★Die Schachtel
Joy Flashings
A joyful product of mutual understanding between these two outstanding composers, described by Manuel Zurria in the booklet with the following words: "Philip Corner gave me the key to enter a secret and wonderful room, full of fabulous things and made me discover a part of me I did not know." Much more than a journey through sound, this work is a reflection on our modern world and the role played by music and soundscapes. It's a journey through traditional instruments and modern technique…
Entelechy
the second full-length album by the experimental/free-jazz quartet 7k Oaks, live recorded in concert at the InterAct Festival in Hasselt. This new release is at the same time a confirmation of their musical background as well as an exploration of new territories: about an hour of full-blast energy, with a variety of directions ranging from walls of electro-acoustic noise to free-jazz bursts, hypnotic rythmic patterns and lyrical melodic themes. It is the entelechy of …
Death by Water
This is a four-handed musique concrète composition by electroacoustic Italian composers Fabio Selvafiorita and Valerio Tricoli. This single-track piece was conceived and realized between Milan and the Giudecca Island, in Venice, which is the location of the field recordings and reel-to-reel tape treatments. The work stresses and questions the dramatic and alchemical potential of a musical landscape marked by water: visceral and metaphysical at the same time, full of narrative suggestions. …
220 Tones
Last copies...Die Schachtel is proud to present 220 Tones, a disc that points out a  crucial change in the artistic life of the well-known guitarist and composer Nicola Ratti. This brand new dimension strengthens the craftsmanship to which this amazing artist has accustomed us and, at the same time, marks out the discovery of a melodic side of rhythm and a new taste for electricity used as creative energy.In 220 Tones, Nicola Ratti chose to play instruments that cannot live without electr…
Oblivion
Die Scahchtel is very happy to present the long-awaited return of 3/4HadBeenEliminated. The group (guitarist/double bassist Stefano Pilia, turntablist/sound assembler Claudio Rocchetti, tape manipulator/vocalist/guitarist Valerio Tricoli) has created a work wich is at the same time new and refreshing and yet completely consistent with their vision: a deep interaction between human, environment, traditional instruments and live electronics that creates a floating atmosphere filled with a natural …
On Debussy's Piano and...
Die Schachtel is proud to present a recording that embodies the virtuosity of Thollem McDonas and Stefano Scodanibbio in the spirit of Claude Debussy's rebellious creativity. As Terry Riley wrote: “Anyone who has heard Thollem or Scodanibbio as a soloist might well imagine what a combination of their unique genius could produce. Awesome, well matched virtuosos in an ocean of sound." During the listening of this CD, you will witness the renowned talent of Scodanibbio, a 21st ce…
Musica Improvvisa
Musica Improvvisa is a cutting-edge project of multi-sensorial improvisation, an open dialogue among different musical experiences, narratives and aesthetics that charters the unexplored soundscape of the telluric territory of the new Italian improvised Music. Ten groups that spans from the South to the North of Italy, from the well-known to the totally obscure, whose music goes from an harsh assault to the ear to a visionary post-electronic/post everything free-form structure. The brilliant out…
Live in Roma
Although Alvin Curran is almost universally recognized as one of the leading figure of the late 20th Century musical avant-garde, he has never received the recognition he deserves in the form of a proper publication. This is in fact the first book ever to present a complete and coherent picture of this gigantic figure of experimental music. A radical experimentalism and a kind of innate volatility have, in fact, long kept the person and the work of Alvin Curran, one of the historic founder…
The Electric Harpsichord
Finally available again, reprinted in 500 copies only housed in a elegant white boxed edition:: Known to the very few, The Electric Harpsichord is possibly THE obscure masterpiece of the days of the early American minimalism. Recorded live in 1976 after many years of study under the guidance of Pandit Pran Nath and LaMonte Young, it has finally found the perfect home in the DieSchachtel ART catalogue: a lavishly produced and innovative silver/black cardboard book+CD edition, that gives the …
Neuma Q
The new addition to the Die Schachtel 'Composers' series, an utter immersion into the purest electronic sound, exploring a broad spectrum of electroacoustic phenomena, low-end drone, magically constructed and sequenced in a way that preserves its intimate feel
Rimandi e Scoperte
