New Arrivals
Mauricio Kagel Ludwig van
Mauricio Kagel’s 1970s film Ludwig Van, a rather critical piece of avant-garde cinema, asked pointed questions about the ways in which later audiences appropriate and interprete Beethoven’s music. Pianist F. Blondy and turntablist DJ LENAR reclaim and reinterpret the soundtrack in this post-modern mashup that includes source material such as Herzog soundtracks, a lecture by Alfred Cortot, samples of string playing and percussion from contemporary improvisation records, and numerous other …
Vibrant Forms
Double LP version. Kostas Soublis' productions under the Fluxion moniker helped define legendary Berlin imprint Chain Reaction, and with 1999's Vibrant Forms, the Greek producer released a milestone in the dub techno genre. Hazy and distant, there was still more than enough dancefloor push to propel Soublis into the (very short) list of genre legends, and make Vibrant Forms one of the very rare techno albums that works from beginning to end. Out of press for far too long, this new edition of…
Graft
Graft is an album by Japanese noise master Masami Akita aka Merzbow. This LP album is pressed on lime-green vinyl in a "bootleg"-style sleeve and sealed with a sticker. Limited to 300 regular copies. According to the Merzbow blog, the design was inspired by a '70s Jethro Tull bootleg called My God, and the recording was inspired by the plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript. Recorded in November 2009 at Munemi House, Tokyo.
These Hidden Hands
Double LP pressed on 180 gm vinyl, Includes download code redeemable from the label** Tommy Four Seven and his buddy Alain present striking gothic techno architecture as These Hidden Hands on their excellent debut album. Converging a brutalist aesthetic with studio dynamism, their eponymous debut cycles eleven crushing blends of wrecking ball bass hits and pulverised noise rent with super wide and spacious production. It's a sound that's steadily attracted a lot of listeners and producers alike …
Phantom Horse
Phantom Horse is the duo of Ulf Schütte and Niklas Dommaschk from Hamburg and Kiel (home of seminal Digitalis Recordings artist Jürgen Müller). Schütte is a (part-time) member of Datashock, Black To Comm, Aosuke et al and has recently released his modular synth explorations under the Alien Radio moniker on a (sold-out) Dekorder split-LP with Keith Fullerton Whitman and a 4-way split 7" with Köhn, Ducktails and Peaking Lights on Kraak. Dommaschk plays guitar, synth and electric piano.
With…
Crowded
Breathtaking slab of the black stuff from peerless drone/noise (de)composer Kevin Drumm - with "spectral editing and time domain consultation" by Russell Haswell. We shouldn't need to tell you that this is a big deal. But, in case you're a bit daft; it is. Haswell helps out on the wormholing A-side 'Repetitive Algae'; a single tract of cacophonous, morphing rhythmic noise reminding of Philip Corner's 'Coldwater Basin' - a home recording of cold water running from a faucet into a basin - b…
Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco
Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco is a full-length LP that features six extended tracks from the golden age of the Moroccan record industry. After Morocco gained its independence in 1956, Moroccan-owned record labels sprouted and flourished in Casablanca. The inexpensive 45 rpm format allowed the record companies to release thousands of songs during the 1960s, creating a snapshot of the raw and hypnotic Berber music that thrived throughout Morocco. Powerful traditional styles were still aliv…
Cry
Cry was recorded in a shed at Taieri Mouth between 1998 and 2000 and then released by Emperor Jones on CD in 2000. Alastair has always been one of the most admired yet paradoxically ignored musicians from the New Zealand underground since he first started out in The Rip on Flying Nun Records in the early 1980s. Having already worked with the incredibly talented New Zealander otherwise known as Michael Morley, it seemed natural for MIE’s next step to go on to work with Alastair on getting …
Rufen
Rufen is the second installment in a trilogy of Qluster music, following on from the Fragen (BB 076CD/LP) studio album. In four impressive live recordings, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Onnen Bock unfold aural panoramas which can only be described, in the truest sense of the word, as fantastic. Had Claude Debussy not already composed 'Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun,' then Qluster would have been ideally placed to do so, their transparency and polymorphism so reminiscent of his high Impression…
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…
Zones Without People
**Re-press on vinyl, now with download code redeemable from the label** OPN's 'Zones Without People' was released in 2009 on a highly limited vinyl run for Arbor. All seven tracks featured in his Wire chart-topping 'Rifts' compilation, predating his mindblowing 'Returnal' album (surely one of the best of 2010) and displaying its prodigiously gifted creator amidst some of his most affective synthscapes. From the outset we could consider this to be classic material, as the miniature 'Computer Visi…
Forest of Eden
Previously unreleased tracks from the legendary eccentric folk singer Jackson C.Frank. He was Sandy Denny's boyfriend; Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, Al Stewart and others have covered his songs. His first and only album was produced by Paul Simon. After being burned in a fire and the death of his son, he became an NYC vagrant and eventually succumbed to pneumonia and cardiac arrest in 1999 at age 56.
