We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit
begin form here...
begin from here...our world lives when their world ceases to existbegin from here...with hopes, between silent skies, while world breathes again and the fever subsidesbegin from here...and to those who strike blowsbegin from here...while we keep goingbegin from here...while we mourn, we also fight
We will be wherever the fires are lit!
We will be wherever the fires are lit, a sort of sequel to Tashi Dorji’s first DC release Stateless, takes the torch and storms forward, with t…
Havens
"Alan Licht returns to VDSQ with Havens, a sprawling double-disc set of exploratory guitar-based compositions forged from the myriad possibilities arising when strings collide with electricity & space. Licht is masterful and relentless in his negotiation of the often-unknowable intersections that exist between juxtaposing strands of sound. His work is marked by contrast & contradiction: maximalism versus minimalism; rockist inclinations versus avant, expanded-field expression; loose improvisatio…
Vacances
*250 copies limited edition* Minami Saeki is an actor who also has experience as a film director. Energetically engaged in musical activities as well, she is known for her work as a voice performer on the experimental/improvised music scene inside and outside Japan, mainly through collaborations with composer/guitarist Taku Sugimoto.This album introduces Minami Saeki the composer to the world. Just one of her compositions, "vacances" (2018), is recorded in this 2-CD set. Comprised only of a set …
Electric Cave
Electric Cave, the sequel to Emil's debut, Electric Forest (2022). A dystopian world, inspired by science fiction. Rigid electronics combine and collide with spontaneous, human improvisation. This time the soundscape has moved from an open forest to a deep, dark cave.
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…
Effacing Colours, Barely Dancing
Born in 1974, Giuseppe Ielasi grew up in the south of Italy and now resides in the outskirts of Milano with his family. He has been making music and touring since the late nineties (he tours much less nowadays). He mostly plays solo, but also in Bellows (with Nicola Ratti), Rain Text (with Giovanni Civitenga) and in duos with Enrico Malatesta, Kassel Jaeger, Andrew Pekler and collaborates regularly with film-maker and photographer Armin Linke (also editing his films). He has released (short) rec…
Labirinto
Tip! On October 4, 2022, Jorge Nuno had a stroke and underwent surgery on February 4, 2023, to close a small hole in his heart. A year later, he presents 'Labirinto,' an audacious music album that is a reflection of his journey and a testament to his resilience. This album, primarily featuring solo acoustic guitar, showcases Jorge Nuno's endeavor to expand his musical language into new territories. Recorded at Namouche Studios in Lisbon and meticulously mixed and mastered by Rodrigo Pinheiro, 'L…
Guitar Solos / Fifty
Big tip! Lunching into 2024 after after a stellar 2023, Week-End Records delivers one of their most important offerings to date, the first vinyl reissue of Fred Frith’s seminal 1974 solo debut, “Guitar Solos”, in more than 40 years, marking the album’s 50th anniversary. A groundbreaking work in the field of avant-garde recordings that changed everything in its wake, incorporating a startling range of sonorities and approaches within constrained means, to celebrate its half-century mark, Frith ha…
Trances
Trances, Jules Reidy’s follow-up to the celebrated Music by Jules ReidyMixed by James GinzburgMastered by Stephan MathieuArtwork by Florian & Michael QuistrebertPhotograph by Camille BlakeDesign and art direction by Bartolomé Sanson (2022), takes place in between states, tracing a kind of restless movement in search of—or is it away from?—a center. The twelve tracks shift between fragment and epic, returning to familiar phrases between forays outward into uncertain expanses. Through its explora…
9th Avenue
*2023 stock* For me, this is the blues. Utterly wailing "solos" over a base of thick distorted guitars, Loren Connors' music conjures up scenes of lonely streets, dark nights, but also hopeful and joyful mornings. 9th Avenue is the first vinyl reissue of a CD Loren released on his Black Label in 1995, a view into his mid-90's heavier electric guitar era, back when he was going by his Loren Mazzacane Connors moniker.
