Out of stock
2 CD
J.B. SMITH
“No More Good Time in the World for Me”
CD Digipak with 36 page booklet featuring liner notes by Nathan Salsburg.
Folklorist Bruce Jackson was among the last to record work songs. In 1964 he visited Ramsey State Farm in Rosharon, Texas, where he met Johnnie B. Smith, prisoner
130196. A native of Hearne, Texas, Smitty was 46 years old and on his fourth prison term. In his younger days, Smitty toted lead hoe in a flat-weeding gang and led the work songs. It’s hard to overstate the importance of a good song leader in the penitentiary setting—one needed to be rhythmically, lyrically, and physically reliable, to maintain those songs over interminable hours of hard labor under an unforgiving south-central Texas sun.
But J.B. also sang other songs, different songs—those he’d made up to occupy himself while chopping sugarcane or picking cotton. He referred to them as his “little ol’ songs.” The longest stretched to thirty-three verses, or more than twenty-two recorded minutes. Although Smitty knew and sang a variety of melodies, to an assortment of work songs and sacred pieces, he employed only one tune for his compositions. What changed were the tempo and the ornamentation with which he individualized them. “The Major Special,” “No More Good Time In The World For Me,” “Ever Since I Been A Man Full Grown”—each song Smith charged with its own emotional ambience, as a seasoned preacher intuits the particular colors and atmospheres that should imbue each portion of his service.
Smith was paroled in 1967, a year after his final session with Jackson and the release, on John Fahey’s Takoma Records, of an LP - Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown —of three of Smitty’s songs. That summer, Bruce arranged for him to sing at the Newport Folk Festival, at which he appeared on stage with Pete Seeger, and, in one of the only photos that survive of him, in the company of Robert Pete Williams and Muddy Waters. A couple of years passed before Bruce heard from him again. He had returned to Amarillo, where he preached for a while; a parole violation then sent him back to prison.
Original price was: 12,00€.7,00€Current price is: 7,00€.
In stock
CD
MIAUX
“Hideaway – Dive”
Both of Miaux's grand LP's, pressed on 1 cd, for maximum sadness.
Take out the box of tissues, bring on them salty rivers of sadness.
limited to 300 copies.
About Hideaway :
"Following two singles and an LP on UE , we are delighted to announce Miaux’s new album! Originally from Sarajevo, and a Belgian resident since 1989, Miaux - pronounced the French adult, not the feline way - returns with a propertearjerker in her classic deadpan style.
Mia Prce got her first keyboard when she was five years old. A rarity in the UE catalogue, and like labelmate Cassis Cornuta, Prce is a trained musician. But do read on!
Hideaway consists of seven stunning instrumentals that blend and gently warp Miaux’s formative influences: Mike Oldfield, Roxy Music, Krautrock and German electronic music, Vangelis and Badalamenti."
Despite being happier than you and I and her own earlier records, Prce’s daughter asked for “this sad music“ to be turned off when they were listening to the finished master for the first time."
About Dive :
"To those who swam in a lake filled with the bitter tears of Petra Von Kant, drip with salt when Twin Peaks´ heroic theme song comes out of a TV or simply burst out in tears whenever a tune sends you back to the darker corners of your childhood, we got bad news: The first full lenght lp by Sarajevo born Belgian Mia Prce (aka Miaux, say "MIO", not the sound cats produce) is stripped from anything that sounds rhythmic, happy or remotely like "hope" and will not stop you from sobbing!
"Sehnsucht" is a german word that one could probably translate, though that never fully holds the feeling it owns in German. (kraut) monsters like Michael Rother, Klaus Schultze and so on, translated it best with melancholic sound fields that formed the soundtrack of Miaux´s upbringing, a open sounding uptightness, sad but (really) true (to herself).
These 6 new pieces are a relief for a lot of body parts: tears finally leave the bags underneath your glasses, drool finally leaves your mouth and that yellow crust runs out of your ears as those two flappers want to enjoy this lp to the fullest."
11,00€
Out of stock
CD
Marc HURTADO-Alan VEGA
“Sniper”
CD version. “Alan Vega is literally a legend. Suicide, formed by the duo Rev and Vega is the spearhead of a punk trend which immersed all of a sudden in a fusion of waves and electronic loops. Since that period Vega became an icon for rock music and electronic generations... Vega’s flow, and the scansion of this white hot crooner sound fractured and charismatic. Everything is Rock, his leather jackets, his art and soul highly charged.
So aesthetic, a rockabilly singing in a breathless style, wearing dusty pink and yelling metal make up. He is nowadays a Myth all around the world.
Marc Hurtado gained his experience in the 80’s with his brother Eric, they were called “Étant Donnés”. Their albums, films and performances are highly appreciated in Beauboug,the Fondation Cartier, the Rennes Transmusicales,the Barcelona Sonar Festival, the Kitchen in New york and The French Cinematèque. In the years 2000, Marc Hurtado produced some original soundtracks ( for Philippe Gandrieux and Jessica Hausner), but he is also known for his collaborations with Lydia Lunch, Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV), Michael Gira (Swans), Gabi Delgado (DAF), The Hacker, Sky Saxon (The Seeds), Les Maîtres Musiciens de Jajouka, his project Sol Ixent with the German singer Saba Komossa (Delkom)... and of course Alan Vega. Hurtado recorded four tracks in the album Re-Up in 1999 and were together on stage in France and Europe (Centre Pompidou, Lieu Unique de Nantes with Christophe) and he also produced in 2009 the film “The Infinite Mercy Film”) dedicated to the art work of Alan Vega.
