New Arrivals
Re:PRES
Revisiting the treasures of Polish Radio studios (Polish Radio Experimental Studio, NEAR), the label offered Bolt miniaturized components of the composer Eugeniusz Rudnik (1933) to Lenar DJ (Marcin Lenarczyk) which reworks the way lo -fi in his studio (both guitar and bass amps, turntable, sampler loopers). Astonishing when one feels ownership playback via speaker which adds a paste, color these miniature electroacoustic "Nobody knows how many miniatures have been conceived by Rudnik. But one th…
Kataract
This album is a single forty-minute track exclusively made up from recordings of waterfalls within America's Pacific Northwest. The source material was cultivated and mixed over a two-year period and takes the form of a monstrously powerful, ferociously noisy concrète piece. Menche has always situated his work towards the extremes of electroacoustic music and Kataract is no exception, but for all the turbulence and extreme frequency manipulation here there's a level of detail on show th…
For Myria
On his cd debut, UK sound artist Jodi Cave creates seven short compositions united by themes of singularity and natural randomness. One of the most immediate features of For Myria is its restrained sound palette. Like an instrumentalist who has laid a small collection of choice instruments out in front of him, Cave creates beautifully intimate collages, each touching on maybe only 2 or 3 sounds, woven together by computer processing which has been pushed into the background, utilized more as a c…
Bufo Alvarius (2010 Reissue)
Deluxe remastered version, this was Bardo Pond's 1995 debut album, taking its name from the official Latin for a hallucinogenic toad indigenous to the Western United States. That's a fairly appropriate association to make with the band's severely zoned-out stoner-psych sound, something pioneered on this album, a record that brought the band to the attention of Matador Records who snapped them up for their next album. Amongst all the fuzz-soaked weirdness of the instrumentation on these ear…
Middle Eastern Rock
An inspired fusion of Middle Eastern rhythms and psychedelia resulted in this the gorgeous album by accomplished oud player John Berberian and his troop of skilled musicians. First released on Verve/Forecast in 1969 this exotic album features music based on traditional themes from Turkey, Armenia, Greece, Arabia and North Africa blended with the terrific improvised energy of psychedelia. So what you end up with here is bustling bazaars and scorched sands passed through the prism of the lysergic …
The ethnic project
Improvisations incorporating ethnic aereophones and contemporary contrabass sounds. Vinny Golia, ethnic woodwinds, duets with double-bassists Barre Phillips, Joëlle Leandre, Bert Turetzky, Lisa Mezzacappa.
Music In And On The Air
"A major gap in Clara Rockmore's recorded legacy will be closed with the release of Music In and On the Air, a CD derived from a live 1979 WQXR broadcast. To celebrate the 9th anniversary of a series called The Listening Room, Clara brought her theremin to The New York Times building, and before a full house in the auditorium there, played solos and chamber pieces with her renowned pianist-sister Nadia Reisenberg, the superb violinist Erick Friedman, and eight members of the Violincello Society.…
Pi:k
'Two musicians from very different backgrounds finding common ground. The first half consists of studio duets on guitar and viola recorded in New York City without any electronics, but they are not what one would expect from these two instruments. The second half is very different - recorded in concert in Geneva with a liberal amount of electronics.'
