★Paradigm Discs
Connections (1970-1974)
Big tip! Formed in Cambridge in 1969 by Tim Souster and Roger Smalley, Intermodulation started out as a 4 piece group with the addition of Robin Thompson and Andrew Powell (who soon moved on to other Cambridge projects, including a pre Chris Cutler Henry Cow). Powell was replaced by Peter Britton, and this incarnation of the group remained for the duration of their existence.
Having releasing a box set of works by Gentle Fire it felt necessary to do the same with Intermodulation and thus comple…
Mare's Tail
In 1969 both Anthony Moore and David Larcher were at the start of their respective careers and both were inspired by the ideas of the avant garde and the new technologies becoming available to them. David experimented with the various techniques being explored in the medium of film making and Anthony tested the limits of what could be done with tape recorders. It was an open and co-operative exploration. The results of their first collaboration was the film Mare’s Tail - an unusually long 2:30 h…
Bioelectrical Music
We have not had a physical release by composer and ecologist Michael Prime since the release of Borneo in 2007. This new 3CD set brings us up to date with a series of recordings from across the years. It also sees a new refinement in his working practice as well as a new extension to his original name. Bioelectrical Music by Michael Allen Z Prime consists of recordings that fall into 3 defined categories - Bioelectrical Compositions, Bioelectrical Field Recordings and Bioelectrical Installations…
Music and Words 3
Coming 8 years after Volume 2 and 23 years after the first installment, Volume 3 of Music And Words is the 4th solo release by Adam Bohman on Paradigm Discs. All 4 releases have focused on his earliest recordings, mostly from the 80s, mostly domestic and all using cassette recorders. There are 4 principle styles that are employed in this early phase of Adam’s work - most unexpectedly there are songs, often constructed with trumpet as the lead instrument, then more typically there are improvised …
Up Your Sleeve (LP)
** Edition of 500 copies with a numbered 4-page insert ** Previously released in 1980 on David Toop’s Quartz label at a time when improvised music in London was settling into a long spell of excellence. The players here are Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack, Terry Day and David Toop. Terry had been a member of The People Band in the 60s, one of the groups forming part of the first wave of British improvisation. The rest of the group could be regarded as pioneers of a second generation of improvisers…
Ali's Smile
This record is divided into two sections. The first part is the title track and takes up most of side one. Ali's Smile was first published in 1971 and was privately released as a one-sided LP, in an edition of 99 copies. It came in a plain sleeve with a hardback copy of the spoken text, and was sold exclusively through Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, UK. Bill Butler, the bookshop owner, was still paying off a viciously punitive fine and associated court costs imposed in 1968 after a guilty verdict…
Explorations (1970 - 1973) 3CD Box
The first ever survey of the seminal British experimental music collective, Gentle Fire, "Explorations (1970 - 1973)" offers a remarkable and previously unavailable glimpse of their activities during the early 1970s.
Mirror
Paradigm Discs present a reissue of Amnon Raviv's Mirror, originally released in Israel in 1983 and only available in a handmade edition of just 50 copies. As such, this edition is the first widely available issue of this LP, giving it a chance to reach an audience beyond the 50 hardened collectors who got to hear this strange experimental record back in the '80s. There's nothing else quite like it from that era, let alone from Israel, although it does have some parallels with earlier avant-gard…
The Seddon Tapes: Volume 1
Numbered edition of 500 copies Comes with 8 page 12" booklet Thanks to Dan Wilson for the segues on side 2 Special thanks to Sandra Cross, Miles Champion and Ed Baxter. These recordings were collected by William English from the floor of Captain Seddon’s cottage shortly after he died and just before the building was demolished. Many other tapes were left behind. The only recordings he made were audio letters, diaries and most prolifically, his phone conversations. The 12 pieces on this LP were r…
Anthropological Constants
Who is Kymatik? Kymatik first appeared on Paradigm Discs back in 1995 with a spontaneous composition created alone in the control room, with all the sounds being derived from a simultaneous improvisation being played in the studio by Morphogenesis. Three years later Paradigm released the full-length Kymatik CD Dar-As-Sulh Vol.1 (PD 015CD), a selection of pieces, some based on purely mathematical ideas, others are more hypnotic pulse based psychedelic soundscapes, some works being performed live …
Beyond the Black Crack
