New Arrivals
Dub & Die plus
Originally released in 1981 as an untitled mini album on Zick Zack, "Dub & Die" completes our re-issue programme of the band's earliest works. Recorded at SADW's Cassettencombinat studio in Berlin, the original 8 tracks represent the first release by this German Avantgarde/Industrial group that was once a member of the "Geniale Dilettanten" movement. Again, comparison with early Einstürzende Neubauten is permitted, altho…
For/Not For John Cage
Line is pleased to announce the upcoming release of a elegant new sound work by Australian artist Lawrence English, inspired by John Cage.In 2011, anticipating John Cage’s centenary, I began thinking about how to approach a work that might act as a homage to the aspects of his life and work that have inspired me over the past two decades (ironically, those in which he has been physical absent, but philosophically more present than ever). John Cage, with that beaming smile and trademarked c…
Foley Folly Folio
Pinkcourtesyphone is the not so secret alter ego of renowned sound artist Richard Chartier, and while it seems to be geared more towards a looser, more relaxed sensibility than the serious artist guise that is usually thrust upon him, it lacks none of his careful attention to structure and detail. Quite a bit of the material on this compilation (recorded erratically between 1997 and 2011) could pass for his normal work, but throws enough curve balls to give it a distinct identity all its…
Rostbeständige Zeit
Axel Dörner, Nobuyoshi Ino, Kazuo Imai, Noritaka Tanaka. This is the masterpiece of 2CDs, splitting the music into improvisation (momentary composition) and / or composition. Disc 1 is the improvised music by Axel, Ino, Imai. Guitar sound of Imai is hot and tingling, Ino plays careful his choice pizzicato and arcoexquisitely, and Axel's original sound bring Ôout' into their music. Their atmosphere of music is special one, cannot be similar from every music. Disc 2 consists of all Axel's composi…
Sum things
the new album by the über-prolific and often esoteric Z'ev sees this musician leaves the drums aside and focus on long, slightly noisy and constantly rumbling low-frequency drones. Dark and brooding, but clearly grittier and dirtier as, let's say, Lustmord, "Sum Things" is a decidedly atmospheric album in the truest sense of the word, but will also appeal to anybody interested in dense, carefully laid and deep drone works."Through an element darkly… In the fall of 2005 Z’EV began dipping deep in…
The Visitor
The Visitor is a seriously all-O'Rourke affair: all the sounds you hear are Jim and Jim alone, recontextualizing everything he's done over the years & throwing out the bullshit. The one thing you won't hear is his voice. Some of The Visitor is tracked so deep, it took two hundred tracks to hold it all. It doesn't sound like it though - to Jim's credit, the mix sounds very minimal, very straightforward. There's moments of low comedy next to high drama & juicy melancholy with a seeming lack of reg…
Postepeno
poSTepeno is inspired by a multi-part collage created circa 1890 by an anonymous schizophrenic patient (known only as Frau ST) at the Viennese Oberdöbling asylum. The compositions (for piano and sine tones) morph musicalthemes through continual microtonal modifications. Sine tones are unstable, but nevertheless they consistently keep their individual frequency direction (up or down). In the chordal sense, the distance between the tones is subject to alteration. In this way the harmonic indicatio…
Archive #1
The IMO is a very large improvisors ensemble, founded in september 2010, that usually gather about 35 musicians per concert, from all switzerland and beyond. From the, expected, mess of the first concerts emerged a collective consciousness and involvement from the impressive number of musicians included in this ambitious projet. After a year - and 7 concerts - 40 of them met during 3 day during the 2011 summer, marking a sensitive step in the orchestra progression. Working deeply a certai…
We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic
In May 2011, Foxygen's Sam France and Jonathan Rado nervously handed off a CD-R of their homemade mini-opus Take the Kids Off Broadway to producer and visionary Richard Swift after his performance in a Lower East Side club. The duo, who had just mixed and burned the disc that very night, had been devotees of Swift's outsider-pop oeuvre since high school, when they first began recording their own pubescent forays into oddball rock n' roll (At least a dozen records were finished before they …
Lithp
Improvised music group originating from Haifa, Israel. Ofer Bymel (drums), Adi Snir (soprano & tenor saxophone saxophone, clarinet), Michel Mayer (guitar), Ronni Benner (guitar). A clean, sophisticated minimalist style and a sound that fits snuggly into the soft abstract current European scene.
