To Death
This album is dedicated to death. i don’t mean death the spectre that installs horror and fear in many (in the western world), nor death the enemy of the (western) for-profit medical system, but death as part of a cycle, like birth. death the only certainty in life. Dying, like living, as something that can be done well - or not. Death also something that can be a release, a relief, a liberation, the end of suffering, a freedom. this album is inspired by my father's illness, deterioration and de…
Gewissen
Tip! * In process of stocking * His desperate need for a torrent, a precipice, a railroad track - no matter what, but instantly - made him appeal for the very last time to the topography of his past. And when, in front of him, a grinding whine came from behind the hump of the side street, swelling to full growth when it had overcome the grade, distending the night, already illuminating the descent with two ovals of yellowish light, about to hurtle downward - then, as if it were a dance, as if th…
Hockets For Two Voices
In just over ten minutes of recorded music, Los Angeles-based composer, artist, and instrument designer Meara O’Reilly can communicate a daunting breadth of creative possibility. That’s no mean feat in today’s soundbite-obsessive world, but it’s part of what makes Hockets for Two Voices such an unusual and compelling addition to the hypermodern canon of new music. Hocketing refers to the practice of splitting a melody across multiple parts, often in very surprising ways. While the form dates ba…
The Great Wall / Chanta Khat
Michael Ranta has collaborated with Takehisa Kosugi, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Jean-Claude Eloy, Conny Plank, Mike Lewis, and Hartmut Geerken, just to name a few. He was also assistant to Harry Partch and performer in the Gate 5 Ensemble in the 1960s. Additionally, Ranta performed in Stockhausen's ensemble during the 1970 World Expo in Osaka. Ranta's resume also includes recordings by Helmut Lachenmann, Herbert Brün, Toru Takemitsu, Josef Anton Riedl, Mauricio Kagel, among others. Throughout his extensi…
Dubs Pour Oh La La
Not a lockdown record here: With 'Comité Hypnotisé' Tim Vanhamel (Millionaire, Evil Superstars...) tumbles into a subsonic wormhole where smoked out dub glues with boogie funk and off-kiltered early hip hop vibes. Transcending frequencies from an unknown galaxy channeled through a broken 70’s echo deck. Shortly after Evil Superstars played a one off concert for ‘An Evening With Laika’ in the Ancienne Belgique in 2013 Tim started to create the music which was the entering point of ‘Dubs Pour Oh …
Live at Grenoble Jazz Festival 2010
A unique musical journey by three outstanding musicians exploring jazz, improvisation and electronic music. Percussionist/composer Roland Auzet with performer/composer Pierre Jodlowski invited the legend of French jazz and improvised music, Michel Portal (who premiered Pierre Boulez’s “Domain,” Boulez said that Portal is “blessed with an imaginative virtuosity”) to form Trio PAJ in 2007.
This daring collaboration reflects their influence of various artists and styles, from Boulez to Stockhausen…
Voices: Ten Improvisations
This superb pairing of two top-flight improvisors reminds me of why I listen to this music. It’s not about ‘music’, it’s about sounds and their making. It’s a given that these two can really ‘play’. Joe McPhee established that in the immediate post-Coltrane era, and Heward – while I know little about him except that he’s also a visual artist who recorded a duo album on Avant with Steve Lacy – I’m sure he can really whack those tubs. The point, however, is that they don’t ‘just play’, they also l…
Live In Montreal
This live concert is perhaps one of the last recordings from soprano saxophone legend Steve Lacy. Lacy and percussionist John Heward first met in Paris in 1975. Though they remained in regular contact through the years, they did not actually play together until this concert in Montreal on 20 June 2003. Two months later Lacy was diagnosed with cancer, and died in June 2004.Lacy suggested to Heward that he wanted to end this improvisation with the motif Recessional for Oliver Johnson, as a tribute…
Songbirdsongs
Songbirdsongs is among John Luther Adams’ seminal works. This is the first time the cycle appears on CD. Although music has been written involving the sounds of birds for centuries, no composer has ever approached the concept in this way. Based on Adams’ observations and studies of actual bird songs, he scored them for various ensembles of piccolos, ocarinas, flutes and percussion. Rather than having a fixed score, each piece consists of a collection of unordered phrases for each instrument. T…
Electronic Works 2 - Hibiki Hana Ma; Polytope De Cluny
This volume collects two of Iannis Xenakis’ multi-channel works from the 1970s, along with a long-lost film soundtrack (on the DVD only). Restored from the best quality source materials. A new high-resolution transfer was created from the original analog master tape for Polytope De Cluny. Hibiki Hana Ma has been restored from the multi-track digital masters. (This is audio only on the DVD). Hibiki Hana Ma was created for the Expo 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka, Japan, where it was experienced by …
Entroterra
** Edition of 60 copies ** Granny Records presents Entroterra by Marco Paltrinieri. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Design & Artwork by Yorgos Vourlidas. Composed, Recorded and Mixed by Marco Paltrinieri. Voice and Words by Marco Paltrinieri.
