New Arrivals
Experiments \'80-\'82
self-issued cd collecting two early 80s cassette-only releases (“quiz party” & “life in video city”) by richard bone, both tipped by the mutant sounds crew a few years back resulting in something of a renewed interest in this otherwise obscure figure in the 70s / 80s “minimal synth” wave - jumping back & forth between noisy, arpeggiated sequences & more atemporal modes (i can certainly hear the tod dockstader influence throughout the “quiz party” pieces) this is in many ways the perfect disc for…
Language of the Dards
WhisPers for WoLves is the solo pysch/noise/folk project of Melissa Moore. The musician, experimental instrument builder, installation/sound artist, and sculptor based in Baltimore,MD. "Language of the Dards" is a multi-part series of pieces developed around the text/teachings/songs of Indian Yogi, Milarepa made of three long recordings of voice/finger-pickin guitar, nepalese oboe, and electronics. The album comes in a hand-assembled gatefold sleeve.
The Sky Is Full Of Kytes
Mindblowing!!! Simon Balestrazzi should need no introduction. He founded T.A.C. (Tomografia Assiale Computerizzata) in 1982 and has bee pioneering the italian industrial scene since then. His passion for sound synthesis and exploration brought him in recent years to develop a research in electro-acoustics, both in duos, trios and also in solo.
Spiritual/Mental/Physical
‘Spiritual-Mental-Physical’ is a collection of wild early Death demos, presenting the three young Hackney brothers consolidating their powers as they embark on a trip into pure rock and roll music. The album comes with liner notes from Bobby Hackney Sr. explaining the genesis and meaning of the songs included.
Open Percussion
this CD is an amazing achievement. Kjos Sørensen is a brilliantly gifted performer, but clearly an imaginative and creative one too. A very special issue, continuing BIS’s tradition of opening our minds and our ears.
Piano Works and Tape Music
2009 release. Outstanding reissue covering some of the best Yuasa experimental and electronic works from the 60s and 70s: Yuasa was developing a fascination for tape music from the very beginning, and the inner journeys that such music would take him on. As he later wrote: “Tape music was [a] completely unknown field at the time. Even reversed playing of recorded sound, change of tape speed, filtering and feedback echo were totally new for the ear.” However, as Yuasa’s knowledge of technolo…
Thing
This powerful 1972 performance by Arni Cheatham's group provides a unique glimpse of the jazz scene in Boston. The group borrowed the most innovative characteristics of jazz and rock, but never sounded derivative. This is early seventies "jazz fusion" of the highest order, before the term evolved to mean a light, commercially acceptable genre. As with many innovative jazz forms, the recording was made at one of the many local universities, Harvard. The resulting album was pressed in scant…
Eine Menge Papier
“Eine Menge Papier” assembles 20 minutes of sounds derived from using paper as the sound souce. Two tracks originally came out as a limited 7” record on the austrian Syntactic label in the 1990ies and appear here for the first time on CD. The other two tracks were planned for a follow up 7” on the same label that never materialized. The fifth track is a study of sonic material in the same series. There are two further tracks from the P.I.G. series that are considered by the artists as failed att…
Hunting the Snake
2012 repress, originally issued pre-9/11. "Astounding 1975 Radio Bremen session from Germany -- never before released, by one of the greatest working bands in the history of European improvised music is offered for your consideration on Hunting The Snake. How can you lose? This all-star ensemble features Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano, Evan Parker on saxophones, Peter Kowald on bass, and Paul Lovens on drums and singing saw. A brilliant, previously unreleased 77 minute program fr…
The Cloud of Unknowing
For fans of acoustic guitar music, James Blackshaw's The Cloud of Unknowing is a gift that's long overdue. Blackshaw's fourth album gracefully glides over the same sonic ground that his contemporaries generally tread with reverential obedience or dilettante tactics. Growing into his prodigious own at the relatively young age of 25, Blackshaw has finessed his 12-string acoustic guitar into a veritable solo symphony that's as schooled in uncommon beauty as it is in complex 20th century composition…
Asleep On The Floodplain
