New Arrivals

In the fall of 2011 the pianist Marino Formenti performed four one-hour solo concerts hosted by the Wien Modern festival. The so-called “Notturni” series was centered around the piano oeuvre of Friedrich Cerha. To celebrate the occasion Cerha wrote his first piece for solo piano in twenty years and dedicated it to Formenti. The pianist extraordinaire’s main objective in these performances was to contemplate the music jointly with his audience, to analyze and reanalyze the sounds of the in…

The Invisible Hands is the English translation of the band's original Egyptian Arabic name: El Ayadi El Khafeyya. Taking almost two years to create amidst an unusual and challenging backdrop, this is the brand new project of Alvarius B. (Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls). Eleven highly-crafted new songs projected through his typically dark lens of songwriting and a band of brilliant musicians from Cairo, the premier, self-titled CD version of this album is the English language vocals edition (s…

"Formed in the summer of 1964, although the New York Art Quartet existed for barely a year and a half, great interest remains in their work. They consisted of co-leaders John Tchicai (alto sax), who participated in John Coltrane's ground-breaking Ascension album and Roswell Rudd (trombone), considered to be the first free-jazz trombonist, along with bassist Don Moore and drummer Milford Graves. The band participated in the legendary 'October Revolution in Jazz', which journalist Bill Shoemaker c…

Farmers By Nature – drummer Gerald Cleaver, bassist William Parker, and pianist Craig Taborn – a fully-improvising unit, a complete musical collective. Each of these men are highly regarded & admired composers and bandleaders in their own right; their coming together to create new music is always an auspicious and deeply fruitful occasion. Superbly attuned listeners and masterful players of their respective instruments, they are without question one of the finest improvising units / musical grou…

The size of the stage, position of the equipment, monitor position and height, hall architecture and acoustics, capacity and attendance, temperature and humidity, and sound level (dB) or Leq Meter limiting all varied from event to event. Each of the final recordings documents the performed audio output, each hall's acoustics, the audience's reaction, and their proximity to the recorder, all from an onstage position, while retaining the auditorium's spatial impression. Recordings failed, or…

Fourth opus of musical art brut, faithful to our precepts, we search out self-taught musicians. That means people who make contemporary music outside the customary production and distribution channels and with the determination and creative gifts that stem from unmistakable artistic talent. Some of these musicians operate in mental or social isolation and make their music in special workshops while others can be classified with the spiritualist or visionary artists. This particular relationship …

CD version. This recording contains seven remixes by UK-based artist and electronic musician Mark Fell of the first three 12" singles released on the record label Sensate Focus in 2012. These were called 10, 5 and 3.3.... The first of these, 10, was itself a reworking of materials from an earlier project by Fell and Terre Thaemlitz, released on Comatonse Recordings in 2012. The seven remixes were written and recorded in June 2012 at the Upper Lounge, Chatham Street (UK) using a MacBook Pro ru…

Debut album by Seattle's Rafael Anton Irisarri, released in 2007 on Deaf Center's Miasmah label. A splendid but pitch black album based on long piano melodies, distant drones and even more distant glitches, "Daydreaming" is a particularely sad and introvert CD, which takes the most emotional and melancholic side of the other Miasmah releases, but expresses them in a very direct and stripped down way. Splendid.

Tan or Boil – a pun on the name of bratty short stop from those 1970s Bad News Bears films that stuck – is the alias of the Pittsburgh-born Jason Bacasa. After growing up in Pittsburgh and studying graphic design, Jason took flight from his home town to work freelance in a variety of cities, though his latest and current stint in New York seems more permanent than those in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. On the songwriting side, Jason’s continual travels kept him to just an acoustic guit…

Bill Fay is one of English music's best kept secrets. At the dawn of the 1970s, he was a one-man song factory, with a piano that spilled liquid gold and a voice every bit the equal of Ray Davies, John Lennon, early Bowie, or Procol Harum's Gary Brooker. He made two solo albums but his contract wasn't renewed, which left his LPs and his reputation to become cult items. But he never stopped writing, the music kept on coming. Now, in his late sixties, he has produced Life Is People, a brand …

