Reissues
My Dear Siegfried
"David Behrman has been active as a composer and artist since the 1960s. Over the years he has made sound and multimedia installations for gallery spaces as well as musical compositions. Sam Behrman and Siegfried Sassoon met in 1920, when Behrman, then a young writer working at The New York Times, was sent to interview Sassoon at the start of the English poet's postwar American lecture tour. In that tour Sassoon was billed as 'England's Soldier-Poet.' He had a reputation both as a war hero and …
Wave train
"double lp reprint of the famous david behrman wave train compact disc issued a couple of years ago. experimental music from 1959-68: 'canons' featuring david tudor on piano and christoph caskel on percussion; 'ricecar' a prepared piece performed by david behrman in the early 1960s; 'wave train' a powerful feedback piece performed live with gordon mumma; 'players with circuits' a combination of live electronics and amplified acoustic sound; 'sounds for a film by bob watts' for outdoor environmen…
Leapday Night
A series of three pieces/suites; 'Leapday Night', 'A Traveler's Dream Journal', and 'Interspecies Smalltalk' involving Rhys Chatham/Ben Neill (on trumpet/mutantrumpet), Fluxus mainstay Takehisa Kosugi (violin), and David Behrman himself on electronics. Behrman creates thickly layered liquid sounds utilizing this complex computer music system which absorbs, actually hears, the sounds of instrumentalists, then plays off their improvisations with its own synthesized reactions. The system consists o…
On the Other Ocean
On the Other Ocean is an improvisation by Maggi Payne and Arthur Stidfole centered around six pitches which, when they are played, activate electronic pitch-sensing circuits connected to the "interrupt" line and input ports of a microcomputer, Kim-1. The microcomputer can sense the order and timing in which the six pitches are played and can react by sending harmony-changing messages to two handmade music synthesizers. The relationship between the two musicians and the computer is an interactive…
Oramics
Restocked; 2007 release. Daphne Oram is best-known for the design of her Oramics system, and also for co-founding the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1957, but until the release of this material, the only easily-available piece of music by her on CD was the 8-minute long "Four Aspects." There was also a 7" EP from 1962 on HMV, released as part of the Listen, Move and Dance series that was specifically designed to help children dance. Although the short pieces on this record are very basic, it could …
Instants D'Hiver - Summer Band
Daniel Teruggi (1952-) studied Physics, composition and piano in Argentina. In 1977 he moved to France where he studied at the Paris National Conservatory. In 1981, he starts working at INA (National Audiovisual Institute), at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM). In 1997 he becomes Director of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales of INA, a position he kept until his retirement in 2017. From October 2001 to 2016 he was simultaneously Director of the Research and Experimentation Department of I…
Sphæra
In Daniel Teruggi's own words: Between 1984 and 1989, my acousmatic work was focused on processing and merging the four fundamental substances. Each « element » gradually became articulated with the others, thus crystallizing my subjective perception of their materiality. Over the years, helped by the enthusiasm of a Greek friend who propelled me into the Socratic universe, what started out as an exploratory path has become a circular, spherical unity, in which each occurrence simultaneously bel…
Piano Music 1959-70
‘Piano Music 1959-70’ is a reissue of an album that enjoys cult status
among Cardew aficionados. The standout piece remains Volo solo (1965),
conceived originally for Tilbury as an attempt to coin a new type of
virtuosity. Cornelius Cardew expected it to be taken at a reckless tempo so that,
as he wrote, ‘the piano should seem to be breaking apart’. But the
material he gives the pianist – 60 inchoate fragments interlinked by
pauses – trips impetus up, the structure left with a hiccuping
s…
Chamber Music 1955-64
Restocked, reduced price. The works on this CD represent arguably the most experimental and radical works to come out of Britain in the past 40 years. Cornelius Cardew's scores from the early 1960's are notable for their elegant, original and precise notational scores, labyrinthine blueprints for realisation as totally new and original compositions. They are open to ever new interpretations whose possibilities are restricted only by the creativity of the performer. It is this responsibility laid…
Two Films
