Out of stock
4 CD box
Adam PACIONE
“Any Way, Shape, or Form”
Adam Pacione's finely crafted, deeply affecting drone work has found its place in the upper echelon of modern ambient artistry. Once heard, the gorgeous fluidity of his music is instantly recognizable.
Now, an absolutely crucial addition to Pacione's relatively slim oeuvre is here, offering more than four hours of aural color and visual sound from a master of the medium. "Any Way, Shape, or Form," a stunning 4CD box set, compiles all the material from Pacione’s "Still Life" series of 3" CDRs, originally offered via monthly subscription throughout 2009 and now long out of print. The late night ambient/drone sessions in this set were pulled from recordings made from 1999-2009, many of which originally served as soundtracks to Pacione’s photography exhibitions in galleries throughout Texas. These recordings have been meticulously remastered and two previously unreleased tracks from this period have been added, resulting in an absolute must-have for aficionados of haunting, textural, electronic music.
Pacione’s work largely centers around early Portastudio tape loop experiments, synthesizers, samples, and processed field recordings that gradually decompress to form a hypnotic serenade of becalmed tones. After years of experimentation, his first releases appeared in 2004, leading up to his proper debut album, "Sisyphus," a year later. By this time, Pacione's name was becoming synonymous with lush, atmospheric sonances of the highest caliber. His reputation strengthened even more with his next full-length, 2007's masterful "From Stills to Motion," which fully delivered on the promise of his earlier efforts. Since then, Pacione has stayed active with performances and recordings (see 2020's excellent digital-only "Mâché"). His physical output has been sparse over the last decade or so, however, and copies of the earlier releases are now quite scarce. "Any Way, Shape, or Form" then is particularly essential in making this vital section of Pacione's discography widely available for the first time.
The sixteen tracks included here are mostly long-form pieces: contemplative soundscapes evolving at a deliberate pace. There is an inherent spaciousness in these works; sounds are free to move and breathe as they shift between tension and tranquility. These extended audial ruminations allow Pacione to examine and subtly emphasize the details of each arrangement. And these details have been brought into sharp focus by the rigorous mastering job executed by renowned sound artist Alex Keller: a drifting haze sharply underscored by a biting frost.
In addition to the peerless audio in this set is a 20-page booklet reproducing all of Pacione's photography from the original CDRs as well as several previously unpublished images. These truly are the visual equivalents of his recordings: otherworldly snapshots of a stylized vision of nature, neither artificial nor entirely organic but a harmonious amalgamation. These rich photographs are somehow both crisply intricate and dreamily impressionistic: the ideal accompaniment for Pacione's evocative sound, perfectly rounding out his world-building.
This beautiful artefact is simply a rare pleasure for the senses. And a welcome reintroduction to Adam Pacione's singular aesthetic. A treasure not to be missed.
32,00€
Out of stock
2 CD
Bob BELLERUE
“Radioactive Desire”
"The music is intense on every level, and there is a great underlying tension in these pieces, a mysterious force if you will."
- Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly
Recorded on the hottest days in the longest year, "Radioactive Desire" is a work for free chamber music in feedback environments. Simple improvisational structures gave focus to the exquisite playing of the musicians, and the performers were physically located within speakers of varying sizes to create multidimensional feedback systems.
It is a project borne of feedback between speakers and instruments, but the context in which it came to fruition demonstrated the deep interconnections between people and systems of collaboration. The project was a way to activate musical signals with the push and pull of chthonic energy, yet we felt and lived that in the improvisation of our lives to a more visceral extent than we may have ever thought possible. Working with these sounds, processes, and ideas provided substance and process for me to work through these difficult times.
Bob Bellerue is a sound artist, experimental musician, sound/video curator, and creative technician based in Ridgewood NY. Over the last 30+ years he has been involved in creating and presenting a wide range of sonic activities – experimental music, sound art, noise, junk metal percussion ensembles, soundtracks for dance/ theater/ video/ performance art, and sound / video installations. Bob’s electronic sound work is focused on resonant feedback systems, using amplified instruments, objects, recordings, and spaces, in combination with electronics and software written in the Supercollider audio synthesis programming language.
Bob works as an audio engineer and technical director, working presently for Issue Project Room, and a handful of clients in the NYC area once the coast is clear.
16,00€
In stock
CD
Matt SHOEMAKER
“Mercurial Horizon”
Previously unheard brilliance from the late Matt Shoemaker.
