Gaita Contra Computador
*In process of stocking* Vasco Alves is a sound artist living and working in Lisbon, Portugal. His work investigates the materialities of sound through uses of synthesis, amplification and unstable electronic systems. The results are often of a volatile nature, but also subjected to rigid live processing techniques. With his ongoing works for Gaita de Fole (Portuguese bagpipes), there is a distinct focus on the complementation and contrast between the acoustic voice of the Gaita set against comp…
Hoof Stand
Tip! * 300 copies. In process of stocking * Hoof Stand is the third vinyl output by Primorje, the collaborative project between Giovanni Donadini (Ottaven, Canedicoda) and Matteo Castro (Mercury Hall, Lettera 22, also founder of Second Sleep label). Keeping their focus on a minimal yet disruptive 4-track recorders-based set-up, in the nine tracks making up this 12" the duo sew up rough textures of oblique tape loops intertwined with dub echoes and slowed down tempos, giving shape to what appears…
Les Plus Belles Valses
Reissue of a 1994 French cassette. Bittersweet toy pop, minimal synth, and avant-folk interpretations of classical waltzes. Professionally-replicated CD in 4-panel digipak featuring the original art, extensive liner notes from Christophe Petchanatz on the production of each track, and newly-found photos from the recording era.Audio / Art by Christophe Petchanatz / Françoise LefebrveRemastered by Phillip B. Klingler, @pbksoundReplicated by Monotype Pressing
Abstract Musette
"This seemingly improbable duo finds both artists defending a common cause, with Lanz as stunning turntablist to serve as a perfect companion to Kocher's iconoclastic approach to his instrument. Detailed moves, fast gestures and throbbing pulses are recurrently cut by silences and sustained tones. Short rhythmic patterns and precise syllables emerge only to give way to more intimate sequences where players drift into some neutral space before re-colliding again into actualizations of micro-event…
Archytas Curve
Tip! *300 copies limited edition* Trio existing since 2014, it consists of three major figures of the Swiss improvised music scene. Koch, Kocher & Badrutt brilliantly achieve to play a subtle electro-acoustic improvised music, blending acoustic sources and electronics on a surprising way to create a music full of unpredictable events and of particular beauty. Archytas Curve is their second release. […] I am stunned by the immediacy of the improvising. They have developed a special way of playing…
almenrauschen
These five albums by Klaus Janek appear to have been originally released in 2018, but were bundled together under the title almenrauschen in 2019 in nice colour-coded sleeves designed by Stephanie Roderer – I’ll refer to this aspect at the head of each review section – in an edition of 300 units. The name “almenrauschen” derives from the aural sensation perceiving a non intentional sound world and transforming it to musical sense-making.
This bundle includes the following albums on vinyl:
- Casp…
Infinite Bang
'Janek’s “source of inspiration” was apparently Stanislaw Lem’s novel Solaris and Janek’s own social observations in Prospect Park in New York City “…where I was living during the main research period for this work”. I’m not familiar with Lem’s novel, but if you’re expecting echoes or resonances from the soundtracks of either the Tarkovsky film or the George Clooney remake, I’m afraid you may be disappointed.
On side A we find “Infinite Bang Part 1”, which is more solo contrabass and electronics…
Prospecting
'The first track on side A is “Violeros Revisitados”, which is a fight between the sounds made by Brazilian traditional musicians and the UHER Report 400 tape machine the sounds were recorded on. This source material was recorded by Gunther Kipfmüller in Northeast Brazil in the 1970s. Kipfmüller’s daughter, Milena , processes the raw material while Janek adds his contrabass and electronics to the mixture. Brazil born, Milena is also Berlin-based and works as”… a freelance soundartist, dramaturgu…
Reciprocum
Magenta. Road at night. Its probably worth quoting from the sleeve-notes so you get an idea of what the intention is on this disc: “The album consists of music chosen from a pool of recordings made over a time span of 10 years and according to its expression composed ‘together’. All of the music was created through a practice of combining the compositional and performative act. The album making process consists of two levels: the music created in the past functions as material and is put into fo…
February Papers
For Avant-Garde / Improvised Music enthusiasts, this is a Holy Grail!
