New Arrivals
Super.Trigger
Super.Trigger is an absolute trove of percussive tensions and frequency-driven finesse and deals mainly with the basic principles of any modern music: rhythm. Frank Bretschneider takes his, never simple, but all the more heartfelt relationship to rhythm and its complexity to an intense inventory and, this time, works less out of suspenseful abstract sounds, than out of grooves. There is a real sense of perpetual evolution and coiled tightness to the pulsating rhythmic programming, while t…
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…
Rising from the red sand Volumes I - V
‘Rising From The Red Sand’ was one the most comprehensive compilations of early 80’s industrial, wave and underground music, spanning a total of five cassettes, compiled by Gary Levermore for his own Third Mind Records label (which has also recently been revived). The original five tapes are now released as a 5xLP set, following several months of tracking down as many artists as possible to obtain their permission to reissue their material. Almost all were found, although nine tracks are missing…
Fete galante et pastorale
There were several ‘firsts’ involved in my initial encounter with Zygmunt Krauze’s music: my first visit to Poland (1970), my first ‘Warsaw Autumn’ festival and its first concert (19 September), and the Warsaw premiere of Krauze’s first Piece for Orchestra (1969). The memory has stayed with me ever since, not least because here was a work that was distinctly different from the other new Polish music that had so far filtered westwards. I was familiar with some Lutosławski, Penderecki …
Live at the Cairo High Cinema Institute
I saw him at a street party in Giza where a few hundred people had amassed to dance and scream into the night. Flanked by Khaled Mando and Islam Tata, his two drummers pounding furiously asthe signature tone of his synth intensified for almost two hours, Islam Chipsy demonstrated his completely revolutionary take on modern Egyptian Shaabi. The sound was raw and distorted, thevolume was deafening, and the energy was high. Thirty minutes into the set, the trio pulled out blindfolds and put them on…
Time and language
Pleq, Hiroki Sasajima and Spheruleus manage to overcome the sheer geographic distance that lies between them to produce a really wonderful studio album.Pleq and Hiroki Sasajima are from bustling capital cities; Warsaw and Tokyo respectively, which has naturally had an impact on their sound. Whilst Spheruleus is from a quiet Lincolnshire town in the UK, surrounded by farmland. As a result of the inspiration drawn from their different environments, the solo output from these three artists is all q…
Lines Describing Circles
Over the past year as Peder Mannerfelt has shed the skin of The Subliminal Kid, we've only had small samples to taste of his new brand of musical sorcery. Lines Describing Circles changes all of that. Ten tracks deep, this is not so much an album as it is a declaration. From the opening, harrowing crackle of "Collapsion," Mannerfelt's intent is to crush the listener into a perfect metal cube. Lines Describing Circles displays the sound of a man fully in control of his machines. Throughout th…
Active recovering music
Active Recovering Music (ARM) is a slide whistle ensemble led by sax player Masahiko Okura. All of the members play the slide whistle. Okura debuted ARM in concert with a five-member formation in 2008. He's since continued the group's activity (though their live performances are infrequent) with changing numbers of players. This is the recording of a performance by ARM--this time with eight members--which took place at Ftarri, Tokyo, in February 2013. Each of the three pieces was composed by Oku…
Black Mill Tapes Volumes 3 & 4
Our Head Technician returns with the keenly awaited follow-up to his amazing 'Black Mill Tapes Volumes 1 & 2' as Pye Corner Audio, including the previously digital-only Volume 3 and the as-yet-unheard Volume 4. Lurking in the shadows between deep house, slow techno, Carpenter soundtracks and classic electronica, these sibling LPs transcend genres with hallucinatory, shape-shifting effect, trudging forth from the pastoral whimsy of the first volumes to a darker, less certain point on the horizon.…
Remains unchanged
