Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learnign by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Achim Wollscheid is a media artist whose work over the past 20 years has been at the forefront of experimental music. He has performed and presented installation projects internationally. His work in sound has led to an interest in the relation between sound, light and architectural space, which he pursues through public, interactive and electronic projects. He is a founding member of Selektion, an organisation for the production and distribution of information systems. Achim also forms the collective S.B.O.T.H.I., derivated from a research from the 40s: Sexual Behaviour Of The Human Infant, later renamed to Swimming Behaviour Of The Human Infant. During a period of seven years Achim Wollscheid developed several concepts for a computer-based interactive installation in the law court of Frankfurt (Germany): resolving interactions: the Frankfurt lawcourt projects. The book documents considerations and the work’s progress which developed between the architectural, social, bureaucratic, technical and artistic systems as well as the results, in 2001. Recently, when Asmus Tietchens needed space in his Hamburg flat, he went through boxes in his cupboard and found a recording credited to himself and Achim Wollscheid. It turned out to be an album originally recorded 20 years ago for the Ritornell label (Mille Plateaux) that was, for reasons unknown now, shelved and forgotten. Over twenty years later, we are now happy to finally share this album with you.
Geins't Naït was founded in Nancy, France, in 1986 by Thierry Merigout and Vincent Hachet, both students at the Architecture School of Nancy. A year later Laurent Petitgrand joined the band. Their sound is often described as an equivalent of bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil or Test Dept., but Geins't Naït is not pure classic Industrial. While Geins't Naït offers rough pieces of music as an extension of its punk attitude, Petitgand refines them to create some musicality within the post-industrial collages, adding guitars, piano, and classical instruments. Geins't Naït and Laurent Petitgand sharpen sounds, giving them a kind of balance and density and ensuring that the musical language evokes a deep experience. Their music is raw and fascinating, and largely influenced by Surrealists and Situationists. Their early albums were released by French label Permis De Construire. A Consommer Sans Moderation was originally released on cassette on American label Subterranean Subliminal Subversion Music and was remastered for CD by Martin Bowes of Attrition.
Etant Donnes is a French duo named after Marcel Duchamp's last major work. The group consists of brothers Marc and Eric Hurtado, born in Morocco and working mainly as performance artists and musicians. Their sound can be described as a mix of field recordings, found sounds and sometimes whispered, sometimes violent vocals. They describe their sounds like this: "Through Marc and Eric, it is the volume of each word that becomes an object-sculpture, together with the power of their bodies expressing their voices. Each event is a scream - indeed even the glissando - of the strength of the word that sometimes abruptly becomes a rock, a solid surface, not in the least fluvial, as is the narrative of a tale, novel or poetic epic. With both of them, there is no more trace of ancient prosodies, no more trace of the incomprehensible Sainte-Beuve who could claim: "I have to collect a volume of prose". The word, the voice, the volume take shape with each other, unveiling a theatre that theatre usually ignores, which has given it such things as a Samuel Beckett's Fin de Partie." Over the years Etant Donnes have collaborated with people like Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira, Alan Vega and Genesis P-Orridge. Les Cents Jours Clairs was the group's sixth album and was originally released on Bain Total in 1984.
With solid training as a classical musician, Sophie Agnel took a close interest in modern jazz before committing in the early Nineties to the shifting, deliciously uncertain ground of free improvisation, thanks to her fascination for the powers of expression displayed by a few great keyboard-heretics such as Keith Tippett, Fred Van Hove or Christine Wodrascka. She began reworking the prepared piano techniques imagined by John Cage and transformed her instrument into a sort of extended piano. Coming from a Punk music background Joke Lanz started in the mid 80s to play Experimental- and Noise music. Best known for his internationally acclaimed project Sudden Infant, Lanz is presenting his work since 30 years all over the world. Born in Switzerland and currently operating out of Berlin, he is one of the most prolific and profound artists working in the border zones where performance and body art meet Improvisation and Noise. Agnel and Lanz have performed stunning live shows as a duo, now their debut album is coming out on Klanggalerie. Turntables and piano, a unique combination that is a lot of fun!
Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learnign by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years.
Alice Freshmouth is an anagram project by Tom Fleischhauer. Tom plays guitar and bass and has worked as producer, live sound engineer, booker, promoter and composer. Him and Asmus have been friends for over 40 years, they regularly meet in Hamburg, either as musicians or attending concerts. When Tom played Asmus his most recent musical compositions, the two decided that their work was not completely compatible, but shows enough similar approach to start a spontaneous collaboration. Soon afterwards first ideas were exchanged and half a year later an album was born. Both musicians think that there is equal measure of each of them to be heard on this CD.
