New Arrivals
Vellus
Incorporating wildly coloured orchestrations and unusual performance actions, set against intense monochromes of noises and whispers, Vellus is a collection of chamber works that obsessively deals with the privacy of ritual, memory and the self. Diverse takes on instrumental concrète by this young Australian composer. 'Lucas Stumbles' (2007) for percussion (Eugene Ughettti, Greg Sully, Mathias Schack-Arnott, Anna Webb) and electronics (James Rushford). 'Respite in the Woodland' (2007) with Aviva…
Mort aux vaches
Packaged in a three-panel lenticular sleeve. Artwork & concept by Staalplaat. Limited edition of 500 copies.
Comme
Billy Gomberg (b 1979, Chicago) is a musician and video artist living in Brooklyn, New York. His studio practice incorporates analog synthesis, digital treatments, acoustic recordings and custom programming that gives rise to electronic sound caught gazing at its own physicality, acoustics in love with their own abstraction. Billy's debut CD release displays abstract and complex dimensions of texture and tone that might make more sense at first on a subconscious level before it will on a conscio…
Privilegium Martyrii
Thick and spectral dark ambient, soaked with soft and flowing pads stratifications, wrapped in deep and penetrating low frequencies spires, enlightened by delicate and touching melodic inserts, profaned by echoes of reverberating metallic noises, clanging chains, circular mechanical movements, waves of indecipherable whispers, distant and suffering human voices... A great debut CD for Antikatechon, a project that showcases Davide Del Col's eclectic personality, already the unique mind of the Orn…
The Dunrobin Session
The recording of The Dunrobin Session took place during a residency at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, during which Pauline Oliveros presented a series of concerts and workshops in collaboration with percussionist Jesse Stewart, who teaches music composition at Carleton. Oliveros and Stewart are composers, performers, educators, and writers, and each has pursued creative exploration of new instrumental resources while developing expertise on a traditional instrument (accordion and drum).R…
Superficial Music
Re-release with bonus tracks recorded in 1982. On 1981's Superficial Music masterpiece, French electronic composer Bernard Szajner presents selections from his previous "Visions of Dune" sessions played backwards and at half speed, enhanced through the use of digital and analog devices, as well as "Oswicim," a three-part reflection on the Holocaust that draws on his own family's experience. Szajner's touch is delicate and evocative, making for a powerful, if understated, listening experie…
Con 3
This album saw Conrad Schnitzler head further in the direction of pop music. Like Consequenz, Con 3 (1981) is a collaborative effort with Wolfgang Seidel, alias Sequenza. Con 3 is a really odd mixture of numerous ingredients which Schnitzler was capable of combining with dexterity and taste. His musical handwriting is immediately apparent in the foreground. Effervescent electronic sequences can be heard on all nine pieces, coming from somewhere and appearing to go wherever -- this is Schnit…
Rebuses
Franz Hautzinger (quartertone trumpet), Masahiko Okura (reeds) and Tetuzi Akiyama (tape delayed electric guitar). Recorded in Tokyo, 2004.A rebus is "a representation of a word or phrase by pictures or symbols", as you probably all know. Just wondering what the words might be then, on listening to this remarkably active (in its discreet lowercase way) trio outing from trumpeter Hautzinger, saxophonist Okura and guitarist Akiyama. EAI is, after all, supposed to be slow and spacious (think Hautzin…
Mubomuso
Mubomuso is a neologism, made up from two extant words. Mubo suggests the unadorned and unaffected, while muso means to be in a state without thought or preplanning. All parts of the release lead the listener towards the consideration of a very specific topic Ð namely, war and violence, and the deeper connections to human nature. Stripped of the clothing of civilization, etiquette and socialization, we slowly become aware of reactions and purposes that exist deep within us embedded comma…
Alchemic Heart
"Alchemic Heart is a special project presented by Vampillia who have colored these two colossal compositions with beautiful contributions by members of the Boredoms, Jarboe (ex-Swans), Inswarm and Japanese Noise-God Merzbow. Layered strings, piano, bass, noise and voices are weaved mysteriously and expand as two magnificently parallel aesthetic worlds. Comprised of two pieces, 'Sea'/'Land,' a primitive landscape is created via listening and destroyed when the pieces are complete. Vampilli…
