New Arrivals
Aïré
*Rare original* French project combining flamenco and jazz. The music is reminiscent of recent bands around Ultra High Flamenco, recorded in 1985 at the Centre Autonome D'experimentation Sociale in Ris-Oragis, a suburb south of Paris on the Seine River. It sounds like an extension of sextet, innovatively brought bass, cajón and saxophone to flamenco. It's strange that neither the other works nor this project have attracted much attention, but they are unusually accomplished: the level of perform…
Veils Of Transformation 1972-1980
Veils Of Transformation 1972 - 1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. This collection is available on CD and cassette with liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records. “Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are.” …
Postcards From Hereafter
Razen's Postcards From Hereafter was recorded using a 17th century organ tuned at 398 Hz (meantone) in a Belgian cathedral erected in 1305. The ensemble explored, with rich results, the organ's strict and limiting tuning with an arrangement that included hurdy gurdy, recorders, chalumeau, violone and nyckelharpa. The pieces on Postcards From Hereafter explore the crossover between this world and the next with improvised spiritual, religious music. Brussels-based ensemble Razen use the unique tim…
Nile Night: Remembered Texts from the Deep
Nile Night is a lovely new book of poems that also includes a cd of readings by Ione and music by Pauline Oliveros. 'Nile Night: Remembered Texts from the Deep' will move your mind with sounds, sensations and feelings; arousing your dreams and taking you far into that fabled land of Egypt. How fortunate for me that I shared one of these journeys with Ione and can find my own memories amplified as I dive into the depths of these writings. What an enrichment to have these poetic texts and to keep …
Troca Iônica
*100 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Tsss Tapes presents Troca Iônica by Abby Lee Tee and Philip Sulidae. These two musicians are quite active in the sound art/abstract music circuit, and this is the result of a long-distance collaboration between Austria and Australia, two long pieces of electronic sounds mixed with field recordings, all very calm and dotted here and there with microscopic details.
Bükülür Bükülmez
*100 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Tsss Tapes presents Bükülür Bükülmez by Deli Kuvveti. A collection of sounds that he recorded at home in Turkey a few years ago, and now that he lives far away, in another country, he got his hands on it and has remixed and manipulated them until he got this cassette. There are a lot of sounds household, banging cutlery, taps, the sound of his mother laughing, all of it manipulated until it became almost unrecognisable.
A Strange Celestial Road (Book, Paperback)
In this memoir, Harlem-born trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah recounts decades of national and international touring with the Sun Ra Arkestra and charts the rise of New York loft jazz scene, offering a fascinating portrait of advanced music in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan from the 1970s through the 1990s.
A Dead Person's Monologue
The mack of jakbeat animates his rig of boxes on a rugged, slow and smudged set of archival killers for his debut album on iDEAL, tipped if yr into anything on the scale between Dilloway and Delroy.
Soundscape-Komposition. Aktuelle Positionen
"Field recordings and recordings of everyday sounds are considered essential materials for Soundscape Composition. The term is not to be understood as a generic category for any compositional approach in which original sound is used. Rather, Soundscape Composition is based on a specific concept that shapes the compositional, formative process ad artistic statement of a production.[.] Soundscape Composition artistically points in (at least) two different directions: On the one hand, it points to …
World Of Objects
Recorded live in concert in the fall of 2013, "World of Objects" is an intense and confounding document of 21st century improvised music. Featuring Evan Parker, a singular musician whose approach to music and the saxophone has influenced several generations of improvisers, in trio with trumpet great Nate Wooley and clarinetist Jeremiah Cymerman, "World of Objects" is both a concert document and an intricate journey through the digital post-production of Jeremiah Cymerman. Over the course of thre…
Ragnarok
*300 exclusive copies, including a poster of the full cover, an insert and inner sleeve with pictures. Blue Vinyl* Silence present a vinyl reissue of Ragnarök's self-titled debut album, originally released on the same label in 1976. Some music never becomes dated and this debut record by Ragnarök from Kalmar in Sweden is just filled with that kind of music. Many listeners have tried to describe the music they have carried in their hearts throughout a whole life or just discovered. They all say i…
That Space Somewhere
Cold Spring present That Space Somewhere, the first new album in 14 years from Lull -- the pioneering, isolationist dark ambient project of Mick Harris (Scorn, Fret, ex-Napalm Death). Lull was conceived by Mick Harris in 1990, in an attempt to create music that would stretch, if not forsake entirely, the structures of conventional music by developing and exploring sound without beats. Mick Harris on Lull: "I finally heard the way of recording, making profound sounds. Lull is purely something I c…
ZA! & la TransMegaCobla
*30 copies limited edition* Rowdy, worldly kitchen sink rock fusion by a triad of Catalan acts helmed by the prolific ZA!, touching on Gnawa trance, desert blues, psych-funk, and Catalan cobla - a traditional form of folk dance - with a playful garage punk attitude.
