New Arrivals
Films
"Filmmakers often try to make a great film by making it feel heavier than film is by nature. Rudy Burckhardt seems happy if he can make his feel lighter. That does leave him unique, and he succeeds in it too. There is no distortion of image or sound. Its magic invention - including the later dream-weight - is new and inscrutable. It is a film that changes when you watch it again, it has many surprises I haven't mentioned. Take it as a wonderfully touching dream and as an amazing marvel of…
Oscillation III
Along the lines of the prior subscription CD EP series, Purposeful Availment and Modern Containment, Oscillation III consists of ten CDs by ten different artists which were released over the course of 2008. These discs were previously only available through Three Lobed Recordings as a complete set and not a la carte. The only way to get this set was to subscribe to the series via mailorder. Each CD is at least 25 minutes long (or longer in most cases) and features new, exclusive material f…
Raw and the cooked
Collaborative compositions by Jean Claude Jones (electro acoustic bass and live electronics), Loic Kessous (computer and live electronics), Stephen Horenstein (baritone saxophone). Recorded and mixed at Kadima Studio, Jerusalem, May-June, 2006
LUNA ATROCE / SOLEIL AMER : 4-WAY SPLIT
Hot on the heels of Kraak's Meet The Philly Elite 4-way split, another excellent compilation EP that bundles Asmus Tietchens/Conrad Schnitzler-styled melancholy synth work from Kohn, slow-burning electro-psych from the always amazing Peaking Lights, wiggy outer space keyboards from Alien Radio and some happy/sad psychedelic pop from Ducktails. Packaged in a fold-out poster sleeve."One year after the ‘Meet the Philly elite’ 7” we finally release a fresh 4-way split. This time Köhn and Alien…
Warrior Creed
Joy of Life/Apoptose - Warrior Creed, LP release date: December It was in 1988 when the British post punk group Joy of Life released their song »Warrior Creed«. Apoptose would never forget this track: the impressive vocals, the stoic drums, the minimalistic keyboards. 20 years later »Warrior Creed« is back – seen though Apoptose’s eyes. The voice of Joy of Life leadsinger Gary Carey has matured and the rhythm section is reinforced by an entire band of drummers, the Fanfarenzug Leipzig. Now the m…
Black Box
Axel Dörner (trumpet) and Erhard HIRT (electric guitar). Recorded live on 7-30-2007 at Black Box, cuba Münster, Germany, released 2009. Axel Dörner and Erhard HIRT met first at a network radio concept, curated by Jens Brand for WDR puclic radio Cologne in September 2006. A special music project during the Münster Sculptur-Projects 2007 gave the chance for the duo concert you can hear on this CD. Both musicians created a unique musical language far beyond the tradition of their instruments using …
Dordogne
Benjamin Bondonneau (clarinet) and Fabrice Charles (trombone). This double CD has been recorded in 2006 near the river called Dordogne. The two musicians are really integrated into the landscape, and they even manage to make it becoming the third musician. A great release limited to 1000 copies with a nice cover.
One Voice
Harold Rubin, clarinet. Recorded: 2002. Released: 2002. 'If it wasn't for the fact that Harold Rubin (musician, painter and poet) lives and creates music in Israel, I'm pretty sure that he would have become one of the best-known icons of avant-garde jazz worldwide. Since I 'discovered' Harold 20 years ago, he never ceased to amaze me every time I hear him play live or hear any of his recorded music. His absolutely unique approach to his instrument Ð the clarinet Ð and to music in general is phen…
Silver Bells
New holiday themed single from Moon Duo. Erik and Sanae add more lilt to the season than any combination of egg nog and booze ever will. On the B side the duo wrap a coat around the classic "Goat Head Soup" deep cut "Winter."
