Composition / Contemporary

2024 Stock. Wild Up’s Anthology engages with the complex history of Julius Eastman’s legacy and ideas, including the titles of his work. Each person involved in making this Anthology negotiates their position and relationship to the n-word; thus, the word appears in several permutations throughout. We chose to use Eastman’s given titles in the track listing to honor the composer’s intentions. With this seven-volume project, Wild Up aims to be part of the ongoing social, political, and artistic d…

2024 Stock. On June 17, 2022, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based new music collective Wild Up will release Julius Eastman Vol. 2: Joy Boy, the follow-up to last year’s Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine, a record that was hailed “a masterpiece” (The New York Times), “instantly recognizable” (Vogue), “absorbing” (Pitchfork, in its 8.1 review), and “singularly jubilant” (NPR, who placed Femenine among its top 10 records of 2021, across all genres). Arriving, once more, on New Amsterdam Records, Julius E…

2024 Stock. Out now, Los Angeles-based musical collective, Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine is the opening entry in Wild Up’s multi-volume anthology celebrating Julius Eastman, the late composer whose amalgamated musical vision was repeatedly dismissed during its day, but is now being unearthed to critical acclaim. Championed by The New York Times for their “boisterously theatrical sensibility,” Wild Up slowly comes alive inside this recording of “Femenine,” the epitome of Eastman’s longform “org…

Ainon, a Helsinki-based ensemble founded by cellist-composer Aino Juutilainen, returns on We Jazz with their second album, out 6th September. On Within, the four-piece plays music influenced by jazz, contemporary music and classical music, all morphed together into a highly inspired musical vision that echoes the legacy of the likes of Abdul Wadud and Jimmy Giuffre. The music of Ainon might be best described as "avantgarde chamber jazz", with original compositions and the individual voices of th…

"When I discovered the simple and powerful black and white pictures by Valéry Lorenzo, in the 90s, I immediately fell in love with them. We became good friends and since then I ask him to let me use one of his photos for most of my album covers, or to make my portrait for press shots. It has become a real collaboration, music and images, for more than 25 years. It was then logical to ask him again for the cover of this box set, like a gentle reflection on my piano and strings era. It's a true ho…

Timothy Archambault’s unaccompanied flute pieces for this album have been inspired by Indigenous brontomancy (divination by thunder). Each piece highlights a different extended flute technique metaphorically related to types of thunder sounds: claps, peals, rolls, rumbles, inversions, and CG (cloud-to-ground). The Indigenous flute used in this recording is made of cedar respective to the traditional woods used by the Kichesipirini and other tribes who live along the Ottawa & Saint Lawrence River…

”The earliest and still predominant influences on my conceptual attitude toward art were the works of Alexander Calder and Jackson Pollock ... the integral but unpredictable ‘floating’ variations of a mobile, and the contextual ‘rightness’ of the results of Pollock’s directness and spontaneity in relation to the materials and his particular image of the work…as a total space (of time).”   Earle Brown’s influence on the avant-garde community has been philosophical as well as tangible and practica…

Major contemporary composer finally getting the vinyl treatment he deserves! Grosskopf has been a key figure in the Berlin new music scene since the 70s - his string quartets are precise, luminous constructions that breathe and pulse with an inner logic all their own.

*2024 stock* Three recordings of three different performances from the 60's written and directed by Bruno Maderna.

Formed in Cambridge in 1969 by Tim Souster and Roger Smalley, Intermodulation started out as a 4 piece group with the addition of Robin Thompson and Andrew Powell (who soon moved on to other Cambridge projects, including a pre Chris Cutler Henry Cow). Powell was replaced by Peter Britton, and this incarnation of the group remained for the duration of their existence.  Having releasing a box set of works by Gentle Fire it felt necessary to do the same with Intermodulation and thus complete the ot…

