Reissues
Superman
First 200 on Red & Orange Colours Vinyl. 1983, in the history of synths, is a key year. During the January edition of Namn(the most important music fair in the US), indeed, Miid – the standard protocol for electronic instruments interaction – was introduced to the world. Until then, programming and making synths work together was something practiced by a restricted elite of “wizards”, explorers armed with cables and analog patches, who …
Produzione
“Produzione”, originally released in 1973 on Piero Umiliani’s LP “Problemi d’oggi”, is an amazing mix of acoustic percussion and electronic experimentation, considered by some as the first example of techno trance music ever recorded. This song, along with “Attività”, another excerpt from “Problemi d’oggi”, has been ‘reworked’ by Gerardo Frisina, who cleverly extends the original content by mixing it with contemporary electronic sensations. The result, packaged in an artwork inspired by the ori…
Kriminal / Il Cobra
One of the rarest and most sought-after Italian holy grail soundtracks ever is finally back from the grave! Originally released in 1966 on Beat Records (45-BT 024), the Kriminal main theme was written by Romano Mussolini (Raymond Full in the opening credits) and Roberto Pregadio for this sleazy crime-pop movie directed by Umberto Lenzi, and based on the cult Italian comic hero. Actually, this could be considered one of the best swinging jazz-beat themes from the 60s, with its wonderful hor…
Carrefour / Sistemo l'America e Torno
The Italian funk god Luis Enriquez Bacalov is celebrated here with this unmissable 7-inch record, featuring two of his grooviest tracks ever: on the A-side, the legendary Carrefour is maybe his funkiest soundtrack piece, here released for the first time in its entirety, with an unexpected introduction via a powerful horn section, which was cut from the original 1976 RCA 7’’. Behold an eternal jazz-funk masterpiece with solid drum breaks and hip hop heavy beats, funky congas, wah wah guitar…
A Farewell Performance
Extracts from the Farewell performance at Kings College, London 1978. Jgjgjgjg formed at the London Sound Poetry Festival in June 1976. Reissue of tape on Balsam Flex. 200 copiesIn those days a number of British poets were producing works influenced by radical international currents in sound art, conceptual art, visual poetry and performance art. Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) was a central figure in this continuation of the ‘British Poetry Revival’, a rather loose poetry movement of the 1960s an…
Napoli Centrale (1975)
Digitally remastered for the first time at 192 khz and 24 bit. Napoli Centrale were formed in Naples in 1974 on the initiative of James Senese (sax, vocals) and Franco Del Prete (drums) after their experience in another band called the Showmen 2. They joined forces with American keyboardist Mark Harris and British bassist Tony Walmsley and in 1975 released an eponymous debut album blending in an original way Mediterranean roots and jazz rock. James Senese’s father was an American soldier who had…
Ji Ameeto
Babils are an atypical Brussels underground band, mixing rock, new wave, psych, kraut, experimental, and repetitive music. Ji Ameeto is the fourth album from Babils. From the duet formed in the late '90s by Gabriel Séverin and Michel Duyck, opening out over the years, the five current members of Babils meet monthly at the Central Laboratory to improvise freely, without any restraint. All the sessions are recorded and archived. The very first album by Babils, The Joint Between, made of a sele…
Songs We Taught the Lord Volume Two
"This album reissues the final recording (thus far) of the Milstein/Moore duo. It was originally released in 1997 by Chris Corsano's Hot Cars Warp Records label. Chris had a choice of this tape -- recorded December 4, 1996 at the Middle East in Cambridge MA -- or the one from the previous night at the Iron Horse in Northampton (FTR 288LP). He chose this one, and the first volume was scheduled to appear on the Ecstatic Yod label. Why it never happened, who knows? Not me! The set was recorde…
Songs We Taught the Lord Volume One
"As I recall, the idea seemed pretty reasonable at the time. It was late 1996. I'd met Fahey a couple of years earlier, and partly as an outgrowth of that meeting he had decided he wanted to meet and play with 'noise musicians.' This resulted in a lot of music that made his olden fans weep, but who was I to argue with The Great Koonaklaster? Anyway, it was late '96 and Fahey wanted to play some gigs on the east coast. He also wanted Thurston to be on the bill with him, and so Mr. Moore asked…
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…
¡Ahora!
