Sale Quanto Basta
Paolo Angeli’s latest is an extraordinary collection of pieces that explore the full range of his highly modified, extended and prepared Sardinian guitar; and although it’s just him and electricity, it seldom sounds like fewer than 3 people. Great compositions, each like a short novel, beautifully recorded. Paolo’s unique music defies genre or category - at once accessible, experimental, tuneful, tactile, ambient, with a folk root and a rock inflection and a contemporary outlook. And his instrum…
For Clarinet (And Piano)
Three beautiful works for Jurg Frey's clarinet by the Amsterdam-based Wandelweiser composer Dante Boon, with the composer accompanying Jurg on piano on two of the pieces. Amsterdam-based composer and pianist Dante Boon (1973) has been composing since he was 11 years old, playing new music since he was thirteen. He joined a well-known Dutch rock band when he was 24. After its break-up, he worked extensively over the years with composers such as Tom Johnson, Jürg Frey, Antoine Beuger and Sam…
Two Circles
Alvin Lucier’s (b.1931) work has been more often described in terms of science than of art and his scores often contain experimental procedures. Lucier perfectly represents the fusion of a scientist with an artist. His pieces arise from an inspection of a pure physical phenomenon. The performers on Mode’s fourth disc of Lucier’s music are the Italian experimental music ensemble Alter Ego — two of the works were written for or dedicated to them — and Alvin Lucier himself. This new recordi…
Piano Sonatas & String Quartets 1
Limited edition of 500 numbered copies. The LP was mastered from the 96khz/24-bit files. Lacquers were cut by vinyl veteran Scott Hull at Masterdisk in New York. The LP is pressed by RTI in California, one of the most highly regarded pressing plants in the USA. All of this to insure the best sounding, highest quality LP. After all, why make an LP if it doesn’t sound great and have something special to offer ?
It is packaged with a 4-page insert of liner notes by the late Bob Gilmore and a score …
Umbrae
2016 release ** The four works on this CD, ranging in date from 2004 to 2014, form an integral part of Andrzej Kwiecinski’s creative development and at the same time demonstrate his particular affinity with music for strings. Umbrae (2004) for string quintet. Mural (2008-10) for string quintet. Luci nella noote V (2014) for four string quartet. Contregambilles (2014) for string quartet. After studying composition, musicology and Baroque singing (countertenor) in Warsaw, Kwiecinski moved in 2005 …
Relative Calm
Jon Gibson (b. 1940) is one of the less frequently mentioned pioneering composers of minimal music and is probably best known as a founding member of the Philip Glass Ensemble. Gibson also holds the unique distinction of having performed with Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young (as a member of the Theatre of Eternal Music), in addition to Glass, the four composers widely regarded as the founding fathers of minimal music. Gibson also has a track record of composing for modern and …
The ECM Recording
Marking the occasion of Steve Reich’s 80th birthday (hup, big man!), The ECM Recordings compiles three CDs of the venerable minimalist composer’s major works, which were consecutively released in 1978, 1980 and 1982, and continue to influence and inspire myriad forms of modern music. Named “our greatest living composer” (The New York Times), “America’s greatest living composer” (The Village Voice), and “…the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker), Reich’s ardent, incisive wo…
Volume
The second movement of 'Volume' by illogical harmonies (Johnny Chang - violin & Mike Majkowski - contrabass), a 55-minute piece from 2015, released on Another Timbre in June 2016 as part of the 'violin+1' series. A joint composition for violin and double bass, developed over six months in 2015 by violinist and Wandelweiser composer Johnny Chang with bassist Mike Majkowski, a fragile and beautifully revealing work in 5 parts that moves slowly through subtle harmonic changes.
