New Arrivals
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…
Home Is The Sun
Invisible Things is the duo of guitarist Mark Shippy (U.S. Maple) and drummer Jim Sykes (Parts & Labor). Well beyond the stereotypical thoughts of a guitar, drum improv/jam session, the drumming is based the study of Sri Lankan percussion and applied to the modern drum kit. This foundation of the drums allows for explorations by the guitar that is tight and sparse one moment and then seamlessly shifted into majestic swirls of reverberation. The album, comprised of 17 tracks, is presented as on…
Gagged In Boonesville
French globe-tourist High Wolf has hand-rolled his way up Mount Fuji, trainspotted every corner of Europe, hitch-hiked across America and Australia, chugged Ganges water, and crouched on all manner of smoke-stained prayer rug since first looping a bongo back in ’09. His apprenticeship in the House of Wah nearly complete, he’s hinted at a potentially seismic shift in the High Wolf third eye doctrine lurking in the near future; perhaps his Away Team exfoliation moment is nigh. Fortunately, …
A vacant lot to be in
Jason Zeh is a hands-down master of cassette tape and cassette playback devices. Using magnets, metal, plastic, car stereo tape adapters, cassette players without tape, cassette tape loops, modified tape decks, and sand paper (among other devices), Zeh creates two tracks that swim through hiss, grit, and wavering, fractured soundwaves to create some of the most engaging audio I've had the pleasure to hear. This recording reflects not only Zeh's dedication to mastering and refining his source mat…
Works 1987-1993
Both of these projects hardly need an introduction. Merzbow is since the late 70s the project of Masami Akita working in the field of noise music, having released a few hundred CDs/LPs/cassettes by now. In 1987 Kapotte Muziek was then the solo project of Frans de Waard, after Christian Nijs left the group early '87. De Waard concentrated on working with other musicians, and started trading tapes with a few musicians he was already in contact with, and one of them was Merzbow. The first release w…
Survivalist Tales!
Emil Amos, world renowned as drummer of the illustrious experimental rock groups Om and Grails, has an increasingly prolific, though relatively unknown, solo career under the moniker Holy Sons. Home recording over 1000 songs since the project's inception in 1992, Amos has spent the better part of the last two decades honing his song writing and production skills over a wide swath of genres in a mission to capture his internal world sonically. Only a handful of shows have ever been pla…
Solitaire
Beautifully presented reissue of classic archival electroacoustic works, within "Warszawa-Oslo" project, a recollection, phonographic documentation and reactivation of bonds between Polish and Norwegian electro-acoustic music, presentation of their individual character and unquestionable significance on the international scale. This beautifully designed set (with extensive booklet of note) collects some of the most exciting, shimmering and crystalline electronic sounds to be unearthed in quite a…
Glass Canyon
It's been a little while since we've last heard from Oakland-based sound artist Marielle Jakobsons in a solo capacity, but that's certainly not to say she hasn't been busy. Last year saw full-length outings by her two duo projects, Date Palms and Myrmyr, and already in 2012 works with Bay Area drone ensemble Portraits and trio recordings with Helena Espvall and Agnes Szelag have been released. Her last major solo outing (under the nom-de-plume Darwinsbitch) came in form of the dark, comple…
Afro Noise I (Volume 3)
Dirter Promotions presents another volume of Cut Hands material, containing reworked and remastered versions of some tracks from his Afro-noise project. Comes in a beautiful special edition on 180 gram vinyl mastered by Noel Summerville and featuring the magical vévé artwork of Mimsy DeBlois, in a one-off pressing of 750 copies. The entire 750-limited pressings of Volume 1 and Volume 2 sold out on release day, so don't miss these! A reclamation of the conscious through 16 pieces (split betwe…
Soul Translation - A Spiritual Suite
A beautiful little record – and one that definitely earns the "suite" distinction in the title – given the thoughtful longform approach of the set! The album's got a more composed feel than other spiritual jazz sessions of the time – not in a stiff way, but in a style that shows that leader Donald Alexander Strachan really has a strong vision in his music – not just in the compositions he spins forth on the record, but also in the way he directs the rich energy of the ensemble! The lineup featur…
Good luck mr. Gorsky
Good Luck mr. Gorsky is a Trio formed in 2004 in Thessaloniki, Greece, by Savvas Metaxas, Spiros Emmanouilidis and Thanasis Papadopoulos. They are experimenting with a variety of instruments and musical genres to build their own sound. Their music focuses on electronic compositions, using both physical and electronic sound sources. Field recordings, analog synthesizers, prepared piano and trumpet are currently used for creating their compositions.
