New Arrivals
How To Unravel
How To Unravel is about how we might fall apart, and how we find the ways to come back together again. The first half follows all of the paths that lead in circles, the tangled yarn that never finds the end. But it holds on. It’s stronger than you think. The second half is how we untangle and get made whole. Some of the recordings were done live at Half Moon Studios in Toronto, while others were done remotely and shared, then crafted carefully to find their ways together. The album brings togeth…
M21
Underpinning the foundation of “M21” are some incredible low frequency drones created by amplifying the hum from portable record players. Ugly contact sounds from touching the arms, noise and scratches: all kinds of sounds fly past, warped into a tough, tenacious sound world.
"So this is how you push turntables into revolt! Divorcing them entirely from their original purpose, into a repeating infinite amplification of motors (rotation) and cartridges (contact). Essential!" - Otomo Yoshihide
Ödipus, Herrscher
»Ödipus, Herrscher« is the debut release of Berlin-based, Japanese sound artist Mieko Suzuki on raster. It is the result of a composition commissioned by Schauspielhaus Bochum.
Eno Piano
Bruce Brubaker is one of the most exciting pianists in the contemporary American classical scene, according to Pitchfork. He is back with a follow-up to his 11th album Glass Piano an audacious reprise of compositions by his contemporary Philip Glass. Brubaker’s new album, Eno Piano, is a stunning reinterpretation of selected tracks from Brian Eno’s ambient masterpiece, Music for Airports, as well as three original tracks. Brubaker carefully dissects, rearranges and reconstructs the iconic compos…
Drifting
*300 copies limited edition* ‘Drifting’ is the very first collaboration between Andrew Chalk and Daisuke Suzuki, which has remained unsurfaced since then-their private recording in 1996. In early 1996 Daisuke sent Andrew a DAT tape which included some unedited pieces that he recorded with found objects in his garden. Those fragments of recordings inspired Andrew to make a spontaneous recording and he made a live mix directly to cassette recorder with his instinct and archaic vision. ‘Drifting’ i…
D.D.D.
"'DDD' is a field recording album recorded by Daisuke Suzuki and was originally released by Texas based IDEA in 2001 in an edition of 300 copies on LP. Sometimes field recordings can be appreciated in relation to the conceptual art form, or as an on-site sound study and documentation of a very specific phenomena. Daisuke had no concept of the idea of building sonic panoramas and was specifically only Concerned with gathering lots of intriguing sound matter for his personal listening. 'DDD' was…
Nightshade
Tip! *200 copies lmited edition* Tom James Scott holds a unique position in experimental music. With a soft brush approach Scott, who currently lives on the North-West coast of England, has explored delicacy in music with a variety of sublime releases on a variety of labels. Predominantly known for gentle investigations of guitar and piano, Scott has shifted to incorporating different technology and tactics over time. All of this, either in performance or recording, is embedded with a spirit tha…
Wegene (My Countrymen)
*2023 stock. 100 copies limited edition* Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation. Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974…
Empyrean Traces
*300 copies limited release* With Empyrean Traces, De La Catessen Records focuses on another aspect of Adelaide composer David Kotlowy’s career – his works for trio. It follows the 2021 release of Final Fragments: Piano Music of David Kotlowy, where Kotlowy’s solo piano compositions were performed by composer and scholar Stephen Whittington. The three compositions on Empyrean Traces are brought to life by the Benaud Trio, whose ability to carry the gentle poetics of such work allows for bravura …
And / In
*2023 stock. 300 copies limited release* And / In is the Amsterdam/Berlin-based duo of Heather Frasch and Koen Nutters creating music with objects, text, and vibrations. Shadows and light, audible and inaudible movement, air, liquids, and solids. They conduct musical investigations of objects, bodies, agents, sounds, actions, text and silence. Objects and/in silence. Text and/in sound. Reading and/in actions. A spatio-vibrational theater workshop approaching the meaning and the life of objects a…
September 23, 2021
