New Arrivals
Smoke Under The Water
"I confess to being in a state of ceaseless awe when it comes to Tokyo guitarist, Ueno Takashi. I have had the pleasure to know Ueno now for well over ten years. In that time he has remained a source of constant curiosity and surprise. Just when I think I have the man pegged, he throws out some unexpected musical gesture that completely catches me off guard. Whether it be his work with Saya in Tenniscoats, or his almost endless stream of solo releases, many of which exist in very short run editi…
Gaseneta
"Good things come to those who wait. It's a yellowing cliche but it also applies handily to the life, death, and eventual rebirth of Tokyo's Gaseneta. Formed at university in 1977, the volatile quartet barely lasted long enough to compose four perfect songs, none of which were released during the band's two-year existence. But the music's influence on subsequent generations of punk, psych, and avant-garage rockers belies such inauspicious beginnings. Jun Hamano's prickly, high-velocity guitar sp…
Duo and Trio
This is the 1st CD release commemorating the 6th anniversary of Ftarri, the CD shop in Suidobashi, Tokyo. Seijiro Murayama, who lives in France, is active mainly in Europe, giving truly original performances using drums, percussion and voice. Toshihiro Koike is a trombone player who lives in Nagoya. He is the leader of the trio Fuigo, whose other members are Kanji Nakao and Takero Sekijima; and he is also a member of the Satoko Fujii Orchestra. His improvised performances freely using expanded p…
Tumo Plays Cristián Alvear
Yuma Takeshita, who plays a modified bass guitar that he calls an electro-bass, and drummer/percussionist Yuji Ishihara have established reputations for musical excellence. Takeshita and Ishihara perform improvised music together in their duo project, Tumo. In 2017 Tumo gave a series of four concerts at Ftarri in which they performed composed works. On the occasion of a visit to Japan by Chilean guitarist Cristián Alvear, the duo performed “DosCuatro” [2017], a text score work they had commissio…
Breathing
Singer-songwriter Tomoe Takizawa has two previous album releases, Watashi, Kona ni Natte (Narisu Compact Disc) and a b c b (Headz). Additionally, Takizawa is an improviser who regularly gives improvisational performances at Ftarri using various instruments and objects as well as voice. This album explores her appealing qualities as an improvisational musician. Tracks 1 and 5, short pieces of 2-3 minutes recorded by Takizawa at her home in January 2016, serve as the album’s introduction and endin…
Grains
Four stereo works by Åke Parmerud from 1990 to 1995, led by Grains of Voices, a 31-minute piece built from voices he recorded while travelling around the world and premiered at the United Nations in 1997.
Cabinets de Curiosité
Seven fixed-medium works from 1998 to 2013 by Glasgow-based Alistair MacDonald, arranged as a cabinet of curiosities: Glasgow streets, Carrie Fertig's glass instruments, a tribute to Delia Derbyshire, building bricks and the jungle explored by Alfred Russel Wallace.
Cycle Nautique
David Berezan’s Nautical Cycle, five multichannel acousmatic pieces from 2011 to 2017 built from sea buoys, unmanned light vessels, mooring chains in Visby harbour and the bass clarinet of Marij van Gorkom, including the Klang ! first prize winner Lightvessels.
Mistpouffers
Three fixed-media works by eRikm from 2013 to 2016: an Icelandic crossing built around a folk tale, New Year’s Eve fireworks on a Berlin street, and a fire-retardant scar on the hills above Marseille, with a text by psychiatrist Georges Yoram Federmann.
Troubles
Two long works by Monique Jean: T.A.G. (2013), mostly synthesized sound shaped by crowds of demonstrators, and Out of Joint (2009-11), a hybrid of Shakespeare's Macbeth and the films, stagings and rewrites it inspired, mastered by Christian Bouchard.
Ténébrisme
Six acousmatic works by Adam Stanović from 2015 to 2017, made mostly in Sheffield: a remix that lost its source, a parody of the metal-sound cliché, traffic around an old steel furnace, and a birthday homage to Beatriz Ferreyra.
Field Music
A fluid dream logic runs deep in William Fowler Collins’ Field Music.
