Electric Lucifer Book II
The original Electric Lucifer was released back in 1970, and basically invented electronic music as we now know it. Bruce Haack was ahead of the entire electronic music game! Over the years, that album (from 1979) has been hailed as one of the most important in modern music, and is seen as a sacred thing to many, many music nerds. What a lot of people don't know is that Bruce Haack continued to make amazing music well after Electric Lucifer, and a decade later actually recorded a follow up, aptl…
Outer Planetary Church Music
A friend of Aguirre recalls meeting Tim Robertson by chance in a thrift store in Barcelona, while eyeing a dusty Hammond organ: "He was born in Honduras, but moved out of there at a young age to several other countries such as Perú, France, and Norway. His parents were devoted to some religious organization and they were spreading the word all around. The last place they were sent to was Barcelona, hence the reason he was there. He learned to play the keyboards as a kid and performed in c…
Trance-Formations I Ancient Minimal Meditations
A forgotten classic! 2015 repress of the 2011 reissue of the original 1986 cassette. Pressing of 400 copies on 180-gram vinyl in full-color thick cardboard sleeve. Created between 1981 and 1985 by JD Emmanuel, a new age composer who has received a lot of praise from people like Lieven Martens and John Olsen. These recordings signify Emmanuel's praise to the course of the day. Starting off slowly with morning synth meanderings, walking through midday, running in the evening, and closing the …
Fantasy In Orbit
Sold out at source, few copies available - Even before the landing of men onto the moon or any space travels, majestic Tom Dissevelt captured the essence of the space mood and science fiction aesthetic. Fantasy in Orbit draws the blueprint for a future sound, later recognized as "Electronic Music," as simple as that. The music is this jaunty space-age swirl, with synthetic oscillations and bubbling textures, creating what is one moment playful, the next menacing, as they struggle to reign in …
El Fascinante Mundo De La Musica Electronica
Sold out at source, few copies available - since it was established in 1914 the Phillips Research laboratories (NatLab) in Holland has given us the very first artificial reverb, tape recording, stereo, the cassette tape, CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and the songs of Tom Dissevelt and Kid Baltan. You see, back in the Cold War, with the arms race and the frequent threat of annihilation via an atom bomb, technology had developed something of an image problem. Consequently, Phillips brought in some compo…
We Are All Holy
A rare, historical recording by Judith Malina, who started The Living Theatre together with Julian Beck back in 1947. Their plays were free from commercial considerations and limiting conventions, they taught how to be free from the state, to oppose the war in every form. One of their most famous pieces was Paradise Now, a psychedelic masterpiece play based on the Kabbala and the I Ching. This tape documents Malina’s poetry. In the words of Ira Cohen: “These are poems of a war-horse, who …
Blood Clot In The Brain
More magical psychedelic jamming coming from the toverstaf of Bart De Paepe (Sylvester Anfang II, Innercity, Amanita Vulva). The Moe Tucker-style primitive drums, guitars and harmonium are still there in this attempt at classic rock. Recorded during the hazy days when he suffered several blood clots. Cover by Anne Collet. Edition of 80 copies.
Ultrakosmos
With these two improvisations on keyboards and synths Antti Tolvi creates a sonic space with a constantly shifting center of gravity, a swirling foray into kaleidoscopic bliss. Edition of 100 copies.
