My days are darker than your nights
“Pure drone bliss on offer here from the prolific Australian guitar experimentalist Oren Ambarchi (whom you may already know) and Swedish musician Johan Berthling (a less familiar name -- he's brother to Andreas Berthling,and with him a member of the field recordings group Tape, who are also to be found on Hapna). These two got together in a studio in Stockholm last year with the intent to drone, and drone they did, Ambarchi on electric guitar and Berthling playing the harmonium. They recorded w…
Stacte motors
These pieces continue the Stacte series started in 1998 with ambarchi's first self-released solo recordings. Similar to the 4 previous editions of the series, which explored one idea at length, Stacte Motors is an experiment in exciting instruments with a spinning motor with strings attached. The resulting recordings are metallic walls of minimalist drones, both fearless and dreamy. Produced and recorded at BJB studios in Australia, these one-take acoustic recordings have a very tactile and phys…
Grapes from the estate
Oren Ambarchi acts as a good antithesis to that other great Touch luminary - Fennesz.Both artists use the guitar as a starting point for minimalist discovery and post-abstract innovation, though where Fennesz relies heavily on distortion and catharsis, Ambarchi's focus is on a much more refined, clean building of layers and delicate augmentations. For his third outing on Touch, Ambarchi's immense achievement is through his sense of timing, pace and definition - slowly building pieces up to warm,…
Triste
The recordings of Triste were previously available on limited edition LP (Idea label). This Southern Lord release combines the original LP recordings + some remix collaborations by Tom Recchion. It is available here for the first time in compact disc format. The Triste material is reminiscent of his work on Grapes from the Estate. Oren has transformed the guitar sound/tone into a dark, tonally extreme, percussive instrument. Imagine stripping Sunn0))), or Earth of all its distortion and layers, …
Mort aux vaches. Song of separation
Last copies, reduced price. Oren ambarchi's 'Song Of Separation' was recorded during his recent European tour and is the latest in the mort Aux Vaches series released by Staalplaat documenting live radio concerts commissioned and broadcast by the VPRO Radio Show 'De Avonden'. This incredible piece is a thorough investigation of concepts established on last year's Suspension release (Touch, UK) and further explored on the forthcoming live LP Triste (Idea, USA). Here ambarchi employs a kind of ton…
Heave to
'Olivia block's 'Heave To' is her fourth full release under her own name (her first two are on sedimental, the most recent on jason kahn's cut label) and marks both a new maturity in her compositional prowess and also a new confidence. 'Heave To', a composition in three movements, is an investigation into the deep structures of maelstroms. A roiling mixture of crashing waves and wind, jagged strings, clanging metal, complex electronic textures, and clusters of chamber instruments. In our opinion…
Mobius fuse
“Sedimental’s release of the second cd from Chicago based electro-acoustic composer olivia block titled Mobius Fuse. This much anticipated follow up to her critically acclaimed debut Pure Gaze(sed cd028) continues her rich and unique exploration of both acoustic and electronic sounds reaching a depth and level of emotional intensity rarely heard in the field.olivia block is a contemporary composer who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generat…
The tape music of Noah Creshevsky 1971-1992
Reissue of 8 pieces from 1971 to 1992, mainly tape collage, using instrumental (including disco dance music or rock music), vocal, and concrete sounds. "In Other Words..." features the voice of John Cage. Noah Creshevsky is a Julliard-educated composer with a sense of humor and fine taste in vests. "Since studying with Boulanger in Paris and with Berio at Juilliard, New York avant-garde-ist Noah Creshevsky has been director of the Center for Computer Music, professor of music at Brooklyn Colle…
Isostasie
A former student of Jonty Harrison and Denis Smalley — two important figures of the British electroacoustics school — Natasha Barrett integrates the approach of these two composers into a proposition which recalls both sound ecology and properly abstract composition. Isostasie is full of these poetic, disconcerting environments, impressionistic pictures of various formats, evocative of her country of adoption, Norway. In this CD, one will encounter various meteorological happenings, the midnight…
Volume 2: Electronics Works
Multi-channel electronic works in Surround Sound. Morton Subotnick was a phenomenon in the late '60s, the first composer to write substantial works for synthesizer that had a wide audience. He has been mentor to generations of composers, and his influence is so pervasive that it would be impossible to trace completely - the electronica movement, for one, reveres him. This release brings together two of his classic analog electronic works which were previously only available on LP.
