Crucible
Crucible is a minute sound installation recorded at an outdoor concert in the tiny village of Topolò on the Italian-Slovenian border in July 1997. Its thunderous opening is literally the sound of a downpour which Duncan harnesses and treats to produce something elemental yet edgily unnatural. Bruce Gilbert's work springs to mind though Duncan has a less synthetic touch. The aquatic theme continues as water drains down pipes, gutters and sewers. Thereafter an eerie quiescence pervades. There is s…
Words Of Advice: William S. Burroughs On The Road
In 1983, the counter culture icon and author of the cult classic Naked Lunch (1959), William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), traveled throughout Scandinavia making a series of personal appearances. Twenty years later, filmmakers Lars Movin and Steen Moller Rasmussen found never-before-seen footage of his Copenhagen visit and set out on the road to record new material, telling the story of the acclaimed author's later work -- especially what is known as The Last Trilogy -- and his unique perform…
An Attempt To Record Coincidence
Pictured in all its tantalizing, eye-popping glory in Hans Pokora's 1001 Record Collector Dreams, this hellishly-rare Austrian avant garde LP from 1972 is nothing short of astonishing. There are no instruments, but rather varying configurations of solo, duo and ensemble vocal improvisations, presumably informed by the aforementioned (and nearly impenetrable) code (or "charts"). Although this might be seen as part of an interesting continuum, this unique and prescient music will stun even the mos…
Relationship Studies
Relationship Studies" LP includes 2 seminal electronic music radical realizations by Charlemagne Palestine, or "Relationship Study No. 1" (1967) and the generally titled "Electronic" from the same year.Sounds in motion like race cars, motor cycles, war planes, rocket ships excited Charlemagne sonic imagination when we was still a young teenager. Then came the experience of listening to the electronic music of Tod Dockstader, Alwyn Nikolais, Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaffer, Xenakis and "Poeme El…
Musik Oblik: Musics In The Margin 2
This is the second volume of the Musics in the Margin compilation series. Like volume 1 in 2006 (SR 254CD), this new production mixes visual arts with music, focusing on the affinities existing between three visual art fields considered on equal terms: modern art, contemporary art, and outsider art. Decompartmentalization is the key word, and this record offers unique approaches transcending the simple question of the insider/outsider classification. Based in Berlin, Klaus Beyer is mostly…
Shirotama
'A CD and DVD beautifully packaged to discover the work from sound artist Tetsuya UMEDA. CD : Soundtrack : Sten¡C, recorded in a room, 2007. Metz, recorded at an installation at Musiques Volantes, Metz, France, November 8, 2008.Bubbles, recorded at an installation in Kobuchisawa Tunnel, Sapporo, July 12, 2009. Classroom #4 [with Takashi Ueno] recorded at Arcus Studio, Moriya, Ibaraki prefecture, March 28, 2008. Lonkama recorded at a workshop at the University of London, UK, May 10, 2006. DVD : D…
Psycho Motorik
JUST ARRIVED! Mmmm, darned if I don't adore the truly wondrous, yummy world of Otto. Viennese Aktionist who, along with Hermann Nitsch, Gunter Brus & a few pals decided that painting had become boring & they would do well to make it more visceral. Shortly thereafter, Otto, who seemed to see the whole world like a big ball of playdoh, began to appear in his own films & others'; pouring ketchup into vaginas, breaking eggs onto pretty girls' boobs, having Barry White-style sex with a goose, poking …
Music For The Ears
Western Vinyl is proud to release “Music for the Ears” the first in a series of Small Music releases by Rolf Julius. With a goal of creating solitary sound environments, the Small Music series will culminate into a boxed edition of seminal works by this master sound artist. “Music for the Ears” is comprised of two long tracks of gently weaving tones exploring the possibilities of spatial experience. The cover image depicts Julius’ sound installation in a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan where his m…
Music for Tinguely
CD only version by the 'GQ' legendary magazine issued in 1970's. Comprised of rare sound materials from Toshi Ichiyanagi's Music For Tinguely, released here for the first time ever. Also includes the track released on OPA 005CD. Toshi Ichiyanagi is a well-renowned Japanese avant-garde composer who made brilliant pieces of tape music. Most of his works have not been issued on CD, or have only been issued in very small editions. Housed in a cardboard paper gatefold sleeve. Newly-written liner note…
Three Ideophones
With Goodiepal (DK), Alejandra Salinas (E) and Aeron Bergman (US), Jörg Piringer (AT). Onomatopee got into a quest for onomatopoeic qualities, whereby we refer to literal, auditory and visual qualities within one medium, and invited three artists to make this happen. The title of the project is 'three Ideophones', a reference to the work of experimental music pioneer Dick Raaijmakers. An oft-cited definition of the notion of ideophone is: 'a vivid representation of an idea in sound. A wor…
