★Bocian Records
Saturation
Poland’s Bocian reunite with zeitkratzer ensemble to present a difficult but hugely rewarding piece by influential Polish composer Zbigniew Karkowski, backed with Reinhold Friedl’s personal tribute to Ianis Xenakis. Both sides contain important, demanding, and foundational works in the zeitkratzer canon, which now stretches to 15 years of neo-classical interpretation and original composition with some of extreme and forward-thinking music’s greatest.Zbigniew Karkowski’s Monochromy - his first pi…
Journey to the center of your mind
*Joachim Nordwall and Henrik Rylander return with this incredibly heavy drone-noise session under the 'Saturn and the Sun’ moniker* Crushing, celestial sized drone objects from Nordwall and Rylander here, sheathed in absorbing artwork by Martin Jacobsen. 'Journey to the Center of Your Mind' projects three concentrated, irradiating beams of Scandinavian drone noise intensity recorded at Studio Dental, Gothenburg. As with the artwork, the music could just as easily be said to desc…
Distinctly_dive
Time-served, Zurich-based improvisors, Norbert Möslang (Voice Crack) and Jason Kahn reprise their duo with 'Distinctly_Dive', recorded March 1st, 2013 in St. Gallen by Jason Kahn for Poland's Bocian. Skittish percussion, stray shortwave radio and amorphous spectral electronics collide, overlap and react against each other in an almost jazz-wise display of rhythmic fluidity and tonal chaos perfectly suspended and given room in the mix by Möslang.
On the A-side they never quite tear-out but …
Resistance
Resistance recorded live in 2013 is an expected performance of unforeseen music. That said, it boosts Vandermark's stock (not that he needs it) as a soloist. He has, of late, stepped out of his role as composer, arranger, and organizer of ensembles to perform solo and in improvising duos with Nate Wooley, Agustí Fernandez, Mats Gustafsson, and Tim Daisy. Freed from all the duties associated with large ensembles, he can focus on improvising. Here his saxophone and various clarinets weave, bounce,…
You Can Be Mine
* 200 copies. Black vinyl * Paal Nilssen-Love is at his powerful best on most of this record – showing that amazing command of the kit that's made him one of the most important drummers in free jazz over the past decade or so! And Fred Lonberg-Holm does plenty himself to keep up on both cello and electronics – working with an intensity that's quite a change from some of his more contemplative performances – surprisingly searing as Paal moves along like a nonstop locomotive!
A Duo(s)
In case you weren't there, Bocian present documentation of a pretty unhinged Cafe Oto session between gifted improvisers, Mats Gustafsson (reeds), John Russell (guitar) & Phil Minton (voice). Just imagine stumbling in on this one unprepared - a trio of blokes bleating, parping and yanking like Reeves & Mortimer after three days on the sauce. Of course, that description does a disservice to their well-honed extended technique and dexterity, but we'd defy anyone to keep a totally straight face at …
Bota Fogo
‘Bota Fogo’ was recorded live in concert at Audio Rebel’s Quintavant in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is the new LP from Paal Nilssen-Love and co via Bocian Records, a label that claims to be for extreme fans of electronic and improvised music. Accompanying Nilssen here are his band Felipe Zenicola, Eduardo Manso, Arthur Lacerda and members of noise rock band Chinese Cookie Poets. The result is bass-heavy music with sporadic outbursts of raw trance and guitar feedback.
Blast Of Silence
Brand new David Maranha album, here with Gerard Lebik in a a sound performance held at Cave 211, Lisbon, January 2014 "An accumulation of resonances reinjected into an impressive granular continuum with a growing audio signal stretched to the limits of saturation. Music that leads to trance!
David Maranha His work encompasses sculpture, music and architecture. In 1986 he started to develop his work as a musician both as a solo artist and with several bands and has since released more than 30 a…
Anime Pezzentelle
Brand new David Maranha album, here with Gerard Lebik in a a sound performance held at Cave 211, Lisbon, January 2014 "An accumulation of resonances reinjected into an impressive granular continuum with a growing audio signal stretched to the limits of saturation. Music that leads to trance!
David Maranha His work encompasses sculpture, music and architecture. In 1986 he started to develop his work as a musician both as a solo artist and with several bands and has since released more than 30 a…
Daturas
Electroacoustic composition from Mexican composer Rogelio Sosa (1977). The electric guitar stays at the center of the work and provides all the noises that create this kind ofÊnightmarish and psychedelic journey. His previous album was published by Sub Rosa.
