Reissues
Cool Jojo +4
*2022 stock* Masayuki Takayanagi, who has a free jazz pioneer, gives his answer to the turbulent 1970s. His homage to Tristano-Konitz, a return to his roots, is a ritual to reach new heights for a new era." - Koki Hanawa
Sunrise/Sunset
*2022 stock* "Mindblowing sounds from Japanese bassist Isoo Fukui – one of a handful of 70s players on that scene who really helped reinvent the sound of his instrument in jazz! Isoo really drives the group here up from the bottom – by playing both bass and cello with these well-inflected notes that are heavy on soul and rhythm, and which often enforce a modal sensibility that's carried out perfectly by the vibes of Kazuhiro Matsuishi and piano of Hideo Ichikawa! A few numbers feature guitar fro…
Physical Structure
*2022 stock* Amazing 1976 record by drummer George Otsuka, Physical Structure is an amazing jazz-fusion record featuring Fumio Karashima on piano and Fender Rhodes and Shozo Sasaki on tenor sax. Check the surprising and sublime cover of Naima which alone justifies to get this record! Personell list: George Ostuka (drums), Shozo Sasaki (tenor and soprano sax), Fumio Karashima (piano, electric piano and synthesizer), Mitsuako Furuno (bass), Norio Ohno (percussion).
Step!
*2022 stock* Naosuke Miyamoto Sextet's Step!, originally released in 1973. A fantastic modal jazz album, led by Naosuke Myamoto on bass, with Masayoshi Yoneda on the piano and Takashi Goto on saxophone. On One For Trane, the group delivers a strong and amazing moment of spiritual jazz. Also features Kunji Shigi (trumpet), Takashi Furuya and Shoji Nakayama (drums). Produced by Takeshi Jujii. Recorded on August 25, 1973.
Harps of the Ancient Temples
2022 Repress Very often, the greatest artists just don’t fit. They stand out there on their own, and fall in strange, unexpected zones, often occupied only by themselves. This is was certainly the case for the American harpist, Gail Laughton, who’s lone, the 1969 LP, Harps of the Ancient Temples - long championed and hunted by record collectors - is finally receiving the vinyl reissue treatment after roughly a half century out of print. A truly stunning and visionary piece of work with almost no…
De natura sonorum
2022 much-needed repress! One of the true masterpieces of acousmatic electroacoustic composition. Master of subtlety and timing, Parmegiani takes us into a world of delicate and refined clusters of sound, swirling around, popping and crackling like waves breaking onto beaches of lava. Natural and electronic sounds are collected and assembled in the best way possible. The definition and resonant qualities of his tones are unparalleled. Bernard Parmegiani'sDe Natura Sonorum (1975): Premiered at th…
Music Promenade / Unheimlich Schön
** 2022 Repress ** "Music Promenade" (1964-1969): Electroacoustic Music, world premiere for the Théâtre de la musique, March 16, 1970 "Hétéro-Concert". Permanent version for four stand-alone tape recorders. A series of colliding realistic sounds and sonic images. Whilst walking, a man is struck by the violence of his surroundings. Nature has disappeared in a whirlwind of warfare and industry in the midst of which he encounters a dying folklore and a lost young girl. The "Installation" version is…
Fractals / Brain Fever
2022 Repress "Fractals" (1981): Composed at the GMVL from December 1979 to September 1981, this work was commissioned by Fnac. Fractals are mathematical oddities that, when crossing our path, turn the smallest island into an immensity to be explored. "Fractals" is a series of short studies, all based on the same sound source. Seeking in the sound and its very logic a proposal upon which a construction is elaborated, each Fractal remains open and is a mere fragment of itself. "Fractals", music p…
La grande vallee / Micro-climat
** 2022 Repress ** "I wonder if my fascination for clouds (without being an obsession) may have risen at the end of the '80s as, whilst composing 'Micro-climat', I would regularly wander between the Vercors mountains and the high plateaus of the Monts du Forez discovering, through my eyes, body, breath, active observation and walk, that natural forms when constantly changing and yet swollen with a unity of matter (in this instance, water) open one up to a deep, fundamental breath and a clear fie…
Persepolis
One of the milestones of electroacoustic music: Iannis Xenakis’ mindblowing 54-minutes oeuvre “Persepolis”, mixed from the original 8 track tapes by Martin Wurmnest“Persepolis” is the longest electroacoustic composition by Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) who ranks among the most influential 20th century avantgarde composers. Commissioned by the Persian Shah, the piece was part of a multimedia performance – Iannis Xenakis' so-called “polytopes” – which premiered in 1971 in Shiraz-Persepolis (Iran) as …
Diamorphoses / Concret Ph / Orient Occident / Bohor
