★Alga Marghen
The Judson Years
It’s hard to overstate the importance of Philip Corner. For more than half a century he has been a cornerstone of the American musical avant-garde. A once student of Otto Leuning, Henry Cowell, Olivier Messiaen, and Dorothy Taubman, who went on to inherit John Cage’s legendary Modern Music class at the New School for Social Research. A founding member of Fluxus, Corner made waves fast, creating a body of singular work, both on his own and within ensembles like Gamelan Son of Lion and Tone Roads,…
Abacus Incognito
**Edition of 200 (numbered)** New primitive-suburban-folk music from Temple City and Pasadena, CA, circa 1973-4. This new edition is culled from the original unissued Smegma tape vaults of Ju Suk Reet Meate and represents the most pure expression of the insular sound-world that was spontaneously discovered as a group. Unlike 2017's Look'n For Ya (TES 154LP) no song forms are ever used, instead fearless group improvisational vocals take you on a strange shape-shifting journey through operatic sho…
More Intra Musique
When glancing over the history of indigenous French free improvised music, there tends to be two observable categories of musicians - those who worked and collaborated with their counterparts from abroad, and those who worked independently. The former is generally more celebrated, and among those the drummer Jacques Thollot, who worked with Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Sonny Sharrock, Sam Rivers, Joachim Kühn, and numerous others, as well as with French pioneers like Barney Wilen and Jef Gilson, rank…
Music With Memory
** Small repress available. An essential entry, offering crucial insight into one of America’s most important composers. Beautiful, challenging, and visionary, this what music should always be - the heights of creativity bound to the specificity of time** Since they emerged just over twenty years ago, the Milan based imprint Alga Marghen has shown an unparalleled dedication to Post-War sonic avant-garde, assembling a catalog of reissues and archival releases which traverses a remarkable breath o…
The Lower Depths
There was a time, not far outside of recent memory, when one of musical Minimalism’s great voices had disappeared into the ether, leaving only two remarkable, but largely unobtainable, albums behind - hints toward what had been. When Charlemagne Palestine reentered the world of music during the 1990’s, following roughly two decades of silence, he was possessed by a remarkable fire - performing and recording widely, seemingly making up …
Intra Musique
Some of the earliest music from groundbreaking French drummer Jacques Thollot – and proof that right at the start, he was already in a unique space that was all his own! His first release, released on the Futura Records in 1971, is called "Quand Le Son Devient Aigu, Jeter La Giraffe A La Mer"; it is a splendid example of spacey-like, fragile and imaginative compositional style fusing jazz, electronic experiments, culminating in a blissful listening experience and it has earned Thollot the place …
Solo 1975-1980
Sidestepping all normal expectations on this album, Ju Suk Reet Meate (founding member of Smegma) directly goes about casting musical spells, utilizing primitive "inner mind" techniques on hammered dulcimer, tape loops, thrift store records, a homemade synthesizer, electric guitar, saxophone, mouth sounds, and manipulated christian radio broadcasts. Recorded in Portland, Oregon, these previously unreleased recordings reflect a similar "inner-mind over limited technique matter" aesthetic as the a…
Look'n for Ya (1973-75)
In 1973, when Smegma (the band) was born they had only one rule: No Musicians! That way they could re-invent the musical wheel with a new primitive, suburban, anti-hippie approach. 44 years later perhaps the world is ready for the first full LP of this original, uncompromising sound. At the time, it seemed they thought they were on a solitary journey, but shortly after these recordings, it was discovered that there was another local group, The Los Angeles Free Music Society, that they shortly be…
Solo 1975-1980 (art edition)
Edition of 50 copie, in handmade sleeves. Sidestepping all normal expectations on this album, Ju Suk Reet Meate (founding member of Smegma) directly goes about casting musical spells, utilizing primitive "inner mind" techniques on hammered dulcimer, tape loops, thrift store records, a homemade synthesizer, electric guitar, saxophone, mouth sounds, and manipulated christian radio broadcasts. Recorded in Portland, Oregon, these previously unreleased recordings reflect a similar "inner-mind o…
Antibarbarus
A reissue of Antibarbarus, issued as a compact disc in 1998, was the first edition Walter Marchetti released on Alga Marghen. The Antibarbarus cycle of five pieces makes use of original tapes coming from the same recording sessions that originated some of Marchetti's major musical works realized in the '80s. This former series of works presented some homogeneous and untouched sound sources in the "concrete" status of their inner - and necessarily chaotic - level of entropy. Nevertheless this ope…
The Book Of J's