Stromatolites
Stromatolites 1 & 2 are lamination pieces which were mixed in the studio by superimposing tracks of sepaately recorded instrumental material. Some of the constituent tracks were recorded in several different locations. There is no sinchronisation to the layers. Each work exists in several different versions, in which individual tracks are prominent to greater or lesser degrees. In Stromatolites 1 Sutherland is heard on two tracks (gongs and springs respectively), Bohman on one track (prepared vi…
In Streams (Volume 2)
2001 release. Like Volume 1, this CD also contains excerpts from three concerts (all in London this time) and a studio piece. Morphogenesis plays a few concerts a year, almost always in London. Concerts have always yielded their most varied material, but until now, their CDs have mainly documented their studio work. Both volumes of In Streams redress this. Of the concerts; one is a whole piece from the Spitz concert organized by Eddie Prévost, then there is a short extract from the Red Rose whic…
In Streams (Volume 1)
This is the fifth CD release by Morphogenesis, and the first since 1998. Although Morphogenesis do not play live very often, it is certainly their preferred working situation, where the interaction between the space, the people present and the available equipment create a variety of different situations. Substantial extracts from nearly all of their recent concerts appear on this, and a second volume. There is also the inclusion of one studio recording per CD. Perhaps one reason for their infreq…
Generators
As "Sleep" begins there is a suggestion made, a hypnotic motion meant only to seduce the mind into the belief that Darren Tate and Colin Potter are intent on relaxing muscle and slowing brain activity to a crawl. The hum of electronics blows easily until random sounds—coughing, restlessness, twisting and turning—bolt through the still waters of the track. Slowly developing melodic themes, almost too distant to piece together, stretch from their slumber and begin a slow crawl through the lamp-lit…
Horde
The 1981 electro-acoustic electronic classic by the group that morphed into Biota. Their 3rd album & their first true classic, which is a high-water mark of churning sonic storms. The first release by the Mnemonists to be reissued on CD & one of their finest works overall. Based in Fort Collins, CO, the Mnemonists gave modern American experimental music a good name in the early 80s as they dug themselves out of the trenches of post-industrial alignment. Ultra-detailed processing, beautiful graph…
Maros at Ems (1970-1979)
Analog and computer-generated electroacoustic music and mixed pieces for voice, instruments and live-electronics, realized at EMS - the Stockholm Electronic Music Studio. (now the Stockholm Institute of Electroacoustic Music) 1970-1979. Miklós Maros was a composition teacher at the Stockholm secondary school of music in Stockholm, (1971-1973), teacher at the Electronic Music Studio in Stockholm (EMS) (1971-1978), and lecturer in electronic music at the College of Music in Stockholm (1976-1980…
In the land of the blind, one-eyed is king
Generally speaking, contemporary musicians produce too much stuff. It is easy to do. But if you feel like sighing, "Oh, it's another Mika Vainio CD", then Mr Vainio himself has anticipated such sentiments with the opening track, a 2 minute blast which sounds like an angry animal breaking free of its cage. What follows is probably Vainio’s most accomplished work to date, a series of rich soundscapes whose beauty is always on the edge of darkness. "In the Land of the Blind One-Eyed is King" is Mik…
Onko
Mika, famous for his Panasonic excursions and solo work as Ø, has finally brought out some stuff under his own name. Listen along as he primes, then fine tunes his pneumatic devices, limbers up with a burst of groundhum before reclining against a sonic wall of hissing grit. Sounds of information reduced to their smallest common denominators. Frosty machine language. The reveries of circuitry. Bit-reduction. Wings of bass. And then, after three tracks which intensely and deftly tweak the spaces b…