New Arrivals
Porto Ronco
Fabled Berlin producer Kareem delivers an incredible industrial-ambient album for The Death of Rave - initial copies on clear wax, highly recommended if you're into the works of Kevin Drumm, Lustmord, Deathprod, Biosphere, or the ambient work of AFX* Following on from a vinyl issue of Mark Leckey's "Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore" and an EP by Powell, The Death of Rave presents the first longform, beat-less composition by Patrick Stottrop aka Kareem. Since 1996 the Berlin-based artist has produced ne…
Dabke 2020: folk & pop sounds of Syria
Sublime Frequencies is pleased to present the second volume of Northeast Syrian dabke music from legendary vocalist Omar Souleyman and his group. This record was compiled by Mark Gergis to coincide with the Sublime Frequencies UK/European tour in May and June of 2009, featuring live performances by Omar Souleyman himself. Culled from dozens of cassettes recorded in Syria from 1999-2008, the music here is an extension of Omar's Highway to Hassake: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria (SF 031CD) release, to…
s/t
"Marissa Nadler's Kickstarter funded self-titled self-release. Brian McTear produced the album, which Nadler says is the 'most honest, natural record' of her career." "You'll want this music to never end...best severe and complex emotions that we've possibly never recognized in this or previous lives." -- LA Weekly
Effigy
Shipping by the next week: MIE Records are unbelievably honoured to be releasing Effigy by Pelt this October 29, the first album recorded since 2007 by the acoustic-only droners. Recorded live in June 2011 in an old yoga studio in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin and a decommissioned synagogue called the Gates of Heaven in nearby Madison, the band have laid down their most accomplished and fully realised work to date. Epic in every sense of the word, Effigy is a sprawling journey through their singular pl…
Cinema
Diverse musical elements - coruscating cymbal scrapes, shimmering amplifier hum, melancholy saxophone circlings, sharp hits of snare, string and reed, slow motion guitar riffs, deep tam-tam surges and floor tom rasps, hypnotic prepared piano figures, and hovering fragments of song-like melodies - fracture and coalesce in this single intense improvisation.
Featuring two of the foundational figures of free improvisation alongside a younger arrival, this recording captures the first meeting …
Spectral life
Debut LP of one third of avant drone metal outfit Locrian. Contemporary artist / musician Terence Hannum is back on wax with two side of meditative and sonic cathartic noise torrents. Following on a dozen of highly regarded solo tapes and cdr, Spectral Life follows the artist through 2 tracks of electronic and acoustic drones blending in the most efficient way all the previous works of the artist. While the A side is made of short different synth-driven pieces blended together in an immense open…
Jedwabnik
More music involving the seemingly always-at-work Wojciech Kucharczyk (does the man ever sleep?), this time in a quartet alongside B a ej Król, Jerzy Mazzoll and Radek Dziubek. The project's title Dwutysi czny translates as 'two thousand' - referring, according to a brief recent interview with Easterndaze, to the year when Król first came across the music of the other three players, a discovery that eventually led him to write to them to ask if they'd donate him some of their recorded sounds to …
Mask of the Maker
Fuses deep kosmische moods w/ jet-propulsion lab experiments, classic galactic Italo, soaring starblood synth workouts, funky astral ragas, psychedelic dust coulds & rare mantric guest vocals
In Solo
Restocked, very last copies around: Doyle is another matter. This man is dangerous - he never plays anything you could recognize, just furious blasts of rage. His solo on "Domiabra" couldn't be written down, or even sorted out. It sounds more like raw energy than anything I've ever heard. He's nasty, man." These liner notes to the original issue of Noah Howard's 'The Black Ark' may define perfectly also this new, incredible album by Arthur Doyle, this time 'in solo' for sax, flutes and voi…
Old News 9
Jim O'Rourke's Old News series continues with this, the ninth installment. This new release is unique in the series in that it is the first to feature an all-new composition. The work here showcases the kind of experimental concrete drift which O'Rourke has been exploring for a number of years, resulting in a magical blend of musical abstraction. With the measured hand and alchemical technique of a François Bayle classic, Jim has us spellbound with A-side, transmuting spectral whistles in…
Benji
Mark Kozelek is back with a new Sun Kil Moon album featuring Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley, Jen Wood (who has worked with the Postal Service), Will Oldham, and Owen Ashworth (formerly known as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, now of Advance Base).
