Impala Eardrums: A Radium Sampler
Radium is regarded as Table Of The Elements' rock offshoot, although they do write that in inverted commas (that's 'rock', in case you were wondering what that would look like). The label is given a showcase by this eight-track LP, calling upon Jonathan Kane, Megafaun, Ateleia, Collections Of Colonies of Bees and Neptune among others. Rhys Chatham, that most iconic of Radium artists gets the album underway with an untitled piece from 1986, featuring an arsenal of four guitars, a bass and drums. …
I-IV-V-I
ONE-SIDED, ETCHED GREEN VINYL. Released as a part of Table Of The Elements' 15th anniversary celebrations, this LP is another installment in the label's Guitar Series, which features contributions from Fennesz, SunnO)))'s Stephen O'Malley, Thurston Moore. By rights, David Daniell's name should be every bit as widely known as any of those other aforementioned superstars of the avant-garde. His album on TOTE sub-label Xeric (the magnificent Coastal) is an all too often overlooked masterpiece, and …
Telescope
ONE-SIDED, ETCHED MARBLE-EFFECT VINYL. This new Guitar Series installment is also the debut solo LP by David Daniell's bandmate in San Agustin, Andrew Burnes - though he may equally be known for his improv collaborations with the likes of Thurston Moore and Ken Vandermark, or as a co-conspirator in Loren Connors' Haunted House. Telescope takes the form of a single, lengthy drone piece, modulating and morphing across an expanse of handsome, marble-effect green vinyl. Burnes isn't shy of morphing …
June
12" one-sided clear vinyl with an etching by Savage Pencil. Table of the Elements continues to celebrate its 15th anniversary with the ninth installment in its Guitar Series Vols. 3 & 4. It’s a 12xLP romp of deviant fretnoise by some of experimental music’s most prominent players, including Christian. Simply put, Christian Fennesz is a pioneer. As much as any artist, he is responsible for establishing the laptop computer as both a compositional tool and concert instrument. Subsuming electro-acou…
The Moon Last Night
The Moon Last Night perfectly captures the complex and contemporary guitar style of Loren Connors - totally desolate yet wound in echoy, rich black clouds that weep of Mississippi ghost blues and chiming strings. This two part suite combines the artist's love of choral music, Giacinto Scelsi and the naked Venusian guitar style he evangelized across a string of private press LPs in the late 1980s. Conjured solely from a Fender six-string and reverb effects, solitary notes swirl and loft gently fr…
The Departing Of A Dream Vol. II
Avant guitar legend Loren Connors (aka Loren MazzaCane Connors) returns with the sequel to 2002's critically acclaimed The Departing of a Dream. The NYC blues guitarist, who has been recording and releasing albums since 1978, extends the theme (which was a loose tribute to Miles Davis' 'He Loved Him Madly') into a fragile and floating eight-part piece of acoustic/electric/ and bass guitar mixed with field recordings and the unsettling ménage of found sounds and ambient hiss. Whereas the first De…
TGV
THE VIDEO ARCHIVE OF THROBBING GRISTLE - Numbered Limited Edition of 2000. This Deluxe 7 disc DVD Collection showcases the phenomenon that was, and is now, Throbbing Gristle Live in Performance. Featuring 10 full shows, most never-before-seen, ranging from the fascinating beginnings in 1979, by way of the classic videos of Oundle and Heathen Earth, and including the notorious RE-TG "re-grouping" 23 years later at London's Astoria Theatre in Spring 2004, as well as three more recent remarkable co…
Multiples
Multiples was recorded at the Harvard University studios, where a stash of vintage synthesizers and electronics was made available to Keith Fullerton Whitman during his time as a lecturer there. The eight tracks on Multiples flow through hit hat shimmer to skull-scraping electronic tones to interlocking clusters of repetition. This is Whitman's most inclusive and developed album yet. The limited edition Antithesis and Schöner Flußengel LPs released in 2004 showed the range of Whitman's interests…
Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui
The sixth edition of the SYR series is a live recording of the April 12, 2003 benefit concert held at and for The Anthology Film Archives, the international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of avant-garde and independent cinema. In addition to screening films for the public, AFA houses a film museum, research library and art gallery.
