New Arrivals
Less Is More
The piano trio is probably one of the most common ensembles to be heard in jazz, and truth be told, I am a little weary of them, preferring the expressiveness of a horn section. Yet once in a while, a piano trio comes forward that has something new to tell. When I listened to WHO Trio's "The Current Underneath" (Leo Records) a couple of years ago, I was immediately enchanted by the sheer musicality of the project. This one, "Less Is More", is even better. The trio consists of Michel Wintsch on p…
Mubomuso
Mubomuso is a neologism, made up from two extant words. Mubo suggests the unadorned and unaffected, while muso means to be in a state without thought or preplanning. All parts of the release lead the listener towards the consideration of a very specific topic Ð namely, war and violence, and the deeper connections to human nature. Stripped of the clothing of civilization, etiquette and socialization, we slowly become aware of reactions and purposes that exist deep within us embedded comma…
Complete Piano Music Vol. 3 - Music of changes
“The interpreter is a very important person indeed in Cage’s piano music, and a top international expert like Steffen Schleiermacher is a must for a complete recording such as this one: he knows the nuts and bolts and all the fine nuances.”
Maria Minerva's Cabaret Cixous
Over the course of a 12", cassette, and a stream of ace youtube vids, Maria Minerva has emerged as one of the most interesting artistes to come into leftfield-pop focus over the last 12 months. 'Cabaret Cixous' is her debut album, a coruscating water-bed of mottled '90s dance-pop memes writhing under blankets of slyly sexy new age synths while her dreamy vocals whisper and croon seductively suggestive lyrics. It's not quite aural soft porn, but there's an inescapably lascivious element to …
Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle is the new solo album by Alio Die.. trance & drones,acoustic and electronic sound-effects, melt together in five tracksthat are characterized with a touch of grace that expand consciousnessin new and unforeseen dimensions...after a few seconds the music absorbs the listener under induction into the internal space that vibrates and resonates..A lovely sensible experience is just close to be discovered and to spread its fragrance.Like the hummingbird that suck the honeysuckle's nect…
Quintet
Things get dislocated, gather themselves, spread across areas of varying intensities. More intimate or more complex song. closer to the sacred, left untouched by mediation, even slightly incomprehensible, though mostlyambivalent and reality-piercing. At times, the music seems to lead us to a meaning that is deeper than the textual level. or is it the depth of another possible song? That's when the music takes us to areas that seem perpetually urging, more than their simple addition of voi…
Gayageum Sanjo
Sub Rosa presents a release by composer/violinist Baudouin de Jaer. Gayageum Sanjo: compositions for 12-string gayagrum, Prelude, 5 sanjo and 10 studies. According to legend and to recent archeological digs, the gayageum is a millennial zither-like instrument featured in all Korean traditional repertoires. "Sanjo" is usually translated as "scattered melodies." This style of music was informed by southwestern shamanic music (Sinawi) and the great epic songs (Pansori) from the same regi…
Language of the Dards
WhisPers for WoLves is the solo pysch/noise/folk project of Melissa Moore. The musician, experimental instrument builder, installation/sound artist, and sculptor based in Baltimore,MD. "Language of the Dards" is a multi-part series of pieces developed around the text/teachings/songs of Indian Yogi, Milarepa made of three long recordings of voice/finger-pickin guitar, nepalese oboe, and electronics. The album comes in a hand-assembled gatefold sleeve.