Work on "Mercurial Horizon" was largely completed during an incredibly fruitful period from 2008-2012, during which Shoemaker produced albums for The Helen Scarsdale Agency, Ferns Recordings, Mystery Sea, and Elevator Bath. He went on to finalize the material which would become "Mercurial Horizon" in 2015.
Though unreleased until some five years after completion, "Mercurial Horizon" is undeniably a fully-formed declaration; a meticulously crafted display of layered grotesqueries, as elegant as it is disturbing. This is classic Shoemaker at his most mesmeric: elongated metallic resonances, metamorphosed field recordings, expertly harnessed modular electronics... These elements may seem familiar, but Shoemaker's strange magic lay in his ability to imbue these disparate pieces with a kind of natural tension, fusing them into a seamless puzzle. The results are both startling and beautiful, and always with a tangible sense of unease.
"Mercurial Horizon" may well be the last new music to emerge from Matt Shoemaker's extraordinary aesthetic. It is an assemblage to be explored, interpreted, and treasured.
"Mercurial Horizon" is released as a compact disc by Elevator Bath in an edition of 200 copies. Matt Shoemaker's probing and mysterious ice photography graces the six-panel digipak, inside and out.
14,50€
Out of stock
LP
Masami AKITA
“Wattle”
Elevator Bath’s series of picture disc LPs (each record being adorned with full-color artwork by the recording artist) comes to its conclusion with a top-notch new release from the great Masami Akita.
“Wattle” is a new, two-part composition featuring Akita’s traditional soup of unidentifiable metallic clanging, crushing feedback, jagged white noise, and various effects. It does not disappoint. There are no drums, no guitars, no vocals; just scorching electronic mayhem of the highest quality.
The colorful images here are based on photographs shot and subtly manipulated by Masami Akita, who sends the following message: “Turkey is beautiful animal and do not eat them.” Agreed.
Masami Akita is, of course, the artist behind the seminal, vegan, straight edge, noise project, Merzbow. He lives in Tokyo.
This picture disc LP has been released in an edition of 270 copies.
Original price was: 22,00€.12,00€Current price is: 12,00€.
In stock
LP + 7"
Tom RECCHION
“Proscenium”
“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, sounding wholly unfamiliar and yet like no one’s but Tom Recchion’s. Proscenium’s six pieces mostly began life as music for puppeteer Janie Geiser’s play “Invisible Glass,” an adaptation of Poe’s “William Wilson”. The play’s intricate beauty and the story’s moody confusion have been perfectly mirrored and expanded on by Recchion who used that inspiration as a leaping off point for Proscenium’s rich and surprising compositions.
Tom Recchion has been a sound and visual artist - composer - art director and graphic designer in California since the 1970s. He is the co-creator of the legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) and has collaborated with David Toop, Christian Marclay, Oren Ambarchi, Keiji Haino, and Max Eastley, among many others. Though Proscenium’ is only his fourth proper album as a solo artist, Recchion has had many recordings released by labels such as Birdman, Touch, PSF, RRR, Idea, Staubgold, and the Cortical Foundation. He also occasionally writes for The Wire magazine. Tom Recchion lives in California.
“Proscenium” consists of one 180-gram virgin vinyl LP inside a black poly-lined sleeve, plus 7” record, each with five-color labels, housed in a full-color gatefold jacket. Included with each copy of this set is a full-color download card featuring access to high-quality MP3s of the complete contents of the vinyl records. This package has been issued in an edition of 500 copies.
25,00€
In stock
LP
Jim HAYNES
“Flammable Materials from Foreign Lands”
“Flammable Materials from Foreign Lands” has been issued as a clear vinyl LP with gorgeous matte-finish jackets featuring artwork by Jim Haynes. Mastered by James Plotkin, it has been released in a limited edition of 300 copies.
The new LP from Jim Haynes is a haunted and provocative endeavor, rust-covered and mysterious. It is the result of an immersive listening/recording process through which Haynes’ singular techniques intersected with an unfamiliar, disquieting landscape…
“The album was mostly composed, recorded, and sketched during an Estonian residency at MoKS for a program that was hosted by Simon Whetham and John Grzinich called Active Crossover. The goal of that program was to bring together various artists whose work pertained directly or indirectly to environmental recordings. When John asked me about what kinds of spaces I was interested in seeking out before I arrived, I mentioned that I would like to investigate sites that had a considerable amount of electro-magnetic disruption which I could capture on radio along with sites of psychic distress.
