Reissues
Anita
Originally available only in sex shops in the Netherlands, this is one of the rarest psychedelic LP’s ever to be recorded in Europe. Consisting of only two long tracks, one covering side A and one covering side B, this album is probably the most mind-bending stuff we’ve heard from around this time. Side A starts with fast-paced free-jazz-rock with intense drumming and Anita’s growing involvement (first giggling, then moaning and finally screaming in all sorts of terrifying ways) Most instrument…
Cosmographie
Once again, i’m reminded that one can twist & turn, uncovering rocks looking for stray Paleozoic lifeforms one’s whole life and still never find 0.01% of what’s out there. To my knowledge, the early 70s platter replicated here is the sole LP by one Bruno Menny; he’s mainly known for his endless CV of engineering, arrangement, and production credits for people like Mouloudji - yes, the voice on the Jean Genet / André Almuro "Un Condamne a Mort" LP - Michel Portal, Benoît Widemann, and a little-kn…
Flowers of Evil
Back again after last week’s mishap (don’t ask) with an absolute corker of a Creel Pone - the setting of a set of poems by Charles Baudelaire to electronic instrumentation & vocal treatments, as realized by Ms. Ruth White in mid-1969. A sampling of any of the included texts should tip you to just how creepy & dark the vibes emanating from within this record are exactly. Ms. White’s possessed monotone-through-echoplex-through-VCLFO’ed-gate throughout is just bone-chilling, her howling synth & noi…
Conrad & Sohn
Thus far the creel pones have all been academically-inclined in some way. by contrast, here’s a repro of a very bizarre one-off private-press lp “released” in 1981 by one-time tangerine dream / Kluster associate Conrad Schnitzler and given only to friends and family ...The b-side is pretty odd, even for schnitzler, with its pitched up vocals & arbitrary lo-fi synth drippings ; but the real prize is the a-side featuring his teenage son gregor on electric bass and completely fried vocals (in en…
Parmak Çocuk, Çizmeli Kedi
While there’s no explicit date listed anywhere within, I’m guessing the pair of 45rpm 7”s in question - released only in Turkey - date to the mid-60s, with each featuring Solmaz Sporel reading a different fairly tale over a completely amazing Musique Concrète tape-backing by Ilhan Mimaroglu, produced at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York. Personally, these particular outings are some of the most gratifyingly zonked things I’ve ever heard, having much to do with the langua…
Le Crabe Qui Jouait Avec La Mer, Conte De Noël
"Le Crabe Qui Jouait Avec La Mer" is a beyoot of a radio-play, based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling, narrated by Jacques Gripel & featuring one of the only full-length bits of Musique Concrète by the ORTF / INA-GRM aligned composer Philippe Arthuys. While heavy french texts pervade the goings on throughout, with it’s all-ages appeal, it’s kind of the first Creel Pone that’s for everybody; "Crabe's" absolutely gorgeous cover - with it’s depiction of psychedelic crustaceans - only sweetens…
Roots Of Electronic Sound
Here’s possibly... ah hell it IS the best looking Creel Pone yet - thanks to an extended spec and much nicer print-stock - a reproduction of a 1979 Victor label reissue of a 1975 LP on the legendary Alm label featuring a series of short tape music experiments, recorded between 1963 and 1966 by Matsuo Ono, with assistance from none other than Takehisa Kosugi. The artwork and libretto on the lp are full of references to “Atom” - better known to westerners as “Astro Boy” - a mid-60s japanese car…
Independent Electronic Music Composer
Now that the Creel-Pone series has reached its teens, its time for an irreverent late-60s blast of heavy Synth-Freakout / Tape-Psych weirdness from this Cicero, Illinois based composer Edward M. Zajda, about whom i can’t find a single bit of information - other than that he has a piece included in a 1964 radio program called “Electronic Music in America” that’s archived in the Brandeis library. Originally issued in the late 60s on the regional Ars Nova / Ars Antiqua” label, “Independent” star…
Music From A Small Planet, Paths Of Motion
Two discs covering three self-issued LPs of 8-bit digital grind by Boston-area composer John Holland; as unheralded and unbeknownst as they come. Despite living in the hub for 24 years, and being a rabid fanatic of exactly this sort of thing, I had never seen nor heard head nor hide of either release, proving all too well that there are still gems out there waiting to be mined. On par with such proto-Digital-Synthesis masterworks as Daniel Arfib's "Musique Numerique", Pietro Grossi's "Compute…
Celebration
Even to a die-hard Early Electronic Music acolyte, Frank W. Becker's name isn't a readily familiar one, despite issuing a half-dozen LPs of vaguely Berlin-school music via Toshiba EMI while based in Japan in the mid-late 70s. "Celebration," a "Private" issue on his own Gorilla imprint, starts out sure enough with the titular, 1976 side-length bit of protracted sequencing and minimalism-inspired forms - all with a vague new-age lilt to it b/w of calming ocean noises & an almost Terry Riley-ish …
