Breaks
Debut solo CD by Wuhan-born, London-based artist, Zheng Hao, who also performs in the duos Oishi (with Ren Shang) and ecm (with Joseph Khan). Four lean and sinewy improvisations; the sound of tightly controlled buzzing and rippling electric currents, pointillistic splintering rhythms and textures, sparse jagged incursions, and wiry static blasts. In the artist's own words, Breaks explores "rhythmic patterns from dusty potentiometers and dirty electronic circuits in modular synthesis improvisatio…
An Island Is An Island
*300 copies limited edition.* An Island Is An Island is a correspondence musical project of two respectable islanders, Michael Morley (of The Dead C, based on Te Wai Pounamu / South Island, New Zealand) and Joachim Nordwall (Ideal Records, Island of Brännö, Sweden).Two tracks touching the 40 minutes mark are as unique as it can get, magical and just sort of hard to define folktale of hypnagogic dream landscapes full of haunting micro tones and fragments of cursed melodies.While listening to this…
Creiriau Y Delyn Rawn / Relics Of The Horsehair Harp
"This collection is a companion piece to my solo album ‘Telyn Rawn’ AMGEN 001 (2020). I have invited some of my favourite musicians to respond to the eighteen improvised pieces on ‘Telyn Rawn’. I asked each contributor to imagine that the musical material improvised in 2020 was an ancient musical form that had fully existed in the medieval period, and, that each of their responses were to have happened centuries after the imagined formation of the ‘Telyn Rawn’ pieces. This album therefore propos…
Telyn Wrachïod
Cildraeth Sienco is an improvisation based on an amalgamation of the notation and structure of Angharad Jenkins’ Brandy Cove with the alternative string tuning of ‘Cywair yn Nghywair y Wrach’ from Robert ap Huw’s manuscript."Ceimion wrachïod cymwysYn siarad bob teimlad twys""Precise, angled braysSpeaking every profound feeling."From a cywydd requesting a harp by Huw Machno fl. 1560-1637
Notte
Taping, expanding, and challenging the parameters of how we perceive rhythm and percussion, comes “Notte”, the debut solo LP by the Italian journeyman drummer and composer Piero Perelli. Ranging from the infectiously hypnotic to complex abstractions and sheets of ambience, every step of the way it's an engrossing listen that shouldn't be missed.
Fire & Ice
**Original 1982 copies, still sealed and log time stored (copies may have minimal wear on covers)** Intriguingly sets the apocalyptic Robert Frost poem, with trumpeter Yousef Yancy as the ice and Garrett List as the fire. Haunting settings of vital dada poet Blaise Cendrars' incandescent lines and Sweetness, an ineffably lovely poem by Bayard Lancaster, whose alto parallels soaring synthesizer parabolas, and the riveting voice of Genie Sherman, whose sinuous, sibilant messages are those of pure…
Furtuna Virilis Plus...
2024 stock. "Decibel is a fundamental point of reference for the preservation and refurbishment of the rock in opposition genre in Latin American lands. Originally released 20 years after the excellent, challenging debut effort "El Poeta del Ruido" (and soon afterwards rereleased with bonus tracks), "Fortuna Virilis" happens to be the ultimate statement of decibel's musical vision. This album, unlike its distant predecessor, does not give preferential room to sound processing and tape effects, b…
Sleepless
This album was recorded at Liu Ying Studio in Shenzhen. An improvised session on acoustic guitar from start to finish, it nonetheless demonstrates a highly original, coherent artistic conception: a distinct “Oriental” aesthetic redefined by Mamer’s own creative vision. In tracks like “Sleepless”, “Man from the East”, and “Backyard”, Mamer ingeniously deconstructs and deploys traditional Han Chinese music scales to serve his own purpose, adding artful ambivalence and rich subtleties to an unmista…
Saxophone Solo For Reel-to-reel Tape Recording
*2024 stock* This series of reel-to-reel tape recordings, to be jointly released by Old Heaven Books and Liu Ying Studio, aims to offer to our listeners the best quality of sound we can achieve so far. Whilst a small part of these releases come from historical archives, the majority are freshly made by musicians we invite to our studio. We record these studio sessions − some of which free-improvised, others more composition-based − on reel-to-reel tapes. With high-quality studio equipment, we ma…
Control And Its Opposites
“Eighty minutes of trumpet/electronics and alto sax. Here, the length works in its favor. An advantage, oddly, to listening at home (and reading the back of the sleeve): You know it's 80 minutes long so you "read" it as such, as it's happening, sitting back a bit, seeking a wider focus. Wright gets nicely strident here and there, Coleman generally staying with breath tones early on, getting more vociferous later, Kasyansky hither and yon, doing a fine job integrating and coloring. There's a brea…
A Life Saved By A Spider And Two Doves
Three extended improvisations recorded at the church of St. James the Great, North London, September 2007 - the first convocation of this unexpected quartet crossing different generations and playing styles. Max Eastley (arc - electro-acoustic monochord), Graham Halliwell (computer & electronics), Evan Parker (soprano saxophone) and Mark Wastell (tam-tam, metal percussion & harmonium) document a meeting of three generations of London free improvisation.
