New Arrivals
Live
Magnificent reissue of this tape obscurity from 1980, Cluster's eighth album (the first of three live LPs) originally released on the YHR label (which was curated by Pump's David Elliott), also including archival material never before issued on CD. With so much stuff from this era coming to the surface recently it's sometimes easy to get blasé about it all, but this is one you really ought to give your fullest attention to. As the title says, this was recorded live in Vienna in 1980 at th…
Synesthesia
3rd release from duo of Rob Mazurek (ISOTOPE 217)+Chad Taylor (SAM PREKOP BAND) is a stark departure from the sound cultivated on their last LP. Utilizing electronics, found sounds, moog & studio manipulations they have made not just a jazz record but one that defies categorization in any particular genre. With assistance of studio engineer JOHN McENTIRE they overdubbed, dissected & reassembled a selection of recorded & found sounds making a record that is not only very listenable but is …
Nuojuva halava
The Preservation label presents Nuojuva Halava, the debut album from Helsinki, Finland’s Ous Mal. Ous Mal is the recording project for 22-year old Olli Aarni. With previous CD-R releases for both Finland’s 267-Lattajjaa and the UK’s Under The Spire, Ous Mal has already gained fine notice for his expansive sound, further developed in widescreen ways on Nuojuva Halava, his first full-length. Finding common ground between the dusty tenor of old-school hip hop cassettes and the fog of deep ambience …
Live at the Rothko Chapel
Mural's lush and inviting sound-world incorporates a wide range of percussive, harmonic, and timbral effects and suggests the vastness and mystery of time, as do Rothko's paintings. With Jim Denley on flute and saxophone, Kim Myhr on acoustic guitar, and Ingar Zach on percussion, the trio created a site-specific and improvisational work relating to, and inspired by, the Rothko murals in the Chapel. Recorded at the Rothko Chapel, March 4, 2010. (metamkine)
Neue Volksmusik
he zeitkratzer project Neue Volksmusik (new folk music) is more of a reflex to, rather than a reflection on folk music. This is because the ensemble does not play specific music with any sense of distance. On the contrary, zeitkratzer is taking possession of folk music in its essence. This means that they continue a tradition which folk musics all have in common: constant transformation. No form of authentic folk music can ever be about conservation as a fixed medium, destined for a museu…
Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain
The long-awaited Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain is Current 93's first album in three years, following their double-platinum-selling Black Ships Ate the Sky. Spinning around epic series of verses written by Current 93 founder David Tibet, the new album sees Tibet back with a new 1972-style supergroup comprised of himself on vocals and July and Gorgon guitars; guitar hero James Blackshaw on 12-string guitar and piano; counter-culture guru William Breeze on electric viola and viola-controlled samp…
The Wraiths Of Flying A
A three-way collaboration by Chicago based sound artist and renowned researcher in the field of Electronic Voice Phenomena Michael Esposito, Hamburg based operator of the Fragment Factory label Michael Muennich and long-time conceptual/performance artist, filmmaker, writer and core member of The Haters GX Jupitter-Larsen from Los Angeles. The origin of this project was a field investigation conducted by Esposito at American Film Studios, Santa Barbara, CA, additional sounds recorded by Michael M…
The backside suite
'Created and performed by Christian MUNTHE. Upside-down steel 6-string arch top acoustic guitar. Touched by: guitar-pick, palm of hand, fingertips, nails, lips, tongue, teeth, breath, saliva, beer bottle, whiskey tumbler, plastic ball-point pen, paperback book, legs Christian MUNTHE is a Swedish free improviser that since the 1980's concentrates on the sonic possibilities offered by the acoustic guitar in solo as well as various ensemble settings. He has released recordings in his own name and …
Sólaris
Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason are two composers used to shrugging off the distinction between experimental sound-art and deeply felt melodies. frost's vast, blackened post-industrial works often crystallize in moments of quiet beauty before disintegrating in pure visceral noise; bjarnason's orchestral music marries brutal modernism to classical aesthetics one moment and soaring ethereal harmonies the next. and yet here, on the tail of two widely acclaimed releases; bjarnason's procession…
Artifact: iTi Live In St. Johann
Recorded on March 8th, 2008 at Alte Gerberel, St. Johann in Tirol/Austria at Festival ArtActs 2008. Features on trombone Johannes Bauer, drums Paal Nilssen-Love, analogue synthesizer Thomas Lehn & reeds Ken Vandermark.
