New Arrivals
An extended meaning for something meaningless
Francisco Meirino's An extended meaning for something meaningless uncovers deep hidden contexts from the decaying fringe of the auditory spectrum. Here we find ornate beauty in the subtle demise of electronic systems and explore the arcane apprehension of existential degeneration. The recording looks at how to create something out of almost nothing-basic field recordings, static electronics and failed tape experiments. A 16-channel multi-track piece where reel-to-reel tapes juxtaposition with mo…
Lemuria
The hidden meanings are those that are at the origin of things. In an interview to Blow Up magazine in 2010, Venetian sound artist Enrico Coniglio, commenting on his aesthetic approach to the soundscape (it is the result of the aggregation of clusters of elements that have reason for existence in relation to their own specific function), marked off the traces for a path that some time later would take him to collaborate with the photographer and field recordist Giovanni Lami, from Ravenna, in …
Das Testament
Backwards proudly presents the reissue of a private Maurizio Bianchi vinyl LP, issued in a small edition of 300 copies in 1983 and titled "Das Testament". M.B. is an Italian pioneer of noise music, born near Milan. Bianchi began to produce music in 1979, and since 1980 has used electronic equipment with the avowed goal "to produce technological sounds and in such a way to work on complete realising of the modern decadence". Now remastered, for this release MB plays electronics, rhythms, neutroni…
Antworten
180 gram LP version with free download code. "Antworten (meaning: answer) is the third installment in a trilogy of Qluster music, following on from the Fragen (BB 076CD/LP) (meaning: question) and Rufen (BB 075CD/LP) (meaning: call) studio albums. The fact that the music on Antworten was created before Rufen and Fragen were recorded is less of a paradox than it might at first appear. For the expansive piano fantasies of their 2007 recordings had already provided a clear answer to the two musicia…
Correspondances
I had heard so much about the machine created by Daniel Aspuru that my curiosity turned to desire. The transductor eolico is not an easy item to move around and as there were no concerts on the horizon I decided to follow my intuition and invite Steven, Daniel and Manrico to spend some time in La Perrera, located in my house in Oaxaca, Mexico in order to experiment with the TE and eventually produce material for a record.During this ten day residence La Perrera was transformed into a recording s…
Wake Up Awesome
The second chapter of SStudios (Software Studio Series). SStudios is a new venture in the Software Recording Co.'s expanding catalog that invites artists in the field of electronic music to create collaborative works of quality and vision. Inspired by the historical intersections of live performance and studio post-production, Wake Up Awesome is a modern kind of fusion in technique as well as genre. At its core are three artists highly experienced with both instant and labored composition.…
I am here where are you
After the great 2012 record by Brötzmann / Noble / Edwards, the worse the better, Peter Brötzmann and Steve Noble started to play some gigs as a duo. It worked out really well, wonderful pieces of music that had to be put on cd; an expert, you might even say telepathic, interplay between those two outstanding musicians, sometimes delicate and swinging, sometimes full-force free jazz.
Unfinished. For William Turner, painter
"Which side of the picture should be hung uppermost? 2003, London: the first time I visited Tate Britain, Tate Gallery, and the first time I saw and really experienced the paintings of JMW Turner (1775-1851). Overwhelmed, especially by his late and unfinished works I was stunned by the power of the stillness of his work. 25 years before that something similar; me, as a young man in Madrid; Prado, Goya paintings and etchings - for me an initiation which opened up the door to earlier art an…
So Unreal
Episode two in season one of the LA Vampires Collab Chronicles finds her joining forces with elusive alien discotech-head Matrix Metals of the nomadic Outer Limits Recordings cabal. Blurry ornate cassette-loop architectures groove and grind under jazzy Casio canopies while Ms. LA Vamps screws it all down and layers in additional square wave keyboard lines, echo chamber FX, drum machine detailing, low-end throbs, and sings lead on a gold spraypainted microphone. The entire LP's got that '…
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…
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.
