Talabalacco
Talabalàcco is the first collaboration by Luciano Maggiore and Enrico Malatesta. The pair have deliberately eschewed the process of duo improvisation, recording material independently and composing with these fragments, resulting in a refined and purposeful combination of electronic and acoustic textures. The composition unfolds episodically, appearing to deny musical structure, but maintaining an incisive impact as its chapters accumulate.
Postsocial
Postsocial is the breathtaking eighth album from Wold, an infamous black metal unit with strong binds to the landlocked plains of Regina, Saskatchewan in central Canada. Stephen O'Malley's reissue of their Freermasonry (SOMA 014LP) LP first introduced us to their work -- subsequently igniting the most gratifying discovery of an exceptional back catalog. Postsocial is a culmination of ideas core to Wold's philosophy, heading deeper into a world of visceral howls and internalized harmonics. Due …
Karel Goeyvaerts
Finders Keepers' newly minted Cacophonic sub-label triumphs with a remastered rarity by pioneering Belgian composer, Karel Goeyvaerts. 'Pour Que Les Fruits Mürissent Cet Été' is one of the earliest realisations by the former boss of the IPEM society (Belgium's Institute for Psychoacoustic and Electronic Music - make sure to check their recent compilation on Metaphon) and originally appeared in 1977 on the collectable Alpha Brussels imprint. It revolves around three extended pieces ranging …
Ground of Being
Annea Lockwood has been an active member of the sound art world for over 50 years. Known prominently for her Glass Concerts, exploring the sonic temperaments of glass; her Piano Transplants, a performance piece where a piano is lit on fire or partially buried; and Sound Maps, detailed audio studies of rivers in the United States. She has received international recognition for her unique relationship with sound. Annea Lockwood has taught at a number of universities, most notably at Vassar in New …
Reveries
Brooklyn's Sarah "Noveller" Lipstate and Montreal's Eric "Thisquietarmy" Quach join forces here for a long-player containing four meditative duets. The two guitarists' style seems almost tailor-made for a collaboration such as this, since both of them specialise in slow-oozing drone'n'tone compositions which mix a shimmering angelic lightness with subtle drawn-out sadness.
It doesn't take a scientist to figure out what'll happen when these two come together. Drones, that's what. Achingly beautif…
No Dreams
Soaring 6th solo album by American electric guitarist Sarah Lipstate. Mastered for vinyl by James Plotkin, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200g virgin vinyl in an edition of 400. Housed in a heavy custom weight black paper jacket letterpress printed with silver ink, diecut and hand-assembled at Studio on Fire in Minneapolis. “Sarah Lipstate is Noveller. No Dreams, her 6th full-length release, welcomes in an era of expanded instrumentation for the Brooklyn-based guitarist and composer. The com…
Knuckle Under
“Violist Jessica Pavone’s Knuckle Under is the result of an exercise in mono focus, the result of a medically enforced hiatus from playing her primary instrument. She returned to the viola after a 21 month lay-off determined to play only the sounds she most wanted to hear. That turned out to be long tones, often played with such force that one imagines a puff of rosin rising from her strings as she bowed them. “But Not Here” gets through just three rustic sounding notes before a delay unit spray…
The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked Extra
"The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked Extra" was released for Boris’ 2014 North American tour. It is the fourth and final installment of the "Thing Which Solomon Overlooked" series and includes a slipcase intended to house all four LPs in the Chronicle; volume one being released by Kult of Nihilow in 2004, two and three by Conspiracy in 2006. All of the packaging was letterpress printed, diecut and hand-assembled at Studio on Fire in Minneapolis. 400 copies were pressed on transparent yellow vinyl…
A Paper Doll's Whisper Of Spring
A welcome reissue of 2012's tiny CDr edition of 'A Paper Doll's Whisper Of Spring' by Vikki Jackman, Andrew Chalk, and Jean-Nöel Rebilly. It's been beautifully remastered by Denis Blackham of Skye Mastering and pressed onto 140g vinyl with DMM cut and printed sleeve, plus a Japanese obi strip. Vikki's third album (here accompanied by Andrew Chalk and Jean-Noel Rebilly- playing synthesizer and clarinet, respectively) after 2008's Whispering Pages, is a more reflective collection of pieces, often …
Drunk with insignificance
This album has been a long time coming. Dredd and Ben first talked about collaborating back in the late '90s and it's now 2014 and the goddamn thing has only just arrived. Was the wait worth it? You bet your teeth it was. While this album would have been pretty great if they'd done it back in the day, the fact it has been allowed to age and grow of its own accord lends the project a richness and beauty beyond easy comparison. This specific album grew out of some shows Dredd and Ben have done tog…
Electricity
