New Arrivals
I am here where are you
After the great 2012 record by Brötzmann / Noble / Edwards, the worse the better, Peter Brötzmann and Steve Noble started to play some gigs as a duo. It worked out really well, wonderful pieces of music that had to be put on cd; an expert, you might even say telepathic, interplay between those two outstanding musicians, sometimes delicate and swinging, sometimes full-force free jazz.
Escorting
Escorting is a new massive effort by the Canadian king of Harsh Noise Sam McKinlay, with his most acclaimed creature The Rita who, once again, waves the banner of Uashima, with a luxurious and lustful 3 LP box set dedicated to the world's oldest profession, its leading actresses and enthusiastic johns.For once THE RITA takes a break from its current conceptually driven texture research for returning to its original full-frontal impact, not unlike older works like “Bodies bear traces...”, “Swinge…
Pass hidingly seek
Long-running solo project by Jeffry Astin. Label head honcho of everyone's favorite underground cassette label Housecraft. His highly abstract style, represented on over 40 releases, predominantly cassettes, defies all attempts at elementary categorisation, but indicates broad influences from modern and ethnic drone, tape music, musique concrète, kosmische and lo-fi, amongst others. Two selected recordings “Pass Hidingly Seek” (2009) and “Quaking Myth” (2010) finally get the proper issue on wax!
Prediction and Warning
“Steve Noble [‘s] armoury of textures and tones is an acoustic mirror of [Ikue] Mori’s electronica, and just as spellbinding. He attacks his orthodox, loose-skinned drum kit from all angles, lays upturned gongs on the drumheads and is a master of orthodoxy as well as the avant-garde. His duet with Mori was the evening’s highlight, a pulsating welter of scrapes, thumps and press rolls interrupted by silences made sinister by the tick of an off-kilter metronome.” – Mike Hobart, Financial TimesIkue…
Fuzzweed
With each successive release, MV & EE strive to map new territory and to travel more distant orbits. It makes sense that this mission is their furthest reaching yet. While they've long been comfortable navigating the same planes as such cosmic explorers as Sun Ra and Alan Silva, Fuzzweed sees them planting their freak flag in the sorts of different galaxies where the atmospheres counterpoint the music of the spheres with the more earthbound plaints of the blues. Please remember that The …
Guts
Deluxe 2LP version. More voraciously bestial soundwork coming from Daniel Menche -- this time, his chosen theme is the piano, in which he attacks, investigates and dissects with the precision of an autopsy surgeon, adding a whole new meaning to the concept of prepared piano, or should we say, unprepared piano, for an all-out assault. Guts lays out quite possibly some of the finest slabs of Menchian sonic mayhem to date. Slightly different track sequence over CD and vinyl formats due to time…
This Crying Era
First time vinyl release for Nimh, this guy has a solid experience and has collaborated with some genius of dark ambient / done, like Maurizio Bianchi, Mathausen Orchestra, Andrea Freschi...A1 This Crying Era is a featuring with french pianist Philippe Blache, for an outstanding melody.This Lp compiles some New material, and some material released on Silentes on K7 or cd-r released in the past 10 years. (label press)
The Nethack Dictionary
In March 2005, drummer Teun Vergruggen (Jef Neve Trio, Flat Earth Society) invited the eccentric guitar player Mauro Pawlowski (dEUS, Somnambula) and Rhodes/piano wizard Jozef Dumoulin (Määk Spirit, Magic Malik, Octurn) to play a single session based on pure improvisation. The result left most people wondering how to categorize this music, and brought Othin Spake on the stage for many concerts. Six years later, the band has played in many jazz and alternative venues in Europe, released three …
Music Of The Modern White
2009 issue "The album begins with a percussion intro that sounds more like a gunfight than any sort of recognisable drumming routine, and continues to get weirder and weirder from there on. New York avant-garde-ists Zs might be seen as a kind of post-modern free-jazz ensemble, combining sax, guitars and live kit sounds with all the tumult of contemporary electronic drone music. This LP absorbs the impact of no-wave, industrial music, Merzbow and (on the ornate rhythmic figures of 'MMW I…
Barca beach
Live recordings from Barcelona, summer 2009. Frankensteins Ballet features Mik Quantius (Embryo) speaking-in-tongues and Thomas Hopf on drums. Other members have played with Damo Suzuki, Michael Karoli, Michael Rother etc. Some serious damaged krautrock jams happening on this one, not to mention the weird dub space some of this is floating into. Edition of 70 copies.
