★Important Records
Hopes & Theory
Hopes and Theory is a collection of songs inspired by wild plants and intentional gardens. At its core this music is rooted in synthesis, autonomy, and purely tuned harmony. At its heart there is chaos, color, and evolution. Hopes and Theory was recorded on the island of North Haven, Maine and reflects the anarchy of serenity in a seemingly peaceful place. William Trevaskis is a composer and sound artist living and working in the Fox Islands of Maine who uses xenharmony to explore themes of cha…
Weather Music
Weather Music features music controlled by the weather and performed on instruments built by Quintron & NYZ.
Wagland's 1921
"Succinct sounds, stately atmospherics, affected instrumentation & synthetic chamber music. Eclectic ambient music of the highest order..." - Slow Music Movement
"Beautifully nostalgic, brooding pearls of puckered melody and cinematic synth gaze from the lesser spotted Lambda Sond, gracing Important with a real lowkey gem tipped to followers of Alessandro Cortini, Kali Malone or Pauline Oliveros" - Boomkat
Waglands 1921 exists in a vacuum somewhere between Pauline Oliveros, spiritual jazz, analo…
Proof Of Identity
More than a decade ago, I made a piece of beat-based electronic music and titled it "Middle Eastern IDM" for a course assignment. After listening to it in class, my professor asked what was Middle Eastern about it. It was only a year after I had left Iran to study in the US, and I didn't know that I could say "I am. I made the piece". So I went back and superimposed a sample of Egyptian protest chants on top of the piece, to make it "sufficiently Middle Eastern". What prejudiced conservatism and…
Letters Never Sent
Alina Kalancea is a sonic alchemist who can warp and weave electronic signals into complex tapestries of synthesized analog timbre. These transportive environments were recorded using the artist's personal collection of historic Buchla electronic music instruments including Allen Strange's expanded Music Easel. Letters Never Sent, Alina Kalancea's second full length for Imprec follows 2021's double LP titled Impedance and is being released at the same time as a new cassette titled Alchemy. Kalan…
One Arm Bandits
"One Arm Bandits is an hour-long piece in four parts, scored for four cellists. The cellists play only open strings, thus using only their right arms, never fingering the strings with the left hand. Recorded in Alvin Lucier's dining room, this work features cellists Tyler J. Borden, Laura Cetilia, Charles Curtis and Judith Hamann. Lucier oversaw and produced the recording, and approved the final takes. One Arm Bandits was an important project for Alvin Lucier. The idea for the piece goes back to…
Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel
"This is where you have been forever and will always be forever." Stuart Dempster, speaking about what it feels like to be in a cistern where time seems to stop. Stuart Dempster created Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel in the same cistern where the legendary Deep Listening album was recorded. Reverberating with powerful, deep tones, this double LP is intended as a companion to the acclaimed Oliveros/Dempster/Panaiotis album Deep Listening. Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel…
Electronic Works 1958-1995
2023 Restock. Triple yellow LP version. Pressed on audiophile grade heavy duty vinyl. Else Marie Pade, born in 1924 in Denmark, is a precious golden gem in the world of contemporary electro-acoustic music. She is a true pioneer of electronic music and musique concrète. Pade is Denmark's first lady of electronic music and her piece "Syv Cirkler (Seven Circles)" became the first electronic piece performed on Danish radio. Pade's fascination with sound began in early childhood. Isolated in her bed …
Patterns of Consciousness
2023 repress, edition of 500 copies, gatefold sleeve. Essential re-press of Caterina Barbieri's debut double LP. Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full-length from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Gorgeous high resolution analog textures and algorithmic melodies unfold under Barbieri's careful control, exploring the basic nature of sound and consciousness. These pieces are minimal in arrangement but maximal in presence asserting Barbieri as a unique voice in contemporary e…
Born Again in the Voltage
*2023 repress* Born Again In The Voltage is an astonishing collection of electro-acoustic pieces for Buchla 200 system, cello, and voice composed and produced by Caterina Barbieri at Elektronmusikstudion (SE) between 2014 and 2015. Cello by Antonello Manzo. Images by Giovanni Brunetto; Photography by Angelo Jaroszuk Bogasz; Layout by Important Records. Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi. Edition of 500.