Peter Jefferies (This Kind of Punishment) released his brilliant sophomore album Electricity in 1994. While his solo debut, 1990's The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World, has drawn comparisons to classic singer-songwriters like Nick Drake and Townes Van Zandt, Electricity is a far more sparse and nocturnal affair. Jefferies' earthy baritone weaves between piano, guitar, cello and analog tape machine noise, pulling in listeners to the deep pastoral life of his music. With guest appearances from…
Brigitte Fontaine
*Excellent issue via Superior Viaduct - First time on vinyl!* Never one to settle on a single musical style, Brigitte Fontaine followed up her debut, Est…Folle, and her astonishing collaboration with The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Comme à la Radio, with the most eclectic release of her lengthy career, 1972’s Brigitte Fontaine. It is telling that Fontaine chose an eponymous title for her third album, the sole release from her venerable ’70s catalogue attributed to her alone. Here the actress-cum-si…
Allez Teia
Materpiece!! The second album by French guitarist Richard Pinhas under his infamous Heldon moniker, was a groundbreaking album of its era, encompassing a wide variety of guitar work, Mellotron and analog synths that float with a delicacy he had never showcased in this type of volume. Released in 1975 on the Richard Pinhas owned imprint Disjuncta, Heldon’s Allez-Téia is an astonishing and gorgeous album, foreshadowing the type of music Pinhas he would further develope with future solo recording…
A Minute To Pray A Second To Die
Deluxe LP reissue issue of an album described by Byron Coley as “the best rock record ever recorded”. The Flesh Eaters is the name behind one Chris Desjardins a.k.a. Chris D. Taking his stage name from a 1964 cult film, Chris D. wrote for legendary fanzine Slash in the late ’70s and assembled the first of many Flesh Eaters lineups from heavyweights in the burgeoning L.A. punk scene. After releasing a ravenous EP and heart-ripping debut album, The Flesh Eaters unleashed their era-defining stateme…
Fire of Love
Fire of Love is the no-nonsense debut from blues-punk legends The Gun Club. Formed in 1979—when singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce taught a young Kid Congo Powers to play guitar—the band injects the Delta blues, rockabilly and ’60s garage with their own amplified fury. Originally released in 1981 on Slash’s sub-label Ruby Records, Fire of Love features the classic second lineup with Ward Dotson on guitar (replacing Powers, who left to join The Cramps) and The Bags’ rhythm section. Opener “Sex Beat”…
Contour
Weird recording for Mikroton featuring a duo recording of Keith Rowe and Alfredo Costa Monteiro and a quartet recording of them with Ilia Belorukov and Kurt Liedwart, two recordings made at the same day at spina!studio in St. Petersburg during Teni Zvuka 2013 festival.
Keith Rowe is mainly known as the pivotal and crucial musician standing in the forefront of the first wave of the European free improvisation, co-founder of AMM in 1965 and inventor of tabletop guitar playing techniques whic…
...And Everything Inside Came Down As Dust
During October 2013, Martin Kuchen participated in an residency in Vienna called Vor Anker, hosted by the artist Johannes Heuer. Throughout the residency, Martin embarked on an intense recording schedule located in the city's structually unique Expedithalle. Built in 1912 and formally Europe's largest bread factory prior to World War II, the enormous hall in which the recordings took place was the dispatch depot were horse drawn carts would distribute bread to the population of Vienna.Recorded 1…
Tokyo 1972
Tip! *2022 stock* Some of the best recordings from Sydney's vibrant exploratory/spontaneous music scene ever released. Teletopa was “one of the earliest recorded examples of improvisation in Australia“. The trio was formed in Sidney in 1970 by Peter Evans, David Ahern and Roger Frampton, with various guests for each performance. Using conventional instruments like flute, saxophone, piano and percussion, Teletopa explored extended technique, unusual ways of playing, dissonances and silences, in …
Live at Tusk Festival 2013
An incredible document of an incredible set - the first-time trio of Oren Ambarchi, Neil Campbell and Mick Flower was a truly transcendent thing to behold at TUSK Festival 2013. Now you can hear it on vinyl too. Mixed and mastered by Joe Talia. Illustrations by Karen Constance (front) and Graeme Ross (back). "It's the clash of the improv-rock titans! Antipodean outsider guitar god Oren Ambarchi joined forces with Vibracathedralites Michael "Michael Flower" Flower and Neil "Astral Social Club" Ca…
La Ciudad Secreta: The Experimental Sounds of Barcelona 1971-199
At the end of the 1960s, perhaps due to its proximity to Paris, Barcelona had become the forefront of the avant-garde and the entryway in Spain of new forms of cultural expression from Europe and the United States. Musically, that characteristic resulted in a middle-class underground that would play the part of a late local counterculture which gave birth to the so-called Barcelonés progressive rock of 1969-1973. It featured bands such as Máquina!, Om, Música Dispersa, and so on. Material from t…