Experimental / Minimal

The sickest French band, a trio called France, drums, bass and amplified hurdy-gurdy. They only performs live, in the middle of the audience - turned in to face each other - full on smoke machines and strobes. And they play only one ‘song’ for the duration of their hour-long set. And it’s the most transfixing live experience of intense physical and mental focus, and there is something of early rave too, the togetherness, the energy, the euphory.

Traditional experimental hypnotic endless medieval r'n'b. La Tène collect, listen and probe folk melodies and motifs of large territories, from the Jura to the mountains of Auvergne, weaving them to repetition and continuous sounds, electronics and frenzy until exhaustion. Their music, drones played with traditional and acoustic instruments is an invitation to the dance frantically, leading to euphoria or trance. Cyril Bondi and d'incise are well-known swiss experimental musicians. They have a h…

**original 1979 copy, still sealed** E. Jedidiah Denman, bass; Phil Harmonic, piano, accordion and harmonica; Anne Klingensmith, cello; George Lewis, trombone and bowed trombone; Frankie Mann, electric bass and flute; Maggi Payne, flute and psalter; David Rosenboom, violin and viola; Joel Ryan, stereo rotation; John Sackett, clarinets; Mimi Shevitz, voice; Tony Truhang, piano; "Blue" Gene Tyranny, piano A collection of eleven charming vignettes, portraits in sound of Bekaert's friends. It is a g…

**90copies** "More than five years after Federico Durand (12K, Spekk) released his solo record Adormidera through Dauw, the label announces his first collaborative full album together with Tomoyoshi Date (Home Normal, Baskaru) and Asuna Arashi (Faitiche, Home Normal): In the Open.When Durand, Date and Arashi were touring together during the Spring of 2017 in Japan, they decided to visit the old city of Kanazawa. On one hand they wanted to wander through the streets, visit the castles and the gar…

"Dix Ailes is a musical proposal for 2 female voices, 1 percussionist, 1 electronic device and 1 place with high reverberation. Between minimalist music and pure pop, Dix Ailes plays on an acoustic illusion, that of making indistinguishable the origin of the sound (instrumental, loudspeaking or architectural), based on work on harmonics, frequency vibrations, the physical resonance of the place, psycho-acoustics.Essentially centered on the voice, Dix Ailes addresses the notions of empty and full…

The Third Ascension is a return to the 4-guitar, bass and drums format of his legendary 1981 release The Ascension as well as 2010's The Ascension: The Sequel. The recording is a live performance by The Glenn Branca Ensemble at NYC's The Kitchen in 2016.  Emerging from the late 70's No Wave scene and moving into composition, Branca’s 45 years of work as a composer included music for experimental rock bands, large ensemble instrumentals for electric guitars, symphonies for both electric instrumen…

Wall of Sound is a music of sonic sensations. It is a physical and sensual approach to the phenomenon of thick sound worlds. Sound waves become physical objects, four-dimensional sonic sculptures to be experienced, bodily and mentally. Ulrich Krieger's Wall Of Sound is a series of CDs about music that invites the listener to indulge themselves in sound. It doesn't guide an audience through a narrative, like a song, but offers the listener slow changing and developing soundscapes, acoustic sculpt…

One of the most mythical experimental groups of all time, Musica Elettronica Viva was formed in 1966 by a group of American composers in Rome, its nucleus comprised of pianist Frederic Rzewski, sound improviser Alvin Curran and the improvisatory keyboardist Richard Teitelbaum. Taking cues from John Cage and David Tudor, MEV employed open, limitless structures, using found instruments, toys, a homemade synthesizer and the first Moog to reach mainland Europe. Improv and critical listening practice…

*Triple LP.* In June 2016, the great-outdoors music festival Echos asked Ernest Bergez aka Sourdure to produce a series of "Mantras" set to be diffused in between each concert of the twenty-four hours event taking place in the french Alpes. These pieces were played on the festival's gigantic speakers/ horns system in the afternoon, evening, night, morning, noon... and reverberated fully in the rocky valley. This triple vinyl edition gathers the field-recording-like captures of the tracks deliver…