Everything was forever, until it was no more
The record is an attempt to document a sound installation by Konrad Smoleski presented in at the Polish Pavillion at the 55th Venice Biennale 2013. The sound sculpture is based primarily on the manipulation of the tolling of a bell. Through the process of transforming this familiar tone of traditional bells, Smole ski also changes its meaning: a sound that evokes a variety of associations is given an abstract frequency that seems devoid of connotations. Not only does the artist free the sound fr…
Conceptual nO!se
A great noise album made with analogue and digital sources "Proper brainfloss from indefatigable English noise demon Russell Haswell for the excellent Bocian Records. Following on from his cracking split with Pain Jerk and the outstanding '37 Minute Workout' for Diagonal, the five blizzards of 'Conceptual n0!se' also help to distinguish 2014 as a relatively prolific and vintage year for the venerable artist. It's full bore Haswell; an atonal, arrhythmic relish of blistering analogue and digital …
Phantom jerk
Here's a newie from notorious noise terrorist Kevin Drumm. The press release just says Kevin Drumm: modular analogue synth, while the sleeve isn't much more forthcoming, telling me the artist, title, label name and another snippet of information: 6 oscillators, recorded July 2013.Compared to some of his brutally distorted sonic assaults, this is a surprisingly tranquil serene album, with slow-drifting synth drones rubbing sonorously against one another in a ghostly shimmer that's part Deathpro…
Return from the centre of Earth
Recording during concerts in Chicago by Mikolaj Trzaska - saxophones, bass clarinet; Steve Swell - trombone; Per-Åke Holmlander - tuba; Tim Daisy - drums
Why is there something instead of nothing
This, Majkowski's third solo double bass release, is an album comprising of two pieces, which in their own way explore the relationship between stillness and momentum. The spectrum and resonance of particular sustained frequencies, and the atmosphere which they create is also at the core of this work. Majkowski captures these aspects via specific and highly detailed playing approaches, sustained over extended periods of time. We hear an inner pulse in slow melodies, and floating, almost frozen, …
Sin Gas
Wire Magazine's official King of All Skronk Mats Gustafsson is back with his partner in time Paal Nilssen-Love for a new duo record this week. I'm rather struck by the creepy skeleton on the front cover, and I'm also gleaning enjoyment from the textural bubble'n'squeak madness on the disc. There are quite a few droney periods on this one, with Gustafsson eking soft moans and primal howls and jagged rasps from his saxophone, with the drums often puttering around amorphously, but there are also mo…
Oslo Tapes
Mats Gustafsson, aka King Skronk, aka Skronkmeister General, aka The Skronk Controller, aka Squeaky Pete, aka Skronkmaster Flash, joins forces with another experimental giant Lasse Marhaug (aka The Ear Destroyer, aka Mr Skreee, aka Electro Crunch Bastard, aka Testicle Hazard) on this sanity-obliterating collaboration. Squeaky reeds go head to head against fluttering, hissing, rotting reels in a shrill, broken, fluttering noise experiment. It sounds horrible, of course, and if you're looking at t…
No New Age
Kapital is an encounter of two artists that usually penetrate different musical genres and ideas. It is an encounter of two musical worlds: psychoactive electro-acoustic music generated with electronic instruments and found objects and extreme psychedelia based on the sounds of processed guitar. Zio?ek and Iwan'ski worked together for the first time during recording sessions of improvisational group Innercity Ensemble formed in 2011. In August of 2013 they recorded in Bory Tucholskie their debut…
Both Ends
The title 'Both Ends' seems innocent enough until you read the back sleeve of this record and discover the circumstances behind this recording. The experienced free jazz trio of percussionist Paal Nilssen-Love with sax pest Dave Rempis tooting the reeds and Fred Lonberg Holm handling cello and electronics played a gig in Warsaw immediately after accidentally poisoning themselves with bad chicken and then dousing their insides with vodka in the hope of sterilising away any bacteria. I'm pretty su…
Humid Weather
Exceptional Polish imprint, Bocian Records presents a necessary vinyl edition of Kevin Drumm's super limited 2012 release for Hospital Productions, "Dedicated to my least favorite thing in the world, humidity." Over two sides breaking down to three pieces, Drumm expresses his irritation through a mixture of field recordings and microtonal drones made in july/august 2012 and transposed with intercepted voice recordings from summer 1995 at Mosquito Net Studio, Chicago, Il.
In 'Humid Weather' prope…