Le Havre
Tip! Large ensemble improvisation has a history and already many historical references such as Globe Unity Orchestra, King Übü Örchestrü, The Celestrial Communication Orchestra, London Improvisers Orchestra… or more recent ones like Splitter Orchester, Insub Meta Orchestra, GGRIL, ONCEIM… How to combine energy, individuality, unexpectedness… with 26 people? How to develop different improvisation strategies without falling into the obvious drone? How can you simply improvise freely with 26 people…
Music For Smalls Lighthouse
Plinth (Michael Tanner) has been recording for the better part of a decade, sharing time as a member of numerous other acts. What makes Music for Smalls Lighthouse so special? The album tells a story whose outlines are visible even without the accompanying text; the field recordings are location-specific, and contribute to an overall mood; the composition is tender, the playing exquisite; and there's little else to which it can be compared.
Tanner has chosen just the right instruments for the oc…
Sapropelic Pycnic
*2022 stock* Sapropelic Pycnic is the world debut of music presented under the name of "Ka Baird." While this record is a commencement of many sorts, it is in no way a mere beginning: Ka is one of the founding members of experimental psychlings Spires That In the Sunset Rise. Formed in 2001 out of the Chicago scene, and described by late guitar legend Jack Rose as a "female Sun City Girls," Spires' sisterhood of sound deepened the New Folk slant with an array of avant- and world-flavored directi…
Soliloquy For Lilith
New edition with iridescent foil blocked cover. 3CD box set facsimile of the original vinyl set, contains the entire album plus 40 minutes of previously unreleased music from the original sessions
Pole Of Inaccessibility
From the lower registers of the piano, a rumbling cloud of sound appears, in which sparkling overtones creates melodies and rhythms that points out the directions of the composition. In this sound world Earth meets Morton Feldman; meets Noto/Sakamoto; meets Philip Corner's piece "Gong" in its transcribed version for low strings. The Korg MS20 interferes now and then, making it impossible to clearly define the boundaries of the piano. The album download comes with a 99 page thesis in Swedish with…
Penguins Eat Fish / Little Dark Wing
Split single of compositions by Organum and David Jackman. "Penguins Eat Fish" features a metamorphosis of the Organum sound, integrating more punctuated, real-time acoustic elements with a diverse cacophony of "chordal" loops of fog horn and bugle band. The penguins march to the horizon.
"Little Dark Wing" is the first piece to appear from a series of mid-2000s piano works by Jackman. Here Jackman's extensive graphic and visual background reveals a new palette of chordal systems.'to make this r…
Live At White Cube
In a collaboration between Christian Marclay and the London Sinfonietta, some of the world’s most renowned contemporary musicians have been invited to stage performances, including new compositions and live improvisation sessions. All of the performances are free and open to the public, spaces will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. The exhibition also features The Vinyl Factory Press, a unique hydraulic vinyl pressing machine created by The Vinyl Factory, and screen printing equip…
Live At White Cube
Live performances from Elaine Mitchener and Steve Beresford. Recorded live at White Cube on 28th and 1st March 2015. Sleeve artwork by Christian Marclay. Screen printing by Coriander Studio. Hand pressed on The Vinyl Factory Press at White Cube, Bermondsey.Christian Marclay’s exhibition at White Cube and the London Sinfonietta, some of the world’s most renowned contemporary musicians have been invited to stage performances, including new compositions and live improvisation sessions inside the Wh…
Maiandros
Testimony to the first encounter of the trio during a concert given at the cave12 on the 28.10.2020, on the same evening of the new Covid announcements which brought on a re-confinement in France, and eve to a six-month long shutdown of cultural places in Switzerland. A concert from which we emerged staggering and with burning ears due to the ongoing crisis surrounding us. A masterful sonic performance. Before silence.
Drawing from the dense and intense sound material of the evening, Francisco M…
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.