See the World Given to a One Love Entity
Guardian Alien is a free wheeling ensemble coming into its own, having found just the right balance between structured arrangements and wild abandon. Helmed by Greg Fox, who has lent his percussive force to the likes of Teeth Mountain, Dan Deacon, and Liturgy, the ensemble was initially an extension of his solo music (GDFX). It rapidly took on its own identity and expanded to a core group of Greg (drums, vocals, electronics, arrangements), Alex Drewchin (vocals, synth), Turner Williams Jr…
Rework: Philip Glass Remixed
There are two basic reasons why composers like Philip Glass end up getting remixed: rhythm and repetition. Glass' most identifiable music is simple, or so it seems: Play a chord, break it down into its constituent notes, and repeat the notes in hypnotic succession. If there's another instrument playing, they're probably playing the same notes in a different order. At the foundation of the music, there's what's called an ostinato. One way to think of it is as a bassline; another, in the words of …
I Wish I Didn't Dream
Wish I Didn’t Dream, the new album of duets by guitarist Loren Connors and vocalist Suzanne Langille, was cut in just a few hours of studio time. But the pieces started falling into place 15 years earlier on the 10th floor of a nondescript building in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. It was there, at the old location of the Brecht Forum, that Connors got to know writer and WFMU DJ Kurt Gottschalk, who was curating a concert series there. On occasion Tom Abbs (now President of Northern Sp…
Kill The Self That Wants To Kill Yourself
Zs could quite possibly be the modern jazz equivalent of Lou Reed‘s Metal Machine Music or Borbetomagus for a new generation. Their uncompromising sonic assault commands attention, consistently leaving an impression on the listener that is not likely to be forgotten. After a couple cassette EPs, founding Zs member, Sam Hillmer, finally delivers his solo album, an introspective journey that successfully expresses Hillmer’s starkly unique vision. Rather than repeat the organic noise attack…
The Unexamined Life
Supreme Dicks put out one single in their career. It was a double B-side. Maybe they had a sense of humor, but in hindsight it's hard to tell.Falling somewhere between Captain Beefheart, Throbbing Gristle and SALEM in the lineage of musicians who've found a muse in the nasty, brutish brevity of life, Supreme Dicks chose to cloak disarmingly real paranoia and grief in the contemporary trappings of late '80s and early '90s lo-fi college rock. They may have inhabited the same sonic and physical spa…
The Emotional Plague
Includes digital download voucher redeemable from the label** "Jagjaguwar is proud to reintroduce the first ever vinyl pressing of 'The Emotional Plague' from 1996. Supreme Dicks put out one single in their career, Ia double B-side. Maybe they had a sense of humor, but in hindsight it's hard to tell. Falling somewhere between Captain Beefheart, Throbbing Gristle and SALEM in the lineage of musicians who've found a muse in the nasty, brutish brevity of life, Supreme Dicks chose to cloak d…
Breathing & Not Breathing
Supreme Dicks entire catalog is now available from Jagjaguwar! There’s the 4 CD boxset, Breathing and Not Breathing, which includes both of the band’s studio albums, The Unexamined Life and The Emotional Plague; Workingman’s Dick, a collection of early archival recordings; and the EP This Is Not A Dick, which has additional rare and unreleased tracks; as well as 2xLP editions of The Unexamined Life and The Emotional Plague. All for order right here.The Stranger calls Breathing and Not Breathing …
Family album
Double hybrid LP: One LP on black vinyl and one LP on clear fuchsia vinyl and picture disc artwork on the back side (first time!). "Of all the records I got from 2000 to 2010, a coupla by Second Family are among my fav... they remind me a bit the good old Sunburned Hand of the Man (or at least that tradition) but of course, with their own unique sound. Anyway, I wrote them... Tony kindly sent me stack of stuff... I selected & compiled a few things and they kindly agreed without exception. …
Camoufleur
Along with fellow Chicagoans Tortoise, Gastr Del Sol has managed to create an indie-rock audience for progressive music. On this release, the last with multi-instrumentalist and producer Jim O'Rourke, the group's music is more melodic and concise than in the past. But at the same time, the group retains its dedication to experimenting with song forms and production techniques. Augmented by friends and hired hands who play a variety of instruments, Gastr aims for the grand pop of Van Dyke …
A Fire
23 minute piece of solo guitar wrangling by the avant blues elder statesman. Limited, hand-numbered edition of 350 housed in screen-printed wrap-around with insert in poly jacket** "Connors is an avant-garde legend, with more than 100 releases of his singular alien take on the blues. RIYL: Jack Rose, Michael Chapman, Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey. A Fire is a single-sided LP by master guitarist Loren Connors. Recorded live in Philadelphia in 2010, this 23 minute piece follows in the style and visual …
Berberian Sound Studio
To coincide with Halloween we can announce that Warp Records will be releasing Broadcast's original soundtrack that accompanied the recent Warp Film 'Berberian Sound Studio' - Peter Strickland’s brilliant homage to 1970s Italian horror. The film's integral soundtrack was composed by Broadcast before Trish Keenan's untimely passing last year.
