Worldfood
Worldfood is a wild, psychedelic warble & drone of looped, overlayed tape pieces produced by 'goosing' an ampex tape player with a computer calibration device. The resulting two pieces -- 'Worldfood vii (To See With my Eyes)' and 'WorldfoodXii' -- both part of a number of variations in a series -- make for gorgeous, careening sungazing music. Leave your glasses behind. Ramon Sender is a legendary figure in the Bay Area scene -- first paving the way for the San Francisco Tape Center with Morton S…
Cases
Musique concrete realized 1999/2000 in Chicago and Mainz. Released in a 6-panel digisleeve.
Sound Mind Sound Body
Rafael Toral's music is guitar based, but doesn't seem to involve any of the usual guitar histrionics. Instead he focuses in on the little details, the expansion of the sustained note. Sound Mind Sound Body is indeed a sustained note; the music is not dissimilar to Fripp and Eno's classic extrapolations, to Toral's mentor (and former NYC landlord) Phil Niblock, or to other like-minded drone masters. What is special is its (for lack of a better word) tenderness and hands-off gentleness. For this …
Harmonic series 2
Japanese-only release. Recorded live in Japan in 2003, Harmonic Series 2 is a 43 minute piece for computer generated sinewaves, custom software, guitar and analog electronics. It follows Harmonic Series 0 which was released on Table of the Elements. Since I have always been involved with the inner structures of sound, working with the harmonic series comes as a natural move, since harmonics are well known to guitarists. Thus, inspired by Fourier's theory, I chose to work with the most basic elem…
Wave Field
Reissue of the 2nd album by this Portuguese guitarist/composer Rafael Toral, originally issued by the small Moneyland label 1995, which was not widely distributed. This record is what every guitar/drone/crunch/snap,crack and pop afficionado has ever wanted. It's epic, it's intimate, it's a personally served 10 course meal at a table for two at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Dedicated to Alvin Lucier, with instructions to be played very soft or very loud, this features toral's trademark sound (lus…
Bek
Recorded and mixed August 6-10, 2001 at Extrapool, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Nada
Pxp is the short identifier of the department for penetration and perversion, a farmersmanual subunit located at [http://wrzk.web.fm/]. necessarily in the spirit of the superunit the department's activities touch a wide range of areas with interleaving methodology and the sonic mapping of which being one subset. the topics being covered might be distilled to exploration of dynamic and selforganizing structures. Nada is the second realworld manifestation in the shape of an Audio CD precipitated b…
A constant migration (between reality and fiction)
The last release might be a bit of a surprise, since Adriano Zanni, also known as Punck, is not exactly the man I would expect on this all improvisation label. So far his releases were all stuck in the microsound corner, but perhaps he's opening new territories. Zanni uses laptop, field recordings, found sound and sampling to create his music. It proofs indeed to be the odd ball of this batch of his releases, even when the first track sound like an improvised affair. Zanni finely waves field rec…
Presque_chic
Poire Z is almost like a super group, as it’s collaborative work between drummer Gunter Muller, electronics by Erik M and the cracked everyday electronics of Moslang and Guhl – the latter two known as Voice Crack. Presented here are two lengthy and heavy weighted pieces recorded at two different festivals. Overall the music is densely layered (although I can’t say if this is a straight recording or a mixed multi-track version; I assume the first) which moves into various places and spaces. Small…
Q
Recorded live on 20th May 2002 at Musique Action, Vandoeuvre-Les-Nancy, France.