*2023 stock* Wakana Ikeda is a flute player whose activities range widely, from performances of composed works to improvised and popular music. She also leads the experimental music group Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble. In 2021, Ikeda and Swiss cellist Stefan Thut released the duo album "afar" on the Ftarri label. Guitarist Takashi Masubuchi started playing improvised music in the latter half of the 2000s, and since 2018 has focused on acoustic guitar performance. While Ikeda and Masubuchi are musi…
La preuve
La preuve is a rearguard action. Most of the people who inspired it are dead or retired. Old teenagers flay their former loves. They bear witness to a bygone era, but happily embraced, digested and spat out. Everything was still possible. Or possible at last. Psychedelia opened the doors of perception. Romanticism wasn't relegated to a dull formatting, a cheese without a rind. The group Poudingue, which started out ten years ago, has some fine leftovers. These are the crumbs from purgatory. The …
Oxygen
Angelides presents his most personal work to date through his new album Oxygen, released on Ancestor. Becoming a father to twins in 2020, he channels the emotional dimensions of bringing new life into the world while processing his daughter’s diagnosis of cerebral palsy. ‘Stepping into parenthood for anyone is chaotic, and her condition felt like another foreign, unknown experience,’ he reflects. ‘Writing Oxygen out of that place was an embodiment of “life is messy” but distilling it into someth…
Vowel
*Limited edition of 100 copies.* “Vowel” was recorded live by Jeton Hoxha at Braka Miladinov culture center of Struga, Macedonia, in June 2018. Previously published as only digital release on Eighth Tower Records, it was remastered and it's now available on cd. This recording is now part of the ZeroK black programs facility.
778FS
*125 copies limited edition* The abandoned railway section Castellaneta - Gioia del Colle in Puglia represents one of those places that meet the definition of 'undecided spaces', heterogeneous and dispersed realities which, precisely because of their nature of uncontrolled spaces, constitute a refuge for diversity, a product of the rational organization of the territory. A 'subnature' that lies between the natural world and the artificiality of industrial and urbanization processes. A six-hour w…
Robot: Singles Collection
*2023 stock* Robot is a virtual band founded by artists Takuji Kogo and John Miller in 2003. Their songs use personal ads and more recently other found texts as lyrics. Their fully synthetic music features electronically produced vocals and instrumentation. Karaoke-style videos that the artists post online accompany their songs. Singles Collection is Robot’s first full-length LP.
“Robot treats each ad with a dry humor and a modicum of sympathy while simultaneously pointing to the saturation of c…
Attack Time
With Attack Time’ by sound tinkerer Zeus B. Held, Bureau B is re-releasing one of the most exciting records of the original experimental Kraut-pop period. After various stints, including prog band Birth Control and underground dance tipple Gina X Performance, he also put out a string of solo releases. ’Attack Time’, originally released on Aladin in 1981, gave Zeus B. Held the opportunity to experiment sonically outside the mainstream and subversively undermine the hegemonic MTV sound of the earl…
Christian Wolff (Book)
*2023 stock* In this first interpretive narrative of the life and work of Christian Wolff, Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund trace the influences and sensibilities of a contemporary composer's atypical career path and restless imagination. Written in full cooperation with Wolff, including access to his papers, this volume is a much-needed introduction to a leading avant-garde composer still living, writing music, and speaking about his own work. Wolff has pioneered various compositional and no…
For Children
The 1970 album For Children by Eero Koivistoinen was originally released by the book publishing company, Otava, which was responsible for his earlier two albums as well. Jazzpuu/Sähkö Recordings reissued For Children in 2006 as did we in 2016, yet both of these releases have been hard to find ever since. This time around Svart brings this important piece of Koivistoinen's career, a successful amalgam of acoustic jazz and funky fusion back on the market on a limited Svart exclusive blue vinyl ed…
Odysseus
Odysseus, Eero Koivistoinen's first proper jazz album, gets its title from the wandering spirit of its songs, traveling from one mood to another. Performed by the Eero Koivistoinen Quintet & Sextet, because Koivistoinen wanted to extend his standard quartet (Koivistoinen-Sarmanto-Laine-Hietanen) to a quintet and invited trumpetist Bertil Lövgren to join. Also Juhani Aaltonen is questing on two tracks. Odysseus is an excellent, youthful package of forward-thinking jazz played by ambitious young j…