Norberg
Recorded at the Norberg Festival (Sweden) amidst the mineshafts and cluttered buildings strewn throughout parts the city, this 21 minute live piece summarises much of what makes Tim Hecker’s music so vital and compelling. Adept at counter-pointing the most ferocious of distorted platters with smooth beds of ambient sound and potent melodic overtones, Tim Hecker creates music with a vast depth. On Norberg, this depth seems almost endless, as layer upon layer of sound are compiled into a swelling …
11 Easy Pieces
Since 1995, Brisbane resident Leighton Craig has etched out a varied musical existence, from solo keyboard studies to an extensive body of collaborative work. His solo works, which span delicate ambient keyboard excursions through to site specific live documents and most recently song based explorations, have mapped out a focus of tone, duration and 'situations' for sound. On 11 Easy Pieces, his first widely available solo LP, Craig offers an intimate yet robust collection of works recorded on a…
Audible Geography
Geography is an ongoing force shaping our understandings of the environments around us and, in turn, experiences ongoing transformation and development. Considering not only the natural world, but also culture, economy and politics in diverse settings and across many scales, contemporary geography acts as a glue - integrating disparate research streams and continuing to provide insights into our relations with space and place. On Audible Geography, 11 sound artists were asked to consider the sco…
Trembled
Trembled has returned, triumphantly. Released by Utech Records (046) in the summer of 2006 on limited cdr. The principal live recordings from Toronto have been remixed-remastered and include a rare performance of Swans 'No Cure for the Lonely'. The core of the release, though, is 'Tremble', a cascading improvisation of drift and atmospherics revealed to audiences on an occasional basis. The track is telling of the fluidity with which Nadja create and why the band has become so highly regarded. '…
s/t
Jaime Fennelly-oscillators, bass drum, electronics. Chris Forsyth-guita. Shawn Edward Hansen-EMS synth, the brothers zoto. Chris Heenan-contrabass clarinet. Recorded at Improvised & Otherwise Festival, Brooklyn, NY, 5-7-06 by Seth Misterka (track 1), Experimental Intermedia: A Festival With No Fancy Name, NY, NY, 3-13-05 (track 2. )'Minimal, evocative low-level evacuation of space-time ala the lurkingest MEV sides, AMM, Space Machine et al from a group that features Jaime Fennelly on sine wave o…
Kurtlanmak-Damascus
ames Plotkin began his musical career as the guitarist for metal band Old with vocalist Alan Dubin. The two would cross paths again under the guise of Khanate. In the interim Plotkin would become involved in projects ranging from guitar bent soundscape and grind to free improvisation. His body of work spans format and label, recording for Avant, Hydra Head, Asphodel, Earache, Southern Lord and Archive among others. Whether writing, performing, or producing, his output has been invariably unique …
Rhythmic Movement Disorder
Robbie Avenaim's RMD has been a long time in the making. His debut solo release to surface in a career that stretches back to the late 1980s, collects together the better part of a decade's worth of experimentation with the possibilities of prepared percussion, irregular rhythm, modulated pulse and low-tech electronics. Avenaim is perhaps best known for his improvised collaborations alongside the likes of Otomo Yoshihide, Oren Ambarchi (with whom he released the transcendental 'Clockwork') and K…
Oceanic Feeling - Like
It’s this musical whisper that is amplified on Oceanic Feeling-Like, as Italian based musician Mike Cooper and Australia’s Chris Abrahams unite for the first time to create what could be described as a picturesque horizon of melodic ocean swell. Stretching out wide, Oceanic Feeling-Like is generously coloured by Cooper’s unique approaches to the guitar and Abrahams' distinctive piano motions. Both bring a wealth of technique and improvised flare, creating a series of island-like compositions tha…
Thrown
Abrahams relentless and steady patterning started to metamorphose the nature of the piano, the upper chords sounding like a distant locomotive hoot, and then an accordion weaving in and out of a shimmering bank of flutes.
