1939
This release reissues Robert Rutman's Pogus Lp (P201-1) and includes an additional track. Rutman (b. 1930) has been building and performing on his homemade metallic instruments for many years. This recording features his buzz chime, steel cello, and bow chime, along with tabla, Tibetan horn, and Rutman's vocal chants. Rutman caresses the metal, drawing out eerie drones and overtones that buzz and trumpet. The music in turn can be as fragile as glass or reach the depths of resonance, as if one ha…
In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were...
**Deluxe slip-cased version features a 110-page book** Definitive CD reissue of this original Cramps label album from 1974, an early classic from Robert Ashley with music provided by Paul DeMarinis. This deluxe slip-cased version features a 110-page book, reproducing the original John Barton Wolgamot text along with fascinating liner notes explaining the whole project from Keith Waldrop and Robert Ashley. The CD features one long composition with Ashley reading a text by poet John Barton Wolgamo…
String Quartet
Double LP reprint of the compact disc by Robert Ashley titled String Quartet Describing the Motions of Large Real Bodies / How can I Tell the Difference? (I & II). 'String Quartet' was composed as the potential orchestra for an opera based on the text of 'In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women'. When the work was composed, in 1972, it was clear that a huge change in electronic instrumentation was just beginning, a change that would involve computers and sound producing d…
The wolfman
For the performance of "the wolfman" recorded here, produced at the university of california at davis, Robert Ashley used an earlier (1960) tape composition entitled "the 4th of july". that composition changes gradually from a parabolic-microphone documentation of a backyard party into a layering of tape loops and tape-head feedback.Long deleted original lp edition of 290 copies only with detail photo from the performance and full score.
Atalanta (Acts of God)
Originally released on Lovely Music in 1985. Robert Ashley makes use of the story of Atalanta
- a royal princess, discarded by her family, who was raised by the
animals to become the fastest-running human, and who was later reclaimed
by her father to marry her off for dynastic purposes - to present the
character aspects of the "successful suitor". These three aspects of
character are presented in the opera as anecdotes about three
extraordinary men of our times: Max Ernst (surrealist paint…
Celestial Excursions
2005 release. Following the ground-breaking work, Dust (LCD 1006CD), godfather of experimental opera Robert Ashley returns with Celestial Excursions. Ashley's endeavor explores remarkably uncharted territory -- the kind of language that is common among "old" people who talk all the time or not at all, to anyone passing by or to themselves. The opera premiered at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin, before coming to The Kitchen for its U.S. premiere in April 2003. Celestial Excursions delves into the wi…
Music of Richard Lerman 1964 - 1987
Richard Lerman has spent over four decades gathering sounds that most of us never notice, amplifying the mundane until it reveals itself as magic. This deluxe two-CD set, featuring his classic 1982 Folkways LP Travelon Gamelon (Music for Bicycles) plus selected works spanning 1964 to 1987, offers an essential survey of one of American experimental music's most questing spirits. Born in 1944, Lerman belongs to the John Cage and David Tudor continuum of composers for whom all sound is potentially …
Tracing
Richard sent me this piece last year for another possible collaboration. After listening to this gorgeous work, I told him there was not anything I could add that would not take away from the beauty that was already there.” William Basinski limited to 300 copies, hand numbered
One plus one
The turntable has enjoyed a varied history in the realm of performance and experimental music. From the early phonographic works of John Cage to the spliced cut-ups of Christian Marclay in the 1980s, the device has proven to be a versatile tool for the creation and transformation of sound. Following a joint billing at Brisbane’s Metro Arts Space in 2002, Melbourne based composer Philip Samartzis and sound artist Lawrence English shared a 30-minute performance that was to become the beginning of …
40 years and one
This man and his work represent the real "speculum musicae" of the past 40 years. The example of his music embodies a lifelong commitment to an integral radicalism. . . . this is a venerable tradition that Philip has written so eloquently about, and continued in his music. A tradition that stems from "Charlie" Ives through John Cage and Lou Harrison. All of these composers would ultimately admonish us to do one thing: to open our ears--and LISTEN! —Peter GarlandPerhaps the single most striking …
Kick that habit
Made in 1988/89 (16mm), a film around Voice Crack (Andy Guhl, Norbert Möslang + Knut Remond) in trheir daily work. A great film now on DVD!
