Composition / Contemporary

Marcos Díaz has been part of Buenos Aires underground for many years, being in projects like Bosques and making solo music under the pseudonym Entidad Animada (animated entity). Under this project, Marcos has explored sounds that involve a mix of feedback/distortion through synthesizers, guitars and drum machines that hint at the influence of Stereolab, Spacemen 3, and mid-nineties shoegaze. However, there are also ambient soundscapes with a slight rubbed of the ritualistic psychedelia of the Po…

Saltern presents a thrilling new live recording of Naldjorlak for solo cello, composer Éliane Radigue’s first piece for an acoustic instrument, paired with a remastered version of the long out-of-print, original 2006 recording. Composed in 2005 in close collaboration with cellist Charles Curtis, Naldjorlak marked a striking shift in the music of Radigue, who has since composed exclusively for instrumentalists with her celebrated Occam series. This album brings together two complete performances …

'Continuité, fragilité, résonance' is a 51-minute piece written by Jürg Frey in 2020-2021 for octet: string and saxophone quartets. The Montréal-based Quatuor Bozzini and the Bern-based Konus Quartett premiered the piece in September 2021, and later recorded it for this album with the presence of the composer, during a three-day recording session in August 2022 at the Auditorium of Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland. Both quartets have premiered other works of Frey's in the past and have a d…

This release brings together three Dutch composers/performers, Reinier van Houdt, Germaine Sijstermans, and Koen Nutters, who have each released their own work on elsewhere music in recent years. Nutters, who has collaborated in the past with both van Houdt (Cornelius Cardew project) and Sijstermans (DNK Ensemble, The Names), conceived the idea of a trio performance with the two musicians, which later developed into this three-way collaborative project. Last December the trio played a concert at…

L’Occhio Del Vedere is a one-hour piece by the trio of Giovanni Di Domenico (piano), Silvia Tarozzi (violin, 1/16th of a tone tuned violin), and Emmanuel Holterbach (large frame drum). In July 2022, while Di Domenico was working on an artistic residency at GMEA in Albi, France, he and Tarozzi and Holterbach made a trio recording, which was later completed by Di Domenico as a one-hour piece. Within a ‘triptych’ structure framework, sparse melodies discreetly and repeatedly emerge from the three i…

Matthias Kranebitter has written the odd piece without electronics in the past. However, the use of electronics in his music usually is a given. At the same time, the way in which electronics are employed in his work is anything but a matter of course. They are not simply an instrument amongst others, they don't serve as an atmospheric background, a synthesized ear-tickler, or formal glue which is meant to cover up fractures within the musical material. Rather, they themselves embody such fractu…

"In the past, I was interested in themes of sound, such as, 'new sound', 'expressive sound' and 'metaphoric sound'. In fact, I still enjoy these expressions. However, my obsession with expressing sound itself has decreased, and I instead want to express my feelings, my thoughts and my life, with sound. With this change, I have enjoyed taking a closer look at my temperament, personality, and life, and have tried to display the results through sound. To better articulate myself, I have avoided any…

If you enter into the music of Martin Smolka, prepare yourself to come face-to-face with profound and enigmatic conflicts. The music of Martin Smolka resonates straight into the core of a suffocated planet, suffering through unending catastrophes in the political-social spheres. The Aleph Guitar Quartet and soprano Daisy Press present a selection from Smolka's oeuvre that spans almost 25 years.

If you enter into the music of Martin Smolka, prepare yourself to come face-to-face with profound and enigmatic conflicts. The music of Martin Smolka resonates straight into the core of a suffocated planet, suffering through unending catastrophes in the political-social spheres. The Aleph Guitar Quartet and soprano Daisy Press present a selection from Smolka's oeuvre that spans almost 25 years.

"Commenting on the folly of war, eight independent voices and texts compete for attention, reflecting the tumult of emotions...The impeccable recording quality allows us to appreciate the fine..." — Gramophone Magazine

In music, we don't tend to talk about things. We're too concerned about the meaning of the story, about the dynamics of the performance, the reception, the syntax, the gesture, the movement; we're too concerned about how a sound got here, where it came from, how it was made, where it's going and why. We pretend that music is a language. Greenwald asks us to get busy with things. About a minute's worth of material becomes a cycle of seven works, performed in full for the first time on this album …

e piano-and-percussion quartet performs a series of pieces by the Los Angeles composer that wrestle with the aftermath of 2020’s wildfires; McIntosh’s own field recordings flesh out a sense of place.

