New Arrivals
O kokos tis anixis (Grains of spring)
The ancient Greek philosophers thought that the world is constituted of a series of grains of space and time. When I walked around Miura Peninsula in the springtime, I felt the same way - the quality of the space and the time seemed to be formed by a series of grains of sounds. Each place has its own unique character. You could label it as a particular quality of the place. The quality of the sound.'-'This is one of my trials to present a 'subject' as a piece of work - which can be called…
Nature-Culture
A 2008 sequel to his highly-acclaimed first solo CD 'More is More' on psi 06.08. Peter Evans writes: Over the past couple of years one of my main creative outlets has been solo trumpet performance. These discs are meant to show various aspects of my music's development and were recorded in two different settings (studio and concert) and under two different circumstances. Jazz musicians have often referred to the playing of a solo as 'telling a story', which is essentially how I look at this musi…
The Art of the Improviser
"The Art of the Improviser", a 2XCD, is Shipp's most audacious attempt yet to answer the enigmatic question of what it means to be a modern jazz musician. Already having explored the possibilities of electronically infused jazz on critically acclaimed projects with the likes of DJ Spooky, Scanner, and Anti-Pop Consortium, Shipp revisits an acoustic sound for this fearless voyage into the psyche of the improviser. Shipp's "idiosyncratic genius" shines through on this album, explaining once again …
Rare Material
Totally essential two cd collection of some of the most elusive Moondog material of all . When the "Viking of Sixth Avenue" single volume compilation was reissued, we pleaded that here was truly a taste worth acquiring. Louis Hardin somehow managed to find the musical continuities between Bach, native american Sundances, be-bop, Stravinsky and yet still pursue his own musical paths and sound utterly unique. Strong claim, but the music truly bears it out. Drawing the entire disc one from the ultr…
Rework
One of America’s greatest ever composers gets the remix treatment. What is it with remix albums this week - are they back? Anyway it’s always an odd thing the remix album, basically it’s just an excuse for the great and good to strut their stuff and do something decent on a high profile record.It’s a mixed bag of collaborators from Tyondai Braxton to Cornelius to Beck (who gets an entire side to himself) to Johann Jonannsson to Peter Broderick (still no doubt weeping from our review of his recen…
Mal des ardents / Pantonéon
eRikm, turntables, electronics, live sampling. Catherine Jauniaux, voice, bird call, cupule, cazoo. In the beginning, there are stories, sometimes dark, told by Catherine Jauniaux. With stunning ease, she invents imaginary conversations where several protagonists spring from deep in her throat, like rabbits out of a hat, like actors from Japanese Noh theatre. eRikm's electronic sounds fuse and infiltrate hers creating an unsettling environment Ð clearing the way or tangling it up in a so…
Nova Psychedelia (1975-1985)
"Outside of his native Pennsylvania-West Virginia stomping grounds, Todd Tamanend Clark remains one of the least known North American underground artists in the lost music DIY field of his era, considering he has collaborated with and shared time with many of his peers over the years (Cheetah Chrome, Allen Ravenstine, Stiv Bators), as well as progenitors (Dorothy Moskowitz of United States of America, Robert Moog, William Burroughs), his significant body of recorded (and printed) work was always…
Exp
Raster Noton's rhythmic auteur, Frank Bretschneider, presents his first album in three years, a "music-visual project based on the idea that fine art should attain the abstract purity of music". 'EXP' is an attempt to assimilate the qualities of music, namely rhythm, movement, tempo, mood, intensity and compositional structure within the visual aspect. The music for the project is arranged from an array of generated and selected waveforms sourced from pure electricity, magnetism, light an…
Thousands Raised to the Sixth
2012 release ** The most recent solo incarnation of pioneer Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, et al.), this is the definitive OLWDTW release spanning two discs. Crowning achievement in a prolific and highly collectable catalog. Solo project of Campbell Kneale, formerly Birchville Cat Motel, and one-half of Black Boned Angel. Packaged in an oversized 5.5" square folder with two art inserts and music spanning two discs, each in an envelope.