Glen Velez is perhaps not a household name, but let Emotional Rescue change that with this wonderfully curated collection of works from a masterful drum devotee. Velez has Latin American roots, and he has performed since the late '60s in New York, but his interest in percussion spans the globe and all kinds of hand drums. His respected techniques have been snapped up by collaborators like John Cage and Steve Reich, not least thanks to the advanced polyrhythmic modes he operates in. Don't be fool…

**300 copies** I Enjoy the world is the first solo album by Efraín Rozas. The piece was composed to be listened to as a sonic meditation of 40 minutes. Buh Records (Lima, Peru), previously released the album as a limited cassette edition in 2017, accompanied with an animated video by Muriel Holguin. The album has now been remastered and pressed on vinyl by Futura Resistenza, a new record label from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "I Enjoy the World is the second installment of the Myth and Prosthesi…

Spittle Records present a reissue of Comix's self-titled album, originally released in 1981. One of the most treasured French minimal wave records is back on vinyl. Comix, a duo of guitarist/composer André Demay and DJ/singer Natan Hercberg, are a one album project. Their first single "Touche Pas Mon Sexe", recorded in 1979, has been refused by several record companies, but duo finally found home on French branch of Virgin. They released two singles and one full-length LP in 1981, and appeared o…

Cyril Bondi, Pierre-Yves Martel and Christoph Schiller formed a trio in 2017 and recorded a set of studio pieces which became the CD Tse, which was released on Another Timbre in 2018. The CD was very successful and has nearly sold out. On the back of that CD, the trio did a brief tour of Europe in October 2018, and played at Cafe OTO in London together with violinist Angharad Davies. The trio played a set, followed by a solo by Angharad, and then for the final piece the trio joined forces with A…

Sofa is very proud to release the outstanding debut record of composer / guitarist Fredrik Rasten. In Six Moving Guitars, the stable sounds of justly tuned consonances are being «activated» by the different qualities of the movements of the guitars. The piece came out of the collaborative work between three dancers and three musicians. The group’s goal was to work with choreography and sound as a unity, erasing the functional differences between dancer and musician and focusing solely on the son…

**300 copies** Originally released on cassette by Corpus Hermeticum in 1994. All sounds by Alastair Galbraith and Bruce Russell. "New Zealand is on summer holidays all through the month of January. For some reason I had the house to myself, the wife and kids were elsewhere. Alastair Galbraith brought over some instruments and we plugged in a cassette recorder. We spent the sunny afternoon setting up combinations of instruments and seeing what happened. We had recorded the Concord LP the year bef…

"- log p" is the debut release by the Hamburg based improvising duo H, consisting of David Wallraf and Klaus Frieler. The group takes a contemporary approach to classical concepts of Minimalism and Kraut. Repetition and layering are some of the main characteristics in the creation of rhythmical complexity through drums, field recordings and electronics.

CD Edition. Venerable composer and pianist Charlemagne Palestine revisits his seminal 1976 work ‘The Golden Mean’ in duo with enigmatic artist Rrose, reprising a dialogue started 10 years ago when Rrose was studying at Mills College and looking for a score to Charlemagne’s amazing ‘Strumming Music’…“In 2018 the Festival Variations in Nantes commissions Palestine to perform The Golden Mean, reworking the piece for two pianists. Palestine chose Rrose to join him in this new rendition of the work. …

** Grouper’s Liz Harris quietly released this album of primordial soundscapes a few weeks ago under the new Nivhek alias, initially released in a private edition that vanished almost as quickly as it was announced, After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house is presented here in a beautiful second edition on Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH.** Opaque assemblages of Mellotron, guitar, field recordings, tapes and broken FX pedals by Pacific Northwest artist Liz Harris, created dur…

Apartment House give new life to Julius Eastman’s irrepressible ensemble piece from 1974. Unbounded energy and clarity of sound. Unmissable. Read the following interview with the Apartment House's director, cellist cellist Anton LukoszeviezeWhen did you first play Julius Eastman's music, and when had you become aware of it?I first performed Eastman's music in 2016, which was a revelation for me, as the extant scores are rather fragmentary and incomplete, some are even just transcriptions from ar…

Trajectories is the second full-length album by Michael Vincent Waller, featuring pianist R. Andrew Lee and cellist Seth Parker Woods. The album will be released on September 8th, 2017, on Sean McCann’s Los Angeles based label, Recital. The CD/LP editions include photography by Phill Niblock, liner notes by "Blue" Gene Tyranny, and mastering by Denis Blackham. "In these evocative works, Michael Vincent Waller details his responses to mostly situations of introspection, in which the compose…

