Luc Ferrari Prix Presque Rien Prize
In 2010, Brunhild Ferrari decided to make public some of Luc Ferrari's original sound archives by offering a selected collection of recordings to other composers who may wish to use the material for the creation of original musical works. Her desire was to open this sonic treasure to other artists without wanting to impose any aesthetic direction on them, and with the only purpose of encouraging new artistic inventiveness. This edition presents the "Presque Rien Prize" winners and other selected…
Early Works 1969-70
Milestone! This LP of early compositions by Jacques Lejeune features three seminal works: D'une Multitude En Fête and Petite Suite, originally released on the Perspective Musicales series in 1970, and a previously unpublished composition, Géodes, from the same period. These three pieces (not included in the recent Parages and other electroacoustic works 3CD set) are some of Lejeune's earliest music for tape and may be considered a "prequel" to his later, more thematic works. Still, his concise m…
Bikini Tennis Shoes
*totally sold-out at source, few copies back in stock* The origins of Le Forte Four are those of the Los Angeles Free Music Society itself. Chip Chapman joined forces with Rick Potts (and shortly thereafter Tom and Joe Potts), taking up the LAFMS name in 1974. Ultimately baptizing themselves Le Forte Four, they began threading imagined lines between John Cage and The Residents, Cecil Taylor and Henry Cow – generating sounds completely unlike any of these and anything since. The inaugural release…
Natural Incapacity
2016 release ** Relay For Death are the twin sisters Rachal and Roxann Spikula, whose noise mantras transcribe the harsh realities of urban blight that complicate and threaten their own survival. It was in the context of two month medical study that the Spikulas composed their debut album in 2009, amplifying the emptiness of hospital rooms into a ghostly pall worthy of the classic works by Maurizio Bianchi. Natural Incapacity sprouts from a similar research and development, manifesting from the …
Messages and Portraits
Classic work. Overlays and constructs rhythmic and harmonic vignettes of transparent sound (at once complex and simple) from electronic, acoustic and documentary sources, taking ethnic field recordings as it's thematic centre. In the realm of 'My life in the Bush of Ghosts' but far more accomplished and developed.
Klangbilder
Whoah. Here’s one you’re not likely to have heard/seen evidence of; Mr. P.C. C.P.’s treatment of German Painter Günter Maas’ sole LP release, privately-pressed in 1969. “Klangbilder” contains four extended pieces, ranging from Oskar Sala-esque sheets of detuned electronic sound - composed on the then state-of-the-art Siemens synthesizer utilizing an experimental photo-electric coupler which converted his paintings into control-voltage !!! - to dark Musique Concréte pieces utilizing evil-sounding…
Who Says Birds Don't Do Things Just For Fun?
Wow, just wow. One of the dynamics at play in the C.P. program that has been all but absent in the recent catalogue is the "one man against the world" spec. These politically-charged times make me hesitant to use the catch-all "outsider", although, in the case of upstate-New York Composer Glenn Williams, it's clear that a palpable distance from the greater world was, indeed, in effect. Let's first focus on the music; the A-side's side-length title piece works a long-form take of the exact sort o…
Elapsed Time
A landmark! "Elapsed Time" is undoubtedly destined to be a classic, and one of the finest experimental tomes to emerge over the last years. Kevin Drumm array of releases have traversed the auditory spectrum, roaming from tension-ridden ambient and electro-acoustic suites through to massively distorted, dense and decimating guitar and synth compositions. But despite his noisy reputation, KD music can be overwhelmingly sensual even at its loudest, providing a form of minimalism replete with a de…
Jukebox-Series 005
Trost continues its Trost Jukebox Series of 7"s. Chra - electronics; Pita - modular synthesizer, electronics. Mastered by Martin Siewert. Artwork by Lasse Marhaug.