Blueprints
Over the past 10 years 12k has established itself as a label on the forefront of minimalist music and has become home to some of the most important artists of the genre. It is label that time and time again has not been afraid to release debut albums from new artists, drawing on the new energy they interject into both the scene and the label.With the release of Blueprints, 12k presents 2 tracks each from 6 artists new to its roster and showcases some of the new sounds and influences that will ca…
Critical Path
Martino Traversa is a renowned Italian composer who studied at Salzburg’s Mozarteum, at the CCRMA at Stanford University and with Luigi Nono from 1987 to 1989. The CD “Critical_Path” presents for the first time ever a selection of his electronic music works, composed between 2000 and 2008.Beside being a prolific composer, Martino is a very active cultural promoter: he founded the Ensemble Edgard Varèse in 1990, with Luigi Nono's support; in 1991 he launched "Traiettorie", a highly-reputed intern…
Invisible ear
Two decades ago, saxophonist John Butcher abandoned his doctoral pursuits in theoretical physics to pursue a life in improvised music and has since become one of the genre’s leading instrumental and structural innovators. Butcher’s pursuit of extended techniques has yielded and continues to yield, as indicated by this most recent solo outing, a treasure trove of unfathomable timbral and dynamic possibilities for an instrument whose role in experimental music seems to consistently teeter o…
Massacre
In "massacre" Wolfgang Mitterer presents us with a passionate analysis of a timeless threesome: power, religion and violence. An opera for five singers, nine musical instruments and electronics.Based on Christopher Marlowe’s drama »The massacre at Paris«, Wolfgang Mitterer paints an acoustic picture of destruction, conspiracy and the thrill of power. His protagonists virtually rid themselves of their identities, turning into typological representations of different points of view. The concrete e…
The Sleeping Bag Sessions
You already know about Arthur Russell from disco classics like "Is It All Over My Face" and "Go Bang" (maybe you even watched the recent documentary), but do you know about all the early/mid-80's work he did on his own Sleeping Bag label? This awesome compilation collects the gems you might've slept-on or never came across. Whether its early hip-hop boogie (Sounds Of JHS 126 Brooklyn's "Chill Pill(1)"), left field electro beats (Bonzo Goes To Washington's "5 Minutes(2)"), or underground disco ba…
The Sky Is Full Of Kytes
Mindblowing!!! Simon Balestrazzi should need no introduction. He founded T.A.C. (Tomografia Assiale Computerizzata) in 1982 and has bee pioneering the italian industrial scene since then. His passion for sound synthesis and exploration brought him in recent years to develop a research in electro-acoustics, both in duos, trios and also in solo.
Un Jour Comme Tant D'Autres
This is an unreleased album from 1975 of studio/live material! Dieu has smiled upon us, for a previously shelved early album (1975) by Ilitch finally has its jour in the soleil. Thierry Müller's strange musical arc is further enriched and confounded by this exploratory cosmic release. A brilliant mix of Krauty space groans and experimentalism (see also Conrad Schnitzler and Ash Ra Temple, etc) and the progressive electronics of Igor Wakhevitch. There is some psych in the folds, and the albu…
Extra space, extra time
'Six tracks. Recorded at the studio of Extrapool in Nijmegen for a series of 'Brombron' project in October 2009. Mixed and produced by Kazuyuki Kishino at Prima Natura Studio.' label info
Concentration of the Stare
Spend any amount of time in the company of Keith Rowe and the names of certain painters will arise in conversation with some frequency. Caravaggio, Twombly and, among others, most definitely, Mark Rothko. Just as, long ago, he'd imagined what the guitars in Braque's cubist painting might actually sound like, so, I think, he did with Rothko, often referring to the way the "tinged" the space in which they were hung. For some time, in the early oughts, Rowe tried to place his music in a similar are…
Redsuperstructure
"simple sonic events are unfolding themselves and evoke the sound of an orffean children ensemble. pleasant and strange noises join a bass foundation that recreates the ground shaking subsonic waves of mid-nineties drum&bass. it's like a drum major meets a tibetan monk. all is good in the noosphere - with "redsuperstructure" robert lippok's new record "redsuperstructure" is based on the spectacular set he performed at raster-noton electric campfire at villa massimo in september 2010. afte…
Live
Oxtirn 'live' documents a performance in new york city, by the new trio of geoff mullen, ashley paul and eli keszler. following a score by keszler, the group performs on an array of instruments, using three guitars, drums, voice, auto-motorized harps, tenor harp, bass harp, microphones, clarinet, alto saxophone, crotales, drums and cymbals. the music drifts in a unique way between a wide variety of sounds, from incredible density of clattering metal textures and string attacks, wall of so…
Surface of the Earth
Gunn Amps and Smashed Guitars. Surface of the Earth was recorded live to cassette, using two microphones in a wooden community hall in Wellington, New Zealand. The lp was gathered from two or three recording sessions in 1994/95. Back then we used to book out the hall for a couple of days, set up our gear and then record everything. It was a very atmospheric room for recording. Tony and Donald would put their guitars through their two old Gunn valve amplifiers and get to work. Tony often used thi…