Born April 1966, in Marseille, Jérôme Noetinger discovered experimental music under the influence of the Déficit Des Années Antérieures in Caen. He is a composer/improviser/sound artist working with electroacoustic devices. Composing sometimes musique concrete in the studio, and performing improvised music using electroacoustic devices such as: the reel to reel tape recorder Revox B77 and magnetic tape, analogue synthesizers, mixing desks, speakers, microphones, various electronic household objects and home-made electronica. Performing both solo and in ensembles, and collaborating often, and touring extensively internationally. Jerome also used to be the director of Metamkine, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the distribution of improvised and electroacoustic music, which has now been changed to Corticalart with a different personnel.
Angélica Castelló was born in Mexico City in 1972. She works as composer and sound artist. Her compositions concentrate on fragility, the dreamworld and the subconscious. Angelica performs continuously solo or in cooperations everywhere between Mexico City and Vienna. Numerous compositions for ensembles, radio works as well as installations that operate at the interface of music, performance and visual arts make up her body of work. She has several releases on labels like Interstellar records, Mikroton recordings or Monotype records.
In February 2023, Disturbio cross France and Switzerland for a series of nine concerts expressing their highly cinematic art of sound. And to spice up the tour, they invite other musician friends to join them on certain dates: Aude Romary, cello, Antoine Läng, voice and jaw harp, Mathias Forge, cello and cassettes, Natacha Muslera, voice. Four personalities, four captivating performances. The duo Disturbio lives as a constellation of samples and loops, radios and field recordings, on cassettes and tapes, with magical, diaphanous voices hidden away, not forgetting the tremors of a flute on magnetic captures.
Flute, Tapes, Electronics, Artwork – Angélica Castelló
Layout – Lisa Robotka
Mastered By – Taku Unami
Recorded By – Benjamin Ephise, Benjamin Pagier, Emmanuel Lalande
Revox, Tapes, Electronics, Recorded By, Edited By – Jérôme Noetinger
Etant Donnes is a French duo named after Marcel Duchamp's last major work. The group consists of brothers Marc and Eric Hurtado, born in Morocco and working mainly as performance artists and musicians. Their sound can be described as a mix of field recordings, found sounds and sometimes whispered, sometimes violent vocals. They describe their sounds like this: "Through Marc and Eric, it is the volume of each word that becomes an object-sculpture, together with the power of their bodies expressing their voices. Each event is a scream - indeed even the glissando - of the strength of the word that sometimes abruptly becomes a rock, a solid surface, not in the least fluvial, as is the narrative of a tale, novel or poetic epic. With both of them, there is no more trace of ancient prosodies, no more trace of the incomprehensible Sainte-Beuve who could claim: "I have to collect a volume of prose". The word, the voice, the volume take shape with each other, unveiling a theatre that theatre usually ignores, which has given it such things as a Samuel Beckett's Fin de Partie." Over the years Etant Donnes have collaborated with people like Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira, Alan Vega and Genesis P-Orridge. Cinq Portes Soudées was the band's fifth album, originally released on Die Form's Bain Total label in 1984 on cassette only. For this CD re-issue we have added a long bonus track not on the original album.
Massimo Toniutti is an Italian sound designer and experimental musician. He is the brother of Giancarlo Toniutti who is best known for his electroacoustic masterpiece La Mutazione which was originally released on the Broken Flag label in the UK and later re-issued by Klanggalerie. Massimo started working with sound when he was a teenager, collecting and playing recordings of all kinds. In the 1980s he released four cassettes on his own label, all heavily influenced by the experimental music scene of that time. He soon developed a strong relation to electroacoustic structures, space/environment and silence. In the 1990s, he began investigating radio, creating his own sound archive and producing unusual broadcasts. He released an album entitled Il Museo Selvatico, which was re-issued in Australia in 2018 on Oren Ambarchi's label Black Truffle. A documentation of his radio work can be heard on the CD Le Gabbiette Di Faraday, collecting radio pieces from 1996 to 1998. On his new album, Toniutti deals once more with space and silence with an immersive, spacious long track. A loose-knit sound structure moves in a cyclic but unpredictable way embracing macro shapes, empty spaces and sound dust. While running crystal clear it invites you to observe it in depth and focus on distances. Details/events are spread along the piece like in a landscape, still and changing at the same time. A deep listening that can easily become “my personal musique d’ameublement”, to quote the composer himself. A model of this work has been part of a permanent installation in a museum since 2013. The Clear Observatory is a sort of never ending piece, the enlargement/development of a bunch of seeds. Sound sources (acoustic material and field recordings) are treated in a specific configuration of reverbs and delays to create this roomy “eyepiece musique”.