A Failed Entertainment: Works 2009-2014
Works from Italian composer Clara Iannotta recorded from 2012 - 2014, including a work for string quartet composed for the DAAD artist-in-Berlin program
Broken Line
Alvin Lucier (b.1931) is the great American poet of acoustic phenomena. He has a keen sensitivity to the way objects vibrate, the way sound waves travel to our ears, and to the way our brain processes those vibrations. Trio Nexus is a Berlin based ensemble specializing in New Music. Carbon Copies seeks the recreation on musical instruments of sounds recorded in the environment. Here, the musicians prepare the piece by making their own 15-minute recordings 'of any indoor or outdoor environment.'…
Words Fail Me
The majestic beauty and savage turbulence that one often beholds while witnessing an awesome act of nature is also evident in Lois V Vierk's vigorous and delicate music. In her meticulously wrought works, she enfolds the rapture of opulent expression in the elegance of formal rigor, a combination that derives much of its power and grace from a sensitive integration of Western experimental practices with the traditional classical music of Japan. "I've always felt equally drawn to the West and to…
Seguente
Re-release of ed. RZ LP Luigi Nono plus three remarkable recordings. All works by Luigi Nono: ("A Carlo Scarpa" for large orchestra), ("A Pierre" for contrabass flute, contrabass clarinet and live electronics), ("Guia Al Gelidi Mostri" for electronically treated winds, voices and strings). Plus an additional CD of compositions not on the original LP: "Caminantes" and "No hay caminos, hay que caminar." Regarding Nono's concept of "new listenings": "This no longer means revolutionizing the e…
Ensemble Works 3
'Palimpsest' (1979) for piano & ensemble. Cory Smythe, piano. 'Echange' (1989) for bass-clarinet & ensemble. Joshua Rubin, bass-clarinet. 'Akanthos' (1977) for soprano & ensemble. Tony Arnold, soprano. 'Thalleïn' (1984) for 16 instruments. 'O-Mega' (1997) for percussion & ensemble. Steven Schick, percussion & conductor. Steven Schick, conductor. 'Zythos' (1996) for trombone & 6 marimbas. Benny Sluchin, trombone.
An exhilarating Xenakis progran, built around works for soloist and ensemble. Most…
The Art Of David Tudor 1963-1992
Milestone release! David Tudor's (1926-1996) identity morphed seamlessly from interpreter of mainly acoustic music to composer-performer of predominately electronic music over a period of about ten years, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. This set of seven CDs, the first truly comprehensive survey of Tudor's work as a composer, goes beyond any previous attempt to document that process of transformation. It captures his touch and sensitivity and offers an expansive, previously unavailable view…
The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Frederic Rzewski’s work “The People United Will Never Be Defeated” is based on the Chilean protest song, “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!,” written by Sergio Ortega a few months before Pinochet’s military coup in September of 1973.Frederic Rzewski came to Europe as a young man, lived in Cologne and Rome, and created a sensation as an avant-garde pianist with his premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Klavierstück X”. He worked with the leading composers of the time and was himself a composer.…
Fremde Zeit Addendum 4 · solo III fur Orgel
Beautiful new Jacob Ullman Organ composition of subtle gradations in sound performed very softly forcing the ear to notice the smallest variations. "Thus, Ullmann creates a quiet music in order to give himself and his listeners the opportunity to hear more, and better. This comes about because our ability to hear is augmented when listening to quiet music. We hear better because we make an effort to hear better. That is why Ullmann likes to locate his sound sources at the periphery, so as not to…
Madrigale
We know the mantra all too well: If I love it, what can I do but repeat it? If I repeat it, what can I do but get bored with it? One answer might be (must be): to make out of its repetition something infinitely variable. This Clementi has done for the last twenty years. He has found a technician's answer to the familiar question of what to do, musically, with the compulsive nature of memory, the obstinate tenacity of the Proustian 'petite phase'. Beethoven and Brahms exorcised this power, this c…
Fremde Zeit Addendum
4CD Box edition. Ranked #4 in the the Wire's Rewind 2012 best-of list. Three CD box collection with a 16-page booklet. "Experimental German composer Jakob Ullmann creates quiet music in order to give himself and his listeners the opportunity to hear more, and better. This comes about because our ability to hear is augmented when listening to quiet music. We hear better because we make an effort to hear better. That is why Ullmann likes to locate his sound-sources at the periphery, so as not to m…
Kompositionen 1950 - 1972
A portrait of Christian Wolff, documenting the composer's early activity through recordings made close to the time of their composition from artists including Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, David Tudor
Simmetrie di Ritorno
Six compositions for chamber ensembles performed the Ensemble 2e2m by Giuliano D’Angiolini, ethnomusicologist and composer who "is a positively unique figure in contemporary music. His profound, well-conceived and stubborn take on music has led him to what he calls »impersonal« music — music that has fully abandoned the idea of development or form. Through successive states of presentation, which aim to elucidate, d’Angiolini wanted to leave place in sound so that music could become less volunt…