Sniper was born from this artistic collaboration and complicity, it was recorded in 2010 at the 6/8 Studios cherished by Suicide. This is a blazing star, an album made of fever and chaos but it also remind us the synthetic ballad you can find in Vega’s early solo albums.Whithout mentioning Lydia Lunch’s participation in “Prison Sacrifice” already a cult song, there is the sublime one “Saturn Drive Duplex” in its first original version which could lead to inspiration in the future. With at least 13 tracks of rage and shiver where words and electricity are intertwine to show this threatening apocalyptic and violent world but also the desire to flee towards new possibilities and to explore the universe.
This album follows the release of infinite Mercy, a monograph dedicated to the art work “Ghost Rider Man”, which came out in September 2010 at Presses du Réel and where you can find some texts from Marc Hurtado, Alan Vega, Henry Rollins, Ric Ocasek and Martin rev. Neon lights sculptures are on the outer cover and inside it, it’s a prestigious flamboyant release.” labell info
Original price was: 15,00€.7,00€Current price is: 7,00€.
In stock
CD
HECKER
“A Script For Machine Synthesis”
The latest work from Florian Hecker A Script for Machine Synthesis is an experimental auditory drama and a model of abstraction. A Script for Machine Synthesis presents a complex simplicity that spirals in an unending manner as an audio image of the uncanny valley. It is the third chapter in the trilogy of text-sound pieces Hecker has collaborated with the philosopher Reza Negarestani. A resynthesized voice outlines procedure as procedure itself unfolds.
The suggestive encounter with a pink ice cube is a conceptual point of departure for a scene in which linguistic chimeras of descriptors are materialized through synthetic trophies, mental props and auditory objects.
Hecker presents a synthesis of the gap in the valley which we almost know. The motifs Hecker has staged in the last decade, the text, the sound, the scent, the obelisk, the demon, the self, the other all appear throughout in a thorough, rigid and formal exploration.
Exeunt all human actors, A Script for Machine Synthesis is an experiment in putting synthetic emptiness back into synthetic thought.
The suggestive encounter with a pink ice cube is a conceptual point of departure for a scene in which linguistic chimeras of descriptors are materialized through synthetic trophies, mental props and auditory objects.
Hecker presents a synthesis of the gap in the valley which we almost know. The motifs Hecker has staged in the last decade, the text, the sound, the scent, the obelisk, the demon, the self, the other all appear throughout in a thorough, rigid and formal exploration.
Exeunt all human actors, A Script for Machine Synthesis is an experiment in putting synthetic emptiness back into synthetic thought.
Original price was: 12,50€.6,00€Current price is: 6,00€.
In stock
CD
Ipek GORGUN
“Ecce Homo”
Ipek Gorgun is an electronic music composer currently enrolled in the doctoral program of Sonic Arts at Istanbul Technical University’s Center for Advanced Studies in Music.
Besides group projects and solo performances, she also composed the soundtrack for the documentary ‘Yok Anasinin Soyadi (Mrs. His Name) directed by Hande Cayir in 2012, portraying Turkish women’s struggle for keeping their original surnames after marriage.
Her debut album Aphelion was self-released in February, 2016 and is reissued by Touch in December, under the TOUCHLINE catalogue. In 2017 she released a collaborative album from Halocline Trance, with Canadian producer Ceramic TL (aka Egyptrixx) entitled “Perfect Lung”, and a mini-album with the Italian electroacoustic duo, Alberi.
Ecce Homo explores the lighter and darker shades of the human psyche, behaviour and existence, and humanity’s ability to create beauty and destruction. What lies in the essence of such complexity has become a core idea for the album, while Gorgun seeks to figure out if there is a true meaning to being human, and human being.
Starting with “Neroli” as a human fascination with nature and finalising with “To Cross Great Rivers”; the album reflects the contemplations of a spectator being exposed to the human civilization, and witnessing human activity, including his/her own.
Trying to acquire a glimpse of the various layers of human flesh and bones, the sound of the album aims to present a diversity of the sonic spectrum, with tracks varying between ambient and noisy landscapes.
12,50€
Out of stock
CD
David BEREZAN
“Cycle nautique”
3rd solo disc by Canadian composer David Berezan living in the United Kingdom.
"Nautical Cycle" (2011-17).
After completing a BA in History (1988) at the University of Calgary, a Diploma in Composition (1996) at Grant MacEwan College (Edmonton) and an MMus in Composition (2000) at the University of Calgary, David Berezan moved to the UK and completed a PhD in Electroacoustic Composition (2003) at the University of Birmingham (UK). In 2012 he was appointed Professor in Electroacoustic Music Composition at The University of Manchester (UK), where he has acted, since 2003, as Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studios and MANTIS (Manchester Theatre in Sound).
