Best of 2016
I'm The One
Masterpiece!!! I'm The One, you don't have to look any further. I'm The One. I'm here, right here for you,' oozes jazz, rock, and electronic music pioneer Annette Peacock on the leadoff title track of her solo debut LP. The album's wide range of vocal emotions and diverse sonic palette (featuring Robert Moog's early modular synthesizers, which the singer actually transmitted her voice through to wild effect) places it firmly at the forefront of the pop avant-garde. Originally released by R…
Música Eletrônica
Originally released in 1975, “Música Eletrônica” is considered the first electro-acoustic / electronic album made in Brazil. It features tracks recorded between 1962 and 1970 by avant-garde / electronic music pioneer Jorge Antunes. Early electronic oscillations, white noise, feedback, loops, tape manipulation, treated vocals and proto-minimalism / sampling / glitches… Mandatory to anyone into Pierre Henry, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Schaeffer, Ralph Lundsten, Louis & Bebe Baron, Ihlan Mimarog…
Zoo Folle
**restocked, last copies** First official reissue ever for this Italian holygrail soundtrack, finally back to life in a longwaited 180gr. limited edition supervised by M° Giuliano Sorgini himself, who also signs here his personal liner notes. Remastered from the original master tapes preserved for more than 40 years in almost perfect shape, Zoo Folle is a super-wanted psych-funk album, a truly masterpiece for all breaks-beat lovers, full of rhythmic percussions, acid flute, synth works, dar…
Music Works for Industry
Marc Barreca’s Music Works for Industry is a layered assertion. An economic mantra for the mind to spin, like the many loops on this recording, or churn, as gears of some godhead machine. From the pool of playful compositions, a social subtext appears – a somewhat sardonic riposte to the commercial and cynical abuse of music and musicians. The work profits the listener over industry. Said another way, its motivations are more generative than lucrative.
No longer than four minutes, no shor…
Eye Chant
Originally issued in 1986. You can see the sounds her voice makes. The literal depiction of this, a photograph of Michele Mercure with an eyeball in her mouth, is removed in the updated album art. The original graphic elements are left to suspend, speak, and sing across time. In the absence of the decade-specific portraits, the redesigned edition is dislocated from a particular or linear history. Our initial point of encounter is artifactual; a trace in place of a scar. Accordingly, Michele’…
Flowers of Evil
Limited repress in coloured vinyl, 300 copies only...A dark occult masterpiece - originally released in 1969 it makes much contemporary dark electronic music sound like playskool. It is in my opinion one of the finest electronic music records one could ever wish to hear. This LP was sonically advanced at the time and still sounds positively evil. Ruth White was a self taught synth pioneer who's name rarely gets mentioned in the avant-garde electronics history books. Here she assembled her electr…
Vitamins
First time on vinyl, rare recordings from 1975 by the legendary Pekka Airaksinen, NWW -listed founding member of Finnish improv group Sperm. The compositions (mostly about minerals and vitamins) just seem to have a hugely varied, constantly mutating life of their own, with waves of pure electronic pulse, panned and pushed into exploration of synthetic tonality and space. ”In general music is mostly about expressing feelings and affecting people emotionally. On the other hand for example creati…
Lung Function Recordings 1982-1986
This box will give a nice insight into the world of the Adrian and Derek Smith's musical legacy during their very productive stage and the early years of their Lung Function-Label from 1982 to 1986 with the Solo- (Adrian Smith) and Side Projects (Half Nervous/Those Nervous Surgeons, EFF) to the EBM-Legend Click Click. Adrian Smith, the main-figure behind the EMB/Dark-Wave-Legend Click Click started to experiment with sounds as early as 1974. In 1976 Adrian managed to get his hands on a decent …
The Miracles Of Only One Thing
LP version. Japanese legend, Keiji Haino, meets two of Belgium's most active and valued musicians, keyboardist Jozef Dumoulin (Lilly Joel) and drummer Teun Verbruggen (Othin Spake). The Miracles Of Only One Thing is a deep and intense testimony of this meeting. Keiji Haino, without any doubt one of the most important musicians from the Japanese underground scene, is at his best, Teun Verbruggen and Jozef Dumoulin did a three-week tour in Japan in September of 2015, playing concerts as a due…
Dread Live
Second Edition Pressing of 250 copies only. Vinyl-only release, no digital, no CD. Sunn O)))’s feedback architect Stephen O’Malley cranks the amps even louder on his solo vinyl LP Dread Live. This is an extended and extremely loud improvisation for solo guitar (though the colossal heaviness sounds like an army of guitarists). Relentless waves of heavy drones and squeals bombard the listener; the man has turned distortion into an artform.The minimalist electric guitar mantra Dread Live was pe…
Musique Pour le Reve et l'Amour
Outstanding!!! Before appearing in his works as a musician, Ariel Kalma seems to reveal himself as a philosopher; a solitary explorer of higher and deeper consciousness. Influenced by his relationship with Indian classical music, he transfigures the acoustic-ecstatic dimension typical of the tanpura raga by modulating synths and horns. The work reissued here originally appeared on two different cassettes in 1981 and 1982, but is ideally one unique project. With Musique Pour le Rêve et l'Am…
Genti e Paesi del Mondo
The mid 70s presented mature, fertile grounding for maestro Piero Uimiliani’s Sound Workshop Studio, exploring side ways explorations in to gravitational soundscapes and beyond.... Released in 1975 via his prolific Omicron imprint, Genti e Paesi Del Mondo (‘Peoples and Countries of the World’) is a return to the ethnic flavours so beloved of Umiliani’s zeitgeist.
