward a…
F/C
Michael Mantra creates Ambient music. But more than that, he creates audio tools for "brain hemisphere synchronization": going beyond the synchronization of mind and body, Mantra's techniques are a mean to release endorphins, which are part of the human body's natural pharmacy and work at the same level of opiates. Michael creates his soundscapes mixing modulating high and low harmonic synthesizers tones (low deep drones and high resonating harmonics) with didgeridoo, ocean waves, rain, water, …
Memory of a safe place
Orsi is an ambient composer and uses synthetic and natural sounds to create his music, that fits the black and white photography quite well. Lots of pictures of nature, and with a sound that seems to stem straight from nature this is music that is probably best enjoyed outside - be it that taking a record player into nature is a bit difficult. That's the only downside of such a release I guess, which is otherwise filled with some great music. In 'Part 1', I believe to hear a mass of voice materi…
Cantor Quartets
Antoine Beuger composed his ‘Cantor Quartets’ in 2003. There are 15 pages in the score, four of which are presented on this double CD. Each page contains four lines with seven notes each, all of which should be played gently and for a long or very long duration. Instrumentation is unspecified, and the notes can be played in any octave. Formally the piece is constructed a bit like a round such as ‘Row, row, row your boat’, in that Player A plays the first line as a solo, then when he/she moves o…
Wandelweiser und so weiter
Available again, Wandelweiser und so weiter' is a 6-CD box set with 8 hours of music by a wide range of composers in or around the Wandelweiser collective. The box brings together previously unissued works by the most well-known composers in the Wandelweiser collective (Michael Pisaro, Antoine Beuger, Radu Malfatti and Manfred Werder), pieces by other Wandelweiser composers (Johnny Chang, Sam Sfirri, Eva-Maria Houben, Stefan Thut, Taylan Susam), as well as music by other composers whose wo…
High Voltage!
Absolutely sterling, amazingly priced primer on the history of 20th century avant-garde and electronics, compiled and presented by notorious rock 'n roll, punk and electronic music scribe, Kris Needs. While there have been notable collections of early electronic and experimental music doing the rounds - Sub Rosa's crucial Anthologies spring to mind - we can think of few as comprehensive, and particularly curated as 'Giant Steps & Flashpoints In 20th-Century Experimental & Electronic Sound'. Taki…
Killer_kipper
“cracked everyday electronics” – All of life consists of vibrations, and all of these relate to particular resonances. There are light waves, sound waves, microwaves… In this context you can start to combine things and, for example, use a radio as resonator for the waves from a remote control. And if it maybe doesn't work, then you just have to go on changing the fre quencies and looking for connections until you've cracked it. – Norbert MöslangThis sound piece was recorded on the 23.9.11 in the…
Desolation Row
Desolation Row finds things coming full-circle for guitarist/electronics pioneer, Richard Pinhas. In a career spanning more than 40 years, pathfinder Pinhas has remained continually innovative, pioneering groundbreaking developments in electronic rock and industrial music and influencing generations of musicians. In a major recent creative surge, he has released numerous recordings over the past several years in collaboration with noise and experimental musicians, breaking further sonic gr…