Danse Sacrale
A cherry-picked compendium of EDM prototypes circa 1956-1971 by Pierre Henry, Jean-Claude Vannier, Igor Wakhevitch, Henk Badings and more "The roots of Electronic Dance Music" (EDM) by definition. An unlikely combination of early recordings by international electronic and avant-garde composers as well as infrequent collaborators retrospectively unified by their commitment to the musical enhancement of 20th Century ballet and the evolution of modern dance. Presenting key exponents of the musique …
Amulet
Oren Ambarchi live recordings assembled on Cheryl Cole's iPhone at her house in Winnipeg. Not really, but it's that's how I first misread the description. Amulet actually presents two iPhone recordings assembled at Chez Cole, Winnipeg, July 2013 by the inestimable Oren Ambarchi. We've no further info but from what we can hear these are rudimentary iPhone recordings excerpted and crudely edited from a live performance (a shard of applause possibly gives the game away) between rippling, dynamicall…
Sheer hellish miasma
At last, Kevin Drumms classic 2002 album sees a full vinyl release. Crank it! Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin 27th September 2010 by Rashad Becker. Utilising guitar, tapes, mics, pedals, analogue synthesizer and some computer assistance Drumm has concocted a sonic beast. In doing so one is taken on an intense journey of storming feedback, open audio onslaught and somewhat savaged sonics. The extreme end of anarchic electronics and possibly a hint of musical violence is present throug…
Frog 2
The music developped by Frog is a work on percussions of all sorts : electronic, metallic, or else.. bathing in atmospheres made of « humid » tessituras. The music is simple, and unlike Brume, accessible ! Except for the arrangement of rhythms, 75% of work is concentrated on textures, mainly electronic : analog and digital.Electroacoustic is rarer here, most of the sounds being filtered by « vintage » analog synths using the whole usual range : VCO, VCF, VCA, envelope modulators etc.…
Has anybody seen our freedoms?
"Peter Walker is an American original, as eclectic and enigmatic as the songs he writes. The legendary seventy-five year old raga/psychedelic/folk acoustic guitarist, who was schooled by masters such as Ravi Shankar, and Ali Akbar Khan, has been described by Larry Coryell as, “One of the most original practitioners of contemporary music” and proclaimed by the Beatles’ press agent Derek Taylor as “Perhaps the greatest guitarist in the world.” His music, celebrated by the late Jack Rose, James Bla…
Red Man K's Bedrifter
In 2001, Peter Rehberg (then of Mego) asked Parl Kristian Bjørn Vester aka Goodiepal if he would be interested in doing something for the label. Despite meeting on numerous occasions at various events and happenings around Europe, nothing was delivered. One hot August day in 2013, a large package arrived containing lacquers for a double vinyl LP. Here it was: the Goodiepal Mego album delivered as lacquers and not a WeTransfer link. The lacquers were sent to plant and made into test-p…
Technological music
An oblique response to various antecedents of pulse-based electronic music without recourse to drum machines or sequencing (or — in the case of the Four Investigations — synthesizers). Tools include oboe, English horn, analogue synthesis and malfunctioning electric organs and piano. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Gratitude also to Niko Wenner and Monica Scott. Dedicated to Michael Randers-Pehrson, Jeff Bollaro, and HK Kahng — stalwart comrades in my very earliest electronic music misadventures.
The Spanish Suite
2012 Re-release "The Spanish Suite was written to magnify the contribution that Moorish Spain made on the European Renaissance. The relationship of music to cosmic rhythms and harmony was altered from the original state of Spanish music and eventually distorted down to the 12 tone equi-temperment system of tuning. The Artistic Heritage Ensemble was taught to play outside of the 12-tone system and to recognize natural tone relationships. The musicians had to be dedicated to music for life …
Making real
Making Real, an exercise in creating reality. Created by Gerritt Wittmer in 2012-2013. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Featuring the artwork of painter Nicola Samori. Gerritt Wittmer is a sound and performance artist based in Oakland, California. His work often articulates abstract narratives through vocal expression, body performance, and intense theatrical lighting. He has performed and recorded as Gerritt, Ginnungagap (with Stephen O'Malley and Tim Wyskida), Deathroes (with Sixes), and has perfo…