Tuscany
*2023 Repress* Los Angeles based pianist, producer, and songwriter John Carroll Kirby traveled to Pietrasanta, Italy in the summer of 2018 on a self-imposed writing trip. During his stay he composed Tuscany, a two side-long solo piano exploration of this particular geographical envelope, a place where nature is shaped into form.Kirby would cycle 12 kilometers each day to Cascata di Malbacco, a waterfall with jade pools and silver stone, and the inspiration for Side A of Tuscany. His own Cascata …
Continuité, fragilité, résonance
'Continuité, fragilité, résonance' is a 51-minute piece written by Jürg Frey in 2020-2021 for octet: string and saxophone quartets. The Montréal-based Quatuor Bozzini and the Bern-based Konus Quartett premiered the piece in September 2021, and later recorded it for this album with the presence of the composer, during a three-day recording session in August 2022 at the Auditorium of Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland. Both quartets have premiered other works of Frey's in the past and have a d…
L’Occhio Del Vedere
L’Occhio Del Vedere is a one-hour piece by the trio of Giovanni Di Domenico (piano), Silvia Tarozzi (violin, 1/16th of a tone tuned violin), and Emmanuel Holterbach (large frame drum). In July 2022, while Di Domenico was working on an artistic residency at GMEA in Albi, France, he and Tarozzi and Holterbach made a trio recording, which was later completed by Di Domenico as a one-hour piece. Within a ‘triptych’ structure framework, sparse melodies discreetly and repeatedly emerge from the three i…
Encyclopedia of Pitch and Deviation
Matthias Kranebitter has written the odd piece without electronics in the past. However, the use of electronics in his music usually is a given. At the same time, the way in which electronics are employed in his work is anything but a matter of course. They are not simply an instrument amongst others, they don't serve as an atmospheric background, a synthesized ear-tickler, or formal glue which is meant to cover up fractures within the musical material. Rather, they themselves embody such fractu…
Sensational Bliss
"In the past, I was interested in themes of sound, such as, 'new sound', 'expressive sound' and 'metaphoric sound'. In fact, I still enjoy these expressions. However, my obsession with expressing sound itself has decreased, and I instead want to express my feelings, my thoughts and my life, with sound. With this change, I have enjoyed taking a closer look at my temperament, personality, and life, and have tried to display the results through sound. To better articulate myself, I have avoided any…
Music for Film, Sculpture, and Captions
If you enter into the music of Martin Smolka, prepare yourself to come face-to-face with profound and enigmatic conflicts. The music of Martin Smolka resonates straight into the core of a suffocated planet, suffering through unending catastrophes in the political-social spheres. The Aleph Guitar Quartet and soprano Daisy Press present a selection from Smolka's oeuvre that spans almost 25 years.
Moon on the Sea – Sea in the Moon
If you enter into the music of Martin Smolka, prepare yourself to come face-to-face with profound and enigmatic conflicts. The music of Martin Smolka resonates straight into the core of a suffocated planet, suffering through unending catastrophes in the political-social spheres. The Aleph Guitar Quartet and soprano Daisy Press present a selection from Smolka's oeuvre that spans almost 25 years.
A Thing Made Whole
In music, we don't tend to talk about things. We're too concerned about the meaning of the story, about the dynamics of the performance, the reception, the syntax, the gesture, the movement; we're too concerned about how a sound got here, where it came from, how it was made, where it's going and why. We pretend that music is a language. Greenwald asks us to get busy with things. About a minute's worth of material becomes a cycle of seven works, performed in full for the first time on this album …
Spiralis Aurea
Venturing into untapped realms of creative exploration, the Genoa born, Bologna based, guitarist and electroacoustic composer, Stefano Pilia, returns to Die Schachtel with “Spiralis Aurea”, a double LP of material that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind.