Ben Chasny has spent many years at this point perfecting his very personal vision of the American landscape. With his early LPs he managed to grab a groundswell of support for his distinctly lo-fi recordings, and since hitting the Drag City label with the breathtaking 'School of Flower' he has managed to extend his vision to countless others. 'Asleep on the Floodplain' continues his exploration, and while it doesn't change up the formula too much (apart from the odd analogue synth blurt here and…
Drum Dance to the Motherland
Deluxe reissue of this outsider holy grail, cosmic free jazz at the top!!There's not another record on the planet that sounds even remotely like vibraphonist khan jamal's eccentric, one-of-a-kind masterpiece, drumdance to the motherland. in its improbable fusion of free jazz expressionism, black psychedelia, & full-on dub-like production techniques, drumdance remains a bracingly powerful outsider statement thirty-four years after it was recorded live at the catacombs club in philadelphia…
Folk XII
FOLK XII" was born as a CD re-edition of Militia's - a band from Perugia, Central Italy - debut release (a four tracks EP entitled "Folk II" released by Contempo in 1985), but also, as the title aptly suggests, as a new reading of that work with the help of modern technology (which produced a partial remixing and remastering by the musicians themselves) and its integration with unreleased tracks that were left aside until today. That 12", althought still immature, was favorably received by the p…
Litany Of Echoes
It was once easy to think of James Blackshaw as an inheritor of the Takoma tradition, a school of searching acoustic guitar playing pioneered by John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke, and others in the 1960s. But listening to the English guitarist's new album, it's clear it's not that simple. While echoes of those three and some of their contemporaries are still present in Blackshaw's music, these days you can hear just as much Terry Riley and Philip Glass in his work. His synthesis of acoustic e…
Deficit des années antèrieures
Déficit Des Années Antérieures was originally released in 1979 as a C60 tape. This CD reissue is a limited edition of 450 copies, numbered and signed, silkscreen cover with 2 colors + one bonus live in Cherbourg in 1979.
Synesthesia
3rd release from duo of Rob Mazurek (ISOTOPE 217)+Chad Taylor (SAM PREKOP BAND) is a stark departure from the sound cultivated on their last LP. Utilizing electronics, found sounds, moog & studio manipulations they have made not just a jazz record but one that defies categorization in any particular genre. With assistance of studio engineer JOHN McENTIRE they overdubbed, dissected & reassembled a selection of recorded & found sounds making a record that is not only very listenable but is …
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo
Recorded live on April 10th and 11th, 2010, Tasogare: Live in Tokyo documents the performances of five 12k artists at two temples in Tokyo, Japan. Komyoji Temple (April 10th) saw the first-ever performance in Japan by Australia’s Solo Andata, known for creating deep, textured music with found objects, homemade instruments and very little in the way of electronics or software tricks. The duo was joined by 12k veteran Sawako whose voice and delicate computer work were accompanied by guitarist Hofl…
Mountains Among Us
This year sees the eruption of the Volcano with a myriad of releases leaving the town folk covered in a fine and mysterious silt of musical entropy. The limited release of "Mountains" finds our boy’s spelunking the creepiest of dream spawned caves, excavating crystalline fragments along the way, which are then set in beautiful mental jewelry appropriate for any formal occasion. Arpeggiated blurs and disinterred voices snap, crackle and pop as an unnamed rusted hulk is slowly pushed across an eve…
Tenor
Bertrand Denzler tenor saxophone. Recorded by Christophe Hauser on february 21st, 2010. 'As well as being part of such improvisation ensembles as Hubbub, Trio Sowari and Propagations Sax Quartet, Bertrand Denzler, who plays the tenor saxophone, also records solo music. Each of the three lengthy pieces on Tenor use a single note which are subsequently layered. Not by repeating them on the computer, like say Phill Niblock would do this, but by adding small variations in how he plays them. In Filte…
Ocean fire
Christopher Willits and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s new release, Ocean Fire, is a sublime soundtrack for the ocean. It is an intense and stirring wash of cascading tones and textured harmony. Willits + Sakamoto surprise with rare form in this collaboration, creating a sound world unlike anything they have produced previously. Each artist has gently pulled the other into new sonic territory. Sakamoto’s gorgeous processed piano sound reflects Willits’ beautiful shimmering clusters of notes, a new aspect of…