Mex 2020
Mex is a non-profit-organization for intermedia and experimental music projects, located in Dortmund, Germany. Since 1992 more than 650 musicians and media artists from around the world presented their subtle, noisy, improvised or conceptual works. mex’s traditional venue for those projects of concerts in combination with performance, video and intermedia, is the mexKeller at the Künstlerhaus with it’s special acoustic and atmosphere. Jens Brand began inviting artists and later Maija Julius went…
Ludwig Wittbrodt
* Cassette in a plastic case with a cardboard insert, printed on the devices of the Museum of Photocopy in Mulheim, Germany. Dubbed in high quality at Ana Ott * The Duo Ludwig Wittbrodt, that‘s Emily Wittbrodt on cello and Edis Ludwig on laptop and drums. The two develop a thicket of sounds and melodies that absorbs us in a completely unpretentious way and fills us with associations and warmth. Sometimes in the jungle, sometimes under water in the desert, we are reminded of the achievements of b…
Anna-Lisa & Rosanne
* Each cassette is handmade and unique. The cases have been made in gravure printing. More precisely: They are line etchings with oil paint on handmade paper. The process also uses a titanium-zinc plate and a paint made of diluted tar. And finally, to match the music, the whole thing wanders through an acid bath * In the heat of summer, Nasssau staggered in a stuffy bus through parts of Europe. They pant in Dusseldorf, they splashed in Hamburg, they rejoiced in Brussels and they mumbled in Antwe…
SSSS
Alicja presents SSSS by Szymon Wildstein.Imagine a theatre run by pigs, the play that comes out of it, will it ruin your life?orYou piggy could start everything, and bring it all to an end.orHyperbole's draft never quite finished, as if there were more extensions to be experienced.Future has already arrived, why don't you change your life?
Throat Mask
The self-titled debut from Throat Mask collects four improvisations from the duo that are built around random processes and hover constantly between collapse and coalescence. The recording sees Nathan Gray attempt to guide his unruly stack of sputtering and chiming digital automations while T. Kowalski responds with fm, digital and analog synthesis and sparsely gestural midi drums.Side A keeps returning to Gray’s voice, occasionally it’s recognisable but more often it’s faltering or shredded by …
Eliksir
* Pro-dubbed clear tape in smokey brown case, cover image printed on transparency film, insert card with a stamp * Alicja founder, painter DJ and problem child Tomasz Kowalski presents his first collection of confounding audio objects: Eliksir. The title track, centrepiece and key to the work as a whole, Eliksir is an augmented radio play that is loosely based around Alvin Lucier’s I’m Sitting in a Room. But instead of an intense focus on auditory phenomena, distraction and interruption divert t…
Wwdruja nuk Nieuzywaja / They wander, don't use the feet
* Edition of 80 * Wędrowiec is a relatively recent project from Poland, channeling forward thinking sonic experimentation through the lens of minimalism and traditional ritual folk music from central Poland. Featuring members of Ksiezyc, Bractwo Ubogich, Kapela Domu Tanca, Kolowrót and Pies Szczeka (Agata Harz, Emili Herda, Piotr Herda, and Remek Hanaj), Wędrują nuk Nieuzywają / They Wander, Don't Use the Feet delves deep into a mysterious world, is built from a sonic pallet of haunting vocals, …
Shakuhachi for Latin Lovers
* Edition of 70 * Clive Bell’s roots in British experimental music run deep. Many will know him for his frequent contributions as a writer for The Wire magazine, while others will know him for his sonic explorations that date back into the 1970s, both solo as well as in collaboration with New Jazz Syndicate, Peter Cusack, Jac Berrocal, Steve Beresford, Jah Wobble, David Ross, David Toop, Mike Cooper, and countless others.Bell is an accomplished player of the shakuhachi (Japanese flute), khene (T…
Quattro
Tanz Mein Herz’s latest, Quattro, out via Standard In-Fi, encounters the French collective pushing at the boundaries of folk tinged experimentalism, psych, and drone. Sprawling across two LPs, it’s an absolute burner of throbbing, hypnotic sound and stunning creative interplay, and easily one of the best records we’ve heard in the early months of 2021.
