Tonic 19-01-2001 (LP)
Celebrating its one hundredth release, Black Truffle is honoured to present a major archival discovery: a stunning document of the only performance by the trio of Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt and Jim O’Rourke. Across a two-night programme organised by David Weinstein at legendary New York experimental venue Tonic in January 2001, Conrad, Dreyblatt and O’Rourke presented individual projects before performing a collaborative set each night, the first with members of Dreyblatt’s ensemble and the s…
Coast
Super Tip! Limited edition of 300 copies. Mike Majkowski is a double bassist / music-maker from Sydney, based in Berlin. Active across a wide range of experimental music since the early 2000s, he has released music with numerous projects. Coast is his twelfth solo recording.
I'm in it. The music on Coast doesn't beckon,it purely compels you closer through sheer insistence on its existence. insistin sistins isti nsistinsist'Spiral' presents full gorgeous tones, timbres and textures.Round throbs l…
I Get Along Without You Very Well
Ellen Arkbro and Johan Graden embody the limitless curiosity and fearless innovation of the Swedish and Berlin new music scenes they inhabit. Arkbro is a composer and musician whose work has been presented around the globe at prestigious institutions such as the Barbican in London, GRM in Paris and the Kölner Philharmonie in Köln. Graden is one of Sweden’s most sought-after pianists, moving freely between classical music and the European contemporary jazz scene. Currently living in Amman Jordan,…
Travel
Tip! Travel, the 19th studio album by Australian improvisational trio The Necks, documents their recent practice of starting each day in the studio with a 20-minute trio improvisation. The recordings offer some of their most ecstatic and captivating music cut to tape. As bassist Lloyd Swanton puts it: “It’s a really nice communal activity to bring us together in focus each day, and some lovely music has resulted from it.” Although a straight “live” improvisation has never been recorded in the st…
Grande Massa D'Agua
*In process of stocking* Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas have long been key players in the experimental and underground music scene in São Paulo, Brazil and have recently relocated in Berlin. Grande Massa D'Agua (Great Body of Water) is their second album as a duo and it sees them continue to explore themes related to water as they dive into uncharted musical depths. In discussing the duo's relationship with water, Mauricio said: “...In the beginning of the pandemic we decided to take a turn a…
Scosse Elettriche
*2022 stock* 'He took off his earphones. Around him only fog and no sound. Where had the countryside gone? In his ears the music he had been listening to persisted. The final exploration on the piano tailpiece in search of rhythm and resonance still dilated time and space. In that music the grey that now surrounded him was not there. He had 'heard' and glimpsed yellow, red, sometimes ochre, blue, black (the shiny black of the piano, to be precise). He resumed walking, and with his steps, his tho…
Nya Sverige - Nothing But The Truth
Nya Sverige - Nothing But The Truth is a recording made in the United States whilst CM von Hausswolff and Erik Pauser were undertaking an exhaustive tour in 1991 alongside Hafler Trio and Zbigniew Karkowski. This, now legendary, tour was both arduous and rewarding. Living in a van for many weeks at a time, travelling between cities with the most modest of means meant Phauss came to know a very particular vision of the United States, one that existed below plain view. Their’s was an experience ha…
Audiodrome
Phauss is Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Erik Pauser. Formed in the early 1980s, Phauss operated amidst of generation of uncharacteristic Swedish artists concerned with reshaping the edges of practices in sound, light, performance and vision. It was a monumentally fertile period for Sweden in that a confluence of factors allowed artists to dedicate themselves to the relentless excavation of ideas, drilling down to the absolute core of their interests and ways of making. Von Hausswolff and Pause…
The Sounds of VÖ
From the opening seconds it’s clear that the debut recording of the improvising sextet VÖ is not just another free improv session. The deeply meditative sounds may conjure disparate folk traditions from around the globe, whether Scandinavian fiddle tunes or the way Alex Zethson’s meandering pump organ evokes the exploratory harmonium lines in Pakistani qawwali music, but these associations are mostly coincidental. The ensemble members are devoted to improvised and experimental music mostly as an…
Die Mariengrotte als Trinkwasseraufbereitungsanlage
Tip! The prolific German musician Christian Schoppik is dropping his second solo album of 2022 under the moniker Läuten der Seele, following up his critically acclaimed self-titled debut album released at the start of the year.
