Best of 2015
Sand/Layna
"Sand/Layna is the first full-length solo release by Canadian sound artist crys cole. While cole is known to many through her collaborative work with a host of Canadian artists and internationals such as Oren Ambarchi, Keith Rowe, and James Rushford, this LP presents the first opportunity for an extended appreciation of her singular approach to amplified sound. Using contact and other microphones to amplify her interactions with small objects and the surfaces on which they rest, cole's work …
Second Selection
**restocked, last copies** Oren Ambarchi's Black Truffle dig out a masterclass in minimalism from the extensive, unreleased archive of seminal American composer, Arnold Dreyblatt A major collection of archival recordings by seminal minimalist composer, performer, instrument builder and visual artist Arnold Dreyblatt. Following on from the archival compilation Choice (Choose Records, 2013), Second Selectionpresents eleven pieces selected by Oren Ambarchi from Dreyblatt's extensive archive of pr…
Die Unsichtbare
**restocked, very last copies copies*Mindblowing!! Truly an amazing edition, and finally the mythical 'invisible' LP is here! The music tracks on the two records "Unser Debut"-LP (1984) and "Sechs"-LP (1986) were composed in such a way that by playing them simultaneously on two record players a new unity came about. The invisible LP is literally invisible, immaterial and only heard when the two records Text, music and rhythm of the tracks of both records complemented, doubled and shifted one an…
Macro
Ultra-limited early Robert Turman archival release, Macro was originally going to be titled Roots, because it really goes back to what I was doing 40 years ago, just more modernized technique. I had always taken small snippets of tape and records, repeated them, slowed down, modified, and layered etc, Macro was all done on the computer. I'd been thinking about how in the old days, pop songs were always between two and three minutes long. Most of my music has always been longer extended pie…
Sacree Obsession
Masterpiece!!! ""Sacrée Obsession", the new album from the australian percussionist extraordinaire Will Guthrie, comes out of his continuing research into repetition, the ritual, physicality through volume and mass, and complexity through the development of simple ideas. combining pulse and rthymic ideas with melodic and pitch based textures he has succeeded in making truly unique music. obsessive development of minimal material is not new in will guthrie's music, from his brutal tribal l…
Altri Occhi Ci Guardano
Other eyes look at us - the literal translation of „Altri Occhi Ci Guardano“, the new record by Squadra Omega - applies in many ways to its sound and aesthetic. The Italian collective takes on the form of a three-piece for the time being, resulting in a double album paving the road from inspiration to innovation. Embarking on the trip that is this record means to enter a white room whose walls have a distinct grounding that evokes the ghosts of like-minded sonic adventur…
Underground Railroad
2015 restock. First time vinyl reissue of Joe McPhee's classic CJR LP from 1969. Exact repress of the original artwork. Trumpeter and saxophonist Joe McPhee's first album, Underground Railroad, has been virtually impossible to find on vinyl, issued in an edition of 500 copies on Craig Johnson's CJR label -- it was recorded next to Johnson's house at the Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York. It sold out and was never reprinted on vinyl until now. Underground Railroad is comprised of thr…
Chamber Rites
Chamber rites is an encounter based on sharing emotions, on audio-visual exchange, on the practice of radical improvisation, characterized by a location or context, of which we define a part of its mobile architecture. Ours is a ritual whose coordinates – spatial, temporal and performative – are traced by signs, at the same time enigmatic and visible, sedimented in time” (Fabrizio Casti and Elio Martusciello, 2015)Fabrizio Casti is an italian experimental music composer that operates also in acu…
Once
From the bizarre Polish-cinema-inspired imagery of the album’s artwork to the private-press aesthetics of the original LP, the Once soundtrack has long been a mysterious artifact among rare film and electronic music collectors alike. Written and directed by ‘the father of virtual reality’, the obscure art film is an allegorical tale of‘Creation’ and ‘Destruction’ and the battle for humanity. With no surviving prints of the film traced to date, allthat remains is the remarkable soundtrack. Compos…
Live at Cafe Oto
Double CD edition: hard to imagine a more powerful or intriguing, improvising power trio than these 3: Charles Hayward on drums (This Heat and Massacre), Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple) and Guy Segers (Univers Zero) caught in wild act at Cafe OTO, London, on May 24, 2013.
