New Arrivals
The Mortimer Trap
The Mortimer Trap is an epic, 77-minute "variation" of Morton Feldman's For Bunita Marcus, constructed by German experimentalist and techno icon Thomas Brinkmann and Australian sound artist Oren Ambarchi. Pulsating waves of claustrophobic ambience generated from who-knows-what patiently builds into a throbbing, rhythmic pulse of gorgeous sonic density. Since the '80s, Thomas Brinkmann has experimented with sound, its textures and its construction methods. His custom-built two-arm turntable …
Avast!
Avast! was created from field recordings made between 2009 and 2012 in Lyttelton, a volcanic harbour on the South Island of New Zealand. Sounds were captured at sites around the natural ampthitheatre of this extinct caldera: from abandoned wartime bunkers on the top of the crater rim to the port and its cacophony of cargo ships, tugs and workshops. The work is also haunted by the resonance of buildings such as the Timeball Station, which were destroyed when the town was at the epicentre of a maj…
Danse Sacrale
A cherry-picked compendium of EDM prototypes circa 1956-1971 by Pierre Henry, Jean-Claude Vannier, Igor Wakhevitch, Henk Badings and more "The roots of Electronic Dance Music" (EDM) by definition. An unlikely combination of early recordings by international electronic and avant-garde composers as well as infrequent collaborators retrospectively unified by their commitment to the musical enhancement of 20th Century ballet and the evolution of modern dance. Presenting key exponents of the musique …
The Disintegration Loops
*Deluxe 5CD+DVD+Book set* "To mark the 10-year anniversary of its original release – and its forthcoming induction into the 9/11 Memorial Museum this year – Temporary Residence and William Basinski presentThe Disintegration Loops in a fashion truly befitting a library of music with such a lasting legacy. This massive limited-edition box set contains all four historic volumes, plus a pair of stunning live orchestral performances from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 54th Venice Bien…
Hornbread
The collaboration between Victor Meertens & Werner Durand dates back to the mid 90s, when they started performing together in art circles in Germany. At the time their performances consisted of Victor's Actions, which included bread making processes with text recitals in combination with werner's musical performances on his invented wind instruments and his playing of Victor's home baked Bread Instruments with inserted pipes.In 2003/4 Werner was artist in residence in the Worpswede artists…
Helena Espvall and Masaki Batoh
Restocked, few available..."If the pentagrams and moccasins and ponchos of the now nearly bygone “freak folk” era made listening to Fairport Convention cool again, Helena Espvall and Masaki Batoh’s self-titled collaboration serves as a reminder that British longhairs of the ’60s were nerds, nerds, nerds. Cellist Espvall, best known for her work with Espers, and Batoh, the guitarist of Japanese psych band Ghost, deploy an arsenal of exotic stringed instruments. They play earnest cover…
Entomology
A threesome of coloured vinyl by WORM Records. These records are extraordinary not just because of their appearance (bright yellow, blue and pink vinyl), but also because of their unique origins. The a-sides of the records were recorded for Soundpiece, a soundinstallation under the floor of the Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam. WORM invited the composers Machinefabriek, Pierre Bastien and Dyane Donck/Daisy Bell to compose a piece for this. The results are three soundartworks/tape compositions that a…
The Sandman's Garden - A Film By Arthur Sloss Crenshaw
Captivating 66-minute documentary following autodidactic African-American outsider artist, Lonnie Holley - whose 'Just Before Music' album was one of our faves of 2012 - as he prepared his biggest exhibit to date in 2004 in the sculpture garden at Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama. "The film follows Holley as he builds a sculptural environment out of discarded materials and found objects in the Birmingham Museum of Art’s sculpture garden. His art is by turns profound, playful, and deeply moving.…
Tombstones
LP version. Comes on milky clear vinyl with grey splatter, housed in a gatefold sleeve. The long-awaited, groundbreaking, pop album by acclaimed composer Michael Pisaro. Featuring Julia Holter, Tashi Wada, Cassia Streb and Rob Esler. "Voice: soft, pure (no vibrato), more like folk or pop singing than lieder singing." -- from the book of scores. "I began writing these pieces with a question in mind: what happens to old political songs?" -- Michael Pisaro, 2011. Tombstones reconstitutes the …
Gamma
""Vinyl of the Month must surely go to the epic "Gamma" by Italian quartet VipCancro, whose startlingly out there performance pitches the ensemble against such Krautrock epics as German Oak, Yatha Sidra and early Guru Guru. Indeed, for anyone requiring brain tissue abandonment Gamma will entirely do you justice. Their peculiar line-up of two synthesists, bass player and samples places VipCancro into a pure avant-garde territory, allowing splendid outbursts of canon-like percussion, and cin…
Message from the Dead
Superb Compilation of french Cold-Wave/Gothlegend Norma Loy starting with their very first recorded track from 81 to unreleased demos/rehearsals/live to unreleased treasures In 1981 Usher and Chelsea formed NORMA LOY. The band launched it’s first EP the first one of it’s Cold-Wave-kind in France. NORMA LOY searched for their identity and multiplyed there experiences on the side, leading to the creation in 1984 of their own label, CPM, which produced a second EP distributed by New Rose: "PSYCHIC …
Kilo
Finnish experimental electronic musician Mika Vainio's first solo album for Blast First sees him return to his classic power electronics/heavy beats approach that made Pan Sonic garner a worldwide reputation. The album developed from Vainio's recent live sets to make 10 tersely-titled tracks inspired by the shipping container industry. Four stars in Mojo: "heavy-freight," The Quietus describes it as "fearsome."
