Mole
2010 release ** "The Low Frequency Orchestra is a small ensemble of 'paetzold' recorders, electronic devices, voice, double bass and drums and they team up here with one Wolfgang Mitterer who plays organ. The starting point of this CD is a live recording which has been 'repeatedly revised, de- and re-composed'. Taking into account this and the fact that this is a small ensemble, I was reminded of Mnemonists and Biota, who used similar group playing and extensive studio techniques to define thei…
Granular Modality
In many respects Earl Howard’s (b. 1951) music is an anomaly that resists categorization and the seductiveness of genre. He is an important force in improvised music and yet his work employs complex structures and rigorous transitions of sound and texture. His electro-acoustic music is realized with a K-2600 Kurzweil that for Howard is not merely a keyboard synthesizer but an open system, a computer with a most effective interface with modules and a key map that enable more freedom in the compos…
Paper Fault Line
James Rushford and Joe Talia are two of the most exciting musicians active in the Australian experimental scene, engaged in major collaborative projects with figures such as Jon Rose and Oren Ambarchi. On Paper Fault Line, they use strategies from contemporary composition, improvisation and electro-acoustics to create a sensuous and approachable, yet subtly disturbing, 30-minute suite. Eschewing the homogenized sound palette and dynamic conventions of post-GRM musique concrete, the record is str…
Phi
First meeting of experimental musicians Keith Rowe & Radu Malfatti in a 3 disc set: one disc of compositions by Jurg Frey and Cornelius Cardew; one disc of their own compositions; and one disc of improvisation. Keith Rowe and Radu Malfatti are two of the most influential experimental musicians in recent decades, each with extensive bodies of highly distinctive work and a combined 80+ years at the forefront of their respective areas of exploration. On Φ, their first meeting ever is documented via…
Wunderkammern
David Toop laptop, steel guitar, flutes, percussive devices. Rhodri Davies harp, ebows, electronics, preparations. Lee Patterson amplified devices, field recordings. Recorded by Dave Hunt at Dave Hunt Studio, London, 24 July 2006. Magnificent, tight studio recordings from 2006 by a trio of UK improvisers of different generations, coming together to create a rich and strange soundworld of whispered, scraped and quietly haunting reverberations.
Lalienation
2010 release ** "Sabine Ercklentz plays trumpet and electronics and Andrea Neumann plays inside piano and mixing desk. Especially music by the latter we came across in the field of improvisation, and this disc is surely another fine work in that direction. But its also an expansion of their territory. Somewhere in the second piece, the title piece there is all of a sudden a rhythm coming in, which must be like heresy in the world of improvisation. The whole work is pretty vibrant with the trumpe…
El obsceno pajaro de la noche
2009 release ** Limited edition of 50 copies. "This Aspec(t) album is very noisy and rather edgy, Gabola's sax often sounds very saturated, there are no concessions to melody even by mistake, SEC_ on the synth and electronics moves in a very fragmented, almost rhythmic way, no soft keyboard-like carpet as one would expect and finally Agenziano plays the guitar less and less as we have always understood it, to give it back to us so filtered that sometimes it is even difficult to understand who do…
Taste Tribes
2025 stock ** "Alfred 23 Harth, reeds, kaosspad. Hans Joachim Irmler, organ. Günter Müller, iPods, electronics. The last time Harth and Müller met was in 1987 as part of a quintet at the Festival Willisau, including Andres Bosshard, Phil Minton and Sonny Sharrock. Exactly 20 years later, Alfred Harth, now based in Seoul, South Korea, asked Günter Müller to do some recordings on a visit to Switzerland while traveling in Germany and Italy. Several days before, Harth recorded with Hans Joachim Irml…
California
The long-deleted mammoth 10-LP survey of noise, experimental, drone and improvised music from the state in which the popsicle was invented. This limited edition set features newcomers such as Oscillating Innards and critics' darlings The Skaters and Yellow Swans alongside such mainstays as GX Juppiter-Larsen (The Haters) and Joe Colley." --ning nong. One side each by these 20 artists: Amps For Christ, The Cherry Point, Joe Colley, Control, Yellow Swans, Gerritt, GX Jupitter-Larsen, Moth Drakula…
Atolón
2004 release ** "Atolón, whose four tracks are further proof that the barriers that once existed between free improvisation and noise are coming down fast. And in the sunshine of Barcelona at that. Alfredo Costa Monteiro and Ferran Fages have released several albums as Cremaster (though not using the same instrumentation), and trumpeter Ruth Barberán previously teamed up with Costa Monteiro and Matt Davis in I Treni Inerti (now sadly disbanded, but not before leaving us the splendid Ura album on…
Castafiore
1995 release ** "Bruit TTV is a sound research collective comprising artists associated to Obscure. Situated at the frontier of music/non-music and organized noises, Bruit TTV’s performances ally and oppose composition and improvisation, traditionnal and invented instruments, sound poetry and tapes, theatrics and technologies. Professionnal amateurs of yonder years, Bruit TTV takes position exploiting its multiple incompetences… The collective presents now its second album intitled Castafiore, a…