Obstacle #79: Memory Is Current
Tip! * Edition of 250. In process of stocking * Obstacle #79: Memory Is Current offers a sequence of works for player piano, a device which captured Rick Myers’ imagination in 2017. Divining a method from mathematical measurements and intuitive drawing systems, Myers obstructed piano rolls using adhesive tape. Performed in this altered state on a player piano in the hallway of Easthampton Machine and Tool in Easthampton, Massachusetts, the music embedded in the rolls was extricated from its hist…
Punkt
After the overwhelming success of last years 1971-74 box set release, containing the first four studio albums and for the first time ever this lost ‘last’ album recording, ‘Punkt’ gets a deserved and necessary stand alone release to the relief of fans and collectors and the undoubted future gratification of those yet to experience the magic in these recordings. 'While working on the “lost” album which the band recorded in Munich, it became clear that I was listening to the last ever made recordi…
Arch of Motion
*Edition of 300* In recent years Swedish musician Linnéa Talp has grown interested in liminal spaces of sound, increasingly searching for her breath deep within passages of a song when instruments gently and patiently bridge the verses. In 2020 she released Cochlea, a brooding pop-rock record made under the name Deerest. “I’ve been trying to work with my body, my breath and my listening,” she says of her work since finishing that release. “I wanted to integrate a sense of slow and simple movemen…
Le Havre
Tip! Large ensemble improvisation has a history and already many historical references such as Globe Unity Orchestra, King Übü Örchestrü, The Celestrial Communication Orchestra, London Improvisers Orchestra… or more recent ones like Splitter Orchester, Insub Meta Orchestra, GGRIL, ONCEIM… How to combine energy, individuality, unexpectedness… with 26 people? How to develop different improvisation strategies without falling into the obvious drone? How can you simply improvise freely with 26 people…
Music For Smalls Lighthouse
Plinth (Michael Tanner) has been recording for the better part of a decade, sharing time as a member of numerous other acts. What makes Music for Smalls Lighthouse so special? The album tells a story whose outlines are visible even without the accompanying text; the field recordings are location-specific, and contribute to an overall mood; the composition is tender, the playing exquisite; and there's little else to which it can be compared.
Tanner has chosen just the right instruments for the oc…
Modern Dance Gold, Vol. 1
From the UK based imprint, The state51 Conspiracy, comes, “Modern Dance Gold, Vol. 1”, the debut LP by Better Corners, a brand-new project from Valentina Magaletti, Sarah Register, and Matthew Simms. Harnessing a vast range of sound sources, it's a visionary expanse of abstract textures and tonalities that steadily defies any association with genre - incorporating elements of industrial music, post-punk, dance music, noise, and new age into its incredibly ambitious two sides.
Sadness And Life
A weird and wonderful mix of spoken word,strange eerie sounds, avant rock and modern composition. It's such an eclectic mixture of theatrical ramblings and verse that it turns into a strange aural journey with each disparate section weaving into the next. Its getting a 'pretentious' suggestion from elements of the office and the band do admit its 'open to ridicule' but let's keep our judgmental hats in the drawer and appreciate this for all its innovation and bravery
99 explosions
"Orton Socket is mainly comprised of main-man and mouthpiece Rob Mazurek, known for blowing horns (as well as eardrums and minds etcetera) on a variety of efforts by Stereolab, Isotope 217, his own Chicago Underground Duo, and some other folks you probably have’nt heard of. Plus Rob's done a series of records under his own name. See, he's been a spotlight kid for years now. But for 99 Explosions, Rob has reemerged incognito, armed with synthesizer and powerbook, wearing the shimmering cloak of O…
Bajas Fresh
Over seven tracks that span 80 minutes, the expansive, looping, shifting synths and rhythms of Bajas Fresh mark the trio’s most diverse and ambitious record.
