Composition / Minimalism

Big tip!!! Firework Edition Records is proud to announce the release of a new 7-CD box documenting Lars-Gunnar Bodin's (1935-2021) musical and artistic output during the years 1960-1987. Apart from more than 8 hours of electroacoustic music and text-sound compositions, the box also features extensive documentary visual material, along with essays by Jesper Olsson, Sanne Krogh Groth, Leo Nilsson, Åke Parmerud, Svante Bodin, Charlotta Bodin och Axel Bodin.  It is hard to give a picture of such a m…

*100 copies limited edition* Still Forms in Air is the debut album by Italian composer Francesca Marongiu under her own name. It draws inspiration from mid-1980s Japanese ambient music — Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Takashi Kokubo — and, more subtly, from Italian experimental echoes rooted in both personal and cultural memory. The album unfolds like suspended time, like architecture that quietly bears witness to the shifts that have shaped our cities and the ways we live in them. These t…

This bundle includes the latest Blume releases, two groundbreaking archival discoveries that illuminate the hidden connections between American experimental music's founding generation and contemporary European avant-garde. Doris Dennison's Earth Interval (1956) emerges from seven decades of obscurity - a pioneering percussion composition by John Cage's forgotten collaborator, brilliantly realized by Third Coast Percussion. Swiss composer Jürg Frey's first LP presents his crystalline Wandelweise…

** 300 copies. Color Vinyl. 140gr Audiophile pressing. Including printed inner sleeve housing a Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve, plus an original insert that functions as Obi. Comes with exact replicas of the original postcard graphic scores. ** Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joinin…

** 200 copies. Color Vinyl. 140gr Audiophile pressing. Including printed inner sleeve housing a Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve, plus an original insert that functions as Obi. Comes with exact replicas of the original postcard graphic scores. ** Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joinin…

Deluxe 2 LP pressed to HQ-180 gram vinyl, cut at 45 RPM, housed in gatefold tip-on jacket with printed inner sleeves. The In Between is the debut solo album by harpist, composer, and sound artist Shelley Burgon. Burgon is one of the most accomplished and sought-after performers and collaborators in the world of avant-garde and new music. Her interpretations of works by composers such as Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, Morton Subotnick, and Cornelius Cardew, as well as her collaborations with artist…

From the always remarkable hands of Blank Forms come two new stunning LPs from the Stockholm based composer Ellen Arkbro: “Nightclouds”, comprising five minimalist improvisations for solo organ, and “How do I know if my cat likes me?”, made within a trio comprising Hanne Lippard and Hampus Lindwall, interweaving wry conceptualism and topical humor with poetics, voice, texture, and tone. Each absolutely brilliant and distinct, they stand as some of the most exciting works we've encountered from A…

Inspired by minimalistic icon La Monte Young and guitarist Allan Holdsworth, Nightclouds is a powerful collection of jazz pieces for solo pipe organ. Over long improvisation and shorter compositions, Swedish composer and installation artist Ellen Arkbro employs her usually epic chord structures and adds in a more self-reflective tone than previously.

Inspired by minimalistic icon La Monte Young and guitarist Allan Holdsworth, Nightclouds is a powerful collection of jazz pieces for solo pipe organ. Over long improvisation and shorter compositions, Swedish composer and installation artist Ellen Arkbro employs her usually epic chord structures and adds in a more self-reflective tone than previously.

LP version: Coral alone, Watt’s own collective composition for four clarinets, a little over thirty minutes. The three commissioned pieces stay on the sold-out cassette box.

A breathtaking journey into Arvo Pärt’s sacred minimalism. This LP features rare and moving renditions—including a radically slowed performance of Silentium—that illuminate the composer’s most intimate, time-suspending work.

The pieces brought together here were assembled as the fruit of collaboration undertaken by Falzone and Evans-Weiler. Instrumentation is the strongly unifying element. The reed organ, once ubiquitous in the private music setting of the home as well as a default practice instrument for organists, is now regarded as something of a relic of the past. However, the instrument continues to afford certain distinct advantages, particularly with regard to dynamic variation by virtue of the player’s direc…

After-Image traces composer Lila Meretzky’s exploration of memory, color, and time through chamber, vocal, and electroacoustic works, culminating in luminous studies for strings and percussion inspired by personal and historical narratives.

Feldman and Tobias Hume (performed by Luciana Elizondo and Guy Vandromme).

