Schleissen 1
Emotional Response's 1st Schleißen volume pairs a grand expanse of ecstatic drone by Serbian former factory worker Abul Mogard, with the pulsating, hyaline patterns of Harmonious Thelonious. Mogard's 'Dizziness That Shakes Rivers And Mountains' unfurls 18 minutes of yearning synth drone conducted with a glacial patience and romantic intent that's hard to ignore, especially if you've ever fallen for the frayed, somnambulant projections of Leyland Kirby or William Basinski. By contrast, the two H…
Vlf
Alex Barnett (Champagne Mirrors, Oakeater, SCRAPES Recordings) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer, Mára) developed a friendship based on a fascination with the world just outside the limit of our understanding - the world where magic and mystery hold equal footing with science. On their third collaborative album VLF, the duo draft a soundtrack to the mapping of the unknown realms in both their private lives and the communal world around them. It’s a premise embedded in the album title, an acronym for …
Fabric for String Noise
Michael Byron's Fabric for String Noise, Parts 1 and 2 (2018), composed for New York’s notable violin duo String Noise, is wildly virtuosic music that is unlike just about anything else ever written for two violins. This two-movement work, a tremendous (and relentless) river of complex lines, may be said to resemble a sort of universal folk music of madly driven ecstasy, a sonic canvas wherein intense continuous activity shares space with an overarching sense of motionlessness.The composer chara…
Moon Viewing Music (Inscrutable Stillness Studies #1)
Peter Garland's Moon Viewing Music (Inscrutable Stillness Studies #1) is a quiet, sparse, introspective six-movement work for three large gongs and a large tam-tam. Performed by celebrated new-music percussionist William Winant, it unfolds with a muted sensuality and a glacial inevitability—as if bent on suspending time. Each of the movements (or individual “pieces,” as the composer sometimes refers to them) has a distinct character, developing in its own fashion—utilizing such traditional means…
River of 1,000 Streams
Daniel Lentz's River of 1,000 Streams is a complex, slowly growing, densely textural piece for solo piano and up to 11 layers of “cascading echoes” (which are created in a live performance via a computer running a MAX patch). Each of the piece’s hundreds of “echoes” is a short moment (generally one to a few bars in length) of the piano solo that may reappear anywhere from a half-second to 25 minutes after the pianist first plays it. Floating sparsely amid the piece’s rich primary texture of trem…
Deconstruction
Finally, Hospital Productions unveil the long awaited vinyl debut from the elusive Salford Electronics, backed with killer remixes by Ancient Methods and Vatican Shadow. Tipped if you're into Burial, Regis, Silent Servant...!Plucked from right under our noses, Salford Electronics appears to be a handle for David Padbury, whose credits for industrial units such as Death Pact International and The Grey Wolves stretch back to the ‘80s. Under the SE mantle however, Padbury pursues a stealthy, menaci…
freeHorn
The form of both freeHorn and ii-v-i consists of a continuous modulation between three different harmonic series. freeHorn weaves together the live interaction of acoustic instruments and computer software written by Larry Polansky and Phil Burk. ii-v-i, a reverberant cloud of moving intonation, gradually drifts from one natural harmonic series to another. Only open strings, 2nd, 3rd and 4th harmonics, and notes stopped at the 7th and 12th frets are used, and the guitars are audibly re-tuned fro…
Windmill
Stephen Whittington writes:“…from a thatched hut draws upon a particular strand of Chinese culture: the Chinese scholar who withdraws, temporarily or permanently, from society. The thatched hut was the place where the great Tang dynasty poets Du Fu (Tu Fu) and Li Bai (Li Po) withdrew from the world. Their example was followed by many others, including the poet Bai Juyi (Po Chu-I), author of Record of the Thatched Hut on Mount Lu, and Xia Gui, the Song dynasty painter of Twelve Views from a Thatc…
Ecstatic Descent
Erik Griswold's Ecstatic Descent is a prepared-piano work that melds composed and improvisational elements to create an intensely animated, one-of-a-kind textural sound world. Performed here by the composer, at times it may call to mind an enormous out-of-control music box or mechanical toy. It also readily lends itself to comparisons to various ever-changing (yet ever the same) natural sound phenomena, and has been likened by composer Annea Lockwood to the bubbling frequencies of a river.The co…
Bhajan
Nicholas Chase's Bhajan, described by one critic as “a pas de deux between violin and electronics,” is in four joined/continuous sections. Influenced by many musics from around the globe, the work tantalizes and bewitches the ear with a breadth of sounds that ebb and flow as if guided by an elusive but inherent sense of logic. The composer performs its electronics/computer part while noted violinist Robin Lorentz (who has appeared on four previous Cold Blue CDs) propels the music compellingly, i…
Twilight Of The Dreamboats