Since 2000 he has primarily composed acousmatic music, though he has also composed and performed solo and ensemble live-electronics works. He is a practitioner and proponent of sound diffusion performance and the interpretation of fixed-media work.
13,00€
In stock
CD
Alistair MACDONALD
“Cabinets de curiosité”
"Wunderkammern or 'cabinets of curiosities,' of the 16th and 17th centuries, were fabulous collections of objects brought together, ordered and displayed to inspire curiosity and wonder. They might include religious relics, stuffed birds and animals, shells, artefacts from distant and ancient cultures, mineral and plant specimens, paintings and drawings. In fact, almost anything.
As a small boy, the 'cabinet of curiosity' that intrigued me was the large, tabletop radio in our kitchen, with its 'magic-eye' tuning indicator and its exotic world of sounds veiled in hiss and crackle. Language, music and noise combined as I spun the dial. Assembled here are some of the sounds I have collected, ordered and displayed in subsequent years."
"The Tincture of Physical Things" (2000). "Scintilla" (2013). "Final Times" (1998). "Psychedelian Streams" (2004). "Bound for Glory (Postcard from Poland)" (2002). "Equivalence" (2007). "Wunderkammer" (2010).
Alistair MacDonald is a composer, performer and sound artist. His work draws on a wide range of influences reflecting his interest in improvisation, transformation of sound, and space. Many of his works are made in collaboration with other artists from a range of media, and explore a range of contexts beyond the concert hall, often using interactive technology.
He has a longstanding live electroacoustic improvising duo with Scottish harp player Catriona McKay, and another with singer Anne-Liis Poll.
13,00€
In stock
CD
Seijiro MURAYAMA – Toshihiro KOIKE – Martin TAXT
“Duo and Trio”
This is the 1st CD release commemorating the 6th anniversary of Ftarri, the CD shop in Suidobashi, Tokyo. Seijiro Murayama, who lives in France, is active mainly in Europe, giving truly original performances using drums, percussion and voice. Toshihiro Koike is a trombone player who lives in Nagoya. He is the leader of the trio Fuigo, whose other members are Kanji Nakao and Takero Sekijima; and he is also a member of the Satoko Fujii Orchestra. His improvised performances freely using expanded playing methods have an established reputation. Martin Taxt is a tuba player from Norway, and an owner of the Norwegian improvised/experimental music label Sofa. Taxt frequently visits Japan and often performs with Japanese musicians. In 2017, he and Toshimaru Nakamura released the duo CD Listening to the Footsteps of Living Ones Who Are Still on the Ground (ftarri-988) on the Ftarri label. Murayama, Koike, and Taxt performed at Ftarri on April 23, 2016. This CD is made up of two minimal improvised performances (each about 20 minutes)--a duo by Murayama and Koike, and a trio with these two musicians plus Taxt. These are compelling performances born of the musical sympathy among the three musicians.
200 copies
11,00€
Out of stock
2 CD
Taku SUGIMOTO – Minami SAEKI
“Songs”
The concept of Songs, the duo project of guitarist Taku Sugimoto and vocalist Minami Saeki, came about in the second half of 2016. By that December they had already made recordings of their music, and the following February they released their debut album, Songs (CD), on Sugimoto's label, slubmusic. Since then, the duo has had an active performance schedule in Japan and overseas, including European tours in 2017 and 2018. Now they have released their second album, the 2-CD set Songs.
Most of the tracks are short songs between one and four minutes long. All 40 songs (22 on CD 1 and 18 on CD 2) were recorded in Japan and Europe in 2017 and 2018. Lyrics are by Saeki, and compositions are by Sugimoto (except for one song composed by Saeki). Some songs were performed with guest musicians Takashi Masabuchi (guitar), Wakana Ikeda (flute), French musician Léo Dupleix (computer, objects, sine-tones), and Finnish musician Lauri Hyvärinen (guitar).
The basic format consists of extremely short, simple songs performed slowly and quietly, with few sounds, using vocals and guitar only. But if you listen carefully, you'll hear within the simplicity a mysteriously well thought out organization. Both extremely unique and abundantly charming, this is a song album that makes you feel as if you could listen forever.
19,90€
In stock
CD
COMMON OBJECTS
“Skullmarks”
The group Common Objects was formed in 2005 by the British harpist/composer Rhodri Davies. The group has had a fluid membership, but in recent years its core members have been the six musicians performing on this album: John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Lina Lapelyte, Lee Patterson, Pat Thomas, and Rhodri Davies. Common Objects performs a wide range of music, from composed works to improvisation. Skullmarks documents the group's first project in which objects are used as scores.
In 2016 Common Objects selected three museums as performance venues and carried out a mini-tour called "Sonorous Matter." Each of the six musicians had chosen items from among the museums' collections as the basis of a score to be performed by the group. "Skullmarks," the work recorded on this album, was based on four historical objects that John Butcher selected from the huge ethnographic collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. These objects were displayed to the musicians and audience during the performance held at the museum on March 22, 2016. The concert, which had a strange and mysterious mood due to the shamanic objects and the atmosphere of the museum at night, resulted in a superb performance with a rare aura and energy.
"Skullmarks" was performed by John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxes), Angharad Davies (violin), Rhodri Davies (electric harp), Lina Lapelyte (violin), Lee Patterson (amplified devices and processes), and Pat Thomas (electronics).