Parker has had a venerable presence as bot…
Endspace
Duo improvisations recorded at Goldsmiths College, London, July 2007. Angharad Davies (violin) and Tisha Mukarji (inside piano) - two of the most distinctive young improvisers on the UK scene - unite for their first recording as a duo. An entirely acoustic affair impossible to ignore the heritage that goes before such a recording of piano and violin: the slow pace of Feldman and the New York School, the grey austerity of the Wandelweiser collective echo through these five improvisations.
Davies …
Hum
Quartet improvisations recorded at London's Red Rose in June 2007. Rhodri Davies (harp & objects), Matt Davis (trumpet & electronics), Samantha Rebello (flute) and Bechir Saadé (bass clarinet) unite for intimately detailed collective sound explorations mining the lower boundaries of dynamics and densities. Davies and Davis are well-established improvisers; Rebello is a new name; Saadé is a member of the Lebanese improv scene along with Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Sehnaoui, and Mazen Kerbaj.
It's …
Tasting
Recorded live at the June 2006 Jazz à Poitiers festival, this gem pairs two extraordinary musicians in an unusual and very welcome configuration. Phil Minton - the legendary British vocalist with decades of experience exploring the outer possibilities of the human voice - meets Sophie Agnel, one of the most interesting and original voices on today's scene, though still largely undiscovered given her small discography. Her approach to piano is truly surprising: a mysterious and fascinating mixtur…
Mouth To Mouth
Four compositions by the US-Chinese composer:
'Of Monsters' - Ingrid Lee, piano Merima Kljuko, accordion'Cells' - Ingrid Lee & Rowan Smith, amplified snare drums'Bead Spit' - Ingrid Lee, piano, Max Kutner, electric guitar, Tony Gennaro, percussion'Another' - Eric KM Clark & Andy Studer, violins, Heather Lockie, viola, Meldoy Yenn, cello, Jake Rosenzweig, bass & Tony Gennaro, vibraphone
Spiral Inputs
Four beautifully crafted improvisations by an exceptional European trio: French pianist Sophie Agnel, French saxophonist Bertrand Gauguet, and German sound artist Andrea Neumann. Recorded between 2008 and 2010 at various locations in France – La Filature in Mulhouse, La Maison de la Musique in Le Garric, and Bibliothèque Grand'Rue in Mulhouse – Spiral Inputs documents performances using a spatialized sound system developed by Benjamin Maumus, which had the effect of troubling the musicians' sens…
The Middle Distance
Trio improvisations for two pianos and double bass
Arethusa
Wade Matthews (software synthesis, manipulated field recordings) and Stéphane Rives (soprano saxophone) recorded these four pieces in Madrid in July 2008, creating music that speaks to transformation, identity, and the improviser's paradox. The album takes its name from Ovid's tale of Arethusa—a nymph fleeing the river god Alpheus who, in attempting to escape change, becomes water itself. As Matthews writes in his liner notes, "in her quest to remain herself, she has become exactly what she fled…
Strange Skills
The first collaborative work by Choi Joonyong and Devin DiSanto. 6-Panel Digipak with one disc.
We Speak in Rivers
Patrick Shiroishi - Alto SaxophoneCamila Nebbia - Tenor Saxophone
Written, performed & produced by Camila Nebbia & Patrick ShiroishiRecorded by Lukas Marx at Soundfabrik, Berlin 2022Mix by Juan BelvisMastered by Lasse MarhaugDesigned by Tony LugoExecutive Production by Christian Di Vito