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The First Born
The First Born is (quite aptly) the first collaboration between Fabio Orsi (more than a recurring name in the In A Silent Place catalogue) and Mamuthones - better known to friends and family as Alessio Gastaldello and founding member and drummer of Jennifer Gentle, the Italian psych band signed to Sub Pop Records. After six years with the Jennifers, Alessio split amicably in late 2006 and reinvented himself as Mamuthones, a one-man project delving into primitive percussive jamming and equally pr…
American Landscapes 1
American Landscapes 1 and 2 are live dates from 2006. While there have been a few personnel changes since the original line-up—trombonist Hannes Bauer replacing Jeb Bishop and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love replacing Hamid Drake—the core Tentet has remained intact. Both discs are comprised of a single track, clocking in at respectively about 44 and 52 minutes. Both discs are difficult to digest as single entities: attacking them as longer composed/improvised pieces linked by changes allows you better…
Discreet Music
Orignal master series reissue: a real masterpiece...after a car accident put Brian Eno in the hospital in 1975, he came out with the idea of creating Ambient music, or music that was essentially to be used as atmosphere. Discreet Music was the first of his ambient experiments and is therefore a landmark recording in addition to being a beautiful combination of tape-delay and composition.
Untitled (3rd Album)
Reissued! Rising from the silence, shaking the muck of level-Z rock and roll detritus from their feet, Royal Trux returned to action in October of 1992 with an untitled album, their third. It had been two years since they'd vanished into the negative zone with Twin Infinitives, an ultimate left-turn that appeared to have no endgame. For Untitled, Royal Trux strung together eight pieces of varying vintage that clearly communicated their rock and roll desires with the most direct approach to playi…
Musica Viva 03
Musica Viva 03: Pleading for divine forgiveness, exploring the bounds of possibility of clarinets, and tricks of light.
Chamber Music
“Art can give us a sense of the infinity of existence, the singular unity of all beings and phenomena as the apparent dualism between the inner and the outer is dissolved. Art can allow us to experience what it means to be alive. It can lead us back to our own sensuality, spirituality, and emotionality - to the very core of our selves,” said Caspar René Hirschfeld. This distinctive conception of art also informs Hirschfeld’s compositions, which are probably best described as objects of immediate…
Je Ne Connais Pas Cet Homme
Beautiful duets between Brigitte Fontaine and Areski -- and an album that's filled with loads of short little tracks that stand with some of their greatest work ever! Instrumentation is spare, but incredibly haunting -- a bit jazzy at times, slightly experimental at others -- but always quiet enough to allow the slightly-whispered vocals of the pair dominate the record. There's a strong sense of poetry here -- but without any of the stiffness or pretension that might imply -- and the re…
Seal Of The Blue Lotus
Seal of the Blue Lotus is the 1965 debut from the extraordinary folk guitarist Robbie Basho, who released numerous albums for John Fahey's Takoma label during the '60s. His mystical approach to six- and 12-string guitar improvisation shares many similarities to John Fahey in that Basho, too, was inspired by Eastern modalities -- his six-string melodies recalling the Indian ragas of Ravi Shankar's "Dhun in Musra Mund." "Mountain Man's Farewell" is an outstanding piece that displays the early seed…
For Bunita Marcus
For Bunita Marcus was written in 1985. "This work, which I have dedicated to Bunita Marcus, [...] deals with the death of my mother, and with the notion of a slow death. I simply didn't want the piece to die. So I used this unwillingness compositionally in order to keep the piece alive, like a patient suffering from an terminal disease, for as long as possible." (Feldman) It is not the loud raging, the last furious revolt of a dying human being that Feldman depicts here, but a slow nodding off a…
Electronic music
Iannis Xenakis is without a doubt one of the major figures in the development of music in the 20th century. In 1957, he joined Pierre Schaeffer and others at the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) in Paris, and it was there that Xenakis composed his early works for electronic tape. Xenakis' distinct sound is already apparent in 'Diamorphoses' (1957) which incorporates sounds of distant earthquakes, car crashes, jet engines, and other 'noise-like' sounds, and 'Concret PH' (1958), based on the s…
des Nichts, verlorene Schatten / l\'étendue des fins éclats, épa
Concentrated chamber music: Gerald Eckert captures the world of sounds in its manifold forms and shapes with meticulous care and maximum individuality.
