The Invention of the Human
"The Invention of The Human" is designed as a response to the question "what makes us human?" The question has become increasingly important in this period of history, in that many of the answers aren't good enough. "Civilisation" could be one answer; but what good is civilization where there is so much misery within it?
"Progress" could be another; but what good is progress without kindness and empathy to sustain it? Taking the thought of man's relationship with technology as a measure of human…
Ashioto
Black Truffle announce Ashioto, the first international solo release from Japanese drummer-percussionist-composer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. Active for over a decade, Yamamoto has performed and recorded extensively with artists such as Jim O'Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi, and Akira Sakata, as well as participating in innumerable improvised and ad hoc groups. Ashioto presents two wide-ranging pieces that combine Yamamoto's percussion work with piano, field recordings, electronics, and contributions from guest …
Lamunan
** Edition of 90 copies** Forged alone in a cave on the island of Java, and recorded in a fortress in Poland, Antonina Nowacka’s “Lamunan” is an intimate exploration of a mysterious darkness and the earliest of musical forms. Nowacka has co-created raw electronics and audiovisuals as half of WIDT and the enigmatic Mentos Gulgendo, but her solo practice focuses solely on the voice’s inherent connection to mental states, its ability to speak wordlessly, and the apparatus of speech itself – leading…
BOW
Brussels-based string quintet BOW celebrates musical freedom. Juggling between their own written music and pure improvisation, the ensemble has worked since its creation on a personal and modern approach, digging into their instruments' capabilities and blending a large scope of influences.
Its debut eponym LP, due to be released on Sub Rosa, gathers five instantly-composed pieces that were recorded live by Christine Verschorren in the Echo Collective studio in Brussels. During the day, BOW repe…
ENIAC Girls
Seventy years ago, computers were as big as swimming pools and were programmed by country girls. ENIAC, the world’s first fully electronic, vacuum-tube-based universal computing machine, sported a weight of 27 tonnes and used 18,000 vacuum tubes for calculating. And, each day, at least two of those vacuum tubes gave out. When this machine was presented to the world public in 1946, six young women, most of them maths students from the rural Midwest of the USA, had spent three years inventing a me…
Iteration
Two improvisations from an astonishing Munich performance in May 2019 by the Berlin-based duo of Lucio Capece - bass clarinet, slide saxophone, room acoustics and mini-speakers & Werner Dafeldecker - double bass.
"The two pieces were recorded last year during our live performance at the ‘Offene Ohren’ concert series in Munich. On the disc are two unedited improvised sets. Lucio and I have known each other for many years and play together periodically. So the music was maybe ‘pre-planned’ to some…
Good Day Good Day Bad Day Bad Day
A unique and extraordinary 45-minute composition for piano & keyboards + percussion, written for the GBSR duo: George Barton & Siwan Rhys. Composed by Oliver Leith in 2018, and recorded in March 2020 by Mark Knoop.
"I like looking at and framing everyday life, sometimes banal things. Good day good day bad day bad day is almost an incantation, I was interested in the rituals, habits, things we tell ourselves to keep going, invasive irrational thoughts, odd pleasures and reliefs of life. Mainly be…
Monument of Diamonds
Epic 45-minute microtonal composition by Kraig Grady, using a 17-tone scale, the Meta-Slendro tuning, created by Erv Wilson. Composed in 2020. The instruments were specially built or adapted for the unusual tuning system.
"The idea of Monuments came from the sound of the brass, in which I include the saxophone here. Brass seems to be used much less in newer music than strings, winds and percussion which is unfortunate. Since they are used less than strings or winds in new music, they seem to inv…
Repetition of the Same Dream
Five works for flute, percussion & electronics, recorded during Covid-19 lockdown in a church in Basel, Switzerland, March 2020. Commissioned by Another Timbre and performed by Mara Winter - flute and Clara de Asís - bowed objects, percussion & electronics.
