El Acero del Partido/Heroe del Trabajo
Limited vinyl reissue of the first LP from Spanish industrial band Esplendor Geométrico. An industrial classic originally released in 1982 on the Tic Tac label, Esplendor Geométrico's sound was already devoid of aggressive lyrics and even titles for their tracks (the A-side, El Acero del Partidio, is spread across five tracks while the B-side, Héroe Del Trabajo, has three tracks). Their sound had already begun to acquire a personality of its own, not fully mature but with an astounding aus…
The Magic Bridge
Gatefold double LP version. Includes a CD with three bonus tracks, plus lyric sheet inserts. Richard Dawson has been a much-loved musical spectacle in his native Newcastle for many years now, a skewed troubadour who sings and plays guitar with a rare intensity and a very singular style. Beguiled northern audiences have long awaited the arrival of recordings that capture Dawson's genius, and it has finally arrived with his album The Magic Bridge, a 10-song collection out on CD (Pink Triangle…
The Endless Change of Colour
"The Endless Change of Colour exists somewhere between our future and the mistakes and accidents we've made along the way. It is a celebration of both the system and the unexpected. Marsen Jules' latest work is a generative music piece upon a single phrase of an old jazz record split into three audio streams. These streams are transformed into loops which break the original instrumentation down into sound resembling pure waves, harmonics, and overtones. These loops play to different time …
First Burning Attraction
Formed in 2009, Damien Dubrovnik is the Danish electronic duo of Christian Stadsgaard (Sarah's Charity) and Loke Rahbek (Sexdrome, Var, Lust For Youth), founders of the Copenhagen-based record label Posh Isolation. In their day-job as label managers, Stadsgaard and Rahbek have been instrumental in establishing the city's prolific and exciting noise/punk community and outgrowing their humble beginnings in noise/industrial culture by attracting a cult/fanatical worldwide following. Working to…
Stonecipher
A deeply enigmatic duo of trumpet and drums augmented by live electronics and an expanded percussive array (tam-tam, multiple high hats etc.), Stonecipher is a mesmerising work that operates in the blurred regions between the electronic and acoustic. Dörner's electronics have never been more effective, creating viscous clouds of sound which are illuminated by Sanders' sparse, precise formations, producing a dense fabric of insidious extended tones, gradual inclines and sudden drops, and sounds t…
Insight Modulation
Amazing electronics from the Italian sound library scene – a record that's far darker and much more moody than other Italian albums of the time – often with complicated tones and elements that rival more important modern electronic composers! Most of the work is relatively spare, and served up in an analogue style that rivals the best BBC Radiophonic material – although here, the passages are even longer, and have a bigger conception overall – with less of the feel that these tunes are supposed …
Now While It's Still Warm Let Us Pour in All the Mystery
CD version. "Following on from 2012's acclaimed Imikizushi (BT 007CD/LP), Now While It's Still Warm Let Us Pour in All the Mystery is the fourth release from the established power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi, recorded in January 2012 at their yearly concert at SuperDeluxe, Tokyo. While the trio's two previous double LP releases featured sprawling, side-long performances, the music here is presented in six shorter pieces, each one displaying a different side of the tr…
Primeval Man Born of the Cosmic Egg
In Chinese mythology, Pan Gu is the primeval man, born of the cosmic egg. One day the egg split open. The top half became the sky and the bottom half the earth. Pan Gu, who emerged from the broken egg, grew ten feet taller every day, just as the sky became ten feet higher and the earth ten feet thicker. After 18,000 years Pan Gu died. Then, like the cosmic egg, he split into a number of parts. His head formed the sun and moon, his blood the rivers and seas, his hair the forests, his sweat the ra…
Ephemeral as Petals
Ephemeral as Petals conjures a nuanced, emotion drenched world from a minimalist core of voice and piano. Higuchi’s voice slides from bombast to mournful chant effortlessly, channeling Diamanda Galas as much as Freddie Mercury, with the instrumental space between vocal passages serving to amplify its affecting resonance. From interpretations of jazz standards to her own compositions, this is album makes for a difficult but captivating new direction in sound.