14,50€
Out of stock
CD
Adam STANOVIC
“Ténébrisme”
"Ctrl c" (2016). "Metallurgic" (2015). "Inam" (2016). "Inja" (2017). "Foundry Flux" (2015). "Would be to Seek" (2017).
Adam Stanović (né Stansbie) started composing electronic music over twenty years ago. Initial experiments with tape recorders and a four-track mini-disc player led him to read music and technology at both Leeds College of Music (England, UK) and University of Leeds (England, UK), where he was introduced to computer music by Dale Jonathan Perkins. During this time, he started to enjoy international performances of his musical works, and he ultimately graduated with a university prize for outstanding achievement. Adam Stanovi went on to complete a PhD at City University London (England, UK), where he devoted himself to acousmatic music under the supervision and guidance of Denis Smalley. Nowadays, Stanović's music continues to employ a fixed-medium. Rather than purely acousmatic, however, his recent works have also included instruments, electronics, film, and animation. In all such cases, his musical works explore relations between pitch and noise. Still, it is the ongoing fascination with musical form that occupies the primary focus of his compositional attention.
Adam Stanović (né Stansbie) started composing electronic music over twenty years ago. Initial experiments with tape recorders and a four-track mini-disc player led him to read music and technology at both Leeds College of Music (England, UK) and University of Leeds (England, UK), where he was introduced to computer music by Dale Jonathan Perkins. During this time, he started to enjoy international performances of his musical works, and he ultimately graduated with a university prize for outstanding achievement. Adam Stanovi went on to complete a PhD at City University London (England, UK), where he devoted himself to acousmatic music under the supervision and guidance of Denis Smalley. Nowadays, Stanović's music continues to employ a fixed-medium. Rather than purely acousmatic, however, his recent works have also included instruments, electronics, film, and animation. In all such cases, his musical works explore relations between pitch and noise. Still, it is the ongoing fascination with musical form that occupies the primary focus of his compositional attention.
13,00€
Out of stock
CD
Monique JEAN
“Troubles”
"T.A.G." (2013).
T.A.G. (trottoir, asphalte, goudron: sidewalk, asphalt, tar) is a work inspired by crowds of demonstrators, and more particularly by the energized shapes that become flood, drift and multitude. The mass drifts and undulates, subjected to sudden bifurcations, breakthroughs, and tensions charged with colliding multitudinous, heterogeneous beings. The sounds, mainly synthesized, are simultaneously organic and urban in their subterranean movements, breakaways, accelerations, and walls of resistance.
"Out of Joint" (2009, 11).
Out of Joint is an essay in sound hybridization on Shakespeare's Macbeth and the various silver screen adaptations, stagings and rewrites it inspired through time. This is not musical theatre nor is it opera or audio documentary. What I am trying to do instead is to develop a form that operates through grafts of time, interpretations, meanings, and references.
Be it electroacoustic music, mixed music, sound installations or improvisations, the music of Monique Jean is engaging a present that happens now. She focuses on the tensions, fractures, and shocks of sound materials to transmute reality into poetry. She works on sound materials as if they were complex organisms animated by forces that keep them in constant evolution.
13,00€
In stock
CD
Clara DE ASÍS
“Without”
Clara de Asís is a Spanish composer and guitarist based in Marseille, France. Her intuitive, unconventional composition style utilizes a minimal, spatial framework in which performers can create individual sounds incorporating active listening, attaining a paradoxical but coherent result, "setting a frame could bring out a lot of unexpected possibilities and revelations that come from the sound itself."
De Asís composed 'Without' for the duo of Erik Carlson (violin) and Greg Stuart (percussion) in 2018. In this 43-minute piece, she gave a precise framework for the position and the duration of each sound section and each silence, as well as a rough outline for the texture and the volume of each sound, the use of tone or noise (or tone-noise), and the materials for the percussion, but a large part of the score was open for the two performers' freedom. In the realization of this piece, Carlson and Stuart brought out the unique voice of each instrument by applying various use of bows on violin and various percussive materials (metal, wood, ceramic, clay, glass, etc.) with their attentive, virtuosic skills and great sensitivities for the sound and silence. Moving along in parallel, Carlson and Stuart showed their individual musical personalities while creating an organic flow, with an exquisite balance between preciseness and openness. The duo's introspective approach to the sound and silence evokes the tranquility of a Zen garden while showing a clean contemporary edge, highlighting the simple yet intense beauty of de Asís's minimal composition. David Sylvian's cover photograph of the small stones, each of which has a unique color and texture, faintly illuminating in the pitch-black background, echoes the mysterious depth and the lucidity of de Asís's piece.
14,50€
In stock
CD
Stefan THUT
“About”
Swiss composer and cellist Stefan Thut composed 'about' in 2017 for the sextet of Ryoko Akama (electronics), Stephen Chase (guitar), Eleanor Cully (piano), Patrick Farmer (metal percussion), lo wie (tingsha), and Thut (cello). The six musicians have diverse backgrounds in music, poetry, and literature, as well as comprising a multilingual group. Thut integrated both musical elements and non-musical elements in his piece. His score instructs three performers to make percussive, ringing, and electronic sounds while three other performers play short high register pitches on their musical instruments according to written scores, particularly paying attention to the decay of sound in the subsequent silence. It also instructs parallel activities in between playing the sounds; walking around the space, and uttering monosyllabic words quietly in their own languages.
