New Arrivals
Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish
Tip! *First time on vinyl!* Originally released by Tursa (UK) in 1992, Revenge of the Selfish Shellfish was the first, full-length collaboration between Steven Stapleton and Tony Wakeford. Consisting of an eerie, yet beautiful, combination of songs and surreal locales, Shellfish remains a unique landmark with qualities not easily found in either Nurse With Wound or Sol Invictus discography. Evoking a strong sense of narrative, such as Wakeford's vocals on Lucifer Before Sunrise and the perpetual…
Psychoacoustic Electronics
Tip! *300 copies limited edition* Andy Ortmann owns Nihilist Records, of whom we also reviewed The New Blockaders and Diana Rogerson's works last week. And before I say anything about the music on this album, I would love to show you a bit of the inside of my head. Because when I read the title of this impressive triple vinyl totalling over two hours of music, I was thinking about something completely different. So: What is psychoacoustic music, and how do psychoacoustic electronics fit into the…
FasFari
Tip! *150 copies limited release* Xing presents the new LP FasFari by Alessandro Bosetti, thirteenth release of the XONG collection - artist records. The release is on white vinyl, in a limited and numbered edition of 150 copies, together with a print run of 20 collector's editions. Each of these are accompanied with a graphic and text table, designed and hand drawn by the artist with phonetic alphabet, that transcribe the memories of his encounter with each 'voice donor’.
FasFari is composed of…
Dejing
*100 copies limited edition* Beautiful home-recorded solo jams from NYC underground music lifer recording as Dejing. Squeezing an array of sticky, soupy, heavily phased textures from a spartan setup (a guitar, keyboard and sampler), Dejing conjures a beguiling mix of simultaneously lumbering and buoyant rhythms and melodies, like transmissions from an oddly benevolent fever dream. It’s a shapeshifting 40 minutes — at times sounding like a funereal Durutti Column outtake fed through a fried speak…
Penny OST
*100 copies limited edition* Penny is a feature documentary directed by Maya Hardinge. It follows the life of Penny from a teenager living in Uckfield (UK) to Germany and overland by truck in the 1970’s through Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and full circle years later back to her home town. The soundtrack, like the film, is a collage, composed of sounds and events depicting Penny’s journey. While the recently released cassette on woodfordhalse foregrounds Penny’s voice by incorporating generou…
Terremoto
Tip! To abandon animals for music – and avant-garde jazz at that –, could seeming shocking to some people. However, it is exactly what Manuel Villarroel did, as he was a vet for three years before leaving his native Chili for Europe and a career in music. And though the animals may have suffered, the world of music can be grateful. Born in 1944, Manuel Villarroel lent an ear to the best pianists from North America: Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner then Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Cecil Taylo…
Quetzalcoatl
Tip! Before coming to Europe, in 1970, pianist Manuel Villarroel was a vet in his native Chili. A few years later, as leader of the Machi Oul Big Band, he returned to the animal kingdom. A very specific kind of animal, for sure, the Quetzalcoatl, also known as the Feathered Serpent. What is behind this title (also the name of one of the three original compositions on this album released on the Palm label in 1976), is first and foremost a sort of homecoming…
After discovering the jazz of Herbie H…
Ulyap Songs : Beyond Circassian Tradition
Ulyap is a village in the Caucasus, where one can find an enormous number of accordion and harmonica players. “Ulyap Songs: Beyond Circassian Tradition” represents an attempt to document ancient bards‘ chants and their entanglement with popular rural heritage as well as Soviet culture during modern times, through a critical prism. Interacting with a rich book on the subject, this issue reflects on a music phenomenon involving talented female and male musicians, performing in lively (and sometime…
Amor
*300 copies limited edition* "When asked about the title of her new record, “Amor”, Limpe bluntly responded, “because it’s everything”. Being a Beatles fan from the very beginning, she’s well aware that “all you need is love”, but there’s more to her sentiment than a corny pun. On the one hand, she’s more than half a decade into her musical career, and describes the relationship towards her instruments in terms of an ongoing and deepening love affair. “Be it my piano, my viola or my percussion i…
First Issue
*LP Metallic Silver * PiL’s debut single ‘Public Image’, we are set to reissue the pioneering group’s debut album First Issue, available for the first time ever in the US. In 1976 Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols set the agenda for punk’s year zero with ‘Anarchy In The UK’, a song that summed up the spirit, sound and attitude of the band in one shocking package. Two years later, the Sex Pistols were in tatters, but Rotten was as unsentimental as you’d hope. He reverted to his real name – John …
Collected Works 2018-22
'Collected Works 2018-22' coalesces three deeply personal works that were created by Elms for three of the UK's most innovative ensembles and supporters of contemporary music. The three works explore misremembrance and the degradation of memory over time (Consolations in Travel), cyclical patterns of thought and resultant behaviour (The Age of Spiritual Machines), and the perception of reality orchestrated through expectation and misconstrued senses (100 Demons).
