June '21
The score for June '21 was made in early summer of 2021, in a dialogical process of close live collaboration. Everything we talked about — music, time, politics, and place — was treated as a kind of material with the possibility of being brought into the piece. We didn’t aim to use sound to express such concepts directly, but rather created music with attention to the circumstances: when it was written, where, to whom and by whom it would be played. There was a mutual understanding that we were …
Recytle
This album wouldn’t exist without clarinetist Gareth Davis, with whom I’ve collaborated several times. When I asked him to participate on my + album, he was working with Monika Bugajny. She got wind of my project and asked if she could join. I agreed and reworked her beautiful clarinet recording into a ghostly one-minute piece. Apparently my concoction was convincing enough for Monika to propose another, more elaborate collaboration. Her suggestion was to use the same working method again, but t…
Eidolon
To understand tuning systems, to peer into the infinity of microtonal compositional strategies, is to imagine a sense of musicality that extends far out beyond the familiar harmonies of the western ear. Iranian composer Siavash Amini, a self-confessed tuning obsessive, has dedicated much of his musical investigations over the past half decade to unlocking new relationships between harmonic events. Moreover, he has sought new timbral relations too and in doing so has honed a particular sonic-aest…
Der Krater
A note from Valerio Tricoli: "It is always very, very difficult for me to write about the music I was personally involved in making. As a matter of fact, a good reason for me to make music is precisely that I don't want to be a writer, and also to be able to shut up... for once. Yet, once a record is finished, invariably arrives the request from the publisher - in this case the great Lawrence English -- asking for a 'press sheet', a very weird, but apparently necessary form of literature in whic…
Kuden
"Kuden is a method of communicating information verbally in Japan. The word also refers to the knowledge of secret techniques traditionally passed on orally, be it from martial arts or from music and the performing arts. An apt title for this exceptional, non-arranged meeting of three musical experts who tell each other about the rich vault of their sound treasures in order to enrich it with something new through this musical dialogue, which is immediately passed on to the spellbound, amazed aud…
Anthology Of Electroacoustic Music From Finland
*200 copies limited edition* There is a long tradition of Electroacoustic music in Finland beginning in the 1950’s with the experimentation of tape music. Finland’s first electronic musical instrument the "Sähkövalopiano" or "Electric Light Piano" was built before this in 1894. It was constructed in the Polytechnic Institute (now Aalto University) in Helsinki. Finland also has a tradition of blending archaic traditional music in the contemporary music scene. The Kalevala tradition for example da…
Plays
Available for the first time as the artists originally intended!
XCIII
More than 25 years after their first partnership, international collaborators Smegma and Merzbow reunite for an all-new album that pushes the conceptual springboard of random composition generation even further. Consisting of two movements spread over 93 tracks, XCIII presents a collage of abstract electronics, unconventional instruments, reel to reel tape manipulation, loops and effects, best experienced in unique combinations on shuffled play.The first movement, Climactic Gruesome Costumes (wh…
Akira Umeda (1988-2018)
"In this album, Akira Umeda mixes 42 recordings, dated between 1988 and 2018, which, in a sense, reflect the incredible range of his creative work: from songs, to ambient music; from field recordings to prank calls. The cassette tapes, whose contents make up this double-LP, had been stored in Umeda’s house in São José dos Campos, in São Paulo, Brazil.
Restless, and easily bored, Akira moved seamlessly from one activity to another – he was a little bit of everything (and nothing at all). Such pe…
Mesmerizer
Going past musical genres and instead straight towards something more elemental - Selvhenter’s music creates a strikingly direct, physical experience of sound composed of polyrhythms, acoustic and electric melodies, heavy music and improvised beauty. Since forming in Copenhagen in 2010, drummers Jaleh Negari and Anja Jacobsen, saxophonist Sonja LaBianca and trombonist Maria Bertel have forged a unique approach to making music that starts with their instrumental setup: two drummers that interlock…
Split
* Edition of 50 * Jungle Gym Records presents JGT87, a brand new split cassette from legendary Italian experimentalist Ottaven and Los Angeles-based sound artist R. Pierre. A masterclass in sculptural minimalism and micro-industrial electronics, JGT87 is distant transmissions from the fringes of the void, capturing two of our favorite sound explorers at the peak of their creative powers... as always, exclusively from Jungle Gym.
