Reissues
K-Priss
"As a member of 70’s proggers Heldon, Georges Grünblatt made the unusual journey from psych rocker to full time psychiatrist. But not before his one and only 1980 album K-Priss bombed commercially. The solo offering was recorded in the autumn of 1977 for Polydor with his Heldon contemporaries; the influential guitarist Richard Pinhas, Francois Auger, Didier Batard and others, while Jean-Louis Rizet, one half of the one-off prog collaborative Besombes and Rizet who put out the spacey masterpiece …
1977-1981
Restocked, reduced price. A collection of rare free-jazz pieces performed by John Zorn and selected by the American guitarist and music critic Eugene Chadbourne. Come out in 1998 to accompany the book release “Sonora: John Zorn” (Materiali Sonori), the album is presented here for the first time in an exclusive release in limited edition on vinyl.The special issue includes the original book that features exclusive interviews, essays and photos about the artist’s entire oeuvre up to 1988.
Les Choses de la Vie
First ever LP reissue of this timeless masterpiece by Philippe Sarde, the most versatile and talented french film composer. Les choses de la vie, an outstanding score which offers both the wonderful « Chanson d'Hélène » and most of the musical features which appeared later in Philippe Sarde's musical career : Nostalgia, melancholy, experiment and sound discord. Les choses de la vie is the film which confirms Sautet as a genuine author and Philippe Sarde as a rising composer. This is also the st…
Percussion und Elektronik
Quite hard-to-find - I've had the original on my personal wantlist for ages - set of "Percussion und Elektronik" works from German Composer Klaus Hashagen, notable for being the only non-Roland Kayn Electronic title on Colosseum - the label that issued the latter's run of mammoth LP boxes.On the surface a square, Academic "Drumsploitation" number, this is in fact a beast of pointillist Live-Electronics; the A-side's opening number "Percussion VI - musik für tonband (1959-1973)" offers a fine moo…
Elettroformule
First in a series of 4 late-summer 2009 blasters from Mr. P.C. C.P. - a reproduction of this über-obscure 1969 Italian Leo-label library R@ER - in Mono, no less - from Giuliano Sorgini. If you already have Sorgini’s name on your radar, most likely you’re either :: (1) a collector of Italian library-music LPs, of which he has many under his belt as "Raskovich" or (2) an avid fan of Spanish director Jorge Grau’s 1975 film “Non Si Seve Profanare il Sonno dei Morti” - aka “The Living Dead at…
Electronic Virtuosity
Long in the works, here’s a replica of Oskar Sala’s 1970 “Debut” album (actually ; he did make his recorded debut on the 1961 “Electronics • Five Improvisations on Magnetic Tape” LP alongside Remi Gassmann’s score to a George Balanchine ballet production, but this the first full-length recording of his work) - a Selected Sound Library showcasing (showboating?) his “Electronic Virtuosity,” intended for “Radio Television Film Advertising Backgrounds.”In some ways the early-electronic equivalent of…
Ändere Die Welt, Sie Braucht Es
It’s raining “Musikalische Jugend Österreichs” titles! This collection of agit-prop tape music & raw tone-combination studies by the Austrian composer Wilhelm Zobl was recorded (with Eugeniusz Rudnik’s invaluable aid) at Studio Eksperymentalne & Vienna’s Institut Für Elektroakustik der Musikhoschule Wien in 1973 & 1971 (respectively) & remains (other than an appearance on a super-weird 1985 collection entitled “Antithesis” - where he appears alongside “Works of Electronic Music” alum Thanos Mikr…
Aaffluss Raaffluss
Killer 1988 “art-gallery” edition - each copy of the original LP was hand-painted by the composer in a loose, water-colour smear / drip style beautifully reproduced here, albeit utilizing the same image for each replica - covering a pair of beautiful, drifting piano pieces composed & executed by Giuseppe Morrocchi in 1980 & 1984.Seemingly influenced by Charlemagne Palestine’s “Strumming Music” approach - coupled perhaps with Lubomyr Melnyk’s “Continuous Mode” - the slow rise from decisive…
Pandémonium
Herein lies the entire recorded output - save for an appearance on the 1983 Broken Flag “Crusade” compilation tape - of French Musique Concrète composer Jean-Baptiste Barriere, issued as a pair of LPs on Atem magazine’s short-lived record label - where they sat, somewhat uncomfortably, alongside canonic RIO sides by Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, This Heat, Aqsak Maboul, Present, and Fall of Saigon.Composed from 1975-1976, then issued as two separate LPs in 1979, the “Pandemonium” suite encompas…
Luxicon II, Echospace
Gil Trythall’s two late-60s “Country” themed Moogsploitation LPs are of course the gilded arches that keep the genre airborne, but it’s this 1980 collection on the minuscule, West Virginia-based Pandora records imprint that’s always been the real show of Trythall’screative vision. While “Luxicon II's” gorgeous deep-bass filtering, runaway arpeggiations, & spot-on “Electro” -tinged drum-machine gork is the stuff of legend, I maintain that “Echospace” beats a good chunk of time-lag architect Terry…
People The Sky
