A Trail of Laughters
Room40 presents A Trail of Laughters by Siavash Amini. A series of distressing dreams started this whole thing. A few years ago someone pointed out that my repeating dreams of being lost in what seemed to be a maze of pits, reminded them of stories about wonders of wells and pits in the Book of Marvels. More than a year ago I started having those dreams again, so I read the book. There were similarities with a few of the stories but nothing more. One of the stories made an impression on me more …
The Terrestrial Sea
Texturally detailed ambient-electronic study on the relationships between man made and natural environments in the Cromarty Firth, Scotland. File somewhere between Cindytalk and Richard Skelton
Shinkai
** Hand stickered & stamped LP with lyric insert ** Five years after the release of ‘Pressure Loss’ the modern master of electronic minimalism Nicola Ratti returns to Where To Now? in collaboration with Japanese MC ‘MA’, for a suite of submerged, outsider Trip-Hop. ‘Shinkai’ meets at the crossroads of the gloomy sonic snapshot world of Tricky, the South London DIY avant pop bloom of Curl/Mica Levi, the outer fringes of Hip-Hop heralded by the Anticon crew, and the deep textured minimalism of Mac…
Andromache
** Edition of 150 ** Andromache is an unforeseen homage to an unfamiliar friend. Recorded over a five year period on abandoned and ruined pianos all over Europe, the project culminated inside a death-struck apartment in the south of Athens. Andromache includes new re-worked versions of previously released pieces from the MMMD discography. Recorded 2012-2017 in Copenhagen, Lausanne, Budapest, Kallithea.
In Trux We Pux 02
In Trux We Pux is a compilation conducted by Favela Discos, that seeks to register and expose a series of sound tendencies and collaborative practices that have been developing in the experimental music scene of Porto. The music included in this volume was created from a Favela Discos’ collective audiovisual piece named “Desilusão Óptica”, resorting to recordings made in Stop and in the Serralves em Festa 2017 presentation. David Machado - flute, saxophone, guitar. Dora Vieira - flute, flugelhor…
(Eco)Systems
** Packed on a killer looking CD edition designed by Entr’acte boss Allon Kaye ** Fresh in the post from Russia, via Stellage – this hallucinatory amalgamation of otherwordly soundscapes and sonic scenarios from Seth Neil & Bruno Deplant – one of two new CD’s in the steadily growing discography of solid experimental music and sound art the label and the artists that find themselves there - (eco)systems is a mix of acoustic instruments, field recordings, digital and analogue synths, structured in…
Assassin Reverie
** 2021 Stock ** Arte Quartett: Beat Hofstetter, soprano saxophone; Sascha Armbruster, alto saxophone; Andrea Formenti, tenor saxophone; Beat Kappeler, baritone saxophone Terry Riley, vocals, piano and harpsichord (Uncle Jard) A free spirit, maverick par excellence, creator of a personal compositional style that has spawned entire generations of epigones, Terry Riley (b 1935) embodies the best aspects of the American pioneer spirit, the positive and uncorrupted image of America (and California i…
Early Works / Things Popping Up From The Past
Michel Banabila, born 1961, is a sound artist, composer, and producer. Banabila releases music since 1983 and has produced musical scores for numerous films, documentaries, theatre plays and choreographies. This album collects 11 songs from his early years, released on tape, vinyl EPs or limited CD editions: beautiful minimal loop-based electronica, neo-classical pieces and ambient drone music. A true discovery!
Numerous threads run through the music of Michel Banabila, whose contemporary work …
The Works
Our Swimmer’s first ever vinyl reissue of Alvin Curran’s seminal 1980 LP, 'The Works', is nothing short of a historic event. Among the composer’s most famous and sought-after releases, it’s an absolute stunning piece of work - blending voice, piano, synthesizer, and tape into a seamless expanse of ambience, texture, and tone - that manages to turn experimentalism on its head over 40 years on.