Sapropelic Pycnic
*2022 stock* Sapropelic Pycnic is the world debut of music presented under the name of "Ka Baird." While this record is a commencement of many sorts, it is in no way a mere beginning: Ka is one of the founding members of experimental psychlings Spires That In the Sunset Rise. Formed in 2001 out of the Chicago scene, and described by late guitar legend Jack Rose as a "female Sun City Girls," Spires' sisterhood of sound deepened the New Folk slant with an array of avant- and world-flavored directi…
Epic Jammers And Fortunate Little Ditties
Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties is a jam session—an improvisational democracy where everyone has equal footing—between Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Bitchin Bajas.
Soliloquy For Lilith
New edition with iridescent foil blocked cover. 3CD box set facsimile of the original vinyl set, contains the entire album plus 40 minutes of previously unreleased music from the original sessions
Pole Of Inaccessibility
From the lower registers of the piano, a rumbling cloud of sound appears, in which sparkling overtones creates melodies and rhythms that points out the directions of the composition. In this sound world Earth meets Morton Feldman; meets Noto/Sakamoto; meets Philip Corner's piece "Gong" in its transcribed version for low strings. The Korg MS20 interferes now and then, making it impossible to clearly define the boundaries of the piano. The album download comes with a 99 page thesis in Swedish with…
Organum for Stefano
In Terry Riley's words "I was invited to an art gallery in Los Angeles to hear a solo String Bass recital by Stefano. I arrived late and the concert was in progress, I was walking down a series of concrete halls to reach the galley chamber where the music was taking place. In the distance I could hear the sounds of french horns, trombones, strings and brass all mixing in a beautiful modal ensemble, and at the time I thought that Stefano must be playing his bass with a chamber group. I was amazed…
Out
Slapp Happy's Anthony Moore, fresh off a year of collaboration with Henry Cow and the simultaneous dissolution of his own group, bounded up from the art-rock/20th century composition underground with this chart-challenging pop set for Virgin. Dropped before its planned release in ‘76, Out is an essential grab from the Britprog cutting room floor!
Kicking it off with a tricky asymmetrical keyboard riff reminiscent of Brian Eno’s Tiger Mountain, before rolling into a narrative that unites the mach…
For Simon H. Fell
Amgen presents Rhodri Davies's For Simon H. Fell. Concert harp.
Recorded 26th of June 2020.Mastered by Sam Grant.
Dwa Dni
*In process of stocking* Amgen presents Rhodri Davies's Dwa Dni. Titles borrowed from the works of Lisa Jarnot, Ed Luker, Nathaniel Mackey, Redell Olsen, Sun Ra, Nisha Ramayya, Sarah Riggs and Leslie Scalapino. Telyn clun MOGIC / MOGIC lap harp.
Franco Battiato, Nucleus (Book)
Absolutely recommended. Photographs by Roberto Masotti, texts by Carlo Maria Cella, Silvia Lelli, Luca Scarlini. This is the third volume dedicated to musicians-composers that Masotti has collected for and with the publisher Seipersei after those dedicated to Keith Jarrett and John Cage. The one on Battiato shows a panorama of photographs that starts in 1973 with a service made in Bologna in the studio and on location commissioned by the Bla Bla label by Pino Massara and followed by a whole seri…
Lunatic Asylum
*In process of stocking* Joke Lanz and Sudden Infant once again return in their razor-sharp trio setting whereby the absurdist nature that Joke’s work is already cut with is reconfigured in a gnarled and beefy punk-fucked contorted rock setting. Short bursts of angular flex are heavily propelled by depth-charge rhythms, wry lyrical musings on modern living, and sensibilities hatched from years of experience in the worlds of sound art, abstract music, industrialised junk-noise and related areas h…
Penguins Eat Fish / Little Dark Wing
Split single of compositions by Organum and David Jackman. "Penguins Eat Fish" features a metamorphosis of the Organum sound, integrating more punctuated, real-time acoustic elements with a diverse cacophony of "chordal" loops of fog horn and bugle band. The penguins march to the horizon.
"Little Dark Wing" is the first piece to appear from a series of mid-2000s piano works by Jackman. Here Jackman's extensive graphic and visual background reveals a new palette of chordal systems.'to make this r…