*2022 stock.* Sofa Music is proud to welcome a new project on board. It’s Propan, a duo comprising the two Norwegian vocalists; Natali Garner and Ina Sagstuen. On their second album Propan continues its research within the frameworks of the song form and presents a psychedelic, and more delirious landscape than on its first, somewhat more electroacoustic album, Baby. The duo explores the meeting point between improvised music and studio production, and builds the album around Propan's well-estab…
Geier aus Stahl is one of the many artistic guises of Leonard Prochazka. No superfluous elements take away from the core experience of his sound. Somewhere a statement from David Byrne crossed our path, able to highlight something of the essence of Leonard's art: “No matter how alienated the subject or the singer might appear, the groove and its connection to the body would provide solace and grounding. But the edgy, uncomfortable stuff was still on the foreground”. The debut album 'Strapazen un…
In 2020, Sahel Sounds hosted a project called Music from Saharan WhatsApp. This series consisted of ephemeral digital EPs, documenting live performances by some of the most exciting acts in the Sahel playing music, including Nigerién techno, wedding rock, Woodabe guitar, WZN, traditional music, Mandingue music, and more. Responding to an open call from our network of artists, musicians recorded a handful of tracks on their cellphone and sent them over the popular mobile app WhatsApp. Each sessi…
*Limited edition of 300 copies.* Bambalam Records presents 70 by RG Rough, A musical jigsaw made out of sounds from the 70s, ripped to shreds, reshaped, reassembled and coerced into fitting. This long piece in ten parts takes the listener on a different journey through that decade. ’70’ should appeal to fans of electronic German music of the ’70s and beyond. All sounds cut, edited and reassembled by Rg Rough in the year 2021, with love and gratitude towards the spirit of the 70s.
It is a Richard Pinhas solo album recorded in Detroit and in Pittsburgh, USA- halas both tracks are not complete because time allowed by the Vinyles sides. All is direct. Richard plays on a original Roland guitar synth (years circa 1981) with FX, Mainly a Zoom distortion(1982) and an Eventide H8000.
*2022 stock.* When does our experience of sound become "music"? In the tradition of John Cage and Morton Feldman, in which sounds – and silences – can just be themselves, Thomas DeLio plays with the spaces between your ears as much as the sounds he puts there. In short, be advised this album is replete with clicks, silences, and brief sound events. Stripped bare, it plays with time and space and the minimum conditions for music. It gives the term ‘experimental music’ meaning. DeLio’s approach to…
If you were to connect seemingly unrelated things – Heavy Metal and the symphony orchestra, for example – you might be guilty of apophenia. That friction between opposites has never been a problem for Nick Vasallo, though – his music is equally at home in both worlds. Melding Xenakis, Varese, Extreme Metal, and Dark Ambient with gothic charm, Vasallo conjures up a muscular sonic battle that leads you on an inexorable musical journey to a conclusion where surrender is your best option. Catharsis …
*Includes 4-page wallet with a 8-page booklet.* This album is a breakthrough for celebrated composer Stefania de Kenessey: it is all electronic, and it is all dance music. In recent years, de Kenessey has turned increasingly to electronic music composition as a rich source of experimentation, of new sonorities – and of total control. Or something like that. The result is an eclectic combination of vernacular and classical influences that refers, in equal parts, to the Bulgarian and Hungarian fol…
*2022 Stock.* “I was born and raised in Kentucky, and for many generations my direct ancestors and extended family have been farmers. So, creating music that is ‘about’ soil, plant life, and the natural world, is my way of honoring that legacy.” Composer Tyler Kline’s tools, though, are not the plow – and vegetables are not the crop – in this collection of brief piano pieces commissioned by and for over a dozen pianists. Instead, Orchard is a celebration of fruit. Each sketch draws on a specific…
There is a venerable history of popular songs used as the starting point for elaborate classical compositions, but 500 years ago Josquin and Dufay never imagined using a gargantuan digital orchestra with up to 300 layered tracks pushing architectural proportion and human perception to the max. And yet, that is exactly what composer, MC Maguire, does in his Toronto studio. It’s daunting, it’s overwhelming, and it has to be heard (preferably loud) to be believed. Dubbed “the most irritating and sp…
Lawson & Merrill are not financial advisors. But if electroacoustic bliss is what you seek, you would do well to make an appointment with them. They – David Margolin Lawson and David Merrill – met a number of years ago while engineering sessions at the revered CityVox Studios in New York City. They discovered they both had a love for “mid century” electronic music and composers like Morton Subotnick, Eliane Radigue, Edgard Varèse, Ilhan Mimaroğlu, and Steve Reich. It wasn’t until recently, thoug…
*2022 stock.* Hearing the bell, I am able to let go of all my afflictions My heart is calm, my sorrows ended I am no longer bound to anything I learn to listen to my suffering, and the suffering of the other person When understanding is born in me, compassion is also born- Stepping into Freedom, Thich Nhat Hanh Resonance... How do we find or create opportunities for connection, collaboration and shared human and sonic space? How do we listen deeply to one another and respond in ways that create …
*In process of stocking.* Three very young men in their CD debut. The leader is Artur Małecki 20-year-old drummer and composer who creat music with his musical friends: Michał Aftyka on double bass and bass guitar and Przemysław Chmiel on soprano and tenor saxophones. On Widoki you have a chance to listen to the most promising and youngest generation of the Polish jazz scene.
