New Arrivals
Soft Terminal
Digitalis invite us to dive headfirst into the synth froth of 'Soft Terminal', the latest emission from maverick soundscaper Norm Chambers, aka Panabrite. Over the last few years he's amassed a small library of exceptional material for the likes of Gift Tapes, Aguirre and Digitalis, plus one rather special pearl, a real scene classic, produced incognito and which we've been sworn to secrecy over. Compared with the stacks of dribbling dronesmiths and half-baked fantasists who populate this …
Gangnam Basement
Songs and field recordings from up and down the Korean peninsula and under the ground during 2006-2007: native winds and bells, charismatic tongues, mountain shamans, fauna, charms, university innards, resurrected ancestors, missteps, ceremony, morning, winter, night, glass rooms beneath Gangnam, totem + taboo; concluded with nitrous-damaged pop songs, Bowie cover and cellphone karaoke. Handmade art,
Awakening
Long out-of-print cassette originally released on Sloow Tapes (Belgium) in an edition of 70 with hand colored inserts. Cassette sold out within a week and has become quite collectible. Recorded after Expo '70 played France in 2008, just weeks after the IAO festival where the label owner and musician met. Upon returning to the states, the experience spawned the 2 day recording session materializing these 2 improvised tracks with no overdubs. Both tracks begin with rhythmic beats and slowly …
The Cry!
Exact repro, originally released in 1962, a spiritual jazz masterpiece. "In the early '60s, flutist Prince Lasha's work with alto saxophonist Sonny Simmons was often compared to the trailblazing free jazz that Ornette Coleman was exploring at the time....Free jazz performances like 'Bojangles,' 'A.Y.,' and the rhythmic 'Congo Call' are abstract, cerebral, and left-of-center, but they're still a bit more accessible than Coleman's harmolodic experimentation.
Irrlicht
Vinyl version of Klaus Schulze's first solo album, from 1972. "After stints in the legendary bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, Irrlicht was Klaus Schulze's first stab at a a solo project. He had radical ideas for the newly developed electronic music scene which are blatantly present here. Equipped with a small orchestra, 4-track, guitar, percussion, organ, and a little electronic gadgetry, he created a 'cosmic classic'. No synthesizers were used here, just a remarkable use of sampl…
Atlantis
One of the key but underappreciated episodes in avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra's Atlantis sounds far out even today. Rather than a full-on assault on the senses, Atlantis is an exercise in build-up, with long, almost forlorn passages of Ra on electric keyboards setting a vast echo chamber for his Arkestra to spring forth within. Captured during one of the most adventurous periods for Sun Ra, *Atlantis* features the orchestral perfection of the best big bands of the century-and then proceeds towards mu…
Endless Falls
Endless Falls is the fifth full length release by Scott Morgan under the loscil moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil …
The Crystal World
LP version. A marked change had come over the forest, as if dusk had begun to fall. Everywhere the glacé sheaths which enveloped the trees and vegetation had become duller and more opaque. The crystal floor underfoot was occluded and gray, turning the needles into spurs of basalt. The brilliant panoply of colored light had gone, and a dim amber glow moved across the trees, shadowing the sequined floor. At the same time it had become considerably colder.The Crystal World, the third studio album f…
6pezzi2009+lagodelnulla
Aggressive loop music based on sounds from photographic equipment and african field recordings. Besides being an early-Reich cheap imitation, ‘lagodelnulla’ is an italian expression (roughly translated as ‘lakeofnothingness’) found in an old Banda-Ngao lullaby (Central Africa, early ’60s). An ‘objet trouvé’ elevated as social commentary by the author. Volume encouraged. 35 minutes, transparent vinyl. Edition of 100 copies in recycled chipboard sleeve with silkscreened sheet (printed by Ped…
Didascalies 2
Vinyl-only release. Performers: Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven (piano); Claude Berset (piano); Vincent Royer (viola). Sub Rosa presents the first release after their Luc Ferrari trilogy. Didascalies 2 is not to be confused with 2007's Didascalies (SR 261CD) -- this is another composition entirely, never published before. "The other day I found a file from 1993, a score for two pianos entitled 'Revenir à la Note de Départ' (trans. 'Getting Back To The Initial Note'). So I decided to turn it i…
Eskra