Paradigm Discs present a 40th anniversary vinyl reissue of Anal Magic And Rev. Dwight Frizzell's Beyond The Black Crack. It was originally released in mono, in an edition of 200 by Cavern Custom in 1976. Beyond the Black Crack was the concept of Reverend Dwight Frizzell, a musician, film maker, doctor of metaphysics and minister in the Universal Church of Life. Mentioned on the pivotal Nurse With Wound list, it remains a little known classic and one of the most unique listening experiences in mo…
Curse go Back
Paradigm Discs presents Curse Go Back, tape experiments from William S. Burroughs. William Burroughs was in and out of London from the mid-50s to 1974 and for several years quite settled in a flat near Piccadilly. During this latter time he developed and refined the techniques he used for creating cut-ups on tape. Working closely with Ian Sommerville, who helped acquire, and no doubt maintain, the various tape recorders that Burroughs used and abused in these experimental works. The work here is…
Music and Words 2
Music and Words 2 is the much-delayed second instalment in an ongoing series of archival documents of Adam Bohman's early work. As with the first volume, this CD is divided into two separate areas of his work. Adam is probably best known as an improviser, playing prepared instruments and objects, but the music here uses little of these purely-improvised techniques. On this CD, the musical sections consist of idiosyncratic lo-fi songs alongside short collage pieces and other experiments, recorded…
Semikolon
Originally created as a 6-part radio series in 1965, and released in 1966 by Sveriges Radio. This is the first LP recording by either of these composers. Recorded at EMS (Elektron Musik Studion), the newly established studio facility at Swedish Radio. This pioneering work did not easily fit in any category that existed at the time. Inspired by the work of Öyvind Fahlström (who was a pioneer of concrete poetry along with the Lettrists and Futurists), a few young Swedish artists began exploring ne…
Rock And Other Four Letter Words
This New York based duo released their one and only LP in 1968 on Columbia Masterworks, just months after Zappa released Lumpy Gravy in California. Although the 2 projects have some superficial similarity in structure, it would seem that this later LP must have been made (at least largely), without any knowledge of the Zappa masterpiece. Another reference point might be The United States Of America who also released their LP in1968.Originally released simultaneously with Terry Riley's In C and …
Color Him Coma
The first CD in this set is a reissue of an obscure cassette release from 1983 that was originally released in a small edition on the London based, It’s War Boys label. This C60 consisted of 2 distinct halves. Side 1 was formed around several mixes of an experimental track, constructed from a room-sized 24 track loop. A version of this track first appeared on the LP Flagellation by The Just Measurers (who were C. D. Greyt, Yakkö Banovic and Narki Brillans).Side 2 is a collage of mostly unused (a…
Installation Recordings (1973-2008) 2Cd
This 2CD is essentially a retrospective of Max Eastley's Installation work. As such, it updates and adds many new examples to the 1975 release 'New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments', which was released as a split LP with David Toop on Brian Eno's Obscure Records. This is Eastley's first solo CD. Of the 35 tracks, only the last 2 have any guests or 'playing' (the most virtuosic moment being George Lewis playing a grass blade). All the other pieces are either powered by the natural forces of w…
Machine
Although Machine was completed in 1971 it was not released until 1973, shortly after the release of Journey Into Space. Machine is therefore the first major composition by Trevor Wishart. It was composed at York University and was originally issued on vinyl as 3 sides of a highly adventurous 3LP box set called Electronic Music From York, released by the University’s own record label. In common with Journey Into Space (also on Paradigm Discs), Machine makes use of a large number of volunteer cont…
Episodes at 4AM
Bob Downes is most often thought of as a jazz flautist, composer and group leader, but throughout his varied career that has included such diverse musical activity as working with the John Barry Seven and playing on Egg's second LP, he also had his own fluid conceptual group Open Music with principle bass player Barry Guy and drummer Denis Smith. Other players that passed through Open Music include Chris Spedding, Kenny Wheeler, Ray Russell, Ian Carr, Henry Lowther, Harry Beckett, Harry Miller, …
Variations: A London Compilation
Released in 1995, this debut compilation is a showcase of seven London-based experimental artists. Features John Wall (sonic sampling collage wizard), Andrew Jacques (Put Put member using a microphone and guitar amplifier for disruptive sound sources, sampled by Wall), Crow (great, futuristic fragments of experimental sound/text recordings by a UK installation artist), Alquimia (dream-state mutterings and aura, from an experimental artist from Mexico City), John Grieve (powerful electronic-like …