Landscapes and Lamentations
“Music and nature have a long and illustrious history together,” writes violinist, composer, improvisor, hiker, Richard Carr. “It’s been done a zillion times, but I can’t fight it anymore. True, I spend more time than most knocking around the woods and winding up and down the trails. Over the course of six decades, I have explored the major mountain ranges of six continents. This has been long enough to witness first-hand the changes that have been so apparent not only to the naked eye but also …
Solastalgia
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 400 copies.* We haven’t found them yet, the words to talk to each other about the worrying signs of climate change. Feeling worried when walking on autumn leaves in the beginning of August should be completely normal. But how do we communicate about it? We don’t want to be just the next hysterical doomer. With this music I try to focus on the climate pain itself, gently inviting the listener to investigate their latent feelings of unease and growing co…
Apophany
If you were to connect seemingly unrelated things – Heavy Metal and the symphony orchestra, for example – you might be guilty of apophenia. That friction between opposites has never been a problem for Nick Vasallo, though – his music is equally at home in both worlds. Melding Xenakis, Varese, Extreme Metal, and Dark Ambient with gothic charm, Vasallo conjures up a muscular sonic battle that leads you on an inexorable musical journey to a conclusion where surrender is your best option. Catharsis …
Ugnayan
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* An important discovery of the original 1974 recording of a Maceda masterpiece! Recorded as 20 channels broadcast simultaneously on all of Manila's radio stations to the population gathered in public spaces with hand-held transistor radios, Ugnayan was a massive production supported by the Marcos regime intended to meld values of indigenous Filipino culture with modernist aesthetics. Though politically problematic and largely misunderstood, the effort involvi…
Stay On It
In 1973, avant-garde ensemble Creative Associates goes on a tour of Europe with Eastman’s brand new piece in their repertoire, and in short: “Stay on It” turns the coordinates of avant-garde music on its head. It is minimal, but unashamedly groovy; it is open to improvisation, grants performers all the freedom they could need, but it isn’t jazz and never slips into the non-committal. It is open to theatrical and performative elements, but also to the poetic and lyrical. It is strict and demands …
Strangely Familiar
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Jazz legend Karl Berger is best known for his vibes and piano playing and for founding, with Ornette Coleman and Ingrid Sertso, the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY, in 1972. He has also had a full career in the classical realm, earning a doctorate in musicology, serving as professor of composition at Frankfurt Hochschule, and as chair of the music department at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Strangely Familiar: 17 Miniatures for Piano Sol…
Drone And Melody
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* This is the second Tzadik release of music by one of the most original and under-appreciated composers of the twentieth century. With his passing in 2004, several of his most passionate musical collaborators have been continuing José Maceda’s legacy and they come together here to present his most ambitious and greatest large scale work—Strata. Beautifully recorded In Manila at the University of the Philippines directed by Maceda’s long-time collaborator Ramô…
Sextet & Double Sextet
*Limited Edition of 500 copies. 2022 stock.* "This release couples two of Reich’s “sextets” for the first time: the Sextet of 1984 and the Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet of 2007. A striking difference between the two pieces is that the rhythmic world of Sextet mostly consists of a single-meter grooving, while Double Sextet works in the angular, off-kilter shifting meters reminiscent of Reich’s Tehillim (also of Stravinsky). Ekkozone impart a uniquely chamber music feel and color to these w…
Classical Works
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* David Shea's sampling technique manages to be both one of the most innovative experiments in classical music and, at the same time, one of the most conservative uses of pre-recorded music. As the first piece on his Classical Works collection, "Chamber Symphony #1" highlights his unique process. The recording is the result of an original performance by the Brussels-based Ictus Ensemble, a 16-member chamber orchestra. The ensemble contributed to the recording …
Dilin Dalan
*2022 stock* Ongi, Welcome, Dilin Dalan, Oyez, Sing good people in this encounter with pure tradition, ethnomusicological travel, sound transformation and electroacoustics! The ancestral percussion, Txalaparta, rediscovered by the Artze brothers, dialogue with those of the orchestra and those of Alex Grillo's MIDI xylophone connected to a sampler. Befiat Axiary's singing is inspired as much by tradition as by contemporary creation, both in spirit and in form.
Mixtur 2003 Vorwärtsversion
*2022 Stock.* This recording of an updated version of Mixtur (for 5 ring-modulated orchestra groups, orig. 1964/67) features the Deutsche-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, conducted by Wolfgang Lischke. In contrast to the original, graphic notation-based version of Mixtur (on The Stockhausen Edition no. 8), all of the orchestra parts for the updated 2003 version are completely notated.- Stockhausenspace.blogspot.com