The Ominous
Jacob is the new project by David Cordero (Úrsula) and Marco Serrato (Orthodox). The duo first collaborated on the arrangements that would become the Emma soundtrack. With a mutual love for sci fi and horror films, Jacob push their dark sonics further on The Ominous, a piece for el cine de la mente. Atonal, dissonant string scrapes meld together in discomforting walls of noise, while hidden forces project an ambiguous malignance lurking in the deep fog. Bleak atmospheres and an abyss of s…
Purge
Kevin Drumm's 2007 cassette 'Purge' on iDEAL went out of stock in less than a week. This is the CD version of that killer thing. Intense listening taking you deep into the known unknown, or perhaps the unknown known. Drumm's noise is extremely powerful and dynamic.; travelling frequencies, rich with details, with very little hope, with guaranteed exhaustion after frequent listening. I always think about Black Metal when I am listening to Drumm's works,Ê they share the same cold and darkness. 'Pu…
The Schulze-Schickert Session
CD edition: Beautiful, previously unreleased private home recording of kosmische drifts starring Schulze alongside his roadie and noted early Krautrock guitarist. Glossy gatefold vinyl with liner notes and photos** "For the first time ever, from the vaults of Klaus Schulze, comes The Schulze-Schickert Session, a rare and previously unreleased private session featuring echo-guitar pioneer, Günter Schickert. Recorded on 26 September 1975 in Klaus Schulze’s home Studio in Hambuehren, Germany,…
Let's Start
His masterpiece "A treat for those into the pioneering works of Terry Riley and Steve Reich in that this combines use of delay lines on keyboards a-la Riley with phasing techniques on voices first explored by Reich" (Mutant Sounds). Originally released in 1979, Wakhevitch's last album before definitely settling down in Auroville (India) was his most meditative and relaxed effort to date. Fruit of his 1978 stay in Israel invited by the "Mishkenot Sha’ananim" Foundation, the album was again…
Nagual
Originally released in 1977, this was (once again) a product of the fruitful association between Igor Wakhevitch and american dancer/choreographer Carolyn Carlson. Compiling some of the pieces specially written for Carlson's "This, that and the other" (created for the Groupe de recherche Theatrale de l'Opera de Paris), the album follows the otherwordly steps of it's predecessor ("Les Fous D'or") in a more calm, relaxed, almost nocturnal way. Inspired by Carlos Castaneda's writings, Nagual is ano…
Les Fous D'or
Released by Pathe Marconi in 1975 and housed in a fantastic surrealist cover designed by his father, russian painter/art director Georges Wakhevitch, this album marks the debut of Wakhevitch's long-standing collaboration with american dancer/choreographer Carolyn Carlson. It also shows the composer's progression into a more esoteric and lyrical grounds: a departure from the violence of his first three albums into quieter yet equally dark and mysterious regions. Divided in two sides (calle…
Leave/Trace
Formerly operating under the name of Mites, Shakhnes has been recording and performing in Tel Avi, Israel since 2008. His work has been issued both privately in limited handmade CD-R editions, and internationally though Alamut Records (Jerusalem), Mystery Sea (Belgium), and Copy For Your Records (NYC). Consider 'leave/trace' a graduation ceremony, as Shakhnes steps away from pseudonymity and into the bright lights of his own exceptional music."leave/trace" offers a compelling display of mu…
Music
A 3 CD set of works by electronic music composer/performer Lou Cohen. This release is a fantastic overview of his works since around 2003, with over three hours of music. Most of these pieces were composed by means of algorithmic and stochastic processes, with emphasis on granular synthesis. Lou Cohen uses Csound as his primary tool for realizing compositions. Csound is a well-known, open-source, programmable music synthesizer. Its antecedents (called 'MUSIC,' 'MUSIC II,' 'MUSIC III,' e…
Open Space
I've been composing graphical scores since 2004. Each score has been done for a particular group, and not just for a certain set of instruments but also for specific persons, each with their own personal sound and their own distinct approach to improvisation. The scores hover in the gray region between composition and improvisation. They create a situation where the players are free up to a point to improvise but in which they could also find themselves in juxtapositions with other player…
When Snakeboy Is Dying
**370 copies, white vinyl** Originally intended as a part of an audio book, When Snakeboy Is Dying shines of its own (dim) lights, marking the first time for Robert Piotrowicz to augment the compositional palette with instruments beyond synthesizers and computers. His decision of tackling them without external aid is not the fruit of bullheadedness, but a conscious attempt to rigorously focus on the properties of those sounds that he deemed necessary for the music’s constitutional narrative to u…
Touching
"Erstaeu 003 is, at once, the most "traditional" of the first three releases and, perhaps because of that, the most difficult to approach, at least for this listener. My previous experience with Graham Stephenson's work (I think this is my first exposure to Aaron Zarzutzki) has often followed the pattern of initial opaqueness followed by gradual transparency, eventually resulting in enjoyment and appreciation. I say "traditional" a bit tongue in cheek, although the set here, trumpet and electron…