Once again, “Die Mariengrotte als Trinkwasseraufbereitungsanlage” (The Mother Mary Grotto as a Drinking Water Treatment Plant) is a work based on a mix of sample collages and recorded instruments that are often used sparsely but as load-bearing elements. However, this ti…
No Date Tapes 2
*100 copies limited edition* No Date Tapes 2 is the second official cassette release from Harry Bertoia's tape archive and, like the first cassette, these recordings were chosen from a small collection of tapes in Bertoia's archive missing recording dates. This cassette is packaged in a metallic shell and produced on super-ferro tape for incredible analog sound.
Hints of Things to Come
In 1970 Harry Bertoia had been developing his sonic sculptures for over ten years. He had only been composing/recording for two years and the four long pieces chosen for this CD find him starting to arrive at the sonic forms he had been searching for. Hints Of Things To Come is one of the most unique and melodic pieces discovered so far in the Bertoia tape archive. In this piece we hear him slowly create and articulate a musical riff. Bertoia builds this phrase patiently until the composition r…
La Mort Aura Tes Yeux
Tip! *In process of stocking. Limited edition of 500 copies, offset printed covers with risoprinted interview.* "Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee". We're very proud to present the most exciting all-acoustic percussion based releases in years. Alexis Degrenier handles time and space as the master drummer that he is, with the finest of touches. Each breath, friction, percussion, whether manual or progammed (metronomes, clocks) is skillfully executed and high-spirited. Degrenier's poetic appr…
Musica Liquida
*In process of stocking* Ingar Zach’s new album Musica Liquida is the first audio document of his ongoing artistic research project at the Academy of Music in Oslo. The project is called The Vibrating Drum and focus on vibration of the membrane, activated by vibrating speakers in contact with the drumskin. Musica Liquida is Ingar Zach’s 7th solo album, and we find him diving into an ocean of sound and orchestrating the complexity of interfolded layers in the impressive acoustics of Emanuel Vigel…
On the salt of a seaside
*Limited edition of 100 copies. In process of stocking*
Pierre Gerard : guitar _ improvisation
recorded & performed 2019
mastering : Giuseppe Ielasi
Threads
The new solo album, threads by the California-based trombone player Mattie Barbier is a multilayered personal investigation. It was recorded in The Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangley, Colorado in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic.
a feeling of place. a calm space to be present in during a space of chaos. of quarantining in a very conservative place as a non-binary person where your welcomeness is tenuous. of uncertainty of where non-binaryness fits as a parent- of still being a dad? or treat…
In Illo Tempore
* Edition of 70 copies. In process of stocking * Follow up to Morc's 'Hymnes Apophatiques' that came out earlier this year, In Illo Tempore was also recorded at the church of St. Saphorin in Switzerland last year. Atmospheric organ melodies acompanied by wordless vocals descending into timeless devotional ambience.
Wet on Wet
*100 copies limited edition* The latest release by Australian, Berlin-based artist Felicity Mangan collects a series of works created during 2020 and 2021 and reveals the artist’s fascination with all things water and other related phenomena. Featuring a wide scope of works – a recording of a performance utilising biorhythms and timbres collected from river banks sits next to a monophonic installation piece inspired by both amphibians and amphitheaters or recordings of a human-frog conversation …
Comradely Objects
Horse Lords return with Comradely Objects, an alloy of erudite influences and approaches given frenetic gravity in pursuit of a united musical and political vision. The band’s fifth album doesn’t document a new utopia, so much as limn a thrilling portrait of revolution underway.
Comradely Objects adheres to the essential instrumental sound documented on the previous four albums and four mixtapes by the quartet of Andrew Bernstein (saxophone, percussion, electronics), Max Eilbacher (bass, electro…
De Bon Astre
Tip! Under the moniker Sourdure, Ernest Bergez works within a hybrid sound field, combining raw electronics (modular synths, feedback), acoustic instruments (violin, voice, foot percussion), and non-musical sounds (field recording, spoken voice). As a guideline, he keeps an underlying effort to melt experiment into popular music and vice versa, taking traditional songs and dancehall themes from the French Massif Central area as the starting point for experimentationFor the first time, I wrote a …