Umiliani turns anti-clockwise launching a left field mental audio pad to uncharted territories. On Genti e Paesi Del Mondo spa…
Plaster Falling
"Plaster Falling was recorded at the same time as John Bender's first album, I Don't Remember Now / I Don't Want To Talk About It. Released in 1981 on the artist's own Record Sluts label, copies of Plaster Falling's initial pressing came hermetically sealed in plaster (and later latex). Thus, listeners had to literally break open the record to find what's hidden inside. Produced in relative isolation, Plaster Falling is a beacon of brilliance in the nascent minimal-wave sphere. Veering towa…
I Don't Remember Now / I Don't Want To Talk About It
Very necessary reissue of the minimal wave holy grail: John Bender’s self-released debut.
Four Organs/Phase Patterns
This classic minimal music album is now available again on vinyl for the first time since the 70s. In recent decades Steve Reich’s music has been presented internationally at major venues, performed by high-profile musicians including the Kronos Quartet, guitarist Pat Metheny, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. But in 1970, when the music on this LP was recorded, Reich’s audiences gathered in museums and art galleries to hear his work interpreted by the composer himself and a group of fri…
Traditional Music Of Notional Species Vol. II
Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. II pays a return visit to the otherworldly noumenal ecosystem inside Rashad Becker's head, relaying indecipherable messages in something resembling an expressive language of psychoacoustic, cuneiform glyphs. No Rosetta Stone is required to comprehend these deeply abstract auditory tableaus; all you need is an open mind and functioning set of lugs for reception, whilst whatever counts for your sense of consciousness will fill in the gaps, and that’s wher…
Alterations
Wow! This is just something else: a 4 CD box of previous unreleased astonishing archival works by legendary Alterations, released in a edition of 50 copies (no jokes, Fifty! And these are proper CDs!). Every box is unique, designed and handmade by visual artist Blanca Regina, also containing a 32-pages booklet and 5 postcards with work of Terry Day and photographs of Gerárd Rouy. I am in awe...
Pioneering free improvisation and sound art Alterations was a collective of four British impro…
Heteronormativ Musik For Att Starka Medelklassens Sjalvbild
If the term "noise" still makes sense in 2016 it is thanks to figures as Tommy Carlsson and his project Treriksröset.Since the beginning of 2000s Tommy had offered some of the most inspired harsh noise ever heard. Simple and complex at the same time the sound of Treriksroset is pushing the boundaries of the genre, and except the pure harsh noise output he can also experiment with low-key electronic or dig with static frequency studies as he did in a series of cassette releases together with Sewe…
Monism
Finally reissued, this mega rare spiritual jazz by reed player Milton Marsh – one of the harder-to-find albums on Strata East – and one of just a couple incredible records to Marsh's name! Obscurity aside, this is prime Strata East. In 1975, Milton Marsh released his first album Monism for the Strata-East label. Marsh, a composer, arranger, saxophonist and flautist, recorded the album in New York City from 1973-1974. The musicians on Monism represent some of the finest living in NYC at t…
Desert Tracks
Sub Rosa present Michel Redolfi's Desert Tracks as part of their Early Electronic Series, originally released by INA-GRM in 1988 alongside "Pacific Tubular Waves". In 1987, Michel Redolfi hit the California desert road during the fall, to catch those hypothetical poly-sensorial desert tones. He visited the Mojave Desert, Death Valley, Palm Canyon and came back with an extraordinary album of early electronic music, sparse and bright to express the crude light and the divine silences.In 196…