New Arrivals
The Plain Where The Palace Stood
Drag City drops the sixth and latest David Grubbs pop album, The Plain Where the Palace Stood, which finds David once again twining together the diverse strands of his vast interests. Working with Andrea Belfi (drums, electronics) and Stefano Pilia (guitar) - plus Attila Faravelli on electronics - creates a sympathetic groupthink that David expects more and greater from in the years to come. The welcome return of his distinctive overdriven guitar tone is a highlight of the record. And C. S…
L'Origine / TEMA
Drawing inspiration from the "Action Direct" expanded guitar performances of Masayuki Takayanagi, Fusinato places the guitar at the centre of his work. A few crudely played strings provide the impetus for a long chain of electronics which obliterate the original signal and leaves us with a hyper-kinetic wall of full frequency spectrum noise. Like the piano in David Tudor early 1960's performances of Cage's Variations II, in Fusinato's work, the guitar is the object of a dialectic of simultaneous…
A history of every one
'A History of Every One' by Bill Orcutt is an album of songs: minstrel songs, holiday songs, hymns, marches, cowboy songs, Disney songs, work songs, delta blues. The original tunes themselves are nothing special, well known, but not particularly well-regarded. Most would be filler on a mid-60's Doris Day or Burl Ives LP. What Orcutt does with them however is remarkable: expanding upon techniques developed on 2011's 'How the Thing Sings' and incorporating ideasforged since his recording of 'The S…
A Child Goes Burying Dead Insects
A rarity, while not being in higher atmospheres of any kind, the film "Kodomo Ga Mushi No Shigai Wo Umeni Iku" aka "A Child Goes Burying Dead Insects" forced up a third sleep state, third dream state and third reality check.., wishing the colours were really the colours one would see everywhere, instead of the disgusting digital prints or pixelated madness that get shoved up our body holes! It makes me wonder if I am really here right now or if I had seen the film before 2009 which is not …
Spectral life
Debut LP of one third of avant drone metal outfit Locrian. Contemporary artist / musician Terence Hannum is back on wax with two side of meditative and sonic cathartic noise torrents. Following on a dozen of highly regarded solo tapes and cdr, Spectral Life follows the artist through 2 tracks of electronic and acoustic drones blending in the most efficient way all the previous works of the artist. While the A side is made of short different synth-driven pieces blended together in an immense open…
Concredrones
M.B., also known as Maurizio Bianchi doesn’t need much introduction. In the early 80s he was responsible for a string of compelling electronic music albums in the first wave of ‘industrial music’. After a hiatus of many years he returned in the late 90s and since then has been very active with many new solo releases, but also on the side with collaborations. Here he works with Mario Costa, also known as Sostrah Tinnitus, from Italy, who has had a number of releases on labels as Umbra, Beyond, My…
Chimerizations
Chimerizations feature a radically new form of documentation of Florian Hecker’s sound works that dramatize the phenomenon of Auditory Chimaeras.
“Chimeras are integrated bodies that synthesize incompatible modalities, surpassing their respective particularities without fusing them, finding a common ground, or reducing one to the other.” (Robin Mackay)
The publication presents the documentation of Hecker’s recent sound pieces (“Magnitude Estimation,” 2010; “Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera,” 20…
White Metal
“White Metal” is a new piece by Michael Pisaro, realised by the composer and Miguel Prado. “When I first heard that Michael was thinking of working on a project with the name “White Metal”, I contacted him, excited to know more about it. At first we talked about general aspects of the piece, without knowing the route it would take, beyond a couple of conceptual premises. At some point, Michael suggested that this project be included in his “Grey Series” a series of noise-oriented scores he was …
Inner peace suite #2
"Deep & sophisticated spiritual jazz, following Mr. Gale's Ghetto Music tradition... including the marvellous African Sunshine, a 17 minute piece which goes on and on, and on and on... and you'll never get tired of the on; right ON ! Inner Peace music." EP/Sagittarius A-Star. Eddie Gale - flugelhorn & muted trumpet, James Garrison - tenor sax, Emily Haozous - alto sax, Leonard Thompson - piano, Yvette Zee - violin, Colette Zee - violin, Richard Duke - double bass, Allen Santos - double ba…
Kataract (Alpha Mix)