1988 release. Ade, "a piece about farewell" for seven actors, singers and dancers, is a work of musical theatre by Harald Weiss, here heard without the stage. Weiss brings together elements of classical music, folk, rock and minimal music in the style that runs through all his work and escapes any classification. The ten scenes (Heimkehr, Tagtraum im Verborgenen, Elegie, Springtanz, Hymne, Tanz der Kobolde, Arie, Die Rufe der Demaskierten, Lamento, Abgesang) move between solo and choral voices, …

The Lost Genesis of Ambient Minimalism: Harold Budd's Seminal The Oak Of The Golden Dreams Returns to Vinyl

*2025 stock. 300 copies limited edition* Tokyo-based composer Yuka Shibuya released the album "Works for Piano," a selection of piano compositions performed by Satoko Inoue, on the Ftarri Classical label in 2021. This new CD release, also from Ftarri Classical, documents performances of six compositions by Shibuya. "Found Moment" is comprised of live performances held in the concert space in Ftarri, Tokyo. In a concert that took place on September 20, 2021, “View from the Round Window 2” (2018) …

*250 copies limited edition* Composer Taizo Hida was born in 1972 and lives in Osaka. In 2022, the album "of rain," in which pianist Satoko Inoue performs compositions by Hida, was released on Ftarri Classical and received high praise. Two new albums have been issued simultaneously on Ftarri Classical in order to showcase the richness of Taizo Hida's creations. One of these is the CD The Rain Traces Its Outline. “The Rain Traces Its Outline” is a work for piano that Hida completed in 2023. It wa…

*250 copies limited edition* Tokyo-based guitarist/composer Taku Sugimoto and cellist/composer Stefan Thut, who lives in Solothurn, Switzerland, have a long association, performing together when Sugimoto visits Switzerland and when Thut comes to Japan. Their duo CD "Taku Sugimoto / Stefan Thut," which was released on the Ftarri label in 2018, was highly praised. The new duo CD by Sugimoto and Thut, "atwain," documents their performance of a single 39-minute work on the riverside in Solothurn in …

*200 copies limited edition* Jun-Y Ciao (born in 1978 in Shanghai) is a musician whose main instruments are sax and clarinet. Having studied in Dusseldorf and Mainz, Germany, in the second half of the 2000s, he is currently based in Shanghai and Dusseldorf. He has numerous releases on Zhu Wenbo's cassette label Zoomin' Night. Beijing-based Zhu Wenbo is known both for his own performance activities and for running Zoomin' Night, which plans events and releases cassettes. A musician with many conn…

, for vibraphone and tape, I attempted to enter Pietro Grossi’s sound spectrum of six Ostinati (OSTN) intended as moving soundscapes, maintaining the specific grain of each field as the centre of sound gravity. The vibraphone motor was conceived at different speeds for each field in the search for a vibrant and luminous sound, maintaining, within a sound unit of organic character, two dimensions: figure and background in the dialectic relationship of listening. In the first ostinato, a constant …

*2025 stock* Erased Tapes releasex ‘Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning Expanded’ by composer and producer Peter Broderick and French 12-piece group Ensemble 0; a complete re-recording of Russell’s epic minimalist orchestral composition originally released in 1983. ‘Give It to the Sky’ also includes unreleased tracks by Russell which have been restored and re-recorded, resulting in an 80-minute reanimation that threads several lost songs into a meticulous and gorgeous rendering…

After a first album made up of 11 pieces from Tombstones by Michael Pisaro-Liu — works with delicate tones and dusty melodies that wrap us in an intimate atmosphere — the musicians of the Muzzix collective, brought together under the direction of Barbara Dang, present this second recording, which completes the entire collection. This new opus continues the sonic exploration: timbres become more diverse, textures thicken, and silence — in its rawest materiality or its faintest breaths — becomes a…

A 64-minute piano solo composed in 2021, performed by Jack Yarbrough. "'Mine but for its sublimation' is about resonance, register, and touch. It is about where we lead ourselves when we trust ourselves. It is experiencing trust as a chain of clearings, a sequence of becomings, openings, centerings. It is about letting go; othering; finding presence through evaporation. Obliteration." - Timothy McCormack

Kory Reeder composed Homestead (2024)—a nearly hour-long string quartet in four movements with an interlude—during his residency as Artist in Residence at Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska in 2023. As he explains: "As a fifth-generation Nebraskan, growing up on the native lands of the Chatiks si chatiks people (Pawnee), this project is a part of my process of learning, listening, and developing a relationship with the land and its stewards in my home state: a beautiful pla…

A 50 minute solo for viola d'amore played by Marco Fusi. The piece was composed in 2022-2023, and has six movements.

2007 release ** "In Very Slow Disco Suite (2006), De Bièvre slows down a disco song from 120 bpm to 20 bpm. Against this languid harmonic background, three musicians play material that is dictated at random by a microcontroller. In this way, De Bièvre tried to guarantee the spontaneity of the performance."

2005 release ** "Bending the Tonic (2004), a work for ensemble that November Music commissioned De Bièvre to compose. In this work, a computer records all the audio signals of the musicians (except for those of the contrabass and percussion) and plays these signals back according to a fixed temporal system. The harmonic basis is formed by a stereotypical blues progression, that De Bièvre stretches over 144 measures. The title refers to the importance of the tonic in blues music."

