Brethren Of The Free Spirit combines the considerable 12-string guitar talents of James Blackshaw with the lute skills of Dutch instrumentalist Josef Van Wissem. Those of you who picked up the excellent Blackshaw-curated Garden Of Forking Paths compilation on Important a couple of weeks back will already be familiar with Van Wissem's abilities, dexterously coaxing his baroque instrument into the modern age. The two musicians compliment each other beautifully - there's no treading on toes here, b…
Restocked: The divine music of Popol Vuh is inextricable from the Werner Herzog films it soundtracks. This lavish set includes five seminal film scores: Heart of Glass (1976), Aguirre (1972), Nosferatu (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Cobra Verde (1987) in one lavish, beautiful box including a 98-page hardback book with rare photos and liner notes.Scoring Herzog's 'Aguirre', Popol Vuh, lead by Florian Fricke, established a longstanding relationship with the director, providing him with a mileston…
A dark, choking, psychotropic immersion into abstract isolationist electronics, floating among rumbles, drones, bleeps, glitches...like a trip into the deepest corners of an obscure unknown galaxy, lost forever and glad of it! Everything is made with exclusive use of vintage equipment, no computers, no midi, no emulators…nothing can beat the sound of an unleashed vintage analogue synthesizer
Versatility has always been what sets Luca Sigurtà apart. His new solo album ‘Bliss’ out on Fratto9. Recor- ded in 2011 and Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, this new offering exhibits his most dreamy side. There are five tracks which sit between cinematic drone music and that of Angelo Badalmenti.
It a soundscape through a sunny afternoon in the North of Europe, filled with white light that illuminates the port and with the presence of distant noise.
Shared between the passion for silence and …
7" vinyl was the quintessential format for popular music. Today, it is an undervalued and mostly promotional medium, used as a fetishistic signpost for a time of musical authenticity and a "healthy" popular culture. Two tracks from Biosphere originally recorded for Hågogaland Teater, Tromsø, Norway in 2006 and remastered in 2011. Part of the Touch Sevens series, cut by Jason at Transition. Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft.
'The Icy Echoer constitutes a premiere in many respects, for both, the label and the artists. After countless collaborations with the likes of Leif Elggren, CM von Hausswolff, Bryan Lewis Saunders and others (mostly released on CD), this 7' marks the first time that Esposito's works are published on vinyl, while the same applies to the Fragment Factory. Likewise, believe it or not, it's the very first appearance of Drumm on a 7' platter. Michael Esposito is an experimental artist and long…
In this work I am approaching the analogue synthesizer Yamaha CS-40M. I built up the research in a journalistic kind of way. At first I made a plan of procedures, gave myself a problem formulation. In my first step I was looking for sounds that represent the „soul“ of this instrument. The next step was abstracting these sounds without losing the specific character of the instrument. An unconventional click sound was the result. This sound was then fed with additional information, fie…
Based exclusively on end grooves from vintagerecords, 'untitled #205' is a straightforward and joyful exploration of the potential for reincarnation of these unintended sonic structures into new life. More a tool than a final product, it delves into static, noise and rhythm with a hopeful perspective.' The untitled #205 mix on the a-side brings us 18 minutes of hissy, textural sound in dissolution, ranging from ryhthm to noise. The b-side has the 20 original loops López constructed out of…
The new addition to the Die Schachtel 'Composers' series, an utter immersion into the purest electronic sound, exploring a broad spectrum of electroacoustic phenomena, low-end drone, magically constructed and sequenced in a way that preserves its intimate feel
The second release from Dieter Moebius and Karl Renziehausen. The tracks were recorded in 1991-92 and released on Nova Era in 1992. Reissue with special miniature paper sleeve. Digitally remastered version, limited to 1,000 copies
180 Page Hardcover Book with 11" Record, featuring Kevin Drumm. What separates Dominick Fernows Prurient project from the rest of the contemporary underground cannon is its unyielding personal subject matter. From the inception of Prurient the concept has always utilized intimate details, photographs, letters and other ephemera culled from places where most artists would choose to obscure. Prurient draws these details into focus more than ever on Rose Pillar, a 180-page hardbound book of Fernows…
Stunning collection of works from 1998 to 2008, MY CAT IS AN ALIEN's first decade of adventure in outer space and modern music. All ultra-rare and long-out-of-print material from space brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio finally available for the first time in digital format, including a previously unreleased gem entitled 'Where The Lines Go To Sleep' (2004).Starting from MY CAT IS AN ALIEN's 1999 first milestone 'Landscapes Of An Electric City' (originally spread throughout the world by Thurst…
Noise Vs Subversive Computing' is a collaborative project that concerns sound suggestions relating to the realm of more experimental ambient-noise, and is both sophisticated and imaginative. There are not only electronic musicians joining this effort but also radical activists, computer hackers and programming code theoreticians. The heterogeneous contributions are collected on USB flash memory and carefully divided in two folders. In the first there are only…
A picture disc featuring artwork by David Horowitz and music from Xiu Xiu and Father Murphy. You get Xiu Xiu's "I Luv Abortion," backed with Father Murphy's "In the Flood With the Flood."
