Stroomtoon II
In December 2011, I recorded the album Stroomtoon, which was released by the French Nuun label the year after. The music was constructed using recordings from improvisations with a setup that I was trying out for upcoming live performances. It's actually the same setup that I still use nowadays, consisting of an old Phillips analogue tone generator and a selection of effects pedals. The Stroomtoon album still feels like an accomplishment. It's layered, subtle and considered, but I wanted to see …
Things fall apart
Jason Kahn : drum set, voice, metal objects, radio, mixing board, contact microphones, magnetic coil, speaker, computer, chairs, plastic bags. Recorded in Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zürich, Switzerland on April 14, 2013. Mixed and mastered May 2-31, 2013. Cover design Jason Kahn. Audio CD, 6 panels digipak. 'Back in 1981 I was studying at the University of London in the School of African and Asian Studies. One lecturer had us read Chinua Achebe's novel 'Things Fall Apart.' Aside from the book moving …
Mellow Out
Mainliner, were a Japanese trio consisting of Asahito Nanjo (High Rise), Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple) and Hajime Koizumi and their debut album 'Mellow Out' is considered by many to be thee CLASSIC Japanese underground album. Since it was first released in 1996 it's legend has grown and grown, and it's still talked about by lovers of all things loud, noisy and Japanese as THEE definitive Japanese noise rock statement. Upon release it was instantly dubbed 'the pinnacle of achieveme…
Kogetsudai
Kogetsudai is Sylvain Chauveau's 10th album, the second in a trilogy initiated by Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2010), where the song structure is dismantled and reconstructed on the fringe of silence. Whereas Singular Forms found inspiration from Abstract Painting, Kogetsudai is influenced by Zen rock gardens found in Japan Ñ also the location where the album was conceived (for the most part) Ñ and from which the album borrows its title. Layers of minimal electronic sounds and filtered f…
Hai kein Wal
Meeting between visual artist Beni Bischof and electronic musician Norbert Möslang. Limited to 200 copies and hand signed by artists. With this somewhat confused, absurd or primitive Bishop chant, the result could be to remembered as a crashing jumbo jet
Correspondance Sonore
A mail collaboration between Denis McCarty (turntable, cassettes, vinyles) & Martial Bécheau (cut-ups, computer, sounds). Martial Bécheau practice montage, the assembly of this matter that is the sound. Orchestration reports, juxtaposition plans, rhythm & density. Implement disparate materials, and compare the sonorous (sounds, words, music, soundscape, etc.).. Organize of the time factor - Subversive resonances - Respiratory theatre - Walled up silence - Temporal confrontations. Between collag…
Les Femmes Savantes
The Berlin based group Les Femmes Savantes, named after the famous play by Molière, Learned Ladies. This music is just as proud and individual, being a success and almost a myth in the improvised world, combining many styles of music. Les Femmes Savantes are Hanna Hartman, electronics, little objects, Andrea Neumann, inner piano, Sabine Ercklentz, trumpet, Ute Wasserman, voice, Ana Maria Rodriguez, electronics, each one of them an individual master. Together they let focus stay on either the gro…
Berlin
Rhodri Davies: harp. Mark Wastell: violoncello. Simon H. Fell: double bass. 'One day, I hope, the story will be written. The story of the group IST and its relationship to the birth of the music that subsequently became variously known as New London Silence or Lower Case Improv (and yes, I use those upper case letters intentionally). Perhaps the learned critics (who seem very rarely to actually ask the musicians) will tell us just what our place is in this history. Certainly we were not the firs…
100 Flowers
First-time reissue of underground Los Angeles classic originally released in 1983. For fans of The Urinals, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Television Personalities, Desperate Bicycles. Includes digital download card! 100 Flowers (previously known as The Urinals) were a power trio whose sole 1983 album is an enduring document of the Southern California underground. Based in crime-ridden ’80s Los Angeles against the backdrop of juvenile hardcore and vapid hard rock, 100 Flowers crafted a sound that r…
A Last Discovery: The Essential Collection, 1984-2001
Finis Africæ (or Finis Africae): words redolent of mystery and myth, of Europe looking out to new lands, new worlds, new times. And so it is with A Last Discovery, the work of Spaniard Juan Alberto Arteche Guel, and his musical co-adventurers, recorded between 1984 and 2001. After 15 years of musical success in Spain with his band Nuestro Pequeño Mundo, Arteche was ready to experiment with new ideas, and with the purchase of a four-track reel-to-reel recorder he did so, exploring imaginary gl…
INSTAL. Glasgow 2008