Drôles D'Oiseaux
Kiko C. Esseiva is a composer with Swiss and Spanish roots who lives in Lausanne, Switzerland. He creates electroacoustic sound pieces that are, not unlike those of the French master of the genre Luc Ferrari, warm, non-academic and colourful, spreading a humanity and richness that is far away from the sterility of a lot of today's electronic compositions. He creates very diversified atmospheres which combine acoustic instruments, noise, human voices, field recordings and static sheets of sound w…
13 Japanese birds Kujakubato Vol.7
Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messaien's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010. Each volume will be a one time pressing of 1000 copies. Available from Important Records is a deluxe hand made numbered bamboo box to hold the 13 cd collection. Cover art by Jenny Akita. Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita …
Final archives
This is the final chapter for this project run by Gianluca Becuzzi - well known for his old dark wave project LIMBO but also for his solo works and collaborations with Fabio Orsi. FINAL ARCHIVES is a sort of collection of rare tracks recorded from 1999 to 2006 totally reworked and remastered in 2009. ABSOLUTE GREY is the title that Kinetix gave to his graphic artwork selection exhibited with an ambient score specifically composed for the exposition space. The exhibition is made up of ten grey sc…
Burnt Offerings
The Preservation label presents Burnt Offerings, the fourth album from Brooklyn's Padna. As Padna, Nat Hawks initially made his name in the cassette underground on the revered Stunned label with two works of pop experimentalism displaying a bustling -- often boggling -- and vivid imagination. Veritable joyrides in sound and style, these releases were in line with the DIY aesthetic, primitive songcraft and eclectic sonic stew pioneered by the likes of Tall Dwarfs and forwarded by Olivia Tremo…
Celeste
Another Tompkins Square reissue of early James Blackshaw material, and this is about as early as it gets: Celeste originally surfaced on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon a full five years ago and set the blueprint fr just about every solo recording he's made since. While the first part of the album finds Blackshaw in solo 12-string mode, the second deviates from the well-trodden Takoma-styled path and heads into an effects-laden drone composition. This sort of style-melding approach would come to…
Trax to Trax
Here comes Gianluca Becuzzi’s fourth release on Silentes. This electronic / electro-acoustic composer and sound-artist boast an enviable curriculum: active since the first half of the ‘80s as founder of the historic Darkwave / Industrial project Limbo, since 1999 his artistic production is characterized by a strong experimental imprint and by a clear tendency toward abstract aesthetic forms and micro/macro noises/sounds. Among his recent artistic production - in addition to what he has pu…
The 4th world
"The 4th World is The Work's long-lost, never before issued, very last album, from 1994. Succeeding See by some two years, it shares that album's aesthetics and approach - an economy of means, and superior song-writing/ playing - even when compared to their earlier albums. One wouldn't guess it was recorded live at a gig in Breisgau, because the sound is, quite honestly, superlative, and is even better than any of their studio albums. The original, mono recordings (by Volkmar Miedtke) were metic…
Freaked With Jet
No guitars and fuck two-second gaps. A collection of six 7"s (Gutter Splint, Fortune b/w The Eyes Of Men, Epistasis, Vacuum, Vanishing Point, and the split with Agathocles). Performed by CHARLIE MUMMA, CORYDON RONNAU, JOHN WIESE. The only band to make a Milton and a Mentors reference on the same album. Typically I think noisecore is best in small blasts, but for those who can't find or play the records, this collection is still pretty terse, don't worry.
Circle Snare
His given electronic anatomy of drum machine, microphones, tapes, & MSP folded out of their hard accustomed formations, breaking out into a more cogent & vital arsenal. A finely detailed & dimensional evolution of an already unique voice.
Night sessions
A collection of fascinating and obscure "nocturnal sessions” alternated with more "classic" electronic parts based on sequencers and synthesizers, more abstract and minimal sonic sketches, involving and tense deep drones musical mixtures, distorted and dilated electric guitars, deformed human voices, more static and fluctuating typical ambient movements, cold inserts of pulsating and "techno oriented" sounds, suggestive atmospheres built on bizarre loops, flat organ backgrounds and low guitar no…
Port Out Starboard Home
Some bands produce a CD every week; by now it seems 'normal' to have three year gaps in releasing records for Beequeen, which is a fresh antidote to the music business of more = more. For Beequeen, like good wine, things mature given more time. Whereas 'Sandancing' (2008) featured Olga Wallis a guest singer, on this new album she's a fully fledged bandmember, adding her beautiful voice to Beequeen's off beat songs. 'Port Out Starboard Home' features surreal dream-pop, but always with that unique…
Grass
Eyvind Kang’s newest CD collects quiet new compositions spanning the past five years, which he considers to be among his truly breakthrough works. Music for solo piano, string quintet and more take the unique sonic environments of Morton Feldman to an entirely new place via the metaphors of agricultural poetry, Chinese medicine, sweatlodge and Ikat weaving. Mesmerizing work from the elusive and ever-stimulating mind of Eyvind Kang!