Stromboli
Field recordings of a volcano by Geir Jenssen, better known as Biosphere. Stromboli is an active volcano off the north coast of Sicily in the Mediterranean. The volcano has erupted many times, and is constantly active with minor eruptions, often visible from many points on the island and from the surrounding sea, giving rise to the island's nickname Lighthouse of the Mediterranean. The last major eruption was on April 13, 2009. Recorded at Stromboli's crater edge (924 m) on July 19th 2012…
Imaginary Softwoods
Three years ago, a triple cassette oddity appeared out of nowhere adorned in washed-out nature collages and zero information. Turns out that John Elliot of Emeralds was behind the madness, and after further dissection of the sounds enclosed and it all began to make sense.Those three tapes (one yellow, one blue, one red) were the first taste of something that felt like a lost private-press object from the early European electronic experimentations of the '60s & '70s. Each vignette is its own stor…
Cinema
Diverse musical elements - coruscating cymbal scrapes, shimmering amplifier hum, melancholy saxophone circlings, sharp hits of snare, string and reed, slow motion guitar riffs, deep tam-tam surges and floor tom rasps, hypnotic prepared piano figures, and hovering fragments of song-like melodies - fracture and coalesce in this single intense improvisation.
Featuring two of the foundational figures of free improvisation alongside a younger arrival, this recording captures the first meeting …
Fume of sighs
The third CD by the trio of Rex Casswell (electric guitar), Phillip Marks (percussion) and Paul Obermayer (samples), creating beautiful jagged, sharp edged textures propelled by some of their tightest, strangest, most powerful rhythmic designs yet. The third CD by the trio of Rex Casswell (electric guitar), Phillip Marks (percussion) and Paul Obermayer (samples). Bark! again take their group virtuosity to new areas, creating beautiful jagged, sharp edged textures propelled by some of their …
Retro-2038
COH is the moniker used by Ivan Pavlov from Russia for more than a decade. COH is also the Russian word for \'sleep\'. Yet, do not be deceived - RETRO-2038 is much more of a deep space than a deep sleep. The second COH release on Editions Mego is a true delight to behold, inviting as it does its exploration of electronic sound in minimalism, futuristic pop and the uncharted territories inbetween. Ranging from digital updates of Giorgio Moroder\'s pulse experiments to menacing lingering LF…
Two characters
Through more than 25 years of existence, the french composer Christian Renou, aka Brume, has developed a unique 'handwriting' style within the experimental underground, something one may call 'atmospheric musique concrète'. It is the marriage of many concrete sounds, hand-played acoustic instruments and electronic drones noises that are arranged in a manner somewhat akin to a 'narrative' - highly emotive and often evolving in a dramatic way. We are delighted to have received two tracks for the S…
Fur Paul Klee
For Sven-Ake Johansson, the capricious and mercurial character of Paul Klee's texts is not a flaw, but a quality in its own right. His thirteen settings capture precisely this quality of the texts. Johansson's clear diction, his distinct, almost exaggerated elocution, imbues Klee s texts with a lapidary air without stripping them of their personal and intimate nature.