Live In Allentown
*2022 stock* Jim Sauter & Don Dietrich (saxophones), Donald Miller (electric guitar), Adam Nodelman (bass guitar). The 3rd annual Halloween extravaganza. Recorded October 29, 1986. Reissue of cassette only release Live in Allentown (Lowlife LL02). Includes the entire second set with Scott Legath on electronics, not previously released.
Songs Our Mother Taught Us
*2022 stock* The work of upstate New York noise-jazz trio Borbetomagus is frequently described in terms of overwhelming power and aggression. In a live context, that's absolutely the dominant impression one is likely to get. On record, though, it's possible to have some control over the volume, and thus to listen closely and carefully and discern real technique at work, not to mention a subtlety that's not really surprising, given that saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich, and guitarist Dona…
Flatwise Huddle - Performing And Expanding Cracked Everyday Electronics 1968-2016
Andy Guhl’s career as an improvisational musician went from strength to strength in the 1970s but it wasn’t until 1983 that the Swiss experimenter and architect stopped using any traditional instruments in order to embrace electronic collage, a technique that incorporates the use of modified radios, turntables, transmitters and other objects in a sort of ante-litteram circuit-bending. A similar approach emerged in collaboration with Norbert Möslang as part of Voice Crack, a collective active fro…
The 4, The 8, The 10
That a variety of moods are conjured so effectively speaks volumes about how both artists are in synch with their objectives, so clearly vested in the realization of their ideas, so highly attuned to their birthing of new musics that to accompany them on their magical mystery tour is an experience not soon forgotten." - Darren Bergstein, DMG The electronics / woodwind duo celebrates its 15th year of existence with a new album, the first for 5 years. Material developed for concerts during the per…
Live At Super Deluxe
*350 copies limited release* A new album from Anglo-Norwegian trio The Geordie Approach, in a unique collaboration with Japanese koto-player Michiyo Yagi. Live at SuperDeluxe is both a tribute to the long-lost venue which for many years constituted the hub of high-end Tokyo experimentalism, as well as a testament to the transnational ethos of improvised music. The three musicians of The Geordie Approach have long been drawn to the experimental, rustic, activist-run underground venues found in ba…
Gated
There are enough ideas in the first couple of numbers to fill a whole album, with wailing sax and clarinet and lightning propelled guitar in the brief opener ‘Heat Patch’- think Zappa- then Fripp in ‘The Celebration Restriction’. It’s a whirlwind, visceral listen with the free spirit of experimental jazz and the nous of heavy rock." Phil Jackson.
Conceived and realised over an 8-month period of intense solitary work, "Gated" is Alex Ward's most ambitious musical statement to date. The ten pieces…
Out Of Standard !! France 4
*Limited edition 100 copies* 4th compilation of French unconventional projects on Out of Standard!!, ADN side label. Mastered by Ruggero Tajé. Dedicated to Chris Marker.
Stellan Veloce's Complesso Spettro
Tip! *200 copies limited edition* Stellan Veloce’s first record for Hyperdelia is not only their debut album but simultaneously the inception of a band: Stellan Veloce’s Complesso Spettro. At Veloce’s disposal, the players have turned into a Frankensteinian super group: with Andreas Dzialocha on electric bass, Bridget Ferrill doing electronics & processing, Julia Reidy on guitars, Marta Tiesenga on baritone sax, Earl Harvin and Jesse Quebbeman-Turley on drums, Elena Kakaliagou playing horn, Carl…
Subsongs
*30 copies limited edition* Subsongs is supposed to function like the soundtrack to a non- existent film. The images evoked by these songs depend on the imagination of the listener. Subsongs itself is a term borrowed from ornithology. It means any utterances from birds that are not associated with their standard ‘songs’ that make them recognizable as a species (e.g. the subsong of crows includes a lot of chirping and/or melodic sounds that are not normally associated with their ‘krah’ song. Thes…
Concrete Paris
*100 copies limited edition* “I’ve been making recordings of the sounds of Parisian architecture. Specifically those buildings in concrete often labelled brutalist – a term many architects dislike. Some of these early recordings found their way into Langham Research Centre’s Tape Works (Vol. 2) album. Now for this new composition I’ve brought them together with new lockdown recordings from beyond Paris’s Péripherique – the dual carriageway that contains the historic city. These new town centres …