Reissues
Song Books
Works for voices & electronics, performed by Lore Lixenberg, Gregory Rose, and Robert Worby. Recorded in 2012. "This year, 2012, the maverick American experimental composer John Cage would have been 100 years old. He defined experimental music in the 1930s and, since that time, his ideas, his music and his work have been copied by hundreds of other composers and musicians time and time and time again. Anybody who claims to make experimental music today has to acknowledge their debt to John …
Songs Of Flowers & Skin
Doomgaze. Is that a thing? In ancient times "Songs Of Flowers & Skin" might have done time on 4AD, Creation, or even Sarah. Except of course, for the slender demonic tail woven into the melodies, which would have left a smoldering pile of pointy shoes in its wake. Though the tracks here are not metal, there is no lacking of heavy. The songs (yes, songs) simmer to a point just below explosion. Aidan chooses to excavate with atmosphere in lieu of caterwauling electricity, filling the spaces…
La Novia
2012 gatefold, colored-vinyl reissue of one of the most sophisticated and respectable releases in the AMT canon; originally released by Eclipse in 2000. "The sprawling 40 minute title track is based on an Occitanian folk tune, and the unearthly acoustic opening with its overtone singing sounds like something that might have made its way onto a Werner Herzog soundtrack. Indeed, once the guitars come in and the band stoke up their mighty drone, the effect is that of an amped up Popul Vuh, the Germ…
The Seal Of The Blue Lotus
180-gram vinyl, Tip-on cover. Originally released on John Fahey's Takoma Records in 1965, The Seal Of The Blue Lotus is the debut album from American guitar soli legend Robbie Basho. In college Basho immersed himself in the study of Asian art and culture, even changing his last name to that of the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, and his music shows a much greater Eastern influence than contemporaries like John Fahey and Peter Lang. Basho was particularly entranced by the raga form which is apparent …
Vibracathedral Orchestra
Public service reissue of this impossibly rare and choice title in the Vibra oeuvre, originally issued by the band in 2004 as an edition of 250. Featuring the “classic” lineup (Mick Flower, Neil Campbell, Bridget Hayden, Adam Davenport, Julian Bradley) that made “Queen of Guess” (vhf#77) and “Dabbling With Gravity and Who You Are” (vhf#66), this self-titled double takes a wild ride through the inner-workings of VCO’s stream of consciousness.
Many of the tracks (selected from research & dev…
Street Musicians Of Yogyakarta
Another amazing Mississippi reissue. Old style tip-on jacket with extensive liner notes and bonus 7"** " In 1978 Jack Body recorded an amazing amount of street musicians in java. His ear was geared not just towards traditional folk forms of music but also to all the new hybrids of pop street music. Here we find a mix of his recordings that really cannot by classified easily. Influences on the music include Bollywood soundtracks, American rock & pop, Javanese traditional songs & modern gam…
The Black Ark
Recorded in 1969 and released in 1973 by Freedom Records, is one of the monumental second generation free jazz recordings, and sadly a very difficult LP to get hold of. One of free jazz's more enigmatic figures, alto saxophonist Noah Howard has been documented so infrequently on record. Now based in Brussels, Noah has been blowing for over 30 years. Born In New Orleans in 1943, Noah started playing on trumpet (the instrument he played in the military during the early 60s), but moved on to the al…
John Cage Shock Vol. 2
Volume 2 in EM Records' John Cage Shock series lifts off with a fiery example of David Tudor's piano virtuosity, his mastery of dynamics well-evident in a performance of Klavierstücke X (1961) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The titular shock of this series is delivered even more forcefully with the next piece, John Cage's 26'55.988" for 2 Pianists and a String Player (1961), which was first performed the year before in Darmstadt by Tudor and Kenji Kobayashi, a combination of two of Cage's solo piece…
John Cage Shock Vol. 3
The final CD of the John Cage Shock series features John Cage's 0'00" (1962), also referred to as 4'33" No. 2, performed by the composer, with daily activities such as writing and drinking coffee amplified by contact microphones into sonic abstraction, following the score's directions: "with maximum amplification (no feedback), perform a disciplined action." Next is Composition II for 2 Pianos (1960/1961) by Michael von Biel, lovely and sparse, performed by David Tudor and Toshi Ichiyanagi. …
John Cage Shock Vol. 1
In October 1962, John Cage and his great interpreter/co-visionary David Tudor visited Japan, performing seven concerts and exposing listeners to new musical worlds. This legendary "John Cage Shock," as it was dubbed by the critic Hidekazu Yoshida, is the source of this series of releases -- three CDs and a "best hits" double LP compilation. Recorded primarily at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo on October 24, 1962 (with two performances from October 17 at Mido-Kaikan in Osaka), all recordin…
