★Important Records
(un)sentimental
Though each member of the 13th Assembly is acclaimed in their own right this group is very much a singular musical experience. A planned NPR piece should help raise exposure for this sublime recording.
The Thirteenth Assembly began as a touring collective made up of four musicians and four musically distinct small ensembles: Tomas and Taylor's duo; Mary and Jessica's duo; Taylor's trio with Mary and Tomas; and the collaborative quartet featured on this recording. The group is a microcosm of an e…
Birchville Cat Motel & Yellow Swans
Yellow Swans & Birchville Cat Motel is the first collaboration between these two underground phenomenons. Both groups have amassed sturdy back catalogs and a great deal of critical acclaim. This collaboration was recorded entirely in New Zealand both live and in the studio.
Super Grease
Super Grease is a limited edition of 500 vinyl-only release from Vibracathedral Orchestra/Sunroof!/A Band member, Neil Campbell. This is a companion release to Astral Social Club's Neon Pibroch CD, also on Important.
Neon Pibroch
Neon Pibroch is dedicated to the memory of Textile Records founder, Benoit Sonnette. Astral Social Club is the current project of Neil Campbell, formerly of Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, A Band and many more. Campbell has been active since the early '80s, and The Wire magazine has said that, along with his friends Richard Youngs and Matthew Bower, he 'provided the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the '80s and '90s.' Campbell's approach …
Waving
Limited edition of 300 copies. Available directly via Important Records only or from the band on tour. This is a mailorder only title. It won't be in shops. The Skull Defekts is a band from Sweden in the very North of Europe. Their intense, monotonous, rhythmic and sexual out rock has since their start in early 2005 been spreading energies of various kinds to welcoming audiences and listeners. The DFX have also been exploring worlds of noise, the drone and psychedelic electronics on waves on rel…
Strings Of Consciousness & Angel
This is a collaboration between Angel (containing members of Mum and Pan Sonic) and Strings Of Consciousness. This dense and droney construction echoes platinum reflections with warm fluidity and delicate detail. The more attention you'll bestow on that record, the more unsuspected new paths you'll be invited to wander about. This is an intricacte and imaginative soundtrack with several layers of sound, gathering both organic and sonic elements to assemble a post-industrial sound structure. The …
13 Japanese birds Vol.2
Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month-13 CD set that begins January 2009 and ends February 2010. These are pressed in a limited edition of 1000 and once they are sold out they will not be repressed. This series was inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux.
Matricaria
Tara Burke (FURSAXA) & cellist Helena Espvall (ESPERS). A beautiful, laboriously created, floating affair of skeletal organ drones, ceremonial singing, & subtly frantic instrumental accompaniment that conjures up a natural woodland romp & stomp.
13 Japanese Birds Vol. 1
Opening up Merzbow's new 13-disc series of monthly releases themed around Japanese birds, Suzume gets underway with even more of a bang than the usual Merzbow fare, combining those familiar, expertly wrought noise emissions with wild, flailing drums. The first track, 'Red Bird Of Summer Part 1' lasts some twenty minutes, dishing out aural punishment at every conceivable frequency. After a while it becomes apparent that for better or worse, the drumming somehow detracts from the intensity of the …
Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple
Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple is limited to 500 copies. This is the companion release to the Astro CD titled The Echo At The Purple Dawn, released on Important Records. Astro, of course, is the analog/space project of Hiroshi Hasegawa of the legendary Japanese group, C.C.C.C. This limited vinyl-only release was created using ring modulator and vocals which are rare these days in Astro recordings. Cover art designed by Important. Astro is Hiroshi Hasegawa's solo project. He is a founding member of…
Chants from isolated ghosts
Roberto Opalio is half of the Italian space duo My Cat Is An Alien. Chants From Isolated Ghosts is Roberto Opalio's full-lenght debut album recorded November 2004 at home in Torino, Italy, and originally released on his own Opax Records label in a very limited handmade cd-r edition of 100 copies. The work consists of four tracks, for a total lenght of 38:02 minutes. Roberto Opalio is a visual and sound artist from Torino, Italy. His work includes painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, poetry…