By going back and forth between these two activities - one with playing the sounds as a group, and the other with individual activities of their own - standing up, making a few steps, and saying a word, the ensemble created a unique openness in the music while each keeping their own contemplative individual experience as a component. Through this piece, Thut also demonstrated the idea that "something vanishing creates a state of pure attentiveness", letting the performers and the listeners experience how the short sounds like hit, plucked, ringing or bowed sounds attribute a meaning to the silences before and after. These silences are soon getting replaced by something else - by the sounds from before, by the sounds in expectation, or by thoughts.
14,50€
Out of stock
CD
Jürg FREY
“120 Pieces of Sound”
Jürg Frey's unique compositional approach places him at the cutting edge of contemporary classical music while simultaneously maintaining a touch of impressionistic/romantic aesthetics in its roots.
The album '120 Pieces of Sound' contains two of Frey's significant compositions: '60 Pieces of Sound' (2009) and 'L'âme est sans retenue II' (1997-2000). Frey and the Boston-based ensemble Ordinary Affects (Laura Cetilia, Morgan Evans-Weiler, J.P.A. Falzone, Luke Martin) performed and recorded '60 Pieces of Sound' in New England in 2017, in which Frey's clarinet and Cetilia's cello played the pitches in the two-part melody written in the score, while the rest played the open instrumentation part with undetermined sounds. The resulting music was a unique series of harmonies created by open instrumental sounds with a faintly recognizable melody hidden in the core of the ensemble's evenly tempered sounds. The impressions of the chords move along at the edge of consonance and dissonance with the afterglows of each chord in the subsequent silence, hovering somewhere between meditative calmness and disquieting shadow, while bringing an organic warmth and a feeling of breathable open air into a minimal musical structure.
'L'âme est sans retenue II' was written for field recordings and bass clarinet. Frey first edited the field recording parts from the materials he recorded in Berlin in 1997, and later added his bass clarinet sound with a certain pitch as an underlying tone that would blend with the field recordings. Frey's bass clarinet is discreet and almost unrecognizable, often hidden under the complex layers of the field recordings, and yet clarifying the harmonization of the field recordings from inside. Presenting these two pieces '60 Pieces of Sound' and 'L'âme est sans retenue II' back to back on this album brings out the fundamental aesthetic of Frey's compositions in regards to how he approaches the 'harmonization' and 'openness' of the music.
14,50€
In stock
CD
eRikm
“Mistpouffers”
"Draugalimur" (2014-15, 16).
Draugalimur (Phantom Limb, in English) is a crossing from the intimate to vast open spaces, traversed by the elements in motion. Ice, air, gas and fire are in perpetual activity in the chaotic and primitive far off. It resembles the more than five hundred million years ago surface of the earth.
"Poudre" (2013, 16).
Poudre was a puff of nocturnal aroma on the Berliner asphalt of the Eberswalder Straße in Alexanderplatz (Germany). New Year's Eve, where everyone lits a firework in front of their apartment building, evokes an acoustic afterglow echoing with the history and architecture of the city. From this popular event comes a subjacent feeling that oscillates between a state of insurrection, movements of rebellion or of a carnival party.
"L'aire de la Moure 2" (2013; arr. 2015-16).
It was not my sense of telluric magnetic or vibratory power, as when one is facing with a glacier, a rainforest or when making the experience of being in the middle of the Roland rift...
eRikm is an improviser, composer and visual artist based in Marseille (France). He has extended the field of artistic experimentation on the international scene. Maintaining a constant fusion between thought, instinct and sensitivity, eRikm pursues a simultaneity of practices and addresses the interplay between various compositional modes, relating to and using all languages.
From his early experience as a guitarist through to his later visual work, he is a maverick genre-bender who breaks down anyone's attempts to conveniently classify him. Quickly recognised as a virtuoso turntablist and sound artist (1996), eRikm has made a longlife habit of crossing "world-systems" deemed 'independent' and 'institutional' and all territories.
13,00€
Out of stock
CD
Ake PARMERUD
“Grains”
4th solo disc by Swedish composer Åke Parmerud.
Rerelease of 4 of his major acousmatic works. These works had been recorded in 1994 and '96 on discs that have been sold out for many years.
"Grains of Voices" (1994-95). "Jeux imaginaires" (1993). "Les objets obscurs" (1991). "Alias" (1990).
Åke Parmerud has successfully pursued a professional career in contemporary music and multimedia art since the late 70s. Although he originally trained as a photographer (1972-74) he went on to study music at the University and later at the Conservatory of Music in Göteborg (Sweden). In addition to his electroacoustic and instrumental music, his work includes a broad cross-section of modern experimental music in the fields of dance, film, interactive art, multimedia, theatre, and video.
13,00€
Out of stock
CD
Ana DALL’ARA-MAJEK
“Nano-Cosmos”
April 2018.
"Akheta's Blues" (2012, 13). "Diaphanous Acarina" (2015). "Bacillus Chorus" (2016). "Pixel Springtail Promenade" (2014-15). "Xylocopa Ransbecka" (2017).
