Best of 2019
Hamdelaneh
Another greeat release from Dark Companion Records. "Chance doesn’t exist. I met Markus Stockhausen after inviting him and his wife to “Musiche Nuove In Piacenza” festival in autumn 2018. Immediately I felt a strong empathy towards him. That doesn’t happen very often. I knew his work and had always admired it, especially the spontaneous compositions he performs and the way his unique talent blossoms in these situations.We talked at lunch and I dared propose to him to record an album for our smal…
ExpoZoom 1969
The history of music is never concrete. It’s forever changing and rewriting itself. The past becomes the present and the present reforms the past. What was lost is found, and what was known is lost. Our era, defined by the reissue and archival release, will likely be regarded as a definitive period of historical reparisal and reevaluation. Monumental figures have fallen. The obscure and unheralded have finally received their rightful due. Dark Companion’s latest LP - Ron Geesin’s ExpoZoom 1969, …
PerpetuaI Possibility
LP version. Bronze vinyl; edition of 500 (hand-numbered). Perpetual Possibility is an album that bears witness to the collaboration between Lino Capra Vaccina, living legend of Italian minimalism and the avant-noise duo Untitled Noise with an interesting album on the label Dark Companion. Perpetual Possibility is the faithful transcription of the concert held by the trio at the MA*GA Museum in Gallarate, Italy and is the first recorded live album by Lino Capra Vaccina. Untitled Noise weaves deli…
Spectre of Radiants
R Keenan Lawler & John Krausbauer's “Spectre of radiants” is a droning, everlasting buzz of strings, gently undulating and intersecting. Unconventionally played, as usual, the resonator guitars and the banjos, builds the perfect stream of sound to accompany your longest days. Fitting in the ultraminimalist/drone panorama, this acoustic gem follow the lineage draw by authours like Phill Niblock, Tony Conrad or Eliane Radigue, mixing and confonting it with the direct attitude toward sound of peopl…
Schwingende Luftsäulen 2
Werner Durand Schwingende Luftsäulen 2, the second chapter dedicated to Durand's music applied to the Pan-Ney, the wind instrument of his own invention. With gorgeous artworks by Karlheinz Bux and extensive liner notes by Adelio Fusé. "Schwingende Luftsäulen 2 is the second chapter of a trilogy featuring the Pan-Ney with its tubes or columns of vibrating air (Schwingende Luftsäulen, in fact). This second chapter, in which the Pan-Ney is flanked by the tenor sax, reconnects where the first one en…
Contrée
Unreleased before collection from French electroacoustician Régis Renouard Larivière. Contrée is an LP of quizzical, sometimes eerie voyages into unknown noise. "Allégeance Volatile" and "Esquive" each tackle the same issue in their own way. Overcoming time: whether it be successive, additional, enumerative, or repetitive. However, there is nothing here about the ensuing nature of so-called "repetitive" music. These are types of high-end music. And it is more about insistence, the obstinacy of a…
Lady Maid
CD version. WRWTFWW Records present the reissue of impossible-to-find cult album Lady Maid by Japanese outfit Normal Brain. Originally released in 1981 as a limited vinyl pressing of 300 copies on Agi Yuzuru's fabled experimental label Vanity Records (R.N.A. Organism, Dada, Sympathy Nervous, Tolerance), Lady Maid is a testament to the creativity of the early '80s Japanese electronic and experimental scene, encapsulating a prolific era when audio gear became affordable for musicians to explore so…
Dialogue Ordinaire Avec La Machine
**Limited edition of 300 vinyl copies, comes with a 30x30cm 4-page booklet. Gatefold cover** 2019 has been a fantastic year for the late, great master of electroacoustic music, Luc Ferrari. We’ve witnessed the release of two astounding LPs of archival works - Photophonie, via Transversales Disques, and Music Promenade / Unheimlich Schön, via Recollection GRM, not to mention the incredible, sprawling volume, Complete Works, published by Ecstatic Peace Library. Now we’re thrilled to see yet anoth…
Sense Sound / Sound Sense
** Expanded and revised edition, published on the occasion of the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition 2019-2020 ** "Keeping the rebellious nature of its wicked subject intact, Sense Sound Sound Sense nevertheless provides an impeccably researched, crystal-clear narrative of Fluxus's true revolutionary spirit." The Wire)Truly necessary catalogue accompanying an extensive exhibition dedicated to art works and musical scores and their relationship with Fluxus, an interdisciplinary movement of internatio…
Watertube Ringspiel (Ambient Music) LP
Futuro Antico, the mesmerizing collaboration of Riccardo Sinigaglia with Walter Maioli and Gabin Dabirè evoked in its name the uncanniness of simultaneously witnessing past and future. Watertube Ringspiel (Ambient Music), Riccardo Sinigaglia’s first solo work – originally out on cassette from ADN Tapes in 1985— ultimately delivers on that idea, embodying different irreconcilable time frames not just in name. From our vantage point, the sounds of the two performances --“Watertube” and “Ringspiel”…
Fremde Zeit Addendum 5 · Solo V Für Klavier
Jakob Ullman's 5th solo work for piano is atypical for a piano performance, using electronic playback and requiring three assistants sustaining a soundscape to realize a concept of "gravity".