Kari Rønnekleiv, violin. Ole-Henrik Moe, viola. In 2011 Rønnekleiv/Moe released the album “A summer’s night at the crooked forest” on SOFA. The London based music magazine WIRE wrote that the album is a technical tour de force. And a musical one, too, each track structured with composerly precision. On this sequel we meet an extraordinary duo with an almost telepatic interplay. Recorded in the middle of the forest in a cabin with no electricity (the recording equipment was run on solar en…

Line is pleased to announce the upcoming release of a elegant new sound work by Australian artist Lawrence English, inspired by John Cage.In 2011, anticipating John Cage’s centenary, I began thinking about how to approach a work that might act as a homage to the aspects of his life and work that have inspired me over the past two decades (ironically, those in which he has been physical absent, but philosophically more present than ever). John Cage, with that beaming smile and trademarked c…

Originally released in a tiny pressing of just 200 CD-Rs by Digitalis Industries, this early James Blackshaw release is brought back in print by the Tompkins Square label, who on the back of last year's 'Cloud Of Unknowing' are intent upon reintroducing the guitarist' back-catalogue to his growing legion of fans (of whom there is almost certainly more than 200). 'Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances' is a single thirty-five minute composition, opening with droning harmonium passages and only…

In 1995 Steve Peters and Steve Roden toured as a trio with singer Anna Homler; sometimes they would vocalize behind her, and they liked the way their voices blended together. They then spent about 15 years saying that “someday” they should record a voice-based project together. Aside from the physical distance between them, the problem was always: What would we sing? Neither wanted to write or sing lyrics.Inspiration came in the form of a book of Japanese jisei – poems allegedly written by monks…

It is the continuation of a body of work intertwining instrumental and electronic music following the acclaimed 2004-2008 work les arbres (Mention, Prix Ars Electronica 2009). The mixture this time is more edgy : a rich and complex  electronic sound composition alongside the folk inspired guitar played by Simon Trottier (member of the extraordinary haunted blues band Timber Timbre). After 2 albums of improvised folktronica with Simon Trottier, Nicolas Bernier decided to explore that singu…

Keiji Haino (guitar, vocals & synth), Stephen O'Malley (bass guitar) & Oren Ambarchi (battery). Recorded by Chris Fullard at Gaîté Lyrique, Paris 8th November 2011. Edited by Oren Ambarchi in Sydney January 2012. Mixed by Joe Talia & Oren Ambarchi at Chinatown, Melbourne 8th February 2012.Mastered by Joe Talia at Chinatown, Melbourne 17th April 2012. Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin April 2012. Artwork: Lars Teichmann 'Bathing Girls' & 'Nymphos' (detail, 2010, …

Over 4 hours of improvisations were recorded over these two days in april 2010. We then trimmed the sound sequences and the silence, while keeping our specific interactions and phrasing of sounds between us and with the location. But sound is a flexible material and what remains of this session are frequencies that are like vestiges to be reinvented. To help this there is some 'presence'. The acoustic character and the intense immobility that fill the air of the chapel of Las Planques, in the da…

Developing on the trance-induction and brainwave entrainment techniques explored on the first Ethernet album 144 Pulsations of Light, Opus 2 moves into deeper, more introspective and emotive territory. A stronger focus on melody and harmonic structure results in pieces that almost approach, but never quite arrive at, traditional song forms, while still leaving much to the imagination of the listener, evading mental categorization and revealing new sonic experiences with each listen. The bu…

THE WIRE'S BEST OF 2010! CD edition "If a tree falls in a forest and no one's around, shit still gets crushed. If Cameron Stallones holes up solo-style in a suburban cave and wah-riffs over canned bongos for five straight months, double LPs still get dropped. These are basic life laws. The latest from Mr. Araw is easily his least compromising audio self-portrait to date. Three minute rhythm sketches are stretched into ten minute loop pedal odysseys. Organ solos last for entire vinyl sides.…

With And IV (Inertia), Grischa Lichtenberger presents his first full-length record on Raster-Noton after his participation in the Unun series. For his musical production, he uses field recordings of his environment which are manipulated and broken down to their bare nakedness until only fragments are left. Apart from analog sources, he also uses digital sound data which is likewise turned and twisted until the boundaries between analog and digital are blurred. The arrangement of these atom…