A cycle of acousmatic pieces dedicated to insects, small arthropods and microorganisms.
Ana Dall'Ara-Majek is a composer, sound artist and researcher living in Montréal (Québec). She is devoted to the study of how instrumental, electroacoustic and computational-thinking approaches interact in musical composition. In 2016, she obtained a doctorate in composition from the Université de Montréal, where she also taught a number of courses in the digital music section.
13,00€
In stock
CD
Heather LEIGH
‘Throne’
Heather Leigh: pedal steel guitar, vocals, synthesizer, drum machine
Music composed & performed by Heather Leigh
Additional instrumentation by John Hannon: violin, synthesizer & David Keenan: electric bass
"Heather Leigh takes her Throne as queen of pedal steel with a suite of heartbleed ballads cauterised with burning riffs. After the rawness of its precursor I Abused Animal, Throne is a record of late night Americana and heavy femininity; intimate love songs smoked in sensuality. The songs on Throne are woozy, gorgeous and uncomfortable, smothered in thick layers of bass but lifted by multitracked vocals. These are rich song forms that stand in contrast to the stripped down steel in her duo with Peter Brotzmann.
Prelude To Goddess sashays in wearing leopard print jeans under the twinkling fluorescent illuminations of the British seaside, like Brighton Rock with extra bass. It is followed in by Lena – arguably Leigh's Jolene – a perverse love song soaked in a subversive sexuality, weighed down with a heavy pulse. Soft Seasons is anchored with sunken beats shrouded in wailing, growling steel and an earwormy melody. Gold Teeth, the longest track on the record, crests and breaks in waves; ecstatic peaks balanced and echoed by melancholic troughs. It soars on an updraft, and from cosmic heights dives seaward into a gnarly and riotous pedal steel breakdown, before catching the breeze again.
Days Without You and Scorpio & Androzani are shorter, intimate songs, in the latter the synths seethe and the steel bows and bends as Leigh's voice falters above a Greek chorus of shadows and reflections. But this isn't autobiography, and Throne departs on Days Without You, a confrontationally unfinished romantic song, anxious with half-thoughts and missed connections. It glides into the night on stilettos leaving unanswered questions, in a fug of psychic disturbance and lovesick sensuality.
Leigh's artwork (which she photographed and designed) is a visual mirror of the songs on Throne. It is an album of cosmic echoes, abstractions and introspection, of characters and stories that make up Leigh's first best pop record, its melodies and hooks set alight with the fiery core of her unique and distinctive pedal steel." JLA August 2018
Original price was: 13,90€.7,00€Current price is: 7,00€.
Out of stock
CD
COMPILATION
COMPUTER MUSIC CURRENTS 1
1989.
Alain Savouret, “Don Quixotte Corporation” (1980-81). Christer Lindwall, “Points” (1986). Daniel V. Oppenheim, “Round the Corners of Purgatory” (1987).
More than 50 composers from 13 different countries contributed to this collection of music with computers. Their pieces represent major directions of how avantgarde composers utilize the potential of new technology.
Original price was: 15,00€.8,00€Current price is: 8,00€.
Out of stock
CD
Eisuke YANAGISAWA
“Path of the Wind”
From Eisuke Yanagisawa : “The Aeolian Harp (also called Wind Harp) is a string instrument that is played by natural wind. It sounds like layered feedback or drones with rich harmonic textures that will change continuously according to the wind direction, strength and consistency. One day, I bought the materials at the local DIY store and built a small Aeolian Harp. I brought the harp outside on windy days, but it made no sound at all. Through trial and error, by altering the string materials, tension, and the angle against the wind, it finally produced a sound.
The harp resonates with the surrounding environment, changing from place to place. I put two lavalier microphones into each of its two holes to clearly record the tiny resonant sounds, without too much wind interference. What is intriguing to me is that the recording will inevitably include environmental sounds from near and far which are condensed and slightly modulated by the harp. In a way, I use the harp as a kind of transducer as well as sounding body to interact with the environment through the forces of the wind. The recordings themselves are ecological, meteorological and geomorphological observations at a certain time and place.”
300 copies.
14,00€
In stock
CD
Gregory BÜTTNER
“Voll.Halb.Langsam.Halt”
From Gregory Büttner, “Voll.Halb.Langsam.Halt” is based on contact mic recordings, which I recorded on an old steamboat, an ice-breaker from the 1930. I had the chance to take a trip on the ship from Rostock to Rügen over the Baltic Sea in 2010. The body of the ship is completely built from metal, so it is a big resonant room which sounds very different on each spot which I put my contact mics on (I used two contact mics, so I could record in stereo). I walked around the ship, placing my mics on different areas of the ship and also directly on parts of the steam engine, which is still fired by coal. For the composition I only used the pure recordings without additional sound manipulations, only juxtapositions, transitions and cuts.
300 copies.
14,00€
In stock
CD, Book
Jason KAHN
“Voice and Sky”
Book 15x14 cm, 74 pages + CD.
