New Arrivals
Close Up
With the saxophonist player Bertrand Gauguet, the trumpet player Franz Hautzinger and the analogue synthesizer player Thomas Lehn, this is a trio with three european musicians who are invested in the improv and new music. Gauguet-Hautzinger-Lehn works to surimpose different sonic spaces : acoustic, amplified, natural or electronic, works to build temporal structures or architectures and works to generate the modulations of an open and combinatory 'chamber music'.
Rewound groves
Krampus used to be busy with St. Nicholas during December. But soon after St. Nicholas began to wear shiny red and white costume, he was no longer needed.He took long time to figure out why it happened, why he was abandoned. On the other hand, he could spend more time playing with old fellows in the mountains, and noticed what is most pleasant in his life.This album is released on 5th December - the day of Krampus. This edition is limited to 123 copies, wrapped in fur pocket (brunet or blond) an…
Box music
Rutger and Stephen sort of accidentally met through e-mail. A simple note regarding an ordering question for a CD led to an enthusiastic e-mail conversation and climaxed in a musical collaboration. This all happened in a very short period, both musicians being very inspired by the concept of “exchange,” as a means to cross space and time -- Rutger living in the Netherlands and Stephen in Virginia.
Most of the time, when (electronic) musicians work together it’s a matter of swapping digital files…
Murmurios
TONARTENSEMBLE: Georgia Ch Hoppe (clarinet, mandolin, objects), Nicola Kruse (violin), Ernesto RODRIGUES (viola), Robert Klammer (zither, electronics, analog synthesizer), Heiner Metzger (soundtable), Helmuth Neuman (trumpet, waldhorn), Thomas Niese (double bass), Thomas Österheld (bass clarinet), Krischa Weber (cello) and Hannes Wiennert (soprano saxophone, trompsax, sheng). Recorded December 2009 in Hamburg.
The Yelm Sessions
Another important piece of the elusive and hermetic Eyvind Kang puzzle. This newest studio project from one of the most consistently interesting young composer/performers working today is instantly Kang’s most adventurous, varied and ambitious recordings to date. Featuring many of his most illustrious musical associates as well as several orchestral ensembles from around the world, this new CD brings Kang’s exuberant gift for orchestration and lyricism together with a keen sense of the miraculou…
As a Leaf or a Stone
For this release Mathieu Ruhlmann uses a lot of sound sources and per track he lists them. We see listed a coffee grinder, ukelin, e-bow, moss, denture cleaner, bubble wrap, dried plant, cactus, speaker and gate (and that's just the opening track!)... The gain is very much alive here, so there is occasionally some feedback leaking through here. That adds a strange component to the highly acoustic music. Ruhlmann plays his stuff with great care. His music is open, spacious, but also intimate. The…
Aíneen Musta Puhelin / Black Telephone Of Matter
Best known as one-half of acclaimed techno minimalists Pan Sonic, Mika Vainio also has an impressive résumé as a solo artist that stretches back to the early '90s and his association with influential Finnish imprint Sähkö. Recording primarily under the aliases Ø and Philus, and sometimes his birth name (depending on the project), Vainio's aesthetic mission has been consistently and rigorously defined by an investigation into the materiality of sound. Indeed, just about everything in his catalog …
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…
at Oto
The first meeting of two masters of improvised music. Concentrated solo pieces from each before an uncompromising duo.When Matthew Shipp was invited to London's Cafe Oto for a residency in 2010 he immediately asked to play with John Butcher, perhaps not the most obvious choice of collaborator but one that proved inspired. Although they generally work in very different areas of improvised music, both players share an intensity of focus and pugnacious individualism that heightened rather than hind…
Experiments \'80-\'82
self-issued cd collecting two early 80s cassette-only releases (“quiz party” & “life in video city”) by richard bone, both tipped by the mutant sounds crew a few years back resulting in something of a renewed interest in this otherwise obscure figure in the 70s / 80s “minimal synth” wave - jumping back & forth between noisy, arpeggiated sequences & more atemporal modes (i can certainly hear the tod dockstader influence throughout the “quiz party” pieces) this is in many ways the perfect disc for…
In Each Day, Something
Eri Yamamoto released two recording in 2008, each of which—in different ways—demanded attention. In a series of duos with friends such as William Parker and Hamid Drake (Duologue), Yamamoto was expansive and free, readily finding ways to play beyond conventional harmony without sacrificing “beautiful” pianism. With her trio (Redwoods), she was more in the pocket, mining vamps and grooves for what they could say about the blues, but always keeping things intelligently sweet. If you’d barely heard…
Musiques Machinales
1 copy only, long out of print - for many years, Pierre BASTIEN has developed his personal music based on musical machines made with Mecano. His orchestra MECANIUM is his backing band both on album and on stage. All this creates a tender, delicate and emotive machine music that seduced Pascal DOMELADE from the beginning. A terrific mixture of J. Dubuffet and John Cage
Open Percussion
this CD is an amazing achievement. Kjos Sørensen is a brilliantly gifted performer, but clearly an imaginative and creative one too. A very special issue, continuing BIS’s tradition of opening our minds and our ears.
Sempervirent
I spent two months in protected areas of Costa Rica making multichannel field recordings of the different forest ecosystems of Central America. Armed with a quadraphonic setup (IRT cross), a parabolic microphone, a hydrophone, and a scientist's passport, I went to nine main sites to record: the coastal evergreen forest, the tropical dry and deciduous forest, the mangroves, the wooded riverbanks and floodplains, and the forests altered in cultivated areas. The recordings were made at the S…
Drones
In the beginning there was the piano. As soon as he had mastered the basics, Jean-Philippe Goude discovered the spell of melancholy while working on a little musical piece: an etude ringing out in the style of a somber hymn. Not the dead meat smells of somberness that, according to Picabia, serious people emit, but the earthen gravity of an abyss dug by life itself. Everything is the result of this bedazzlement. At 11 years old, Jean-Philippe Goude closed his eyes. When his eyelids finall…
Mubomuso
Mubomuso is a neologism, made up from two extant words. Mubo suggests the unadorned and unaffected, while muso means to be in a state without thought or preplanning. All parts of the release lead the listener towards the consideration of a very specific topic Ð namely, war and violence, and the deeper connections to human nature. Stripped of the clothing of civilization, etiquette and socialization, we slowly become aware of reactions and purposes that exist deep within us embedded comma…
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."
Watashi-dake
Much needed reissue of the first solo Haino from 1980. The extreme personal depth that every Haino release exudes. This CD adds previously unreleased track of 28 minutes!
A closely woven fabrik
For a number of years as West Head Project, we've been making site specific sound events and recordings at outdoor locations - initially these were held at West Head in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. We've gone on to play in special sites around Australia and this disc documents our work on Maria Island off the east coast of Tasmania where we were resident for 10 days, guests of 10 Days on the Island Festival and Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania. Auditory transmogrification of Tasmani…
Aun – The Beginning And The End Of All Things
This CD is the soundtrack to the film AUN, directed by Edgar Honetschlger. With stills from the film in the full colour 28 page booklet, the artwork is designed by Philip Marshall. Intention : 'AUN Ð the beginning and the end of all things' tells the story of mankind's quest for the future, his desire to create the tomorrow, his fear of and loathing for the apocalypse. It spins the Faustian theme twice and lays bare open the inexhaustible Judea/Christian believe in progress, which by the…