'Edition of 300. Daniel Menche: Waterfall recordings and electronics. All waterfall field recordings were captured around the Pacific Northwest of USA. Mixed and recorded throughout 2007-2009. Mastered in the analog domain at Stereophonic Mastering, Portland Oregon. Artwork and illustrations by Emily Hyde. Photo art reproduction by Circle 23. Design by Johnny Pinkhouse. Another sizzling power blockfrom MENCHE. This time capturing the intense force of various Pacific Northgwest waterfalls to crea…
Vilke
Julian Cope Review on Head Heritage Site: VILKÉ is the particularly fine and sprawling new 2LP by American composer, field recordist and hiker Daniel Menche. Inspired by the wolves of his travels in the N. West and named for the Lithuanian for ‘she-wolf’, VILKÉ presents us with four side-long pieces of haunted and eerie atmosphere music whose dilating post-industrial rhythms, and seemingly ever-decaying, ever-degrading, cicadas-driven post-industrial drone-o-drudge inhabits a parallel half-world…
The Somnambulist's Tale
An early and one of the most special Gnod recordings is out now on Aguirre. The Somnambulist's Tale consists of two sidelong adventurous pieces which are carried by an incredible loop. The haunting ambience in combination with electronics, distant guitar layers, conversations between the band members, a typewriter, and other sounds from found objects makes this quite an atypical Gnod release, but definitely a great one. Influenced by early Krautrock bands like Can, Hawkwind and Ash Ra Temple, G…
Alien, All Too Alien
Their cat may well be all too alien but there's quite an earthly feel to this epic voyage of a record from the brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio. It feels like you are slowly drifting through different continents perched on a floating glass-domed steel barge, observing the strangely contrasting cultures go about their business, seemingly unaware they are being watched. Though there are certain sounds contained herein that are quite familiar to many 21st century homosapie…
Mirror | Me
This Zine was developed from a collaborative exhibition and performance organized by the writer, Brandon Stosuy, and the artist, Kai Althoff in the Summer of 2009 at Dispatch Bureau in NYC. It was displayed during the White Columns Annual 2009, during which pages were added by the original exhibition's various participants. The Zine features new materials by artists, writers and musicians such as Adam Helms, Brandon Stosuy, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Kai Althoff, Karlynn Holland, Lionel Maunz, Matt Za…
Live in Istambul
"Collective improvisation based on a Turkish folk tune. One of the most ecstatic piece of music i ever heard (simple as it is) ! suddenly i found myself dancing madly, like a Whirling Dervish... unfortunatly i didn't get Enlightment BUT, it was fun !" ep
Don\'t Tell Me Stories
Compilation of the early german dark-wave-legends with their Monogam-Hits such as „Casualties, „Radio War", „Don't tell me stories" and so far unreleased material. Very rare
Wound Response
Already sold out at source ! Ltd edition of 350 LP. 'Wound response' is the third solo harp release by improviser and harpist Rhodri Davies following his albums 'Trem' (2003) and 'Over Shadows' (2007) on the Confront Label. Moved by the diverse and vital music scene in the North East of England this is a weighty departure for Davies. wound response is loud, distorted and forms an attempt to work with rhythm and pitches in an open and fluid way. The album comes pressed on heavyweight transl…
Bits & Pieces
The history of - behind which we find Nico Selen of O.R.D.U.C, E.M.M. and many other guises - and Freiband, the name of Frans de Waard when it comes to all sorts of computer based, goes back for over 20 years. Selen was the first to release a LP by Kapotte Muziek (De Waard's other music enterprise, among many!), in 1990 and they have been off and on in contact. Earlier 2013 released a very limited CDR, which De Waard quite liked and in the next days he kept returning to it, eventu…
Cover Versions
Andrew Pekler selected 300 different covers from second-hand records and, using colorful geometric elements to cover over all titles, performer’s names, and label logos, removed traces of the covers’ original contexts. The sunsets, couples in silhouette, alpine panoramas, roses on pianos, female faces in close-up, and seascapes no longer serve as the packaging for easy listening and exotica. Instead, the romantic, bizarre and intriguingly bland images of the original covers are free to lend thei…
Otherworldy
Founded 40 years ago in 1972 “Otherworldlyâ€Â is the first Pyramids’ album in over 35 years. They released three albums before splitting up in 1977 – albums that made them one of the most mysterious and legendary of all the spiritual cosmic jazz collectives of the early 70s. Reunion? Re-Incarnation!!!
 The new album contains 14 never before released tracks. The Pyramids’ signature sound is still percussion driven, no surprise with Nash and Speller being two of the mo…