In Galgenlieder à 3, Christian Morgenstern’s whimsical Galgenlieder merge brilliantly with the haunting musical language of Sofia Gubaidulina. This unique song cycle, consisting of voice, percussion and double bass, brings Morgenstern’s playful and surreal poetry to life. Gubaidulina’s composition captures the essence of each poem through various expressive techniques, from normal singing to whispering and chanting. With imaginative interludes and an inventive use of motifs and intervals, this w…

Icelandic composer Snorri Hallgrímsson releases "Longer Shadows, Softer Stones", his debut for Deutsche Grammophon. The EP will be released on 180g vinyl and contains six tracks written and produced by him. The multi-instrumentalist Hallgrímsson, who has already impressed with his skillful reinterpretations of works by Satie, Schumann and Boulanger, takes on the vocals and plays piano as well as electronic elements. He is supported by strings from the Reykjavík Orchestra under the direction of V…

*Limited edition - 1st press of 118 audiophile CDr ephemerals* Defined as "the best secret of Italian music" (Gigi Razete-La Repubblica) Celletti actually has over 20 record albums under her belt with English and American labels, concerts all over the world and millions of listens on Spotify. Graduated from the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, she comes from a classical background, but her inclination to experiment has broadened her experiences with forays into rock, avant-garde and electroni…

With Elisabet Curbelo as your travel guide, you may hear the world in a whole new light. Her debut album, Resonance Unbound, invites you to expand your aural imagination and follow in her musical footsteps through places she has lived including the Canary Islands; Madrid, Spain; Istanbul, Turkey; and San Diego. This album is a sonic exploration of her nomadic life, where diverse influences manifest through words, sonorities, instrumental resonances, organic shapes, and the resonant chorus of urb…

Miguel Angel Crozzoli’s album "Sounding Numbers" explores the intersection of climate data and music. This album features two compelling works: I Am the Forest and I Am the Ocean, both born from transforming scientific data on deforestation and ocean contamination into sound. Through innovative sonification techniques and a blend of electronic and acoustic instrumentation, Crozzoli creates immersive soundscapes that resonate emotionally and inspire action against climate change. Let the haunting…

This album presents the innovative works of Gabriel Iranyi composed between 2012 and 2022. It includes two string quartets and their unique extensions with human voice and the Chinese mouth organ sheng. Iranyi’s compositions explore profound musical spaces and subjective experiences. The album features the intense String Quartet No. 4, the intricate String Quartet No. 5, the emotive Four Love Poems by Paul Celan for soprano and quartet, and the captivating quintet for sheng and string quartet Th…

New vinyl reissue in facsimile gatefold edition, includes original liner notes by Wolfgang Sandner in enclosed booklet.

Absolutely beautiful LP of intimate drifting lo-fi piano nostalgia from Hokkaido’s Mashu Hayasaka on the store's own imprint.

This companion to our Messiaen et Autours de Messiaen collects together another classic group of works for Onde Martenot and piano, this time by Darius Milhaud, Andre Jolivet, Arvo Part, Kazuo Fukushima and Francisco Semprun, collected together here for the first time: an essential chapter in the history of a remarkable instrument. The performances are immaculate and the sound transparent. A pleasure from beginning to end. Historic.

Taku Sugimoto is a Tokyo-based guitarist and composer known worldwide for his highly restrained minimalistic compositions and performances. Wakana Ikeda, also based in Tokyo, is a flute player who also composes music. Sugimoto and Ikeda pursue similar musical directions and often perform together. Pere Xirau is a drummer/percussionist from Barcelona. Xirau came to Japan in the summer of 2023, and on July 16 he performed at Ftarri, Tokyo, in a trio with Sugimoto and Ikeda. This CD contains two pi…

Other Minds is pleased to present Polytempo Music, a new recording by American composer Brian Baumbusch with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Polytempo Music draws influence from Indonesian gamelan music and minimalism, with their interlocking rhythms, stable harmonies, and kaleidoscopic instrumental colors. Conceptually, it also owes a debt to Conlon Nancarrow's rhythmic experiments. Building on those foundations, Baumbusch invites us to explore an advanced heterophony—multiple ins…