Something Is Missing
Luxe, spaced-out drone music from Phillip Sollman (Efdemin), including a charming drone-pop take on Jane’s ‘Fine Day’. In his post-techno phase Phillip Sollman continues to spread his wings and double down on his interest in minimalism following collaborations with Oren Ambarchi and John Gürtler in the past few years, and more recently on his percussive study ‘Monophonie.’ The title for his new suite with Dial kinda gives the game away; it’s very minimal, in the school of thought developed by li…
A Geography of Absence
After the exploration of snowy mountains of Alpestres, released on Hands in the Dark in 2018, French composer Matthias Puech ventures into new territories, sketching a cartography of the invisible where the journey, in chiaroscuro, is announced as a rite of passage. A Geography of Absence, as introspective as unpredictable, immerses the listener into a unique sensory whirlwind where organic matter becomes almost palpable. A researcher in theoretical computer science and an engineer at GRM, Matth…
Bakunawa
Easily among our favorite records of the year - issued in a very limited vinyl edition of 300 copies by Cortizona and Stuk - Pak Yan Lau's latest, "Bakunawa", is a truly stunning thing to behold. A continuation of her long-standing "Book of Toy" project, expanded for the first time to incorporate the contributions of a five-piece ensemble, it's a sprawling expanse of deep harmonics and percussive rhythms that channel the magical and poetic into the realms of experimental music, deftly nodding to…
A Journal of Elasticity
Richard Scott and Axel Dörner’s »Journal of Elasticity« is a two-part site-specific composition recorded at the big water reservoir in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. Playing once with the empty space’s acoustics as a third actor and once in front of and with the audience’s presence, their bohemian drips debut is a riveting study of space and intensity.
Music from Organ
On his new EP ‘Music from Organ’, producer and live musician Giulio Aldinucci offers up four tracks of layered and meticulously-crafted ambience. In his own words: “The EP explores the interaction between the pipe organ and the sound environment, in terms of architectural space and soundscape. Every single sound of this work is created from pipe organ recordings using different techniques related to sound reflection, from granular processing to filters that “carve” the sound emulating the phonem…
Paracas Ritual
** Edition of 300 copies. Album includes booklet of 12 pages with photos and liner notes ** Manongo Mujica is a Peruvian percussionist, composer and visual artist. His constant search for sounds, from native to electronic, has even led him to compose music from silence. Norway’s Terje Evensen specialises in improvised modern jazz combined with electronic elements, creating spacious and dramatic soundscapes of profound intensity. Paracas Ritual, the new album by Manongo Mujica and Terje Evensen, …
Petojen Tavat
** Edition of 65 ** Shakali's first album 'Petojen Tavat' was recorded during 2016-2020 in Imatra (Finland) and Brno (Czech Republic). Enigmatic ambient works with a dreamy tribal essence. “These contemplative psychedelic tracks were recorded layer by layer, peacefully over the years, in the nighttime, with a focus on preserving their original energy and character. Set in circular motion with solar-powered synths, prepared flutes, tapes, percussion, electric violin, field recordings and modular …
When instrument is in tune, music happens by itself / Harpolek
** Edition of 75 ** Ikuisuus presens "When instrument is in tune, music happens by itself" by Antti Tolvi and "Harpolek" by J. Koho. Antti Tolvi - When instrument is in tune, music happens by itself : "I remembered that ”When instrument is in tune, music happens by itself” was Ellen Fullman´s thought. Then I checked what she actually said was ”When you are really in tune, the music plays itself”. And I also noticed that it wasn’t Ellen´s own thought, she had heard it from her North Indian vocal …
Songs from the Shore
In Japanese folklore, Afuma indicates a time of day marked by spiritual or mysterious encounter. In Latin, one who inhales. Together as Afuma, Stefan Tcherepnin, and Taketo Shimada breathe sepulchral energies into the brooding, cosmic fringes of guitar-based song vernacular. Tcherepnin’s baritone and Shimada’s lap steel guitar intertwine, smearing across world’s-end horizons that propel Tcherepnin’s ragged, foreboding vocal delivery and its lyrical portents of departure, of life’s vessel unmoore…
Lower Hope Reach
Another sublime installment from Dean Brown’s Little Skull. This 5 track 10” moves through minimal, naïve, folk/chamber territory on into darker, more twisted waters. Hand-made covers and inserts featuring three different lino-cut images. Each record comes with three inserts on transparent stock and features one of those images on the cover. Therefore there’s three variations of outer sleeve design. No requests!
Comme au Moulin
After NEF's album in 2019, Ici Bientôt is happy to present today the reissue of "Comme Au Moulin" by Nyssa Musique. Paris 1985... ‘Extra-European’ Traditions meet Jazz and Minimal Music. An unusual array of instruments turn music into a dialogue. For a unique record ... vivid, full of texture, somewhere between Midori Takada, Don Cherry and Jon Hassell. Beginning of the eighties, 5 musicians rehearse in a contemporary dance class hall, upstairs from the ‘’New Morning", renowned Music venue in Pa…