Experimental / Acoustic

Member of BAT FOR LASHES. The tracks on "Songs for Edna" are actual poems by the late American poet, Edna St. Vincent-Millay. This is majestic & minimal folk in the tradition of Fairport Convention, Karen Dalton & Vashti Bunyan.

Recorded in 2005/2006 in Portugal and Europe... and they like to dance to the sound of tribal music!

Home is a collection of folk songs recorded at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008. Recorded in various places in various parts of the world, it is an album about finding a home. Written, performed, recorded, and produced by Peter himself and mixed with his good friend and sound wizard from Efterklang, Mads Brauer.

Ben Chasny has busied himself releasing a solid run of outsider folk records for some time now; ‘The Sun Awakens’ is his eighth full-length outing and thankfully it shows no signs of Chasny letting his quality control wane. As he explored on his last Drag City release ‘School of the Flower’, Chasny has again employed a handful of collaborators to fill-out his unique sound with percussion and odd instruments – yet this doesn’t distil the fact that the record is totally his own. "The Sun Awakens" …

Without question this is Roy Harper's best studio effort. Sure I can think of some excellent compilations and collaborative output from this legendary folk/prog/rock artist to be reviewed at another time but even the general critics have to agree in Stormcock being right up there in the vintage category. Four lengthy quality tracks make up Stormcock. Released in 1971 at the same time as Led Zeppelin IV and Pink Floyd Meddle, the quality of material compares favourably and comes very close in man…

Second duo LP by Sarah Hennies and Tristan Kasten-Krause: two sidelong pieces grown from a live work played in darkness, singing bowls, gongs and double bass drifting into waltz-like pulses and field recordings. Numbered edition of 200.

Lummer is the Swedish name for the now protected family of vascular plants (Clubmoss/Lycopodiaceae). Lummer grows slowly and the spores with which it reproduces can take 12—20 years to develop. These spores, known as Nikt in Swedish, were once ground into an extremely flammable light yellow “old woman’s gunpowder” that was used for early theatrical pyrotechnics. Volatile and explosive, Lummernikt requires careful handling. There is something of the small scale dangerous in Finn Loxbo’s Lummernik…

*In process of stocking* Since his Beat Diary debut (a 12xLP box set comprising 365 beats recorded daily over the course of a year), Julian Sartorius has immersed himself in unique and ambitious projects - trekking the path not travelled to arrive at rhythmic life forms through found objects and prepared instruments. Equally as mighty are his two other escapades, the most recent being Locked Grooves - 112 beats cut as endless loops on vinyl spanning 56 dense 1.8 second compositions per side. Pre…

Kommun, led by Swedish guitarist Finn Loxbo, resides in the tension between the experience of circular time; an elongated now, and the expectations contained within our linear perception of time. The ensemble explores the tension between the individual’s own lines and the collective meaning-making. Every sound is equally important, concrete in itself, as much a building block as a decoration. The ensemble collectively improvises phrases that are formed together as a singular element. They are di…

Isak Hedtjärn plays the clarinet — a straight, metal variant of the more common wooden B flat Clarinet. Kvarpan is Isak’s first ‘solo’ record, but you also hear him in ‘quartet’ with himself, too on this diverse suite of improvisations recorded ‘on location’ on a single day at Patons Malmgård — his usual practice spot just by where the ferries head over to Finland. We recorded until the throb of the boats and waiting cars took over.

  A polymath of undeniable musicality, Isak is a constant, alw…

Tongues slap and flutes trill! The wild spirit of Dawn the Faun has returned, raising the young in the light of each new day and playing around the fire to welcome back the spirits at night. The bounty and exuberance of NOW, under the eternal skies of yesterday and tomorrow

This second volume of solo piano from Grew comes hot on the heels of his 2023 Discus Music release “Chasm”, also for solo piano. For all the brilliance of that earlier work, Grew was keen to push himself even further and engage with a piano and a space with which he was already very familiar – at Lancaster Baptist Church, close to his home in the North West. Grew writes in the sleeve notes: “I have found this instrument a real challenge to play, its action is particularly unyielding, so my effor…

**This discounted bundle includes the latest albums released on Hego, a label that focuses on the works of experimental artists from the Basque Country in the north of Spain** The London-based imprint, Hegoa, returns with their final batch of LPs for 2023, delivering three more incredible deep dives into the incredible sounds emerging from the Basque region: Asier Maiah’s “F(r)icciones”, Dopelganger’s “Sainen Hildo”, and Bidai’s “Biarrezgaur”. Each following their own distinct trajectories of ex…

From Matière Mémoire, one of the most striking and unique labels currently working in experimental music, comes “Adage Vestige”, the latest stunning statement from the French, Belgium based multidisciplinary artist Roxane Métayer. Encountering one of Europe's most unique voices pushing ever further into abstract realms with her signature hybrid of folk and rigorously experimental approaches, it's an absolute stunner that can't be missed.

