New Arrivals
Police Water
Under the wickedly cryptic title of 'Police Water', Gary War delivers his latest psych-pop dazzler on Sacred Bones - also including the two tracks from his 'Reality Protest' 7". Just as everyone begins to catch up with his brilliant body of work from the last two years, he goes and switches up his sound with reinvigorated song structures, a broader tonal palette and far, far tighter rhythm programming. Don't worry, though, he's not lost the inexplicable post-apocalyptic weirdness, it's ju…
Films super-8, la nature comme atelier
A book all in French about the Swiss artist Roman Signer and his work. Texts from François Bovier and Hamid Taieb, Geneviève Loup, Rachel Withers, + an interview with Roman Signer.
Sleep (An attempt at trying)
Sleep (an attempt at trying)“ is a radio suite for vocalist, narrator, improvising ensemble and electronics. In this project Bumšteinas explored the subject of insomnia which makes it a very autobiographic project. The main sound material for “Sleep” came from the sleeping-aid and relaxation tapes, that Bumšteinas bought for himself in various fleamarkets around Europe. The course of personal therapy wasn't too successful and due to nocturnal boredom Bumšteinas started dabbling with the function…
Rufen
Rufen is the second installment in a trilogy of Qluster music, following on from the Fragen (BB 076CD/LP) studio album. In four impressive live recordings, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Onnen Bock unfold aural panoramas which can only be described, in the truest sense of the word, as fantastic. Had Claude Debussy not already composed 'Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun,' then Qluster would have been ideally placed to do so, their transparency and polymorphism so reminiscent of his high Impression…
Music Of Changes
The title is a double pun. The score is the first that John Cage devised allowing the hexagrams of the I Ching to fully determin e how the music would procee d, event by event, gesture by gesture—the musical details (pitch, duration, dynamic s, density, tempi) being painstakingly, albeit fortuitously, derived through point-by-point con sultation from charts of possi bilities designed by the composer. (Christian Wolff, Cage’s young friend and musical associate, had presented Cage with a co…
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…
Ununhexium/Collapsed
Ununhexium is the sixth release in Raster-Noton's Unun series. Emptyset is a Bristol-based project formed by James Ginzburg, director of the Multiverse Studios and the curator and electronic artist Paul Purgas. Collapsed is Emptyset's first release on Raster-Noton and investigates the threshold where sonic structure is destabilized to the point where a chaotic order emerges. Across the four tracks a structural grammar is defined and then pushed to excess to the point where it reforms from re…
The Ocean Above Your Heads
Limited edition vinyl LP in super deluxe, full-colour printed jacket, featuring cover artwork by Roberto Opalio. The idea of a recording collaboration by Nels Cline and My Cat Is An Alien was born one day in Torino, Italy, while Cline was touring with Wilco in 2007. After two other intersections of their respective orbits (first at Victoriaville, then at a UK All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2006), Cline eventually mailed them a CDR of prepared and heavily effected electric guita…
Piano solo
Recorded live at Cafe OTO in March 2009 during Otomo Yoshihide's first residency here. This was one of only a handful of solo piano performances Otomo has given where he uses the instrument as a control matrix for harmonically rich feedback tones and devastating clusters of complex noise. Beautifully rendered with maximum dynamic range by Lupo's 45rpm cut!
