New Arrivals
Upcoming Events
Further exploring the collaborative powers of Illusion Of Safety mastermind Dan Burke and prolific sound crafter Thomas Dimuzio, Upcoming Events is an unending spur of equal parts gorgeous and uncomfortably perplexing sound spread of 15 tracks. Crackles of electronic fire, tremolo-infused waves of sustained guitar, broken music boxes and found sounds among all other sorts of unfounded wails of gargantuan melancholy drone, Burke and Dimuzio's collaboration is a forceful collection of early indust…
Artifact: iTi Live In St. Johann
Recorded on March 8th, 2008 at Alte Gerberel, St. Johann in Tirol/Austria at Festival ArtActs 2008. Features on trombone Johannes Bauer, drums Paal Nilssen-Love, analogue synthesizer Thomas Lehn & reeds Ken Vandermark.
One night in Burmantofts
A long overdue meeting of two of the titans of the saxophone. Alan Wilkinson (alto, Baritone & Voice) and Peter Brotzmann (clarinet, tarogato & tenor) together with Willi Kellers (drums) and Simon H. Fell (bass) blow up one hell of a storm. The individuals on this recording consciously commit, putting themselves 'out there', over the edge. The energy, the electricity, generated by saxophonists Wilkinson and Brötzmann, is a result of their fearless approach to the precipice and their willingness …
The Persistence of Meaning
New York duo of Joshua Convey and Luke Krnkr. Blistering, overdriven shards of noise obscure the almost entirely hidden melodies. These musical moments are few and far between, as The Persistence of Meaning is more about reveling in destruction and decay, emphasizing raw feedback and hollow, rhythmic loops that shamble like the walking dead. Dirges from the deepest ossuaries can almost be heard, pained notes buried by locust swarms of static. While occasionally the pair engage in erratic Krautro…
Foley Folly Folio
Pinkcourtesyphone is the not so secret alter ego of renowned sound artist Richard Chartier, and while it seems to be geared more towards a looser, more relaxed sensibility than the serious artist guise that is usually thrust upon him, it lacks none of his careful attention to structure and detail. Quite a bit of the material on this compilation (recorded erratically between 1997 and 2011) could pass for his normal work, but throws enough curve balls to give it a distinct identity all its…
Outdoor Spell
Rhys Chatham has trail-blazed a course through late 20th century music, equally aplomb in post-minimalist composition as he is in punk. Not since Roebling laid his span across the East River has there been an artist who builds bridges in both how we hear music and how we can appreciate art. His latest album, Outdoor Spell, is a further document in that direction. Here has has eschewed 100 guitars, or even himself playing a single guitar, for the trumpet and voice, both electrified and dry. It is…
Field
"The Koeln concert shows us these positive vibrations marching through "the complete continuance of creative music," and on towards the next millennium. The "success of the future" is not a lost cause as long as there is music like this in the air."-Graham Lock"Although Anthony Braxton does not play on this double CD (whose contents were released for the first time in 1995), his presence is certainly felt. He conducts the band through a fairly free improvisation and five of his compositio…
Zero Set
Featuring Moebius (ex-Kluster, Cluster, Harmonia), Conny Plank and Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru). The original LP was released on Sky Records in 1983. Historical masterpiece!! Reissue with elaborate miniature paper sleeve of the original LP. Digitally remastered version, limited to 1,000 copies
Sol Sketches
Film director Chris Teerink asked me to make the soundtrack for a documentary he would be making about American artist Sol LeWitt. This was in 2009. Chris and I agreed that the music and the images should both be equally important in his film. We didn't want the score to overpower the images, but neither did we want it to become solely background 'muzak'. I searched for a certain openness in the sound, while at the same time keeping a directness to it. Musical references for me were the piano pi…
And Never Ending Nights
Please allow us the pleasure of introducing Axel Willner's Loops Of Your Heart. Hailing from Sweden, the man behind this record alone needs no introduction, as he is already well-known in the electronic music scene for his project The Field. Loops Of Your Heart reflects Axel's experience in Germany, where during his lengthy stays, his mantra-like arpeggiators contributed to the first manifestation of the sound of Cologne Tape, a group that formed while he was staying there. You can also he…
Book Of Angels Volume 13
Four exotic and talented women doing the Book of Angels. A capella. “Mycale” is definitely not my favorite entry in the already 13 albums long series (even though I only have half of those yet), but it is an entirely new approach to the material and therefore about as fresh and original as I suspect it can get after versions over versions of these kind of compositions. But mainly it’s just a lot of fun.
