Composition / Avant-Garde

200 copies. Light blue vinyl. Including an original insert that functions as Obi, with liner notes by Bradford Bailey and James Rushford.Fortunale is a string quartet by Marco Baldini, composed between 2024 and 2025 and recorded by Quartetto Maurice with Manuel Volpe at Okum Studio in Rivoli, near Turin, in October 2025. It began as a duo for violin and viola and found its final form as a quartet.The title is an archaic Italian word for an event brought about by chance, long used for a violent s…

"Vasco Trilla continues to be prolific through these turbulent times, including a recent release with Swedish improvisors on Creative Sources, Up North, after electroacoustic trio Behenii II  following as well trumpet trio Choreography Of Fractures (reviewed in October...) on Sluchaj. The latter was a continuation of various Polish collaborations for Trilla, including now In the no time — released on Canadian label Tour de bras, recorded November 2023 — with Pawel Doskocz (electric guitar) & Zof…

John Cage's Five Stone Wind (1988) and Cartridge Music (1960), both written for Merce Cunningham dances, played by David Tudor, Takehisa Kosugi and Michael Pugliese. 2008 remaster of the 1991 release, Cage Edition volume 4.

Written for theatre in 1987 using a host of avian and mammalian voices, snippets of unidentified musical material and electroacoustic noise- sculpting, as well as invented and real instruments played by Fred Frith. This was a hard time and the mood is intense, lean and not cheerful, though there are some gruesomely cheery inserts. There's no fat but a lot of meat here.

Earlier this year, Deutsche Grammophon announced and delivered one of the most exciting initiatives in recent memory: a brand-new audiophile vinyl reissue series dedicated to crucial avant-garde and experimental works from its own extensive catalog. Beginning with Luc Ferrari's Presque Rien No.1 / Société II (1970), Mauricio Kagel's Acustica (1972), and Tōru Takemitsu's Quatrain / A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden (1980), these deluxe limited editions completely blew us away, returning…

Works by Henning Christiansen for recorder, tenor flute, piano, tuba and bassoon, played by Michala Petri, Christoffer Møller and Jakob Munk at Klanghallen 44MØEN in 2023. Edition of 100 CDs.

Luigi Nono's Risonanze erranti, the 1986 song cycle for Massimo Cacciari on texts by Melville and Bachmann, for mezzo, flute, tuba, percussion and live electronics: Ensemble Prometeo and the SWR Experimentalstudio. SACD.

Audio edition of Heiner Goebbels' music-theatre installation for five mechanised pianos, archival voices and texts after Adalbert Stifter, recorded 20-21 October 2007 at the Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg.

Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel with music by Satie and Cage, played by Kim Kashkashian (viola), Sarah Rothenberg (piano, celesta), Steven Schick (percussion) and the Houston Chamber Choir under Robert Simpson, recorded in Houston in May 2012 and February 2013.

Galina Ustvolskaya's Trio (1949), Violin Sonata (1952) and Duet (1964), played by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, pianist Markus Hinterhäuser and clarinettist Reto Bieri, recorded in March 2013 at the RSI Auditorio in Lugano.

Facsimile reprint of Walter Zimmermann's book Desert Plants, his interviews with American experimental composers from a 1976 trip to America

The idea for this album began taking shape in 2021 and has slowly evolved into a seven-track snapshot of Juli Deák’s musical world and artistic thinking. Coming from the challenging, refined, and often seemingly flawless sound of classical music, the flutist began redirecting her musical voice toward a much more personal space through experimentation and improvisation. What eventually grew into this project originally began as a handful of unfinished ideas—which only revealed their true meaning …

Buh Records is proud to announce the release of "Cello in My Life", the new album by the renowned Ecuadorian composer Mesías Maiguashca. This deeply personal work reflects an intimate exploration of the relationship between the cello and the artist's life, realized in collaboration with celebrated cellist Gaby Schumacher. The album features six remarkable compositions spanning Maiguashca’s career from 1972 to 2015. Each piece offers a unique perspective on his groundbreaking approach to music, b…