"There were some pieces that I composed and others that were formed by Mara and I, where the roles of composer / performer dissolved into each other. ‘A passage through’ was composed specifically for Mara’s bass flute, also relating very much…
Tunes & Scenery (Hard To Whistle)
**200 copies. Originally released on tape in 1984** Tunes & Scenery (Hard To Whistle) is an adventurous and quite unique work that was originally recorded on an analog four-track in 1983 by the young visual artist and musician Jacques van Erven. The album brings together the surprising combination of analog synthesizers, small Casio keyboards, a mouth harp, ukulele, marimba, and a variety of drums. A kind of hybrid music of contemporary jazz and world music combined with influences of rock and n…
A Place to Hide
Much needed vinylization of an amazing live set, previously issued as a CDR in an edition of 100 by the fine Borley Rectory label. Finally, for the good of all mankind, the music from this great night, opening for Robyn Hitchcock at London's Betsey Trotwood in October 2018, is turntable ready. A Place to Hide begins with the album's one new original tune 'My Reflection Once Was Me.' The song brims with harmonium-iced vocals that cannot fail to bring a certain German-born chanteuse to mind. Built…
Corduroy Road
2020 Re-issue of Keith Kenniff's debut under his Goldmund moniker. Originally only released on CD in 2005 via John Twells' Type Recordings, this album of rare and unusual minimalist beauty is now presented as a vinyl edition for the first time. "Multi-instrumentalist Keith Kenniff is a busy man. He has appeared as Helios on a number of acclaimed releases, including Deaf Center’s ‘Neon City EP’, and released a debut album ‘Unomia’ on Merck records which has appeared on many best of 2004 lists. A…
Scaath Catfish
Songs about the river are a common trope in the history of music. Psalms of being cleansed, being baptized, being redeemed. There are ballads of murder, lost love, jealousy, and all sorts of rank human emotion reflected in the surface of the water. Respect, praise, and worship of the river are other themes often channeled through music as well. Even in the realm of ambient music, digital mimesis of the aquatic is commonplace. Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, in their ongoing archaeological approac…
Peaks
Black Truffle present Peaks by Australian cellist Judith Hamann, her debut release of electro-acoustic music. Known mostly for her live performance work with composers including Sarah Hennies, Yvette Janine Jackson, Alvin Lucier, Tashi Wada, and La Monte Young, here she steps away from the cello, moving into an intimate dreamscape woven from recordings gathered over years of itinerant touring. Peaks is a work in two distinct parts, crossfading between different landscapes and apertures; from roo…
Harbors
**Matte laminate sleeve with black inner reverse print** Over the last 20 years, since its humble launch at the outset of the millennia, Lawrence English’s Room40 imprint has grown into an unmistakable force in the landscape of experimental, electronic, and electroacoustic music, enveloping a vast global context that extends far beyond its Australian roots. Somehow as humble as it is ambitious, with a catalog number into the hundreds - covering an incredibly diverse range of practices, as well a…
Schaum
Faitiche is very pleased to announce the release of a Schaum by Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek. Since their debut Bird, Lake, Objects they have played improvised concerts around the world. Japanese vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita prepares his instrument with various percussion elements as well as metal objects and toys, while Jan Jelinek layers loops made using small-scale electronic devices. Schaum (German for froth, foam) is the duo’s second album.
Bird, Lake, Objects
Queried on his favourite word in the German language, Masayoshi Fujita will pick ‘getragen’ – without a sliver of hesitation. Further questioning will reveal that he loves the term’s semantic signifiers, its inherent sense of “expansive, deep, quiet and sombre.” And yet, ‘getragen’ leaves plenty of room for interpretation: depending on context, it might also indicate wearing apparel or the state of being carried – two more mundane interpretations that I would rather keep from him.
Does Masayoshi…
Undercurrent
Black Truffle announce Undercurrent, the new LP from the long-running Milanese duo of Giuseppe Ielasi and Nicola Ratti. Following on from high-profile releases on Boomkat Editions and Shelter Press in the last few years, the eight untitled pieces making up Undercurrent continue the pair's hypnotic and disorientating practice of improvisation based on tape loops. Often sitting halfway between electro-acoustic technique and beat-based production, the music of Bellows obliquely recalls aspects of h…
This Valley Of Old Mountains
This Valley Of Old Mountains quietly creates the folklore of an imaginary land. From a hemisphere apart, Taylor Deupree and Federico Durand share simple sounds with complex stories. Their music balances an edge between translucency and exploration, focusing on obscurity, repetition and a shared fascination of the mountains between them. Recorded in La Cumbre (Córdoba, Argentina) and Pound Ridge (New York, US) between July 2019 and April 2020.
South from the Future
**Limited edition cassette. Risograph artwork** The debut album by C. Blumberg (living in Berlin DE) is a series of composite images. Anecdotes with distorted perspectives. Documents or maps - impressions...? However if you look a bit closer you see something very different, quite like a technologic fantasy.
The second track, 神奇森林上海 (tr. Shanghai Magical Forest), holds a certain key to enter the psyche of the album. Here Blumberg is inspired by a photo found on Flickr. The author of the photo ga…