Urban Sax 1
Much-needed reissue of these incredible LPs. Urban Sax's debut LP was issued in 1977 on Cobra, recalling the best Terry Riley, stunningly psychedelic, it’s the perfect combination of hazy, fluttering psychedelia and tough, tactile reed work. Urban Sax was created in 1973. Gilbert Artman, the mastermind behind Lard Free -who has also participated in dozens of recordings by other artists of the French experimental scene that included Delired Chameleon Family, Clear Light, Komintern, etc.- develope…
Talk to the Sea
2016 Repress. With an additional six tracks, the CD release of Talk to the Sea delves deeper into the archives of Gigi Masin; taking two tracks from the album Wind and presenting four previously-unreleased tracks. For their much-anticipated second release, Music From Memory takes you into the world of Italian musician Gigi Masin. Part of only a small and very much underground music scene in his hometown of Venice, Gigi Masin self-released two modestly pressed LPs, Wind (1986) and Wind Collec…
Clonic Earth
The experimental Italian composer, Valerio Tricoli, returns to PAN with a new album, Clonic Earth. His ongoing output for the label has long-presented his electroacoustic sound compositions which utilizes analog live sampling and real-time editing of field and studio recordings by manipulation of 1/4 inch tape. Asides from being a founding member of the Italian avant-rock group 3/4HadBeenEliminated, he has worked extensively with various musicians, choreographers and multimedia artists inclu…
The All Most Quiet
Anyone who has experienced Swans live on one of their recent tours will know who Norman Westberg is: the almost stoic, tall man, who coaxes rhythmic sounds from his guitar with an incomparably minimalist power and elegance. The play on words in the title can be applied to Westberg's own musical work, because whereas Swans are hard to surpass in terms of brute force, the artist's solo work is much more subtle, and therefore also quieter. The resulting juxtaposition between the dense metropolis of…
Eden's Island
2016 repress.It is 1960. Rock 'n' roll has just lost a couple of its protagonists during this and the previous year. The time of the great balladeers has just begun but soon will run out, due to the new and exciting beat invasion. In the US mainstream, the tiki culture has reached a certain peak and is about to collapse, but still goes strong, and with it comes the so-called "exotica" music, a crossover between smooth jazz and swing, Latin grooves, and haunting melodies rooted in global fo…
Aura Legato
Blackest Ever Black presents Af Ursin's 2005 masterpiece Aura Legato. Af Ursin is the alter ego of Finnish autodidact composer/improviser Timo van Luijk. His work is rooted in the use of acoustic instruments (wind, percussion, strings), but his special sensitivity to the timbral qualities of each instrument, and his deft blurring of them, results in a sound-world that is mysterious, amorphous and hallucinatory, full of suggestive shadows, creaks and whispers. Van Luijk's process begins alw…
Eclipsed
Bremen return with Eclipsed, a double LP of glacial electronics, strung-out drone-punk, and smoldering space-rock minimalism. Following the release of their self-titled debut on Skrammel in 2013, the Swedish duo of Jonas Tiljander (Brainbombs) and Lanchy Orre (Brainbombs, Totalitär) joined the Blackest Ever Black fold in 2014 with Second Launch (BLACKEST 033LP). If the mood of that record was brooding and stygian, its monochord intensity unfaltering, then Eclipsed, this equally sprawling set, co…
The Composite Moods Collection Vol. 1: House Number 44
House Number 44 is the first volume of The Composite Moods Collection, a cycle of Dalhous recordings that examines the relationship between two individuals cohabiting in a confined space -- their interactions, their sense of self and of each other, and the pregnant space between. One of these people, perhaps the protagonist of House Number 44, is (or at least feels) in fine mental health. The other appears distinctly unwell -- detached, isolated, often feeling helpless and unable to influen…
Ass
LP version. Includes CD. Three guitarists, three generations, one album. Günter Schickert, Jochen Arbeit, and Dirk Dresselhaus are all renowned Berlin guitarists. They epitomize three generations of experimental musicians; Schickert personifies the krautrock of the 1970s, Arbeit 1980s post-punk, and Dresselhaus the neo-electronica of the late 1990s and 2000s. Their artistic approaches may differ according to their diverse musical backgrounds, yet what they have in common is a fundamental in…
Musique En Scene
privately pressed tape featuring Tom James Scott. Throughout the whole album, there's a refined sense of reductionism and that achingly poetic melancholy which drips from every sustained note and hushed passage
