Best of 2018
Whichever Way You Are Going You Are Going Wrong
Reissue label Emotional Rescue have dusted off a real classic here: Clive and Mark Ives’ 1982 debut, the only release on the brothers’ Sunshine Series imprint. As Woo, they blended rock, jazz, synths and ambience into thirteen spine-tingling trips: everything from deep Theremins and wailing strings on ‘C.H. Revisited’ to braying flamenco guitars on ‘Wapping’."Absolute unsung genius from the Ives brothers, who comprise Woo. On this debut LP of theirs, attenuated assemblages of finespun acoustic g…
Aa Sschmmettrroossppecctivve
1000 pictures and documents from the work and life of Charlemagne Palestine explode from the pages of the book, superimposed in ‘strumming’ layers, weaving the historical & present, works & performance, private & public into a tightly knit sschmmettrroobookk. Texts by Michel Baudson and Xavier Garcia Bardón.In 1974, the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, a great admirer of American avant-garde art, and Karel Geirlandt, the new director of the Centre for Fine Arts, invited Charlemagne Palestine to perform…
Two2 (2CD)
Landmark recording of John Cage's late work for two pianos, played by Mark Knoop and Philip Thomas. Uniquely for Cage's number pieces, Two2 doesn't use time brackets, so duration is open and left to the musicians' 'inner clock'. Previous recordings have lasted between 35 and 74 minutes, but this new version stretches across two CDs and lasts 128 minutes, revealing new depths and sonorities in the music. "A major achievement.”Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani, 9 March 1986
CD version. Unreleased archival recordings as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Around ten years ago, deep into a cozy and hazy night following a concert with my sound brothers Daniel O'Sullivan and Kristoffer Rygg in London (as Æthenor), they graciously introduced me to a recording of rudra veena (a kind of noble deeper bass relative to the sitar, in a way) as performed by dhrupad master Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. Dhrupad, for those who do not know, is a branch of Hindustani classical …
Face Time
Face Time is the second release from the trio of Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger, and James Rushford, following on from their 2016 debut Pale Calling (BT 020LP). Recorded at the GRM studios in Paris in June 2017, the record immediately returns to the idiosyncratic sound-world of the trio's first release, a simmering stew of electronic smears, pitched-down animal moans, and mysteriously emotive microtonal organ chords. But before long the record takes an unexpected turn, as sounds that initially ent…
Milan Rai Studio di Fonologia Musicale 1955-83 (Art Edition)
** Special edition 120 page large format Book/LP/CD/Insert – deluxe Hardcover with silver foil impression, custom inner sleeve, insert. Edition of 100 hand-numbered copies ** presents the proceedings of the homage organized at Milan’s Museo del Novecento from June 21, 2016 to January 14, 2017. This exposition (consisting of an exhibition, seminars, concerts, and listening and film sessions) was dedicated to the sound engineer Marino Zuccheri, the main collaborator of Milan’s famous electronic mu…
The executioner
First in a series of two releases unveiling the previously unissued soundtracks made for the films of Ursula Reuter Christiansen by her partner and collaborator Henning Christiansen. The Executioner ("Skarpretteren") is Ursula's first film from 1971 and is now considered one of the most important works of early Danish feminist art. A highly praised recent show at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen highlighted the pertinent themes and ongoing urgency which lies within this bold symbolic w…
Den Rode Skov
Second in a series of two previously unreleased soundtracks Henning Christiansen made for the films made by his partner and collaborator Ursula Reuter Christiansen. Den Røde Skov ("The Red Forest") was Ursula's second film made in 1986. In stark contrast to the exquisite romantic melancolia of their first collaboration, The Executioner (PP 034LP), Den Røde Skov resides as one of the wildest recordings in the entire Christiansen catalog. Aligned more with works like the legendary collaboration wi…
Canaxis 5
Exact LP repro edition. A few months after the foundation of Can, Holger Czukay recorded his first solo album ‘Canaxis’, in conjunction with producer/engineer Rolf Dammers, this album was assembled from thousands of snippets recorded from short wave radio, a long standing obsession of Czukay's which he also incorporated into some of Can's later albums. A refugee during the Second World War, Holger Czukay famously studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in the early ‘60s. That direct exposure to the c…
Dahl-Tah-Ghi
Okkyung Lee is a cellist, composer, and improviser who moves freely between of artistic disciples and contingencies. Since moving to New York in 2000 she has worked in disparate contexts as a solo artist and collaborator with creators in a wide range of disciplines. A native of South Korea, Lee has taken a broad array of inspirations—including noise, improvisation, jazz, western classical, and the traditional and popular music of her homeland—and used them to forge a highly distinctive app…