Penpals Forever And Ever
Expanding Erik Skodvin's extremely limited 2008 cassette edition Penpals Forever, this vinyl release remasters the original content and adds a whole extra side's worth of new material, all of which is exclusive to the LP. You wouldn't necessarily discern this straight away from the Deaf Center member's elusive and teasingly enigmatic music, but apparently 'Penpals Forever And Ever' is an "imaginary tale of a long dead baroque painter and his telekinetic correspondence with a flightless b…
Untitled (for Agnes Martin)
owen and allison met in brooklyn in 2009 with the intention to record 5 minute ‘songs’. deciding to work within this duration, they made several version’s of each improvisation based on a set of changing environments for new piece. allison’s instrument’s included field recordings (processed and un-processed), ring-modulated sinewaves + contact mic; owen’s instruments included a speaker + rose pedals, various oscillators, radio + fm transmitter and contact mic’ed surfaces + objects. the re…
Keeping a record of it
Keeping a record of It is the follow-up to Lonnie Holley's debut album, Just Before Music. It features recordings made in 2006, 2010 and 2011. Guest performers include Cole Alexander from the Black Lips, Bradford Cox from Deerhunter, and visual artist Lillian Blades.
'Last year, at 62, after decades of singing while he worked, Holley released his jarring debut album, Just Before Music, a marriage of improvised keys and the rambling, hollow bellow of his voice, as well as the first original rec…
Hello
Takahiro Kawaguchi began making field recordings and performing improvised music in 2000, and in recent years has attracted a great deal of attention as a sound artist. In January 2009 he released, on Taku Unami's label Hibari Music, the solo album n, on which he uses several remodeled counters. Shinjiro Yamaguchi, born in 1983, is an electronic music player. in October 2008 he released the minimal ambient solo album Kogai on the Japanese label Cherry Music.This is the debut album of Kawaguchi a…
Proceed with Caution!
Whereas the earlier black jazz album Shawn-Neeq had its share of riff-based funk, Calvin Keys' second outing Proceed with Caution! (1974) sticks close to straight-ahead jazz verities with the 30-something guitarist in the studio with seven similarly young, on-the-rise musicians including Charles Owens (saxophones, flute), Oscar Brashear (trumpet), Al Hall Jr. (trombone), Kirk Lightsey (electric piano), Henry Franklin (bass), and Leon "Ndugu" Chancler (drums). Keys can really play the guitar, e…
Comme A La Radio
Sensational reissue!!! In 1969, a French chanteuse, an Algerian multi-instrumentalist, and a Chicago jazz quartet undertook an experimental, exploratory, revolutionary musical voyage; a redrawing of musical parameters that, to this day, stands as a glittering beacon, glowing in the dark abyss of 'out' music. Featuring Areski Belkacem and Aart Ensemble of Chicago, Comme a la Radio is the sophomore album in Brigitte Fontaine's prolific career. Four decades on, and Comme à la Radio still sounds…
United States of America Triptych (III)
Voices by David Grubbs, Magorzata Penkalla and Pete Simonelli, guitars by David Grubbs and Miron Grzegorkiewicz, organ and violin by David Maranha, Text excerpted from Vanishing Point: How to Disappear in America without a Trace Music by David Grubbs, Miron Grzegorkiewicz, David Maranha, Gosia Penkalla, Pete Simonelli
Three takes on America - three journeys and three documents. Written and recorded.Year 1939, John A. Lomax and Ruby T. Lomax in their Plymouth - going South. 6502 miles, tons of …
ACE 26,250'/11 DEGREES 22.4'N 142 DEGREES 35.5'E
The audio on this LP was inspired by early efforts to explore extreme locations on earth, and the clash between the will of humans, the limits of their bodies, and the immutable laws of the natural world - the latter which can easily destroy both of the first two. The 11° 22.4'N 142° 35.5'E side is based on the 1960 dive by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in the bathyscaphe Trieste to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point on earth. This side aims to mirror the …
Superdisque
Superdisque is the first album from the French trio formed by David Fenech (electric guitar) with Jac Berrocal (trumpet) and Ghédalia Tazartès (vocals). Somewhere beyond the borders of rock, jazz, punk and sound poetry -- the vocals seem to come from another planet, with lyrics in an improvised language. The winds are blown from Tibetan human bones and conch seashells. Guitars sound like rubber and steel. Expect the unexpected. Special guest Zap Pascal (accordion) appears on one track. Dav…