The Shadow Ring was founded by guitar player Graham Lambkin and percussionist Darren Harris in Cheriton, Kent, England in 1993. Tim Goss joined the Shadow Ring in 1996 performing on a variety of electronics. The group disbanded in 2003. 'Remains unchanged' is the long-time-coming archival overview of the shadow ring. Spanning the full decade of their existence, 'Remains unchanged' offers an alternate account of the group's labor, told through 20 never-before-heard tracks. From the lumbering mono…
Ablation
Welcome return for Robert Hampson with the first Main album in seven years, new on eMego. Hampson founded Main with Scott Dawson upon disbanding Loop in '94, and while their initial releases still bore traces of their space-rock origins, the goal was always total ecstatic abstraction, and by the time of the Hz series, completed in '96, they'd pretty much achieved it. Main's music has been called many things: industrial, noise, isolationist electronica, dub, drone; the truth it, it's all a…
Ensemble Pearl
Double LP edition. Cosmic, heavy amplified rock drops and ripples, auras radiate and expand into cloud forms, through which lightning bolts. Tides rise, the moons wax upon a place somewhere between Link Wray, Hex-era Earth and early Tangerine Dream. The echoes return, leaving a trail that blows and drifts, creating a separate piece. Ensemble Pearl are Atsuo, William Herzog, Michio Kurihara and Stephen O'Malley. Their debut album also features the elemental forces of Eyvind Kang and Timba H…
Make It Real
Wait, this is the new Pocahaunted album cover? Gone may be the days of cassette cases featuring creepy collages and hand-dyed bags with feathers attached, but this is something else entirely. I mean, there’s a parrot with blue Ray-Bans, a giant dollar sign, a “He’s on fire!” NBA Jam-style basketball…What is going on? After the shock of the cover art, I waded into the unfamiliar soup that waited within. From the opening thrums of “Touch You”, the lo-fi recording aesthetic seemed to be held …
Red Sugar
Restocked, reduced price 'winter family are the brooklyn based duo of ruth rosenthal and xavier klaine. alt.vinyl is proud to release this double vinyl ltd edition edition (300 copies only) of their latest intensely atmospheric work. artwork by franz vesolt, layout by fabien lehalle. audio mastering by patrick klem. review: a rare and unique audio worldview expressed by the singular approach of brooklyn based duo ruth rosenthal (spoken words) and xavier klaine (harmonium, organ etc..). fro…
Homicidal Texture
Homicidal Texture was released by Slaughter Productions in early 1995 in a bizarre packaging consists of a metal mesh that completely envelops the cover. The four tracks on the tape are based on obsessive synth drones. The smell of death is soaked in every sound produced by the brilliant and twisted mind of Marco Corbelli. Anxiety, alienation and hypochondria turn into a deep paranoia in pain. Without hesitation, the bodies are emptied, leaving the field to an electronics purulence of rare power…
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 …
Shell-shocked
Meirino has been crossing fabricated, gathered, altered, provoked or wrong sounds for nearly two decades. The second Noisendo release follows the first one (Gorgomilos) closely - chronologically speaking - and dives deeper into a DIY electronica where machines dictate as much law as Man. Mutual respect? The obvious punk drive of Noisendo001 is more subtle in 002 but it is present in the nervous breathing of the acoustic and synthetic sounds that excite our senses while listening to this r…
Summer through my mind
Richard Youngs presents his debut recording for BaDaBing Records, and the label is looking forward to a long relationship. For Summer Through My Mind, Youngs pushes himself into a challenging new sphere yet again. A renowned musician with over 40 albums to his name, he goes somewhere he never has before - to the heart of American music. Summer Through My Mind is a country music album, warped through Youngs's ambidextral mind. A warning: it's not like any country album one has heard before. There…
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…
Things fall apart
Jason Kahn : drum set, voice, metal objects, radio, mixing board, contact microphones, magnetic coil, speaker, computer, chairs, plastic bags. Recorded in Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zürich, Switzerland on April 14, 2013. Mixed and mastered May 2-31, 2013. Cover design Jason Kahn. Audio CD, 6 panels digipak. 'Back in 1981 I was studying at the University of London in the School of African and Asian Studies. One lecturer had us read Chinua Achebe's novel 'Things Fall Apart.' Aside from the book moving …