The Echo From The Purple Dawn
The Echo From The Purple Dawn is a brand new full length from C.C.C.C. member Hiroshi Hasegawa's solo project, Astro. Using a battery of oscillators, ring modulators and field recordings, Hasegawa has created an engaging and versatile album that masterfully drifts between spaced-out analog dream drone and a more extreme form of harsher droning. As Astro, Hasegawa is able to combine some of the harsher influences of C.C.C.C. into the world of analog space music to create the signature sounds of A…
I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed
Aidan Baker's I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed is a 2-disc compilation of tracks from various out-of-print, limited edition releases spanning the last 10 years of Baker's output, ranging from his very first release to material that was featured on the soundtrack to a book of his poetry. Toronto based composer Aidan Baker works under his own name, under the name Nadja along with bassist Leah Buckareff and also with the trio ARC. Hailing from the Great White North, Baker incorporates guitar, drums, bass…
Dolphin Sonar
Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita had been at the foreground of experimental music for over 25 years. Inspired by psycedelic rock, free jazz, early electronic composition as well the physical arts, especial Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, Masami Akita has created a musical language all his own. Dolphin Sonar is Merzbow's full length protest album against the annual brutal slaughtering of some 2,500 dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture Japan. This is an angry album full of beats…
The Beauty Of The Steel Skeleton / Drifting Depths
The first 200 copies of this limited vinyl-only, packaged in handmade copper colored letterpress jackets. Important Records is quite pleased to be presenting this split release consisting of two new drone works from Pauline Oliveros and Eleh. Oliveros, an early American minimalist who has pioneered the technique of Deep Listening, has created a new work exlcusively for this release. Drifting Depths is a new improvised piece made on a harmonica being processed through Pauline's Expanded Instrum…
Some Blood Will Stick
Hototogisu is Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). They've been laying down billowing sheets of Teutonic guitar drone-noise since 2003 with the thickest possible helpings of vocals and electronics. Some Blood Will Stick is a collection of tracks from their ultra-limited self produced label Heavy Blossom. Songs were taken from Swoon Scream (2004) and Awful Symmetry (2005) with one additional track. What makes this disc more than a simple re-release is the ext…
Shots At Infinity 1
This is the companion release to the Tom Carter LP titled Shots At Infinity 2 being released on Important simultaneously. Shots At Infinity 1 (the CD) is comprised of recordings from various basements in the northeastern USA from late 2007. Steering away from the more delicate string environments and modal folk improvisations of previous CDs, the disk features maximum loop delay drone overload stretched over long, densely harmonic tracks, retaining the melodic content and flow of earlier release…
Pale Fatal Sister
Limited edition of 700 copies. Double LP pressing housed in a gatefold jacket. Being a Nabokovian and visceral garden of delights, a musical evocation of memory and desire spread over four sides of vinyl. The sound is conjured forth from dark wells to be birthed, twisting and screaming in silver winds. Recorded at Black Dirt Studios, over an intensive three-day period of hermetic isolation, while snow blanketed the surrounding fields, this work is both more detailed and conjures a heavier, more …
Zamuro
Limited edition of 300 copies in a heavy stock screen printed jacket. Numbered. A Zamuro is a dark South American vulture of great size. Zamuro is also a solo composition piece for portable synth and analog filter. Side A on this LP is a live realization of this piece recorded at the Compound in San Francisco in 2006 (Mastered by Lasse Marhaug). Carlos composed and performed this piece live on several tours in the US/Europe/Japan all trough out 2006 and 2007, if you saw him live in those two yea…
The Mill Pond EP & Collected Paintings
The Mill Pond was originally released in 1997 as a double 7' that went immediately out of print. For it's 10th aniversary we're issuing it on compact disc housed in a deluxe letterpressed jacket and including an extensive booklet collecting John Fahey's paintings for the very first time. Limited edition. The Mill Pond is all over the place stylistically, so it should confuse those who try to pigeonhole Fahey into any one category. The Mill Pond further proves that there is only one category into…