Best of 2015
Uchronia: Field Recordings from Alternate Realities
Uchronia : The Unequivocal Interpretation of Reality, is a multi-dimensional project realized in Bamako by photographer Maciek Pozoga and musicologist Christopher Kirkley. This body of work juggling between folklorism, science fiction and social documentary is presented at Galerie 12 Mail from September 4th to October 16th 2015 and it will be accompanied by Uchronia, field recordings from alternate realities, a vinyl edition to be released on the American label Sahel Sounds and by a publication …
Arc
** restocked ** Holotype Editions is pleased to present a new work by acclaimed sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard. Arc was originally commissioned for INMUTE '14 as a soundtrack to Carl Th. Dreyer's silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). In this new edit, running to just under 36 minutes, Kirkegaard's refined mastery of tone unfolds in two arc-shaped tracks dedicated to the LP format. In his score, Kirkegaard fragments and stretches music from Joan's time, aiming to expose the mystically cha…
Whited Sepulchres
2013 release. Minotauro, in collaboration with Svart present Whited Sepulchres, on of the best work ever released by the Italian doom metal alchemist Paul Chain's, that went out in 1991 album is also one of his most seldom heard. Released on Minotauro Records and barely distributed outside Italy, Whited Sepulchres is a cult item that demands rediscovery. Musically it mixes influences from Paul Chain's doom metal roots and esoteric themes with the kind of heavy psychedelic experimentation he…
Music for Church Cleaners Vol. I and II
** few copies back in stock ** 2015 repress, don't miss it "Over the course of several months, Áine O'Dwyer was given access to the pipe organ in St Mark's Church, Islington, while the cleaners were at work. Primarily a harpist, this was a rare opportunity to grapple with the 'king of instruments' and apply her sense of melodic, structured improvisation in a new context. Since it's impossible to exert complete control over such a recording environment, she entered into the sessions with a C…
No Fans Compendium
Restocked! The unplaceable, implacable Richard Youngs presents a personal selection of five CDs taken from his long-running private press imprint, No Fans, plus 2 discs of previously unreleased and very covetable early material. An enigma to most, us included, Youngs' output over the years stretches as far as the ear can see, from tangled modular pop craft to noisy psychedelia and cranky folk, earning him a considerable cult fanbase in the process. These CDs include some of his rarest mate…
Grm works
Restocked. Argentine electroacoustic composer Beatriz Ferreyra describes each of the pieces included on GRM Works: Demeures aquatiques (1967): "This electroacoustic piece, articulated into two clearly distinct parts, draws its sound source from the classical and unorthodox instruments -- metal sheets, glass rods, etc. -- invented by the Baschet brothers. I wanted to show the contrast between the rhythmic repetition of a sounding object, which gives out a feeling of fixity, an electroacoustic…
Magnetoception
Restocked!! On Magnetoception, Joshua Abrams is back exploring new contexts for the guimbri, the three-stringed north African bass lute at the heart of his Eremite recordings Natural Information (2010) and Represencing (2012). The artist's first large-scale work on vinyl, Magnetoception began as a commission by Eremite for Abrams to make a double LP based in extended performances by an ensemble of Abrams, guitarists Emmett Kelly and Jeff Parker, and drummer Hamid Drake. The group recorded the…
Aeonflower
An exploration of warped, dream-like atmosphere and taught, noise-ingrained electronics, Paper Dollhouse has evolved from the solo work of Astrud Steehouder into an expansive, cinematic project now involving multi-media artist Nina Bosnic. Recorded with a stronger focus on electronic processes and with a deeper, light-starved aesthetic, Aeonflower’s emboldened use of crushed-noise dynamics takes the London-based group’s debut “A Box Painted Black” (2011, Bird/Finders Keepers) frame into …
All Tense Now Lax
CD edition. Hermetically sealed and reveling in tumult, All Tense Now Lax is the most significant and developed work yet forged by Liberez. Based in main orchestrator John Hannon's remote studio No Recordings in Rayleigh, England, Liberez have expanded their palette from previous outings on Alter to produce a perfectly engineered machine that consumes the beholder. A tense, gut-wrenching listen wrought with carefully considered space, the range of techniques and the depth of atmospher…
Violet Art of Improvisation
** restocked ** Milestone!! Housed in a glorious mini-LP gatefold japanese style papersleeve packaging with custom OBI, double CD edition. This reissue of a largely unknown yet spellbinding touchstone in the canon of early doom music heritage is finally available again. Paul Chain has, in fact, stood as a pillar in the Italian metal scene for over three decades, launching his cult career with the infamous Death S.S. Everything the man has touched is gold. Some of the best releases ever, doom or …
To You
