Red Mars
Loren Connors has long been heralded as one of the country's most inimitable guitar voices. Like kindred spirit John Fahey, Connors' legacy began by quietly self-releasing a series of raw and embryonic LPs. Since the late 1970s, Connors' use of haunted Delta Blues, minimalism and compositional underpinnings have become an avant-garde style synonymous to him. Along the way, musicians diverse as Chan Marshall, Keiji Haino, Darin Gray, Jim O'Rourke, Jandek, and Alan Licht have sought Connors…
A Million Corpses of Dead Bees/High Road
Tipped Bowler returns to the fertile soil of New Zealand to cull two choice improvisations. On the A-side, Wellington's Nova Scotia delivers 'A Million Corpses of Dead Bees', an eighteen minute free-rock burner. Growing from violin sine-squeak and distant shortwave, the piece gains momentum with its patient drumming and resolves into a saxophone swarm shot through with synthetic scrabble. On the reverse, Dunedin's Eye comes off colder and more aggressive. 'High Road' throttles the listener…
Synthesist / Re-Synthesist
Synthesist is the debut album by Harald Grosskopf, the enigmatic percussionist behind Ash Ra Tempel, Klaus Schulze, and Cosmic Jokers. Originally released by Sky Records in 1980, RVNG Intl. celebrates the 30th year anniversary with this newly mastered and packaged reissue. Berlin, Germany, summer of 1979, Harald Grosskopf, then 30 years old, was at a personal and creative crossroads. His girlfriend just left him, and Ashra (Manuel Göttsching's "solo" project) was on temporary hiatus. Harald …
Channel Pressure
The production duo's debut full-length album is a highly focused study in the effects of consumer electronics that touches on sensual bangers and hyper-spherical anthems prime for the dance floor. The record was engineered by another childhood pal, Al Carlson, and mixed by Prefuse 73 who states: 'Mixing these ideas that span from high school notebooks into a present sonic territory is F+L's right on conceptual evolution.' There's a fantastical, futuristic narrative arc running hard throug…
Emergency Room
"A few new developments for electronic production duo Games. The pair comprised of Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin and Tiger City's Joel Ford are no longer calling themselves Games -- instead, they now go by the very Italo disco-sounding Ford & Lopatin. First order of business for F&L: running a new offshoot of Brooklyn label Mexican Summer, appropriately titled Software." -- Cribbing from Pitchfork."To precede the release of Channel Pressure, Ford & Lopatin will be releasing an Emergency…
Dort Ist Der Weg
Latest from these blackened doomdrone soundscapers, once again demonstrating that these guys definitely don't let any sort of genre classification define what they do, cuz what they do here is let their krautrock freak flag fly, whipping up a gorgeous chunk of hazy, rhythmic psychedelia, a reinterpretation of a classic Popol Vuh jam (from 1976), which does indeed channel the same sort of brooding, blissy mesmer, a dreamy, dark dirge, hypnotic and hazy, spidery guitar melodies over simple …
Only Stories
Latest from the uber prolific Aidan Baker, of mighty doomdronedirge duo Nadja, and as we've discovered in the past, Nadja is Baker's outlet for the heavier stuff, while working under his own name he tends to veer toward the minimal, ambient and drone side of the spectrum. So that's what we were sort of expecting from this, and while it definitely does lean more toward those sounds that the crush of Nadja, it's actually something else entirely, a solo acoustic record. That's right, just ac…
Univrs
Gatefold 2LP version. Alva Noto's (Carsten Nicolai) Univrs follows on from and develops the concept of the album Unitxt (R-N 095CD/LP). Whereas the focus of Unitxt was on the processing of rhythmic patterns ("unit" = unit of measurement, element) and information ("txt" = data, language), with Univrs the focus is on the conceptual differentiation of a universal language ("universum/universal" = unity, entirety). The 14 tracks on Univrs have evolved from a live context, hence, the approach is…
Attack On Silence
Sacred geometries, and their sonic equivalents, are said to mirror the micro and macroscopic structures of the physical world; the complex harmonies of the Tibetan singing bowl, like the patterns of the Mandala, allow access to the deepest levels of the consciousness inducing meditative states that transform the very being of their participants. In the modern reciprocals of these technologies the shift is one of teleology. The sacred metals and antique art of the singing bowls give way to…
World Complete
Harmonizer, or as lovingly referred to as HARMO around these parts is the Vermont duo of Toby Aronson and Greg Davis, whose previous effort, their self-titled debut on Aronson's own stellar NNA Tapes label was the definitive 5th world statement, and solidified them as sensais in the koan of new drone worship shared by the likes of fellow melodic noisers Caboladies and OPN. In fact Greg Davis (Kranky, Carpark) is zone veteran shredder whose explorations into pastoral electronics have been w…
Dropped Pianos
This Tim Hecker release is composed of sketch pieces recorded in 2010 in preparation for what would become the Ravedeath, 1972 album. All of the compositions are piano driven and minimal in nature. This is not a new Tim Hecker album, but rather a peek behind the curtains into the working process. That these pieces stand on their own as compelling soundworks is a testament to the fact that Tim Hecker is at the absolute top of his game at the moment, and has been for years.