Creative Orchestra (Köln) 1978
"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…
12 Madrigali
Salvatore Sciarrino, in league with the Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart, embarks on the investigation of a new ecology of sound, through a form of polyphony reduced to chamber-music scale. The lyrics selected by the Italian composer are based on six haikus by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashô (1644–1694). A comprehensive explanatory text on the production is contributed by Max Nyffeler. The world premiere of the work was recorded at the 2008 Salzburg Festival and is now made available on CD for the fi…
Triadic Memories
In the summer of 1990, i released on Sub Rosa a recording of Triadic Memories by Morton Feldman (1926-1987). It was one of the first recordings of this long work for solo piano completed on July 23, 1981.The score i used had been published by Universal edition as number UE17326 in 1987. Shortly after my CD came out, Universal published a new edition. At the bottom of page 2, under a dedication to Aki Takahashi and RogerWoodward is a small-print mention: 'corrected edition: 14.2.1991. I disr…
Ligeti Edition
Terrific nine-CD box (digipack CD sleeves!) at a fantastic price! The heart of Ligeti's output, and the basis for the consensus that places him among the 20th Century's most important composers, is the series of masterworks written during his middle period, which lasted from roughly 1957 (after his escape from Hungary) to 1977 (marked by the completion of his opera Le Grand Macabre). The "sound surface" compositions from the period, including Atmosphères, the Requiem, Lux Aeterna and much of the…
Psappha; Rebonds A & B; Okho pour trois djembés
This amazing CD contains some of the great works for solo percussion by the authorities in the field of contemporary music. The performances and recording quality are both superb! Clearly all care and effort went into the recording and text however, the dual layered dvd /cd is in PAL format, and will require said player or a media transfer to see the studio footage and interview with Xenikas. Considering we spend much time searching for the "right music" to add to our collection, this disc…
Melodies & Harmonies
Cage is by no means a synonym for obligingness. All the more astonished we listen to the melodious and harmonious objects Annelie Gahl and Klaus Lang present on this album. Lang, the trained organist and internationally renowned composer, performs these pieces on a Fender Rhodes for the first time. Gahl, known as a versatile interpreter of both Old and New Music, plays the violin exactly as requested by Cage, without vibrato and with minimum weight on the bow. The musical material dates …
SpaceShipp
That is one slick title, is it not? Though I must say, I for one would have preferred it had they gone with ShippMan. Oh, perhaps not... Both repeat offenders on the Treader label, Jason Pierce (of Spiritualized and Spacemen 3 notoriety) teams up with modern jazz icon Matthew Shipp, who plays celeste and harmonium over these two extended drone pieces. This collaboration first came about for Patti Smith's Meltdown festival, and this recording represents a studio incarnation of that performance. T…
Ep
This recording is my attempt to play Evan Parker. Seven tracks were recorded in STEIM's Studio 3, trying to reflect the liveness of Parker's solo recordings. All of these are single takes with minor edits at the beginnings or ends. Two interlude tracks are short experiments looking at timbral characteristics when the rotation of the turntable is extremely slowed down. The last three tracks are compositions made from both Parker's and other improvisors' records.
Sounds and Sights
Gatefold 2LP/DVD version. Ambitious, epic and grand in scale, In The Country's previous album Whiteout was an artistic triumph. Always a very powerful and exciting live act, it was only natural that a concert album should come at this stage of their career, after three studio albums and a number of Norwegian, European and U.S. tours. Originally planned as a concert DVD, In The Country invited video director Claus Arthur Breda-Gulbrandsen to bring a crew to film a couple of Norwegian shows i…
On Debussy's Piano and...
Die Schachtel is proud to present a recording that embodies the virtuosity of Thollem McDonas and Stefano Scodanibbio in the spirit of Claude Debussy's rebellious creativity. As Terry Riley wrote: “Anyone who has heard Thollem or Scodanibbio as a soloist might well imagine what a combination of their unique genius could produce. Awesome, well matched virtuosos in an ocean of sound." During the listening of this CD, you will witness the renowned talent of Scodanibbio, a 21st ce…
L’Effaçage
Lucio Capece, bass clarinet. Radu Malfatti, trombone. 'Do light waves disrupt sound waves ?' Francis Brown. Recorded live 25 September 2011.