Intimations
Intimations marks the first official release of Group Material, the sound work of Eric Sanchez and Avalon Kalin. Released as a limited edition cassette on Slug Spitter and LP on Gilgongo Records. Blending guitar, piano, synthesizer and field recordings, Group Material craft an ambient sound that simultaneously captures both intentional and incidental settings, an ambient informed musique concrete. On Intimations, Eric Sanchez and Avalon Kalin offer a series of 4 pieces which would feel as at hom…
Zenger Station
** Edition of 300 with full-colour sleeve and 4-sided insert with photos, liner notes and an extensive interview. ** “Zenger Station”, Christina Kubisch’s latest LP, issued by Edition Telemark, comprises two side-long works that encounter the artists delving into two very different electromagnetic environments, brought to life in ways that only she can. The first side feature the title work, "Zenger Station 1-3”.As Kubisch explains in the liner notes: “Zenger station is the name of the former el…
Nonage
“Growing up has always been a solitary journey, marked by forward-looking anticipation, anxiety, unripe potential, aspirations, and closures.”
Chris Rainier Sings the Music of Harry Partch
Tip! *200 copies limited release* Chris Rainier is a South African musician and performer, raised in Australia but now based in London. He earned his PhD in Music there last year with a thesis on American composer and instrument builder Harry Partch. Accompanying that PhD is an album of renditions of compositions from Harry Partch's (little-known) early "Americana" period, from the 1930s and 1940s. At the time, Partch wrote these compositions for his homemade "Adapted Guitars": acoustic guitars …
Decomposition I-III
'Decomposition – I – III' is an experience of sonic realities and aural layers that usually remain undetected by our perception. This collaboration of Peter Kutin and Florian Kindlinger has brought forth a conceptual piece that leads the listener through three territories antagonistic to human life. Following the subjects 'Absence' and 'Introspection', 'Illusion' concludes the perennial trilogy now released as a sound edition. A live implementation of light, sound and film will be combine…
Two And Two
Sealed Copy. Legendary debut from sound artists Christina Kubisch and Fabrizio Plessi mixing sound and visual elements, a seminal LP record originally published on the hugely influential Multhipla, run by Gianni Sassi (also founder of Cramps Records) in conjunction with Fluxus collector and editor Gino Di Maggio. Two And Two was a live performance for two performers (Kubisch and Plessi), two video cameramen, a wall of monitors and uncommon objects and instruments. Throughout the performances, pe…
Ultra-Minimal
*300 copies limited release, handmade textile sleeve w/ printed inner* Sylvain Chauveau has been releasing quiet and minimal compositions on various labels for more than two decades. ultra-minimal marks his debut for Sonic Pieces and takes the minimal approach even further, centring on reduction and limitation.
The album was recorded live at Café Oto, London in March 2022 - one of Sylvain’s rare solo concerts and the first time he performed publicly with only acoustic instruments; no machines, n…
Respite
Written and recorded by Sonja Tofik in Stockholm and Paris 2023 Visual by Viktor Fordell
. Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome. With 'Respire', Stockholm's Sonja Tofik presents a collection of works that cluster around themes of disunion and contemplation. In two halves, tiers of synthetic materials are layered into sullen reveries with organic components and concrète treatments, and as the obscurity of their genesis reaches a crescendo, these delicate and foreboding compositions fin…
Ohne Titel
*300 copies limited edition* Helmut Neidhardt, Chris Sigdell and Sascha Stadlmeier first met in 2020. They decided to record together and booked a studio in Dortmund. The recording session was spontaneous and somewhat chaotic. Thus it turned out, that only Helmut’s tracks were really usable. Using some sections as a basis, Chris completely re-recorded his guitar, added a little bit of vocal here and there, and then sent a rough mix to Sascha, who in turn added violin and musique concrete. The fi…