Imaginary Borders
** Edition of 60 copies ** RETE is Vasilis Liolios and Savvas Metaxas. Analog modular synth, Percussion, Objects, Tapes, Prepared piano, Field recordings, Voice. Track A1-Berlikon (featuring Eleni Ikon). Words and Voice by Eleni Ikon. I am sitting in a room not that different from the one you are in now. In fact it is the same room. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice which is going to be played back into the room at another point in time. It is dark here, empty, silent. It occurs to m…
Bewilderment
** Edition of 60 copies ** Granny Records presents Bewilderment by Dominique Vaccaro. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Design & Artwork by Yorgos Vourlidas. Recorded, Edited and Mixed by Dominique Vaccaro.
Strange and Sacred Noise
** 2021 Stock ** John Luther Adams is an Alaskan composer. For Adams, Alaska is not a catalogue of ideas and sounds, instead, Alaska is a provocation. For all of its enormity, Alaska leans inward towards essential qualities and purified forces, and in Adams’ music we find this same sense of space and the same tendency inward towards the purified. His is an intimate and focused music that reverberates in a large place. Strange and Sacred Noise is a monumental work for percussion quartet in 9 move…
Un sisma mentre ci voltiamo di spalle
Union Editions presents Un sisma mentre ci voltiamo di spalle by Devi Tensione. Composed by Francesco Castrovilli. Additional production/arrangement by Lapo Sorride aka Kinked. Recorded between France, Turin, Bari. Mastered by Luciano Lamanna at Subsound Studio, Roma.
Notte di giorno
Union Editions presentes Notte di giorno by Balance. Written and performed by Luciano Lamanna & Davide Ricci. Mastered by Luciano Lamanna at Subsound Studio, Roma.
Neutral Love
** First pressing of 200 cassettes on Red Tint shells ** Amirtha Kidambi and Matteo Liberatore’s duo of voice and guitar creates improvised aural landscapes that are glacial and highly evocative, unfurling through dynamic gestures that are at once spacious and restrained. Juxtaposed against the frenetic pace characteristic of the New York improv scene, the pair applies the compositional aesthetics of Morton Feldman or Pauline Oliveros to a free environment. The project is set apart from Kidambi…
Grounded
** First pressing of 200 ** Astral Spirits presents Grounded by Aaron Novik. This album was made with the acoustic sounds of the clarinet, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet with minimal effects. It was recorded during lockdown in Elmhurst Queens, NY, April-May 2020. Mixed by Eli Crews at Spillway. Mastered by Jon Cohrs at Bear Call. Cover Art by Ariadna Garza.
Viandes
** First pressing of 200 on Green Foil cassette shells with artwork by Jaime Zuverza ** Astral Spirit presents Viandes by Stefano Leonardi & Antonio Bertoni. ll compositions by Antonio Bertoni and Stefano Leonardi. Recorded by Antonio Bertoni on October 26, 2018, live acoustic sound, no overdubs. Mixed and mastered by Antonio Bertoni. One of the best perspectives with which to savor human existence was provided by Jacques Attali, when he declared that the world should not be looked at or read, b…
Shadows of Tomorrow b/w The Brain Produces Electrical Waves
** First pressing of 350 with artwork by Jaime Zuverza ** Astral Spirit presents Shadows of Tomorrow b/w The Brain Produces Electrical Waves by Mats Gustafsson & Joachim Nordwall. Recorded in Nickelsdorf and Brännö in 2019-2020. Mixed by JN at the Gothenburg Sound Experiment.