Wind
2016 limited repress. Italian electronic musician Gigi Masin's much sought-after 1986 first album, Wind, restored and remastered from the original tapes. Never commercially released, the LP was only given away at a number of small concerts, with many of the remaining copies destroyed during floods in the Venice-based musician's house. Quickly gaining recognition as something of a landmark ambient album in recent years, Wind is now lovingly presented again in its entirety. True to its origi…
No Strength of Sun
Stockholm-born Bandhagen-resident Michel Isorinne started his solo career with a couple of tapes that mainly consisted of lo-fi ambient music leaning towards the organic and experimental. More known for his part in D.Å.R.F.D.H.S. together with Varg, under which they have produced a dozen releases the past few years, in 2014 he debuted with Varseblivning on the Northern Electronics sub label Blodörn and followed up two tapes (1980 & 2061) on Rimini-based Mixed-Up. More recent fame came from his v…
Plays Hazkarà
Italy’s prince of chill Gigi Masin teams up with multitalented muse Mirco Salvadori for a tender excursion into the world of the piano in an attempt to build a unified poetry of art and sound in Hazkara. I mean, that’s pretty much a guarantee if you include a 48-page book with a CD, words and pictures and all. The first thing I noticed was the prominence of the piano on this one, more so than recent Music From Memory compilation Talk to the Sea, anyway. Yeah, I’m a pedestrian Masin fan. Being …
Solèra
"Astrùra’ and ‘Solèra’ are the “Bragos series”, two new Enrico Coniglio works dedicated to the lagoon of Venice. Named after the Venetian for two seabeds, the pieces are field recordings collected at the mouth of the harbor during a foggy spring day back in the 2009, on the northern edge of the lagoon. The environmental narrative is enhanced with both natural and mechanical drones, alluding to modern crisis and with a very precise aversion to nostalgia. The project goal of redefining a locative …
Astrùra
"Astrùra’ and ‘Solèra’ are the “Bragos series”, two new Enrico Coniglio works dedicated to the lagoon of Venice. Named after the Venetian for two seabeds, the pieces are field recordings collected at the mouth of the harbor during a foggy spring day back in the 2009, on the northern edge of the lagoon. The environmental narrative is enhanced with both natural and mechanical drones, alluding to modern crisis and with a very precise aversion to nostalgia. The project goal of redefining a locative …
Programm 2
Early pioneers of the German New Wave music scene,Din A Testbild were formed in 1978 by Mark Einsand Gudrun Gut (former member of Einstürzende Neubauten, Mania D. and Malaria!). Din A Testbild played a significant role in defining the avant-garde music of Berlin. Legendary is their participation at the Festival Genialer Dilletanten in 1981. Mixed and produced by Klaus Schulze on his own record label Innovative Communication in 1981, Programm 2 is their second album and was a favorite in the play…
Programm 1
Early pioneers of the German New Wave music scene, Din A Testbildwere formed in 1978 by Mark Eins and Gudrun Gut (former member ofEinstürzende Neubauten, Mania D. and Malaria!). Din A Testbild played a significant role in defining the avant-garde music of Berlin. Legendary is their participation at the Festival Genialer Dilletanten in 1981. Mixed and produced by Klaus Schulze on his own record label Innovative Communication in 1980, Programm 1 was a favorite in the playlists of the Italian cosmi…
Woven Sounds
Half of Indonesia's Senyawa (the band's sole instrumentalist, Wukir Suryadi) with a solo release for Morphine. Engineered by Rabih Beaini. Art direction by The Tank Boys.The unique tone and twang of Wukir Suryadi’s homemade bambuwukir - a
hollow tube of bamboo with strings and pick ups played like a
guitar/sitar - recorded at Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt, by Philip
Albus in October 2015, is twisted and serrated into a pair of gripping
tracks, following an unsteady, zig-zagging and buzzing …
Huruf Hidup
One half (the vocal force) of Indonesia's Senyawawith a solo release for Morphine. Engineered by Rabih Beaini. Art direction by The Tank Boys.
Go Go Theurgy
Go Go Theurgy, the first Anna Zaradny’s album in eight years, consists of two majestic compositions. Strikingly charismatic and intense, they teem with sensuality and anxiety, while their palpably dense and detailed texture is constantly filled with tension and sense of urgency. The crystal-clear narration of these structurally complex pieces creates a framework for Zaradny's uniquely intricate and emotional sound. This music celebrates performativity and defies genre limitations. Although brave…