New Arrivals
The System of Objects
Silentes presents a new collaborative effort between two prominent artists of Italy's electronic and experimental scene, Corrado Altieri (Candor Chasma, Monosonik, Uncodified) and Gianluca Favaron (ab'she, Under The Snow, Z'been). Inspired by Jean Baudrillard's essay of the same name, "The System of Objects" offers seven compositions combining field recordings, analogue textures, computer music and concrète sounds. Altieri e Favaron dig deep in the unconscious of the french philosopher, devising…
Kogetsudai
Kogetsudai is Sylvain Chauveau's 10th album, the second in a trilogy initiated by Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2010), where the song structure is dismantled and reconstructed on the fringe of silence. Whereas Singular Forms found inspiration from Abstract Painting, Kogetsudai is influenced by Zen rock gardens found in Japan Ñ also the location where the album was conceived (for the most part) Ñ and from which the album borrows its title. Layers of minimal electronic sounds and filtered f…
Eins +
Mark Lorenz Kysela plays contemporary music for a instrumental soloist, sound extensions and tapes. An artist on various saxophones and clarinet. Performs as a soloist, in combination with (live-) electronic or analogue enhancements and tapes. Mark Lorenz Kysela presents six completely different pieces: artistic individual positions focusing on the radical nature of musical language, on shaping and on the soloist. Christoph Ogiermann, 'Druckblöcke und Zeichenakkumulationen BCC' for saxophone, l…
Ask the dust
Hailing from Northern California, John Davis is a sound artist, composer and filmmaker who has released music on labels such as Root Strata and Digitalis. With “Ask the Dust,” he offers up a moving suite of compositions made using a plethora of instrumentation including guitar, piano, tape loops, Max/MSP, field recordings and the newest addition to his arsenal, a complex assortment of Blacet synthesizer modules. Davis uses the synth not as the crux of his recordings but as a tool among many in h…
Das Testament
Backwards proudly presents the reissue of a private Maurizio Bianchi vinyl LP, issued in a small edition of 300 copies in 1983 and titled "Das Testament". M.B. is an Italian pioneer of noise music, born near Milan. Bianchi began to produce music in 1979, and since 1980 has used electronic equipment with the avowed goal "to produce technological sounds and in such a way to work on complete realising of the modern decadence". Now remastered, for this release MB plays electronics, rhythms, neutroni…
Occlusions
… Occlusion is a loose framework for a multi-channel, freely improvised piece of LIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC, performed without the aid or consent of pre-recorded or even pre-arranged materials of any kind. A given realization will last between 10 and 30 minutes ; time is elastic. Every effort has been made to avoid divisible rhythms (although mistakes are occasionally made) ... Still, I consider it a "kind" of Dance Music. These two realizations, recorded a week apart at festivals in France and…
Raudive Bunker Experiment
Double LP version: Reissue of the rare LP from 1982 and additional material from various tapes of that period. Includes two long Industrial tracks in the way of Throbbing Gristle and 22 tracks of experimental minimal, comparable to early Cabaret Voltaire or Conrad Schnitzler.All composed and recorded in the early eighties by Andy Wilson, who also played with Bourbonese Qualk, released a book about german band "Faust" and nowadays plays under the name "Sunseastar" and "The Grand Erector". Limite…
Christmas Soli
Remastered edition: John Fahey has made a habit of recording a new album of Christmas music every five or six years, but The New Possibility, which was originally released in 1968, is still his best. One of the best and most influential acoustic guitarists of his generation, John Fahey's music fused past and present, borrowing from the traditions of blues and folk music and filtering them through a modern musical viewpoint. Some of Fahey's most striking (and most popular) work appeared on a seri…
The Disintegration Loops
*Deluxe 5CD+DVD+Book set* "To mark the 10-year anniversary of its original release – and its forthcoming induction into the 9/11 Memorial Museum this year – Temporary Residence and William Basinski presentThe Disintegration Loops in a fashion truly befitting a library of music with such a lasting legacy. This massive limited-edition box set contains all four historic volumes, plus a pair of stunning live orchestral performances from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 54th Venice Bien…
I am the Center: private issue new age music in America, 1950-90
One of the best things about Seattle label Light in the Attic’s new new age compilation I Am the Center is that it doesn’t try and pretend that new age music was something that it’s not. Look at the album’s cover illustration and you’ll see an angel-like creature carrying an orb of yellow light through the clouds; open the gatefold and you’ll see what appears to be a bird made of stars launching itself out of the ocean. Press play and be delivered into over two hours of mind-numbingly mellow mus…