Signers Koffer
A film from Peter Liechti around the work from Roman Signer. Artistic performances, installations and objects used by Roman Signer. 'I show as much of the surroundings as i needed for people to imagine the centre. I don't want to prove or verify anything, I want to touch something.' Peter Liechti. Colour 85 min / PAL / Switzer original version / Subtitles : German, English, French, Spanish and Portugese.
Apparatur zu den Grundlagen der Physik I
an awesome sound installaton work composed and performed by Peter Brandlmayr. Experiment N1725/33. Experiment E1916/802. Experiment H1944/56. Elektromagnetischer Konflikt. Experiment E1916/774. First experiments with the instruments of the "Apparatur zu den Grundlagen der Physik I" [apparatus to the fundamentals of physics], based on the manuscripts of Professor V. Krylov. "Each instrument consists of a basic frame, super 8 projectors, and projection areas. Every instrument is accompanied by a s…
Interaktionen
Sectioned and muffled reverberation opens the latest work Interaktionen by Peter Brandlmayr, a work of austere mystery, fractured space and premeditated anxiety. Ostensibly, a work that crookedly hangs between your ears, operating on oxides and ancient gases that perfume the air with the spirit of inopportune, fearsome outcome. The wiry hiss of studio experimentation of 'Relikt R89' with its dusting metals, rubbery prepared stringed instruments recall recent work by Joseph Suchy, a…
Thermos Explorer
2000 release, cheap and lovely "No really, she's laughing with you... With all the sneaky charm of a car commercial that leaves you inexplicably in tears, this latest romp from People Like Us serves up the emotional complexity of, say, the complete works of Proust, crammed into bite-sized snacks for the easily distracted. In some sense Vicki Bennett's work could be seen as companion volumes to Neil Postman's incisive mid-eighties critique "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age …
And The Mexican Jumping Beans
Packaged in a Digipak with a 12-panel insert. Following a trip to Mexico City, Paul Panhuysen returned to Eindhoven with 200 jumping beans - those curious larvae-inhabited seed pods sold as toys in local markets. At Het Apollohuis, he began a series of experiments that would result in this remarkable recording. Panhuysen's practice has long incorporated living creatures alongside electronic devices: "I've worked often with animals, with birds, crickets and goats. I also use sensors, timers, sole…
The Edison Effect: A Listener's Companion
Comes with a 22-page booklet in a two-panel Digipak sleeve. Paul DeMarinis presents a companion work to his acclaimed sound installation The Edison Effect, where ancient phonograph records, wax cylinders, and even holograms of records are played with laser beams instead of needles. This recording explores the archaeology of sound reproduction technologies, creating a dialogue between Edison's mechanical cylinders and contemporary digital audio. In the original installation, one of the most poeti…
3 phases
Michael Snow - 3 phases is thus a three cds set, presenting piano works from this extraordinary artist, accompanied by a 48-page booklet including a text by Raymond Gervais commissionned specially for this publication. A milestone."Vancouver-based painter, piano player and conceptualist Michael Snow is celebrated in this eclectic three CD box set of solo piano divided into three separate phases: piano antique; piano biologique; and piano mécaniq…
Room pieces
Much music has been written to guide listeners through the course of a preconceived form. Although Michael J. Schumacher's music is distinctly his own it has been inspired by David Tudor and Morton Feldman as well as La Monte Young. Like their music it is about hearing sounds in themselves, about allowing the ear to register sonorities and then the hearing imagination may go to work, navigating amongst temporal realities and imaginary spaces, negotiating between a sense of control and perceived …