The event, which raised money for the Archives and celebrated the life and work of avant-garde film maker Stan Brakhage, featured Sonic Youth prov…
The Versailles Sessions
Murcof, aka Barcelona-based Mexican composer Fernando Corona, is probably best known for his blending of classical and electronic music in multimedia pieces such as Oceano; but until that is reduced to CD size, this album of music commissioned to accompany a festival makes for a pleasing stopgap. As with much of Murcof's music, a rapprochement between past, present and future is obtained by the processing of acoustic source material, here including harpsichord and viola da gamba. "Welcome to Ver…
Heaven\'s End
Had Loop been present at Woodstock, they probably would have hatched a plan to obtain all the brown acid that Wavy Gravy warned spectators not to take. After hearing his declaration that "The brown acid's a bummer, man!," Robert Hampson and his droogs would have likely gone incognito as security staff, offering to rid the concert goers of the bad trips waiting to be had. They would have procedeed to ingest what they could and record something like Heaven's End, a filler-free release of warped se…
Event
How's this for a threesome; in the red corner we have Christian Marclay with a box of records and his trusty turntables, in the blue corner it's twinkle-toes Yasunao Tone and his prepared CD's and players, whilst in the, erm, green corner stands Christian Wolff and his one man band of bass, percussive stuff, radio-cassette recorder and melodica. FIGHT! Recorded live way-back-when in 1998 as improvised accompaniment to a Merce Cunningham Dance Company performance, 'Event' is a single 50 minute pi…
Fade Out
Distinguishing one Loop record from another is nearly as tricky as doing the same for the Ramones or AC/DC. Since Loop more or less stuck to one thing, remaining consistently great and gradually developing an experimentalist streak throughout their brief lifespan, the actual sound of each record is what separates one from the next. Aside from increasing control over their instruments, there isn't a great deal of actual progress made, but this is no fault. Wrecking ball riffs that remain firmly b…
Cosmospir
“Cosmospir” is a debut album from Polish singer/improviser and composer, India Czajkowska. Her music overturns categories through a fluid blend of classical instruments, experimental vocal technique and electronic spectrum arrangements. The dark alchemic laboratory in a deserted factory, the walls of which are breathing still with industrial noise. The space is sinking into strange sacral whispers and through the broken panes birds are flying in. The roar of the wind and the dripping of raindrop…
Raag drone theory
A new stage of the duo, after the successful Sunja - more expressively inspired by indian music: one long track completely acoustic displays a sound dialog between psaltery, zither and shruti box, brought into a contemplative space.
Corteggiando Le Messi
Italian soundscapist Alio Die loves to collaborate, and before getting to one of his finest solo records to date, let us pause to reflect on a couple of his finer co-piloting gigs from the past couple of years. Composed and recorded in 2004-05, with Saffron Wood playing psaltery and zither while Alio Die provides all other sound via flute, loops and field recordings (plus a piano sample borrowed from another collaborator, Festina Lente), ‘Corteggiando le Messi’ is stunning. It actually sounds li…
Enigma
Enigma is an ambient album, with drones and dark ambient elements. Eight imaginary landscapes wavering between the earth and the cosmos, sometimes returning on the dark atmosphere of the first album, but with a few acoustic elements more clear. The album begins with some obscure and enigmatic atmospheres transitioning into more open/light tracks: looped sounds of the played cords of the zither, tubes, treated field recordings and small sounds of shells and bells add layers to the electronic magm…
Musica Fiuto
Elaborated from the same basic 'voices' for "Nosesoul" made by Francesco Paladino, and then mixed, processed and integrated by Sean Breadin with totally acoustic improvisations with pocket corner, crwth, viola, gusle, voice, bendhir. A very original combination between improvisation music, drones and weird folk.
Invocation
From the mitical "Invocation" tape we offer a totally remastered music with some new tracks. Like usually TUU's music have an unique touch: ghatam, tablas, flutes and pipes, harmonium and synthesiser meet togheter a magish language.
We Slowly Lift Ourselves From Dust
This is a set of 28 minutes of new music by Fear Falls Burning for the Italian A Silent Place label. Per side Fear Falls Burning explores, as the title would suggest, the darker and nihilistic regions of his drone music. Minimal repetitive motives which slowly evolve and expand over the 14 minutes per side into 2 unsettling harmonies of minor and solitude. All performed live and recorded directly onto hard disc, there's no editing involved in order to maintain the spontaneous interaction of the …