New Arrivals
Afrikaner's Street
A vinyl reissue of an industrial/electronic tape release from 1989 by members of Urbain Autopsy. The album includes a cover of 'Nag Nag Nag' by Cabaret Voltaire. A duo born after the separation of URBAIN
AUTOPSY. Created in 1989 by Overload System (Pascal Jeannet) to the
sampler and Chris.P. (Christophe Mielle) on vocals, it was to develop a
radical and innovative musical project. They will be joined by Fiflo (Ex
Ausweis keyboard) on bass then by Peewee (Ex Flitox drummer) who will
replace …
Luminous
Two giants of improvised music Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway joining pianist/composer Simon Nabatov, for a concert recorded live in Loft, Cologne, Germany on 30-31st October. Simon Nabatov - piano, Barry Guy - double bass Gerry Hemingway - drums, marimba
A Brief History of New Music
2016 release. This amazing publication gathers together interviews with pioneering musicians of the 1950s to the 1980s. The book thus brings together avant-garde composers such as Elliot Carter, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen; originators of electro-acoustic music such as François Bayle, Pauline Oliveros, Iannis Xenakis, and Peter Zinovieff; Minimalist and Fluxus-inspired artists such as Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, Yoko Ono, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley; as well figures such as Brian E…
Re-Verbed (No-Input Mixing Board 9)
Re-Verbed (No-Input Mixing Board 9) is the latest edition from Tokyo-based artist Toshimaru Nakamura. The "No-Input Mixing Board" is a unique instrument pioneered by Nakamura. As its name suggests, it is a mixing console within which external no input exists. The instrument is fueled only by its own feedback. Initially used by Nakamura as a more tonal instrument, creating incredibly high frequency outputs, over time the mixing board has become decidedly more rhythmic and harmonic. It is this son…
Ke I Te Ki
Room40 release Akio Suzuki and Aki Onda's Ke I Te Ki. "Akio Suzuki and I have been performing together frequently for the last five years; we have a tendency to perceive sound as space, or to always consider sound in relation to space. We don't usually hear sound sources as they actually are, since they are always modified by a space's acoustics and its reflections, absorptions, and attenuation. Sound is affected by the conditions and characteristics of a particular setting. We respond to the ex…
Unearth
Unearth is the first solo recording from Australian born, Berlin based composer and drummer Tony Buck in 15 years. Many would recognize Buck from his work with the iconic Australia avant trio The Necks. His history as a player however reaches much further than this engagement. Over the past few decades, Tony has cultivated a language that escapes easy categorization. With Unearth, he delivers his most accomplished solo composition. Built across several years, the record is the culmination of his…
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…