Rastakraut Pasta
1st release from the duo of Dieter Moebius & Conny Plank, originally released on Sky Records in 1980. As the title suggests, this album is heavily influenced by dug & reggae & those rhythms are incorporated into the ambient space-rock one would expect from these German pioneers of Kosmische musik.
Not a leaf remains as it was
In 1995 Steve Peters and Steve Roden toured as a trio with singer Anna Homler; sometimes they would vocalize behind her, and they liked the way their voices blended together. They then spent about 15 years saying that “someday” they should record a voice-based project together. Aside from the physical distance between them, the problem was always: What would we sing? Neither wanted to write or sing lyrics.Inspiration came in the form of a book of Japanese jisei – poems allegedly written by monks…
Microtub
A wonderful microtonal play.In microtub, ideas of microtonal tuba music are put into action by the three improvisors Robin Hayward, Martin Taxt and Kristoffer Lo. A unique timbre is created when the sound of the three tubas merge together. SOFA is proud to present this groundbreaking piece of music. Robin Hayward developed the first fully microtonal tuba together with the tuba manufacturer B&S in 2009. After exploring the possibilities in just intonation on the regular tuba, he found it necessa…
Middle Eastern Rock
An inspired fusion of Middle Eastern rhythms and psychedelia resulted in this the gorgeous album by accomplished oud player John Berberian and his troop of skilled musicians. First released on Verve/Forecast in 1969 this exotic album features music based on traditional themes from Turkey, Armenia, Greece, Arabia and North Africa blended with the terrific improvised energy of psychedelia. So what you end up with here is bustling bazaars and scorched sands passed through the prism of the lysergic …
Dead Space
Blip is a duo collaboration between Jim Denley and Mike Majkowski: two of Australia's most prominent improvising musicians. They began playing together in 2002, as members of The Splinter Orchestra, and formed Blip in 2009. They have been developing their own approach to the woodwinds/strings duo arrangement, deconstructing and reconstructing this format. Blip music focuses on duration, the subtleties of sound, the pitch within timbre and texture, as well as pulse. Wi
Danza de la Vida
The follow-up to our "Danza de la Muerte" compilation focuses on the more song orientated Syntactic releases. Also, you will find tracks that were planned as Syntactic or Klanggalerie 7"s, but never made it onto vinyl. The track list reads as follows: Andrew Liles - In this vegetable Glass of Nature Le Zappalot (Rehberg/Bauer/Birnbach) - Erika goes to Leopoldau O Yuki Conjugate - Madal (Circular…
Ablation
Welcome return for Robert Hampson with the first Main album in seven years, new on eMego. Hampson founded Main with Scott Dawson upon disbanding Loop in '94, and while their initial releases still bore traces of their space-rock origins, the goal was always total ecstatic abstraction, and by the time of the Hz series, completed in '96, they'd pretty much achieved it. Main's music has been called many things: industrial, noise, isolationist electronica, dub, drone; the truth it, it's all a…
Oltre
The best 12k/LINE release in ages - dark, Lynchian eroded tape-loops and analogue menace. ESSENTIAL PURCHASE! (boomkat) "The Transparence dubplate, developed at O ' in Milan, Italy, works within the physical limitations of the vinyl medium, employing the object as sound source and also sound medium, to become an instrument in its own right. Using the non-linear acoustics of the gallery at O', the dubplate was recorded, and later cut to disc in Berlin, at very low volume. This ephemeral audi…
Numbers
A beautiful set of compositions from saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, presenting works recorded in the 2000s with performers including Thomas Buckner, Stephen Rush, Nils Bultman, William Winant, &c - "In the 45 years since he recorded Sound, Roscoe Mitchell's music has steadily evolved and diversified, making the idea of a comprehensive one-disc survey an impossibility. However, as much as any album, the both/and nature of Roscoe Mitchell's music is vividly represented on Numbers." -Bill Shoemaker, …