Not To
Colin Newman’s 3 classic early 80’s solo albums originally released on Beggars Banquet / 4AD re-released on his own new imprint Sentient Sonics. "These albums were recorded and released between 1980 & 1982 in a “post 154” rush of activity. While all the albums bear the name Colin Newman they differ in that A-Z & Not To were recorded as “band” albums with Colin being joined by Wire’s Robert Grey, Mike Thorne (who also produced, as he had the first 3 Wire albums) & Desmond Simmons on A-Z and Rober…
Music for Fragments from the Inside
2016 repress; originally released in 2005. The long-awaited collaborative release from legendary American minimalist composer and pianist Harold Budd and Milanese producer and experimental electronic composer Eraldo Bernocchi. Recorded during a magic night in the courtyard of a Renaissance palazzo in Siena, Italy, Music For 'Fragments From The Inside' melds Budd's light tonal wash and sparse keyboard treatments with the deep electronic rumbles of Bernocchi. An astonished piano player drifts …
Musiques concretes 1988-91
Brocoli continues to unearth Michel Chion’s unreleased gems, after the concrete melodrama Tu and the collection of early works Musiques Concrètes 1970-71. This time it focuses on the period from 1988 to 1991, starting with 10 études de musique concrète, a series of obsessive pieces, sounding in turns dry and liquid. While Variations smashes a waltz theme to pieces, Crayonnés Ferroviaires is a work and manifesto, an ode to the tape recorder and to the possibilities offered by the microphone and m…
El Khela Al'Akhdar
Tip! Twenty years after its initial release, Amon's "El Khela" still shines out like a pillar in the dark ambient field. Mysterious, catacombal, bleak, monumental, cryptic ambience. This new edition contains a remastered, repackaged and graphically renewed version of the original album + a second CD with rare, unreleased and reworked tracks. Coproduced by Eibon Records and Silentes, "El Khela Al'Akhdar" comes in digisleeve + 2 inner sleeves."This album from Amon (Andrea Marutti) is a particular …
Vertical Pillars
Reissue of early 80s underground releases by Pekka Airaksinen, NWW-listed founding member of legendary Finnish improv group The Sperm. Vertical Pillars comprises five expansive pieces - Dundubhisvararaga, Kanakamuni, Kashyapa, Shakyamuni, and Jambusuvarnadhvajakacanabhasa - that draw inspiration from ancient texts and Buddhist philosophy. Airaksinen’s compositional process integrates mathematical structures with elemental rhythms, dividing percussion into four symbolic layers: earth, water, fir…
FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy
Sunergy brings together synthesists Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.’s intergenerational collaboration series. For this edition, a panorama of the Pacific Coast provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of a life-giving form vast and volatile with change.Fortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in the small coastal community of Bolinas, California. The two …
Gridshape
2012 release ** "Gridshape is an intersection of heavily distorted violent sounds with points of kinetic aural quietness through the interaction between digital electronics and guitars. Franz Rosati: Electronics, distorted guitars. Francesco Saguto: Classic, distorted, prepared guitars."
Moments in Shapeshifting
New England's Lee Tindall has been a mainstay of the noise/electronic scene for some time. Working as Zerfallt and Belarisk, and in a variety of groups (including Astronaut with Daniel Lopatin), Tindall has been perfecting what he calls "Hy-Fy mutant music" for a decade, working on the fringes of a sound that has slipped in-and-out of focus. Moments In Shapeshifting is Tindall's most fully-realized release to date, bringing together his interest in abrasive noise, abstract electronics and h…
Spat-Europa
"German experimental electronic composer Asmus Tietchens isn't exactly the first person most people think of when they discuss synth pop. In fact, even among hardcore electronic music fans, he's more known for his longstanding dedication to academic electronic music in the spirit of Stockhausen and Pierre Henry, and in fact holds a position at the University of Hamburg. However, having also worked with Tangerine Dream's Peter Baumann, Conny Plank, Cluster, and Thomas Köner, he's had more than a …
E
Continuing with the ongoing re-release series of all early Asmus Tietchens vinyl albums between 1980 and 1991, "E" was originally released on LP by Dom in 1988. This CD reissue includes both tracks from the bonus 7", "U", that came with the first pressing of the LP, plus two unreleased tracks from that period. As always the original cover artwork is reproduced as a fold out poster. The booklet includes editorial remarks on the release. Ltd x 600 copies.
Makrophonie 1
The first album by Kontakt der Jünglinge since the release of their CD n (DS63) on Die Stadt back in 2003, Makrophonie 1 is also their very first studio album. ItÔs the result of various scores which were developed before and during miscellaneous live performances. These worked out structures were then taken to the studio, where they were concentrated and received their final finish. Makrophonie 1 can be described as KDJ music in highly-concentrated form. The album was recorded at Audiplex Studi…