New Arrivals
Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music...
..And Photography 1890-1950 The latest release from Grammy Award-winning reissue label Dust-to-Digital gives music fans another reason to rejoice. A stunning 96-page hardcover book of historic baptism photographs, taken between 1890 and 1950 and compiled from the collection of noted folk art collector Jim Linderman, is accompanied by a CD of rare gospel and folk recordings from original 78 RPM records (1924-1940), featuring artists Washington Phillips, Carter Family, Tennessee Mountaineers, …
Interval Signals
Brian Pyle is becoming a big name in disquieting ambient and haunted audio, and two new releases (this and Light that Comes, Light that Goes) from him this week aptly explain why. Interval Signals is an enticingly evocative story, a single-take journey through a series of interiors and exteriors spaces layered with memories and geographies. Melancholy like an old crime scene, its mixture of ancient broadcasts, echoes trapped in the dusty twentieth-century telephone network, spiritualistic tuned …
Concredrones
M.B., also known as Maurizio Bianchi doesn’t need much introduction. In the early 80s he was responsible for a string of compelling electronic music albums in the first wave of ‘industrial music’. After a hiatus of many years he returned in the late 90s and since then has been very active with many new solo releases, but also on the side with collaborations. Here he works with Mario Costa, also known as Sostrah Tinnitus, from Italy, who has had a number of releases on labels as Umbra, Beyond, My…
Sunrise
The music of My Education, a five-piece group from Austin, Texas, tends towards the classical side of the spectrum. If you’ve read any recent think-piece about how the lines between rock bands and classical ensembles are blurring, you could pretty easily swap their name into the list of case studies provided without sacrificing accuracy. Besides recording their own compositions, they’ve also released their take on Arvo Pärt’s taut “Spiegel im Spiegel” and collaborated with the hip-hop group däle…
Revelation
The Black Jazz recordings of Doug Carn are always a revelation – some of the most powerful, progressive work on the American underground of the early 70s – music that got Carn into way more record collections than you might expect! The sound here is a perfect summation of Doug's early genius – his own work on organ and keyboards, never overdone and mixed perfectly with a righteous array of acoustic sounds from Rene McLean on alto and tenor and Olu Dara on trumpet – both players who soar to the s…
Avast!
Avast! was created from field recordings made between 2009 and 2012 in Lyttelton, a volcanic harbour on the South Island of New Zealand. Sounds were captured at sites around the natural ampthitheatre of this extinct caldera: from abandoned wartime bunkers on the top of the crater rim to the port and its cacophony of cargo ships, tugs and workshops. The work is also haunted by the resonance of buildings such as the Timeball Station, which were destroyed when the town was at the epicentre of a maj…
United States of America Triptych (III)
Voices by David Grubbs, Magorzata Penkalla and Pete Simonelli, guitars by David Grubbs and Miron Grzegorkiewicz, organ and violin by David Maranha, Text excerpted from Vanishing Point: How to Disappear in America without a Trace Music by David Grubbs, Miron Grzegorkiewicz, David Maranha, Gosia Penkalla, Pete Simonelli
Three takes on America - three journeys and three documents. Written and recorded.Year 1939, John A. Lomax and Ruby T. Lomax in their Plymouth - going South. 6502 miles, tons of …
A Life Is Everywhere
'A Life Is Everywhere' is an ecstatic mix of rhythm, noise, drone, texture and melody. Simultaneously heartfelt and not for the faint hearted. Within their self contained world Cindytalk continue the unique trajectory that has purveyed their career starting in 1982. This instalment further explores the fearsome terrain that was initiated with previous Editions Mego releases such as 'The Crackle of my Soul' and 'Hold Everything Dear'. Throughout the 6 tracks on offer the standard fair of m…
Cities
Strong field recordings capture more than just the sound of an area, they capture a mood and spirit of the place and people. On Cities, local color and nature recordings clash with riots and discord, capturing the full human experience across the world. Literal and metaphorical “found music” appears: the booming stereo of a passing car or distant church bells, as does the rhythmic engine hum of a bus or the chirping of birds. This tour is a fast paced one, rapidly weaving through the geog…
Shadow of events
'Shadow Of Events is the third album by Oslo, Norway sound artist, producer and musician Alexander Rishaug, following his Asphodel CD Possible Landscape (2004) and 2001's Panorama on the Smalltown Supersound label. The album was recorded over a five year period and mixed in Berlin last year. Not unlike his previous albums but apparently more refined Shadow Of Events combines a warm and organic haunting quality blended with both abstract and concrete tones and subtle digital noises. 'Most …