Amplicon
Runhild Gammelsæter (Thorr's Hammer, Sunn0))), Khlyst) releases her first solo recording. The purpose was to create something organic sound with and about life. A lonely thing, like life, arisen from void. Stillness and a microphone, vocal chords. An idea, thoughts, a goal. Sounds of cycles of life and death, birth and cessation, described with terminology from physics, chemistry and biology. Creating by amplifying an infinitely small idea Ð creating an Amplimer, an Amplicon. Amplicons are piec…
Phonorama
A very nice compilation distributed worldwide by Wire and produced by Xing. Fragments of Phonorama were recorded live at Raum, Bologna, in 2006-07 from two collective performances conceived by Riccardo Benassi for Xing. The original recordings were re-shaped and re-composed in Berlin by Valerio Tricoli and Riccardo Benassi. Phonorama is a live electronics happening generated from improvisations by 20 musicians to create a collective soundtrack. One long environmental suite involving some of the …
Tensions
Ignaz Schick (turntables, live-electronics), Jorg Maria Zeger (electric guitars), Burkhard Beins (percussion, objects) & Keith Rowe (tabletop guitar, electronics), Charlemagne Palestine (piano, keyboards). 'This double-CD documents the 5th anniversary concert of perlonex who on this occasion invited Keith Rowe (AMM) and Charlemagne Palestine as guests in order to feature different aspects of their musical work in two distinct sets. All material is presented as played live and no editing or over…
Keio Line
An incredible collaboration that sweeps across the generations of electronic music. Richard Pinhas is internationally recognized as one of France's major experimental musicians: the 'father' of French electronic music. He was the founder of Heldon, a band whose violent fusion of electronics and guitar in the 70s rivalled the German electronic school. As a guitar player he has been compared to Robert Fripp. Cited as an influence by many electronic musicians, Richard Pinhas has helped to define th…
Maximin
On Maximin, the music of the seminal minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine is reconfigured and reiterated by David Coulter and Jean-Marie Mathoul, in full co-operation and collaboration with Mr. Palestine. Coulter and Mathoul have taken previously recorded works of Mr. Palestine and -- with the full respect due these often transcendent and sacred works -- have interwoven new and/or found sounds, drones, and unexpected textures into an ever-shifting flow that brings new light to these deeply …
The History of Electronic Music
Häpna presents the book “The History of Electronic Music“ by Ronnie Sundin. Swede Ronnie Sundin (born 1973) has the last 15 years produced electronic and experimental music that has been released on labels Häpna, Ground Fault, Fällt and Antifrost. His latest release is on the Swedish label Komplott, the ”Amateur Hermetic” from 2006. He has been educated at the Art Academy in Umeå, Sweden. His book “The History of Electronic Music” is a subjective history book based upon his background as a music…
Syr 5
The fifth release in Sonic Youth's SYR series doesn't even feature Sonic Youth at all, but rather an avant-garde power trio of SY bassist Kim Gordon, turntablist DJ Olive, and programming electro-goddess Ikue Mori. The music is ultra-abstract and mood-driven, filling the listening space with a dark ambience constructed by Olive's incredibly resonant choice of samples and Mori's carefully tweaked bleeps. Gordon predictably contributes with a dose of noise guitar, though the source of sounds on th…
Eight Oh Eight
French disco producer Black Devil Disco Club released the third and final part of the BDDC trilogy Eight Oh Eight. Black Devil Disco Club is a mysterious fella. His first album Disco Club, supposedly produced in the seventies, was anointed an underground disco classic though no one seemed to know much about it until its reissue in 2004. Eight Oh Eight, billed as "Salvador Dali meets Cerrone", arrives two years on from its predecessor 28 After. Like the earlier albums, it consists of just six tra…
Siberian Earth Curve
Siberian Earth Curve is a tour de force of sound manipulation. Kneale plays his instruments (guitars, cymbals, flute, appliances) like an egg beater. What is left for the ears is only filtered noise. Snakes Bark Maple is a 17-minute symphony of harsh drones, sometimes imitating ethnic music and sometimes cacophonous and abstrat. Lux is 10 minutes of quiet, distant echoes that sound like a ghost wailing from a grave. Fake Fur Pond is a vortex of sirenes that winds up in a terrifying crescendo. Th…
Milieu plus
Milieu Plus is a reissue of Tape's 2003 second full-length, Milieu (HAPNA 014CD), with four new tracks taken from the original 2003 sessions. When this album first came out, it sounded like nothing else. Seemingly improvised but still so tenderly composed, it took cues from both the most gentle free jazz and Brian Eno's ideas of ambient music, but at the same time leaning against both Swedish folk music and broken pop balladry. Milieu -- together with its forerunner Opera -- became something of …
Luminarium
This is the eagerly-awaited fourth album from the Stockholm-based trio of Tape, comprised of Andreas and Johan Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten. Taking cues both from pop, experimentalism and minimalism, Tape's sound has become recognized internationally and is clearly unique. Their first album Opera was released on the Häpna imprint (Johan is a co-owner) in 2002. Working intuitively, all by themselves, they created mini-symphonies out of electronic sounds paired with a stunning melodic lyricism. …