New Arrivals
New Bodies
Peter Kolovos is a free sound artist from Los Angeles, CA. Over the last decade he has developed an intensely personal sound vocabulary based on raw texture, volume, and duration. The result has been physical, abstract work that constantly shifts and evolves in real time. The mechanisms of impulse, memory, intent, restraint laid bear. Mastering: Rashad Becker. Full Color Heavy Tip-On Cover-180 Gram Vinyl. Edition of 500 copies.
Age Of Energy
This year marks a milestone for the Chicago Underground Duo. It is their 15th year together as a band. In celebration of this momentous occasion they have released a new record on a brand new label.Age of Energy is Chad Taylor and Rob Mazurek’s sixth release as Chicago Underground Duo and the twelfth release in the Chicago Underground catalog. Finding time to get back in the studio was a challenge, as Rob has been touring with his trio Starlicker, The Sao Paulo Underground and the Exploding Sta…
Electronics Without Tears
LP eition: the excellent Public Information label really comes into its own with this revelatory collection of early concréte tape music by F.C. Judd - a much overlooked British electronic music pioneer and contemporary of Daphne Oram. Born in Woodford, East London in 1914, Frederick Charles Judd served in the RAF coastal command during WWII working with highly secret radar equipment. After being demobbed he applied this knowledge and skilled engineering background to his musical interests…
Live in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, July 25th, 1970
White vinyl LP release of saxophonist Albert Ayler's quartet with pianist Call Cobbs, bassist Steve Tintweiss, and drummer Allen Blairman performing in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France in 1970 (LP 1 of 2). Just a few months before Albert Ayler presumably jumped to his death from the Statue of Liberty ferry into the frigid November waters of NYC's East River he was on stage for two energy filled nights at the Fondation de Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. Little did he know at the time tha…
Outdoor Spell
Rhys Chatham has trail-blazed a course through late 20th century music, equally aplomb in post-minimalist composition as he is in punk. Not since Roebling laid his span across the East River has there been an artist who builds bridges in both how we hear music and how we can appreciate art. His latest album, Outdoor Spell, is a further document in that direction. Here has has eschewed 100 guitars, or even himself playing a single guitar, for the trumpet and voice, both electrified and dry. It is…
Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not
Regrouping for a third album under their 'On' moniker, Steven Hess and Sylvain Chaveau have created another body of chilling improvised recordings at their Chicago studio. As with previous records the results were passed to a guest musician for rearrangement of perspective and mixing techniques. Following Deathprod's work on 'Your Naked Ghost...', the material for this album was handed to experimental virtuoso Christian Fennesz, who transforms the source sounds into a display of stripped,…
Albeit Albeit / Sibelius Spiders
There's no shortage of electronic reissue imprints operating these days, especially ones concentrating on 'lost' synth-wave recordings from the late 70's - mid 80's - but few have access to the kind of material amassed over the years by Forced Nostalgia, a brand new label curated by one of Belgium's most knowledgeable and methodical sound archivists: Fré De Vos. The breadth and quality of the material already scheduled for release by Forced Nostalgia is just jaw-dropping - extending the r…
Spirits of the Sun
The Slaves may well have gone and made one of the standout debuts of the year - a layered mass of ethereal vocals most reminiscent of Grouper with a brutal, doom-stricken underbelly that at turns sounds like My Bloody Valentine, Sunn O))) and Slowdive, massively recommended if you're into any of the above and available in a limited edition run of 500, with initial copies on pure white vinyl* The Portland, Oregon duo of Barbara Kinzle and Birch Cooper, aka The Slaves, operate in the void …
Kiri No Oto
Lawrence English's epic masterpiece - finally available on vinyl for the first time. Strictly limited edition - Initial copies come on white vinyl* One of the most memorable and absorbing albums released by the wonderful Touch label in recent years, "Kiri No Oto" was first released by them on CD in 2008 and has spent much of the intervening time lodged in our minds as one of the finer drone/field recording albums to have been made this century. Kiri No Oto (a Japanese phrase meaning 'sound…
Versprochen
OUTSTANDING NEW ARRIVAL Vinyl Lp, edition of 300 copies. Three years after releasing his first solo record, 'Miniaturen' on his own label 'choose', Berlin-based Konrad Sprenger (aka Jörg Hiller) now releases 'Versprochen' on the Italian 'Schoolmap' label. As if coyly playing off the various connotations of the title, which could mean 'pledge', 'promise' or a 'slip of the tongue' in German, Sprenger delivers a more mature product. Rather than going for the short, abbrieviated, cut-off statements …
