A Thing Made Whole
In music, we don't tend to talk about things. We're too concerned about the meaning of the story, about the dynamics of the performance, the reception, the syntax, the gesture, the movement; we're too concerned about how a sound got here, where it came from, how it was made, where it's going and why. We pretend that music is a language. Greenwald asks us to get busy with things. About a minute's worth of material becomes a cycle of seven works, performed in full for the first time on this album …
Little Jimmy
e piano-and-percussion quartet performs a series of pieces by the Los Angeles composer that wrestle with the aftermath of 2020’s wildfires; McIntosh’s own field recordings flesh out a sense of place.
Walkabout & Back: Electroacoustic Works
It is refreshing to note that Mode Records gets into the endeavor of issuing new CDs with electroacoustic music. We have labels solely issuing this brand of music (which within its – artificial – borders harbor many different styles and idioms), like for instance INA (INA – GRM: Groupe de Recherches Musicales), empreintes DIGITALes and so forth, but I feel it important that the electroacoustic music – also including the electronic music in purer forms – is embraced by labels indulging in a more …
Electroacoustic Chamber Works
Composed between 1993-97, this second volume of works by Gerard Pape on Mode continues his richly darkly dramatic style with new compositional turns. Born in Brooklyn, now living in Paris, Pape is the director of the Atelier UPIC – an electronic music studio utilizing the unique UPIC computer developed by Iannis Xenakis – since 1991. While a resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan he ran Sinewave Studios, a state of the art New Music and Electronic Music studio and organized of the annual TWICE Festival…
The Number Pieces 3: One⁸
Cage’s One8 was composed for cellist Michael Bach, an artist who had a very important place in Cage’s late work. Its duration of 43’30” makes an oblique reference to Cage’s groundbreaking 4’33” (1952). It is constructed of 53 time brackets with single sounds to be played on 1, 2, 3, or 4 strings. These time brackets tell the player when to begin and end each section (each section often containing a single note). Durations, dynamics and bow positions are free. Allan Kozinn had this to say in The …
The Musical Railism Of Anne LeBaron
Anne LeBaron’s music us a mixture of elements and influences–a combination of modern compositional techniques with rock, blues and gospel. The many facets of her talent are showcased in The Musical Railism of Anne LeBaron.
The cornerstones of the CD are her two solo performances on harp: Dog-Gone Cat Act for extended techniques on prepared harp, and I Am An American…My Government Will Reward You, a blistering piece for harp, live electronics and tape dedicated to “those on foreign soil who suffe…
Lava
Lava describes a premordial state of flux, the transmutation of one material into another through a streaming of intensely concentrated energy. Molten fragments of electroacoustic sound are transformed live from brass and percussion instruments to create a sonic landscape that unfolds with a geologic sense of time. Chris Brown, San Francisco based composer, pianist and electronic instrument builder, studied with Gordon Mumma, David Rosenbloom and William Brooks. His work has been described in pr…
Inventionen: Berlin 80 II / Fabulas II / Inventio
Edition RZ presents Inventionen by composers Bogusław Schaeffer, Ricardo Mandolini and Sukhi Kang.
"Berlin 80 II" composed 1980 for piano, synthesizer and 4-track tape."Fabulas II" composed 1980."Inventio", subtitled Musicae clavichordii et sonorum artificiosorum, composed 1984 for piano and tape.
Comes with insert. Runouts are stamped except for 'Lt - B - II' which is etched.
26 Lives
Stunning document of a one-off performance by Powell and London Contemporary Orchestra at Barbican Centre, London. Captured from a three-hour multi-channel recording of unheard music. Unique acoustic rendering of a unique moment in time.Performed in January 2022 alongside works by Jon Cage, Alvin Lucier, Micah Levi.First music on Diagonal after a brief pause for growing up and babies.
Momenti Felici
*2023 stock* This LP by German synth music pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius features almost no synthesizers at all. When they do appear (most prominently on "Über den Wolken"), they're a background instrument, supporting his piano. At other times, Roedelius duets with saxophonist Alexander Czjzek. But the primary instrument is his grand piano, and the pieces aren't the droning marathons of 1970s German "kosmische" music, they're three- and four-minute vignettes (some tracks are in the six-minute r…
Accordéon De Concert
A rare original issue of Accordéon De Concert by Jean Luc Manca.
A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie (Book)
Humorous and Dadaistic writings from the original Velvet Gentleman and pioneering composer
Alvin Lucier: Navigations
“It is not enough just to play the right notes at the right time in the right way; one must also have the right consciousness. It places the performer in the role of explorer of the interior in order to produce, and being still in order to be active.” — Pauline Oliveros "These words, spoken by Pauline Oliveros, remind us of how fundamental an influence Alvin Lucier has had on the development of new music and its interpretation; they remind us of our role as explorers of sound, and of the irresis…
Four
A new vision of John Cage, via his complete works for string quartet. Spanning forty years of the artist’s activities, these three masterworks illuminate the different stylistic periods in the output of this 20th century icon.
Tom Johnson : Combinations
Tom Johnson uses numbers as base material, turning formulas, combinations and other mathematic phenomena into music. And somehow, this music becomes poetry, sometimes like a haiku, sometimes like a sonnet, sometimes descriptive and clear, often enigmatic but always beautiful.
Baobab
"Originally written for orchestra, Phill Niblock’s Disseminate (1998) and Baobab (2011) were arranged by the composer specifically for the Bozzini Quartet, or rather, for ‘multiples’ of the Quartet: twenty different tracks are mixed in each piece — twenty different instruments, the equivalent of five string quartets. The music is essentially a work on the shifting nature of overtone patterns that arise from acoustic instruments. As composer Robert Ashley convincingly argued, these pieces inscrib…
Cinque Movimenti per A.
*200 copies limited edition* A captivating electronic symphony in five movements recorded live, which begins almost like a Pastorale. Bucolic atmospheres that, albeit through completely different sonorities, seem to link Fabio Orsi back to the origins of his music at the beginning of the millennium, when the inspiration drawn from his home territory and popular tradition was strong. The instruments then paint a sort of medieval dance, veering further into quiet, purely ambient atmospheres, among…
Kaivajaiset
*300 copies limited edition* Students of Decay presents "Kaivajaiset" by Finnish composer Niko-Matti Ahti. Best known for his work alongside his partner Marja as Ahti & Ahti, Niko-Matti has been an active participant in the Finnish underground since the late 1990s. "Kaivajaiset" is his first solo recording and was originally conceived of as an installation. Part horspiel, part musique concrete, it is a piece of music that draws comparisons to the work of pioneering avant-garde composers such as …
Spiralis Aurea
Venturing into untapped realms of creative exploration, the Genoa born, Bologna based, guitarist and electroacoustic composer, Stefano Pilia, returns to Die Schachtel with “Spiralis Aurea”, a double LP of material that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind.
Clear and Hazy Moons
Another young composer who you’ve probably not heard of, but whose music you really should get to know. Four stunning pieces, three played by Apartment House, and one by the Rothko Collective. Brilliant music that really shouldn’t be possible from someone so young.