Geins't Naït was founded in Nancy, France, in 1986 by Thierry Merigout and Vincent Hachet, both students at the Architecture School of Nancy. A year later Laurent Petitgrand joined the band. Their sound is often described as an equivalent of bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil or Test Dept., but Geins't Naït is not pure classic Industrial. While Geins't Naït offers rough pieces of music as an extension of its punk attitude, Petitgand refines them to create some musicality within the post-industrial collages, adding guitars, piano, and classical instruments. Geins't Naït and Laurent Petitgand sharpen sounds, giving them a kind of balance and density and ensuring that the musical language evokes a deep experience. Their music is raw and fascinating, and largely influenced by Surrealists and Situationists. Their early albums were released by French label Permis De Construire, with Get's being the band's third album, originally released on cassette in 1988. It features 17 tracks that have been carefully remastered for CD by Martin Bowes.
Originally, Hastings of Malawi were Heman Pathak, David Hodes and John Grieve. They recorded their first album in one night in 1981 with no plan and no idea of what they were doing. They played drums, clarinet, synthesiser and piano but also made use of things that they found lying around the studio – old records, cookery books, telephone directories and a telephone. The recordings were played down the phone to randomly dialled numbers and the reactions added to the recording. All three had been involved in the recording of the first Nurse with Wound album Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella and had contributed metal scrapings, piano, effects, clarinet and guitar during the session. The band split up after the first album but reformed 35 years later with a string of new albums and a lot more experience and plan. In June 2023, Hastings Of Malawi were invited to play the Klang 30 festival in Vienna, Austria. This was only the second time the band graced a stage, 38 years after the first performance. This outstanding rare opportunity was recorded and is now presented on CD. Maybe your only ever chance to find out what they sound like live!
Kevin Tomkins is best known for his work in Whitehouse and his own group Sutcliffe Jugend, now called Sutcliffe No More. He also worked with Bodychoke, Inertia and Patient K. Most of his music has its background in the power electronics scene that evolved in Great Britain around the label Come Organisation and the group Whitehouse. Power electronics is a style of noise music that typically consists of static, screeching waves of feedback, analogue synthesizers making sub-bass pulses or high frequency squealing sounds; with screamed and distorted vocals. The genre is noted for its influence from industrial. It is generally atonal, like most noise music and also features a lack of conventional melodies or rhythms. To match its sonic excess, power electronics relies heavily upon extreme thematic and visual content: whether in lyrics, album art, or live performance actions. For his solo work, Kevin sometimes uses a very different style to his group work. An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. In summer 2023, Kevin played a rare solo show in Vienna at Klanggalerie's 30th birthday bash. It was based on his autoharp album using that very instrument plus voice and an arrangement of gimmicks and tools. A week later, he created an album based on the performance and his time in Vienna.
Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learning by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Club of Rome was a pseudonym for Asmus Tietchens used on this cassette only release on ADN Records, 1985.
Philip Sanderson first started releasing music as part of Storm Bugs in the late 1970s as captured on the A Safe Substitute CD (Klang gg378). He also set up his own Snatch Tapes cassette label releasing music by David Jackman and Alien Brains amongst others. Reviews in the Wire magazine of the instrumental tracks described them as being akin to “a boiling vat of electronic music that occasionally sounds like the work of a mad scientist”, whilst the songs have a “flavour of what Kevin Ayers might cook up if he were alive and forced to work with the Residents”. Philip has also released music under the names of Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey, Ice Yacht, Maids Of The Marsh and Vote Police. In summer 2023, Philip played one of his very rare concerts at the Klang 30 festival in Vienna, Austria. This album presents you the music played at the gig, plus music that was influenced by or created in Vienna while his stay.