Omen
Ah, CP #200; never in 12 years did I think we'd make it this far. Those of you keeping count will realize that, despite the catalogue number this is actually the 181st title in the series; that said we're definitely winding down & what a great run it's been. This, in many ways, is the perfect title to ring in this momentous occasion; arguably the longest in the Creel Pone "Queue" (mainly as virtually the entire cabal, upon discovery, scratched their collective heads, rooted around for close to…
in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Experimental Music
Comes with 8-page 12" booklet.. Replica edition covering this wonderful 2LP boxed set, issued on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Experimental Music Studios of the University of Illinois School of Music. Features work by a largely otherwise undocumented array of midwest composers, including Antonio G. Barata, Paul Christian Koonce, Carla Scaletti, Michael Kosch, Brian E. Belét, Sever Tipei, & Nelson Mandrell alongside those by more well-known ones such as studio head Herbert Brün, Mar…
The Complete Narco Recordings
After a several-months-long blackout, Creel Pone is back in action! What a fine little number to get the ball rolling with once again; a reproduction of all five LPs originally self-released by Nicolas “Nik Pascal” Raicevic on his Narco Records and Tapes label - rumored to be one of the first truly independent labels, with Raicevic simply walking into an L.A. pressing plant & placing orders for stock - between 1969 and 1975. The music is nothing short of genius; a fine beaded mist of exceeding…
Electronomusic, 9 Images
Much in the way I was confounded by Rod “A Safe Place to Land” McKuen’s forays into noise-oriented electronic music - see: Heins Hoffman-Richter, “Symphony for Tape Delay, IBM Instruction Manual, & OHM Septet," aka "Music to Freak your Friends and Break your Lease” - this set of “Electronomusic” by RCA-Victor “Living Stereo” architect - he recorded the vast majority of the legendary classical label’s productions, working with Van Cliburn, Heifetz, Horowitz, Leontyne Price, Fritz Reiner, Toscan…
Hot Box 1974-1994
Destroy All Monsters are known by some for their role as a bastion of resistance of Detroit's rock; for being, during their second period, the band in which Ron Asheton would reappear. For others, they are a pivotal reference point in the copious but relatively unknown avant-garde underground from the same city, after Thurston Moore and Byron Coley dug up their first recordings in 1996 and the original line-up reunited. Destroy All Monsters comprises two complementary and interconnected poles th…
Orion Awakes
Mental Experience present a reissue of Golem’s Orion Awakes. Orion Awakes was recorded and produced circa 1976 by Toby Robinson, aka Genius P. Orridge, while he worked as second engineer at the famous Dierks Studio in Cologne. Memories from those hazy times are sketchy, but all evidence leads you to believe that the musicians featured here were well-known names from the kraut scene working under pseudonyms, recording 100% underground, non-commercial music under Toby’s guidance, just for fun. App…
Esoteric
In November 1977 and May 1978, months before drummer Phillip Wilson recorded his great LP Duet with trumpeter Lester Bowie for the Improvising Artists label, Wilson hit the studio for Esoteric, a recording of solos and duets with cornetist Olu Dara. Wilson (1941-1992) was one of the keypercussionists in creative music, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's early trapsman, one third of the fusion band Full Moon, and an all around fount of invention and sensitivity. In addition to his work in the jazz and…
Red Chrysanthemums: Solos 1977
2015 release. On the occasion of improviser and composer Wadada Leo Smith's exhibition Ankhrasmation: The Language Scores, 1967-2015 at Chicago's Renaissance Society, Corbett Vs. Dempsey present Red Chrysanthemums, a previously unreleased live recording of solo performances by Smith, documented in Los Angeles in December of 1977. Three adventurous, spacious tracks that feature Smith's unique and innovative trumpet, as well as percussion, tuned percussion, and flute, all captured as Smith was in …
Solo Guitar Volume 2
Derek Bailey, solo guitar. Recorded on 22 June 1991 at approximately the times indicated.
Solo Guitar Volume 1
Derek Bailey plays electric guitar plus VCS3 synthesiser on Where is the police?; on Christiani Eddy he plays electric guitar unamplified and on The squirrel and the ricketty-racketty bridge he plays two acoustic guitars at the same time (not double-tracked). The improvisations are on electric guitar.' Recorded February 1971; equipment and recording Hugh Davies and Bob Woolford. Improvisations 4, 5, 6, and 7 and the three compositions were previously released on Incus LP 2 in 1971. In 1978 the r…