Character
Opportunities for introspection have come few and far between for Canadian-born, New York City-based cellist Julia Kent. After coming to prominence as a member of the cello-driven group Rasputina in the ‘90s, she went on to arrange and play on numerous recordings and tour extensively as a member of Antony and the Johnsons, among other projects.The opportunity to explore her own emotional and creative world came with her solo LPs, Delay (2007) and Green and Grey (2011), and it is something she ap…
Bitter Suites
Deluxe repress edition of this incredible masterpiece made out of two live performances of the U.S. Steel Cello Ensemble recorded in 1979 at The Showing Room in NYC and at Helen Shlien Gallery in Boston. The Ensemble performs playing large sheets of metal and producing amazingly droning sounds. These live recordings are the result of an evolutionary refinement of instrumental design and playing techniques which Robert Rutman explored and develped after a ten year period of practice. He inv…
Alice
Limited, hand-numbered edition of 500 green vinyls housed in lavish die-cut and foil-block embossed jacket** Alexander Tucker (Imbogodom/Guapo) and Daniel O'Sullivan (Æthenor/Ulver/Guapo) reprise their Grumbling Fur alias for the Latitudes series following that excellent album for Aurora Borealis in 2011. Both artists have previously graced the series already - Tucker solo and with Ginnugagap, and O'Sullivan with Miasma And The Carousel Of Headless Horses - and don't disappoint with their…
Plekzationz
Double LP 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…
Four Years Older
A new set by the coolest chap in New York City, documenting the development process of a solo electric guitar piece that Alan Licht has been playing out for the last four years. Revered for his work in the Blue Humans and Text Of Light, and a key figure in the pantheon of experimental solo guitar players born in the late '60s such Jim O'Rourke and Oren Ambarchi, Four Years Older is his debut Editions Mego release, representing another peak in a career of mining the rich seams of minimalism, noi…
Proceed with Caution!
Whereas the earlier black jazz album Shawn-Neeq had its share of riff-based funk, Calvin Keys' second outing Proceed with Caution! (1974) sticks close to straight-ahead jazz verities with the 30-something guitarist in the studio with seven similarly young, on-the-rise musicians including Charles Owens (saxophones, flute), Oscar Brashear (trumpet), Al Hall Jr. (trombone), Kirk Lightsey (electric piano), Henry Franklin (bass), and Leon "Ndugu" Chancler (drums). Keys can really play the guitar, e…
A World Out Of Time
Both words in Eternal Tapestry's name say something about their music, but it's the first that's key. This Portland band's expansive psych rock sounds like it could go on forever, and most of their releases have in fact been culled from longer, open-ended improvisations. The way they slowly build these jams-- adding parts, increasing volume, and cresting in unison-- you get the feeling they're always playing, and their records are just glimpses of an endless stream.For A World Out of Time, Etern…
Untitled
This album is a return to brutality for Drumm and a continuation of the intense lo-end evil of Wiese. Needless to say it is amazing and an essential purchase for noise fans, Mania-inducing heavy waves of suffocating bass frequencies with ripping and tearing, hissing and speaker-destroying hell-storm; at times these guys indulge in noise in the service of the metal that has influenced them via hi-end frequencies, but for the most part this is an expansive record that will immensely satisfy fans o…
Summer meeting 2013
Alexandros Drymonitis is an MMus graduate of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He studied guitar in Athens, Amsterdam and Berlin, specialising in contemporary music, and specifically in the co-operation between the composer and the performer. He attended composition classes in Athens and Amsterdam, plus several electronic music seminars and workshops. He has found his place in the field of free improvisation and noise art. Nikos Kyriazopoulos works on environmental recordings in a wide range of …
Alpha Recordings
*Another precious find from Andy Votel and Demdike Stare\'s Dead-Cert imprint featuring foundational Concrète experiments from the director of IPEM, Belgium\'s equivalent of the Radiophonic Workshop. Transferred from the original Mastertapes by Andrew Popplewell and remastered by Gareth Mallinson and Matt Colton, limited Edition pressing of 500 copies* Dead Cert illuminate three unique and chilling electro-acoustic compositions by the pioneering head of Belgium\'s Institute of Psychoacoustic and…