Original copies, very few available. José Luis Castillejo's The Book of J's was the first book issued by Alga Marghen. It was also the first art book produced by Castillejo in about 20 years; one line of 'J' letters in the center of the page, a continuous frieze running along 400 pages. No essays, no introduction, no two pages the same. A 400 pages hardbound top quality art book (cover cm.24x16) in an edition of 200 copies. Also included in the edition is a free LP, recorded by the author and co…
Tlalaatala
Art edition, LP edition limited to 80 copies in cardboard box with stamp, also including the original 400-page-creative-book with the same title. A killer reading of José Luis Castillejo's TLALAATALA book by Fernando Millan, recorded in Madrid in 2001. Modern or advanced writing is a direct and independent medium, i.e. it realizes and gives presence to a set of relationships without the need of further dependence (as it happened till now in literature) on other media. Words, syllables, stories, …
Composed Nature / Yokomono Pro
** In collaboration with LOLA Landscape Architects, issued by this Alga Marghen-related imprint in an edition of 250 copies. ** "Produced by Staalplaat Soundsystem in order to document their recent sonic activities and researches, this LP record is focused on two projects. Composed Nature by Staalplaat Soundsystem and LOLA landscape architects, is an installation developed for the Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst Dordrecht, consisting of a matrix of 64 trees. Controllable mechanical vibrators are m…
In Terram Utopicam
2010 release. Walter Marchetti is one of the most original and controversial pre-Fluxus authors. In this work he frees all of his sophisticated poeticism. In Terram Utopican includes "J'aimerais jouer avec un piano qui aurait une grosse queue" (1974/75) and "Per la sete dell'orecchio" (1981). The 16-page booklet presents the original score of "J'aimerais jouer," photos of the performances in Milano and at the Venice Biennale, and the reproduction of the original In Terram Utopicam LP layout.…
Mectpyo Box
New 2015 edition!!! Starting from Sterile Records' "Symphony for a Genocide" to Broken Flag's "The Plain Truth", passing through DYS' "Mectpyo Bakterium" and all the records privately issued by M.B. on his Mectpyo Sound (“Menses”, “Neuro habitat”, “Regel”, “Das Testament”, “Endometrio”, “Carcinosi”, “Armaghedon”), plus all the tracks by M.B. from international LP compilations (issued on Bain Total, Broken Flag, Come Organisation, and TRAX), a large selection of tracks from international K7 compi…
In Mid-Air (Golden 3)
Originally released in 2003. The first electronically generated sounds that Charlemagne Palestine ever heard came from the machines he encountered in ordinary daily urban life. Machines like the refrigerator electric motor, or electrical generators; but it was especially the sounds of motion (race cars, motorcycles, war planes, rocket ships) that first excited his sonic imagination as a young teenager. Then he heard the electronic music of Tod Dockstader, Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, the f…
Cello Anthology
New and somewhat cheaper version of this box set first released in 2007, in only slightly less elaborate packaging. It is certainly surprising that until now an exhaustive recognition of the work of Charlotte Moorman has not been undertaken. The cellist can be numbered among the most charismatic and influential protagonists to have appeared on the avant-garde or experimental music scenes since the early '60s. A documentation of her activities as a performer is generally available only in various…
Bruits Du Beaubourg
A previously unpublished and obscure sound work by the famous artist Brion Gysin... ‘Bruits du Beaubourg’ or, quite literally, the concrete noises coming from the builder’s yard of the Beaubourg recorded on location in June 1977. Different layers of sounds that, with the natural development of the piece, create an hypnotic soundscape. Abstract and concrete. The recording comes from the original masters that Ramuntcho Matta personally got as a gift from Gysin himself; and Matta generously offered…
Revue OU
few copies, factory sealed 1st edition, long out of print, legendary LP edition!! A hen’s teeth rare and long out of print set of historic recordings by Bernard Heidsieck, Brion Gysin, Henri Chopin, François Dufrêne, Mimmo Rotella, Raoul Hausmann, Paul de Vree, Gil J Wolman, Bob Cobbing, Ladislav Novak, Hugh Davies, Bengt Emil Johnson, Sten Hanson, Jacques Bekaert, J.A. da Silva, William Burroughs, Ake Hodell, Charles Amirkhanian and Arthur Rimbaud in a limited Collectors Vinyl Edition. The pic…
PoorManMusic (Art Edition)
Box set, edition limited to 30 copies. Art edition of “PoorManMusic”, a classic Fluxus work by Philip Corner from 1966 and first released by alga marghen in 2015. Edition limited to 30 copies (+ 5 A.P.) including:
A signed and numbered LP sleeve with hand-drawn calligraphy on front and hand-drawn score on the backA signed and numbered black-vinyl LP record with hand-written labelsA signed and numbered print with hand-made graphic interventionsA signed and numbered score printA signed and numbere…