Silver Apples of the Moon' is without a doubt the best known work from influential composer and electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick. It was originally commissioned by Nonesuch records back in 1967, when electronic music was more of a series of ideas than a recognised art form, and since then it has achieved well deserved classic status, influencing so much that would come after it is impossible to conceive. Subotnick's instrument of choice was the Buchla modular synthesizer, a gigantic pat…

Circles is one of Luciano Berio's most captivating works: a setting of three poems by e.e. cummings for female voice, harp and two percussionists, in which the words are gradually taken apart into their sounds and the singer moves physically among the instruments, so that voice and percussion end up trading roles. It was written for Cathy Berberian, the "Callas" of new music, and her performance here remains the reference. Around it are three of the Sequenzas, Berio's lifelong series of virtuoso…

Few figures of the American avant-garde wore as many hats as Earle Brown. Composer, graphic notation pioneer, member of the New York School alongside John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff - but also, and crucially, a record producer whose ear shaped one of the most important document series in 20th century music. Between 1960 and 1973, working first for Time Records and then Mainstream Records, Brown curated the Contemporary Sound Series - 18 LPs presenting works by 49 composers from 16…

Two of Phill Niblock's final compositions for low-pitched instruments, heard together as he intended: BLK+LND for acoustic bass and bass clarinet, K&L for KL for two bass clarinets, both built from recordings layered into slow microtonal mass. Completed weeks before his death in January 2024. LP with insert.

Five works for six or four percussionists in surround sound: Xenakis's Persephassa, Mâche's Aera, Zihua Tan's Sorites and two pieces by Alcides Lanza, played by the Music in Motion Ensemble directed by Aiyun Huang.

The complete Imaginary Landscapes 1-5 and Credo in US by John Cage, with radios, phonograph records and percussion, played by Percussion Group Cincinnati in the first volume of the Mode Cage percussion works.

Dr. John Chowning (b. 1934) is a pioneering computer musician, composer and professor who, in 1967, discovered the FM synthesis algorithm. This breakthrough in electronic music allowed for  simple, yet rich timbres described as sounding "real." With this discovery, Chowning composed singular, dramatic electronic music and changed the timbre of music forever. Chowning utilized the potential of computers to synthesize sounds according to programmed instructions. The composer's use of his own FM al…

Morton Feldman plays piano in a 1978 Deutschlandfunk concert recorded in Cologne, with flutist Eberhard Blum and percussionist Jan Williams: Why Patterns?, Extensions 3, Intermission 5 and The King of Denmark.

Two first recordings of John Cage's Scottish Circus (1990) with the Scottish traditional group The Whistlebinkies, plus indoor and outdoor versions of 4'33" for ensemble, recorded at Inverleith House in Edinburgh on DVD with bonus interviews.

Five world premiere recordings of orchestral works by Mexican composers Hilda Paredes, Ana Lara, Andrea Chamizo, Marcela Rodríguez and Georgina Derbez, with the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Scott Yoo.

Tip!  Frozen Reeds is proud to present Mark Fell’s ‘Psychic Resynthesis’, an instrumental work performed by Explore Ensemble. This double LP, with included digital download, is the label’s 8th release, arriving 13 years after its foundation. Fell is a multidisciplinary artist, composer, and theorist based in Rotherham, UK. Renowned for his rigorous and conceptual approach to electronic music and sound art, his work explores the limits of structure, rhythm, and perception through a blend of compu…

Christian Wolff's complete works for bass, played by Robert Black under the composer's supervision: Look She Said, Jasper (with violin), String Bass Exercise out of Bandiera Rossa, Dark as a Dungeon (with trombone) and Untitled for electric bass-guitar.

