Works: 1975 to 2005
An unstoppable attraction for extreme sounds, in line with the passions that emerged from the international underground at the end of the Seventies, carried John Duncan through complex paths and artistic practices (from Los Angeles to Amsterdam, then Tokyo, then Italy, in Scrutto San Leonardo, Tuscany). More and more contaminated territories, close to a certain kind of performing art which, in the Viennese actionism and body art, the transgre…
From Zero
Four films on JOHN CAGE by Frank Scheffer and Andrew Culver. Mode celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2004 with the release of a major film on John Cage by renowned Dutch director Frank Scheffer in collaboration with Cage's long-time associate Andrew Culver. The group of films, entitled From Zero, are:* 19 QUESTIONS: Cage answers 19 questions on a variety of subjects, using chance operations to determine the duration of his colorful and often witty answers. A unique opportunity to view the Cagean…
Expériences musicales
32pp book in French, lavishly illustrated. Born in 1901 Jean Dubuffet studied painting, gave it up to become a wine merchant. Then in 1943 he became a full time artist, working in various media, including what we would now call installations, in a style often referred to as Art Brut ( now associated with the art of children, the mentally ill, or naifs) - a term coined by Dubuffet himself, though not to describe his own work but that of outsiders who had no stake in the artworld, and who eschewed…
Prière
long out print item by Jac Berrocal, a 10” picture-disc, text by Antonin Artaud spoken by Berrocal himself, including excerpts from 'Voyage au bord de la ville' a very abstract and dissonant track with music by Berrocal, Gilbert Artman and Jack Belsen. Private edition of 250 copies only.
Open secrets
"Aphoristic bursts of music separated by silences played with efficiency and fleeting beauty." - New York Times Open Secrets features Mac Low and Anne Tardos performing works for multi-track voices; and Robert Bethea, Andrew Bolotowsky, Daniel Goode, and Gabriela Klassen performing instrumental pieces. Winds/Instruments for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, and narrator, could well become a classic of new music, not only being beautiful, but also displaying Mac Low's witty use and …
More time - Hits & variations 1968-1970
This is the only available collection of sound works by the influential Finnish artist J.O. Mallander. More Time - Hits & Variations 1968-1970 collects two sought-after vinyl EP's Extended Play and Decompositions (the only Finnish entries in Broken Music catalog), and a previously unreleased piece. J.O.mallander began his artistic activities in 1960's within the blooming Finnish Underground movement, taking part, amongst other things, in the notorious music-performance collective Sperm. He has s…
Requiem für meine Frau Beate. Musik der 56. Aktion
Alga Marghen proudly present the documentation of Requiem für meine Frau Beate, which took place in the Chiesa di Santa Lucia in Bologna, Italy, in 1977 shortly after Beate Nitsch's death. This was not only one of the strongest and most powerful aktionen by Hermann Nitsch but also a crucial point in the development of his art. Beginning in 1977, Beate Nitsch was travelling in Schwarzwald. She has been inaugurating a nursery-school and wanted to meet some relatives in Stuttgart when, near Ulm, sh…
Musik der 66. aktion
Alga Marghen proudly present the documentation of Requiem fur meine Frau Beate, which took place in the Chiesa di Santa Lucia in Bologna, Italy, in 1977 shortly after Beate Nitsch's death. This was not only one of the strongest and most powerful aktionen by Hermann Nitsch but also a crucial point in the development of his art. Begining 1977, Beate Nitsch was travelling in Schwarzwald. She has been inaugurating a nursery-school and wanted to meet some relatives in Stuttgart when, near Ulm, she h…
Sinfonia Punta Campanella in 4 movimenti
Music plays a fundamental role in the life and work of Hermann Nitsch. It has always been one of the founding elements of his Orgien Misterien Theater (Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries). The initial use of music as purely functional to action was later replaced with a necessity for autonomous composition, in which music finds its own role, independent from the theatrical sphere. Nitsch's poetic is made up of strong contrasts where music represents the syntax of his theatre. Going through the scor…
Electronic kabuki mambo
Electronic Kabuki Mambo is a stupefying pre-psychedelic vintage 50s affair featuring a tapestry of then local musical talents (One Henry Jacobs, Gordon Longfellow, David Talcott, and William Loughborough). Prepare yourself for a liberation of your senses. Prepare for an irresistible taste of the 50s in all of it's sonic sci-fi glory because this caravan of sound is where head music really began! Think Taj Mahal Travelers meets Harry Partch in an echo chamber. Think?Think? It's difficult to belie…
Enclosure 7
Harry Partch (like his friend Anaïs Nin) considered his life's work to be a letter to the world. His last act was going to be to add the enclosures. He never got around to it. After 20 years of working on the Partch archives, Philip Blackburn has now completed the seven-part 'Enclosures' series as it were on his behalf. Enclosure 7, the culminating DVD of this multimedia series, is a monumental tribute to the most significant works of this American original and iconoclast. It includes n…
Unfolding
No Obi. Awesome CD release documenting the 'magic' world of Harry Bertoia sound scuptures. This reissues two of this American genius's many self-released LPs as a great public service. His "sounding sculptures" consist of "ranks of tall slender rods, placed either upright or at special slants in rectangular formations. These metallic faces are not rigid, but 'give' when stroked -- at the same time releasing lingering musical chords of a weirdly haunting nature."