The first meeting of AMM guitarist Keith Rowe and pianist John Tilbury after Rowe departed in 2004, a delicate and intricate long improvisation, fascinating dialog between two long-acquainted and innovative conversationalists. "Keith Rowe and John Tilbury are both known as prominent members of AMM, the legendary ensemble which has been incredibly influential on the field of improvised music.Originating the tabletop guitar, Keith Rowe was a co-founder of AMM in 1965. He's since been involved in a…

The third collaboration with Zeit displays a wonderful and unique combination between acoustic sounds, field recordings and airy gentle electronic sounds.The sonic result maintains the natural atmospheres of the originalacoustic recordings, done at the time of the Raag drone theory's sessions in Lunigiana, Italy at Chiostro dell’Annunziata and the Wood Sanctuary in August 2006. Here the treatments enriche the mixture with a new sensible touch that subtly transports the listener towards anen…

'When dealing with female interpreters of the art of advanced vocalism, four personal favourites come to mind : Diamanda Galàs, Meredith Monk, Shelley Hirsch and - more recently - Non Credo's Kira Vollman. I'm afraid that I'll have to add a fifth chair at the table. I had already met Ute Wassermann in a great CD on Creative Sources, Kunststoff, a duo with trumpet player Birgit Ulher; yet, Birdtalking is one of those records that immediately raise all aerials, a top-rank effort in which a single …

The works of Clemens Gadenstätter are a wonderful example to evidence how an analytical approach to the phenomenon of hearing may result in music that sincerely moves its listeners. This production, entitled “Portrait,” represents a kind of screen capture of Gadenstätter’s oeuvre. Portraits are sometimes given away as presents in order to convey something of the essence of whom or which they portray. Clemens Gadenstätter’s music is perfectly suited as such a gift. …

Finally available as a double CD, this collection is dedicated to Endless Nostalgia, one of the cult-band par excellence of the Italian electronic New Wave of the Eighties. Better known for the single "Me & My Alter Ego" released in 1984, this electro-pop duo from Verona, Northern Italy, produced a large number of cassette releases that have become very sought-after items nowadays. This generous and well-structured collection is a testament to the quality of the formation that was centered on Lu…

1973. Alfred Harth, tenor and sopransaxophon, lur. Nicole van den Plas, piano. Sven-ke Johansson, drums.

Recorded live in concert at the Abrons Arts Center, NYC on October 15, 2009, Saturnian documents master saxophonist David S. Ware's triumphant return to performance following his kidney transplant in May 2009. This performance prompted features in The New York Times and on NBC Nightly News.Ware, in full peak of form, performed three extended pieces, each one on a different horn. "Methone" is on the saxello and "Pallene" features the stritch.  David has played these lesser-known members of the sa…

This is an exceptional collection of pieces by one of the pioneers of electronic and tape music. Halim El-Dabh began experimenting with wire recorders in Egypt even before Pierre Schaeffer inaugurated the practice of Musique Concrete in France - one piece here dates from that period ('Wire Recorder Piece', 1944) and is thus of great historical importance. Most of the other works were recorded in 1959 and evidence a remarkable body of work and experimentation. El-Dabh does not sound like his fell…

Necks pianist Chris Abrahams teams up with electronic artist and sound artist Alessandro Bosetti for six introspective and mysterious tracks that mix Necks like progress with ambient electronics and curious monologs, and one waltz.The piano recital format number one: a pompous italian tenor, his round belly almost exploding inside his tuxedo, stands beside the gigantic grand piano, holding a hand on it while protruding forwards. Outside the stage, an imaginary oceanic audience is seated on hundr…

Kristin Norderval (composer, vocalist) cut her musical teeth touring with Einstein on the Beach in 1992, went on to record works of American composers such as Tania Leon, David Lang, and Anne LeBaron, improvised in the New Circle Five with Pauline Oliveros and Susie Ibarra, and co-founded the electro-acoustic duo Zanana with trombonist Monique Buzzarté. Now she has released a solo CD of her works for voice and laptop. The composer writes: Aural Histories is a compilation of works for voic…