Echohaus
If you’ve heard of Felix Kubin before, you’ll likely think you have some idea of how ‘Echohaus’ is going to sound. Well forget what you know, you’re wrong – Kubin’s well-worn Sci-Fi pop stylings are entirely erased on ‘Echohaus’ as he rebuilds people’s preconceptions from the ground up. He may have just scored a long-deserved Wire cover, but Kubin is not content to simply rest on his laurels, and although ‘Echohaus’, a collaboration with contemporary chamber group Ensemble Integrales, migh…
Hypnosis, distortion & other innovations 1969-1978
In 2010, against all odds, Angola Soundtrack Vol. 1 (AACD 069CD/AALP 069LP) was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize in the category "Black Music." This victory was all the sweeter for its triumph over the predicted winner, Aloe Blacc's multi-platinum record, Good Things. Many were surprised that the award was handed to a compilation that covered obscure music, but it didn't surprise the team behind Analog Africa, who believed such an award should have come much earlier. Since discovering th…
On Air
Electrocuted Moon Hair, Cone Headed Space Punks in Fast Forward Neo Tokyo's Virtual Flat Screen Pop Stars, Jetset Tabloids Zebra Print Moon Boats Splattering Ketchup Packets are just some of the themes that pour out of the Musical Imaginarium of James Ferraro's highly anticipated, fully restored and remastered version of the 2009 limited edition CD-R classic On Air, featuring the online hit singles 'Cinderella,' 'On Air,' 'Flashy Kamikaze' and more! Take an electric bite out of the Space …
These Are The Good Times
The Vittelli label announces itself with this fine release of London’s highlife, lowlife, wildlife and everday life plucked from Ian Rawes’ vast London Sound Survey. At his day job at the British Library sound archive Rawes cut his teeth in archiving and explored its depths. Field recordings and studies by acoustic ecologists came to his attention around the same time that he was looking to create his own capital-based project. At this time the internet promised to be the great equaliser a…
Live at Cbgb 1986
“Not since the early days of MC5 at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, circa 1968, had there been such an organic melding of sheer metalesque maelstrom and free jazz. These archival recordings from the legendary punk club CBGB capture a moment in time when open-minded musicians from the 'downtown scene' were exploring the possibility of bringing Lou Reed's feedback-infested Metal Machine Music together with Albert Ayler's Love Cry. Dissipated Face guitarist Kurt "Hologram" Ralske and special guest …
No Answer : Lower Floors
LP version. "No Answer : Lower Floors is the record of 2013 you need to be most worried about. No Answer : Lower Floors is further flesh to the shadowy silhouette cast by this Michigan art abstraction unit, perenially poised on the cusp of a precipice. Wolf Eyes will carry on forever but always remain mysteriously unfinished. The No Answer : Lower Floors material covers all bases: tough to toughest to tangled, all done in the Wolves' least convoluted smooth style. The vocals, delays, primit…
Drawn and Quartered
"A selection of rarities from 2008-2009. Track one originally released on an OPN/Outer Space split CS (Arbor, 2009). Track two originally released on Ruined Lives CS (Young Tapes, 2008). Track three and four originally released on Transmat Memories CS (Taped Sounds 2008). Track five and six originally released on A Pact Between Strangers CDR (Gneiss Things, 2008). Track seven originally released on Young Beidnahga CDR (Ruralfuane, 2009)." Includes a digital download code.
Keep An Eye Out
Table of the Elements continues to celebrate its 15th anniversary with the tenth installment in its Guitar Series Vols. 3 & 4. It’s a 12xLP romp of deviant fretnoise by some of experimental music’s most prominent players, including Christian Fennesz, Thurston Moore, and Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley. Sunn O))) founder Stephen O’Malley summons a mesmerizing drone, absorbing the listener into an aural tar pit of deep, inexorable oblivion. He wears a cloak of post-metal allegiances with behemoths li…
The watchers
The Watchers is a historic collaboration between Lubomyr Melnyk and James Blackshaw. These new pieces are being released as a CD/LP with material exclusive to each format. LP is pressed in an edition of 500. I first met Lubomyr Melnyk at a festival called Hea Uus Heli in October 2008. We were both scheduled to play that day and I was very excited to see him perform. Before the show I bought several LPs from him and mentioned as much. Lubomyr (more than modest and courteous, as he always i…
Remember your black day
“Remember Your Black Day” features the first material conceived and produced as a full length by Dominick Fernow for the Vatican Shadow project following almost a dozen tapes (mostly released on Hospital Productions) and vinyl editions (released by the likes of Blackest Ever Black, Modern Love and Type) over the last three years. None of the 8 tracks included have been released before on any other format. At a time when the scene is saturated with “Noise Techno” the album is almost celebratory b…