Quand Le Son Devient Aigu, Jeter La Girafe A La Mer
Souffle Continu Records present the first ever vinyl reissue of Jacques Thollot's Quand Le Son Devient Aigu, Jeter La Girafe À La Mer, originally released in 1971. While he was still just a young adolescent who had perfected his drum technique under the benevolent wing of Kenny Clarke, the Club Saint-Germain liked to present Jacques Thollot as a prodigy capable of holding his own with the famous jazz musicians who came through Paris. It was there that Eric Dolphy immediately noticed him, and fro…
Epitaph For Venus
From the moment it emerged during the mid 90’s, mystery has swirled around Galactic Explorers’ sole LP - Epitaph for Venus. Released by the Psi-Fi imprint as a long lost Krautrock gem from the mythical Pyramid label’s archives - said to be have been recorded by Toby Robinson in Cologne circa 1972/73, it has been loved by many, while others have cried hoax. Some ventured further, implicating none other than Genesis P. Orridge as the creator. The truth isn’t publicly known, but the foggy origins p…
Mother Earth's Plantasia
**Mort Garson’s cult 1976 album Mother Earth’s Plantasia officially reissued for the first time by Sacred Bones. Comes with fully restored original booklet with new liner notes by Andy Beta (Pitchfork). All vinyl copies come with seed paper download card – plant it and watch it sprout!** Mort Garson is well known as one of the pioneers of electronic music in the late '60s; some may have heard of his contributions to quite a few pop hits back in the day, when he wrote and conducted orchestral arr…
Words And Music (Art Edition)
Deluxe-edition of 25 ( +10 AP) with new 7″ x 10″ print of Humument page done for this edition, signed and numbered by Tom Phillips. Words and Music is a rare and sought-after album by artist Tom Phillips (b. 1937). Fueled by painting, opera, and concrete poetry, this LP was originally published by the king, Hansjörg Mayer, in 1975 (this LP has never been repressed). Most are familiar with Tom Phillips’ “After Raphael” painting used on the cover of Brian Eno’s Another Green World LP, along with t…
Gesti Sul Piano
Edition of 250 copies, historical recordings from 1975 and 1980. Giuseppe Chiari was one of the leading names associated first with Fluxus (being the only Italian member of the interdisciplinary art group since 1962) and later with Conceptual and Performance Art as well as Sound art. Coming from a background of different disciplines, he established new theoretical and practical standpoints in relation to music and art: his approach was always irreverent, walking the tightrope between to do or no…
To Magnetize Money and Catch a Roving Eye
**A 4+ hours labyrinthine work, previously unreleased** Jim O’Rourke is among the great voices of his generation - a true musical polymath, whose diverse efforts, since his emergence within the Chicago scene during the late 1980s, have continuously altered the creative landscape. Without him - from his relentless support of the careers of neglected artists, to contributions made within the vast and radical diversity of his output - now tracing across hundreds of releases - so much of what is, co…
Aktuala
Red Vinyl. Milestone! Faithful reproduction of the original release! 1973 Aktuala debut, a stunning overall work where you can hear a lot of different musical influences : avant-garde folk, mediterranean blues ,jazz improvisation, minimalism, african percussions, indian ragas all played with a true psychedelic feeling. The album was recorded in a few days in a totally acoustic dimension and the line-up seems to be a quintet of contemporary music more than a progrock group (although this music is…
Black Case Volume I and II: Return From Exile
Last copies...Joseph Jarman (1937 - 2019) was a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist best known as a founding member of trailblazing avant-garde jazz group Art Ensemble of Chicago. Jarman was responsible for the Art Ensemble’s signature face paint and elaborate costumes as well as the pioneering theatrical and multimedia elements of their shamanistic performances, which could include dance, comedy, performance art, surreal pranks, and—notably—the recitation of Jarman’s poetry. In 1977, Art Ense…
The Fluid Hammer
Pancrace is a quintet from France comprising Prune Bécheau, Arden Day, Julien Desailly, Léo Maurel, and Jan Vysocky. Pancrace began with a residence in 2015 at the Saint Pancrace church in Dangolsheim where the instrument inventor Léo Maurel resides. Pancrace's debut self-titled double-LP was released by Penultimate Press in 2017 and ended up on The Wire's best releases of that year. After the first record and subsequent tour the band were despondent that the main character of their story, the c…