The Estonian landscape is pocked with abandoned buildings of considerable size and decay. Many of the excursions for Active Crossover engaged the large crumbling Soviet-era structures. Given that the electricity was off in many of these sites, I had to rely on shortwave to capture any electro-magnetic disruptions instead of any fluctuations from shitty wiring or weird Soviet power transformers... and the radio reception from that particular time and that particular place (i.e. southeastern Estonia) was eerie and unsettled. The crackle, drone, and noise is unlike that which is heard in the United States, looming with a (possibly perceived) paranoia of the Russian state just a few kilometers away. That said, Estonia had experienced an encroachment from Russia as the Russian military kidnapped/extradited an Estonian intelligence officer who was on Estonian soil at the time not too far from where I was staying. Given the contemporary military actions of Russia reclaiming Crimea from Ukraine, this incident put many an Estonian on edge.
The A-side to 'Flammable Materials' reflects this aestheticized paranoia through bursts of static, pulsed noise, and atonal sinews of sustained frequency. The B-side is wholly more introspective, cutting up an Estonian radio broadcast into phonemes, disjointed phrases, and cryptic speech. What few words that can be recognized from the Estonian pertain to the forces of globalization. From the context of someone who understands very little of the language, these snippets of a female voice clip like a surrealist collage or a Dada poem. Compositionally, I was thinking very much of Robert Ashley’s “Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon” and the Nurse With Wound recontextualization of such sounds.” - Jim Haynes
Based in California, Jim Haynes has exhibited internationally at the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art, the Lausanne Underground Film Festival, the Berkeley Art Museum, WestSpace (Melbourne, Australia), and Diapason (New York). Recorded media has been published through Editions Mego, Ghostly International, Drone Records, Hooker Vision, Intransitive, Semperflorens, Elevator Bath, and The Helen Scarsdale Agency. He has also been awarded residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (California), Recombinant Media Labs (California), Jack Straw Productions (Seattle), and MoKS (Estonia). He has participated in a number of fruitful collaborations with Loren Chasse, Keith Evans, Steven Stapleton, and M.S. Waldron. Until 2015, Haynes was the Vice President and Curatorial Director for 23five Incorporated, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and increased awareness of sound arts within the public arena. He is also the lone occupant at The Helen Scarsdale Agency.
22,00€
In stock
LP
Adam PACIONE
“Dobranoc”
“Dobranoc” contains more than 40 minutes of new music utilizing field recordings, guitars, shortwave radio, analog keyboards & Moog filters. Haunting and yet serene, overflowing with contemplative and melodic tones, these are mostly long-form pieces: “Always” builds slowly into a monolithic block of sound, while in the title track, layer after layer of warm atmosphere appears and then unravels into a sea of tranquility. This is three-dimensional music, strikingly elegant, from a modern master of the art. This picture disc LP is adorned with Pacione’s lovely full-color macro photography circa 1995. The colorful sounds and images are bound together into a unified abstraction, dreamlike in its beauty. Adam Pacione has been a fixture in the upper echelon of ambient drone for the last five years with releases on Elevator Bath, Infraction, and his own Bee Eater Recordings imprint. Pacione is also a highly skilled photographer with solo exhibitions and nearly a lifetime of experience under his belt. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas. This picture disc LP has been released in an edition of 268 copies.”
8,00€
Out of stock
2 CD
Francisco LÓPEZ
“Machines”
“Elevator Bath is extremely pleased to present this new 2 CD set of thematically-linked works from Francisco López, still unquestionably one of the major figures of contemporary experimental music. "Machines" collects four pieces recorded from 2004-2007, each of which is based upon sounds of machinery (clocks, elevators, and various laboratory and factory equipment) gathered, respectively, in Amsterdam, Leipzig, Barcelona, and Riga. Yes, these compositions are permeated by an “industrial” sound, but these are very subtle arrangements, even with a wide dynamic scope and with silence playing a lesser role than in much of López’ output. There is a strong rhythmic presence in these recordings, heavy with the weight of machinery. Thick sounds held in crisp clarity. Blindfold or no, "Machines" offers an involving listening experience, drawing the listener deep into the various locales of its sources. And with a running time of more than two and a half hours, this is a substantial and important addition to the world of absolute concrète music by one of the most distinguished and distinctive artists in the field. Packaged inside an elegant printed sleeve with a fold-out insert featuring color photography by the composer. Printed with soy-based ink on 100% recycled paper. This double compact disc set has been issued in an edition of 500 copies.”
20,00€