Richard Maxfield
MASTERPIECE!!! This double LP introduces an invaluable selection of early electronic Richard Maxfield pieces featuring four distinct works composed between 1959-1964 and previously unpublished (Dromenom, Electronic Symphony, Suite from Peripateia, and Wind). While Maxfield did not exclusively compose electronic music, winning the Gershwin Prize in 1959 for his orchestral work Five Movements, it was within the genre of electroacoustic composition that Maxfield's contribution had the most influen…
General Tempo
Second full length for the duo of Riccardo Mazza and Matteo Castro. Two long compositions that, while presenting the usual elements of the duo, made of tape works and field recordings, move forward, in a path in which the skeleton of the pieces is built on sounds of mechanisms and engines, manipulated through reel to reel, tape machines and digital effects. Tense and dynamic, the traces of this work move between a careful observation of the landscape and those repetitive, somehow …
We all mutate around the mountain
Louis Johnstone's Wanda Group project is on continuos evolving, a continuo research, aimed at expanding each time its borders. The result is a complex work, both musically and emotionally. We all mutate around the mountain is a dense march where the memories, the common sounds around us, are manipulated and rearranged to create a new story that draws liberally from real life. With his vocabulary and moods it has gone away forcefully, taking place in an abstract and timeless territory…
Anonym
Amazing treatment of one of the best titles on Yuzuru Agi's mythical Vanity label, the debut by Vocalist & Synth player Junko Tange - the "tiny girl" in the phrase "dedicated to the quiet men from a tiny girl" after which the second Nurse With Wound album was named; it's the byline here - & Guitarist Masami Yoshikawa's Tolerance project, originally released in October of 1979."Yikes! This is not a record: it's a ticket pressed in 12" format to get the f- outta this modern era of derivative n…
Fountain Transmitter Meditations
Boggling and super-fun 100+ minutes from Neil Campbell's Astral Social Club, bringing you the head-on collision of classic UK electronic styles, electric grit, and THE FUTURE. The LP starts with a side of tight chuggers, the high-end racket of “Infinity Thug” ripping through the speakers as you make your way to the end of the side with the loping “Grisly Terroir.” Side 2 is the 20 minute epic “Diamonds in the Dreich,” a mid-tempo journey of Throbbing Gristle-ish lurch-pulse and disembodied voice…
Unidentified Again
About "Unidentified Again" : "I first met Jim O'Rourke in 1989. We corresponded by mail and would talk on the phone frequently. Jim was in college at that time and he was very excited about music. He sent me mixtapes, we would talk about his love of Van Dyke Parks, his work with KK Null or Henry Kaiser. I also remember he sent me Godflesh' "Streetcleaner" album which he likened to King Crimson's "Red". Jim's soundwork was always special and I released one of his compositions on my Assembla…
In a place of graceful shapes
In September, 2011, 12k released the boxed set by Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer titledIn A Place of Such Graceful Shapes containing a CD, a booklet of photographs and a clear-vinyl 7”— all carefully designed and integrated. All 500 copies of this box sold out by the beginning of 2012. As a special release to be debuted at the duo’s live performance at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin, Texas on April 15th, the artists have utilized a limited pressing of unlabeled white-vinyl 7”s and mad…
Invisible String
Invisible String is a collection of live recordings made by Gareth Dickson on his solo odyssey around Europe in 2012. From the banks of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, to a rooftop in Paris overlooking the Sacre Couer, by way of a slightly less glamorous stairwell in Caen, this relentless travelling and performing allowed Gareth to hone his art to its summit, and resulted in a bewitching batch of live performances. Brought to you here, to move your soul in the comfort of your own little kingdom. As t…
Interstices
Start with a room, a cleanish one, not too rustic, not too slick, and then fill it with tools, fill it with anything that can be used to make other things. Put the room in the forest, but not too deeply in, let’s have the city on the distant horizon. Then, let’s have two craftsman, artists, explorers. Tell them a bit about where the room is, but not exactly. Make them find it, together. When they finally do they will embark on their creations, but it won’t be the immerse-and-shut-yourself-off-fr…
Akari
Akari is the third album from Tokyo duo Illuha. Following 2011’s debut Shizuku and 2013’s Interstices, Akari takes the next artistic step for the band. While Shizuku was recorded in the US and completed separately by the artists, Interstices captured the duo creating their exceptionally detailed music together live during a Japaneses tour. Akari, in turn, is the first studio album where Illuha recorded and mixed together, throughout the entire process. The beautiful st-robo studio in Tokyo put a…
Lost & Compiled
Lost & Compiled is a CD that Taylor Deupree has been wanting to make for years and, finally, as part of his 2014 Japan tour (with Illuha, Stephan Mathieu and Federico Durand) it has come to light. The album was debuted at the venues of the tour and in an attempt to keep the release on the quiet side will only receive a small amount of Japanese distribution. Lost & Compiled is a collection of early mixes of songs from the past few years as well as some previously unreleased works. The concept for…
Solstov
With their distant, icy ambient music in shades of pale blues and greys, the Norwegian duo Pjusk evoke lonliness, time and landscape with their sound that stretches slowly, carefully and patiently through the air. Having previously released two albums on 12k, their debut Sart (12k1042, 2007) and Sval (12k1059, 2010) and a third, Tele (Glacial Movement Records, 2012), Pjusk return with perhaps their boldest and most focused album yet. Solstøv is an album made almost entirely from the sound of the…