New Arrivals
In The Mouth - A Hand
2LP version, featuring one track not on the CD. Rune Grammofon presents the third album from Swedish trio Fire! -- something of a supergroup with members from already well-known projects. And again, it's a collaboration, this time with the extraordinary and prolific guitarist Oren Ambarchi. With their heavy, hypnotic, psychedelic rock'n'jazz explorations, they have carved out a different sound than any of the groups they are normally associated with. Sax player, improviser, composer and fer…
Leave/Trace
Formerly operating under the name of Mites, Shakhnes has been recording and performing in Tel Avi, Israel since 2008. His work has been issued both privately in limited handmade CD-R editions, and internationally though Alamut Records (Jerusalem), Mystery Sea (Belgium), and Copy For Your Records (NYC). Consider 'leave/trace' a graduation ceremony, as Shakhnes steps away from pseudonymity and into the bright lights of his own exceptional music."leave/trace" offers a compelling display of mu…
Relief
Our man Millis is a Climax Golden Twin and a noted curator of globe trotting / time traveling esoterica, amongst other accolades.ÊIn the former category, Millis and Jeffery Taylor steadily release some of the most headscratching amalgamations of avant-rock, decontextualized temple music, heightened-state minimalism, and collaged field recordings this side of the Sun City Girls (including the soundtrack to the cult film Session Nine); and in the latter, Millis has published a number of acclaimed …
Giorgio Gaslini - Complete Black Saint & Soul Note collection
Cam Jazz, the company behind the great series of Black Saint/Soul Note reissues, presents the first release in a new line – the complete works by artists on the Italian label Dischi Della Quercia. The inaugural set presents the complete label output from famed Italian pianist Giorgio Gaslini and includes eleven albums that have been unavailable in the US until now. Each is presented in a slipcase with the original album artwork and housed in a sturdy box. Pianist, composer, conductor and …
Tbriz
Reinhold Friedl, inside-piano, prepared piano, piano. Hannes Strobl, electric bass guitar, electric upright bass, electronics. Hayden Chisholm, alto saxophone. Composed and produced by Hannes Strobl and Reinhold Friedl, Berlin 2008 - 2013. P.O.P. (Psychology of Perception) Which sounds are similar to each other, which different, which repeated, which varied, which altered? Instrumentally played repetitions, digital repetitions in the effect path of the electric bass, repetitions in another posit…
Divisionals
Mouthus are professionals. Not that their music is a full-time job, or is made out of obligation. Rather, Brian Sullivan and Nate Nelson approach every recording seriously and diligently, never bending their methods to fit expectations or pander to an audience. Often this devout methodology produces a glorious alchemy; other times it results in workmanlike exercises in sound excavation. But every Mouthus album comes with an implicit seal of quality craftsmanship. You may not find an epiphany in …
Problems
As per usual, Hundebiss delivers a sick record for us to choke down before we even know what’s in it (like your mom used to do at the dinner table). Problems, by Primitive Art, to these ears, represent a warped union of dub, industrial and even chillwave/hypnagogic pop. Reminds of that solo Avey Tare record, albeit dub-ified with the corners melted down and the beats rendered with more vintage care.
Journeys in Sound
This documentary by Oscar-winner Allan Miller and Emmy-winner Paul Smaczny pays tribute to the most fascinating American avant-garde composer John Cage. Shot in America, Germany and Japan, the program premieres rare archival footage; presenting concert excerpts and a set of short episodes, featuring associates of Cage and contemporary artists, playfully delineating different aspects of John Cage. The documentary features interviews with Yoko Ono, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Steffen Schleiermac…
Mitosis
"12k kicks off its 11th year with a new release that takes the label down new sonic pathways. Caught between the organic and electronic minimalism that 12k is known for and the unconventional Japanese pop musings and songwriting style of Happy, Moskitoo's Drape is an infectiously strange, bleepy, and dreamy debut release. Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo) hails from Sapporo, Japan in Hokkaido, the country's northern-most prefecture. Perhaps a reaction to the cool climate of her home, her multi-instrumen…
Inconsistent Images
Inconsistent Images includes three works of musique concrète composed in 2012. The title is derived from an observation of inconsistencies in stereo image, but also describes the destabilisation of certain media, utilised for their musical properties, and at the same time suggesting a pseudo-visual response.”