Theremin in the rain
A theremin controls a MIDI interface that manipulates several sound sculptures. The results range from abstract atmospheres to heavy low-frequencies and driving rhythm, with nary a dull moment. Long piano strings are beaten senseless by metallic strikers while water droplets fall in rhythmic patterns onto amplified percussive plates suspended above the ground, blurring the borders between the electronic and the organic. This piece, which had its premiere at the 2003 Open Ears Festival, is, in th…
Speaker swinging & Piano mechanics
This release is the first of three discs that C3R is slated to release by Gordon Monahan, and represents his first release in fourteen years. This CD is a re-release of two of Monahan’s best-known early works: ‘Piano Mechanics’ (which won first prize at the 1984 CBC Young Composers Competition), and ‘Speaker Swinging’ (his universally acclaimed, manually-operated sound installation). Both of these remastered pieces are awe-inspiring sound experimentations, possessing a visceral quality th…
untitled music for Geography
Specially re-mixed material Francisco Lopez created for the dance work, Geography, by the The Ralph Lemon Dance Co. which premiered at Yale in New Haven. At the time Francisco already had established himself as an important new composer working with huge pools of silence that then build in time stretching waves of sonic purity. This work is certainly in the vein but there’s also subtle percussive elements woven in, drawn from an African percussion ensemble that performed live during the perfor…
untitled (2005)
On the new Untitled (2005) CD the Spanish composer Francisco López presents four recently composed pieces which span a broad dynamic as well as stylistic range. Together these constitute a fascinating and intense research exploration into the deep essence of sound. From sizzling jungle atmospheres to rumbling subterranean drones and microscopic details, this is a Francisco López tour de force. In addition to three pieces based on environmental recordings, Untitled (2005) features also an instrum…
Hortexte
Six radio texts by Ferdinand Kriwet in a beautifully designed 3 LP Picture Discs Luxury Box. Ferdinand Kriwet (born in Duesseldorf in 1942) is a multimedia artist and poet who has produced many seminal films and sound works for radio and television, in particular throughout the 1960's and 1970's. His works 'Apollo Amerika' 1969 and 'Campaign' 1973, rank today as outstanding artistic documents of these spectacular events in the history of mankind. Kriwet created the work 'Apollo Amerika' whilst i…
Radio territories
The legacy of radio and the arts has spawned forms of radical culture, from early Modernist notions of the “Wireless Imagination” and its subsequent vernacular tongues to Acoustic Ecology’s call for “Radical Radio” based on removing the DJ, transmission and broadcast media upsets and redistributes understandings of place, corporeality, social exchange, and the politics of information. Such instances of radicality find their current expression in radio networking and streaming, which seek to coun…
Staggered Stasis
2004 release, available again. "Over the last two decades, Ellen Fullman has been perfecting her Long String Instrument. This unique instrument of her own design is some 80 feet in length and played by literally walking through it. The resulting sounds are beautiful gliding tones with a rich harmonic content. The CD presents two works from her time in Austin, Texas in the late 1980's which beautifully display a sound you can get inside of. These long tracks envelope you in their cascading overto…