Tip! This fourth release by Great Waitress titled back, before was recorded before the pandemic and lockdowns in 2018, and has taken four years to get to production. A live set was beautifully recorded by Peter Farrar at the Annandale Creative Arts Centre in Sydney and mixed and mastered by Joe Talia.  In the elegant liner notes, Chris Abrahams writes of Great Waitress transcending “ ...the individual contributions of Mayas, Altman and Brooks. It's an identity made from a multi-dimensional count…

An extended duo for violin and reed organ, developed by Biliana and Sarah which extends a series of short gestures from Ernstalbrecht Stiebler’s composition ‘Für Biliana’ into slowly expanding harmonic suspensions, highlighting the simple beauty and fragility of the intervals and chords.

*Limited edition of 200 copies. Includes a 48 pages art book and 2CD.* Six musical compositions by Phill Niblock, soil and cutting tree of Amanatsu orange from Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm, wooden pedestals, speakers, wooden benches, wooden planter, acrylic case, water, sunlight. An exhibition by Mathieu Copeland. Nurturing Exhibitions was one of two concomitant exhibitions that formed Exhibition Cuttings at Le Forum / Fondation Hermès in Tokyo, Japan between April 23rd (Fri.) and July 18th (Su…

**200 copies limited edition** "These songs were written between 2004 and 2005, when I had just discovered how I wanted to approach the phenomenon of 'song'. I had created songs with just voice for years, and now had found that the guitar could help tell me what mattered to me. I felt I could create a space by carefully experiencing and 'watching' voice, guitar, silence and overtones. I enjoyed this making of quiet songs, where I could voice things that would get lost in a crowd. I remember wond…

Jim Denley and Dutch musician Cor Fuhler first met at the Taklos Festival in Switzerland in the early 1990s and Cor's frequent visits to Australia over the years gave them the opportunity to occasionally play. In 2012 Cor moved to Sydney, allowing them to ramp up the duo - this is their first release together.Over 7 weeks at the end of 2013 they recorded weekly in Cor's backyard studio, eventually choosing take 9 and 12, titling them Skive and Wag. Their imaginative preparations and inventions …

In the all-female duo Coa, Eddie Corman trades on volume and velocity in a howling rock beast that could well fit the bill soundtracking an apocalyptic horror movie. Both Eddie and Marcon first played together in an early incarnation of LSD-March, pysch-blasted legends of the Japanese underground. Combining their names to form a new endeavour into Japanese acid folk, Eddie and Marcon – as Eddie Marcon – have been working in much quieter tones to make delicate, gorgeous and esoteric music. Shinin…

Solo album by Stephan Micus, his 22nd for ECM: ten original pieces led by the Swedish nyckelharpa, with balanzikom, shakuhachi, genbri, chord and bass zithers, steel-string guitar and voice, all played by Micus and recorded 2014-2016 at MCM Studios.

Eleven pieces composed and performed alone by Stephan Micus on nine instruments, including the Moroccan genbri and the San ndingo, both new to his work, plus voice. Recorded 2012-2014 at MCM Studios; his 21st album for ECM.

Debut album of the Norwegian-French improvising quartet Dans les arbres: Xavier Charles (clarinet, harmonica), Ivar Grydeland (guitar, banjo, sruti box), Christian Wallumrød (piano), Ingar Zach (percussion). Recorded July 2006, Festiviteten, Eidsvoll.

Ten-part instrumental suite by Stephan Micus, who plays every part through multitracking: sattar, mudbesh, hné, nay, suling, sho, shakuhachi, mandobahar, sitar, guitars, hang and gongs. Recorded 2003-2006 at MCM Studios. ECM 1987, 2006.