Reissues
The Heavenly Ladder
Awesome hardcover book containing an in-depth analysis (plus an actual performance on the accompanying cd) of Adof Wölfli’s music by Baudouin de Jaer. Subtitled: Analysis Of The Musical Cryptograms. Belgian composer Baudouin de Jaer was completely moved by the artistic and human dimensions of the mystery surrounding the gigantic and universal body of work created by Adolf Wölfli within the Waldau hospital in the early 20th century. He managed what none other had accomplished before: to decode …
Lumiere (For Synthesized and Concrete Sound)
This real masterpiece of Concrète and Synthesized music was no more available since its original manufacture in 1973. Dub Taylor is an US composer, producer, engineer and designer born June 22, 1948 in Burbank, California. He has many creative facets: recording and mastering engineer, record producer as well as composer, graphic designer and visual artist. He has studied with pianist Richard Bunger and composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Not long after the release of Lumière, Taylor established Varg…
Live In Tokyo, August, 19th 1974, Part Two
Part two. This double album (divided into two LPs), recorded live at the Nippon Columbia Studio in Tokyo in 1974, was the group's final effort before disbanding. Here Kosugi and the Travellers blend Eastern and Western instrumentation, vocal chants and electronics to create free-form psych-laden drones. This historic album is an essential and influential piece of Japanese avant rock." Part One LP, clear vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited…
Live In Tokyo, August, 19th 1974, Part One
This double album (divided into two LPs), recorded live at the Nippon Columbia Studio in Tokyo in 1974, was the group's final effort before disbanding. Here Kosugi and the Travellers blend Eastern and Western instrumentation, vocal chants and electronics to create free-form psych-laden drones. This historic album is an essential and influential piece of Japanese avant rock." Part One LP, clear vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited edition …
Die Geheimnisträge
A lovely audio book edition comprising more than six and a half hours of exceptional audio entertainment, read by Wolfram Berger and accompanied by music from the col legno catalogue. The legendary aktionist artist Günter Brus’ selection of music includes composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Luciano Berio, Morton Feldman, Olga Neuwirth, Luigi Nono, Salvatore Sciarrino, Franz Koglmann and others.
Swing Low Sweet Spiritual
Following a few years spent living and playing in Scandinavia, an unknown saxophone player by the name of Albert Ayler returned home to the USA to begin imposing his revolutionary style of jazz on the world. Having recorded his debut album, My Name Is Albert Ayler for the Danish label, Debut Records, this session (which took place in New York City on 24 February 1964) was his first American effort, resulting in the eventual release of two albums: Spirits (released in 1964 on Debut) and Swi…
Spirits
After a few years spent living in Sweden and touring with Cecil Taylor's Jazz Unit, Ayler moved to NYC to begin imposing his revolutionary style of jazz on the world through a number of groundbreaking records. Spirits, recorded at Atlantic Studios in New York City on 24 February 1964, was his first effort. Recorded a few months prior to his landmark album for ESP-Disk, Spiritual Unity (but only released in Europe on Denmark's Debut Records), for the occasion Ayler recruited Norman Howard …
Silenzio
*Italian language edition* This volume presents fully translated into Italian the landmark texts of the post-World War II musical avant-garde. Master John Cage revolutionized the traditional and academic concept of music and pushed into new frontiers of sound experimentation by applying the method of composition through consultation of the I Ching. And without forgetting to fascinate the reader with the narration of episodes from his life, which rise to the role of Zen parables.
We Sing For The Future & Thamann Variations
Recorded in 2002 by American contemporary composer and pianist, Frederic Rzewski, We Sing For The Future & Thälmann Variations are two compositions from English composer Cornelius Cardew’s Marxist-influenced 'People’s Liberation Music' period. Rzewski came to prominence in the mid-sixties in Rome as a founding member of the MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva) improvisation group (along with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum), which shared a vision with groups like Cornelius Ca…
Complete music for prepared piano
Awesome complete prepared piano recordings by Giancarlo Simonacci. The prepared piano, which Cage invented in the early 1940s, was such a brilliant invention that no one would have blamed him for spending the rest of his life writing for it. A lesser composer would have done that; Cage being Cage he spent the best part of a decade creating a sublime body of work for it and then promptly moved directly onto his next preoccupation - indeterminacy - and never wrote for the prepared piano agai…
Falls Of Time
Ahead of their time, the enigmatic Italian band A.t.r.o.x. were one of the first bands to move beyond the new wave styles and introduce strong electronic elements, an abstract-minimal heart attack in the best possible way. Lovely double CD set with their entire production.
