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'Both bassists had made regular appearances in Victo over the past two decades, but no one in the audience could have guessed that it would be Kowald's last. The German improviser died in New York City four months later. The French-Canadian radio was not recording this concert, but the mixing desk engineer kept a tape rolling, just in case, and negotiations toward the release of this performance were already in progress when fate struck. There is magic on this record, especially in the last minu…
'If you are a Fushitsusha or Keiji Haino fan, you already know to just forget what the title of this CD means -- you are never going to know unless you have a lot of familiarity with the early decades of the English language. If you aren't a fan, then who cares anyway? This Fushitsusha date was recorded live at the Victoriaville Festival in Quebec in 1997. Guitarist Haino and longtime bassist Yasushi Ozawa broke in then-new drummer Ikuro Takahashi. The set is just over an hour long and is broken…
'As evidenced by this release of the set, the music played that night was intimate, even delicate. It still seems that Dixon didn't quite sit down at the table with his mates, and his electronic effects don't do him any favors, but credit seems due to him for keeping the set at an unusual slow burn. There aren't the displays of pyrotechnics evidenced in Taylor and Oxley's duo performances. Instead, piano and drums dance lightly around the trumpet's background wash, creating a music both sparse a…
'It was the unexpected event of the 2005 FIMAV festival: avant jazz legend Anthony Braxton joining noisy bad boys Wolf Eyes on-stage. But it did not come completely out of left field. A few months earlier at another festival, the 60-year-old saxophonist had attended a performance by the Michigan noise trio and was transformed, buying a copy of everything the band had to sell that night. The man had been hit in the face by noise music. At the 22nd FIMAV, Braxton was scheduled to play a duo concer…
As its almost tradition now we start the year with a meditative album from Portuguese pianist and composer Tiago Sousa. Using the piano as its primary tool of expression, Tiago has been slowly cementing his place as one of the most distinct voices to emerge out of the modern wellspring of piano driven minimalism. After last years Angst (CREP81, Discrepant) and 2015’s Um Piano nas Barricadas (CREP23, Discrepant), Tiago returns with a deeply meditative album of synesthetic organic musical patterns…
'It was a match made in heaven, or rather on earth, at last year's 20th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. Five vocal artists on one stage—Dutch Jaap Blonk, Japanese Koichi Makigami, Canadian sound poet Paul Dutton, Englishman Phil Minton, and German new music singer David Moss—was indeed one of the highlights of the '03 Victoriaville Festival. Only mad vocalist Mike Patton was missing.
These five men had never performed together on one stage, though they have worked wi…
'A happening. Not that these two heavyweight reedsmen had never shared a stage, but this was going to be a face-off, a clash between two of the hardest-working free improv trios on the circuit. On the left side of the stage: Evan Parker, with drummer Paul Lytton and pianist Alex von Schlippenbach, the latter filling in for bassist Barry Guy. On the right side: Peter Brötzmann and his trusty rhythm section, bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. These are two highly experienced and gifte…
Reverberations from bassist Peter Kowald's passing continue to be felt two years later. Last year, a long-time bass quartet with one sub gathered to bathe Kowald's spirit in a bass balm. Comprised of close associates or admirers of Kowald, this quartet represents a summit from across borders and generations, sharing only remarkable technique and a love of the unknown.Barre Phillips helped legitimize improvised solo bass, as well as expanding its vocabulary with extended techniques. Joëlle Léandr…
Anthony Braxton and Fred Frith each have about as close a relationship to the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville as just about any non-Canadians. The first release on Victo, the label run by the producers of the annual Canadian festival, was a guitar duo with Frith and Rene Lussier; the second was a duet between Braxton and Derek Bailey. Until this year, each had released three discs on the label. But 2005 was the Year of Braxton and the label has released three new Brax…
1996 release on Jim O'Rourke's old label, surprisingly repressed for 2008. First non-reissue on this label - an unreleased companion to the 1990 Alchemy label masterpiece. The designation 'Rainbow' contrasts with the odd colorlessness of the many noise records. Like Voice Crack, this is power electronics at its most detailed, most subtly varied, and most exhaustively kinetic. It doesn't stop. It's a thrill every two seconds, for seventy-five minutes... It splits into halves, quarters, and more u…