Nicely timed replication of this 1969 Vanguard “Cardinal” series LP, offering a pair of side-length “Automatic” Buchla pieces by Composer / Producer Michael Czajkowski - then and now known mostly in music circles for his odd, post-production contributions to Buffy Saint-Marie’s “Illuminations” LP.Recorded at NYU’s famed Intermedia Center - see Charlemagne Palestine’s 60s Electronic Music, Morton Subotnick’s “Silver Apples” - this one falls squarely into the “hands-off” master-patch canon o…
Once
The soundtrack to a seldom-seen 1974 art film by Mort Hellig - featuring a total cast of 3, playing "Creation," "Humanity," and "Destruction," respectively - Israeli Composer Aminadav Aloni's peculiar, minimal Electronic Music cues come from a more compositional bent than much of the era's Synthetic dabblings. Over the course of 8 song-length segments of hand-played melodic refrain, a certain mood is established of laissez-faire, devil-may-care-ish-ness that is, frankly, quite welcome - s…
Paesaggi Intravisti
The sole solo release by Il Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza AND post-MEV ensemble "Elettronica Viva" member Walter Branchi, "composizione elettronica realizzata in occasione della mostra "Il luogo del lavoro" XVII Triennale di Milano." with Mauro Bortolotti - a student & assistant of Pietro Grossi at the latter's Florence studio. Branchi jointly founded the Studio R7 in 1967 w/ Franco Evangelista, Gino Marinuzzi Jr., "Syn-Ket" inventor & John Eaton collaborator Paolo "Paul" Ketoff, Eg…
Homo Faber, Dum Spiro Spero
Creel Pone treatment of this majorly slept-on set of dark, minimal, surrealist electro-acoustic & Musique Concrète pieces from the Polish composer Joanna Bruzdowicz, a member of the GRM under Pierre Schaeffer’s tutelage between 1968 & 1970 & long-term collaborator of Agnes Varda’s, for whom she scored several films from the mid-80’s on, including “Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse.” The LP in question (the only one to feature her electronic work) consists of the three-part “Homo Faber” suite - compose…
Tiens! Les Bourgeons Eclatent...
Souffle Continu Records present the first ever reissue of Workshop De Lyon's Tiens! Les Bourgeons Eclatent..., originally released in 1978. The collective methodology of the Workshop De Lyon led to the creation of the Association Searching for an Imaginary Folklore (ARFI) in 1977, their aims were very much a mission statement "encourage improvisation, spread diverse musical styles and provide means of expression to others with similar ideas, establish a folklore..." Their reference was the As…
The Harmony of the World
Fascinating one-off Computer Music curio from 1979, released, incredibly, on Book-of-the Month Records, "a Division of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc." Much like Laurie Spiegel's Voyager "Golden Record" piece, "Harmonices Mundi," Johannes Kepler's star-math was used as a template for the cyclical periods of a series of Digital Oscillator algorithms, which were then sent spinning in & around each other. The result is not unlike the Pythagoron™ LP, or even Thorkell Sigurbjornsson's somewhat contempor…
The Soundhouse
When you think of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, we’d wager most of the time it’s in context of their seminal ‘60s and ’70-s output. However, The Soundhouse (1983) proves there was much to marvel at in their early ‘80s catalogue, too, summing up the great advances in technology between their Radiophonic Workshop - 21 collection and their acquisition of a Fairlight CMI - the first digital sampling synth - which is thoroughly, imaginatively demonstrated throughout. Horses for courses and all that b…
Epitaph For Venus
Mental Experience present a reissue of Galactic Explorers' Epitaph For Venus. Another album from the Pyramid label shrouded in mystery and produced by Toby Robinson in Cologne, circa 1974. Kosmische and head sounds with plenty of Minimoog, analog synths/keyboards, effects, loops, tape manipulation, treated percussions, etc., courtesy of Galactic Explorers, an electronic, minimal, ambient krautrock trio featuring Reinhard Karwatky (Dzyan). Take a trip to the inner regions of your mind, see ancien…
Tapes
Hamburg’s Growing Bin go back to the roots of Trance, as in hypnotic electronic rhythms for dancing, with this Baldelli-favoured suite produced in Germany 1983-86. “If you’ve kept a keen ear to the underground, you may have noticed a trance revival creeping into the dance floors and darkrooms of late; a post ironic return to the 64 bar breakdowns and peak time key changes of your serotonin drenched youth. So what’s this then? Has Growing Bin gone from groundbreaker to copycat? Dig a little deepe…
Meta
Fascinating collection of Minimal Sound-Art / Musique Concrète works by the obscure Belgian artist Paul A.R. Timmermans, privately issued in 1983 - with the aid & additional insight of his neighbor & friend Badouin Oosterlynck - in a perfectly minimal edition: a lead slug embedded with the artist's name is clamped onto the top left of an otherwise blank LP sleeve, with only a text-insert in four languages either affixed or inside. Containing four pieces composed between 1980 & 1982 of a very pec…