Around The World With Henry Jacobs
Absurd folklorist Henry Jacobs returns with a selection of rare interviews, odd loops, sales pitches, early synthesizer demos, an ether-infused evening, and more! Produced in San Francisco and New York City, Around The World With Henry Jacobs is a travelogue that continues the story begun with The Wide Weird World of Henry Jacobs, mixing archival material from the 1950s with recent improvisations by Jacobs. Guests include Stan Freberg and Dr. Irwin Corey, with Alan Watts returning for a visit, t…
& that dead horse
Recorded upstairs mostly 1994. Leslie Winer close friend of William Burroughs and Jean-Michel Basquiat did one album in 1991, 'Witch' earning her the title of Grandmother Of Trip-Hop. 'Cassette only - limited edition of 250 copies. Recorded upstairs mostly 1994.' label info
Maurice Lemaitre
Maurice Lemaître is amongst one of the most important and creative artists of the second half of the 20th century. His cinematic work has led to a fundamental questioning of the relationship between film and spectator, image and sound, art and criticism, cinema and other types of images. His art is characterized by its inventiveness, it's joy of creating, and a radical and loud critique allowing for Lettrism to flourish as an avant-garde movement.OUR STARS A chronicle of the fantasies and dream …
Installation Recordings (1973-2008) 2Cd
This 2CD is essentially a retrospective of Max Eastley's Installation work. As such, it updates and adds many new examples to the 1975 release 'New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments', which was released as a split LP with David Toop on Brian Eno's Obscure Records. This is Eastley's first solo CD. Of the 35 tracks, only the last 2 have any guests or 'playing' (the most virtuosic moment being George Lewis playing a grass blade). All the other pieces are either powered by the natural forces of w…
Dataphonics
A star of minimalist electronica and sound art, Ryoji Ikeda (born 1966) focuses on the building blocks of sound and aural minutiae, often deploying frequencies at the very edges of human hearing—sound that, as he puts it, “the listener becomes aware of only upon its disappearance.” His albums +/- (1997) and Matrix (2001) spread this soundworld of sine waves and ambient glitchery to a wider audience; since then, he has exhibited and collaborated (notably with Carsten Nicolai) across the world. A …
Exposition of Music
In 1963, Nam June Paik created a new genre of exhibition with his first solo show, The Exposition of Electronic Music-Electronic Television at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, West Germany. Fresh from his studies with John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and already a Fluxus veteran, Paik created a disorienting environment that foreshadowed much of what was to come in the 1960s: visitors, greeted at the entrance by a freshly slaughtered ox head, were not only confronted with the newness of the elec…
No Maps for These Territories
William Gibson recounts his life and the meaning of his work in contemplative fashion throughout this film and the insight gained is well worth whatever work one may need to do in order to seek this out....On an overcast morning in April 1999, William Gibson, the man who coined the word ‘cyberspace’, walked out of LAX Terminal 2 and steps into a limousine in LA and sets off on a road trip around North America, from West to East and South to North, from Los Angeles to New York, from Virginia to V…
Rock/music writings
The first collection in English of Dan Graham’s influential body of writing on Rock and Roll music. Stretching from the late 60s to the late 80s, Rock/Music Writings contains the following 13 essays, most of which are currently out-of-print or seen here for the first time in a widely distributed form:
AAM1 - Aktions Analytische Musik LP
Few copies available: this is Austrian reissue of Otto Muehl's AA Commune most sought after record from the 70's. "Musikalische Selbstdarstellungen 1974/75". Crazy group-therapy sessions, improvised music with different commune members coming forward and 'singing' about their parents, free-sexuality, mister jealousy, and how two-people-relationships kill sex-life, etc.. Record comes in fullcolour cover (reprint of the original), stamped label, plus 10-page A4 booklet with transcription of all te…
Eighth Symphony
Recordings of the first performance of Nitsch's 8th Symphony (for Choir, Orchestra, and Noise Orchestra). Composed by Hermann Nitsch. Performed June 25th 1990 at the MAK Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna by Ensemble 20.Jahrhundert, Hugo Distler Chor, Blasorchester der Wiener E-Werke, Wolfgang Mitterer (Synthesizer).Professionally recorded, extremely dramatic, dynamic, rich, full-blown orchestral music & noise, heavy drones, and austrian 'Volksmusik'. Comes in big double-disc jewelcase, in…