Reissues
Silberland Vol 1: the Psychedelic Side of Kosmische Musik
Fellow humans, Bureau B invite you on an expedition to Silberland, a singular span of spacetime created by Germany’s sonic futurists of the seventies and eighties. Embracing the early electronics and tape experiments of the sixties’ avant-garde, these artists aimed to boldly go, eschewing small steps for giant leaps into a nebulous and novel sound.
1. Die Partei – Strahlsund2. Rolf Trostel – Two Faces (bureau b edit)3. Michael Bundt – Full Steam Ahead (bureau b edit)4. Moebius – Etwas (bureau b …
MEZ 31'00 (Experimenteller Elektronik-Underground DDR 1989)
*In process of stocking* Dieter Zobel aka Didier Leboz: serial tinkler, inventor, freestyle freak Tension. Performance. Resistance - our Zonic Spezial documenting underground cassette culture in the latter years of the GDR caused quite a stir when it first appeared in 2006. A collaborative effort with the legendary ZickZack label and Verbrecher publishing house, “Spannung. Leistung. Widerstand. Magnetbanduntergrund DDR 1979-1990” (to give the work its full title) caused many listeners, especiall…
Acht Gesänge Der Schwarzen Hunde
*In process of stocking* 'When in 2006 our Zonic Spezial "Voltage. Power. Resistance. Magnetic Tape Underground GDR 1979-1990" was published in cooperation with Verbrecher Verlag and the legendary label ZickZack, there was some amazement. Especially when the enclosed CDs were listened to from a Western perspective. Part of this weird Kassettentäter-Ost potpourri of swirling post-punk variety, which Bert Papenfuß, Bo Kondren, Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok compiled with well-founded interpretive…
A Slightly Curving Place (Book)
Softcover, English, 180 pages, A Slightly Curving Place asks what it means to listen to the past and its absence which remains. It responds to the practice of acoustic archaeologist Umashankar Manthravadi, whose life and work are a history of sound and technology through the second half of the twentieth century. As a self-taught acoustic archaeologist, he has been building ambisonic microphones since the 1990s to measure the acoustic properties of premodern performance spaces. Comprising a range…
We Have Delivered Ourselves From the Tonal - Of, Towards, On, For Julius Eastman
2022 Repress * Softcover, English, 260 pages, B/W*An absolutely stunning achievement, “We Have Delivered Ourselves From the Tonal – Of, Towards, On, For Julius Eastman” - published by Archive Books and SAVVY Contemporary - gathers a collection of essays, librettos, lyrics, memories, photos, personal anecdotes by musicians, visual artists, researchers and archivers that pays homage to the work and life of African-American composer, musician, performer, activist Julius Eastman. Clocking in at 264 …
Unreleased 1974 - 2016
Available for the first time on CD, this is another collection of essential pieces from one of the originators and masters of this style. These recordings were selected from the personal collection of Tony Oxley and were mastered for this release with superb sound by Karsten Lehl under Tony’s supervision. Some of the pieces were edited into their final composed form many years after the original recording was made. Performed by a who’s who of European improvised music, this new release is an e…
Alla Periferia Dell'Impero (LP)
500 numbered copies Remastered from the original tapes. Like many of his peers, Mino Di Martino first emerged within the context of popular music, working in numerous Italian beat bands, before finding enormous success as a pop star as a member of I Giganti, whose 1971 LP, Terra in Bocca, is often cited as a spark for the sea change in Italian music that would emerge over the coming years.
After his experience with Albergo Intergalattico Spaziale (together with the actress and singer Edda 'Terra…
La Banda Del Sole (LP)
500 numbered copies Remastered from the original tapes. Orange Vinyl During the 1970s, Italy was one of the most exciting and fascinating musical contexts in Europe, birthing seminal projects and artists like Franco Battiato, Aktuala, Lino 'Capra ' Vaccina, Giusto Pio, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Futuro Antico, and so many more. Defining the scene was an ethos that rigorously pursued creative freedom and experimentation, with its artists fluidly moving between popular music - rock, prog, jazz, etc. -…
Coalescence of Time: Other Conjectures on Future
Sigillum S, have been covering unknown territories among extreme electronics, fringe acoustics and occultist noise since 1985.The result has been an endless series of mutations, where, from the droning ritualism and ethnic explorations of the late ‘80s through the surreal science fiction soundtracks of the ‘90s, they have arrived at the super deep complexity of the new millennium.
