New Arrivals
Jedwabnik
More music involving the seemingly always-at-work Wojciech Kucharczyk (does the man ever sleep?), this time in a quartet alongside B a ej Król, Jerzy Mazzoll and Radek Dziubek. The project's title Dwutysi czny translates as 'two thousand' - referring, according to a brief recent interview with Easterndaze, to the year when Król first came across the music of the other three players, a discovery that eventually led him to write to them to ask if they'd donate him some of their recorded sounds to …
Live
Founded in 1970 in Dusseldorf, Kraftwerk was the only German band to rise from the so-called 'krautrock' scene to true international stardom. Of course, it was partially their distinct look that set them apart. At a time when long hair and scruffy clothing was the norm for musicians, Kraftwerk cut their hair short and wore handmade suits. And at a time when guitar rock reigned supreme, Kraftwerk did not even have a guitar player. In fact they soon did away with instruments altogether, beco…
Kenzo Deluxe
Guitarist Chris Forsyth is a unique voice in the realm of American music, having emerged from the challenging free form expressionism of his old group Peeesseye with a lyrical command rare in any genre. His newest work brings his trademark lyricism to new heights in his most straightforward setting yet. Gone are the fleshed out rock band arrangements of last year’s Paranoid Cat LP, replaced on Kenzo Deluxe, by Forsyth shunning overdubs and playing his transcendent songs alone in a room on his el…
Resorts & Ruins
In “Resorts & Ruinsâ€Â, a set of three recent sound works, Kyriakides deals with several themes in both a physical and narrative sense. All the pieces use source material that highlight specific vocal traditions, namely Turkish pop music, Cypriot epic song, and Baroque opera, but they also all make extensive use of other forms of speech and vocal acts. In “Varosha (Disco Debris)â€Â, a narrating voice is our tour-guide in the ruins of the Cypriot ghost town Varosha; the many fragm…
Frequencies
Nicolas Bernier’s Frequencies (Synthetic Variations) is his first piece made entirely of synthetic sounds. Having evolved within the musique concrète and field recording traditions, Bernier wanted to break with habit — the result being 15 short movements of warped and crackling textures, vividly articulated sine waves and rhythmic bursts of pattern. The piece is designed to be listened to at random (the sound sample above is such a sequence), offering a new duration and dynamics with every heari…
Ensemble Pearl
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 Harris. These playe…
Damballah 58
Damballah 58 is the monstrous sequel to 2012's deadly Black Mamba 12". The title-track's diabolically addictive vaudou rhythms insinuate deeply before uncoiling convulsively into an irrevocable reclamation of the consciousness. The B-side features "Mamba Muntu" (sister track to the previous "River Mumma" and "Witness the Spread of the Dream"), the treacherously beautiful "Belladonna Theme," and the marauding, burning rush of "Immersion." Written and produced by William Bennett. Original vév…
Spoken Music Concert At Paula Cooper Gallery
Originally issued on Dog W/A Bone in 2002. The S.E.M. Ensemble's Spoken Music Concert took place on Tuesday, February 6, 1990, at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, then on Wooster Street in Soho. It was performed by members of the S.E.M. Ensemble: Petr Kotik (Director), Chris Nappi, Joseph Kubera, and Den Neill (sound mix); and four guests: John Cage, Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low, and Anne Tardos. "Empty Words," written in 1973-1974, is arguably the most musical of John Cage's texts. M…
Amulet
Oren Ambarchi live recordings assembled on Cheryl Cole's iPhone at her house in Winnipeg. Not really, but it's that's how I first misread the description. Amulet actually presents two iPhone recordings assembled at Chez Cole, Winnipeg, July 2013 by the inestimable Oren Ambarchi. We've no further info but from what we can hear these are rudimentary iPhone recordings excerpted and crudely edited from a live performance (a shard of applause possibly gives the game away) between rippling, dynamicall…
Has anybody seen our freedoms?
Recorded in December 1970. "Peter Walker is an American original, as eclectic and enigmatic as the songs he writes. The legendary seventy-five year old raga/psychedelic/folk acoustic guitarist, who was schooled by masters such as Ravi Shankar, and Ali Akbar Khan, has been described by Larry Coryell as, “One of the most original practitioners of contemporary music” and proclaimed by the Beatles’ press agent Derek Taylor as “Perhaps the greatest guitarist in the world.” His music, celebrated by t…
Moths
Michael Morley, Nina Canal, Sara Stephenson : electric guitars. Recorded by Roland Groenenboom at De Player, Rotterdam, August 2009 mixed at My Pit, Port Chalmers, 2011. Artworks: Eric Claridge Owl Moth & Mothface 2012 oil on canvas 30,5 x 30,5 cm each. Limited to 300 copies. Labels: Bimbo Tower Records & Dilettante Courtoisie.