Francisco Meirino is a sound artist based in Switzerland. His music explores the tension between programmable material and the potential for its failure. His interest lies primarily in what is not supposed to be recorded : the end of life of electronic devices, electrostatic noise, magnetic fields and the unconventional use of music hardware and sound systems and how to exploit these sonic failures in radically different ways in his sound pieces. His music combines intricate textures, sonic precision, wide spatial panning and is fascinating by its physical intensity and detail precision. Born April 1966, in Marseille, Jérôme Noetinger discovered experimental music under the influence of the Déficit Des Années Antérieures in Caen. He is a composer/improviser/sound artist working with electroacoustic devices. Composing sometimes musique concrete in the studio, and performing improvised music using electroacoustic devices such as: the reel to reel tape recorder Revox B77 and magnetic tape, analogue synthesizers, mixing desks, speakers, microphones, various electronic household objects and home-made electronica. Performing both solo and in ensembles, and collaborating often, and touring extensively internationally. Jerome also used to be the director of Metamkine, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the distribution of improvised and electroacoustic music, which has now been changed to Corticalart with a different personnel.. The music on this CD was recorded by the duo in 2019 in Switzerland.
The first duet album by Rhys Chatham and David Fenech, two well-known musicians of the experimental scene. It is a long piece of music in a minimalist spirit, where the two guitarists meet and merge with Rhys’ trumpets, flutes and vocals and David’s small percussion.This record has an organic feel and natural development that makes it unique. Tomorrow starts tonight ! Rhys Chatham is best known for his compositions for electric guitar orchestra… he began his musical career as a harpsichord tuner, studied flute with Sue Ann Kahn, studied shortly thereafter with electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and later with La Monte Young (also as a member of his famous “Theatre of Eternal Music” ensemble). He also played with Tony Conrad in an early version of his band The Dream Syndicate. In 1971, while still a teenager, Chatham became the first musical director of the famous venue The Kitchen in New York. He has played and recorded with musicians as varied as Charlemagne Palestine, Sonic Youth, Arthur Russell, Jonathan Kane (Swans), George Lewis, Band of Susans, David Toop, and in his large guitar ensembles with members of Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hüsker Dü… David Fenech is a French musician living in Paris, guitarist, singer, improviser. He plays a wide variety of instruments and is an accomplished guitarist with his own technique… but his main instrument may well be the microphone, his music being composed of whatever he records with it. His distinctive, slightly baroque style, on the bangs of rock, jazz and improvised music, has often been described as “a kind of musique concrète punk”. He has performed and recorded with musicians as diverse as Felix Kubin, Tom Cora, Pierre Bastien, Jac Berrocal, Ghédalia Tazartès, Nurse With Wound… The music on this CD was recorded live at two concerts, one in Paris and one in Vienna. It was mastered by James Plotkin
Geins't Naït was founded in Nancy, France, in 1986 by Thierry Merigout and Vincent Hachet, both students at the Architecture School of Nancy. A year later Laurent Petitgrand joined the band. Their sound is often described as an equivalent of bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil or Test Dept., but Geins't Naït is not pure classic Industrial. While Geins't Naït offers rough pieces of music as an extension of its punk attitude, Petitgand refines them to create some musicality within the post-industrial collages, adding guitars, piano, and classical instruments. Geins't Naït and Laurent Petitgand sharpen sounds, giving them a kind of balance and density and ensuring that the musical language evokes a deep experience. Their music is raw and fascinating, and largely influenced by Surrealists and Situationists. Their early albums were released by French label Permis De Construire, with Fishes being the band's fifth album, originally released in 1989. It features fifteen tracks which have been carefully remastered for this first ever CD re-issue by Martin Bowes.
Hastings of Malawi are Heman Pathak, David Hodes and John Grieve. They recorded the album in one night in 1981 with no plan and no idea of what they were doing. They played drums, clarinet, synthesiser and piano but also made use of things that they found lying around the studio – old records, cookery books, telephone directories and a telephone. The recordings were played down the phone to randomly dialled numbers and the reactions added to the recording. All three had been involved in the recording of the first Nurse with Wound album Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella and had contributed metal scrapings, piano, effects, clarinet and guitar during the session. Their debut album, Vibrant Stapler Obscures Characteristic Growth, is a masterpiece from 1981, re-issued on vinyl by Sub Rosa and on CD by Klanggalerie. Originally 1000 copies pressed on orange/red vinyl. 120 copies were sold through Rough Trade and Virgin Records. 800 copies were bought and later destroyed by the United Dairies label, making this record even more rare. 35 years later, the British dadaist group Hastings of Malawi have released a new album - an epic sound poem entitled Visceral Underskinnings. It is a 40 minute film without light that reflects on the human condition, on modern society, on the nature of telephony and electricity and an attempt to make sense of the world in which we live that provides no answers. It is a sound collage of diverse elements including the voices of George Washington Johnson (First African American star of the phonograph 1846-1914) and Dr Hastings Banda - the first president of Malawi. It includes randomly generated computer music, voice synthesis, recordings of cold war number stations, American military sound weaponry and recordings of the some of the many sound sculptures produced by Hastings of Malawi over the last 30 years. Hastings of Malawi produce sounds that sit in that grey area where sound art and music meet but they reject both labels and cannot be comfortably placed in either camp. This is not an easy album to listen to but persevere and you may or may not be able to decipher its meaning.