Jigokuhen
Jigokuhen is the final instalment in Masami Akita's 15 part Bird Series for Important Records. Inspired by Olivier Messaien's Catalogue D'Oiseaux, the Bird Series saw the release of one CD per month for 13 months while a 14th disc was released free via download to series subscribers and on CDr with the purchase of Merzbow's EcoBag. This 14th Bird Series release is being issued on the 2 year anniversary of the start of the Bird Series and in conjuntion with Vampilla's new album on Important …
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…
August Undone
Sweeping and rustically romantic neo-classical and drone flights seemingly dropped from the sky on the wonderful Students Of Decay label "From the very first seconds of “Within/Without,” listeners familiar with the output of Aquarelle, the nom-de-plume of Madison, WI-based sound artist Ryan Potts, will find themselves in territory that is at once familiar and new. This opening salvo explodes into being with the surging, analog fuzz blooms and preternatural sense of rhythm that endeared many to …
Grapes and Snakes
Grapes and Snakes is the first collaborative work of two of the most respected American underground experimental/noise artists, Aaron Dilloway and Jason Lescalleet. Using purely analog synths and tape manipulation, they build a foggy psychoacoustic mass that lies between dynamic yet patiently treated tape-music and industrial howl. Aaron Dilloway has been releasing and recording music since the age of 16. He was a member of experimental bands Couch, Galen and Universal Indians. He is a form…
Check Your Swing
Mind Over Mirrors is the solitary reeling of Chicago-based Jaime Fennelly (Peeesseye, Acid Birds), who began developing the project when he moved from Bushwick/Brooklyn, NY to a remote island in the Salish Sea of Washington State in 2007.Utilizing an Indian pedal harmonium, oscillators, tape delays, and an assortment of synthesizing processors, Fennelly bends slowly- building, repetitive melodies into massive sonic mountains, that fits somewhere between a droned-out American Primitive, and early…
Winds & Skins
Winds & Skins transpired to be the very last set of recordings made by Afro-Cuban percussionist Sabu Martinez, who sadly passed away precisely one month after this December 1978 session was committed to tape. The album draws a line under a career that saw the illustrious musician performing alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey as well as releasing a string of out-and-out classic Latin jazz records. Here the noted conguero teams up with the lauded saxophonist/flautist Sahib Shihab, who himsel…
Systemisch
The extremely influential 1994 classic album from Oval is finally re-issued on vinyl. Freshly cut to vinyl by Roger Seibel at SAE Mastering the two LPs are pressed on clear vinyl and housed in black paper inner sleeves, packaged in a jacket replicating the original. Included for the first time is a free download coupon. Limited to 1,500 units worldwide. Systemisch was the debut Oval album released on Thrill Jockey. On this recording Oval was Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzge…
Der Regt Mich Auf / A Controversy
Based around the married couple Paul and Limpe Fuchs, the group Anima, also known as Anima-Sound, was one of the most radically avant-garde and creative groups to emerge from the thriving Krautrock scene of Munich at the end of the 1960s. In fact, their improvised atonal sounds and unconventional instrumentation is much closer to the spirit of experimental free jazz than anything remotely close to rock music. The Fuchs began in the late '60s as part of the counterculture at the time. Adding to t…
Three-Lane Blacktop
"Limited to 300 copies LP that bundles a bunch of great performances from the first Charalambides trio line-up featuring Tom and Christina Carter alongside Jason Bill (later of Migrantes). Two full sets that catch the group breaking out from their early Texas-psych sound into a whole new free/folk mutant, with Christina’s jubilant, spooked vocals over rattlesnake guitar and a wash of F/X. Still one of the most important – if relatively unsung – underground rock groups of the past decade p…
Rubaiyat Of Dorothy Ashby
Incredible work from the amazing Dorothy Ashby – a brilliant set of funky and spiritual tunes, set to full backings from Chicago soul arranger Richard Evans! This album is easily one of Ashby's greatest, and it's dedicated to the writings of Omar Khayyam – one of the forces guiding Dorothy's more spiritual sound at the end of the 60s, clearly opened up in a way that's not unlike the direction of Alice Coltrane's work, but a lot more focused and a lot more funky! Ashby not only plays her…
Marquis De Sade
Some of the finest fruits from an infamous creative relationship between two of the most dedicated and productive bastions of the 1960/70s Eurotica genre - Spanish born director Jess Franco and Bruno Nicolai. "Represented here on this special commemorative format you will find some of the finest fruits from an infamous fertile creative relationship between two of the most dedicated and productive bastions of the 1960/70s Eurotica genre - Spanish born director Jess Franco (Vampyros Lesbos) and Br…