NYC, Hell 3:00 AM
James Ferraro takes inspiration from "the things I see" in his 'NYC, Hell 3:AM' dystopia. The follow-up to 'Sushi' is a wry reflection of his locale, "a surreal psychological sculpture of American decay and confusion" evoking imagery of "rats, metal landscape, toxic water, junkie friends, HIV billboards, evil news, luxury and unbound wealth, exclusivity, facelifts, romance, insane police presence and lonely people... all against the sinister vastness of Manhattan's alienating skyline." Of course…
God Is Good
ground-breaking CD edition: God is Good is Om’s fourth studio album, and the first with new drummer Emil Amos (Amos made his first official recording with Om in the single “Gebel Barkal/Version” on Sub Pop last summer). It’s a big change, obviously, for a two-piece, and a fairly unqualified success. Amos, who also records with Grails, Holy Sons and Shrinebuilder, is far more flamboyant than Chris Hakius, less tethered to the steady chink of cymbals, more apt to range free-form over toms, rims an…
N.
N. is loyal to the most obscure and malevolence side of Power Electronics sounds and concepts. Closed in a total nothingness and nihilism, N. creates minimal violent sound texture to express his exasperated no-sense of existence. N. is the genial work of an autistic mind, closed to the rest of living beings… His first tape (self-titled) debut on the legendary Slaughter Productions in 1997. Tracks remastered from the original tape and the record has been pressed on 140 gr black vinyl with black l…
United States of America Triptych (I)
Voice by Pete Simonelli, guitar by Miron Grzegorkiewicz, bass Guitar by Michael‚ Biela, turntable by DJ Lenar. Text excerpted from 1939 Southern Recording Trip Fieldnotes by John Lomax and Ruby LomaxAudio quotes excerpted from their recordings.
Beaches Canyons
Debut album from NYC sound manipulation specialists, back in print on vinyl w/ download. Black Dice is an explosive, radical, and viciously unique rock & roll band. Based out of Brooklyn, NY, the trio is fiercely independent, doggedly disciplined, and uncompromisingly DIY in approach. Brothers Eric and Bjorn Copeland and Aaron Warren have spent over a decade recording, touring, and unleashing their bizarre musical doctrine on audiences the world over.By the time Beaches and Canyons made its reti…
Black wooden
6 songs, 21 minutes. In high summer of 2007, Phil Elverum, in the guise of Mount Eerie, found his way to Southern Studios. Armed with a borrowed guitar and some notebook paper, and with little time before an evening gig, Mount Eerie and Southern's engineer Harvey Birrell recorded the six songs of Black Wooden.Black Wooden is the coming together of ideas that had travelled with Mount Eerie for months and had solidified into compositions in the days and hours before the studio session. The title i…
in Tokyo
Four pieces of computer music. Iancu Dumitrescu \'Hazard and tectonics\' (2009 - 2013), \'Crepuscule I\' (2011-12), \'Early, before all times\' (2010-11). Ana-Maria Avram \'Metalstorm I\' (2012).
Spectral life
Debut LP of one third of avant drone metal outfit Locrian. Contemporary artist / musician Terence Hannum is back on wax with two side of meditative and sonic cathartic noise torrents. Following on a dozen of highly regarded solo tapes and cdr, Spectral Life follows the artist through 2 tracks of electronic and acoustic drones blending in the most efficient way all the previous works of the artist. While the A side is made of short different synth-driven pieces blended together in an immense open…
A Gourd of Gold
2013 release "From the time we started Latitudes, we’ve held a secret wish list of bands that we intended to lure into our studio. We’ve cut a major notch in our bedpost by finally scoring with Arbouretum, a band that meets universal approval at Latitudes HQ. Arbouretum offer up four cover versions of the brilliant Gordon Lightfoot, the oft-overlooked Canadian singer-songwriter who helped define the folk-rock sound of the Sixties and Seventies. The highlight of the session is unsurprisingly the …