47°13' N 7°E
Another uncommon sonic wringer from Portuguese label Creative Sources has been signed by a couple of Switzerland-based (as you could easily surmise from the geographical coordinate, which point to a place the district of Franches-Montagnes in the canton of Jura in Switzerland, they used to name this release) musicians, Lea Danzeisen and Christoph Schiller, who decided to squeeze the spinet, the little brother of harpsichord and piano, whose sound got totally transfigured by meticulous mod…
Dead Space
Blip is a duo collaboration between Jim Denley and Mike Majkowski: two of Australia's most prominent improvising musicians. They began playing together in 2002, as members of The Splinter Orchestra, and formed Blip in 2009. They have been developing their own approach to the woodwinds/strings duo arrangement, deconstructing and reconstructing this format. Blip music focuses on duration, the subtleties of sound, the pitch within timbre and texture, as well as pulse. Wi
Piallassa (red desert chronichles)
Adriano Zanni aka Punck is a field recordist, sound designer and photografer. He released records on great labels like Afe Records, Setola di Maiale and Creative Sources. This is his first release for Boring Machines and it's his most personal record to date. In 1964 director Michelangelo Antonioni set in Piallassa (a pollutedarea near Ravenna, Italy) his famous movie Red Desert. Punck was born in Piallassa in 1964. A single long track of different threated sources, samples and acoustic guitar …
Vital
In March 2006, Idea Fire Company made their first appearances in Europe. Core members Karla Borecky and Scott Foust linked up with Frans de Waard and hit selected hot spots in The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Adding de Waard (Beequeen, Shifts, Kapotte Muziek, Freiband, etc) was a brave gamble that paid off handsomely. Armed with only a tiny digital keyboard (Borecky), a radio/cassette boombox and small echo unit (Foust), and a sawed off MS 20 (de Waard), the trio captivated audiences large…
The geographers
"It's a generalisation, but Sylvia Hallett scrapes and Clive Bell blows. Bell specialises in reed or pipe instruments from exotic locations, principally South East Asia. Hallett bought a saw for £2.49, mounted a bicycle wheel on a spindle and also plays the more frequently-sighted viola. Bell studied the shakuhachi flute in Tokyo, then lived in Thailand, where he familiarised himself with the brittle vibrations of the khene reed-pipes. This was the beginning of his love for blown instruments tha…
Improvisation Anarchy
With a title like ‘Improvisation Anarchy’, you pretty much have the blessed assurance that the record will be either a right-on, spontaneous surge of electricity, or at least an entertaining disaster. Recorded in 1978-79, this patchwork quilt of straight-arrow punk and meandering synth-assisted psychedelia manages to be both at the same time. It should be noted that this kind of music was not common for 1970s West Japan before the ‘bubble economy’ of the 80’s allowed for more impulsive consumpti…
Engel Der Vernichtung
Oltrelanebbiailmare presents a double CD that collects the particular proposal of the never forgotten Engel Der Vernichtung from Rieti, Central Italy. Born in 1985 as a project by Federico Festuccia and Roberto Feliciangeli - soon joined by Daniele Arisi and Paolo Campanelli - the group took its disturbing name of "Angel of Destruction" from an Einstürzende Neubauten song. After several performances in deconsecrated churches and abandoned factories, Engel Vernichtung Der debut in 1986 with the c…
Scope
The disc is a recent release on the Monotype label by a group named LHZ+H, who are the semi regular trio of Thomas Lehn, (analogue synth) Carl Ludwig Hübsch (tuba) and Philip Zoubek (piano) augmented on this 2008 occasion by the trumpeter Franz Hautzinger, who on this occasion added a delay pedal to his instrument. The release contains four improvised tracks, and is named Scope. Now, I have been known to describe some improvised music as brooding a good few times before, perhaps trying to …
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo
Recorded live on April 10th and 11th, 2010, Tasogare: Live in Tokyo documents the performances of five 12k artists at two temples in Tokyo, Japan. Komyoji Temple (April 10th) saw the first-ever performance in Japan by Australia’s Solo Andata, known for creating deep, textured music with found objects, homemade instruments and very little in the way of electronics or software tricks. The duo was joined by 12k veteran Sawako whose voice and delicate computer work were accompanied by guitarist Hofl…
Wild Songs
Acephale keep it spooky with Ecstasy's tremulous debut album of ether folk-pop. The best bits are the least twee, including the HTDW-onhelium styles of 'Wild Want' and the shrill ultra lo-fi home recording 'Haunted Love'.(BOOMKAT)