Voice and Sky provides both a look at a previous work, On the Breeze – a series of public space interventions and text / sound installation – and an extension of that work in the form of a book and CD publication. My view is that an installation or any kind of work dealing with the idea of space – be it a public space or a designated art space – can only be fully experienced by being in that space first hand. In the case of On the Breeze, using material gathered hiking extensively through the Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden, the final installation could only really be understood or felt within the context of the place the exhibition was held. The installation’s use of the recordings made during the interventions and the text I wrote during my hikes through the mountains were directly intertwined with the environment one walked through to get to the exhibition, which was scattered throughout the Swiss countryside of Appenzell Ausserrhoden near the small town of Gais. The idea of reconstructing On the Breeze in book and CD form would be impossible. The point of publishing this book, then, isn’t about creating a documentation but quite simply to share my experience working on the public space interventions and the ensuing installation. It is my feeling that the text and recordings on the CD impart something universal and untethered from the context of the original installation. The primary material of On the Breeze was in fact not these texts or recordings but the very space itself and my experience there, inserting myself through voice, movement and text. Voice and Sky chronicles this process.
18,00€
In stock
CD
Alex Zhang HUNGTAI / David MARANHA / Gabriel FERRANDINI
“Eight Black Horses Crown Snake”
Alex Zhang Hungtai - Voice, Saxophone and Drums. David Maranha - Organ and Drums. Gabriel Ferrandini - Drums. Recorded in Cinema Passos Manuel 10th of March 2017. Mixed by Alex, David and Gabriel in Violante do Céu Studio. Mastered by Tó Pinheiro da Silva in Oeiras on 10th of November 2017. Cover photo from White Noise Book, Interior photo taken at Conservatório de Lisboa, both by António Júlio Duarte.
"Alex Zhang Hungtai as usual in this line-up switches between vocals, saxophone and drum duties, Maranha between organ and drums, while percussion is constantly Ferrandini's job. This orchestration already implies the strong percussive character of the recordings. In this constellation, the trio is diving more and more into psychomagicly charged states of euphoria. You can feel that the musicians have been able to let go completely in times, that they have fallen into a spiritual, vortex-like flow that makes it impossible - but most of all superfluous - to pinpoint the source of each individual sound. There is simply no need for any rational explanation, the listener is approached by other channels of perception. Amid the trio's in times floating, in times seething soundscapes there's again and again Alex Zhang Hungtai's dark voice depicting classic Tarot constellations or sinister Ku Klux Klan scenarios, bigotry in the south. But the way things are uttered is more important than what is actually said: The voice of the Taiwanese world citizen remains entirely part of this extraordinary improvisational trio's sound universe." RRR Sound - Torsten Walker
Like an improbable meeting between Tony Conrad, Z'ev and Alan Vega ! Mysterious and intense.
10,00€
In stock
CD
FRANCE
“À La Recherche De La Flexitude Du Temps”
Fierce 78minutes concert by France, recorded in 2016 released on the French label Fougère. With cartoons by Capony and Sauvage.
Think Faust, Tony Conrad, early Can.
12,00€
Out of stock
CD
Asmus TIETCHENS
“Stenogramme, zweite Folge”
28 ideas in 28 tracks. Pure electronic music. Limited edition of 150 copies. Digipak. Out of print at source ! Last copies.
12,00€
Out of stock
CD
Cassandra MILLER
“Just So”
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.
“Just So” (2008/18). “5 Warblework” (2011). “About Bach” (2015). “Leaving” (2011) by Quatuor Bozzini with Clemens Merkel & Alissa Cheung (violins), Stephanie Bozzini (viola), Isabelle Bozzini (cello).
Another disc of extraordinary music by Cassandra Miller, this one containing four string quartets superbly played by Quatuor Bozzini.
11,50€
In stock
CD
Cassandra MILLER
“O Zomer!”
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.
“O Zomer!” (2007) by Apartment House “Philip the Wanderer” (2012) by Philip Thomas (piano) & Clemens Merkel (whistling). “For Mira” (2012) by Mira Benjamin (violin). “Duet for Cello and Orchestra” (2015) by Charles Curtis (cello), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducor Ilan Volkov.
Two ensemble works and two solo pieces by Christian Wolff's favourite contemporary composer, who is blazing a very personal trail through the experimental music world. Brilliant performances by Apartment House, Mira Benjamin, Philip Thomas, and Charles Curtis with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov.
11,50€
In stock
CD
Alex JANG
“Momentary encounters”
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.
“Momentary encounters(5)” (2015) by Heather Roche (clarinet). “Any three players” (2016) by John Lely (melodica) Simon Limbrick (vibraphone) Anton Lukoszevieze (cello). “A grey, bent interior horizon” (2016) by Cristian Alvear (guitar) “Distributed tourism” (2014/17) by Mira Benjamin (violin), Simon Limbrick (vibraphone), Heather Roche (clarinet), Nancy Ruffer (flute), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello). Four fine, delicate works by the young, Victoria-based composer, performed by Apartment House, with solo pieces by Heather Roche on clarinet and Cristiàn Alvear on guitar.