The Growing Concern
*In process of stocking* The sole album by US Psychedelic Folk Rock unit was released in 1968 on Mainstream, the label ran by famous jazz producer Bob Shad. After launching a young Janis Joplin with the Big Brother And The Holding Company, he tried to repeat his commercial triumph with The Growing Concern. However, the band was a different proposition altogether with its emphasis on beautiful vocal harmonies and fantastic guitar and organ work. Consequently, Shad only allowed the group into the …
Visions Of Audio
*In process of stocking* The final installment of the electronic fusion projects that Walter Bachauer concocted for Klaus Schulze’s Innovative Communication label, Visions of Audio delves further into minimalist musique concrete, extending themes developed on Memorymetropolis in drawing on non-European vocal chants, here applied in dissociative layers. The diverse, complex arrangements include the symphonic synths of ‘Promised Land’ and the war-mode Sensurround of ‘1922 In Baku,’ as well as the …
Oasis
*In process of stocking* “Another psych holy grail, finally seeing the light of day. Oasis was an American rock band from Marin County, California active in the 1970s. They eventually morphed from the prog-folk ensemble R J Fox. Their self-titled debut album was released as a private press in 1973 by the Cranbus label in a small run of 150 copies, imagine that…The record was in fact never released in the States but only in Canada, such a mystery today. Coming from the west coast the band - led …
"O Bidu" Silencio No Brooklyn
*2022 repress* O Bidú: Silêncio no Brooklin is the fifth studio album by Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist Jorge Ben. It was recorded with Brazilian rock band The Fevers as Ben's backing musicians and released in 1967 by Artistas Unidos, a small-market record label based in São Paulo.
The album was recorded while Ben was living in Brooklin, a neighborhood of São Paulo with Erasmo Carlos. Its title is a reference to a car that Ben owned at the time and the subtitle is a joke on a neighbor…
Kazuki Tomokawa 1975–1977
Tip! A poet, soothsayer, bicycle race tipster, actor, prolific drinker, self-taught guitarist, and living legend of Japanese sound, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-folk scene in the mid-1970s, forging a sound and sensibility marked by throat-wrenching vocals and searing ennui. Among his musical peers in postwar Japan, Tomokawa distinguished himself as a pioneer of radical individualism. He had “the personality of a hydrogen bomb”—as the notorious ultraleft band the Brain Police on…
Finally, His First Album
Tip! At the tender age of twenty-five, while he was working part-time at an Italian restaurant in Tokyo’s Kamata district, Kazuki Tomokawa released his debut record, fittingly titled Finally, His First Album. While he had already penned hundreds of songs, including his first single “Try Saying You’re Alive!,” written on a long train ride past fields and rice paddies, it was this recording that introduced Japan to one of its most unique musicians of the postwar era. Each track, as record label …
Straight from the Throat
Tip! In the 1970s, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-garde scene with his cathartic and utterly electrifying performances. Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa’s second album, released in July 1976 by Harvest Records, finds the musician in his truest form: as the “screaming philosopher” he would come to be called—cynical but fair, cheeky and melancholic, and looking at the world with truth-seeking eyes.
In Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa shrieks and shouts and wallows with ritualis…
A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth
Tip! In a generation of musicians that came of age in postwar Japan, Kazuki Tomokawa stands as a pioneer of radical individualism, with a sound marked by shocking intimacy and blistering honesty. In his third album, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth, released by Harvest Records in 1977, Tomokawa creeps “ever more inward,” as Kiichi Takahara writes in the record’s original introductory text—embracing an attitude pervasive amongst musicians of the time who interrogated the prosaic…
Emak Bakia
Emak Bakia – a long out of print masterpieces from 1994. Even in the huge Bryn Jones' discography Emak Bakia really stands out of albums from the period due to its rather unique (house-music related) sound and short, by the standards of Bryn Jones, tracks. Like a crossmix between Psychic TV (circa Towards Thee Infinite Beat) and Muslimgauze's trademark percussion and eastern vibes. Re-mastered and with new stunning artwork.
Natural Sources
"Some albums show you right away what kind of spirit backs them. Ronald Snijders solo debut from 1977, Natural Sources, is one of these. It begins with a free improvised, sometimes scatting flute and while the flute goes more and more crazy some scat vocals join in to make this first track a kinda strange affair. Jazz, free and spirited, seems the way but Ronald Snijders, son of Surinamese composer Eddy Snijders, outwits us in all our tiny minded expectations with the next song already. An everg…
Equator
*300 copies limited edition* British post-industrial / ambient group O Yuki Conjugate arrives on Aguire with a vinyl run of their previously CD only 1995 release Equator. Coming four years after their lauded Peyote release, the group split and reformed into their Mk II phase with the two original members Roger Horberry and Andrew Hulme, along with Malcolm McGeorge, Dan Mudford & Pete Woodhead (who later went on to form Sons Of Silence on Leaf Label).
Making use of the emergent technology of …