Chas Smith's Twilight of the Dreamboats, one of his quintessential electro-acoustic work, is an ever-evolving single gesture, a seamless blend of tones and timbres from his metal sound sculptures (instruments with such names as Bertoia 718, Que Lastas, lockheed, Mantis, Sceptre, DADO) and his homemade and hot-rodded steel guitars (Clinesmith, Emmons, Guitarzilla, Cadillac bass), performed by the composer. “Reaffirming its status as one of the most exciting innovations in the recording and market…
After the Wars
Peter Garland's After the Wars, a resonant, sometimes clangorous four-movement piano solo, displays a unique sense of grace and a sincerity of expression that is quintessentially Garlandesque. In some ways it marks a slight shift of focus from his more overtly melodic and rhythmically driven material of the past 30 years. Garland writes about the piece:“After the Wars was commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill as part of her A Sweeter Music project. The idea (I believe) was to focus on the idea of…
In the Village of Hope
Michael Byron's In the Village of Hope is a restless (and in some ways relentless) virtuosic harp solo performed by Tasha Smith Godínez, who commissioned the work. This ever-changing, ever-churning, ever-developing music is unlike anything else in the solo harp repertoire, though not unlike some of Byron’s other recent work, such as his Book of Horizons for pianist Joseph Kubera.Byron writes about the music:“In the Village of Hope,” a purely sentimental title, was composed at the invitation of h…
In The Sea Of Ionia
In the Sea of Ionia is a wildly spinning, charismatically eclectic album containing four of Daniel Lentz’s recent piano works: (1) 51 Nocturnes (2011), a set of very short, contrasting nocturnes that are played without pauses, as one continuous work; (2) Pacific Coast Highway (2014), a primarily textural three-piano piece built of polyrhythmic layers of continuously shifting/drifting harmonies; (3) Dorchester Tropes (2008–09), a four-movement piano solo; (4) In the Sea of Ionia (2007–08) a piece…
The Wind In High Places
The Wind in High Places is an elegant, haunting collection album containing three of John Luther Adams’s serenely powerful recent string works: (1) The Wind in High Places (2011), a three-movement string quartet commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Theodore Front Musical Literature, performed by JACK Quartet; (2) Canticles of the Sky, a four-movement piece for four cello choirs, performed by the 48-member Northwestern University Cello Ensemble, directed and conducted by Hans Jørgen …
Selected Tracks 2. 1995-1998
**700 copies, 2020 stock** Selected Tracks 2. 1995-1998 is a double album with a new selection of tracks recorded by Esplendor Geométrico between 1995 and 1998. This is the second part of Selected Tracks, the first one was published in 2015 (GR 2136LP). Ten of the thirteen tracks appear for the first time on vinyl, and some rarities only released in very limited CDR editions during the '90s and without distribution, are also included. Esplendor Geométrico are pioneers and masters of rhythmic ind…
Los Dioses Hablan Por Boca De Los Vecinos
First vinyl edition ever of this lost experimental Spanish essential album. A delicate work that absorbs specific aspects of different music - minimalism, tribal sounds, new age, ambient, spoken word - to create its particular universe.With an absolutely contemplative recording climate, the poems and their sound environments explore the deepest self of the poet and singer from Extremadura, Pablo Guerrero. The work combines memories of childhood through the valleys of his native village, Esparrag…
Genom Grundet
Genom Grundet is the new release by Swedish analogue explorer Ekolali on new imprint Patience. A pulsing, entrancing study in sustain and release that washes over in ecstatic waves throughout it's 35 minute duration, Genom Grundet is a shimmering summation of Ekolali's approach and an auspicious blueprint for the virgin NYC-based label. .Recorded on a modest setup at his almost-off-grid compound in rural Möljeryd, Sweden, Genom Grundent (Through The Shallows) gently bubbles with a sampled stream…
An Anthology of Greek Experimental Electronic Music
An Anthology of Greek Experimental Electronic Music 1966-2016 aspires to map the heterogenous landscape of Greek experimental electronic music in all its contextual, sociopolitical, geographical and aesthetic disparity. With a single exception: it zeroes in on post-80s music. It comprises works of very different kinds by composers of all sorts of backgrounds that, still, can be thought of, as both "Greeks" and "experimentalists". Experimental electronic music is generally expected to be highly v…
Home Age 2
One-time edition of 480. Eleh's Home Age series was composed and recorded over a period of five years and it reflects a search for color, form, connection, and growth. The handmade artwork contained in each package was created during the same period of time the music was composed and is an integral part of the meaning of Home Age. For this release, Eleh plays modular and analog synthesizers, piano, organ, bass, and symphonic chimes. Although Home Age is a two-part set, Eleh's upcoming Living Spa…