SILVA
Bára Gísladóttir is an Icelandic composer and double bassist based in Copenhagen. She is an active performer and regularly plays her own music, mostly solo or with her long-time collaborator Skúli Sverrisson. Additionally, she is the double bassist of Elja Ensemble. Occasionally, she performs as a soloist with ensembles or orchestras, most recently in her own double bass concert, "Hringla," with the Copenhagen Philharmonic. Every sound on SILVA is of the double bass, processed to various degrees…
Pangrams
"Pangrams" evokes a wide range of emotional moods, sketched in a chamber atmosphere. The four pieces stress the immediate and deep understanding of Di Domenico and Moberg.’ - Eyal Hareuveni
Interzone
Nichola Scutton'Interzone (Nonclassical, 2023) takes inspiration in the state of in-betweenness: not awake or asleep, conscious or unconscious, and at the border between daytime and nighttime. Two defined elements emerge fromInterzone: a careful use of electronics, and Scrutton's experimental vocal practice. The album was recorded in two steps, first by the artist herself in her studio in Glasgow, using field recordings and archival materials, resulting in the series of four Interzones which con…
Mädchen In Schmutzigen Schürzen
*300 copies limited edition* After 10 years in the making 2021 saw the screen premiere of Kärma Burg's feature-film documentary "Die Experimente des Naum Kotik" (The Experiments of Naum Kotik), delving into the experiments in psycho-physical energy by Russian neurologist Naum Kotik (1876-1920) in the early 20th century. These were adop ted by his grandson Naum Kotik Jr. using his grand father's fundamental research to expand, not to say to revolutionize the possibilities of film making. Kärma Bu…
Gomberg III-V - Airplay
Big Tip! The alter ego, Gomberg, created by Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger is a tool for him to "overcome his own limitations". Gomberg serves as a foil on which a second personality comes to life and does what he wants. The recordings on Gomberg III-V were made between 2006 and 2018, recorded in Vienna and Brest. Some of the tracks are occasion-related compositions or commissioned works, e.g. a signature for an art space or short works for films, some are the results of collaborations for …
Monte Carlo Fallacy
In the lockdown of early 2020, Berlin fell silent. As reflects Nicholas Bussmann, “it felt like the early 90s in East Berlin”, the place where he grew up and experienced social change and uncertainty, and presumably a lot of empty, silent space. Here, on this duo with his long-term accomplice Werner Dafeldecker, we hear the sound of two instrumental practitioners as they explore the nature of their respective instruments with a paced and thoughtful guidance, with little intervention or overt de…
Cantor Park
75 copies, blue vinyl. Sometimes records just vibrate with a magical aura propagating endless energy and timeless positionment. Stefano Pilia & Valerio Tricoli have been maestros in their respective careers when it comes to dancing between modern concrete, unimagined landscapes and electroacoustic experiments slowly creating and almost hand-sculpting two of the most singular paths in the European avant garde scene.
After their long tenure in experimental collective 3/4HadBeenEliminated (Häpna, D…
Signal
*300 copies limited edition* Signal, Erik Enocksson and Kristofer Flensmarck's new collaborative work is an electroacoustic composition for voice and electronics – a contemporary echo of late twentieth-century avant-garde text-sound compositions – methodically burrowing its way deeper into a seemingly mundane existence, through alphabetical sequence, all the while revealing its inherent mystery:All förlust / all ilskaall meningslöshet / all skönhetAll natur / all rädslaall skit / all stillhet / …
Labirinto Verticale
The latest work, after six years of silence, from Italian berlin-based composer, performer and publisher (Black Letter Press) Claudio Rocchetti, and a welcomed return on the Die Schachtel imprint after the brilliant Another Piece of teenage wildlife (2008), Labirinto verticale (Vertical Maze) takes its origin from the four years long collaboration of Rocchetti with the Parma-based Fondazione Lenz, a contemporary theatre research collective/organization.Immersed in their very fertile milieu, insp…