Through Glass Panes
Ellen Fullman's first proper full length for Important Records follows her collaborative work with Barn Owl (imprec327) and a split LP with Eleh (imprec318). She was also featured on The Harmonic Series: A Collection Of Work In Just Intonation (imprec272).
In 1981 Ellen Fullman began developing the Long String Instrument, an installation of dozens of wires fifty feet or more in length, tuned in Just Intonation and ‘bowed’ with rosin coated fingers. Fullman has developed a unique notation system…
How To Get Started
"John Cage conceived How To Get Started almost as an afterthought -- a performance substituting for another that was previously planned in 1989 for delivery at 'Sound Design: An Invitational Conference on the Uses of Sound for Radio Drama, Film, Video, Theater and Music' presented by Bay Area Radio Drama at Sprocket Systems, Skywalker Ranch, in Nicasio, California. In his introduction, Cage talks about the difficulty of initiating the creative process, while exploring the usefulness of im…
Color Him Coma
The first CD in this set is a reissue of an obscure cassette release from 1983 that was originally released in a small edition on the London based, It’s War Boys label. This C60 consisted of 2 distinct halves. Side 1 was formed around several mixes of an experimental track, constructed from a room-sized 24 track loop. A version of this track first appeared on the LP Flagellation by The Just Measurers (who were C. D. Greyt, Yakkö Banovic and Narki Brillans).Side 2 is a collage of mostly unused (a…
Who Can I Turn To Stereo
It has much in common with Krautrock (yes, again!), particularly the tape editing (Can, Faust), as well as the modulation and splice experiments of 20th century classical avant-guardists (Stockhausen, Henri, Cage etc.). But these are just touch points, rather than starting blocks. This music has something deranged about it (like The Residents), but it’s very listenable and not nearly as hard work as I’m probably making it sound (unlike (much of) The Residents.). Synthetic rhythms pitter patter a…
Great White Wonder
Originally released in 2006 on the Univive label, Phoenix Records presents this highly-collectible, numbered limited edition 5LP box set of three live gigs spanning 1974-1977 and live material from a 1980 gig of legendary Japanese rock outfit Les Rallizes Dénudés. The group was formed in 1967 and incredibly, for a group that had only one official release (Oz Days Live, a double vinyl compilation release in 1973), played their last gig almost 30 years later in October 1996. As news of new ro…
Cable Hogue
Another crucial release from the highly influential and reclusive Japanese psychedelic noise band Les Rallizes Dénudés. Originally formed in 1967, the band was known for its ties to avant-garde theater groups (as typified by Shuji Terayama's troupe) and leftist political groups, and their feedback-drenched live shows and use of strobe lights and mirror balls onstage earned them comparisons with The Velvet Underground. In 1970, bass player Moriaki Wakabayashi was involved in the hijacking of J…
Kokkyou Junreika
Tokyo playwright, director and artist J.A. Caesar sprang to prominence in the early '70s largely through his work with Shuji Terayama's Tenjo Sajiki Theatre, specializing in vaguely sinister music reminiscent of a Hammer House Of Horrors soundtrack. 1973's Kokkyou Junreika release, often considered Caesar's finest work, was culled from the 5 hours of music written for the original play, distilled down to an album's worth of ageless chants, Buddhist mantras, heavenly invocations and fuzztone g…
Catch-Wave
Takehisa Kosugi is an inter-media artist and performer who started his career back in the '60s in Tokyo. With his first band Group Ongaku (free anarchist-conceptual improvisations) he was introduced to the Fluxus avant-garde movement. During the '70s, he was a member of the mystical, psychedelic, droning rock band Taj Mahal Travellers. He co-founded the band in 1969. Since the end of the '70s until now, he has released several solo albums and commissioned works for events and sound installa…
The Shivering Man
The Shivering Man, originally released in 1986 on Mute, was Bruce Gilbert's second solo album. Following on from his 1984 masterpiece This Way (EMEGO 102CD), it further explores Gilbert's investigations into the grey border where abstract noise and rhythm co-exist with obscure melodies and song structures. The sound is further expanded with guest vocal appearances by Angela Conway and fellow Wire traveller Graham Lewis. This is also the first time the complete album is available domestically on …