I'm So Awake / Sleepless I Feel
The Magic I.D. is a Berlin-based quartet exploring the juncture of song forms with abstract music. The band, consisting of Margareth Kammerer (vocals & guitars), Christof Kurzmann (vocals, g3 & lloopp), Kai Fagaschinski and Michael Thieke (both clarinet), formed in summer 2005 after previously being connected via smaller groupings and projects. The musicians expand song forms through the prism of experimental sensibilities and mesh the two remarkably fluidly. 'I'm So Awake / Sleepless I F…
Refuse This Gift
The third album Refuse This Gift from Bear Claw is one of two records that ended up being part of a double whammy of releases from Sickroom Records just recently for me. Paired up, at least in my mind, with the excellent Conformists record (which you can find a couple posts below) Bear Claw gives a bit more of a traditional spin on the Chicago math/noise-rock sound compared to their label mates. With their third album Refuse This Gift the band hasn’t deviated all that much from their pr…
Ugly Man
Limited to 200 copies. Using fragments, distortions, samples and destructions of Dennis Cooper reading his story ÔUgly Man', Safe have made a powerful aural version of that story's charting of disintegration. From squalls of noise to perverse rhythms, Cooper's words grow and decline into countless shapes, often getting lost in the morass of what can be done to a voice, a body, in sound, only to re-emerge in some new hybrid form. Safe have added a greater sense of definition and drive to their so…
Blind Jesus
Blind Jesus by Andrew L. Hooker and Stefano Pilia debuts with a record that, according to this writer, is one of the best works of avant-rock heard recently: unravelled stuttering in the vein of Storm & Stress fall from crumbling gorges of tape loops, caracoling flights in the foreground interrupted with improvised retro-folk, wanton porno-concrète jokes arm-in-arm with strained ecstatic drones, followed by melancholic acoustic crackling, industrial creaking, soulful moans, obstacular Supreme Di…
Plastic Box
" Plastic Box is a a 'metal box' fascinating companion, plotting the evolution and subsequent degradation of the experimental impulse that saw its apex in 1979. Tracks like “Albatross” have always been passed off as autobiographical by Pistols-watchers who believed that Lydon could only ever refer to Lydon, but the power of Metal Box lies in Lydon’s ability to forget: himself, his past, and so to move around the landscape like a ghost, to be free of his own history in order to fully invest…
Very Friendly #1
Very Friendly is a comic book project that subjectively collects its material from the world of experimental electronic music and will mix stories of an autobiographical nature with historical accounts. In other words; the reader will get a chance to meet some of Sundin's musician friends and colleagues as well as take part of some historical events where a classic recording or performance took place. The first issue of Very Friendly, released in April 2009, presents over 52 pages three main sto…
Saucers In The Sky
Rodney Keith Eskelin, aka Rodd Keith, aka Rod Rogers, would've certainly found the recognition during his lifetime that his talent demanded, if he hadn't chosen to work in the lowest depths of the music industry: the "send us your lyrics" field, known today as the song-poem genre. Saucers In The Sky gathers together twenty-six previously uncollected Rodd Keith gems from the hundreds upon hundreds of songs that he recorded before he leapt from a highway overpass in 1974. It would be inaccurate to…
Dogs in English porcelain
Dogs in English Porcelain (Vanessa Rossetto's fourth solo album on the label) is a composition for electronics, field recordings, viola, violin, cello and acoustic turntable. It was created with many layers of very quiet elements that advance and recede, forming the episodic structure of the piece. The overlapping of electronic and environmental sounds with extended technique and traditional playing disturbs the boundaries separating the natural and artificial, the intentional and the incidental…
Rule Of Inference
next to his prolific work as an electronic composer, improviser and producer, "rule of inference" once more features schmickler's as yet less known yet marvelous work as a composer and arranger for classical instrumental settings. similar to his widely regarded album "param" (2001), the album is a collection of various settings, all of them recorded over the course of the last years. "rule of inference" unveils a conception that marks various departures along the history of music: the alb…
Para Pacem Para Bellum
Para Pacem Para Bellum” is the first CD release with the great music of Svyatoslav Lunyov's. That serious, highly emotional and spiritual work is the result of two general methods of creating music: academic tradition (scores, acoustic instruments and playing of the real musicians) and the contemporary/experimental way (generating, synthesis, editing with computer tools). Needs to say that this electro-acoustic work combines the well-known traditional elements of the Requiem, Passions and the Ma…
Art Of Touring
Edited by Sara Jaffe (Erase Errata) and Mia Clarke (Electrelane), THE ART OF TOURING is a book of art, photographs, and writing reflecting life on the road. Beautifully printed on glossy paper, this 7-inch-square, 156-page book also includes a DVD of live footage.ART by Beth Murphy (Times New Viking), Julianna Bright (The Golden Bears), Devendra Banhart, Tara Jane ONeil, Nathan Jerde (The Ponys), Hannah Mae Blair, Jason Sanford (Neptune), Erika Spring Forster (Au Revoir Simone), Tony Lazzara (At…