New Arrivals
2011
Normal edition : 400 copies. Collaboration between Marc Hurtado, former of Etant Donnés, with Vomir (aka Romain Perrot). Marc Hurtado: Instruments, voice, mix, production. Vomir: static sound. Marc Hurtado, musician, film director, painter, poet and producer is the founder with his brother Eric Hurtado of the french multimedia band Etant Donnés, since 1977 he made 20 albums collaborating with people like Alan Vega, Genesis P Orridge, Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira, Marc Cunningham or Bachir Attar and…
Invisible
A new series designed by Clare Cooper. Xavier Charles is an active clarinetist in the world of improvised music, known from a variety of constellations and ensembles like Dans les arbres and Contest of Pleasures. This is his first solo release for Sofa. Listening and perception are important elements in Invisible, which consists of both solo clarinet and field recordings. A total openness to moment and utterance characterizes his sound explorations, where we in a poetic fashion, are led to a pla…
Limaro
Xavier Charles (clarinet), Nicolas Desmarchellier (guitar), Ulrich Phillipp (doublebass), Eiko Yamada (flute) and Burkhard Schlothauer (violin). Recorded live in concert direct to digital stereo by Uli Böttcher 18-06-07, Bergkirche-Wiesbaden.
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…
Vers l'île paresseuse
Martine Altenburger - cello. Frédéric Blondy - piano. Bertrand Gauguet - alto & soprano saxophones. Recorded in Paris, France, 2009.
Ready\'n
Seijiro Murayama: snare drum, cymbal, sticks, brushes. Masafumi Ezaki: trumpet. Kazushige Kinoshita: violin. Recorded live by Taku Unami at Kobe Art Village Center, Kobe, April 12, 2008. Mastered by Taku Unami. Photo by Nobuhiro Sasaki. Includes liner notes by Seijiro Murayama in Japanese and English.
La Sala Dei Cristalli
Using selected sound materials from Sonorous stones, Stalactites, Bat calls, Flutes, Field recordings collected by Mariolina Zitta in different caves in Liguria a Sardinia, Italy, processed and edited by Alio Die. In "Lithos" the drones are played by the authors on a set of long stones that goes in resonance, caressed by a bathed hand, by the same principle of the crystal's glasses. A very immersive and obscure traveling, an underground meditation with a ritual touch, in accord with the "natur…
On Patrol
THE WIRE'S BEST OF 2010! CD edition "If a tree falls in a forest and no one's around, shit still gets crushed. If Cameron Stallones holes up solo-style in a suburban cave and wah-riffs over canned bongos for five straight months, double LPs still get dropped. These are basic life laws. The latest from Mr. Araw is easily his least compromising audio self-portrait to date. Three minute rhythm sketches are stretched into ten minute loop pedal odysseys. Organ solos last for entire vinyl sides.…
Llum moll
Llum Moll is a multilayered composition made with a manipulated AM radio receiver subjected to interference by LED lamps. The combination of the lamps in tandem with the radio tuned to certain frequencies creates a phantom organ' sound, turning the receiver into an instrument with a peculiar timbre and pitch. The composition was made in two parts. The first was to record and then select fragments with different lengths, pitches and textures. The second was to readjust the pitch of the chosen fra…
Evergreens
"Mani Neumeier & Luigi Archetti's avant-free-live CD. Tire Der Nacht are good for early Guru Guru fans." Live recordings from 1996 by the Guru Guru drummer and Swiss free guitarist Luigi Archetti
Early Summer
10 improvised sound collages by Wade Matthews. What this music is about and how it was made. These are 10 virtual soundscapes selected from among 14 made in Madrid in late June and early July 2009, hence the name, Early Summer. They are improvised sound collages, real-time assemblages of field recordings (manipulated to greater or lesser degrees), noises, electroquotes and digital synthesis. The field recordings were made over the last two years in the San Francisco Bay area, La Mancha, a…
Under Stellar Stream
For his latest album, UK avant-folk maverick Richard Youngs seems to be converging on some of the most assured and firm-footed vocal work of his career to date, fashioning rock-solid songs from typically leftfield instrumental tactics. On 'Broke Up By Night', Youngs sounds like a gnarled old folkie of almost Ewan MacColl proportions, albeit accompanied by organ drone and wispy electronics. It's a rather magical, mantra-like cadence he elicits, and the album springboards nicely from this point. S…
Radiant intervals
Radiant Intervals' is the first Eleh LP on Important since '08s 'Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis Vol.3', and follows one of the Wire magazine's (and our) top records of 2010, the incredible 'Location Momentum' for Touch. Continuing with investigations into physically tactile tones and drones, this LP offers four further modular synth expeditions eternally moving towards the distant point depicted on the gorgeous, letterpress printed sleeve. After a stoically inert start 'Night Of Pure E…
Quite a way away
To say that the last few years of Gareth Dickson’s life have been tumultuous would be an understatement. In 2007 he fell in love with a girl from South America, packed up a few essentials from his life in Scotland, and moved to the Argentinian countryside. It didn’t turn all fairy tale at that point, however. While there he was shot at, attacked by dogs, and was involved in a very close call when the passenger plane he took to a little town in the Andes was forced down after an engine cau…
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…
Kampanerura
Kampanerura is the name of a boy appearing in the children's story Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), Japanese poet and author of children's literature. A boy with pure soul transmigrates and becomes a dissipated man around a trip to the bottom in Asia. From accompanying text by Masayoshi Urabe 'What are my legs on? What are my feet standing on? Sand? I feel something sharp and pointed! And a gentle breeze where am I? The sea? I feel it flowing! I've crossed ove…
Dispositions Furtives
Through the open sound portals created by his compatriot Castiglioni, the Italian pianist Alfonso Alberti first entered col legno's World of New Music; on his second album, he dedicates his sensitive and brilliant musicality to Gérard Pesson's fragile and puzzling fabrics of sound. A selection of piano pieces has been compiled in a joint effort by the pianist and the French composer; in his interpretations Alberti lets us catch glimpses of musical structures as though they were glittering just u…
Omni
Kato Hideki (electric bass with prime number tuning, bass synthesizer). Tetuzi Akiyama (prepared electric guitar, electronics). Toshimaru Nakamura (mixer, headphones, electric guitar). Recorded live by Kato Hideki at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo on November 25, 2008. Concert organized by Noda Shigenori Callithump). Live sound engineering by Noribumi Uchida (SuperDeluxe). Mixed and mastered by Kato Hideki at Shadow World Studio in Brooklyn, NY in 2009. 'Time is an essential subject in music. Conventional…
Serpentement
The very old catfish, covered in moss, that live in the depths of the lake, never go up towards daylight and disdain any bait that nature offers them.They are only attracted by the oddest shapes that fishermen can invent, shiny and silvery blades in the shape of a human hand that, attached to their line, dance a jig; or also a bat made of red glass with hooks treacherously sewn inside their wings'. G.Meyrink. Instruments: mechanical metronome with bell, harmonica reeds, six string banjo, amps, m…
Alberto Boccardi
Soundscapes that alternate unstable vibrations of the earth’s surface to static animal references. Acoustic instruments, electronics, voice and field recordings, in the first work by Alberto Boccardi, tell emotional phases grown from the memories but living in the present. The use of sound is purely functional to instinct, and to the desire to define the boundaries of otherwise ephemeral images.Alberto Boccardi (1980) engineer and electronic musician he go…