Temperatures are a London-based duo formed by Peter Blundell (bass, voice) and James Dunn (drums, synth). Blundell's rumbling delayed bass runs against Dunn's bursting drums that simultaneously trigger an unruly ARP 2600. Vocals are both muffled and shouting at times and eventually end up getting buried under a (controlled) landslide of sounds. Thanks to their instinctive but thoughtful approach to noise, Temperatures can express a suffocating sense of alienation and mal de vivre, as well as tod…
Bengt
Bengt is the new solo recording by Mats Gustafsson and is dedicated to Bengt Nordström. Mats Gustafsson plays a plastic alto sax. A classic Grafton sax. The type of sax that was used by Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman and Bengt Nordström. Nordström is best known having produced Albert Ayler´s first recording Something Different!!!!!! on his Bird Note imprint. It is in his own role as a sax player Bengt was truly inventive. Bengt was playing solo sax improvisation already in 1962 (!!!) Nor…
Off Duty
As if the music of lysergic, lo-fi drugdub one man band Sun Araw wasn't flipped out and damaged enough, on this latest joint, those already tweaked and twisted sounds get even more far out, the vibe WAY druggier and spacier, a 26 minute blast of crumbling wah-guitar laced psychdub comedown in the form of three skull caving soul freeing innerspace excursions."Last Chants" begins with a dense swirling cloud of white noise and damaged effects, shot through with barely there melodies, and loose detu…
Split
Limited vinyl pressing of this excellent split LP self-released by Grouper in this scarce second edition* The music on this split release arrives remastered after its initial release via C40 cassette a while back. Likeminded souls Eva Saelens (inca Ore) and Liz Harris (Grouper) are in brilliant form on these recordings, so it's great to hear them in a cleaned up format - though of course with these two, it's fairly difficult to tell where the muddy cassette hiss ends and the foggy, dusty …
Graf Spee
Two tracks of incredible beauty characterized by unbelievable depth and intensity, from one of the finest masters of contemporary electronic music.Deep, powerful, brutal, quietly melodic drone massages from The King. Housed in a beautifully packaged LP edition, "Graf Spee" is a collaboration between artists CM von Hausswolff, Jan Håfström and Juan Pedro Fabra for an installation commissioned by the 5th Nordic Biennale of contemporary art and by Wanas Foundation in Sweden
Everyone Is Not Alive
Reissued limited edition 2 color vinyl of Touch People's debut album from 2 years ago (originally on The Faint's blank.wav imprint). Darren Keen, aka Touch People, records guitars, drums, bass, and keyboards, and then assembles via experimental/modern production that is both visceral and cerebral. The resulting sound bears resemblance to Steve Reich, Battles, Dan Deacon, and Tortoise.
Music From Italian TV
New LP - The Phantom Family Halo - Music From Italian TV - The label behind this release is using a very cryptic description for this record. One that, unfortunately, won't help sell many copies of a very enjoyable record. We won't be reprinting said description here, but what we will tell you what we know. Phantom Family Halo Band is from Louisville, Kentucky. At least one member of the band Sapat (remember their great LP on Siltbreeze from a couple years back?) is involved, but thi…
Heaven's Youth (Reptilians Demos)
Starfucker’s highly regarded full-length LP Reptilians was originally titled “Heaven’s Youth”. Like most artists, song ideas, the album concept and even the artwork continued to evolve. The band changed the title, continued to edit and develop the songs until the final version (Reptilians) was released in 2011. The original versions of the songs, that were until now only heard by the band, are being released for the first time in a very limited edition of white vinyl. Heaven’s Youth (Re…
L\'Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu
These sample-based constructions incorporated sounds from free-jazz, new electronic-generated sounds, classical modernism & vintage geographical recordings. Discordant segments of wailing, top-end violins give way to clunking rhythmic passages of metal marimbas & tuned percussion; free-roaming passages of rasping, low-end bass & the shuffle of free-jazz recall the work of Prestige-era Moondog, as well as aspects of Harry Partch's instrumentation via mid- to latter-day period Tom Waits. Atonal am…
July 19, 2006
may 2009 release: label-less lp release (“private,” if you will) covering the first ever duo set between myself & geoff mullen, recorded in concert at the brendan murray-curated “uppercase sound #2” event @ pa’s lounge, somerville, ma, 02143, usa, on july 19th, 2006 ...the music is entirely improvised, with geoff sticking largely to a suitcase-electronics-based setup (although he does provide some fine guitar & pedal alterations throughout) & myself to the doepfer (ditto guitar & korg guitar-syn…