Rising above
one breathless long track, where you'd hear a mesmerizing Virginia's solo in a Rolando Kirk style, playing soprano and tenor in unison. back to the roots Recorded in October 2009, ultra limited 99 copies only
Other Planes of There
Other Planes of There (1964) presents Sun Ra (piano) and his Solar Arkestra once again pushing the boundaries on five Ra originals. The exceedingly experimental works are marked by the performers as much as they are by the compositions. The opening title track is an expansive suite of sounds adhering only to the boundless limits of the combo's sonic canvas. Each soloist is given ample room to propel the piece between the inspired Arkestra interjections, which in turn clears the way for the next …
Heaps of nothing
The second album from Australian band Naked On The Vague, who have doubled in size for this batch of new material. The tone is characterised by dark and fearsomely heavy garage-punk, with a wafer-thin coating of distortion lending a little extra bite to the band's already vicious dynamics. "Bleak, unrepentant, withering and droll, Heaps of Nothing is a 21st century codification of the gallows wit and mesmerizing otherworldliness of (Dub Housing-era) Pere Ubu, Primitive Calculators and L…
Triangles
There's something almost religious about this Charlatan (Brad Rose) LP, its narrative arc swinging from light to dark and back again. From the opening chords of "Lime Beauty," we're awash in polarized-lens glinting twilight, fluorescent skies over the water. "Trace Blue Outlines" is trance-like and reflective, with long, arpeggiated figures chasing each other skyward in a fugue. Darkness creeps in around the edges of "Vodka Rocks," with almost post-rock moodiness bringing the side to a cl…
Sólaris
The power of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris is not in its futuristic sets, or in the hypnotic shots of the alien planet’s weird, fluid surface, but it’s in the way he juxtaposes his alien, futuristic elements against the intimately familiar. This is a future not just of flashing lights and video screens, but of wood and wool and leather, of dogs and horses, books and photographs. In Frost & Bjarnason’s SÓLARIS we do find the futuristic, gaseous atmospheres and pulses one might expect from a sci-fi s…
Graf Spee
Two tracks of incredible beauty characterized by unbelievable depth and intensity, from one of the finest masters of contemporary electronic music.Deep, powerful, brutal, quietly melodic drone massages from The King. Housed in a beautifully packaged LP edition, "Graf Spee" is a collaboration between artists CM von Hausswolff, Jan Håfström and Juan Pedro Fabra for an installation commissioned by the 5th Nordic Biennale of contemporary art and by Wanas Foundation in Sweden
Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh
This is an identical 180-gram vinyl reissue of the 1973 Vertigo release, wich is possibly Magma's great opus. Whether one prefers one of their other studio or live releases to it, there is no doubt that Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh is the most original, definitive Magma album around (although this reviewer personally prefers the Mekanik Kommandoh version!).Featuring a cast of thousands including a choir, brass section, flute and tuned percussion, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh marries the stripped…
Raptus
Doris Norton, pioneer in the early electronic/computer music, began her musical career playing avant-garde and progressive music using synthesizers such as Roland System 700, Roland system 100M and Minimoog (Jacula, Antonius Rex). In december 1980 she recorded, at the Fontana Studio 7 (Milan), her first solo album entitled Under Ground (Musik Research). Sponsored by Apple computer and the Roland Corporation music instshe was more involved in experimental electro computerized music and rec…
The Effective Disconnect
From Brian McBride: When George and Myriam approached me to compose for their film they suggested I concentrate on four different themes: the gloriousness of the bees, the endurance and hardships of traditional beekeepers, pesticides and the holistic nature of non-industrial agriculture. I was especially intrigued with the idea of combining some of their mournful aspirations with something more serene. Composing began in May of 2009. I had decided to start fresh not using anything that I …
Atlantis
One of the key but underappreciated episodes in avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra's Atlantis sounds far out even today. Rather than a full-on assault on the senses, Atlantis is an exercise in build-up, with long, almost forlorn passages of Ra on electric keyboards setting a vast echo chamber for his Arkestra to spring forth within. Captured during one of the most adventurous periods for Sun Ra, *Atlantis* features the orchestral perfection of the best big bands of the century-and then proceeds towards mu…