Huge Tip! The new Girolamo De Simone album is finally out. In his own words "The title, ‘Liturgy', refers to a certain method of creating music, it involves a process that is analogous to a ritual, starting from the moment of composition. This process has the ability to evoke a heightened state of consciousness, where the focus is on perceiving others from one's own perspective and being fully present in the current moment. The essence of the action or movement in this music lies in the transiti…

Chinese-American composer Kui Dong draws inspiration from old forms, employs unusual instrumental combinations, and even commingles four languages within her compositions on this collection of world premiere recordings. The major work Shui Diao Ge Tou and Song is performed brilliantly by San Francisco’s adventurous choir Volti, led by conductor Robert Geary, who also presents the heartfelt Let Frogs and Crickets Carry It On with the Piedmont Children’s Choir. Pianists Sally Pinkas and Evan Hirsc…

Felipe Lara’s music is a whirlwind of energy and motion, characterized by large, expressive brushstrokes that leave palpable traces. His works are in constant flux, pulsating with spectral harmonies and iridescent surfaces. This album includes the three ensemble works Chambered Spirals, Fringes and Ventos Uivantes, as well as Injust Intonations, a reflective solo piano piece. Each composition showcases Lara’s unique ability to combine intricate textures with dynamic, expansive gestures to create…

Carol Plantamura and Frederic Rzewski met in 1965 when they were both at the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo. After beginning to work together in 1966, they collaborated in Rome as members of the improvising collective Musica Elettronica Viva, and from 1966 to 1970 they performed together throughout Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany as a piano-vocal duo. Jefferson was written for Carol Plantamura in 1970 as part of a seri…

George Lewis (b 1952) combines an astonishing level of creativity with trenchant critiques of many traditional conceptions about experimental music. The four compositions on this album reference a wide range of ideas, from rhetoric in Ancient Rome to actor network theory, and the album's eponymous composition finds its grounding in the concept of the "assemblage," (or agencement in French) a pragmatic, material, non-teleological approach to composition. Among the album's compositions, Mnemosis (…

The melodic and, in the case of the solo piano music, timbral materials from which Christian Wolff's (b 1934) music is made are rarely unusual; these are ordinary, everyday things. However, Wolff's rhythmic invention is of great range and variety: complex polyrhythms, speech-like-rhythms, the music flowing at a freely fluctuating rate or proceeding in a plain, straightforward manner, silences. This mix of unusual and ordinary results in a music unlike any other. And, in a piece of such length as…

James Romig (b 1971) endeavors to create music that reflects the intricate complexity of the natural world, where fundamental structures exert influence on both small-scale iteration and large-scale design, obscuring boundaries between form and content. Still, for solo piano (2016), inspired by the paintings of Clyfford Still, comprises 43 individual "Iterations" that may be performed in a continuous unbroken strand of music that lasts approximately 55 minutes, or it may be divided into smaller …

The title Dialogues and Contrasts describes the nature of the exchange which takes place between the performer and the materials committed to tape. In the first movement the exchange is more in the nature of an argument. Though initially each side appears to favor an independent thematic course, as the movement progresses the performers engage in direct response to the statements on tape. The second movement is more subdued and reflective, with many solo passages, particularly from the French ho…

The immersive sonic textures that characterize Michael Winter's (b 1980) music are crafted from comprehensive lists of data, with each composition encompassing a musical question that is addressed algorithmically. A performance lasts for as long as it takes to "answer" the question, expressing all results as efficiently as possible. Winter leaves room for unanticipated results by keeping things open, notably in the instrumentation, which, rather than specifying instruments, tends to designate ce…

Ezra Sims (1928-2015) was known mainly as a composer of microtonal music. Surrounded by world-class performers who championed his music, he produced a large number of chamber and solo, choral, and two orchestral works. With his unwavering commitment to his unique vision, he made an enormous contribution to modern music. This retrospective spans his entire career, almost fifty years of compositional activity, and is an excellent introduction to his very distinctive sound world. Sims’s lyricism an…