“It is not enough just to play the right notes at the right time in the right way; one must also have the right consciousness. It places the performer in the role of explorer of the interior in order to produce, and being still in order to be active.” — Pauline Oliveros "These words, spoken by Pauline Oliveros, remind us of how fundamental an influence Alvin Lucier has had on the development of new music and its interpretation; they remind us of our role as explorers of sound, and of the irresis…

*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-third release »Iannis Xenakis: Eonta« featuring recordings by Ensemble Schwerpunkt, Lorenzo Soulès (piano), Edicson Ruiz (double bass), Dirk Rothbrust (percussion) und Peter Rundel (conductor). The album includes Iannis Xenakis’s music for brass from four decades, from Eonta (1963-1964) to Linaia-Agon (1972), Khal Perr (1983) and Mnamas Xapin Witoldowi Lutosławskiemu (1994), amongst others. In addition to the recordings produced by the WDR, it al…

Xenakis Edition volume 13: works for soloist and ensemble by Iannis Xenakis, played by members of the International Contemporary Ensemble under Steven Schick, with the first recording of Zythos for trombone and six marimbas.

A new vision of John Cage, via his complete works for string quartet. Spanning forty years of the artist’s activities, these three masterworks illuminate the different stylistic periods in the output of this 20th century icon.

Jürg Frey, the Swiss composer, clarinetist, and central figure in the Wandelweiser collective, presents three recent chamber works—all written for and performed by the Prague Quiet Music Collective, with one piece featuring the Norwegian new music group asamisimasa. These compositions mark a significant evolution in Frey's aesthetic. As Ian Mikyska of the Prague collective explains, "Jürg is neither writing the music he used to write nor writing the music that anyone expects of him"—moving beyon…

*2025 stock* Famous for his examination of unusual and exotic instrumental sounds, here Mauricio Kagel focuses on the most mundane of sound materials. While attending a music trade show, Kagel was taken by the many levels and orbits of sound activity emanating from the various booths and stages. In 'Playback Play' (subtitled 'News from the Music Fair, A Radio Piece') he has arranged a spatially sensitive tableau of crowd noises, sales pitches and fragments of the sort one hears in music store sh…

Hymnkus Thoreau Drawings Two features three rarely encountered works by John Cage, interpreted by Apartment House. The album brings together the sparse, spatial interplay of “Two”, the poised transformations of “Thoreau Drawings”, and the hypnotic, layered repetitions of “Hymnkus” in performances marked by clarity, restraint, and ensemble sensitivity.

Mind is moving (IX) is a composition for guitar by Michael Pisaro-Liu, affiliated with the avant-garde composers group The Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble. Pisaro's work can be characterized as experimental minimalism, often utilizing silence, a minimum of musical material, and extended composition durations. This version is executed by Slovenian guitarist Primož Sukič.

Kayn's earliest keyboard music in historical recordings: Fünf Kleine Klavierstücke (1952), Divertimento (1955), Quanten (1956) and Fractals (1994) on the first disc; on the second the studio Quanten and Diffusions (1965) for one to four electronic organs, from Sonology in Utrecht.

Kayn before the machines: orchestral scores from 1957 to 1966 on the first disc, Sequenzen, Aggregate, Vectors I and II, Signals; ensemble works to 1974 on the second, including Phasen for speech sounds and four percussion groups. Premiered at Darmstadt, Venice, Warsaw and Hamburg.

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…

Roberto Fabbriciani plays the complete flute works of Henri Pousseur, including Flexions I, Éclipticare and Zeus joueur de flûtes with live electronics by Alvise Vidolin, plus the 1957 tape piece Scambi.

Harold Budd is a one of a kind modern neo-classical artist creating high-callibre and complex music with unique and subtle tension and abstraction, and simultaneous almost-pastoral but as-often otherworldly mood.

anabasis (1) is a composition in 72 parts for five musicians, based on four kinds of materials: Sand, Wind, Tone and Wave; these materials are arranged and intertwined with a fifth ‘Interludes’ strand that interacts with the four materials. All of these are then ‘unbound’ over the course of the piece by changing continuity in a variety of ways outlined in the score. This interpretation of the score is a live performance that features prepared reed organ, electromagnetic pick-ups, sand, pedals, D…

This album presents Annea Lockwood’s complete concert piano works, born from a deep collaborative journey. It culminates in a new version of Ceci N’est Pas Un Piano, where voice and memory resonate through the piano’s frame via transducer speaker.