Kevin Tomkins is best known for his work in Whitehouse and his own group Sutcliffe Jugend, now called Sutcliffe No More. He also worked with Bodychoke, Inertia and Patient K. Most of his music has its background in the power electronics scene that evolved in Great Britain around the label Come Organisation and the group Whitehouse. Power electronics is a style of noise music that typically consists of static, screeching waves of feedback, analogue synthesizers making sub-bass pulses or high frequency squealing sounds; with screamed and distorted vocals. The genre is noted for its influence from industrial. It is generally atonal, like most noise music and also features a lack of conventional melodies or rhythms. To match its sonic excess, power electronics relies heavily upon extreme thematic and visual content: whether in lyrics, album art, or live performance actions. For his solo work, Kevin sometimes uses a very different style to his group work. An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. This album's music was all generated on such an instrument and is totally different to Sutcliffe No More. Its roots lie in avantgarde music rather than noise, with rhythms and melodies generated on the instrument. It was edited from over 20 different recordings to present an album of stunning variety and beauty.
With solid training as a classical musician, Sophie Agnel took a close interest in modern jazz before committing in the early Nineties to the shifting, deliciously uncertain ground of free improvisation, thanks to her fascination for the powers of expression displayed by a few great keyboard-heretics such as Keith Tippett, Fred Van Hove or Christine Wodrascka. She began reworking the prepared piano techniques imagined by John Cage and transformed her instrument into a sort of extended piano. Coming from a Punk music background Joke Lanz started in the mid 80s to play Experimental- and Noise music. Best known for his internationally acclaimed project Sudden Infant, Lanz is presenting his work since 30 years all over the world. Born in Switzerland and currently operating out of Berlin, he is one of the most prolific and profound artists working in the border zones where performance and body art meet Improvisation and Noise. California native Michael Vatcher, now residing in Amsterdam, quickly progressed from hitting household furniture to taking vibraphone and snare drum lessons as a child. The trio impresses with precise playing, intensity, spontaneity and a great sense of musical humour. Radical playing techniques, curiosity and the exploration of sound possibilities create constant tension. Their first trio release Animals brings together 13 tracks full of twists and turns, creative lightness and complex virtuosity.
Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learnign by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Ptomaine was originally released on RRRecords in 1996 as a 3 LP set. This is the second volume of the first ever CD re-issue.
Joe McPhee, born 1939 in Florida, USA, is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, conceptualist and theoretician. He is currently the member of Trio X, Survival Unit III and has collaborated with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Raymond Boni, The Thing, Trespass Trio, and Universal Indians among many others. With a career spanning nearly 50 years and over 100 recordings, he continues to tour internationally, forge new connections and reach for music’s outer limits. John Edwards is a true virtuoso on the double bass whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others. In 2019 McPhee and Edwards met at Artacts festival in Austria and performed together as a duo for the first time. The concert was held at a public school with the duo performing in front of the Wilder Kaiser mountain and left the audience stunned and speechless. This CD is a recording of this amazing concert. Joe McPhee plays sax and sings, John Edwards plays the double bass.