At the top of my personal holy grail list for a number of years has been this unobtainable side of Agitprop Musique Concrète by the Composer Ivan Pequeño, composed from 1973-1975 at Paris' Studio de Musique Expérimentale du Centre Americain & at Belgrade's Studio de Musique Electronique du Treci Program-Radio & issued on Aldo Pagani's mythic Eleven label - home of Franco Leprino's "Integrati… Disintegrati", amongst other gems. The A-Side's "¡Ahora!" ("Now!") weaves the Composer's interstitial, c…
Avalanche, Nightmare Music, Suite for Two Pianos and Tape, Compu
Great to see this particular title of purely electronic pieces by Lejaren Hiller in the series; we last heard from him via the piece "Vocalise" on Creel Pone #039, "Electronic Music, Experimental Studios In Prague, Bratislava, Munich ..." but this particular collection, specifically including the otherwise unavailable early tape-music piece "Nightmare Music" (1961), gets into an area of his work that veers straight into the same text-and-electronic-sound miasma as such C.P. classics as Anestis …
Predestination
A-grade, primal bleep from the Academic sector; Rune Lindblad's first & best record - amazingly never available on disc prior to this replica edition - from 1975, originally issued via the Proprius books & records imprint. Listening to this now, eyes closed, I'm amazed at how little progress there's been in the world of analogue electronic music & the organization & compositional sensibilities offered within; some of the timbres sounds wholly contemporary & their working methods perfectly in li…
CANTS DEL TROBADORS: «La Doucer D'Un Son Nouvel»
The Ventadoorn label was set up in 1970 & released over 100 LPs & EP's over the following decade, all centering in on some facet of Lenga d'Oc / "Old" French language & culture. Some of you may be familiar with the 1980 Henry Fourès / Luc Ferrari "Folclòre Imaginari" set - later reissued on Adda as "Ce Qu'a Vu Le Cers" - as one of the label's final releases, but a year prior they issued this absolute masterpiece of a record, merging Occitan folk forms & instrumentation with extended drone-psych…
Underwater Electronic Orchestra
One of the, in retrospect, better constructs of the Creel Pone cabal is that, despite many beliefs to the contrary, it is in fact a committee of semi-like-minded souls, all interested in portraying some aspect of the "Unheralded Electronic Music" canon. Case in point; while I personally wouldn't have included this particular collection of gossamer isolation-tank filigree & majority psychedelic-disco, it was strongly nominated by a number of the Cognoscenti along the way - partly due to its scarc…
Ritratto Di Giovane, Symphonie Pour Un Enfant Seul
One of the true Musique Concrète Holy Grails - alongside Jacques Lejeune's "Fantasmes Ou L'Histoire De Blanche-Neige" & the Jean Schwarz / Jacques Lejeune / Phillip Beetz "Des Musiques Des Sons" set - is this privately issued 3LP boxed set from the husband & wife team of Françoise Barrière & Christian Clozier, consisting of one extended piece by each; Barrière's "Ritratto di Giovane" & Clozier's "Symphonie Pour Un Enfant Seul." Barrière's six-part "Ritratto Di Giovane" - "Le Vieux Clown, "Et Le…
Musical Electro-Alchemy
The only solo outing by "Works of Electronic Music" alumnus Iván Patatich, a collection of six late-70s Electronic works realized at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht & "H'EAR" - the Electronic Music Studio of the Hungarian Radio, including "Antiphons (Antifonák)" (1977), "Calling sounds (Hivó jelek)" (1977), "Ballade" (1976), "Ludus syntheticus" (1977), "Chinese temple with echo (Kínai templom visszhanggal)" (1979), & "Hommage à l'électronique" (1978). Much like the László Dubrovay "Live Ele…
An Electronic Visit To The Zoo, Sound Hypnosis
Closing out a trilogy of releases initially readied by the Harriman, NY powerhouse Spectrum (following the Jack Tamul & William Hoskins titles) is this fantastic set of noisy synthesizer adagios, composed in the late 70s by William Strickland on Moog Modular, Organ, and Four-Channel Tape. Offering a pair of conceptual, side-length suites, a series of exceedingly lo-fi miniatures meets us on the A-Side; "An Electronic Visit to the Zoo" seems to almost ignore its own premise - despite the red-herr…
Collections I, Electronic Music With and Without Instruments
Second title in this 199-x series - itself dedicated to working through titles that had been languishing in limbo in the Creel Pone "nominations" sector for some time while specific "Golden Circle" Cabal members feud bitterly over their possible inclusion - offering the only LP by Scott A. Wyatt, following the fantastic "in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Experimental Music Studios" set. Released at the tail-end of the 1970s on the Academic "University Brass Recordings Series" (UBRES)…
La Trilogie de la Montagne
Gorgeous, three-part Musique Concrète suite, composed at McGill's Electronic Music studio during 1977 & 78 by Quebecois composer Michel Longtin, timbrally presaging much of the FM synthesis-laden work of the early 80s & onwards, acting a bridge between the two sensibilities.