Works (1968 - 2005)
This is an epic 'best of' from the great Hans Joachim Roedelius one of the pioneers of Krautrock and early electronica. What's more, he's 74 years old and still producing music, now how's that for commitment to the scene? Working with Kluster, Human Being, forming Cluster with Dieter Mobius and working with Mobius and Michael Rother as Harmonia - the man has covered a lot of ground in his time, and that's never been as evident as on these two discs. We've got squelchy synthesized Krautroc…
Trainsong: Guitar Compositions 1967-2010
UK's Michael Chapman began his career on the Cornish folk circuit in 1967. He signed to the Harvest label, home to Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and many others, recording four quasi-legendary albums. The influential Fully Qualified Survivor was John Peel's favorite record of 1970, and featured future Bowie collaborator Mick Ronson. After decades of recording and touring, Chapman remains an obscure figure in the states. His profile was raised by a lengthy interview with big fan Thurston Moore in…
Imperial Distortion
BACK IN STOCK. Very occasionally a record comes along that we just don't want to review, a record so wondrous that words just seem to fall short. Since we have an urge to persuade anyone who crosses our path to hear 'Imperial Distortion', though, perhaps it's worth a shot nonetheless. Dominick Fernow's Hospital imprint has long impressed us with its output, but never before have we heard anything quite like 'Imperial Distortion' slip out of its ornate iron gates. Those of you in the know will al…
Down Another Road/Songs For My Father/Mosaics
The late 1960s and early 1970s were years when European jazz in general, and British jazz in particular, came into their own in terms of the music making a fundamental break with established, exclusively American precedents. This two-disc reissue of three Graham Collier albums made by the bassist/bandleader during the period underscores this contention. This is an exemplary reissue in terms of plotting the course of a music coming into its own. Equally importantly, both of these discs pass the r…
Inside piano
double CD edition'Friedl has developed his 'inside piano' technique to such a level of delicacy and precision, that any anticipated distinctions between instrumental and electroacoustic music, or between improvisation and composition are dissolved or transcended.' - Stephen Robinson, The Wire 'This is the first solo release of zeitkratzer's mastermind Reinhold Friedl. He teaches the grand piano how to sing and to sound like an orchestra, calling this new way of playing an old instrument I…
More electronic music by Badings
More electronic music by Badings: did we partly cover Badings' electronic music on the Popular electronics Boxset (Basta 3091412), here's the best of the rest, to say so. CD1: 'Capriccio' (1959) for violin and two sound tracks. 'Genese' (1958) music for five audio-frequency oscillators. 'Dialogues for man and machine' (1958) text and voice: Ramses Shaffy. 'The woman of Andros', 'Toccata' (1964).
s/t
More lost Scandinavian sounds from Silence, this one being a folksier variant on the Träd Gräs tribal hoe-down formula. Lots of hand drums and long hair. Hippie as hell, but decidedly non-stinky. Fantastic! Handgjort (trans. "Handmade") recorded a legendary album in 1970 released by Silence Records. All covers were hand-painted by the band members. The music is moody underground folk with Eastern influences. The album sold very poorly and is a serious collector's item today. The original b…
Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 1 (1955-1966)
Reissue of a double LP edited in 1978. Realized at the Studio of the Netherlands Radio Union, Studio of Delft Technical Institute, Philips Studio, Studio of Utrecht State University, Studio of Ton Bruynèl, and CEM Studio in Bilthoven. With Hans Kox: 'Three Pieces For Electronic Organ'. Ton De Leeuw: 'Study'. Jan Boerman: 'Musique Concrète'. Jaap Spek: 'Impulses'. Rudolf Escher: 'The Long Christmas Dinner'. Henk Badings: 'Cain And Abel'. Dick Raaijmakers: 'Piano-Forte'. Ton De Leeuw: 'Antiphonie'…
Diktat
RESTOCKED This is another great piece of musique concrete from Michel Chion. Never published before ! Composed in 1979 at the GMEM studios in Marseille. Comes with a 16 page booklet with texts from Michel Chion and Lionel Marchetti.TheWire beautiful review Michel Chion proposes three different modes of listening : causal, semantic and reduced. The first relates simply to a sound’s source or causal agent. The second involves a desire to extract meaning, or meaningful action. Reduced listening …