Het Zweet (Sweat) was the band project by Marien van Oers, native of Breda in the Netherlands active from 1983 to about 1988. The music consisted of long 10 minute percussion pieces played on self built instruments (shopping trolleys amplified with pickups, blown cardboard tubes etc.) with repetitive shouted vocals by Marien. The music was often placed in the industrial camp and linked with the likes of Test Dept. but in fact Het Zweet were more concerned with ‘tribal’ music, physicality and trance effects like Z'ev. During concerts he often performed together with other players. Marien Van Oers sadly passed away in 2013. This self-titled album originally came out on the great Dossier label in Germany in 1987. The bonus material included on this reissue consists entirely of previously unreleased material. There's three untitled tracks and two live excerpts presented as long experiences that belie their disparate origins with a unity of sound and purpose. Van Oers’ percussive nous and distantly yelled chants certainly sound capable of working up a sweat in both the performer and any movement-minded listeners, but maybe the most striking thing about Het Zweet is how vital it still sounds, despite its age and relative obscurity.
Jac Berrocal is a 1946-born musician (trumpet player), poet and sometime film actor who came of age in the ‘70s Paris improv scene, where the boundaries between music, art and theatre were porous and begging to be breached. Inspired by bebop, chanson, free jazz, beat poetry, early rock ‘n roll and myriad Eastern influences, and with an iconoclastic, anything-goes approach to instrumentation and technique that would later align him with post-punk sensibilities, Berrocal blazed an eccentric and unstoppable trail across the underground throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, both solo and as part of the Catalogue group he co-founded. During this time his uproarious performances routinely wound up jazz and rock audiences alike, but earned the admiration of many musicians: Steven Stapleton invited him to perform on two Nurse With Wound albums, and other notable collaborators in his career include Sunny Murray, Lizzy Mercier-Descloux, Lol Coxhill, Yvette Horner and James Chance. In the 90s his protean achievements were celebrated on the Fatal Encounters compilation, but far from slowing down in the autumn of his life, Berrocal has maintained an extraordinary work-rate, keeping studio dates with Pascal Comelade, Telectu and Jaki Liebezeit, among others. Now Berrocal has found the perfect foil in David Fenech and Vincent Epplay, two fearlessly inventive improvisers, composers and catalysts who create challenging, acutely modernist yet historically aware settings – wrought out of synthesis, guitars, computer processing, field recordings and unorthodox percussions – for Berrocal’s unmistakeable voice and breathtakingly lyrical horn sound to flourish. Fenech cut his teeth in the mail-art scene of the early ‘90s, leading the Peu Importe collective in Grenoble. His 2000 solo debut was recently reissued by Felix Kubin’s Gagarin label, and he has also worked as a software developer at IRCAM, and played with Jad Fair, Tom Cora, Rhys Chatham and James Plotkin; in 2011 he formed a trio with Berrocal and Ghedalia Tazartes for the Superdisque LP. Epplay is a highly regarded sonic and visual artist with a particular interest in aleatory composition and autonomous pieces, concrète, and the puckish reappropriation of vintage sound and film material, with dozens of published works to his name on labels like Alga Marghen and PPT/Stembogen. Transcodex is the fourth album by the trio. Turning more towards pop than in their beginnings, this fourth record follows the footsteps of their previous album, Exterior Lux. The trio seems limitless: they experiment with a large variety of styles (pop, dub, electronica, dark jazz), always coloured by their very own touch. For this album, they invited two amazing musicians. Jah Wobble, founding member of the mighty Public Image Ltd. and Jean-Hervé Peron, one of the fathers of German krautrock legend Faust.
A special delicacy for all you Severed Heads fans: In the 1980s the cassette was a much desired format. They were cheap, inexpensive to buy, easy to duplicate and manageable for less technically skilled people, too. The sound was raw and hissy, encouraging raw and hissy ideas. If you couldn't afford to have a vinyl LP pressed, you could still get heard. It was the most DIY product ever.
Terse Tapes was one the first cassette labels in Australia ever, although the label started with two vinyl releases. Bands like Severed Heads soon found vinyl production too slow - by the time an album was finished, they had recorded much more music and has changed stylistically. Mysterious Kitchens was billed as a various artists compilation, but in reality it was a group of ten friends that swapped roles and instruments as the mood took them. Future Severed Heads members are here under obvious multiple band names. Wet Taxis are the only real band on the album. Many other participants formed their own groups later. In 1980, shops were kind to Terse Tapes. They hung their cassette releases on shop walls and so encouraged other people to start their own DIY labels. This is the first ever CD release of this legendary "compilation" album. It is, of course, more of a Severed Heads release.