Clivages
"Clivages is Univers Zero's first new studio album in over five years. They have spent the last five years performing at prestigious rock and new music festivals throughout Europe and North America and ever-widening their audience. Founding members of the original "Rock In Opposition" [R.I.O.] movement and the inventors of "chamber rock", Univers Zero have continued to change and grow and develop over their entire career, while still keeping a ensemble sound and spirit that is easily recognizabl…
Only
Pieces by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Hanns Eisler, Giacinto Scelsi, György Kurtag, Frederic Rzewski, Henri Pousseur, Théodore Botrel, Rudolf Siecynski, and Sephardic songs. Performed/interpreted by vocalist Marianne Pousseur. "I like to listen to music in places that haven't been designed for it. I like when music mixes in with noise. Only came from a very personal desire to open the doors of my musical world to the concreteness of daily life, to tear down the fictional barriers between places a…
Birdtalking
'When dealing with female interpreters of the art of advanced vocalism, four personal favourites come to mind : Diamanda Galàs, Meredith Monk, Shelley Hirsch and - more recently - Non Credo's Kira Vollman. I'm afraid that I'll have to add a fifth chair at the table. I had already met Ute Wassermann in a great CD on Creative Sources, Kunststoff, a duo with trumpet player Birgit Ulher; yet, Birdtalking is one of those records that immediately raise all aerials, a top-rank effort in which a single …
Up and down the lion-revised
“The only existing recording by this legendary 1979 trio. Alexander von Schlippenbach and Sven-Åke Johansson was a working duo, when Peter Brötzmann joined them for a trio tour in Sweden in the fall of 1979. They were all three part of the strong growth of the free improvised music and free jazz in Europe. In 1979, though, the era of revolutions was already history. They had all played in groups that made any retreat impossible; not to mention their solo works. The music of the trio 1979 could r…
The unknown knowns
Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, alto saxophone & clarinet. Tor Haugerud, drums & percussion. Kim Myhr, guitars & objects. Martin Taxt, tuba. Muringa navigates playfully in a polarized world of opposites. Between speed and tranquility, industry and flora, violence and tenderness, noise and silence, chaos and order; Muringa gives the listener the hegelian third choice. The group consists of four of the most active improvising musicians from Norway. All occupied with other SOFA-projects such as Mural…
The Visitor
The Visitor is a seriously all-O'Rourke affair: all the sounds you hear are Jim and Jim alone, recontextualizing everything he's done over the years & throwing out the bullshit. The one thing you won't hear is his voice. Some of The Visitor is tracked so deep, it took two hundred tracks to hold it all. It doesn't sound like it though - to Jim's credit, the mix sounds very minimal, very straightforward. There's moments of low comedy next to high drama & juicy melancholy with a seeming lack of reg…
Malaikat dan Singa
Arrington de Dionyso is a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, synths and bass clarinet, does Tuvan throat singing and generally sings with the intensity of a madman. And despite being an America, on Malaikat dan singa he sings in Indonesian, which, thanks to his idiosynchratic singing style, makes him sound particularly demented. As it happens, the lyrics are adapted and translated lines from poems by William Blake. Not that you would understand a single one of them unless you know Indonesia…
Live At Hinoeuma
Full-colour Digipak. Recorded at the Red Rose, London. November 2003. Originally released in 2004 as a Picture-Disc LP by RRRecords (USA). Mixed by Paul Coates. Mastered by Paul Coates.
Troubled, Shaken Etc
Another album of unclassifiable experimental songs from British band the Sian Alice Group, who blend elements of avant-rock, folk and dark, cinematic tones for a uniquely atmospheric, inter-disciplinary sound. A Stereolab-like mix of pop modernism and Terry Riley minimalism gets the album started ('Love That Moves The Sun'), before all momentum is dismantled in favour of fluid ambience on 'Airlock'. From here on the band continue to genre-hop before stumbling upon a rich vein of balladry on trac…