Inventionen VII: 30 jahre inventionen 1982 - 2012
* Five hours of electroacoustical compositions, recorded during the first thirty years of the Berlin festival “Inventionen”. Box set with two audio CDs and a multichannel (surroundsound) DVD * Mindblowing two re-releases of Edition RZ LPs that are now available in this double CD box with additional tracks, as well as a mainly acousmatic DVD that features electronic tracks by a variety of electroacoustic composers. The present DVD contains mainly acousmatic music. This is when a pure "tape piece"…
Einstein on the Beach
Widely credited as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, this rarely performed work launched its director Robert Wilson and composer Philip Glass to international success when it was first produced in Avignon, France in 1976, with subsequent performances in Europe and in New York at the Metropolitan Opera. It is still recognized as one of their greatest masterpieces. Now, nearly four decades after it was first performed and twenty years since its last production, Einstei…
Rework
One of America’s greatest ever composers gets the remix treatment. What is it with remix albums this week - are they back? Anyway it’s always an odd thing the remix album, basically it’s just an excuse for the great and good to strut their stuff and do something decent on a high profile record.It’s a mixed bag of collaborators from Tyondai Braxton to Cornelius to Beck (who gets an entire side to himself) to Johann Jonannsson to Peter Broderick (still no doubt weeping from our review of his recen…
My Life On The Plains
Lee Hyla is a composer of rare power and versatility whose work combines the complexity of atonal classical concert music with the energy of experimental jazz, rock and improvised music. Truly part of the American tradition, his work is imaginative, fresh, and embraces a widerange of diverse influences. Lee Hyla’s third Tzadik CD presents a collection of recent works large and small. Colorful and startling pieces filled with surprises and wild bursts of energy. This is a fabulous and varied prog…
The Yelm Sessions
Another important piece of the elusive and hermetic Eyvind Kang puzzle. This newest studio project from one of the most consistently interesting young composer/performers working today is instantly Kang’s most adventurous, varied and ambitious recordings to date. Featuring many of his most illustrious musical associates as well as several orchestral ensembles from around the world, this new CD brings Kang’s exuberant gift for orchestration and lyricism together with a keen sense of the miraculou…
7 Nades
Eyvind Kang's name may not yet be a household word, but we confidently predict that this exciting, young Seattle-based violinist/composer will quickly prove to be a musical force to be reckoned with. Tzadik is proud to release 7 Nades, Kang's astonishing and eccentric debut album. Kang began learning violin at age 6 - he has since performed and/or recorded with Bill Frisell, the Sun City Girls, John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz and Motel 6, Joe McPhee, Deformation and others. He has also composed scores …
Cover Versions
Andrew Pekler selected 300 different covers from second-hand records and, using colorful geometric elements to cover over all titles, performer’s names, and label logos, removed traces of the covers’ original contexts. The sunsets, couples in silhouette, alpine panoramas, roses on pianos, female faces in close-up, and seascapes no longer serve as the packaging for easy listening and exotica. Instead, the romantic, bizarre and intriguingly bland images of the original covers are free to lend thei…
The Kermes Infestation
** 6LPs with individual silkscreened sleeves in a hand-coloured and silks-creened heavy box, in a numbered edition of 145 copies only. ** PLANAM proudly presents K-Salvatore “The Kermes Infestation” 6LP box masterpiece. This is the first ever available edition as the elusive self published triple tape on Sound@One was originally released in 1996 in an invisible edition of just 10 copies. Pre-dating the glorious “Four Impossible Puns” double LP on Siwa these recordings represent one of the most s…
Check Point Charlie
Double LP edition, seminal album recorded in 1989 and originally released by Aaya in 1990, Check Point Charlie is the first work by Ghedalia Tazartés conceived for the compact disc format and its different time boundaries. Check Point Charlie is a collage journey where Tazartès pulls out all the stops to captivate and confuse the listener: street recordings, pseudo-enticing dialogues, sampled instruments, real instruments, rapid-fire splices, and that uncanny voice of his reciting, yodeling, sc…