Five chamber works with tape and electronics composed by Gerard Pape between 1993 and 1997, performed by soprano Janet Pape, the Arditti Quartet, bassist Nicholas Isherwood, Vox Nova, saxophonist Daniel Kientzy and Ensemble 2e2m.

John Cage's One⁸ (1991), a 43-minute solo for cello with curved bow, in the first recording with the BACH.Bow, played by Michael Bach, for whom it was written. Number Pieces 3, Cage Edition 32.

Portrait of harpist-composer Anne LeBaron: two solo pieces for prepared and electric harp, excerpts from her blues-opera The E&O Line to a libretto by Thulani Davis, and two chamber works, one conducted by Leon Fleisher.

Edition RZ presents Inventionen by composers Bogusław Schaeffer, Ricardo Mandolini and Sukhi Kang. "Berlin 80 II" composed 1980 for piano, synthesizer and 4-track tape."Fabulas II" composed 1980."Inventio", subtitled Musicae clavichordii et sonorum artificiosorum, composed 1984 for piano and tape.  Comes with insert. Runouts are stamped except for 'Lt - B - II' which is etched.

Stunning document of a one-off performance by Powell and London Contemporary Orchestra at Barbican Centre, London. Captured from a three-hour multi-channel recording of unheard music. Unique acoustic rendering of a unique moment in time.Performed in January 2022 alongside works by Jon Cage, Alvin Lucier, Micah Levi.First music on Diagonal after a brief pause for growing up and babies.

A rare original issue of Accordéon De Concert by Jean Luc Manca.

“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…

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.

Tom Johnson uses numbers as base material, turning formulas, combinations and other mathematic phenomena into music. And somehow, this music becomes poetry, sometimes like a haiku, sometimes like a sonnet, sometimes descriptive and clear, often enigmatic but always beautiful.

"Originally written for orchestra, Phill Niblock’s Disseminate (1998) and Baobab (2011) were arranged by the composer specifically for the Bozzini Quartet, or rather, for ‘multiples’ of the Quartet: twenty different tracks are mixed in each piece — twenty different instruments, the equivalent of five string quartets. The music is essentially a work on the shifting nature of overtone patterns that arise from acoustic instruments. As composer Robert Ashley convincingly argued, these pieces inscrib…

*300 copies limited edition* Students of Decay presents "Kaivajaiset" by Finnish composer Niko-Matti Ahti. Best known for his work alongside his partner Marja as Ahti & Ahti, Niko-Matti has been an active participant in the Finnish underground since the late 1990s. "Kaivajaiset" is his first solo recording and was originally conceived of as an installation. Part horspiel, part musique concrete, it is a piece of music that draws comparisons to the work of pioneering avant-garde composers such as …

*2023 stock* Inspired by the kinetic physicality and aesthetics of balance found in Ken Unsworth's work, the music embodies a feeling of suspension between movement and stasis. Evolving and revolving melodies, poised skilfully in polyrhythmic structures, the music creates an intoxicating and emotional impression. There is a feeling of constant motion and flow of sonic currents that typifies much of Kate Moore's music. The music shifts from the material world, the gradually shifting stone-like cy…

*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* "Gottschalk’s works and if you are looking for new-to-you works, this album would be a welcome one to the audio library. The title work of the album starts an eerie flicker of sound from hollow trills that swell to the orchestra’s entrance with a similar character and trills echoed. As the first movement continues, Parisi’s aptitude for both conventional and contemporary techniques are apparent with technical passages sounding effortless as he spans the range…

*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* "As a chamber music ensemble the saxophone quartet has a surprisingly long pedigree. The first work for it was written in 1857, less than twenty years after Adolphe Sax invented it, a Saxophone Quartette Club was founded in New York in 1879, and by 1896 a California Saxophone Quartet was on tour. While the modern saxophone quartet is now most likely to be associated with the jazz tradition, the standard ensemble of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones…

*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* "No matter how weird, how outrageous, how experimental or how avant garde musicians and composers try to be, it’s a pretty good chance dear Great-Grandfather John Cage did it first. And it’s a pretty good guess that even the most willing listeners and seasoned DJ’s may get pushed to the edge listening to some of his compositions. This makes me smile. I’ve been pushed and came back and forced myself to go farther and farther. Growth is hard. Endurance and stam…

Proudly co-produced with Teriyaki records, this volume is simply Unique!

