★Room40
The Prosperity Of Vice, The Misfortune Of Virtue
Matte laminate and embossed sleeve, with insert card and fold out poster + vinyl sticker (20cm long). Recorded in 1996, Merzbow's The Prosperity Of Vice, The Misfortune Of Virtue is one of a series of unique editions from his vast catalogue that reveals a side of his practice often under represented. During the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Masami Akita was sometimes working on film and theatre music. In this space he created a series of recordings that capture the full scope of his sound world…
Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds
From Lawrence English: "I like to think that sound haunts architecture. It's one of the truly magical interactions afforded by sound's immateriality. It's also something that has captivated us from the earliest times. It's not difficult to imagine the exhilaration of our early ancestors calling to one another in the dark cathedral like caves which held wonder, and security, for them. Today the ways in which sound occupies space, the so-called liquid architecture, holds just as much wonder, albei…
Journey to the Cave of Guanyin
The inspiration for these pieces comes from the Chinese folklore of Guanyin, a deity whose name translates to ‘the one who perceives all the sounds, or cries, of the world’. Also known as Guanshiyin 觀世音, she is the embodiment of infinite compassion. I grew up knowing of Guanyin as a female deity, but recently discovered that she had transformed through the centuries from the male Hindu bodhisattva, Avalokiteśvara. I instantly found an affinity for this gender-fluid figure, who was said to have a…
I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea
I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea is the first collaboration of Lea Bertucci and Olivia Block. This collaboration was set into slow motion some years ago, in 2017, when Lea and Olivia connected through an interview facilitated by writer Steve Smith. In 2022, the artists finally had a chance to collaborate, performing an improvised set at Pioneer Works in New York City. Since then, the New York based Bertucci and Chicago based Block remotely built out ideas stemming from th…
View
"View was first presented as part of a solo exhibition at the jennjoy gallery in San Francisco, the show also included paintings, drawings, and a silent video work. For the installation, I asked Jenn to record for me the sounds of the View from one of the gallery windows. "sounds were recorded from ledge just above radiator on various days and times in april" sometimes the window was open, sometimes closed. I used fragments of these recordings as both a compositional cue as well as the entire so…
Archeology // Archeologia
Biiiiiiiig Tip! "It has taken me over 50 years to write these words. Since my initial successes in the 1970’s many have urged me to “release” unpublished works from the same period, pieces that featured the VCS3 synths or the amazing Serge (which I regret not having used enough) or pieces featuring soundscapes from my classic environmental composition style. For reasons of persistence and empathy, Lawrence English at Room 40 was the most persuasive; now, nearly 3 years after our agreement, a new…
Ku
*2024 stock* The act of conjuring remarkable sound from found objects is at the very heart of this recording from American musicians Greg Davis and Jeph Jerman. Having met in Arizona some years back, Davis and Jerman commenced working together on a series of recording projects.
Improvising with a range of implements and devices ranging from sticks, stones and low-fi electronics to prepared instruments, gongs and broken percussion, the pair sought to develop a personal language that reflected th…
A Picturesque View, Ignored
*2024 stock* Echoes of disconnected sound reverberate meshing together into a cascading river of intersecting sound elements – occasionally confrontational, ultimately unforgettable.
Night Passage
"I’ll take a guess and say I first heard Alan Lamb’s Night Passage in 1999. Released by Darrin Verhagen’s seminal Dorobo label, the record birthed an approach that wove together themes of materialism, field recording and a reimagining of the abandoned utilities of human habitation. Night Passage is one of those recordings I feel has always been with me, it’s that foundational. It completely reshaped the way a generation of audio explorers thought about how sound and music might exist in the orbi…
Arms
"There’s two things I can tell you about Ueno Takashi, without reservation. The first is he knows the best coffee spots in Tokyo. I am the happy recipient of this knowledge. The second thing I can tell you is that he is someone for whom the guitar is a platform of exquisite promise. Ueno Takashi, who many of you would recognise as one half of the legendary unit Tenniscoats, is also responsible for an impressive series of solo guitar recordings which stake out a claim that tests the fringes of ex…
Slow Motion Lightning
Slow Motion Lightning; deadly and unpredictable never strikes twice in the same place except when it does.
A Colour For Autumn
"Somehow, 15 years has passed since I worked on A Colour For Autumn. This recording was, in many ways, a critical one for me. In some respects, it rounded out a period of work that was focused on a particular marriage of thematics and harmony. Like For Varying Degrees Of Winter, it dwelled on old world impressions of the seasons, something that, in the southern hemisphere, isn’t intrinsically part of our way of approaching place. I think it was this incongruity with my own lived experience that …
Neuromancer
"It’s hard to imagine that this year William Gibson’s Neuromancer celebrates its 40th anniversary. Having recently re-read the book for the first time in a great many years, the world building Gibson undertook in that text and the lingering cultural spectres he conjured, feel ever so evocative of moments of our contemporary lived experience. The books continued cultural resonance has resolved in a way that captured a future reading of an, at that time of its release, unknown internet era. It was…
Totemo Aimasho
*2024 stock* In essence Tokyo’s Tenniscoats celebrate all that makes song vital in our collective conscious. Matching emotive live performance against delicately psychedelic folk songs, the duo of Saya and Takashi Ueno (assisted by a plethora of floating members), create some of the most compelling music currently emanating from Japan.
On Totemo Aimasho – loosely translated as 'Lets Meet Very Much' – Tenniscoats find themselves traveling across countries, scribing audio journal entries from Aust…
Alluvial
*2024 stock* Crafted throughout 2004 and early 2005, Rösner’s original source material stems largely from instruments (guitar, percussion, analog electronics), and through his detailed processing and production methods he’s been able to counterpoint a desire for raw digital overtones against earthy acoustic qualities.
The results are simply a pleasure for the ears – course passages of hiss and electronic splutter give way to lilting moments of sheer melodic beauty. With strong humming bass heavy…
Constants
*2024 stock* UK-based artist Chris Herbert is a man of intermittent communications. Over the past decade he has published a select oeuvre of crushingly lush and elegant records. Fittingly then, Constants, his new edition for Room40 is a transmission from an overtly private realm. Working in a relative vacuum, beyond the reach of contemporary electronic music trends, Herbert has focussed his interest in intuitive composition. Drawing on a mixed musical palette and interweaving sounds sourced from…
Ballad(s) for Quiet Horizons
*2024 stock* Incredible collection of Scott Morrison's audio visual works. Presented in a gatefold monochrome printed and matte laminated jacket with insert cards.
Evening Air
Evening Air is the result of Loren Connors and David Grubbs’s first trip to the recording studio in the two decades since their first duo album, Arborvitae (Häpna). Arborvitae stood out for its spellbinding, utterly unhurried meshing of electric guitar (Connors) and piano (Grubbs). With this long-awaited return, Connors and Grubbs take turns trading off on piano and guitar, with Grubbs at the keyboard for the two gently expansive pieces on the first side and Connors taking over the instrument fo…
Black Blues
Keiji Haino is, without question, one of the truly iconic artists to rise beyond the dusk of the 20th century. An artist focused singularly of the beautiful visceral promise of music, his practice is a many headed beast taking in movements from the gentlest of guitar play, through free improvisation and noise. As divergent as the work might be, it is held tightly by his unique way in sound, one that exists moment to moment with a force like no other. 20 years since its first release, Black Blues…