Etant Donnes is a French duo named after Marcel Duchamp's last major work. The group consists of brothers Marc and Eric Hurtado, born in Morocco and working mainly as performance artists and musicians. Their sound can be described as a mix of field recordings, found sounds and sometimes whispered, sometimes violent vocals. They describe their sounds like this: "Through Marc and Eric, it is the volume of each word that becomes an object-sculpture, together with the power of their bodies expressing their voices. Each event is a scream - indeed even the glissando - of the strength of the word that sometimes abruptly becomes a rock, a solid surface, not in the least fluvial, as is the narrative of a tale, novel or poetic epic. With both of them, there is no more trace of ancient prosodies, no more trace of the incomprehensible Sainte-Beuve who could claim: "I have to collect a volume of prose". The word, the voice, the volume take shape with each other, unveiling a theatre that theatre usually ignores, which has given it such things as a Samuel Beckett's Fin de Partie." Over the years Etant Donnes have collaborated with people like Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira, Alan Vega and Genesis P-Orridge.
Ceux Qu'on Aime - Ce Que Je Hais was the band's fourth album, dating back to 1983 and originally issued on French Bain Total label (run by Philippe Fichot of Die Form). For this CD re-issue we have added a long bonus track not on the original album.
A classic masterpiece from 1981, never re-released on CD before. Originally 1000 copies pressed on orange/red vinyl. 120 copies were sold through Rough Trade and Virgin Records. 800 copies were bought and later destroyed by the United Dairies label, makin this record even more rare.
Hastings of Malawi were Heman Pathak, David Hodes and John Grieve. They recorded the album in one night in 1981 with no plan and no idea of what they were doing. They played drums, clarinet, synthesiser and piano but also made use of things that they found lying around the studio – old records, cookery books, telephone directories and a telephone. The recordings were played down the phone to randomly dialled numbers and the reactions added to the recording. All three had been involved in the recording of the first Nurse with Wound album Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella and had contributed metal scrapings, piano, effects, clarinet and guitar during the session.
Semantics was a jazz supergroup consisting of Elliott Sharp, Ned Rothenberg and Samm Bennett.
Elliott Sharp, born in Ohio in 1951, began playing the piano at the age of six and started to perform concerts two years later. He soon gave up the piano, first in favour of the clarinet and later for the guitar. Sharp became intrigued with all types of experimental music, from contemporary classical to free jazz and sophisticated rock. He studied anthropology at Cornell University, where he played in a band and took an electronics class with synthesizer inventor Robert Moog.
Ned Rothenberg is an American multi-instrumentalist who was born in 1956 in Massachusetts. He has been internationally acclaimed for both his solo and ensemble music, presented for the past 33 years on 5 continents. He performs primarily on alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and the shakuhachi - an endblown Japanese bamboo flute. His solo work utilizes an expanded palette of sonic language, creating a kind of personal idiom all its own.
Samm Bennett was born in 1957 in Alabama. In 1977 he moved to Boston, a town that seemed to offer broader possibilities for a young musician eager to play and grow and try new things. It was there that he was first exposed to African drumming styles, mostly through attending weekly drum ensemble workshops led by Boston underground percussion legend Syd Smart. In late 1980, he went to Nigeria, West Africa. Traveling with a friend who introduced him to a family in Benin City, Nigeria, he remained there as their guest for six months, making daily trips to the home of drum master Idemudia Izevbihen. Later Bennett lived in Brussels and played many solo shows.
The short lived Semantics were active in the middle of the 1980s and released two albums. The second, Bone of Contention, was released in 1987 on SST Records. This new expanded CD version features three previously unreleased live tracks.
Renaldo and the Loaf is an English musical duo active since the late 1970s, consisting of a pathologist (David Janssen or Ted the Loaf) and an architect (Brian Poole or Renaldo Malpractice). By their own assertion, they achieved their unique sound in part by striving to get unnatural synthesizer-like sounds using only what instruments they had available (acoustic ones). To that end they routinely used muffled and de-tuned instruments, and, often to striking effect, tape loops and manipulation.
In 2018 they played their first ever live show at Klang 25 in Vienna, documented on the album Long Time Coming. In 2016 the group recorded a brand new album entitled Gurdy Hurding. When it was released on vinyl in 2019, it came with a fourth side of a new piece, Hardly Gurning While The World Is Turning. This has never been available on CD - until now.
Here's what the band says: "Hardly Gurning itself is part remix, part new recording, part re-imagining...to complement this we decided to ask some of our friends if they might create a remix/re-imagination of the Gurdy Hurding tracks. In a strange way, the lockdowns of 2020 have benefitted this project as, in most cases, it afforded our contributors some time to work on it, which otherwise they may not have able to. We’ve certainly been excited by what has emerged – almost the whole of Gurdy Hurding has been revisited."
Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improvisor. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. He was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, Cosa Brava and the FF Guitar Quartet. He has collaborated with many prominent musicians, including Lotte Anker, Robert Wyatt, Derek Bailey, Brian Eno, The Residents, Bill Laswell, Lars Hollmer, Iva Bittová, Jad Fair and John Zorn.
Annie Lewandowski is a composer and performer who works in song and improvisation. As an improviser on piano, accordion, and electronics, she has performed and recorded with musicians like Fred Frith, the London Improvisers Orchestra or Caroline Kraabel. As a singer, guitarist, and keyboardist, she has recorded with bands and ensembles including Emma Zunz, Xiu Xiu, The Curtains, Former Ghosts, and Yarn/Wire. Her own band Powerdove has released ten recordings.
Long As In Short, Walk As In Run was originally released in 2011 on Danish Ninth World Music label and has been out of print for years. It's a piano and guitar album. For this re-edition we have added a previously unreleased 11 minute bonus track.
Jean-Luc André, Sylvie Martineau-Fee and Jean-Philippe Fee started DDAA (Deficit Des Annees Anterieures) in 1977. They are pioneers of the French experimental and indie scene, also connected with Industrial 80s music and audiovisual projects. Approaching music in a completely unique way, and brilliantly produced by their own Illusion Production label (with more 40 published items), DDAA was and is undoubtedly one of the most legendary groups of the French underground for the past 30 years. Their early albums are classics - the self-titled debut, Action and Japanese Demonstration or Les Ambulants (re-issued and still available on Klanggalerie) are a must-have for every connoisseur of usual music. They appeared on the compilation album of music by outsider artist Adolf Wölfli alongside Nurse With Wound and Graeme Revell of SPK. The 10" album When A Cap Is Raising came out originally in 1988 on UK label Big Noise in Archgate. For this re-issue, the band has remastered the music and added bonus tracks from the compilation album Objet, and other sources, some previously unavailable.
Geins't Naït was founded in Nancy, France, in 1986 by Thierry Merigout and Vincent Hachet, both students at the Architecture School of Nancy. A year later Laurent Petitgrand joined the band. Their sound is often described as an equivalent of bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil or Test Dept., but Geins't Naït is not pure classic Industrial. While Geins't Naït offers rough pieces of music as an extension of its punk attitude, Petitgand refines them to create some musicality within the post-industrial collages, adding guitars, piano, and classical instruments. Geins't Naït and Laurent Petitgand sharpen sounds, giving them a kind of balance and density and ensuring that the musical language evokes a deep experience. Their music is raw and fascinating, and largely influenced by Surrealists and Situationists. Their early albums were released by French label Permis De Construire, with L'Or'n Cat being the second, released in 1987. It features ten tracks which have been carefully remastered for this first ever CD re-issue by Martin Bowes.
Elisabeth Harnik, an Austrian based pianist and composer has created a multi-faceted body of work by blurring genre boundaries through various collaborations in the field of improvised music, interdisciplinary projects and contemporary compositional works. She studied classical piano and later – with Beat Furrer – composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. As an improviser she works within an electro-acoustic inspired sound-world, using specific preparations and extended techniques while pushing the limitations of the piano. Amongst others she has collaborated with Frank Gratkowski, Dave Rempis & Michael Zerang, Joelle Leandre and Ken Vandermark.
Didi Kern is an Austrian drummer who is best known for his work with Bul But, Fuckhead or Glutamat. He is equally at home in the rock scene and in the free improvisation scene. He has a duo with keyboarder Philip Quehenberger, plays drums with KGB and has performed with jazz greats like Peter Brötzmann, Mats Gustafson, Weasel Walter, Saadet Türköz or Ken Vandermark.
Jaap Blonk is a Dutch avant-garde composer and performance artist. He is primarily self-taught both as a sound artist and as a visual/stage performer. He studied physics, mathematics, and musicology for a time, but did not complete his studies. One of his early influences was Kurt Schwitters, whose Ursonate he first heard in 1979; he memorized the entire work, and it became one of the cornerstones of his repertory.
For Wels Unlimited 2020, the trio got together for a live stream during one of the Covid lockdowns. This album is a recording of that show.