Allies
For an artist known for incredible prolificacy and the seeming instantaneousness of his work, Fred Frith's ballet score Allies has managed to acquire a long and checkered history. Created in 1989 for the post-modernist Bebe Miller Dance Company, Allies appears near the start of a period where Frith began to separate his efforts in multi-movement works designed for dance, theater productions, and film from the short, improvised guitar pieces and work within rock styled ensembles that he had…
Guitar Solos
Although it was originally recorded in 1974, there are pieces on Fred Frith's landmark Guitar Solos album that are probably still making guitar players scratch their heads wondering "How did he do that?" Don't expect any kind of Yngwie Malmsteen-style wankage; Frith instead uses a volume pedal, tapping, and other extended techniques to produce everything from chiming, bell-like notes to unearthly howls. It almost never sounds like standard guitar-with-plectrum playing, but the pieces have a …
Cheap at Half the Price
Frith's last album for Ralph Records stepped back from the progressions of Speechless to a concoction of pop-like ditties and instrumentals recorded at home on a four track. And for the first time, Frith sings, in a strange high-pitched tone. A little more production and sound manipulation and this could almost be a Residents album, circa 1978. As a pop-song writer, Frith is okay; he shrouds socialist discussion in lyrics about dogs and insects while keeping the song structure simple and r…
Technology of Tears (And Other Music for Dance)
"Sadness, Its Bleached Bones Behind Us," and "You Are What You Eat" are unrelenting slices of hard-edged sounds over a pulse. "The Palace of Laughter, The Technology of Tears" is an imaginative, intense, varied suite comparing music which represents the past "frozen tears" of sadness -- displayed as images before us by the media, etc. -- with the "hot tears" of the moment that cannot be absorbed by technology. "Jigsaw" and "Jigsaw Coda" (1986) creates patterns with constantly shifting acc…
Early works 1980-82
CD version. Innersleeve with liner notes and lyrics, as well as photos. With this release, EM Records shine a light into the dark and yet strangely uplifting world of Inryo-fuen's early '80s wonderland: a surreal, adventurously analog, positively negative realm of freedom. Following the EM Records release of Inryo-fuen's enigmatic Ho-aku (EM 1125CD), Early Years 1980-82 collects the band's earliest recordings, originally released on flexi and vinyl, here re-edited, re-mixed and remastered.…
La Porte Ouverte
La Porte Ouverte is the Elodie's highly anticipated new vinyl-only album, released on Andrew Chalk own Faraway Press imprint. Andrew Chalk and Timo Van Luijk have been collaborating extensively as Elodie over the past year, often helped by Tom James Scott here tickling the keys of the piano to augment with his own strings and treatments. The album is constructed from slowly revolving patterns of delicate harmonics floating around an omnipresent timbral drone, plenty of bells and gongs, and while…
The Synthetic Elements
Crisis of Taste is thrilled to offer ‘The Synthetic Elements’, a new LP by stalwarts of the outré Avant Garde, Idea Fire Company. For the better part of three decades Karla Borecky and Scott Foust have charted their own distinct course through the choppy waters of the experimental underground, their only interaction with the countless flash in the pan trends whipping passed their sails being a direct refutation of them.
Often enjoying the company of a number of like-minded champions of the …
Resonators
Four pieces from a residency in the Czech Republic by the trio of George Cremaschi (double bass and electronics), Irene Kepl (violin and electronics) and Petr Vrba (trumpet, clarinet and electronics). "We're concerned with using the acoustics of the resonant spaces we seek out as a sort of additional member of the group, composing with this interaction particularly in mind." Acoustic instruments and feedback devices combined in old stone spaces, such as the courtyard of a monastery, creating a r…
Diddy Wah Diddy / Who Do You Think You're Fooling / Moonchild /
In the high desert of California, they were referred to simply as “Beefheart.” Don Van Vliet acquired the habit of singing along to vintage blues records while hanging with high school chum Frank Zappa. Founder Alex Snouffer formed the Magic Band in late 1964. And, by early 1965, the powerful and charismatic local blues combo had made quite a name for itself locally as “the band” for local dances at the fairgrounds. By late ’65 the inclusion of master guitarist Rich Hepner explosively changed th…
Molecular Affinity
Thollem McDonas : “This is the third trio album Nels and I have made together, each time with a different 3rd partner. The previous two were The Gowanus Session with William Parker and Radical Empathy with Michael Wimberly. Though each session has been unique in itself (different prescribed approaches, the environment and of course the uniqueness that each individual brings), there are definitely overarching themes pollinating each album. As the instigator of each of these sessions, I’ve always …
Mother Dearest / Très Chère Mère
Mother dearest is a story of childhood suffering which poses the questions: is the young narrator a girl or a boy? Is his brother human? Is his father a busy scientist or an idiot hermit? Is his mother a simple (and happy) narcissistic pervert? Très Chère Mère / Mother Dearest is illustrated throughout and the text is in both English and French. The book comes with a 13 minute CD also titled Mother Dearest.