Fiercely beautiful Danish jazz from 1968, sworn body-and-soul to the legacy of John Coltrane, and the raw sense of music as a healing force, tearing through the cosmos — but with its own intensely compelling voice, on the line from Copenhagen, to you. So a searching, hurting version of Naima gives way to Meinert’s terrific, succinct, Lateef-flavoured tribute to Alice Coltrane and a thrilling set of modal originals, including a tender ballad for Martin Luther King. Remastered from the ta…
13
Room40 inaugurates its series of works by American guitarist and composer Norman Westberg with 13. Best known for his work with the seminal outfit Swans, Westberg's output beyond that group is sprawling and restless. His name recurs and ripples through many interconnected micro-histories surrounding New York City's music and art scenes. From appearances in film works associated with the Cinema of Transgression to his participation in bands such as The Heroine Sheiks and Five Dollar Priest, Westb…
Violin Reactions
Armando Sciascia – by day, notable composer for Italian erotic and exotic cinema – by night, experimentalist and nocturnal avant-gardener. Lovingly crafted in his hand-built Vedette studio, Armando Sciascia’s “lust for experimental research” has never been mre evident than on these precious, never before commercially released 1974 Library recordings. “Violin Reactions” is a violently unique work, studiously constructed out of multi-tracked strings, ominous VCS3 drones and the drum breaks o…
My Heart's In My Hand, And My Hand Is Pierced, And My Hand's In
**in stock, very last ones** This double LP, released by NERO magazine and Shady Lane Productions, gathers selected materials, both texts and audio recordings, from Phil Collins's project of the same name, for which Collins collaborated with guests of Gulliver, a self-described "survival station for the homeless" in Cologne, Germany. There, Collins installed a phone booth for free and unlimited local and international calls, on the condition that the conversations would be recorded and ano…
Recordings 1980-87
** restocked, last copies around ** Multi-talented, autodidact musician and devoted painter Leon Lowman became interested in synthesizers when he heard ELP’s Lucky Man in 1970. At that time Leon was working for various recording studios and sound companies in California and with his first paycheck he took a down-payment for the ARP 2600-Sythesizer (as well as a Mediamix Joystick for pitch bending) which he still uses until today. Ever since he used whatever money he could spare towar…
Recordings 1971-1983
** restocked, last copies around ** The new VOD American Cassette Culture box set documents American artists who were pioneers and protagonists of the late 70’s/earlry 80’s cassette-culture. It includes composers such as Steve Roach, Don Slepian, K.Leimer, Galen, Ken Moore, Young Scientist, Marc Barreca, Anode
While rock-music of the 70’s and 80’s became a worldwide mainstream corporate business the creation of the cassette format and a network in the late 70’s opened music production up to ev…
Syntheseis
One of the rarest & most legendary electronic privately pressed album from Italy has been finally reissued. If only its existence were known, this would be the so-called holy-grail of obscure electronic / experimental / musique concrete albums!! Issued in 1979 in an extremely limited private release - with (clumsily) hand-written titles on plain white hand-numbered sleeves and a xeroxed sheet with notes pasted on the back cover - by italian composer Corrado Canepa of superb pieces of tightly co…
A Small Prometheus
Robin Fox follows his 2010 solo album A Handful of Automation (DEMEGO 012LP) with A Small Prometheus, a significant work that exposes a very different audio-world to that previously encountered. In time since A Handful of Automation, Fox has been highly active with his widely acclaimed RGB (red green blue) laser show along with a collaboration with Atom TM (Double Vision), which premiered at Unsound Festival in 2014. A Small Prometheus was developed as a soundtrack to a dance work of the same na…
Mad Among The Mad
A Franco-Australian quintet active 2009-2013, Thymolphthalein worked in the field of live instrumental electro-acoustic music. Employing organizational frameworks stemming from open-from 20th/21st century composition, rhythmically-geared outsider electronics and systematized improvisational strategies, this is the music of the possible.Mad Among The Mad is the definitive document of six incredible electro-acoustic instrumental works performed by Thymolphthalein, following up their 2011 cult Edit…
Play the hits from Danny Dark
Walter & Sabrina were responsible for one of the greatest musical cycles of the last decade, a mind-boggling masterpiece ofexquisite and eccentric composition, outstanding lyrical concept and depth, and startling orchestration, whose scale can only compare with the musical and conceptual intricacy of classic masterworks such as Parks' Song Cycle, Battisti's Anima Latina, Gainsbourg's L'Homme a la Tete de Chou, Perfect Vacuum's A Guide to the Music of the 21st Century and a very few others.A proj…