Following the excellent reissue of Aither last year, Emotional Rescue return to the dreamy, decidedly tripped out sound world of French-Persian outfit Vox Populi! with this enchanting collection of early rarities from the early to mid 80s. There's a range of moods on offer here, sounding very much of the era with dashes of On-U dub colliding with kosmische and the worldly outlook of Byrne, Brian Eno, Jon Hassell et al. It's a varied listen and a wonderful introduction to a band that could …

** Small restock available, nice price **Mindblowing! The last album of what could be called Franco Battiato's "experimental prog" period, L'Egitto Prima Delle Sabbie consists of two sidelong compositions strictly arranged for piano only, without any vocals; and even more intriguingly, neither of the performers on the album are Battiato himself. He limited himself strictly to the roles of composer and producer. After Battiato's many different sonic explorations and efforts throughout the '70s, s…

Recorded in Bad Zwischenahn in early 2016 as two live performances captured to a Zoom H4 - small Eurorack case, mixer, a couple of guitar pedals - Trübhand is built around long, slow modulations and resonant structures that rise and fall trying to find definition within the flat north-German landscape Fyans was living in. The methodology is patient sculptural patching, allowing time to do the structural work; the affect runs to the muted, modular drone shaped by its making.

Yogurt is the second release of the collective Blutwurst. Produced by Tom Relleen and Valentina Magaletti (Tomaga) the LP takes its title from the project Yogurt, started in 2013 and focused on the electro-acoustic exploration of unisons and drones. From its earliest stages the influence of new American music was essential to define the sonic identity of the collective: the music of La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier, as well as Europeans Giacinto Scelsi and Eliane Radigue, has represented and repr…

The LP release presents the reissue of a little-known, but extremely beauty, Post-Minimalism album composed by Wayne Siegel when he was mid-twenties. Moved from US to Denmark, between 1979 and 1980, he began to investigate possibilities of a very personal language, contributing to mould the heterogeneous kaleidoscope of Post-Minimalism results. These works are constructed around a relentless musical process that consists of delaying and repeating every element in a certain measure, without inten…

San Francisco provocateurs Inflatable Boy Clams recorded one of the greatest all-female art punk records ever made, a wrongfully obscure five-song double 7-inch EP which has garnered a cult following ever since its initial release on Subterranean Records in 1981. While the music blends simple instrumentation and captivating, quirky lyrics, the artwork looks like an early Rough Trade single, complete with posh Winogrand-esque photo of the group.More of a performance art troupe than a traditional …

Asmus Tietchens and Thomas Köner exercise a collective marketing genius with their decision to end a fruitful collaborative series in brute, anticlimactic style, issuing this limited, (naturally) expensive box meant to house the duo's previous four discs. Such closure is especially disappointing as it arrives just behind last year's n, Kontakt der Jünglinge's most dense and engrossing work to date, a haunting deepspace symphony of icy gleam and relentless sprawl, one of my late-year favorites. F…

Medical Records presents it's 60th release with the much needed reissue of Australia's Severed Heads and their 1985 release - Stretcher. The Severed Heads story continues with the expanded and Stretched 2LP reissue. After personnel changes in 1985 (Garry Bradbury and Paul Deering left the band), Sev was now down to a 2 piece (Tom Ellard and Stephen Jones). Stretcher was originally released to be a compilation to introduce the band to an American audience, but it was ultimately sold in three vers…

2016 release (RARE) ** Edition of 200 in printed cardstock sleeve with needle and thread stitched through cover packaged in a poly sleeve with sticker attached. "Gather & Release is the result of years worth of composer Sarah Hennies' exploration of the vibraphone in synthesis with her experiences of identity, obsession, anxiety, tension, grief, and loss. Over the course of an hour, Hennies entangles highly focused percussion playing with field recordings, sine waves, signifiers from her persona…

Eleh's Homage series is remastered and on CD for the first time. Certain frequency combinations that were impossible to cut on LP are effectively presented in this digital edition. Packaged in a heavy duty 6 panel fold out jacket with inner printing and a matte finish. Eleh, an artist who flourishes in restraint, uses a reduced sonic vocabulary to highlight delicate intricacies in a logical path toward harmonious satisfaction. The organization of hypnotic square waves, rippling sine waves and tr…