Taiwan Years
A stunning journey into the archives of one of the most fascinating composers / percussionists working today, Michael Ranta’s Taiwan Years, issued by Metaphon, is nothing short of a revelation, seamlessly binding acoustic interventions with a subtle pallet of electronic and electroacoustic ambiance in a landscape threaded by East-Asian esotericism, psychedelia, minimalism, and outright experimental avant-gardism.
Best that You Do This for Me
A 50-minute composition for string trio by the Japan-based musical pioneer and experimentalist. Commissioned by Anton Lukoszevieze of Apartment House, who perform it beautifully.
Brief interview with Anton Lukoszevieze
Why did you choose to commission a piece from Jim O'Rourke for Apartment House, and how did you know his work?
I have known of Jim for a long time, mainly through his work with Merce Cunningham’s dance company, who I also performed with at the very end of their time. But I had n…
Muto Infinitas
An extended duo for double bass and quartertone bass flute by Catherine Lamb, another US-born composer now resident in Berlin, whose previous discs include ‘Point-Wave’ and the Viola Torros double CD with Johnny Chang.Exquisitely played by Rebecca Lane and Jon Heilbron.
Sculthorpe Studies
Wonderful engaged and engaging music by the young Western Australian composer Josten Myburgh. ‘Sculthorpe Studies’ combines harmonies taken from the work of Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe with field recordings made in Whadjuk Noongar in Western Australia.
Jet Kye Chong, percussion Jameson Feakes, electric guitar Djuna Lee, double bassStuart James, piano & electronics Kirsten Smith, flutes Josten Myburgh, alto saxophone & electronics
Single Track
An extraordinary 7-part canon, which starts fast and gradually slows down across its 45 minute duration. Composed by the Berlin-based US composer Michael Winter, and performed by the leading Mexican new music ensemble Liminar.
Interview with Michael Winter
Single track is a really arresting piece that appealed to me immediately. At one level it’s obvious what’s happening – a 7-part canon that starts out fast and gradually slows down. But what else can you tell me about it?
In a way, the gradual …
Hlaholika
Four chamber works by the Slovak composer Adrián Demoč, whose previous CD ‘Ziadba’ was extremely well-received. Apartment House again on three of the tracks, with one piece played by a Czech ensemble. The title track is the third of Another Timbre’s quarantine commissions. Stunningly beautiful music.Interview with Adrián Demoč by Lukáš Borzik:
Let’s start at the end of the disc, with the final track – the duo for violin and double bass, because I know you’re particularly fond of it. What is i…
Motore Immobile
To quote Pitchfork, this is 'one of the most sumptuous, spiritual ambient albums of any era or provenance.
A New Instability
In 2019, the power-acoustic musician Francisco Meirino presented A New Instability, a commission for the venerable Ina-GRM in Paris. Of course, this institution is the pre-eminent center for the research and study of electro-acoustic music dating back to the founding of Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1958 by Pierre Schaeffer. To this day, Ina-GRM continues to be at the vangarde of the electro-acoustic composition, and it is quite an accomplishment and very appropriate for Meirino to receive s…
A Listener's Guide to Free Improvisation
* In process of stocking * Improvisation rattles some listeners. Maybe they’re even suspicious of it. John Coltrane’s saxophonic flights of fancy, Jimi Hendrix’s feedback drenched guitar solos, Ravi Shankar’s sitar extrapolations—all these sounds seem like so much noodling or jamming, indulgent self-expression. “Just”improvising, as is sometimes said. For these music fans, it seems natural that music is meant to be composed. In the first book of its kind, John Corbett’s "A Listener’s Guide to Fr…
Live at WNUR 2-6-92
* Edition of 75 * Originally released on cassette in 1992 and then CD in 1996 this is The Flying Luttenbachers' first transmission to Earth. A furious snapshot into the early days of the band and featuring the incredible line-up of head honcho Weasel Walter, Hal Russell and Chad Organ. First time on vinyl.
"The Flying Luttenbachers have quite an impressive history for a band whose lineup seems to be constantly in flux. The one constant is drummer Weasel Walter, who formed the band in Chicago in …
Origins
* Edition of 75, Red vinyl * Father Murphy's path ended on December 17th 2018. We're proud to present exactly two years later an essential reissue for the first time on vinyl of the band's first two EPs now collected as 'Origins'. Known for their furious live shows, something in between a ritual and an artistic performance, they released a series of concept albums based on expressing the sound of Catholic sense of Guilt.
In their early days though they were still diving deep into a psychedelic m…