2010 release ** "A multifaceted personality and artist in ethics, as well as aesthetics, Enrico Gabrielli has collected in the space of a few years what an average independent musician collects in a lifetime. Specifically, a series of important collaborations with the major world (Afterhours, Vinicio Capossela, Niccolò Fabi, Morgan), esteem and excellent feedback for shared projects (Mariposa and Calibro 35) and a status as a third-party arranger universally recognized in the Italian musical env…

Founding work of minimalism, Music with Changing Parts is a piece with free instrumentation. The musicians choose which part to play among the 8 staves of the score. At each indicated cue, the musicians can change part, which produces an abrupt change of instrumentation. While the music is based on a melodic material limited to a few notes that are repeated in patterns that expand or contract, the changes in orchestration refresh the listening  experience by producing sonic contrasts.  These tec…

Ziúr lines up with The Tapeworm for an exclusive cassette-only release featuring Kenichi Iwasa, exploring the electroacoustic realms. Invited to perform solo at Tarek Atoui's performance series at Kunsthaus Bregenz in October 2024, Ziúr decided to write a new piece for the occasion. This composition, 'Turn Liquid Into Dust', was then performed within the framework of Tarek Atoui's 'Waters' Witness' exhibition as an 8-channel spacial audio piece, transmitting sounds through the installation's str…

*Limited edition of 300 copies.* A striking new addition to the evolving catalog of Berlin-based composer Catherine Lamb, 'interius/exterius' is a long-form chamber nonet developed through a sustained dialogue with the musicians of New York’s Ghost Ensemble. Scored for flute, oboe, accordion, viola, cello, four- and five-string contrabasses, harp, and hammered dulcimer, the work investigates how collective intentions or focal points allow various and sometimes unusual sonic pathways to emerge in…

A double CD with location recordings - recorded by Christophe Albertijn - of organ and carillon music plus a 32 page booklet of/for the unveiling of Katharina AW, a relational artwork by Joris Martens.

Nicolás Melmann (born in Buenos Aires and now based in Barcelona) explores sound's social and poetic dimensions through transdisciplinary projects. Drawing inspiration from Erik Satie's concept of "furniture music," Melmann's compositions transform the listening experience into havens of calm and contemplation. Música Aperta is a fusion of acoustic and electronic sounds, rich in beautiful harmonies, where carefully soft elements interplay with delicate raspiness. Made up of three parts, the musi…

In 1977, for Brian Eno’s Obscure Records, I made a version of Irma. These notes arise from that experience and explore how the piece can be performed. Irma is an unusual score—printed on a single 50cm x 50cm sheet. Its notation consists of verbal fragments from Tom Phillips' A Humument, referencing “libretto,” “decor and mise-en-scène,” or “sounds.” These categories are arranged separately, with stave notation at the bottom. At first glance, it appears indeterminate—requiring preparation before …

The Machines, created between 1967-1972, mark a shift from the traditional narrative style of Gavin Bryars other works. »I define a machine as a structured process that governs musical actions within a specific sound world, shaping how listeners perceive it. For example, Welsh Rarebit is a Machine that manipulates how bread and cheese are heard.« »Autumn Countdown Machine« features six pairs of bass melody instruments, conducted by percussionists who adjust a bell-metronome's timing, creating in…

A split album by Christopher Hobbs, John Adams, and Gavin Bryars, released in 1975 as the second title on Brian Eno's imprint Obscure. The album includes two pieces by Hobbs and one each by Adams and Bryars. Side A opens with the experimental compositions of Hobbs, followed by Adams’ spoken-word and orchestral work, while Side B concludes with Bryars’ dissonant, frontier-classical ambient piece, featuring contributions from Brian Eno and Derek Bailey. "Aran" and "McCrimmon Will Never Return" (19…

1990 release ** "This superb collection of works by 20th century minimalist composers spotlights works written for string orchestra. It opens with John Adams' Shaker Loops, a piece with strings set on rapid tremolo throughout -- creating a beautiful, shimmering quality counterbalanced by an aggressive scrubbing sound. Steve Reich's Eight Lines -- a reworking of his incredible 1979 work Octet, scored this time for string orchestra and piano -- is a real gem. The orchestra moves like a well-oiled …

'SOVT' is an album containing one 55-minute piece, written for piano by Sarah Hennies in 2017. SOVT stands for Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract which refers to vocal exercises that strengthens the voice by helping the vocal cords vibrate more efficiently. One may practice SOVT exercises by singing with a straw in the mouth which regulates air pressure and reduces strain on the vocal folds. Hennies encountered these exercises in a class on so-called “voice feminization” for transgender women which also …

For her new and most radical album "Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone", Martina Bertoni used the electronic instrument at EMS Stockholm to create four pieces that are massive in scale and incredibly intimate, sonically restrained and emotionally overwhelming—almost ambient and always demanding your full attention.