With the legendary “Studio Reihe Neuer Musik” series, Wergo created a trademark of advanced contemporary music in the Sixties of the past century already. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the label now releases these highlights of 20th-century music history in an excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.Werdo's unique “Studio Reihe” series continues with Christian Wolff: The works by Wolff recorded on this CD by the legendary pianists David Tudor and Frederic Rzewski and their …
*2022 stock* Official reissue of the iconic Capitol album remixed from the original multi-tracks masters. Produced, Mixed and Mastered by Chris Malone. Also includes a separate 4-page insert with authoritative in-depth liner notes by Jon BurlingameQuartet Records, in collaboration with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Capitol Records, Universal Music Enterprises and the Phil Ramone estate, present the official LP reissue of the iconic soundtrack album for the landmark film Midnight Cowboy, directed by John …
Frederic Rzewski’s work “The People United Will Never Be Defeated” is based on the Chilean protest song, “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!,” written by Sergio Ortega a few months before Pinochet’s military coup in September of 1973.Frederic Rzewski came to Europe as a young man, lived in Cologne and Rome, and created a sensation as an avant-garde pianist with his premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Klavierstück X”. He worked with the leading composers of the time and was himself a composer.…
*2022 stock* 'Composed in 1970, Mantra, for two pianos and ring modulation, was one of the decisive turning points in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s career. The 70-minute piece not only signalled a break with the text-based intuitive works, relying heavily on improvisation, that had come to dominate his output towards the end of the previous decade and a return to fully notated scores, but also introduced the idea of melodic formulae, the “mantra” of the title, which Stockhausen would eventually develo…
*In process of stocking* The final installment of the electronic fusion projects that Walter Bachauer concocted for Klaus Schulze’s Innovative Communication label, Visions of Audio delves further into minimalist musique concrete, extending themes developed on Memorymetropolis in drawing on non-European vocal chants, here applied in dissociative layers. The diverse, complex arrangements include the symphonic synths of ‘Promised Land’ and the war-mode Sensurround of ‘1922 In Baku,’ as well as the …
"Operating at an extremely high level, Smyth and Corsano share a special connection. One can almost see their thoughts syncing together and their bodies merging into one four-armed monster. Several moments are reminiscent of the best work from Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley, while still managing to sound like Smyth and Corsano." — Burning Ambulance
“With the energy and focus on display, it is tempting to compare the meeting to two heavyweights coming toe-to-toe, prepared to slug it out… but that wo…
“a brisk but free-flowing dialogue with phrases and ideas being batted back and forth between them ... in effect, they are soloing simultaneously with each being aware of the other's playing and responsive to it. Even when Parker gets locked into one of his protracted, circular-breathing solos, Smyth is still there with him, responding with an impressively gargantuan solo of his own. The two obviously understand and complement each other well.” — John Eyles, All About Jazz
“Parker and Smyth use …
"'Proprioception' initially focuses on his acoustic improvisations, studio recordings with a startlingly vivid and intimate sound, so near that one feels like an occupant of the clarinet itself. When he adds amplification to the clarinet he presses it into the sonic territory of an electric guitar." — The New York City Jazz Record
"Not only London's, but probably the UK's finest exponent of free, extended technique improv on clarinet is also a gripping solo performer, as he proves here." — Jazzw…
4-disc boxset with 20-page booklet documenting Mopomoso's triumphant UK tour in 2013.
disc 1 – Evan Parker / John Russell / John Edwards – Chasing The Peripanjandra
disc 2 – Pat Thomas – Naqsh
disc 3 – Alison Blunt / Benedict Taylor / David Leahy – Knottings
disc 4 – Kay Grant / Alex Ward – Seven Cities
"On this evidence, 'Making Rooms' already seems certain to feature prominently in many an end-of-year list of best releases. Yes, a future classic." — All About Jazz
"'Making Rooms' has a connect…