★Telephone Explosion
Humid Sun
Tip! For the good part of the past decade, Japanese composer-musician Masahiro Takahashi has been crafting gently spellbinding pieces that simultaneously embrace electronic abstraction and a palpable, even brittle, humanity. His delicate and evocative landscapes always seem to be illuminated in vibrant magic hour tones as golden synth lines emanate from between soft flickers of acoustic instrumentation. Since moving to Toronto in 2020, Takahashi has swiftly become a local fixture, enough so that…
The Electric Lucifer
*2022 repress. In process of stocking* Bruce Haack's The Electric Lucifer is rightly considered one of the masterworks of 20th century electronic music. Originally recorded in 1968-69 (released in 1970), it's an eminently listenable work where pop-psychedelia and Moog/musique concrete sounds coalesce. Acclaimed upon its original release (one of Rolling Stone's favorite albums of 1970) yet unavailable for over three decades, The Electric Lucifer is presented here for the first time on LP. Remaste…
In Human Terms
2022 Stock. In the mid-80’s, an original form of music was discovered on the midi-capable little planet of Austin, Texas. At the age of 32, Charles Ditto would release his first solo album applying cutting edge computers and synthesizers of the era (Roland DX7, Roland MKS-20, Roland MKS-80, Sequential Circuits Profit 2000 along with a Macintosh SE), creating a unique and detailed world that was inspired by Cluster, Eno & The Residents. In Human Terms bridges the gab between contemporary classica…
Clouds of Joy
The Badge Époque Ensemble return to Telephone Explosion Records with a new LP, Clouds of Joy. Featuring three vocal-led compositions, three instrumentals and three choral arrangements, this new album presents the Ensemble’s most ambitious, mature and engaging material to date. Clouds represents a shift from the group’s previous sonic excursions into the worlds of vintage soundtrack grooves and early electric jazz towards a more era-ambiguous, complex and all-encompassing approach to arrangement …
Moves
Toronto-based octet Eucalyptus has been steadily gathering a devoted cult following since the release of their debut 10” Eeeeeuuucaaaaaaallyyypppptus in 2012. Led by acclaimed saxophonist and composer Brodie West, the band's languid, kaleidoscopic jazz is very much a collective endeavour, the product of an internal network of improvisational synergy they've built over more than a decade together. Moves is their sixth release, and somewhat of a milestone. In addition to it being the octet's most …
Scroll
Before forming outer limits jazz-rock outfit Badge Époque Ensemble, Max Turnbull masterminded the oddball pop persona Slim Twig, wrote and performed with U.S. Girls, and moonlighted in varyingly experimental groups across his native Toronto. While this was going on, the devout cratedigger had his third eye trained on another project—one that would span the breadth of his mercurial creativity. This “journal album,” as he puts it, is titled Scroll, and it collages together the pearls of Turnbull’s…
Máscaras
The double meaning of Brandon Valdivia's pseudonym Mas Aya neatly encapsulates his musical outlook. Over the past fifteen years, the Toronto composer, percussionist and producer has established himself as an integral part of the city's vibrant and varied music community through his membership in groups such as Not The Wind, Not The Flag, Picastro, The Cosmic Range, I Have Eaten The City and Lido Pimienta.Máscaras is anchored by Valdivia's deft and atmospheric production style that folds together…
Flowering Tree, Distant Moon
Japanese multi-instrumentalist Masahiro Takahashi's latest album is a meditation on seasons and distance, recorded in isolation at his temporary home studio in Toronto. Following “the coldest winter I have ever experienced,” he began crafting hushed, lush vignettes of color wheel electronics with an array of software synthesizers, granular samplers, plug-in FX, MIDI controllers, and a shruti box. The songs sway, shimmer, and unspool in sparkling arcs, between reverie and lullaby, inspired variou…
Future, Past & Present
Barely a season passed in 2019 between the release of Badge Époque Ensemble’s self titled debut album, and its follow up, the disco-sleeved 12” Nature, Man & Woman. Now, 3 months on from the release of the group’s acclaimed sophomore album Self Help, we find them repeating the trick with a surprise fourth title on Telephone Explosion Records, the fittingly titled Future, Past & Present. A compilation of sorts, the album collects instrumental, alternate mix versions of all BÉE songs which origina…
Badge Époque Ensemble
* 2020 Repress * Flute, congas, bass, drums, guitar and clavinet; this unconventional arrangement of instruments intertwine to form the debut album by Badge Époque Ensemble - a group of creative improvisers assembled to perform new, largely instrumental compositions by Maximilian ‘Twig’ Turnbull (formerly Slim Twig). Badge employs an eclectic cast of characters from the Toronto underground music scene, whose combined experience would take pages to spell out. It includes stints accompanying songw…
Self Help
Telephone Explosion presents Self Help by Badge Époque Ensemble. Recorded live at Palace Sound October 2019 - March 2020. Produced & Mixed by Steve Chahley, Tony Price & Twig at That 70's Basement. Engineered by Steve Chahley and mastered by Sarah Register.