Kusabira. Obscure Tape Music of Japan vol. 13
One of the pioneers of Japanese electronic music, Makoto Moroi, composed "Kusabira" for Kyogen (traditional comedy theater) with electronic sound in 1964. "Kusabira" means "mushroom." A strolling Buddhist monk, Yamabushi, tried to exterminate many mushrooms that grew in the garden of a man's home. However, his magic did not take effect on them but also the Mushrooms began to increase. The man and Yamabushi were driven out of the home by a large Mushroom, finally. In this work, Moroi used abstrac…
Periodic Orbits Of A Dynamic System Related To A Knot
The album features two 23-minute halves that Fell describes as “almost live”. These tracks combine out-takes from his recent album ‘Multistability’, with bits he originally produced as part of a “quadraphonic piece” he performed live in Barcelona this year, which is called Supersimetria: New Languages In Computer Music.
‘Periodic Orbits Of A Dynamic System Related To A Knot’ was produced when Fell moved to a new home and studio, where he was limited to only internal speakers on his MacBook…
Anahata (1984-86)
Subtitled: Primordial Vibration / Sound ceremonial with a contemplative character. Composed in 1983-1986. Sound ceremonial with a contemplative character for two voices of Japanese Buddhist monks (traditional Shômyô techniques - traditional temple chanting - in a larger, modern and creative form), three Japanese Gagaku instrumentalists (traditional court music in a modern and creative form), one percussionist (with a percussion instrument orchestra) and electro-acoustic (fixed interactive sounds…
Le Jardin Des Chemins Bifurquants
Before it became a mere synonym for background or wallpaper music, the word Ambient signified music that floated without roots yet wasn’t rootless. It encompassed beats, drifting melody, textural experiments, field recordings, samples and much more, gaining its power from contradictory impulses. Over two decades of production work, Jamal Moss has made Ambient music in this sense. He’s ostensibly a House music producer but his influences run deep, from classic Industrial and Sun Ra to New Age mys…
Yo-In (1980)
First world publication for the seminal Yo-In (1980) an electro-acoustic work produced in Japan and revisited by the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris in 1981. “Sound Theater for an imaginary rite”. Yo-Inleads to a sort of “celebration-ritualization of the day of man on Earth”.Jean-Claude Eloy discovered the meaning of Yo-In by going deeper into the culture of Japan where he had been invited by Toru Takemitsu in 1970: “Yo-In, echo, rhyme, resonance, psychic reverberation”. Karheinz Stock…
Without Sinking
**Now available on vinyl for the 1st time in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, with 3 bonus tracks not on the CD** Hildur Gudnadottir is a gifted cellist with an impressive history of collaborations that includes work with Pan Sonic, Throbbing Gristle, Johann Johannsson, Skúli Sverrisson and Ben Frost among many others, as well as being a member of Iceland's notable Kitchen Motors collective. She first came to our attention on Pan Sonic's epic 'Katodivaihe' album from a couple of years back, he…
The Ultimate Edition 1980-1984
Tremendous 5xLP box by one of the highest acclaimed minimal synth bands active during our favorite decade. The Snowy Red project started as a one-man band by Micky Mike. With a few synthesizers, a 12/2 mixing desk and a 2-track reel to reel recorder he created repetitive synth masterpieces in the vein of Suicide and Polyphonic Size. These black synthetic pearls were spread over two albums: the self-titled "Snowy Red" and "The Right To Die", both are included in this box, officially rem…
Early Tapes
The Neon Judgement was formed in 1980/1981. Instantly they self-released two cassettes. With a limited amount of electronic instruments, they recorded their debut: "Suffering". The first version of their classic track "Factory Walk" is on this tape, a much more raw version than the one which would later become an underground clubhit. "Sweet Revenge" and "Schyzophrenic Freddy" remind of Suicide and the almost claustrophobic sounding tracks "Harem" and "Army Green (WOIII) are in the veign o…
Music For Fireworks
In 1978, Philippe Genion bought a guitar for 1000 belgian francs (25€). He connected it to his hifi amp, quickly learned how to play "smoke on the water" and a few punk songs with two fingers and within two weeks, pushing the amp more and more to the limit, blew his 200W speakers out. Later, around 1980, he bought an old ARP synthesizer from walloon band "Jo Lemaire plus Flouze" and started playing with these instruments and a few old flanger and distorsion pedals, and started recording so…