Live
* Edition of 200 * Convergence was formed in 1976 (and disbanded around 1980), with written music for the ensemble scarce, improvisational sessions became more frequent. Their first few concerts at The Music Gallery had a somewhat haphazard and random mix of students, some of whom didn’t quite get the notion of free improv. Recorded live at the Music Gallery in September 1979, their instrumentation includes trumpet, trombone, piano, percussion, home-made instruments and toy instruments, which p…
Shock
Special 2LP version of EM Records' John Cage Shock series, compiled from the three CD releases. Featured works: 26'55.988" for 2 Pianists and a String Player, Piano Music #7, 0'00", Variations II. Performers include: David Tudor, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Kenji Kobayashi, Yoko Ono and John Cage. Includes rare photos and liner notes in Japanese and English, plus commentary by Toshi Ichiyanagi. In October 1962 John Cage and his great interpreter/co-visionary David Tudor visited Japan, performing seven …
Aum
A mix of eastern and western styles, acoustic and electric instruments and musique concrete, the German-born Georg Deuter has been sharing his unique style with the world since an early brush with death prompted him to pursue a music career in 1970. Over the years Deuter, who now lives in Santa Fe, has followed his own spiritual path around the globe, releasing dozens of albums in the New Age genre, his most recent being 2010's Mystery Of Light. 1972's Aum, originally released on the Germ…
Con-Struct
When M=Minimal asked Andreas Reihse to produce a Con-Struct album for them, he didn't hesitate to accept. Andreas Reihse, member of Kreidler and solo artist is one of the most important representatives of the post-Kraut generation, he also knows and loves the music of Conrad Schnitzler. The result is this second Con-Struct album. The composition "Con-Struct 9" opens this work with epic spheres -- deep electronic music that only can be produced being an admirer of Conrad's sound aesthetics. …
Normalette Surprise
180 gram LP version. 1980 the zeitgeist played into the right hands. And who held the aces? In Bureau B's game, Moritz R®, Frank Fenstermacher and Pyrolator aka Der Plan. Tired of convention and full of enthusiasm, they encountered an audience who felt just the same. And with record companies too ponderous to sign up Der Plan, the wonderful Ata Tak label was born of necessity. Normalette Surprise is the second album by Der Plan, released in 1981, a good year after their Geri Reig debut. It i…
I Love It When You Snore
Mats Gustafsson is perhaps the pre-eminent saxophonist of this post-free jazz/improv era. A perfect combination of Peter Brotzmann's fiery passion, Evan Parker's extended technique and Ken Vandermark's willingness to explode genre boundaries, Gustafsson's discography spans over two decades and sports numerous must-hear recordings with a long laundry list of collaborators, including such luminaries as Brotzmann, Vandermark, Joe McPhee, Jim O'Rourke, Derek Bailey, Sonic Youth and The Ex. Illustrio…
New Sights, Old Sounds
A much-needed reissue of Derek Bailey's 1978 2-CD Japanese release on the Morgue label, the first disc a series of studio improvisations and the second presenting two live performances in Nagoya and Kalavinka.Recorded and originally issued in Japan in 1978, the contents of this two-disc set quickly became something of a collector's item as the album quickly went out of print. Happily, the master tapes were reacquired for release on Incus in 2002, providing further documentation of a rich portion…
Proscenium
** 500 copies ** Tom Recchion’s Proscenium, released by Elevator Bath, is a beautiful piece of ambient/drone that was originally created for Janie Geiser’s play, Invisible Glass. Proscenium is a subtle and remarkably controlled collection of atmospheres. The air of mystery, deliberate pacing, the deep tones and unidentified sounds of Recchion's 2006 album Sweetly Doing Nothing have been explored even further here. It's a logical development but the results are unexpected and strikingly original,…
Love God, Love One Another
Black Humor was an experimental rock band from San Francisco in the early 80's. (Not to be confused with "blackhumor," alias of noise artist Frazer Hall.) They released just one, very hard to find LP on Fowl Records in 1982. Only 1,000 records were pressed, each with unique handmade covers: thick slabs of paint, collage, parrot feathers, dirt, whatever else happened to be laying around their Tenderloin flat. Many of these have since gone for high, collector prices or ended up in oblivion.…
Rock And Other Four Letter Words
This New York based duo released their one and only LP in 1968 on Columbia Masterworks, just months after Zappa released Lumpy Gravy in California. Although the 2 projects have some superficial similarity in structure, it would seem that this later LP must have been made (at least largely), without any knowledge of the Zappa masterpiece. Another reference point might be The United States Of America who also released their LP in1968.Originally released simultaneously with Terry Riley's In C and …