Including the films 'Hashima, Japan 2002' (installation and documentary versions) and 'Al Qasr, Bahriyah Oasis, Egypt 2005'. Plus 'filmmakers in conversation'. 'Straddling the line between documentary and audio-visual meditations on landscape, the Hausswolff-Nordanstad filmic partnership taps both the detritus of human civilization and its uncanny ability to withstand the forces of nature. In 'Hashima, Japan 2002' we are given a portrait of the Battleship Island off the coast of Nagasaki, a form…
Fennesz plays
This is seen by many as the "turning point" between early Fennesz electronic abstract works such as the Instrument 12" and Hotel Paral.lel CD, and the more guitar-based works such as Endless Summer and Venice. The two tracks, "Paint It Black" and "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)," were initially released as cover versions of songs by The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, respectively. Since then, via the relevant mechanical and publishing rights, the world has ruled that these tracks …
Musica Mundana / L'Estran
'Musica Mundana': Mixed, fusion and root music, work on 'harmonisation' of various music and vocals. A genuine alchemy! 'L'Estran': What a beautiful metaphor is this piece of coastline. It conveys an impression of in-between, uncertainty, contraries. After studying music in the French National Music School, a decisive encounter with Ivo Malec, Guy Reibel, Jacques Lejeune and Jean Schwarz at the GRM will introduce him to electroacoustic music which he will afterwards focus on. He has composed aro…
Chrysopee Electronique-Bourges
One of the best in the series, a collection devoted to works realised in the Bourges studios, as well as the Annual Volumes of the works of the International Academy of Electroacoustic Music.
Early Piano Music (1951-1961)
Early Christian Wolf piano music (written 1951-61), performed by: John Tilbury & Christian Wolff (pianos), Eddie Prevost (percussion). Studio recordings from 2001/2. "During the period when these works were composed (1951-61), Christian Wolff was closely associated with John Cage. Morton Feldmon, Earle Brown and David Tudor (they are sometimes referred to together as the New York School'). Feldman later remarked that he was profoundly indebted to Christian Wolff ('I think of him as my artistic c…
Solo
It took long enough. The electric kit finally gets a chance to speak for itself. I won't try to describe it, but it's been pretty much my main work of the last three years. I can't say it reminds me of anything else but, naturally, I suggest you buy it.
Sacred Bordello
2004 release. Special edition of Sacred Bordello (originally published by Black Dog Publishing) bundled with a limited edition CD released by Alga Marghen. As one of the most influential figures of experimental music and performance, Charlemagne Palestine has remained an enigma. Unlike his illustrious contemporaries Terry Riley, John Cale, Steve Reich, and Phillip Glass, little has been written on Palestine and his continuing influence. In his own right, he was and remains today a pivotal person…
negative sound study
Negative Sound Study was composed in 1969 directly on a historical Buchla 100-System experimental synthesizer available at the Intermedia Centre of the New York University. Charlemagne Palestine was dreaming of an expressive continuous evermoving, everchanging sound form; an enormous sonorous, 3-dimensional sculptural canvas in mid-air using electronically produced sounds. The first experiments were done with simple sine tone generators emitting the purest sound waves without any overtones. With…
Godbear / Jamaica
Originally released on the Barooni label and sold out since a long time. Charlemagne palestine and Alga Marghen have decided to make the two cds available in a new 2cd set edition. The cds are a new print of the original ones, both included in a newly designed slipcase. Godbear. Flying. In the stratosphere of the overtones. Turn out the lights. Close your eyes. Trance out. Into SONORAMAGNIFICATALAND. Pushed by Remy Martin cognac, the piano would replay the encoded performances exactly in three p…
Insomnie
2nd album from 1987 by this French trio made up Gilbert Artman (post-Lard Free, Urban Sax), Jac Berrocol and Jean-Francois Pauvros. Chaotic, experimental rock & wave.
Hinterland
Carlos Roque Alsina is an Argentinean-born composer who tends to mix acoustic and taped sounds together in a manner that evokes natural sounds to some degree, something of a more programmatically inclined Iannis Xenakis. The title piece combines piano and percussion with taped sounds that often possess an organ-like quality. While the acoustic instruments dance around each other in intricate patterns, the tape heaves and respires ominously, depicting the sort of backcountry that's unsettling in …