“These elements come together with the purpose of portraying their own vision of Mediterranean music, filtered by distortion (so current in cognitive, social and identity terms) and psychedelia (so inevitable in an increasingly accel…
The Clear Distance
"I got a note from Stephen. As the consummate archiver he had inherited a tape of an interview with me in 1985 done with Kevin Concannon, in particular about my music production. He points out that in it I mention “a device called a digital delay” that I had been exploring. A Deltalab Effectron II Digital Delay, which let you make little short 1 second loops and manually inject other sounds among other things – nice kind of kluge aesthetic. We knew each other through Electronic Arts Intermix wh…
Empty, Expanding, Collapsing
"Empty, Expanding, Collapsing was recorded in the months after the release of 2021’s No Lasting Form. Whilst No Lasting Form documented a return to the creative process after a long period away, Empty, Expanding, Collapsing comes from a more confident and assured place. At the heart of this record is an upright piano, loaned from a dear friend for safe keeping. Built in the 1898, the piano is heavy, laden with time, a resonant lead sound board and the carefully restored hammers and strings.
Thes…
Il Ricordo Improvviso Dell'Assoluto Stupore
*200 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Reissue of the one-sided vinyl Picture Disc originally available with the Fabio Orsi's same-title box set with book. The vinyl has an exclusive long track that is a sort of "summa" of Fabio Orsi musical world: like his early releases, "Il Ricordo Improvviso Dell'Assoluto Stupore" is a deep drone ambient track, with distant guitars and a nostalgic touch. Hypnotic and melodic at the same time...
Inerte
*300 copies limited edition.* First collaboration between Massimo Amato (also known for his acclaimed La Centrale Elettrica (2016) album), and Fabio Orsi, born from a mutual esteem that later became a solid friendship. The collaboration was born from an exchange of material, which immediately creates a synergy and an understanding between them. The six tracks of Inerte draw inspiration from the composition of noble gases, creating the perfect synthesis between the sidereal and electronic sounds …
Norimono Zukan
50 years ago, Hokkaido-born singer-songwriter Morio Agata released his debut single, Sekishoku Ereji (Red Elegy), an emotive, shuffling piano ballad that (shockingly) sold half a million copies in Japan. While he would never have another Top-40 hit, Agata would spend the next half century issuing a series of idiosyncratic, experimental pop albums. Today, he’s a beloved cult figure, still actively touring and recording in his seventies. In his first decade as a recording artist, Agata released a …
Carvings
The William Penn Jazz Ensemble was formed by American composer and flutist Leslie Burrs. Throughout the 1970s, Leslie performed with several major jazz and funk artists, including Grover Washington Jr., Kool & The Gang, and most notably, with Del Jones for the now cult album Positive Vibes.
Carvings, recorded in 1982, holds a special place in Leslie's career. This album showcases Leslie's musical versatility and features clear influences of both jazz and classical music. The Ensemble's uncommon …
Filth
2023 stock* “This is all slabs of sound, rhythm and screaming/testifying. What more do you need? In a way, it was a reaction against Punk (and just about any other music you can think of), and the conservative notion that 3 chords were somehow necessary. I used to deny it vehemently at the time, but No Wave (I “hated” that scene too, for some reason I can’t remember now) played a big role as the germ from which this music grew, along with The Stooges and Throbbing Gristle, of course. I wanted Sw…