"Sonic Animism" is a site-determined body and sound performance that investigates the state of the sentient-being on the non-human agency brought by technological sonic happenings.
The framework of the performance is an artificial environmental cycle system where each element incorporates with each other in a dynamic process. It permits micro level of properties evolve to novel integrated wholes
With this performance, Yang aims to blur the binary separation between the "objective existence" an…
Neti-Neti is the lo-fi ritual music duo of Matt Evans (drums/electronics) and Amirtha Kidambi (vocals/electronics) that formed amidst their mutual experiences surrounding grief after the death of loved ones. The duo shapes a vessel for processing this loss using hazy rhythmic interplay, dredging piles of noise, and serene moments of ethereal melodic counterpoint. Neti-Neti, translated as "It is not this, it is not that" from Sanskrit, is a contemplation on the nature of reality, life, death, bir…
*In process of stocking.* The second album of all-stars trio feat. Marilyn Crispell on piano, Joe Fonda on bass, and Harvey Sorgen on drums!"Through many years of touring and recording, Marilyn Crispell, Joe Fonda, and Harvey Sorgen have left indelible marks on the history of jazz and improvised music, having performed and created work with a veritable who’s who of the national and international contemporary improvised music scenes since 1978. Paul Motion, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Barr…
The Tape Shadow opens up to Rows, a series of slow chords and gestures, doomed and endless, colored right between major and minor, vibes and guitar, rotating around each other like planets, resonating in an enormous space. Tape delay creating shadows and environments to swim around in. Titles evocative of tunings, playing styles, and improvisational strategies. Matter of fact collaboration between two searching musicians. Sounds fading out.
The thump of a bass drum makes things rattle along in t…
Galaxy Heart is the companion album to Phosphenes (Nov 2021) and completes an intensive body of work that Montréal composer-violinist Jessica Moss wrote, performed and self-produced in deep isolation throughout 2020. As A Closer Listen wrote in its Top Ten Modern Composition list for 2021, "few musical voices represent so well the estrangement and intensity of our times; Moss is among the best of them." Galaxy Heart consolidates this assessment, revealing the more exploratory and extemporaneous …
On his sophomore album “Itsame” on FILM, Brainwaltzera navigates the turbulent waters of personal crossroads with cautious optimism for an uncertain future. Drawing comparisons with his debut full-length "Poly-Ana", an equally introspective album that explores broader conceptual themes, the artist hesitantly describes the new record as a very personal affair. Acting as a kind of “journal” of the last four years of his life, each of the 17 tracks directly relate to events and experiences that tra…
*2022 stock.* Brainwaltzeras debut LP Poly-ana follows quickly on the heels of the producers Aescoba EP also released this year via FILM. Across thirteen tracks of both previously released material and fresh excursions into the artists world, Brainwaltzera explores sounds ranging from luscious, downtempo grooves and expertly reduced braindance cuts with nods to early 90's experimental IDM to harder, more caustic outings all bound together by a recurring theme of otherworldly ambience. Taking its…
Another unsung hero of the long lost british prog history, Julian Jay Savarin is a keyboard player and composer, poet and science fiction author, hence the association with the most epic and romantic tendencies of the genre. He was born in Dominica (an island between Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean) and moved to the UK in 1962. He debuted in 1970 with Julian's Treatment, a short-lived progressive rock band which his sole album – A Time Before This – soon became a sought after collecto…
About a year ago I handed Tony a CD of Saint Hildegard von Bingen's spiritual songs to listen to, and the next thing I know he has played an entire hour long drum track alongside the recording, in one sitting- and that it was so right. The sounds of his rolling-thunder-in-the-distance drumming and the ethereal monophonic vocal lines perfectly complimented, and my inspiration to try singing some, then add violin/viola layers with pedals and improvise, was ignited. In learning some of these beauti…
*In process of stocking* "Every album from the band, whose core members currently reside in the UK and Israel, feels like an invitation into a space outside the mundane. When playing live, visuals from Danil Gertman, drawn and projected in real time, are an intrinsic part of their performance. Like those visuals’ movement from amorphous constellations of colour into concrete characters and landscapes, Staraya Derevnya swing from flurries of abstract folk sounds into propulsive, swampy grooves. I…