Jay Anderson - Drum kitChris Bezant - GuitarKaren Ng - SaxophoneAlia O'Brien - FluteEd Squires - PercussionGiosuè Rosati - BassMaximilian 'Twig' Turnbull - Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, synthesizers, piano
Mariangela
"In the mid '70s, Mariangela Celeste signed to a major label (Polygram) at the age of 13. She would then go on to record her self-titled album with rising European superstar Vangelis. Though tragically overlooked upon its release, Mariangela is a gem of early electronic pop with sparkling synths, drums machines, and lush arrangements, propelling the songs of an unapologetically strong-willed adolescent.By 1972, Vangelis’ band Aphrodite’s Child had earned widespread acclaim for their lavish psych…
Quiet Music 1 / Quiet Music 2 / Quiet Music 3
Quiet Music is a collection of pieces created by Steve Roach between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and nature sounds flow like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate and translucent atmosphere. Quiet Music was originally released as a three tape cassette series in 1986 on Fortuna Records and is now being issued as a complete series on vinyl for the first time ever.After Structures From Silence…
Quiet Music 3
Quiet Music is a collection of pieces created by Steve Roach between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and nature sounds flow like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate and translucent atmosphere. Quiet Music was originally released as a three tape cassette series in 1986 on Fortuna Records and is now being issued as a complete series on vinyl for the first time ever.After Structures From Silence…
Quiet Music 2
Quiet Music is a collection of pieces created by Steve Roach between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and nature sounds flow like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate and translucent atmosphere. Quiet Music was originally released as a three tape cassette series in 1986 on Fortuna Records and is now being issued as a complete series on vinyl for the first time ever.After Structures From Silence…
Quiet Music 1
Quiet Music is a collection of pieces created by Steve Roach between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and nature sounds flow like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate and translucent atmosphere. Quiet Music was originally released as a three tape cassette series in 1986 on Fortuna Records and is now being issued as a complete series on vinyl for the first time ever.After Structures From Silence…
Nature, Man and Woman
**In process of stocking** It’s been a few short months since Badge Époque Ensemble released their self titled debut, an ambiguous collection of woozy, narcotized funk. And yet already we have Nature, Man and Woman - a simmering new platter containing 3 songs, producing 26 minutes of dank flute-oriented atmosphere.The disco-sleeved 12" EP provides a revealing glimpse of a musically omnivorous approach. On Badge Theme we find the group upping the ante of the sound of their debut, unspooling 14 mi…
Dreamtime Return
2018 re-release, 30th Anniversary Remastered Edition. California ambient pioneer Steve Roach released Dreamtime Return, arguably his finest album, in 1988 following extensive travels to the Australian outback. The word "dreamtime" refers to the Australian Aboriginal belief system, specifically to their notion of the distant past and its inhabitants. Though now considered a dated and anthropologically inaccurate term based on the faulty interpretation of an Aboriginal concept, in the '80s it was …
Necropolis
Canadian private press mega-rarity/obscurity from the artistically schizophrenic Bob Bell. Recorded in 1978, Bell splits the difference between his love of basement psych splatter/pummel and squalling free jazz ramble, the former occupying side A with a stunning four-part suite of wasted guitar scuzz and churning Krautrock-like drama with an akin to German Oak, Roland Kirk, Albert Ayler, DNA, Melt Banana (minus the vocals) and Guru Guru. The latter represents Bell as a saxophonist on side B, and…
Transportation Eps
Chandra Oppenheim was a child star like no other. As the daughter of famed conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim. By age nine, Chandra was staying up late at her parents' art-world parties, collaborating in her father's projects, and performing her own plays at downtown hotspots such as The Kitchen and Franklin Furnace. This set the stage for Chandra's course-altering collaboration with members of The Dance, who were looking to form yet another project and found their muse/fuse in ten-year-old Chan…