We Share a Shadow
Murmer is the pseudonym for Patrick McGinley, a man with several passports which have taken him to many a foreign land in search of found sounds of the unsettled, the forgotten, the mysterious, and the beautiful. His field recordings of activated environments (e.g. resonant industrial spaces, windswept telephone lines, bowed branches, gasping ventilator systems, etc.) originate from all of the locations where he has traveled; yet, the documentation of these sounds is not the terminus of McGinley…
Samoa Highway
**Edition of 500** RV Paintings were born in California. Humboldt County, to be exact. It is nearly impossible to imagine their origins being elsewhere since the brothers Brian and Jon Pyle, who currently pilot RV Paintings, constantly mine the metaphysical properties of their homeland through a heavy-lidded psychedelia. The redwood trees that majestically rise from the rugged terrain may have been one of the endemic objects that inspired RV Paintings to “jam nature”; but Humboldt County’s other…
Toho Sara
Black Editions present a reissue of Toho Sara's self-titled album, originally released in 1995. A mystifying work of Japanese avant-garde shamanism, Toho Sara's 1995 debut introduced a radical new sound from Asahito Nanjo (High Rise), Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), and Hisashi Yasuda - playing an array of ancient instruments including tabla, piri, harmonium, biwa, shakujo, and hansho the group evokes an otherworldly ritual music, meditative and haunting. Originally released on CD by P.S.…
Apparition Paintings
Maybe these titles, torn as they are from cinema screens and the pages of literature and philosophy, give a feeling of romantic or sexual love or some dark pool of nostalgia but that’s not it, or it could be if you want it for yourself but not for me, not now; for me it’s about the teeming proliferation of complex events in the world, their vivid, hyperreal intensity as this human life steps closer to its end and their sense of fading, like a mist that thins out to leave not a clear bright day b…
Not Fire
Not Fire is the first album from Berlin-based songwriter Dean Roberts in 12 years, and his comeback arrives during apocalyptic times. It’s not an album about someone who’s found hope or love despite everything; Roberts sounds exhausted, and his album is as ugly and as bleak as life often is. For those who’ve been in the pits and succumbed to self-destructive nihilism, Not Fire is a reminder of how hellish it all can be.
Sonically, Not Fire is murky and battered and melancholy. Guitars clang ince…
Phantoms of Place
**Edition of 200 copies, black and silver screen-printed sleeve, housed in a heavy duty library style plastic sleeve with re-sealable strap flap** Timber Rattle's most cohesive and essential release, 'Phantoms of Place' is an exploration of physical space, place and tradition, and an interpretation of life and death in the arcane wild. Timber rattle is a kind of "pyche-pastoral" hymnal which seems to be as informed by noise shows in west coast basements or the revolutionary spirit of poet Jean G…
Intuitive Mathematics
“Intuitive Mathematics” is illustrative improvisation registered with the use of percussion instruments amplified by piezoelectric sensors and an instrument I constructed myself called the Soundboard. I mounted metal springs, screws and tongues onto a pine board. Highly enhanced piezo amplification brings all sounds closer to the audience’s ears and allows them to hear rich harmonies of the percussion set as well as “non-musical” elements such as friction, shrieking or vibrations that occur insi…
Pedestal’s Complement
Pedestal's Complement is a recording of a concert from the Ambient Festival in Gorlice, which took place in July 2019. "All our performances are pure improvisation from scratch. I use the piano and the guitar, on which I play the e-bow bow. A lot of the sounds come from inside the piano, which is prepared. Jurek supports the Eurorack and Buchla modular system" - Andrzej Karałow.