...Epic! One of our boldest releases on PAN and a very important piece in musical history; a 4xLP box set of a 3-hour set from the legendary Japanese group, Marginal Consort, recorded live at Arika's Instal 08 festival at The Arches, Glasgow. Featuring bamboo, electronics and the contents of a local ironmonger's bin, this durational group-mind drone made time stand still.Marginal Consort is a Japanese avant-garde improvisational collective made of sound and visual artists, who were all students …
The Source Family
"Awareness of The Source Family, YaHoWa13 and Father Yod has been growing since their early 1970s heyday. A spiritual commune dedicated to a wide-ranging blend of eastern and western mysticism, The Source Family were very much a part of the infamous era of tuning in, turning on and dropping out in the late 1960s and '70s. The Source Family's celebrity-hang-out vegetarian restaurant, rock band, utopian commune, and beautiful women made them darlings of Hollywood's Sunset Strip; but their outsider…
In Search of the Lost Divine Arc
Deluxe double LP pressed in an edition of 1000 copies, housed in a gatefold sleeve.Acid Mothers Temple\'s In Search of the Lost Divine Arc heads in a completely different direction from 2012\'s Son of a Bitches Brew. Harder, faster, and more riff-rock oriented, this record is here to slay. AMT skews their vibe between Zeppelin and Beefheart, coming out with another classic Acid Mothers ripper in the process
Love Song
"The singularly strange storytelling power of Jun Konagayas unit GRIM had been largely overlooked until haang niap records "Folk Songs For An Obscure Race" compilation of the groups early 80s material. Konagaya restarted the group in 2009 and these are their first new recordings - and a full album to boot. Split release between Art Into Life and Eskimo Records! A story in 8 volumes, ripe with deviant madness and gathered salvic capacity. Handmade clock artwork by Konagaya - each one is di…
French Antarctica
probably the most anticipated record of the year for this household. the clip below has been on repeat for a couple months. Kye is proud to present 'French Antarctica', the debut LP by Good Area. Drawing from a palette of guitar, rhythm box, cornet, shortwave radio and room activity Good Area have crafted the ultimate stand-alone testament to instantaneous expression. Bypassing such obsolete concepts as dexterity and restraint 'French Antarctica' cuts loose with a raw unbridled rush of creative …
Cities
Strong field recordings capture more than just the sound of an area, they capture a mood and spirit of the place and people. On Cities, local color and nature recordings clash with riots and discord, capturing the full human experience across the world. Literal and metaphorical “found music” appears: the booming stereo of a passing car or distant church bells, as does the rhythmic engine hum of a bus or the chirping of birds. This tour is a fast paced one, rapidly weaving through the geog…
Scrumptious sabotage
A recording of live performances which brought together two essential figures of the contemporary scene: an oustanding Norwegian composer and vocal artist Maja S.K. Ratkje and a celebrated improviser and composer, former DNA drummer, Ikue Mori. The common sound territory, created together by Mori and Ratkje, balances between quietly growing tension and powerful outbursts of unrestrained, relentless noise. Within this harmony, Ratkje takes adventurous excursions towards the borders and unknown fa…
Regressions ''Blinding Confusion''
"Over the past few years, iconic noise artist Nate Young has been carefully crafting his own signature solo sound, as evidenced through his progressive recordings and performances with American experimental music staples such as Wolf Eyes, Stare Case, Demons, and Moon Pool & Dead Band. Regression 'Blinding Confusion' enters a new era, retaining the techniques and studies from his previous work and raising them to new levels. Intense compositional building and structure seep through each t…
Wooden Ball
"Sarah Smith and Zach Phillips, better known as Blanche Blanche Blanche, live by the element of risk. This becomes clear upon listening to their latest full-length record Wooden Ball, where the unpredictability reaches palpable levels. These prolific young masters of harmony from Brattleboro, Vermont have spent the last couple years recording and releasing nearly 10 full-length records worth of brilliant and confounding musical quicksand. Describing it in words can be difficult, but make no mist…
Identity Picks
"Over the last decade, Burlington, Vermont songwriter/producer Ryan Power has tirelessly embarked on the quest to write the definitive song based music, full of accuracy, refinement, deliberation, and perfectly-placed shifting harmonic puzzles. Ryan's latest Identity Picks for NNA Tapes is an eight track song cycle that dances through lush jazz pads, aquatic smooth jazz funk styles, and the sensitive side of progressive rock. These songs are long, shifting compositions, slowly unfolding an…