In this album the trio took a series of improvi…
Fait a la machine
40+ min of heavy machinery pounding, hissing, and vibrating, plus a bonus 63 minute CDR of the dronier side of machines at work. If you enjoy artists like Vivenza, Matt Heckert, early Esplendor Geometrico, or Chop Shop, this might be right up your alley. "Unlike a lot of recordings of natural and dissonant phenomena, Fait a la Machine works just as well as a piece of music as it does an audio documentation of the world surrounding us. It makes that leap from interesting to enjoyable in a way…
Line the clouds
Multi-faceted composer and performer Ashley Paul releases her new lp 'line the clouds', on brooklyn's rel records. a hyper-intuitive record, where off-kilter instrumentation meets beautifully crafted melodies to convey the very essence of 'musicality', 'Line the clouds' contains 44.18 minutes of sonic paradoxes and dichotomies. Stirring up a zephyr of twelve blissfully cacophonous sounds - singular moments of an indivisible whole the focus is on guitar, voice and saxophone, but Ashley also em…
Yesterday & Today
Double vinyl LP pressing includes bonus CD pressing of this 2009 release. The Field is Axel Willner, and 2007's Here We Go Sublime was one of the year's most acclaimed releases, receiving a 9.0 from Pitchfork as well as universal praise. It was a soundtrack to the spit-shined airport of your dreams - faceless, futuristic, and fuzzy. Now, Willner expands his palette, continuing the oblique sampling strategy while building up the rhythmic architecture.
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…
2nd Wave
In a fair and reasonable world, Roland Haynes would have compelled more attention than he did when his jazz-funk record 2nd Wave appeared on Black Jazz in the mid-1970s. Not to say the keyboardist was totally neglected back then, but he and other plugged-in pianists of his stylistic inclination (such as label-mate Doug Carn, Hampton Hawes, Don Grolnick, Larry Willis, and Gordon Beck) existed in the deep shadow cast by jazzman-turned-jazz-funk powerhouse Herbie Hancock, whose records with the H…
See the World Given to a One Love Entity
Guardian Alien is a free wheeling ensemble coming into its own, having found just the right balance between structured arrangements and wild abandon. Helmed by Greg Fox, who has lent his percussive force to the likes of Teeth Mountain, Dan Deacon, and Liturgy, the ensemble was initially an extension of his solo music (GDFX). It rapidly took on its own identity and expanded to a core group of Greg (drums, vocals, electronics, arrangements), Alex Drewchin (vocals, synth), Turner Williams Jr…
Processes & potentials
So much music claims to capture the moment. But as Processes & Potentials proves, in-the-momentness can be a malleable concept. The result of three years of studio work, the album sees Bjarni Gunnarsson following his longstanding interest in exploring liquid states, transformational activities and the complex relationships between cause and effect. It is music which behaves differently, unexpectedly, veering off into surprising directions and never staying in one place for too long Ð it is certa…
Elogia De La Sombra
Two tracks, 31 minutes. Southern are very excited to present the latest release in our Latitudes series from Master Musicians of Bukkake. Recorded at Southern Studios by Harvey Birrell on 17 April 2010. Additional tracking and mixing at Aleph Studios in Seattle. Produced by Randall Dunn. Mastered by Mell Dettmer. Artwork by Randall Dunn and A.Turner. Elogia de la sombra is the 24th recording in the Latitudes series.Master Musicians Of Bukkake are an enchanting collective, comprising a fine pedig…
Disappearance
Pioneering electronic minimalist Taylor Deupree and revered Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborate properly for the first time with the willowy ambient beauty of 'Disappearance'. They previously crossed paths when Deupree remixed a song from Sakamoto's 'Chasm' album in 2006, and since then they've reached a mutual appreciation for the themes of 'Isolation, solitude, contemplation' which perfuse the delicate structures of 'Disappearance'. Its initial ideas were sketched out during rehears…