Iannis Xenakis's early electroacoustic works define already the compositional space he is using later in his mature, almost one-hour long works like Persepolis or La Légende d'Er. After arriving in Paris as a Greek refuge in 1947, Xenakis quickly found a work as construction engineer with the architect Le Corbusier. He tried in vain for several years to become a member of the Groupe De Musique Concrète (GRM) and thus to gain access to the electroacoustic studios at the French radio. Pierre Schae…
Taurhiphanie / Voyage Absolu Des Unari Vers Andromède / Gendy 3 / S.709
Iannis Xenakis's late electroacoustic music became electronic: all sounds are synthetic "explicit computer music" as Peter Hoffmann called it. The music presented here shows Xenakis's way back from spatialized immersive music and multimedia spectacle to simple loudspeaker music. The sound does not move anymore, there are no synchronized visuals: nothing remains but structured noise. Xenakis used two inventions he had already presented in the context of the Polytopes: sounds created by stochastic…
Labyrinth Of The Inner Ear
Tip! ** Full colour 6 page dvd-type embossed digipak. 300 copies. In Terry Fox's own words: "For the exhibition "Sonambiente", I will produce a new audio work for compact disc. The title of this work will be "Labyrinth of the inner ear" and it will be recorded in Berlin on the 14th and 15th of April 2006. The compact disc will be produced directly after the recording process and presented, during sonambiente, in a room of the former polish embassy. This will be a kind of "drone" work consisting …
Morning Flight
*2022 stock* Recorded in 1973, “Morning Flight” by trombonist Hiroshi Fukumura is a stunning modal and spiritual jazz album! Genius work from Japanese trombonist Hiroshi Fukumura – working here at the helm of a twin-trombone group that also features the talents of Shigeharu Mukai – in a style that's filled with soul and free-thinking imagination! The two players work together beautifully here – avoiding any of the cliches of trombone-heavy groups from the past – and instead, using the open-ended…
Standards
*2022 stock* Sublime release from Masaru Imada Trio. Imada's got a way of letting a tune really find its way organically – almost as if the songs here are little flowers opening up in his fingers on the keyboard of the piano – although never in a style that's "flowery" at all, because Imada's a master of finding just the right notes at the right moment – never embellishing things just to show off. Instead, his imagination finds all the best paths forwards, especially on his original tunes on the…
Alone Together
*2022 stock* "A lyrical duo work that was created during the legendary Czech-American jazz bass player, composer, also occasional saxophonist George Mraz's tight schedule. Imada's original, light "Blue Road" and romantic "Blue Rain" will make you intoxicated." - Koki Hanawa
It's OK To Be Happy (1999-2001)
Early and mostly previously unreleased recordings from Dundedin's The Strange Girls, a band that initially consisted of Clayton Noone, Kaaterama "Motty" Morehu and Jon Arcus. The Strange Girls existed on and off from 1999 up until Motty's passing in 2019 and left behind a peculiar trail of gems scattered around on a myriad of limited lathe cuts, cassettes and CDrs. It's OK To Be Happy focuses on the trio era - Jon Arcus left the band in 2002 - and starts at the very beginning with 'Satan', the f…
Ya Cha Ban
Second limited edition of 30.* Ya Cha Ban is a hill to the north of Lijia Village, a village in South China, where Li Jianhong grew up. On one side of the hill lies a woodland graveyard where the village ancestors are buried, the other hillside, facing the sun, used to be local kids’ secret playground, it also buries Li Jianghong’s own sweet childhood memories. Li Jianhong left the village in 1994 for Hangzhou, the capital city of the province, he would move on to establish a career as a versati…
Electronic Minimal Music 1979-83
Super Tip! 3LP Set. The rediscovery of J D Emmanuel by critics and audience in the early 2010s and Emmanuel's comeback to the underground scene were crucial in reweaving the development of electronic music in the early '80s. This deluxe three-LP set casts new light on Emmanuel's first activity of composing and performing electronic music in 1979-'83, collecting experiments never before released on vinyl, some of which are previously unreleased in any form. Certainly seminal minimal works such as…
Fire Music Reloaded
Fire Music was composed by Reynols in 2002 with fire recordings made at Tigre (Río Capitán) and different locations in Buenos Aires city and around. With some of this material, a CD EP appeared in Japan in 2002 through the Digital Narcis label, however the complete version of this piece remained unreleased for decades. In a recent research the masters of the whole work were found and rescued from the group's archives. So twenty years later, finally the full version of this piece is now ready to …