The backside suite
'Created and performed by Christian MUNTHE. Upside-down steel 6-string arch top acoustic guitar. Touched by: guitar-pick, palm of hand, fingertips, nails, lips, tongue, teeth, breath, saliva, beer bottle, whiskey tumbler, plastic ball-point pen, paperback book, legs Christian MUNTHE is a Swedish free improviser that since the 1980's concentrates on the sonic possibilities offered by the acoustic guitar in solo as well as various ensemble settings. He has released recordings in his own name and …
Folksongs & Ballads
'The only album by Tia Blake was recorded at the Ossian Studio in Paris in 1971 and released that same year by the tiny French label SFP (Societe Francaise de Productions Phonographiques). Great psych-folk with guitars, dobro, flute and fantastically fragile female vocals. First time available on CD, with Tia Blake's own recollections."
Lost Prayers
Originally released in a tiny pressing of just 200 CD-Rs by Digitalis Industries, this early James Blackshaw release is brought back in print by the Tompkins Square label, who on the back of last year's 'Cloud Of Unknowing' are intent upon reintroducing the guitarist' back-catalogue to his growing legion of fans (of whom there is almost certainly more than 200). 'Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances' is a single thirty-five minute composition, opening with droning harmonium passages and only…
Gilberto Gil
2009 repress. First ever U.S. reissue of this album, with new liner notes by Peter Margasak. Released in 1971 while Gil was living in London, this is the third self-titled release from the bossa nova and tropicalia legend. Gil recorded this album while in political exile from his native Brazil and its somber, straightforward tone is a welcome change from the experimental, psychedelic assault of his 1969 long player. Featuring 8 originals and a brilliant cover Steve Winwood's 'Can't Find My Way H…
Privilegium Martyrii
Thick and spectral dark ambient, soaked with soft and flowing pads stratifications, wrapped in deep and penetrating low frequencies spires, enlightened by delicate and touching melodic inserts, profaned by echoes of reverberating metallic noises, clanging chains, circular mechanical movements, waves of indecipherable whispers, distant and suffering human voices... A great debut CD for Antikatechon, a project that showcases Davide Del Col's eclectic personality, already the unique mind of the Orn…
Home
The Preservation label presents Home, the third album from Olan Mill from Hampshire in the United Kingdom. Olan Mill is the recording project of composer and producer Alex Smalley, who to-date has received rapturous acclaim for his work that holds a sublime measure between the realms of modern neo-classical composition and ambience. On Home, Smalley has mined his most expansive territory yet to create a thrillingly evocative and deeply felt body of work. The tender clusters of sound that ha…
Pi:k
'Two musicians from very different backgrounds finding common ground. The first half consists of studio duets on guitar and viola recorded in New York City without any electronics, but they are not what one would expect from these two instruments. The second half is very different - recorded in concert in Geneva with a liberal amount of electronics.'
Unit
A journey to the Chinese Qinghai province (Tibetan culture region of Amdo) was commissioned by the Goethe-Institut China. Its purpose was to experience the province and to produce art works to be presented at The Third Guangzhou Triennial, subtitled 'Farewell to Post-Colonialism' in the same year. The sound installation Unit and a series of photographs called Cutting Qinghai resulted from this journey, during which I took photographs and made audio recordings. The installation was presente…
Old Stuff
"Formed in the summer of 1964, although the New York Art Quartet existed for barely a year and a half, great interest remains in their work. They consisted of co-leaders John Tchicai (alto sax), who participated in John Coltrane's ground-breaking Ascension album and Roswell Rudd (trombone), considered to be the first free-jazz trombonist, along with bassist Don Moore and drummer Milford Graves. The band participated in the legendary 'October Revolution in Jazz', which journalist Bill Shoemaker c…
And IV (Inertia)
With And IV (Inertia), Grischa Lichtenberger presents his first full-length record on Raster-Noton after his participation in the Unun series. For his musical production, he uses field recordings of his environment which are manipulated and broken down to their bare nakedness until only fragments are left. Apart from analog sources, he also uses digital sound data which is likewise turned and twisted until the boundaries between analog and digital are blurred. The arrangement of these atom…