“Momentary encounters(5)” (2015) by Heather Roche (clarinet). “Any three players” (2016) by John Lely (melodica) Simon Limbrick (vibraphone) Anton Lukoszevieze (cello). “A grey, bent interior horizon” (2016) by Cristian Alvear (guitar) “Distributed tourism” (2014/17) by Mira Benjamin (violin), Simon Limbrick (vibraphone), Heather Roche (clarinet), Nancy Ruffer (flute), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello). Four fine, delicate works by the young, Victoria-based composer, performed by Apartment House, with solo pieces by Heather Roche on clarinet and Cristiàn Alvear on guitar.
11,50€
In stock
CD
Linda CATLIN SMITH
“Wanderer”
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.
“Morning Glory” (2007). “Music for John Cage” (1990). “Stare at the River” (2010). “Knotted Silk” (1999). “Sarabande” (2010). “Velvet” (2007). “Wanderer” (2009). “Light and Water” (2010). Played by Apartment House: Philip Thomas (piano), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello), Mira Benjamin (violin), Heather Roche (clarinet), Nancy Ruffer (flute), James Opstad (double bass), Chloe Abbott (trumpet), Simon Limbrick (percussion), George Barton (percussion), Mark Knoop (piano), Jack Sheen (conductor).
Linda’s double CD Drifter, which opened the Canadian Composers Series, was described by Kate Molleson in The Guardian as “beautiful, poised and thoughtful”. The same words apply equally to Wanderer, which completes the Canadian series with eight chamber pieces realised by the ever-excellent Apartment House.
11,50€
In stock
CD
Thomas ANKERSMIT
“Homage To Dick Raaijmakers”
Thomas Ankersmit, last seen on a pair of excellent albums for PAN and Touch (in 2011 and 2014, respectively) pays tribute to legendary Dutch composer / electronic and tape music pioneer Dick Raaijmakers with an extended study in electronic music, utilising Serge Modular feedback and sine/pulse/random generators, contact mic, and tape speed variation to mirror some of Raaijmakers’ deeply weird experiments. As the label so eloquently explain - despite the abstract nature of the material, a sense of loss somehow pervades.Raaijmakers is a genuinely legendary figure in the history of electronic music, and Thomas Ankersmit’s fitting homage lands almost five years to the date of his passing, aged 83, in September 2013. Replete with experiments with sounds not found in the music, but generated by the listener’s own ear as a strange side-effect, this extended piece re-contextualizes Raaijmakers’ ideas about composition and spatial experience to focus on the sounds of raw electricity through creatively abused electronics, composing with analogue micro-sounds, and the three-dimensional sound fields; referencing storms, thunder, crashing and falling objects, and distant radio transmissions.The concept of the recording is directly inspired by Raaijmakers’ thoughts on “holophonic” sound fields to be individually explored by the listener. With this phenomenon, the listener’s inner ears actively generate sounds that don’t exist in the recorded signal, and which can change with a small movement of the head. In other words; it’s unlikely that you will experience this piece of music in quite the same way as anyone else, or that you will experience it that way more than once. And it’s perhaps this sense of transience; of not quite knowing whether what you’re listening to has a real, physical presence, or is a direct result of strange otoacoustic phenomena, that imbues this work with such unexplained melancholy. An exceptional recording; approach with patience and care.
12,00€
Out of stock
3 CD
Éliane RADIGUE
“Naldjorlak I, II, III”
Back in stock, warehouse find, few copies available.
The Naldjorlak trilogy composed between 2004 and 2009. "Naldjorlak I" for cello. Charles Curtis. "Naldjorlak II" for two basset horn. Carol Robinson and Bruno Martinez. "Naldjorlak III" for two basset horn and cello. Carol Robinson, Bruno Martinez and Charles Curtis. Recorded in Paris, June and September 2011 by Daniel Deshays. The recording of "Naldjorlak I" is different from the first one issued by the label.
"There is no score of Naldjorak and never will be. It was a mutual friend of Charles Curtis and Eliane Radigue who gave her the idea of composing a piece for cello. The work came into being, little by little, during sessions between the composer and the instrumentalist. Radigue speaks of choosing from among sounds proposed by the musicians, whereas Charles Curtis explains having learned to listen like Radigue, that she led him "to be sensitive to sonic details that normally pass by us, unnoticed". When seated in front of her ARP 2500, Eliane Radigue was in the position of a listener: she would listen to her own music as it unfolded beneath her fingertips. What she does today is rather similar, which explains why her music has not been radically transformed in passing it to acoustic instruments: she continues conversing with her instrumentalists in the same way she had lived for years with her "Jules" (the French nickname for boyfriend that she gave to her synthesizer), dialoguing and listening on a one-to one basis.
I like the idea that Eliane Radigue is a composer totally unhindered by scores and thus a part of the great historical lineage of the avant- gardes. Yves Klein practised Judo as a performance art and sold "immaterial sensitivity" at the price of gold. John Cage appreciated Zen and taught us to listen to what is found in silence. Eliane Radigue, with a perfect grasp of Tibetan thought, invites us to apprehend space and time in another way. This is perhaps the true lesson of Naldjorak (the title, invented by the composer to approximate Tibetan, evokes the concept of union): a spirituality liberated from all mysticism and from texts (or scores) too heavy to bear. Simply learn to listen to the "almost nothing", without having any need for a visual trace." Thibaut de Ruyter, translated by Jeffrey Grice.
40,00€