Long awaited new album by the enigmatic composer Angelo Petronella, in a superb piece of electroacoustic microsound, intertwining scrupulous minimalism, environmental recordings, and an intense drone nebula. The liner notes to Rimandi E Scoperte are esoteric to say the least, with statements like "In my place there is an arch, both an entrance and a barrier, both a passage and a wall" which clarify little in terms of how this music was made or what processes are involved. That's probably the wa…
Combinatoria
A comprehensive guide to the core recordings of one of the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical musicians from Italy, this 2-CD BOX Deluxe Edition captures Pietro Grossi original vision, presenting a wide selection of his studio early recordings, beautifully re-mastered to preserve the enduring quality. Pietro Grossi used to playfully define himself as pigro [lazy], but he wasn’t lazy at all! Few musicians have been working everyday at such a cracking pace, creating, teaching and…
Under the fig tree / The magic carpet
** FEW RESURFACED COPIES, VERY LAST ** Two masterpieces of the early 70s by released by Die Schachtel for the first time ever. Using VCS3 live electronics and environmental sounds, Alvin Curran created a hypnotic and meditative transcendency of minimalist beauty. Limited deluxe vinyl LP edition."The two works presented here are “seminal” pieces of two genres from which a great part of my musical practice springs and to this day continues to evolve from. Under the Fig Tree is in fact the realizat…
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LP+CD SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION hosted in a very original fold-out cover, by composer Giuseppe Chiari (of Fluxus) and pianist Daniele Lombardi (futurist musik). Each LP is hand numbered, and contains two art prints by Giuseppe Chiari. The CD is hand-numbered and signed by Daniele Lombardi. The total selling copies of the bundle edition are limited to 130.Giuseppe Chiari was one of the leading names associated first with Fluxus (being the only Italian member of the interdisciplinary art grou…
Null
BRAND NEW! “What can we hear now? A sound, as though grains of sand trickle down onto a fine membrane….” This sound, as though grains of finest sand trickle onto a membrane–the last thing that the narrator in Stanislaw Lem’s “Solaris” hears when he starts out on his journey to a world that is falling apart–is the most fitting way to describe the characteristics of Luigi Archetti’s music NULL.Stylistically, the compositions can be placed within the field of planar tonal design, and with this, als…
Musica Endoscopica
In its constant pursue of the lost treasures of the Italian avant-garde music, Die Schachtel in collaboration with the University of Padua has recovered from the ashes one of the lost and truly shining diamond of the early electronic/digital scene of the 60s and 70s. After more than two years of painstaking research and audio restoration, Die Schachtel is proud to present a new release dedicated to Teresa Rampazzi, a seminal yet very little known female Italian composer/musician, Founder of …
Six Films (1966-1969)
Die Schachtel in collaboration with O' artspace proudly presents a deluxe DVD featuring six experimental films by New York-based composer, photographer and filmmaker Phill Niblock from the late-1960s. Anybody familiar with Niblock would probably characterize his work by the sound of his long, sonorous drones, producing rich overtones usually combined with a visual element -- since before moving into composition, Niblock was an active photographer and filmmaker. While he usually is known f…
Underneath the surface
Since the very first notes, this music appears to be about memory, decay and subversion. It is a deep investigation on the ability of sounds to freely attract or reject each other, in accordance with their own nature and disposition, and still maintain their meaning. Combining dense, multilayered sheets of synthetic sounds, treated bass, electronic percussion, the six tracks reveal their non-architectural principle as the music develops through warm textural details, reverberations, underlying m…
Da Cantare - Vocal Works 1951-1983
LAST FEW COPIES, long sold out: this important double CD box edition is the ultimate collection of the vocal compositions by one of the leading figures of Italian contemporary and aleatory music. The first piece -- 'Rot' -- is the complete version of the piece originally written in 1973, as the vocal parts have been added in July 2004 for its 2nd performance ever, held in Rome during the celebration of the 'Guaccero'year'. It is therefore different from the piece presented on the LP, which is pu…
Musica per un anno (1968)
** LAST COPIES** The seminal project "Musica per un Anno” (Music for One Year, 1968) was composed and recorded in 1968. Based on a cycle of 360 days, it was conceived as a possible sound track for ambients: the sound events change imperceptibly but continuosly, in relation to months, days, hours and minutes. Every instant of time has its unique music, which merges with the light and the air of the ambient. As this music develops over time, with no clear beginning or end, every minute of it is "…