- "...[Kawabata is] a genuine Guitar God..." --Pitchfork - "Hayward's interest in all manner of world rhythms and percussion... lent the music an otherworldly quality..." --Pitchfork - "Darker and more bleakly melodra…
Munster Bern
Peter Brötzmann is described as mad by some and as the 'Godfather of free jazz' by others. His improvisational musical horizon ranges from violent outbursts and delicate, dreamy fantasies. The Live recording of his solo concert at the Münster of Berne from october 27th 2013 is an extraordinary contemporary document. "Solo performance has long been a vital part of Peter Brötzmann’s practice, but recordings of such sessions have been few and far between – at least until recently. Albums like 198…
Coma
Outstanding!!! Karl Bosmann is a German post industrial electronic innovator. On this LP and Art edition release he works with a curetronic modular system ,a mopho and his Korg MS-20. The Coma theme, while stimulating an outpouring of electronic and sampled creativity, has its origins in a close friend’s post motorcycle accident coma from a few years ago. Karl describes the long drawn out process of observing the coma as both awful and yet fascinating at the same time. The album tracks show the …
Pacific Tubular Waves/Immersion
Restocked. Packaged with 3D cover art; includes Anaglyphic 3D glasses. "Pacific Tubular Waves" (1979): Electronic music for Synclavier digital synthesizer. "The first four movements frame different visions of the energy delivered by the rolling waves as a kind of auditory surfing on the crest and into the trough of the wave (movements 1-3), followed by a high speed crossing within the tubular cyclone (4). The piece ends with easing waves at dusk... In terms of the making, 'Pacific Tubular …
Natural Information
Eremite presents the first CD edition of Joshua Abrams's acclaimed 2010 LP Natural Information, now out of print on vinyl. Abrams's first record for Eremite is another fascinating entry in his discography of recordings that gather aesthetic input from all over the map into vivid personal statements. At the heart of Natural Information is the guimbri, a three-stringed animal hide bass traditionally used by the Gnawa people of North Africa in healing ceremonies. Combining solo, trio, and qua…
Sleepwalkers In A Cold Circus
On Sleepwalkers in a Cold Circus Belgian sound artist Koenraad Ecker creates a biotope of musical characters that is sober, delicate, complex and vivid, with a restrained intensity, a “cold fire.” The characters discuss, hesitate, fight, pull closer, push back. Through the use of microtonality and recordings of acoustic instruments it is the elusive sound of a somnambulistic travelogue. “I’m searching for ways to create an intricate narrative, switching perspectives and voices within one form, t…
Deviate from Balance
John Wiese's long awaited Deviate From Balance is the artist's first album since 2011's Seven Of Wands (PAN). Recorded throughout Europe/UK, Australia, and the US, the album includes scored ensemble pieces including over 20 musicians on each, recorded in Melbourne and Portland, as well as audio documentation of installation pieces Wind Changed Direction, a four-channel sound piece presented in the garden of the Getty Center (curated by Liars), and Battery Instruments, an eight-channel piece…
Outer Planetary Church Music
A friend of Aguirre recalls meeting Tim Robertson by chance in a thrift store in Barcelona, while eyeing a dusty Hammond organ: "He was born in Honduras, but moved out of there at a young age to several other countries such as Perú, France, and Norway. His parents were devoted to some religious organization and they were spreading the word all around. The last place they were sent to was Barcelona, hence the reason he was there. He learned to play the keyboards as a kid and performed in c…
General Tempo
Second full length for the duo of Riccardo Mazza and Matteo Castro. Two long compositions that, while presenting the usual elements of the duo, made of tape works and field recordings, move forward, in a path in which the skeleton of the pieces is built on sounds of mechanisms and engines, manipulated through reel to reel, tape machines and digital effects. Tense and dynamic, the traces of this work move between a careful observation of the landscape and those repetitive, somehow …
Live at Metro Al-Madina
Restocked again, very last copies, hurry up....Awesome one! This one is very easy to describe: among all qbico and a-star records combined together (around 150/200 LP), this is among the three most powerful ones. imagine a cross betw Kluster and Taj Mahal Travellers with a Middle East feel (musicians are from Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon); their 1st record, rec. live in Beirut. the sound that you hear at the end of the second clip it's not a monster's breath. THE ticket to the ride.
Absorb / Fabric / Cascade
Restocked / Second solo LP from Causa Sui guitar player and producer Jonas Munk. This is pattern music, characterized by slow builds and subtle, but refined transformations, where gradual tectonic shifts and tiny harmonic gestures generate vivid emotional responses. Instead of imposing any direct intention or meaning, it's an album that can create a mental environment for the listener to expand and open up into. "Absorb," taking up the entire A-side, is a piece of meticulous balance, stru…