Adam Asnan is a London based composer-performer of musique concrète, acquiring an MA under the supervision of Denis Smalley in 2009. Adam’s work promotes the aesthetic potential of f…
Joke in the hole
Black Dice bod returns to DFA with a playful solo LP of sample-splitting psychotomimetic grooves. Like an unhinged, PCP-huffing cousin of Smith 'N Hack, Copeland deranges plunderphonic globs into stomping, jerry-rigged and unstable structures, equal parts garage rock, wayward blues, disco, techno and avant-garde noise collage. Yet far from being a total mess, 'Joke In The Hole' is possibly his most "musical" effort to date, enriched with fragments of melodic hooks that give something to hold ont…
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…
The Men Parted The Sea To Devour The Water
Numbered edition of 700 housed in die-cut, origami fold and foil-blocked jacket** 'The Men Parted The Sea To Devour The Water' is The Haxan Cloak's long awaited Latitudes edition. It's his first release since that jaw-dropping eponymous album (an end of year favourite across the board) and means that we're possibly one step closer to two things: a vinyl edition of said LP, and his hugely anticipated album debut for Tri Angle. But let's not get ahead of ourselves....here we find Bobby Kr…
2nd Movement
Continue reprints of the amazing tapes by Pierpaolo Zoppo aka Mauthausen Orchestra released on Aquilifer Sodality in the early eighties. Tape after tape Mauthausen Orchestra constitute, in a few years, the backbone of what we will know as an alienating and extremist style, made of metal nightmares and sonic torture , often dilated, dissected and extended up to the limit of endurance. 2nd Movement carry us, once again, as real rituals of a civilization without gods, in a pure world of suffering. …
Shopping
'Shopping features the title track in two versions (Vocal and Lo Cal'), The Crunch, plus a formidable remix by Shelley Parker (second part of the audio sample), whose Structure imprint will shortly be releasing more excellent work by Filter Feeder, amongst others. Played, recorded and processed by Julian Doyle (acoustic and synthetic percussion, analogue drum modules, turntables, digital samples and delays). Mastered by Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering Service. See also Filter Feeder (E8), Filter…
Live at the Red Garter 1970
his latest Transparency release brings an early July 1970 concert to our attention. "Live At The Red Garter" (later 'The Bottom Line' / New York City) doesn't offer the best sound quality, but it does give a glimpse of an exceptional version of the Arkestra: Sun Ra, Kwame Hadi, Akh Tal Ebah, Marshall Allen, Danny Davis, John Gilmore, Pat Patrick, Danny Ray Thompson, Eloe Emoe, Alan Silva, Alex Blake and a handful of unidentified percussionists...
Things fall apart
Jason Kahn : drum set, voice, metal objects, radio, mixing board, contact microphones, magnetic coil, speaker, computer, chairs, plastic bags. Recorded in Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zürich, Switzerland on April 14, 2013. Mixed and mastered May 2-31, 2013. Cover design Jason Kahn. Audio CD, 6 panels digipak. 'Back in 1981 I was studying at the University of London in the School of African and Asian Studies. One lecturer had us read Chinua Achebe's novel 'Things Fall Apart.' Aside from the book moving …
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…
Krionika Soshiki
In the early 80s Paolo Bandera was a founder (along with Eraldo Bernocchi) of the monumental collective post-industrial Sigillum S. In 1993 he created his solo project SSHE Retina Stimulants ("Super Sound High Energy" Retina Stimulants), devoting himself to sharpen the edges of concepts and noise extremes. Krionika Soshiki is one of his most representative works of the first period of solo activities. The six tracks run through subliminal arenas, with flows and ideas collapsed to state of …