Andrew Tuttle's Fleeting Adventure is a musical adventure through a reimagined journey from the Australian ambient producer and banjo player. A crew of fellow travellers - including Steve Gunn, Chuck Johnson, Luke Schneider and Balmorhea - help navigate a cosmic trip into subtropical landscapes. Golden plucks of banjo, gauzy electronics and cosmic guitar shimmer into gloriously expansive melodies that conjure peace and space, comfort and wonder.
A deepening sense of life, love, health, loss, and…
Tip! *In process of stocking* Maranata is Jon Wesseltoft and Dag Stiberg, a Norwegian duo active since the mid 2000s with releases on distinguished labels such Picadisk, [OHM] Records, New Forces and Abhorrent A.D. “Tarmac” consists of two long-form barrages of sharp hellfire - the first being a tight slab of density and frenzied purge; the second a nest of fractured pressure and restrained intensity, eventually giving in to total implosion. Stiberg’s baritone sax sits perfectly along the spinal…
*2022 stock.* Knurl sits among a very small handful of Canadian harsh noise acts to debut in the 90s and remain active to this day. Among the likes of Ryan Bloomer (Flatline Construct), Sam McKinlay (The Rita) and Pierre-Marc Tremblay (Âmes Sanglantes), Alan Bloor was the first. Coming off of playing in hardcore punk band Binge of Violence, Alan "found" noise by accident while doing performance art, but it had always been a source of interest for him: “While I was working in welding shops I used…
"Texture. A nice word, wouldn’t you say, settling into the audible dis-course with whiffs of sophistication, complexity, depth. The Oxford English Dictionary gives us "the constitution, structure, or substance of anything with regard to its constituents or formative elements". Merriam-Webster offers "the disposition or manner of union of the particles of a body or substance". And here, courtesy Barstool Mountain, III, a deep-dive into fractured reservoirs of textural dis-course, whiffs of smudge…
LP version. Back in 2020, Kafé Hærverk, Oslo's live hotspot for a wide range of jazz and experimental music invited Master Oogway to do monthly concerts from August to December, bringing along a guest for each occasion. Two had to be moved to 2021 due to Covid restrictions, but the other three were recorded for possible use later. Initially, Rune Grammofon thought about doing a "best of" from all of the recordings, but after further listening it soon dawned on the label that the concert with Hen…
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* For as long as I can remember, Christian Wallumrød's piano touch has done something to me. We met early. The peculiar and surprising, but still somewhat self-evident, melodic twists. Not to mention the far above average well-weighted ornaments. He manages to create completely unique universes, either with his own ensemble or alone. In recent years, he has also returned to electronics and he treats them with a gentle rawness. There has always been something h…
*In process of stocking.* The trio Slagr releases their sixth album “Linde”, made up of music created in a time of new beginnings. The music on the album is written by Katrine Schiøtt in the middle of maternity leave, giving a new touch to the trios distinctive sound. Postpartum - lack of sleep, emotional vulnerability, an extreme focus on something outside oneself; providing nourishment and love to the newborn. A minor state of emergency where small moments can inspire to musical fragments and …
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Krympende klode is a new collaboration between two internationally recognised musicians from Bergen, Norway: music producer Jørgen Træen, who has worked with talents such as Susanne Sundfør, Thea Hjelmeland and Jazkamer, and the unique and eternally inventive guitarist Stein Urheim, whose releases include 6 albums on the Hubro label. On this album they present their personal collections of synthesisers and string instruments from all over the world, and let …
Tip! *In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Morten Qvenild and Gard Nilssen, previously know as the duo “sPacemonKey”, have returned as the duo Skrim; the magical musical interaction they have refined for over 10 years, just as present. This time they are extended with guests Ståle Storløkken and Stian Westerhus – a constellation that formed under Gard Nilssen’s redicency at Moldejazz 2019. These four improvising musical wanderers went in the studio, or out for a walk if you will. They walked on …
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* The venerable composer and keyboardist Ståle Storløkken follows up his previous Hubro release (and solo debut recording), The Haze of Sleeplessness, with a second solo album performed entirely on pipe organ and recorded at Steinkjer Church by Stian Westerhus.