"Guilliaume Belhomme, label boss at Lenka Lente in France, has been producing these quite…
Rise
"..to shape a new consciousness, one in which cooperation triumphs over domination, and humility before nature's complexity challenges technological hubris. to move on and leave the religious, materialist and supremacist phases behind us. most dimensions are yet to be explored. the real human potential has yet to be revealed. the process of liberation has only just begun. rise, rise, rise.." (final section of Dave Phillips' liner notes, spread across the four sides of the two inlays)
South Africa recordings
Raw field recordings. Immersion. Listening beyond sound. Nature speaks languages. we can “hear” them, but do we listen, do we try to understand? floods, tornados, land erosion, global warming, et cetera - these are but the most obvious examples of nature speaking. These discs contain nature’s sounds with this particular intention/communication in mind. The field recordist in the role of a mediator. Aesthetic choices are but departing points. The quality of attention defines the quality of experi…
selective memory / perception
An hour long piece consisting of classical instrumentation and orchestral arrangements using cello, violin and piano, plus recordings of wind, broken urban creatures, intimate situations, insect and amphibian sounds and mutations thereof, transmogrified balloons, unconscious voices and more. Selective perception is the tendency to not notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs. Selective perception is the process by which individuals p…
Seek
Maurizio Grandinetti is tirelessly exploring the possibilities of the acoustic and semiacoustic guitar, and «will fearlessly employ any technique, any instrument, to manifest the necessary sounds», as Elliott Sharp describes Maurizio Grandinetti’s openness to a wide range of tonalities and techniques. His activities are not limited to one genre or formation, but range from solo recitals, chamber and contemporary music to improvisation. Electrically amplified, and accompanying himself on electron…
Est un chemin, loin en sombre
Joëlle V. aka Erle (voices) and Eric L. aka Fels (drums). Talweg is a duet that seeks to explore the darkest side of sound and music. Talweg tries to create links with the most creative aspects of our archaic past. The path to the deepest valley. Limited to 100 copies.
Community
Erstwhile is proud to announce the release of Community, the new solo release by Graham Lambkin, his fifth solo record, following 2011’s Amateur Doubles. “Community is a music steeped in sociological review. It sits as a keen barometer, taking the temperature of the world around it. Community is both willing servant and social mirror - it performs its basic civic duty without fuss, then shatters.” (José Perez)
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and designed by Lambkin, Community arrives in a delux…
The Earth and the Sky
Erstwhile is proud to announce the first release on the new ErstClass imprint, an epic collection of Michael Pisaro's work for piano from 1994-2016, 11 pieces totalling 223 minutes. The pieces are performed by the brilliant Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt (Current 93, Walter Marchetti, Robert Ashley, etc.) with close oversight by Pisaro as well as his own musical input at times. The gorgeous 8-panel digipak was designed by Yuko Zama (also the lead producer), and the 8 page booklet features liner…
Eternal beyond
My Cat Is An Alien (Roberto & Maurizio Opalio) together with Joëlle Vinciarelli (Talweg and La Morte Young)."All began in Spring 2015, when outsider instantaneous composers MCIAA traced a new magic triangle on a map between their hometown Torino, their current “Alien Zone” secret base in Western Alps, and the mysterious area over Nice’s hills known as Le Village Nègre. Not far from there, in the small and private recording studio of French underground queen Joëlle Vinciarelli, MCIAA recorded and…
Re-Up
Double LP version. Munster Records present a reissue of Étant Donnés's Re-Up, originally released in 1999. For Re-Up, France's Étant Donnés (Eric & Marc Hurtado) brought in Alan Vega, Lydia Lunch and Genesis P-Orridge to provide lyrics and vocals for specific contributions. Vega, featured on the first four tracks, juxtaposes his stream-of-conscious vocals with the phasing pulses and analog crackles and sighs on "Shadows Lights", responding to the rhythmic ticking and splintering synth on the …