Forma II
Composed and recorded in Berlin from 2008 to 2010 the music consists of four electroacoustic pieces based largely on analogue synthesizer material and one long-form swarm-like composition for multiple overdubbed saxophones. Additional sounds range from metal foil floating on ultrasonic sound-beams to mechanical clickers recorded in the abandoned radar domes at Teufelsberg. The raw materials have been extensively processed and re-constructed using analogue tape and digital methods. The fiv…
Urban Gothic
Not Not Fun label-mate Xander Harris has released “Urban Gothic,” the most overtly Carpenter-influenced modern electronic album to date. While Harris cites a laundry list of influences, new and old, it is Carpenter’s distinctly chilly synth-based sound that is most evident here. Although just as Umberto and Ensemble Economique mixed an array of genres ranging from African tribal music to disco into their reimagining of the horror soundtrack, Harris also draws inspiration from 80s synth pop and d…
Spectrum ripper
CD was produced in 1997. LP is from 2013. The extreme collage sound and insane vocals of Maso Yamazaki, one of the worlds leading noise musicians. Brutal frequencies and rabid screaming vocals mix to create the finest album Masonna has ever produced. Divided into 25 tracks, this is being considered the last word in noise recordings! Ltd x 300 copies on brown vinyl in a full colour sleeve. Comes with CD version in a card sleeve. Mastered by Denis Blackham.
Mobilisation Generale
Born Bad Records, the on-point French label that has brought you some of our favorites of the year, will release this week a compilation of French protest jazz from the 70s called Mobilisation Generale. The compilation, which you can stream below, is a fantastic look at a small slice of history that could use a little more attention. On BBR's Bandcamp, an entire oral history is written out to accompany the release, which features some truly innovative freeform jazz and poetry, and we've reprinte…
Tobel II
Reinhold Friedl, inside piano. Franck Vigroux, electronics. 'An encounter between two worlds. Reinhold Friedl and Franck Vigroux are two musicians, both addicted to a real contemporary approach, getting to the core of sound but by very different means. Reinhold Friedl with his purely acoustic instrument and his highly developed and refined inside-piano techniques meets Franck Vigroux with his electronics including all kind of devices from tape recorders to analog synthesizers. Their sole purpos…
Rubaiyat Of Dorothy Ashby
Incredible work from the amazing Dorothy Ashby – a brilliant set of funky and spiritual tunes, set to full backings from Chicago soul arranger Richard Evans! This album is easily one of Ashby's greatest, and it's dedicated to the writings of Omar Khayyam – one of the forces guiding Dorothy's more spiritual sound at the end of the 60s, clearly opened up in a way that's not unlike the direction of Alice Coltrane's work, but a lot more focused and a lot more funky! Ashby not only plays her…
Palimpsest
It’s no secret how much we’ve loved Stephan Mathieu’s sublime drones and Sylvain Chauveau’s delicate compositions in the past, so to see these two pillars of experimental music collaborating has got us hot under the collar. But that’s not the half of it – not only did the two decide to work together, they had a very specific concept - ‘Palimpsest’ finds the duo reframing the timeless songs of Bill Callahan (aka Smog). Those familiar with Callahan’s writing might struggle to work out just how two…
Live in Nashville & Louisville
arthur doyle- tenor sax, voice; vin paternostro- roland 505; ed wilcox- percussions; leslie q- bass ;rec. march 26 & 27, 2004 at springwater tavern & artswatch...the final available rec. i have left of Arthur, unfortunatly ?! i kept it for the last since i find it a really special goody: a more intimate 4et live dates from 2004
Ensemble Pearl
Cosmic, heavy amplified rock drops and ripples, auras radiate and expand into cloud forms, through which lightning bolts. Tides rise, the moons wax upon a place somewhere between Link Wray, Hex-era Earth and early Tangerine Dream. The echoes return, leaving a trail that blows and drifts, creating a separate piece. Ensemble Pearl are Atsuo, William Herzog, Michio Kurihara and Stephen O'Malley. Their debut album also features the elemental forces of Eyvind Kang and Timba Harris. These playe…
Gagged In Boonesville
French globe-tourist High Wolf has hand-rolled his way up Mount Fuji, trainspotted every corner of Europe, hitch-hiked across America and Australia, chugged Ganges water, and crouched on all manner of smoke-stained prayer rug since first looping a bongo back in ’09. His apprenticeship in the House of Wah nearly complete, he’s hinted at a potentially seismic shift in the High Wolf third eye doctrine lurking in the near future; perhaps his Away Team exfoliation moment is nigh. Fortunately, …