Pur En Finir Avec Le Jugement De Dieu
Fantôme Phonographique present a reissue of Pur En Finir Avec Le Jugement De Dieu by Antonin Artaud. Antonin Artaud was a French poet, dramatist, and director and one of the most important figures in 20th century European theater, and especially the avant-garde. His piece "Pour En Finir Avec Le Jugement De Dieu" was recorded in 1947 to be aired on French radio. But the project was shelved not only for its scatological, anti-American, anti-religious content, but also for its avant-garde sound, wi…
Tout Ce Que Je Sais
CD edition. The duo Anne-James Chaton and Andy Moor has produced original works where poetry and guitar combine in explorations of thematic axes. With the project ‘Heretics’, of which Tout Ce Que Je Sais (All I know) is the second part, they revive the most obscure, violent, erotic passions, summoning the great figures of their personal mythologies. In the company of Caravaggio, Marquis de Sade, William Burroughs and figures such as Jose Mujica, the duo immerses the listener in another wor…
Grand Bruit/Stop ! l'horizon
Christian Zanési on Grand Bruit (1991): "The great mobile sound bodies have an ordinary yet amazing ability to place the listener-traveler within, as if he or she was inside a giant double bass, in this case a train stroked by a double bow: the rails and the air. In 1991, I explored this phenomenon during my daily commute from the studio to my home. I used only a 21 minutes recording and treated it as a single sound object. I then processed and enhanced it as a photographer would have don…
Nirvana
Astonishing collage / tape music by ’80s Dutch collective featuring members of de Fabriek and Mekanik Kommando, among others. Imagine floating like a whale in the waters of the nordic hemisphere looking through the layers of water and ice to the sun the moon and the stars, and you might get closer to this LSD-infused release... Narwal was (is?) a band from the Netherlands, most active during the 80's. It consists of four members that were also active in two industrial groups (de Fabriek & Meka…
Riot
Hand-numbered LP. Edition of 400 copies. Re-dition of this John Duncan 1984 le Riot album: re-recorded, re-mixed at EMS and expanded with material that didn’t make the initial pressings, all taken from original 8-track master tape - which required them to revive obsolete machinery - and all re-mastered by Rashad Becker for this release; which, according to the legendary avant-garde agitator himself, is finally packaged in artwork befitting of his vision. Or take it straight from the horse’s gob:…
My Dear Killer
Death Waltz Recording Company is proud to present the soundtrack to 1972's Giallo My Dear Killer with music by Maestro Ennio Morricone. My Dear Killer (Mio Caro Assassino) was a 1972 Giallo directed by Tonino Valerii (The Assistant director on A Fist full of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More), it is easily one of the greatest of all Giallo films to come out of Italy and you owe it to yourself to track it down and watch it. The score form Maestro Ennio Morricone is absolutely outstanding and no…
Xylomania
Xylo-Mania is a concise collection of beautiful computer experiments. Using PRAAT, a software to analyse and manipulate speech on a signal basis, Francesco Cavaliere brings to life yet another part of his grand world. A world reading like a Landolfi or Gogol story; where the fantastic, the imagination and the creative meet. Here’s an artist inhabiting the Italian heritage - magic realism, flamboyant thinking, and self confident harmonization - soaking up references and dissolving it into …
‘Mars II’ Music for Automated Piano, Pianist and Ash
Incredible edition consisting of 2LP set in hardboard gatefold with black linen and embossed print, with large format booklet with extensive notes (in English), scores, illustrations and graphics, in a edition of 300 copies.‘MARS II, the vinyl’ contains the music composed for MARS II, the performance. In MARS II Karl Van Welden explores the impact of volcanic ash on the performance of pianist Frederik Croene and the sound he produces, playing on an automated piano. MARS II examines a momen…
Tint
Tint is the first new solo recording from Joe Talia in over a decade. Australian-born but now based in Tokyo, Talia is known to many listeners as a drummer (frequently collaborating both live and in the studio with artists such as Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke) and as a recording and mixing engineer responsible for dozens of releases across the fields of contemporary experimental music, wayward pop, and jazz. Alongside James Rushford, he is also responsible for one of the most legendary r…
Crying Bamboos: Ceremonial Flute Music from New Guinea
Double LP version. Crying Bamboos is a translation of the pidgin description of the sound of sacred flutes: "Mambu i cry, i cry, i cry". Sacred flutes are blown to make the cries of spirits by adult men in the Madang region of Papua New Guinea. Pairs of long bamboo male and female flutes are played for ceremonies in the coastal villages near the Ramu River. There are seven male initiation flute cries from Bosmun, four flute cries from Bak: Borai with occasional single garamut percussion and two …