Tip! *In process of stocking* "On "When the Streets Were Quiet", composer, bassist, and bandleader Max Johnson turns the focus to his finely wrought chamber music. Active in many contexts, Johnson is voraciously eclectic and impressively versatile. The works on this collection betray little overt reference to his wide range of stylistic activities, instead zeroing in on his craft centered approach to composition. With an emphasis on counterpoint, imitative textures, structural markers defined by…

Building on the back of their stunning release of Ensemble 0’s rendering of "Femenine" issued earlier this year, Sub Rosa returns with "Two Extended Pieces for Four Pianos", featuring brand new recording of two seminal works composed by Julius Eastman between 1970 and 1980 - "Evil N*gger" (1979) and "Crazy N*gger" (1980) - realised by Nicolas Horvath, Melaine Dalibert, Stephane Ginsburgh, and Wilhem Latchoumia.

First recordings of two Alvin Lucier works centred on the pipe organ: Swing Bridge (2015) for organ, ensemble and pipe wavers, played by the Australian Art Orchestra with Austin Buckett, and Sizzles (1997) for organ and drums.

Gondwana Records announces 'Goodbyes' the debut album from Estonian pianist and composer, Hanakiv, a deeply beautiful, meditative piano album featuring special guest Alabaster dePlume.

Starting at a very young age, Katrina Krimsky developed her musical self along a pathway of strong classical, pianistic training. Highlights of her playing on the classical side include her wonderful recording of Samuel Barber’s monumental Sonata for Piano, Op. 26, (Transonic Records 3008, 1975), a composition that is a virtual dictionary of early and mid-Twentieth Century composition techniques, first performed by Vladimir Horowitz in 1949 and 1950. Another example is her equally wonderful reco…

Yannis Kyriakides evokes memories of a site and of the workers of the mines of Amiandos, reflecting on a past not that far gone. In 7 pieces he tells profound stories of loss, and of the fascination for a magnificent and malignant stone. Amiandos is Kyriakides 8th album on Unsounds records.

Highly imaginative stories, images that become stories, and mosaics with teeth are the focus of Raymond et Des Palmes, Francesco Cavaliere and Leonardo Pivi’s contribution to the collective exhibition Raymond curated by Luca Trevisani, and in collaboration with Olaf Nicolai, as a collateral event to the Palermitan edition of Manifesta 12 in 2018. The exhibition, an homage to Raymond Roussel, takes place at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes - where Roussel was found dead in 1933 - and finds the inspi…

Amgen presents Jean-Luc Guionnet's Dyslexic Harp (Deciphered In The Dark). Concert for pedal harp solo. Recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Jean-Luc Guionnet. Recorded 17th and 18th of January 2010 at q-02, Brussels

Three works from Horatiu Radulescu's Sound Plasma period, played by Sam Dunscombe and Rebecca Lane: Capricorn's Nostalgic Crickets, Small Infinities' Togetherness and Opus 42, Inner Time / Outer Time. Volume 4 of Mode's Radulescu Edition.

In intensive collaboration with the Swedish ensemble Lipparella, which specializes in creating contemporary repertoire for baroque instruments and countertenor, these 10 timeless contemporary songs were created. Peter Söderberg, the founder of Lipparella tells: "After having met by chance at the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin in 2019, Walter Zimmermann and I started discussing whether it would be possible to perform some of his music by Lipparella. After suggesting some already existing works, w…

*In process of stocking* "Magna Mater for voices, ensemble and video installation (2013) is one of Maria de Alvears most important recent works. It constitutes a ritualistic invocation of all-nourishing Mother Nature. Sounds, words and images evoke her power and wisdom, the destructive power of earthquake, asteroid impact, drought and firestorm, and the life-giving elements of soil, sun, water, air, sky, clouds, rain.  In this decidedly visceral music, Maria de Alvear explores archetypal human c…

Swiss composer Jürg Frey and Dutch pianist/composer Reinier van Houdt are reunited on this triple CD, 'lieues d'ombres', after their successful collaboration on 'l'air, l'instant - deux pianos' (elsewhere 014), during which the two built a close rapport. 'lieues d'ombres' contains seven of Frey’s solo piano works, written from 1984 – 2018, including one previously unreleased work, ‘Three Piano Pieces’. All seven pieces were recorded by Micha de Kanter at The Muziekcentrum van de Omroep (MCO) in …