Eros
Amazing quadruple tape set comprising of 8 artists, 4 tapes for almoust 2 hours of unsustainable harsh noise. Tounge Knax, Mordant Karma from Japan, Blodvite and Arv & Miljo from Sweden, Elisha Morningstar, Endless Sea from Italy, Skingraft, Developer from USA. Each artist explains his idea of eros, the relationship between lovers, the power of physical and mental attraction.
Instruments non-electronique
A collection of the earliest recordings of the French sound sculpture musicians and Cristalists known as Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet. Featuring the first fruits of one of the greatest unisons in experimental French music combining the beguiling haunting sounds of Jacques and Yvonne Lasry and the development of the musical inventions of Bernard and Francois Baschet. Exploring a similar route to that of early Michel Magne recordings (and often likened to “a French Harry Partch”) the emotive m…
Souvenir Of Italy
A lost gem from the mid 80s in the best italian tradition, BlowUp reissue of the month: to describe GustoForte’s Picture disc “Souvenir of Italy - La merda che fuma”, to give some dialect shape to the electro-magnetic throbbings that come out from the record , to try drawing, with grammatic help also that more basic, a logic or a descriptive way, it’s complex.And not because exists a multi-shape objective difficulty but rather the concreteness it’s impossible to approach to GustoForte: sandpaper…
The last house on the left O.S.T.
Born in 1936 in New York City, David Hess began his career when he recorded the original version of the Otis Blackwell composition "All Shook Up" under the stage name Dave Hill in 1956. The song became a Number 1 hit for Elvis Presley a year later and Hess became a songwriter at Shalimar Music. David went on to compose "Start Movin'" for Sal Mineo and "Rockin' Shoes" for the Ames Brothers. He continued to write songs for Elvis throughout the '50s and '60s, (including the Presley hit "I Got Stung…
Musica per un giorno registrata in un mese
Spectacular edition! A silk-screened wooden box containing 24 tapes and a book (of art, texts and private photos collection from the artist), issued in a micro edition of 30 copies only. This composition of 24 hours recorded in one month, is a reflection on time. Ambient sounds, carpets of keyboard, pulsating electronic, moments of life gathered and where necessary assembled. All closely and soundly tied to what took place between January 4, 2012 and February 4, 2012. Sound reflections '…
Freedom Of Speech
The second album of the Phantom Band is quite different to the predecessor. The line-up features the spoken word performer Sheldon Ancel on the microphone instead of bass player Rosko Gee. Whilst the debut album revealed many Caribbean or African influences and a generally positive frame of mind, "Freedom of Speech" is a somewhat darker avant-garde rock manifesto, interspersed with individual dub or reggae pieces. All they have in common are Jaki Liebezeit's inimitable monotone polyrhythm…
Ancient faith
In limited edition of 250 hand branded wooden box. Atom Earth Mother: A solo project from one half of Zoviet France Dedicated to the White Goddess and inspired by the prehistoric antiquities in Northumberland, primarily the enigmatic and beautiful 'rock art' that are known as 'cup and ring' marks, a form of symbolic language 4500+ years old, whose meaning has been lost in the mists of time. Utilizing digital and analogue equipment and production technique, location recordings, found sound…
End Line
Ottaven new LP issued in a tiny run of 100 copies only, a strong and puzzling mixture of tapes, electronics, varispeeding, and multiple exposures, carefully executed, with much precision and clarity. Flipping between noisily bristling electronic frequencies and blustery washes of oscillating tones, Ottaven sounds carefully programmed even in its most frentic moments, and offers several blasts abrasive enough to unclog the dirtiest pore.