2024 Restock. Before New Age hit terra firma at the dawn of the 1980s, the classically-trained Bay Area composer Jordan De La Sierra's consciousness soared with cosmic concepts. With cues and lessons from the great minimalists La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Pandit Pran Nath, and help from the venerable public radio program Hearts of Space, De La Sierra embarked on journey in alternate tunings and resounding reverberations, transporting entranced listeners from the Golden Gates to the intergalactic…

Acoustic trio with John Coxon [acoustic guitars] Ashley Wales [found percussion etc.] and AMM's Eddie Prevost. A slowly evolving and spacious piece originating from reading eddie's book 'minute particulars'. "I have a National Trojan guitar from the 1930s that i bought in a little shop in new orleans. I used this for the ‘acoustic trio’ recording with Ashley Wales and Eddie Prevost [amongst many other recordings]. I remember Eddie saying ‘the perfect instrument’ because it has both a membrane an…

Four text scores composed by Ryoko Akama (VCS3 synthesizer), Bruno Duplant (percussion, tone generator) and Dominic Lash (double bass, clarinet & laptop). The pieces are all text scores, carefully and exquisitely realised by three of the most interesting musicians to emerge on the experimental music scene in the last few years. The musicians combine in a fruitful and intimate exchange, producing a delicate and fragile web of sounds. Four beautifully evolving and carefully paced works.."-Another …

The Tobacconists are Scott Foust (Idea Fire Company/Swill Radio) and Frans de Waard (Kapotte Muziek/Korm Plastics). In 2005, Frans joined Idea Fire Company on their European tour (as documented on the "Vital - Live In Europe" CD). Four years later, Scott F. returned to Europe to screen his feature film "Here's To Love" and reconnected with Frans to form The Tobacconists. An intensive week of rehearsals yielded six new pieces of music, followed by a European tour and a proper studio recording. Th…

Roberta Settels' only record, self-released in 1985 after Caprice backed out over its politics: four pieces of pure analog tape music, sine waves and white noise, including an elegy for Ulrike Meinhof. Reissued in a silk screened plastic sleeve, 250 copies.

A rare window into the early modular explorations of David Chesworth, The Unattended Serge 1978 / Five Evolutionary Things 1979 is a playful, minimalist suite for Serge synthesizer, predating his work with Essendon Airport.

The meeting of composer Arnold Dreyblatt and psych-folk trio Megafaun shouldn’t be seen as unlikely just because it’s cross-generational, or even (arguably) cross-genre. Such categorizations have to be set aside before taking in their Appalachian Excitation. Born in New York in 1953, Dreyblatt came up under such lauded experimental groundbreakers as Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young, obtaining a Master’s degree in composition from Wesleyan University. Now based in Berlin, where h…

500 hand-numbered copies on blue 180gm vinyl in diecut cardstock outer sleeve, with foilstamped cardstock insert and colour insert. Aidan Baker brought British tour-mates Plurals to the studio with him. A gradual unfurling of intricate layers of sound builds and envelopes the listener over 'Dead Foxes in the Street's' 20 minutes, creating a warm and uplifting aural atmosphere. 'Turning Children into Mice' is a brooding, decidedly sinister beast, weaving a repetitive and increasingly dark threat,…

2020 repress. Necessary vinyl edition of some of the greatest minimalist/hillbilly/rock/psych music of the century, the goddamn motherlode from violinist/composer/philosopher/artist Henry Flynt: Flynt penned a bunch of amazing texts across the years (check the special issue of Richard Grossinger’s Io journal dedicated to his thought, 1989’s Being = Space x Action for more on that), he studied with Terry Riley and LaMonte Young and was briefly associated with The Velvet Underground, though Lou Re…

Gen Ken Montgomery ran a tiny record shop and sound art gallery called Generator in downtown New York — one of the first such spaces in the city — and it was from here that his practice took shape. A self-taught autodidact with no formal training in music or art, Montgomery built his first tape in 1981, Gen Ken and Equipment (150 copies), from cheap synthesizers, toy instruments, household gadgetry, and electric machines: an ice crusher named Icebreaker, an aquarium pump, a refrigerator, a shoe-…