While the Norwegian Grammy-nominated 'The Haze of Sleeplessness' used a whole keyboard-museum’s worth of antique synths and contemporary digital software to create its vast array of sounds, everything o…
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* The new album by the partnership of guitarist Jo David Meyer Lysne (born 1994) and double bassist Mats Eilertsen (born 1975) is a remarkable document that functions simultaneously as both a calm and meditative series of chill-out soundscapes, and as a rigorously poetic evocation of mood and place that one might expect to hear more readily in an art gallery installation. It is also shockingly beautiful. The ecstatic shimmer of acoustic guitar and pedal steel …
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* “This album has everything. Which is why it’s not for everyone.” The statement belongs to Øyvind Skarbø; bandleader, drummer and composer. His ensemble Skarbø Skulekorps released their highly praised debut album on Hubro in 2019, universally hailed for being both catchy and unpredictable at the same time. Dugnad does the same thing, but amplified to the extreme. It marks a deeper and even more radical exploration completely outside normal paths of genre and …
*300 copies limited edition* It's beautiful outside today, though you wouldn't guess it from the darkness of your bedsit. So get up, sleepyhead, I've got a special treat for you. The Fun Years have dipped your madeleine in tea brewed from mescaline. Sip it slowly as you watch the tattered clouds chase passenger jets across the windowpane. Don't miss a crumb on the plate—an extraordinary thing is about to happen.
Or maybe it already did? Rewind, press play. People are talking about sticky shed sy…
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock* Cloud Circuit is Deanna Radford (poetry) and Jeremy Young (electronics.) The Cloud Circuit Ensemble includes Philippe Vandal (saxophone) and Alexandre St-Onge (bass & laptop.). This project is inspired by the failures of communication technologies as they are tied to human experiences of communication. All efforts are put in place to transport the listener into the grey areas of connection; a space where de-synchronized signals, dropped data packets, repetiti…
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock. Limited edition of 500 copies.* The opening track of ‘Avant Folk’ is like a dream of what contemporary experimental folk-meets-jazz-meets-chamber-music might be. Composed by Frode Haltli, ‘Hug’ begins with a galumphing off-centre rhythm that could be an accompaniment to elephants waltzing before the wheezing bellows-breath of Haltli’s accordion creates delightfully airy whispers of noise that drift across the other instruments like wisps of cloud across the s…
Pocket Pavilions is the recording project of Daniel Högberg from Gothenburg, Sweden. The album is the first part in a three volume set of 10” mini albums from Pocket Pavilions to be released on Castles in Space. The third part will be available in a deluxe box designed to house all three volumes.
“For me, writing and recording pieces of music is a bit like building miniature worlds one can step inside. I always liked the pavilions of the mid century world fairs. Pavilions, architecture with no f…
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock. Limited edition of 100 copies.* Third Kind Records releases Wrong Signals's album on C40 printed cassette with art by Karen Constance. Third Kind is a label based in Brighton UK specializing in unique short-run cassettes.