★Another Timbre
Extinguishment
In some experimental music circles melody is virtually verboten, but you have often embraced it in your work. Do you feel that you are to some extent going against the grain in this?AG: First off, I think melody can be defined separately from harmony. I think of melody as a single voice or layer, and with multiple layers, I like them to overlap in non-structured ways. I am interested in homophony more than polyphony or harmony, where if you take a cross-section through these independent lines y…
Would Fall From The Sky, Would Wither And Die
A new composition by clarinetist and composer Magnus Granberg, the leader of the highly acclaimed ensemble Skogen, this time with a new, smaller group that includes percussionist Erik Carlsson, performing his beautiful, melancholic music.
Your work with the larger group Skogen is now relatively well-known, and indeed successful. Why the change of group formation for this release? And in particular why the absence of electronics, which was such a feature of your two Another Timbre discs with Skog…
Whitewashed With Lines (Common Objects)
A double CD featuring two extended live performances by the electroacoustic quartet of John Butcher (sax), Angharad Davies (violin), Rhodri Davies (harps) & Lee Patterson (amplifed devices)
Sometimes we all disappear
A restrained electronic improvisation from the duo of Jamie Drouin on suitcase modular & portable radio, and Lance Austin Olsen on amplified objects and audio cassettes, utlitizing space, isolated and connected events, and the listener's own environment.
Next to Nothing
Four text scores composed by Ryoko Akama (VCS3 synthesizer), Bruno Duplant (percussion, tone generator) and Dominic Lash (double bass, clarinet & laptop). The pieces are all text scores, carefully and exquisitely realised by three of the most interesting musicians to emerge on the experimental music scene in the last few years. The musicians combine in a fruitful and intimate exchange, producing a delicate and fragile web of sounds. Four beautifully evolving and carefully paced works.."-Another …
The Harmonics of Real Strings
Four realisations of John Lely's simple but brilliant composition 'The Harmonics of Real Strings', which is basically a very slow glissando along the full length of one bowed string. Anton Lukoszevieze plays one realisation on each string of the cello, following the harmonic transformations as they occur and producing an extraordinary example of 'the virtuosity of restraint'. John Lely originally composed the piece in 2006, and it was recorded in April 2014. "When I'm composing I'm learning, ask…
Two pianos and other pieces, 1953-1969
A double CD of music for multiple pianos from what is arguably the most experimental and interesting period of Morton Feldman's development as a composer. Some of the pieces have been very rarely performed or recorded, and have probably never been in better hands. The music featured on these two discs testifies to the intensity of Feldman's experimentation with notation and sound during the 1950s and 60s. Considering the works chronologically one senses the composer trying out, teasing and deve…
Roananax 1999 / Obliq 2014
Roananax 1999 (Axel Dörner, Robin Hayward, Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann) and Obliq 2014 (Hannes Lingens, Pierre Borel, Derek Shirley). Powerful archive recordings from the legendary group Roananax at the very start of 'Berlin reductionism'. Combined on a split disc with a beautiful example of reductionism 15 years on played by Obliq, a group of younger Berlin-based musicians.
Luv / Kopfuberwelle
Sabine Vogel 'luv', and Chris Abrahams + Sabine Vogel 'kopfüberwelle'. Another split disc, presenting two aspects of the music of Berlin-based flautist - composer - improviser Sabine Vogel. The first half of the disc contains a solo composition created from recordings made by Sabine with Landscape Quartet, a group committed to improvisation in and with natural environments. The second half of the disc features an extended improvised performance by Sabine on flutes in duo with The Necks' Chris Ab…
Tschirtner tunings for Twelve
Antoine Beuger\'s \'tschirtner tunings for twelve\' played by Konzert Minimal. A beautiful and delicate long-form composition by Wandelweiser founder Antoine Beuger, exquisitely interpreted by the Berlin ensemble Konzert Minimal, which includes Pierre Borel (alto saxophone), Lucio Capece (bass clarinet), Johnny Chang (viola), Catherine Lamb (viola), Hannes Lingens (accordion), Mike Majkowski (double bass), Koen Nutters (double bass), Morten J. Olsen (vibraphone), Nils Ostendorf (trumpet), Derek …
Chamber Works 1992 - 2009
Double CD of composer-supervised recordings of 14 chamber pieces by a truly unique and individual voice in contemporary composition. Performed by the UK's leading experimental music ensemble Apartment House, who have championed Crane's music since the mid-90's. 'This is not minimalism. It does not take justification in 'less is more' or 'only what is necessary'. It takes us beyond those points: it is less than necessary. It says, basically, nothing is necessary. And perhaps, also, 'let's be hap…
F23M-12: Field With Figures No. 1 - 4 / Rush!