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"One of electronic music's most interesting new voices." FactMagazine
Forse 1
*2023 repress* Recent repress."Deluxe double LP. Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels) composed the Forse series using a Buchla Music Easel. Forse, meaning 'maybe' In Italian, is a series of three double LP releases Cortini recorded for Important to release in 2013. "All pieces were written and performed live on a Buchla Music Easel, in the span of one month. I found that the limited array of modules that the instrument offers sparked my creativity. Most pieces consist of a …
Veils Of Transformation 1972-1980
Veils Of Transformation 1972 - 1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. This collection is available on CD and cassette with liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records. “Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are.” …
The Well And The Gentle
Tip! The Well & The Gentle, two of the major works of Pauline Oliveros, are presented here in a first time reissue on double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with extensive liner notes. If Oliveros had followed a more conventional path she may have, all social obstacles aside, been considered among the major composers of her time. However, Oliveros approached composition in a more egalitarian manner. She wrote music for musicians to interact with or, in the composers words, she wished to create "an in…
Postcards From Hereafter
Razen's Postcards From Hereafter was recorded using a 17th century organ tuned at 398 Hz (meantone) in a Belgian cathedral erected in 1305. The ensemble explored, with rich results, the organ's strict and limiting tuning with an arrangement that included hurdy gurdy, recorders, chalumeau, violone and nyckelharpa. The pieces on Postcards From Hereafter explore the crossover between this world and the next with improvised spiritual, religious music. Brussels-based ensemble Razen use the unique tim…
Snoweight
Recorded during two days of extreme weather, Eleh's Snoweight conveys the mesmerizing force of a winter storm with sonic realism and romanticism. These two new compositions evoke both warm security and wild, blanketing intensity in ways that are both emotionally arresting and time stopping.
Jo Ha Kyu
"Tradition belongs more to the present than the past. For three weeks Parisian cellist and composer Gaspar Claus met with traditional and modern Japanese musicians in a Tokyo studio to record Jo Ha Kyu. Performing with Claus on this piece are: Eiko Ishibashi (voice, piano, drums), Keiji Haino (voice), Kakushin Nishihara (voice, satsuma biwa), Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano), Hirochimi Sakamoto (electric cello), Sachiko M (sine wave), Otomo Yoshihide (turntable), Leonard Eto (wadaiko), Kazutoki Umezu (t…
All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea
After last year’s Black Clouds Above The Bows, Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the second entry of their trilogy for Important Records, which is dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe. For this album the artists incorporated the sound of a dying organ.
All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea consists of electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe. …
11 Dec 80
11 Dec 1980 is a two CD set containing Eliane Radigue's live performance of Chry-Ptus (1971), her first work for modular synthesizer, and the world premier of parts one and three of Triptych (1978). Triptych part 2 is also performed. Upon hearing these performances for the first time in many years Radigue declared them to be the best versions she'd ever heard. Radigue's sublime renderings of these major pieces are full of illusory stasis, slow change and dense, slow motion drone that has charact…
Variolii Patterns
Duane Pitre's Varolii Patterns was made with an eight-voicesynthesizer, tuned in just intonation. These consonant pieces exploreshifting polyrhythms that slip in and out of rhythmic focus and "Common Rhythmic Pulses" that carry over as the pattern evolves withina piece.
Artist statement:"While experimenting with microtonal electronics for a piece I waswriting for Zinc & Copper, which would eventually be titled Pons, Icame across a process-based technique that I was quite keen on.Although I would…
Pitreleh
"With Eleh having cemented themself as perhaps the modern minimalist, their collaborations have become a fascinating journey into the genre old guard such as Pauline Oliveros and Ellen Fullman as well as platforms for newer artists like Sun Circle, and in this case, Duane Pitre. As usual, Eleh hardcore analogue drones are well matched by Pitre feather-light just intonation harmonics. Both sides reflect different aspects of minimalism past without being pale shadows of those earlier pioneers. In …