Lejaren Hiller (1924-1994) is, understandably, best known for his computer-assisted compositions and works utilizing electronics. The three pieces included in this collection span a crucial fifteen-year period in Hiller's career. The first was written two years before Quartet No. 4 for Strings, The ILLIAC Suite. The second work was written three years into his time as a music professor at the University of Illinois, while the final sonata in this collection was written during his second year at …

Elusive and illusory, Age Veeroos’ music captures a unique tension between focus and ambiguity. The album "Outlines of the Night" presents compositions in which, for example, violin and electronics, as in Schattenseele, evoke corresponding sensations of a “shadow soul” through obsessive, circling motifs. In Keha for bass clarinet, physical and biological processes are musically embodied, oscillating between registers. Fantasia “A Threadbare Chant” and Ma olen suur kuu su silmapiiril further demo…

Born in Michigan but for most of his life a true Californian, Robert Erickson (1917-1997) had a reputation as a maverick. His musical path was never a straight line, nor, really, a line at all but a landscape, with ranges of features rather than mere points of interest. He was a profound and original musical thinker who embraced the expressive possibilities of all music, from the Western classics and moderns of his own early education to Indian and Balinese traditions and all manner of contempor…

Rory Cowal is a distinctive pianist, one who draws liberally on classical chops, ample experience with improvisation, and a predilection for the new and uncharted. This makes him especially attractive to composers who wish to blur the boundaries between traditional styles and genres. A musical adventurer at heart, Cowal seems drawn to challenging and unusual projects. The eight pieces on this CD reflect this willingness to experiment, to not just play the same old (now canonic) warhorses of the …

"All his life, my father played the trombone and sang; just before he died, he became a music critic. He said "Chords, yes Alvin, but it needs more melody." SCHTYX was the answer. It opens with a dotted quarter at 50. From the start, implications appear and never cease. They remain open for business like a river. The melody, first thought terminal, is recycled on a child's buzz saw, but then reappears as a mensch. Ten minutes later, it turns up a 5/4 Waltz scrutinized by a group of unemployed ha…

With "Distant Fragments", Camilo Mendez presents an album of solos and duos that showcase his most intimate and reflective works, creating a rich sound tapestry. While Mechanical Resonance I: Iridescent Resonance explores cloud luminescence through prepared violin and viola, Five Fragments deals with the themes of variation and polyphony. Cancion de la Distancia, on the other hand, reflects the fleeting nature of memory and time, inspired by Arturo’s poetry. Recorded by Roberto Alonso, Linus Fun…

In the heart of 21st-century Japan, Yu Kuwabara emerges as a composer of remarkable versatility and resilience. Inspired by Japanese mythology, Buddhist chants, and Edo songs, Kuwabara explores the energy of the Japanese language through her compositions. Her works, such as Bai and Dharani and Toward the Brink of Water Or the Verge of Dusk, blend Western classical influences with traditional Japanese elements. Kuwabara’s research in traditional arts fuels her innovative approach, capturing the f…

Near Distant by Michelle Lou explores the intricate interplay of stasis, time and perception. Lou’s compositions challenge conventional interpretations, presenting music as a constantly evolving landscape. Through “static” or “stasis-variation” she reveals the complexity within seemingly unchanging sounds, inviting listeners to explore subtle transformations in pitch, timbre and dynamics. This album embodies Lou’s unique approach, emphasizing our active role in perceiving and transforming the in…

"Zensolence" embodies the auditory canvas of Osmo Tapio Räihälä, a synaesthetic composer who transforms the visual into the musical. For Räihälä, art forms transcend their mediums and speak a universal language through diverse expressions. His experience of colours, shapes and textures in music is reflected in this eclectic album, where the traditional meets the innovative. Räihälä draws inspiration from the abstract and translates it into a musical lexicon that is as diverse as it is distinctiv…