Christian Kesten & Mark Trayle duo: F23M-12: Field with Figures No.1-4'. Annette Krebs solo 'rush!'. This is the second split disc in the Berlin series of CD's. The first half of the CD is a meeting of long-time Berliner Christian Kesten (voice) with Californian Mark Trayle on electronics. The second half of the disc is a typically engaged solo from Annette Krebs, one of the key figures in Berlin's music scene for the past 20 years. Using electric guitar, electronics and taped voices, Annette cr…
Pneuma
First CD featuring five mysterious works by a young English composer whose music gives voice to the secrets in sounds. 'Martin Iddon's music asks a lot of us. This disc, pneuma, asks even more, because it conceals the 'real, physical human bod[ies]' that are so important to this music. Iddon asks musicians to play instruments they do not play, articulate notes they will not hear, and perform independently of partners they cannot ignore. The music depends wholly on the relationships those bodies …
Despairs had governed me too long
(Magnus Granberg, Angharad Davies, Toshi Nakamura, Henrik Olsson, Ko Ishikawa, Anna Lindal, John Eriksson, Erik Carlsson, Leo Svensson Sander and Petter Wstberg). Another beautiful extended composition by Magnus Granberg, exquisitely played by an ensemble of fine musicians whose last two discs on Another Timbre both featured in The Wire's best of year CD lists for 2012 and 2013 respectively. 'Despairs Had Governed Me Too Long' is the third disc on Another Timbre by the Swedish-based ensemble Sko…
LL
Three strange and wonderful pieces from the Chicago-based duo, making music from objects found in the basement of a local thrift store. Sleevenotes by Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Clayton Mills : In 2010 we were invited to participate in an exhibition of site-specific installations and performances at Pilsen Vintage and Thrift, a local second-hand store in Pilsen, a predominantly Hispanic neighbourhood in Chicago. The owner had agreed to make the store's warehouse and basement available for art shows…
Vessels
An extraordinary 76-minute work for solo piano, played by Philip Thomas, and composed by Bryn Harrison, a Huddersfield-based composer who is quietly building something of a cult reputation for his distinctively minimal and repetition-based music. Vessels works with threads of tones which are repeated with subtle variation until they attain a mysterious, labyrinthine quality. 'I tried to get across this sense of the music being perpetually regenerative, of constantly opening up but then finding o…
Logical harmonies
Seven recent pieces by the UK-based composer Richard Glover, whose music is a process music based on the exposition of simple harmonic patterns. 'I enjoy the nuanced transformation attainable through dealing with harmony: alterations from within the sound which cannot be identified as emanating from one particular element, or line, but gradually alter the nature of the overall sonority each time. The focus upon the global, the whole, allows deeper inspection of everything else.' Performers inclu…
Radi d'or
A composed piece for small ensemble of instruments and live electronics. ÔRadi d'Or' uses shifting sinetones alongside sustained sounds from the acoustic instruments to create a shimmering music that unfolds slowly with gracefully. Composed in 2010, this recording is of the first public performance by the Ferran Fages Ensemble, which took place in Barcelona in February 2011: Olga Abalos (flute and alto saxophone), Lali Barrière (sinetones), Tom Chant (soprano and tenor saxophones), Ferran Fages …
Variable formations
Johnny Chang (viola), Angharad Davies (violin), Jamie Drouin (electronics), Phil Durrant (electronics), Lee Patterson (amplified objects), John Tilbury (piano).In February 2013 the Berlin-based musician Johnny Chang, who is a member of the Wandelweiser collective, visited London as part of a short tour along with his some-time playing partner Jamie Drouin, the Canadian musician and artist who had recently moved to Berlin. The duo constructed an installation at the Soundfjord gallery in Tottenham…
Rows
The return of the Swedish-based ensemble Skogen, after the success of their previous CD 'Ist gefallen in den Schnee'. This time the ensemble interpret a piece by Anders Dahl to produce what is, in the composer's words, 'the simplest twelve tone music possible'. With Magnus Granberg, Angharad Davies, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Anna Lindal, Henrik Olsson, Petter wastberg and Erik Carlsson