In 2012 the world celebrates not only the centenary of John Cage’s birth, but also the sixtieth anniversary of the premiere of his ”silent piece” 4’33”(four minutes, thirty-three seconds) on August 29, 1952. This composition in three movements without intentional sounds is the composer’s best-known work today. As an ”art without work” (John Cage), it takes up and renews the impulses of the avant-gardes of the early twentieth century, notably Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, which the artist h…

Seductive but perilous, he Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble's new session under the Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation name is a new combination of drones and jazz. Creating sensual, murky and dark atmospheres, “Succubus” the evolution of this band, with stronger horns and a focus on hypnotic, soundtrack-like material. A deep, dark and yet seductive trip again for the corporation.

It all began with Study Ten. After releasing his 4th Static album, which included ten songs, about 15 musicians and which took almost 6 years till its release, Hanno Leichtmann had the wish to record an album in one go, without endless recording and mixing sessions. While experimenting with his modular system he discovered a method to compose that, what he later called Minimal Studies. A modular sample player which can be controlled manually, by a sequencer, LFO or any CV source would mak…

Western Vinyl is proud to release “Music for the Ears” the first in a series of Small Music releases by Rolf Julius. With a goal of creating solitary sound environments, the Small Music series will culminate into a boxed edition of seminal works by this master sound artist. “Music for the Ears” is comprised of two long tracks of gently weaving tones exploring the possibilities of spatial experience. The cover image depicts Julius’ sound installation in a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan where his m…

Sylvia Hallett (violin & electronics, voice), Danny Kingshill (cello, voice), Gus Garside (double bass & electronics). First formed in 1988, arc have developed, through improvisation, a collective language that draws on the European textures of the violin family (with a little bit of voice added). This is their first album to use live electronics, at times effectively increasing the group to a quintet. They previously released two albums of acoustic improvisations in 1992-3 on Uneasy Listening a…

Phantom Orchard, the duo of Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori, is expanded with 5 performers representing some of the most exciting women in modern creative experimental music, releasing a surprising, riveting, and amazing album.Members of bands as diverse as DNA, Skeleton Crew, Electric Masada, Hemophiliac and Björk, Zeena and Ikue have been leading figures of the downtown scene since the early 1980s. Their fabulous duo project Phantom Orchard is expanded here with five of the most exciting and creat…

Jacob is the new project by David Cordero (Úrsula) and Marco Serrato (Orthodox). The duo first collaborated on the arrangements that would become the Emma soundtrack. With a mutual love for sci fi and horror films, Jacob push their dark sonics further on The Ominous, a piece for el cine de la mente. Atonal, dissonant string scrapes meld together in discomforting walls of noise, while hidden forces project an ambiguous malignance lurking in the deep fog. Bleak atmospheres and an abyss of s…

CD version. This recording contains seven remixes by UK-based artist and electronic musician Mark Fell of the first three 12" singles released on the record label Sensate Focus in 2012. These were called 10, 5 and 3.3.... The first of these, 10, was itself a reworking of materials from an earlier project by Fell and Terre Thaemlitz, released on Comatonse Recordings in 2012. The seven remixes were written and recorded in June 2012 at the Upper Lounge, Chatham Street (UK) using a MacBook Pro ru…

For a number of years as West Head Project, we've been making site specific sound events and recordings at outdoor locations - initially these were held at West Head in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. We've gone on to play in special sites around Australia and this disc documents our work on Maria Island off the east coast of Tasmania where we were resident for 10 days, guests of 10 Days on the Island Festival and Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania. Auditory transmogrification of Tasmani…

I spent two months in protected areas of Costa Rica making multichannel field recordings of the different forest ecosystems of Central America. Armed with a quadraphonic setup (IRT cross), a parabolic microphone, a hydrophone, and a scientist's passport, I went to nine main sites to record: the coastal evergreen forest, the tropical dry and deciduous forest, the mangroves, the wooded riverbanks and floodplains, and the forests altered in cultivated areas. The recordings were made at the S…