The New Mexican composer of dark minimalism has long centered his
practices upon the slow burn of the drone through guitar, electronics,
etc. That remains the case for Field Music, with Collins extending his
strategies through compositional exercises into rhythm and a diverse
array of conceptual signposts that push his work along unfixed, sometime
oppositional directions. The idea of ‘field music’ can relate to the
arch…
Ecce Homo
Ipek Gorgun's Ecce Homo explores the lighter and darker shades of the human psyche, behavior, and existence, and humanity's ability to create beauty and destruction. What lies in the essence of such complexity has become a core idea for the album, while Gorgun seeks to figure out if there is a true meaning to being human, and human being. Starting with "Neroli" as a human fascination with nature and finalizing with "To Cross Great Rivers"; a never-ending, hopeless dream of the mankind to conquer…
Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone
Touch issues Jana Winderen's Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone.
The marginal ice zone is the dynamic border between the open sea and
the sea ice, which is ecologically extremely vulnerable. The
phytoplankton present in the sea produces half of the oxygen on the
planet. During spring, this zone is the most important CO2 sink in our
biosphere. On Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone the sounds of
the living creatures become a voice in the current political debate
concerning the officia…
I, Residuum
** Edition of 199 copies. Deluxe silver silkscreen on black cardboard. Reissued for the first time in vinyl, the record has been pressed on 140 gr black vinyl with black label and black inner sleeve ** Incapacitants are the best noise band to ever come out of Japan. The group was formed in 1981 in Osaka, as the solo project of Toshiji Mikawa, a member of the amazing noise group Hijokaidan. Mikawa, a bank employee, later moved to Tokyo, where he joined with government office worker Fumio Kosakai…
The Passion Of Rubbers
** Edition limited to 105 hand numbered copies w/insert in black ink on black paper. Lp has been pressed on 140 gr black vinyl with black label and black inner sleeve and comes in black polyurethane sheet with laser engraving and black silk Obi ** Masonna's groundbreaking album, originally released as double tape in the mid 90s. The question of what’s one’s favorite item from their collection (or accumulation) consistently pops up in conversations amongst fans and collectors, and this unquestion…
Open your cunt
Along with Merzbow and Hijokaidan, Masonna is one of the best (known) Japanese noise projects. A psychedelic touch, cascades of electronic noise and vocal belching mixed together constitute the ingredients of Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Auréolé, the double-barrelled named for Masonna .Yamazaki “Maso” Takushi created Masonna in 1987 and he started recordings for his own legendary label Coquette . His plentiful productions were presented in a ultra limited edition, sometime to…
Seb-i Yelda
Karl Records is welcomes a new artist on board; R.A.N. is the dark electronic/rhythmic ambient music project by Hüma Utku, and Şeb-i Yelda is her debut for Karl. Hailing from İstanbul and based in Berlin for a couple of years now, Utku has been a prolific artist lately: as R.A.N. she released her debut album Her Trembling Ceased, followed by the remix album Remixed: Stories Retold(both 2015). Inspired by the Ottoman poet Bosnian Sabit Efendi, R.A.N. created four new, very personal tracks, develo…
Degradation Loops
Clear vinyl, silk-screened sleeve, 100 hand-numbered copies. Jasmine Guffond follows from her memorably exquisite ‘Traced’ LP for Sonic Pieces with the multi-timbral iridescence of ‘Degradation Loops’ for Karl Records - plotting an increasingly obfuscated descent into the grain and ether of processed field recordings and electronics, documenting a 16 day process of sonic destruction created for an art exhibition.““Degradation Loops” started out as a sixteen day long composition for an exhibition…
Different Moments
With this compilation of unreleased material Joe Davidow
honors his long working partnership with Paroni Paakkunainen, the
Finnish saxophone giant. Different Moments is a collection of music from
different sessions together with Paakkunainen, from 1978 to 1994.
Although Davidow’s composing work has largely been in the field of
electroacoustic music, this collection focuses on creative,
improvisational jazz.“When I first played with Paroni in the late 70’s, for me there was a
connection th…