Get off
This is the fourth solo album from groundbreaking sound artist Pita (real name Peter Rehberg). His previous solo albums as Pita (all on the Mego label) have all been landmarks in electronic music. His sound ranges from furious to minimalistic, but always with the same uncompromising attitude. To be true to ones ideas when trends come and go is something admirable in every artist. 'Get Off' is his most varied album to date. 'Get Off' was made over a two-year period, with most of the material orig…
Battimenti
Pietro Grossi was one of the pioneers of the experimental musical scene in Italy. This CD shows one of his visionary electronic works: "Battimenti", an electronic work composed and realized in 1965, made by the 94 combinations of near frequencies, organized in groups of 2, 3, 4 and 5 sine waves. This coupling originates the "harmonic beatings", overtones born out of the intersection of frequencies. Originally thought by Grossi has a "working material" for his famou…
Circulations
Circulations is an impressive hourlong electro-acoustic work by composer Pierre-Yves Macé and his second album (after a lukewarm debut released on Tzadik). Making the best of a residency at Euphonia (Marseille), he first wrote four solo pieces for percussion, electric guitar, harp, and clarinet. At Euphonia, he rehearsed these solos with musicians Frédéric Doumas, Rémy Décrouy, Rafaëlle Rinaudo, and Agathe Fourneau (respectively) and recorded them. Then, Macé composed a tape part for each solo, …
Le solfège de l’objet sonore
This book, accompanied by 285 tracks on 3 CDs of examples is a unique and indispensable resource work for all those interested in electroacoustic music. Examples by Parmegiani, Henry, Bayle, Xenakis, Luc Ferrari etc. illustrate Pierre Schaeffer's text. This was originally designed to accompany Schaeffer's seminal work Traite des Objets Musicaux, but is a wonderful and enlightening tutorial in its own right.Le Solfège de l’Objet Sonore (Music Theory of the Sound Object.), a sound recording that a…
Labyrinthe!
First performance commissioned by Radio France in March 2003. ’For the first time during my journey and ventures into the world of creation, I dreamt of a breath of fresh air deriving from the electronic realm. ‘Labyrinthe’ emerged as the result. All in all, a collaborative work achieved, overcoming the distance between its sources. The sound cuts from GRM reached me as set of reflections, like ‘cadavre exquis’. Fragments in any order, all on CD, sent by post, 7 composers, 7 colleagues sent me …
s/t
Born in 1934. Boeswillwald took an eclectic engineer training (electronics, sound recording) of fine arts (decorative arts) and theatre, and at the Sorbonne antique theatre. In 1953, he discovered the Sorbonne maison des lettres studio founded by Roland Barthes and from that point commits himself into sound creation. He frequented regularly the radio Club d'essais where he met P. Schaeffer. 'Le piano joue, la caravane passe' (2000). 'Au fond, la mer est belle' (1999). 'Pathos ad Libitum' (…
Eggs air sister steel
A homage to Ray Monk Eno and to his Exercices in Style. 13 versions of the same musical theme, some interpreted on the Mecano musical machines built by Pierre Bastien. Musically mechanical.
Four Full Flutes
Here is the complete CD catalog of this superior NYC composers collective label (aka Experimental Intermedia); although pretty low-profile, there are some amazing releases on this label in the spirit of long, droned tones and advanced new music composition. Don't let the title to this Niblock thing throw you off -- this is massive trance music and a key work in the unspecified field of "pure sound". "...adjacent tones beat violently against one another while clouds of harmonics hover above the w…
Si C’était Du Jour...
Electroacoustic music by Phillipe Mion. Mion's music begins with his perceptions of sounds from everyday life, which he organizes with some level of abstraction. He has a great gift for listening to the world around him, and reimagining the sounds. He explores rhythms of trembling arms, the choreography of passersby, and bowed metalic objects, all of which are offered with great sensitivity and imagination. Compositions include 'Si C'etait du Jour' (1999), 'Des Jambes de Femmmes Tout le Temps' (…
H ()
Australian electro-acoustic composer Philip Samartzis is an increasingly vital presence in the Australian sound community. His work over the past decade and a half has offered a prophetic vision for each of his chosen formats and aesthetic approaches. On h [ ] Samartzis is joined by minimal Japanese composer Kozo Inada, who brings with him an equally refined and austere sound sensibility. Between them, these two composers collaborate to produce a highly detailed work that juxtaposes, obscures an…