Wire's Bruce Gilbert restarts Touch's 7" series, which has previously seen highly collectable shortform releases from Mika Vainio, Fennesz, and Phillip Jeck. Following an Editions Mego reissue of his seminal mid '80s works and recent live outings, these two tracks comprise his first new material since 2009s 'Oblivio Obligatum' and find him working to typically stoic, yet subtly dynamic scheme of electronic sound art. Both tracks deliver cold, metallic drones with a "coruscating" resonance, all p…
Brilliant new recordings by the prolific cosmopolitan (currently residing in Berlin) Michael Northam. Suhina is a notion for the sound of the wind moving through the trees. Instead of doing field recordings of wind Michael Northam tried to capture this feeling & the essence of this process through instrumental recordings from Indonesian flute & keyboard. Nature phenomena seen as the true manifestation of the Unknown. Stunning full colour artwork by Indian artist Rohini Devasher. White vinyl, edi…
Finally restocked, last copies around...Unmissable!!! Almost complete discography of P16.D4 collecting the classic recordings from 1982 til 1991 plus some unreleased recordings and a dvd of video footage never available before. "P16.D4 might not be an overly obscure name for those knowledgeable of the nascent industrial/experimental/noise scene of the early 1980s, but P16.D4 has not been as venerated as many contemporaries either. Monotype has jumped upon the opportunity to give this project th…
Limited edition red vinyl 7", 100 copies. Two pieces for hand-held gas horns realized at the Music Research Centre, University of York, November 2008. Recorded using two Neumann U87 microphones and a Shure SM58 on custom-rigged pendulum.
Since the very first notes, this music appears to be about memory, decay and subversion. It is a deep investigation on the ability of sounds to freely attract or reject each other, in accordance with their own nature and disposition, and still maintain their meaning. Combining dense, multilayered sheets of synthetic sounds, treated bass, electronic percussion, the six tracks reveal their non-architectural principle as the music develops through warm textural details, reverberations, underlying m…
FLEXI DISC // CLEAR // 33RPM // SQUARED // 1 SIDE // 1 SONG handmade clear screen-printed cover on holographic paper, killer modular synth experiments by Brooklyn's "Venezuelan in-exile" and No Fun label boss Carlos Giffoni
Following on from previous collaborations between Robert Horton and Charalambides Tom Carter on fine labels such as Important, Preservation and Digitalis, Carter and Horton come back to Blackest Rainbow (both we have previously worked with but not as a duo) for their first duo recording in a while. The 3 tracks result in combinations between outsider improvised trips and swirling head drones created via a wide array of instruments and non-instruments. Carter takes hold of the guitar, ebow…
Minimal Wave is proud to announce our 34th release, a limited edition hand-silkscreened 10” release of Schedelvreter (which loosely translates as “Skull Gobbler”), the Dutch side project of brilliant minimal synth pioneer Danny Bosten, best known for his project Das Ding. The seven tracks were originally recorded in Danny’s home studio and self-released on a cassette entitled Hunker via his Tear Apart Tapes label in 1985. The newly remastered 10” is limited to 999 hand-silkscreened numbered copi…
It may well be the case that the whole modern classical scene suffered from a possibly fatal case of over-familiarity and over-exposure these last few years, but it would be a shame if a genuinely gifted musician and composer like Iceland's Ólafur Arnalds was lumped in with the vast majority of his contemporaries - the guy is just the real deal. And if there were any doubts about his talents, Arnalds created and released a new song a day for one whole week during the month of October this …
Edition of 500 copies 4xCD box from Lasse Marhaug’s Pica Disk label that works as a career retrospective for Mr Yasutoshi Yoshida’s Government Alpha project. Spanning the years 1992-1999, the box gathers previously unreleased early material alongside limited edition cassettes, lathes and CD-Rs. In the booklet that accompanies the set (which also includes full-colour reproductions of Yoshida’s amazing collages) Yoshida cites Nurse With Wound and Accept (!?) as his formative influences and the ear…
Relocation.Reconstruction is derived from the sound elements of the three installations in Yann Novak’s solo exhibition Relocation at Lawrimore Project (May 2009). In the original exhibition, Novak explored the multitude of emotional states experienced during and after the relocation of one’s life. With this latest work, Novak continues his exploration into this theme a year after the initial event that inspired him, with the new insight that although he has arrived at his destination, the reloc…
a rich, layered mesh of droning sound leaning towards the lower end of the scale that hangs together in a somewhat fragile manner. In many ways there can be detected some of the dynamics and stimuli present in modern noise music in what Oceans of Silver and Blood are doing. Indeed Nordwall has a partial background in this area, and both musicians took part in a very noisy conclusion to the Eight Hour Drone People concert I saw at Oto last winter, alongside the likes of Lasse Marhaug, thirty minu…
56 hours audio mp3 - SD card release. Artist numbered self-edition. 100 copies. January 2013. 'Seven ghostly nights of expanded time and occult sonic space. Venturing into deep realms of audio subtlety and ambiguity. Open to the hearing creativity, sleeping patterns and dreams of the listener. A piece that blurs the limits between composition and sound environment.'Release format: mp3 44kHz/128kbps files in SD-HC card. Label: artist self-released, home-made, one-by-one-replicated, unlimi…