9th Avenue fits right alongside releases from that same time period, such as Lon…
Metal Machine Music
*2023 stock* Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio/Re-Mastered to the specifications of the original master, playable on home theatre systems. Lou Reed has gone back to the original multi-tracks and has digitally re-mastered his 1975 classic album "Metal Machine Music." This is the one and only official re-mastered edition of "Metal Machine Music", re-issued, supervised and approved by Lou Reed himself. The re-mastered edition is released on Reed's very own Sister Ray label in three formats - double gat…
Abbuio
"Abbuio" is a term that refers to the Italian translation of the English word "Blackout" according to the proposal of the Italian linguist Arrigo Castellani. This new work marks Bignamini's return to the solo acoustic guitar. Moving away from the more classic fingerpicking style, he offers five soft "ballads" (3 improvisations and 2 compositions) inspired by sleepless nights.
Isocèle
*100 copies limited edition* Headlights Recordings presents Manuel Mota's new work Isocèle. Manuel Mota is known for the personal vocabulary he has developed for the guitar. His music draws inspiration from a multitude of references loosely rooted in the blues tradition to craft a sound which was highly regarded by Derek Bailey. Actual but transmitting an enigmatic sense of timelessness. The moment of creation- composition, and the instrumental execution- playing, are to him indistinct, and that…
Sologuitar 1
*50 copies limited edition* "This is a set of solo guitar pieces recorded over the course of a few weeks that are sometimes percussive, sometimes droney, sometimes noisy and sometimes nothing. I have recently rediscovered my love for playing the guitar and I used these recordings to work out some sort of live solo guitar set, so there is very little post production and everything is a little gritty as a result. I like a lot of the sounds found in recording this and if you listen I hope you do as…
If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection
The fantastic new album from tireless seeker Emily Robb. It’s a no-frills, high-minded celebration of guitar and sound and tone and string and amp and adventure committed to tape at Emily’s own Suddenly Studio in Philadelphia in fits and spurts stretching over 2022/23. These are economical tunes of utter trance and tightrope pulsations, with a fearless spirit and a devotion to energy and personality that digs into previously untapped mines. With zero fuss and pomp, “If I Am Misery Then Give Me A…
New Bodies
*2023 stock* First two tracks and Side A of New Bodies. From Los Angeles, also of Open City – first full length-- single takes, live--Intensely physical and abstract music that constantly, unpredictably shifts and evolves. Impulse, memory and intent, laid bare in real time. Post-melody, post-groove sound. Concrete, brutal, yes fun-----
Engines In Unity
A main architect of one of the most exciting and innovative groups of the last decade, Guerilla Toss, Arian Shafiee has recorded for labels as varied and iconic as Sub Pop, DFA and Tzadik. Engines in Unity is the brilliant follow up to his 2018 VDSQ debut solo album, A Scarlet Fail. The record presents a retrospective of Shafiee's singular relationship with the guitar thus far, reconciling his interest in slow, languorous music and deep sound design. Vivid and often destroyed, the pieces on Engi…
Guitar Improvisations
For the 36th installment of our Catalytic Artist Albums series, we are excited to present an exclusive collection of improvisations on nylon string guitar by the exceptional, Tashi Dorji. Recorded over the month of August, this record showcases Dorji's most recent work and explorations on the guitar. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Tashi Dorji
Tip! Early acoustic guitar improv performances from the Bhutanese expat, who’d come to Asheville, NC to study in 2000 and discovered worlds of anarcho-punk and avant garde such as he’d only dreamed. Having made recordings of his newly-located improvisational conception, he intuited a desire to go deeper in his explorations of the recorded sound of the guitar, melding and colliding traditional music with his feeling for the range of textures within.
Pre-Existence
*2023 stock* Limted 2022 restock, last copies. Originally released in 2006. Tetuzi Akiyama has been a major player on the free music/improv scene in Tokyo for over 20 years. Pre-Existence first came out on CD as a part of the great Wooden Guitar series from Locust. Akiyama's playing here is one of a minimalist approach, discovering and investigating the empty spaces between each note. He does not follow the Takoma guitar school style of finger-picking, but instead invokes a far more warped primi…