With an eldritch terror that could just as easily be from another dimension as the darkest ocean comes the latest release from Ural Umbo, Delusion of Hope. Feedback and melody barely escape from the murky crevices, tinged with a sense of grinding tension. Sharp, acidic percussion slices through the blackness with violent urgency, while electronic blasts and organic drones entwine and ensnare. Some dim instinctive memory vaguely resurrects a shadowy scene wherein black drums roar madly, and monst…
Latest from these blackened doomdrone soundscapers, once again demonstrating that these guys definitely don't let any sort of genre classification define what they do, cuz what they do here is let their krautrock freak flag fly, whipping up a gorgeous chunk of hazy, rhythmic psychedelia, a reinterpretation of a classic Popol Vuh jam (from 1976), which does indeed channel the same sort of brooding, blissy mesmer, a dreamy, dark dirge, hypnotic and hazy, spidery guitar melodies over simple …
Just Arrived: Philip Jeck makes geniunely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art not the gimmick. Philip Jeck writes: A version of An ark for the listener was first performed at Kings Place London on 24/02/2010. It is a meditation on verse 33 of The Wreck of the Deutchsland, Gerard Manley Hopkins poem about the drowning on December 7th 1875 of five Franciscan nuns exiled from Germany. This CD version was recorded at home in Liverpool and used extracts from live performances ov…
S K L S are Joachim Nordwall & Henrik Rylander, the key members of Swedish noise-rock band The Skull Defekts. That’s their debut release under the name S K L S, which seems to be a kind of side-project for darker, electronic minimalistic sounds. As opposed to the full guitars & drums line-up of The Skull Defekts follows the traditions of motoric Kraut-style (Can or Neu! — like), S K L S is defenitely oriented mostly on spacey-psychedelic-electronic-meditation of Cluster or Popol Vuh. It’s…
Billed as a soundtrack to an imaginary road movie this latest album from Jon Egeskov's Pixel project (his third in all) reaches into your subconscious and yanks out whatever images are lodged in there. Using a basic palette of miniscule percussive elemnts and delicately manipulated amplifier hiss Egeskov instils a sense of gentle motion, sounding out dream-like engine noise that propels the listener down whatever shady lane they're prepared to venture down. The floating hum and crinkled analogue…
Recordings by Gordon Sharp (2001-2010) at Belmont shore (ca), mid-levels (hk) & Kobe (Japan) the mid-levels (hk) but manly at Roi vert, Okamoto, Japan. Cut at dubplates & mastering, Berlin, august 2010. Cindytalk have been active since 1982. During the 80s and the 90s their sound was defined by broken down rock structures and abstract piano ambience. A third side to their coin emerged at the dawn of the 21st Century with a turn towards obscure computer usage pushing all ressemblance of me…
"pong - referring to the classic video game - is senking's fifth release on raster-noton, moving its focus on stretched dubstep rhythms. to these slow motion grooves, he adds shredded melodies, sub basses and echoes, which create an atmosphere like an angelo-badalamenti-soundtrack known from david lynch's movies. his electronic sound aesthetic reflects rather an organic texture than a machine made algorithm. in tradition of former dub producers, he generates his tracks while playing, and therefo…
A 5.1 Surround DVD (Dolby Digital + DTS, "audio only") + Ambisonic UHJ vinyl LP (an LP that can play surround when playing through an ambisonic encoder. It can also be played on a regular stereo). Following an invitation from Autechre to support them on their 2010 European "Overstepper" tour (30 concerts, 15 countries), UK experimental multidisciplinary artist Russell Haswell filled a Pelicase with a contact mic, crystal mic, electronics w/light sensors, fx pedals, SOS whistle, various m…
Julian Lynch and filmmaker Amy Ruhl first collaborated on Lynch's Seed video from his proper debut album (Orange You Glad) on Olde English Spelling Bee. Around this time, Ruhl was beginning work on her first film, an animated, allegorical biography of the courtesan, dancer & spy, Mata Hari. Spurred from talks about a using gamelan to score the film, Ruhl asked Lynch to contribute songs to the film & he delivered five new instrumentals. Drawing on both Indonesian music and his own bedro…
The 5th volume from NYC's The Kitchen performance center focuses on piano music from performers Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Charlemagne Palestine, Anthony Davis, Harold Budd, and Dennis Russel Davies. Pianos in The Kitchen brings together select concert recordings of solo piano works performed at The Kitchen from 1976 through 1983, including works from the 1976 Bösendorfer Festival and the 1983 series of benefit concerts that supported the purchase of a new Steinway Baby Grand piano for the…
Our first album "Sporing Promenade" was mostly produced in Canada during our stay in the second half part of 2007. While strolling in the vast forest, we made a lot of recordings in the environmental sound by handy instruments, such as kalimba, flute, pitch pipe, also various objects such as nuts, stones that we found on the way, as well as our voice. Then we made 'spontaneous compositions' with instruments such as viola, zither, melodica and effect pedals at home, along with the impression…