SALE - Page 5 of 12 - Corticalart

In stock

SQUADRA OMEGA
“Nervoso”

The Squadra Omega teams up again revealing itself in the shape of a trio composed - exactly as for the session which gave birth to Il serpente nel cielo - by OmegaFrank (drums), OmegaG8 (bass, electronics) and OmegaMatt (guitar, organ, sax and electronics). An improvised session recorded live by Matt Bordin at Outside Inside Studio, where the Squadra goes nervously FREE - constantly suspended and harmonically non resolved - following a trail of skilled atonal jazz rock guitar tunes leading to moments of dazed electronics. Definitely not an easy-listening album, wonderfully rendered by a masterful cut made by Daniel Krieger at SST in Frankfurt. For fans of early ECM records. Pressing info: 250 copies on black.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

Ekin FIL
“Being Near”

Had the titular contest in Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music In The World not been rigged from the onset, Turkey could have delivered an impeccable contestant in Ekin Fil. For many years now, her spectral dream-pop deconstructions hold a thousand-yard stare of an unconsolable melancholy; and she's drawn the highly favorable comparisons to Grouper and lovesliecrushing thanks to her understated yet beloved catalogue of releases on Root Strata, Students Of Decay, No Kings, and Sacred Phrases. Helen Scarsdale has long been a fan of Ekin Fil’s work, and we are delighted to have her in our constellation of artists here at The Agency. Born Ekin Üzeltüzenci and based in her native Istanbul, she cites the shoegazing classics (Cocteau Twins, Cranes, Slowdive, etc.) as her earliest influence, seeking out worn issues of Melody Maker or NME from second hand shops and trading cassettes with friends and fellow enthusiasts. This Proustian obsession with rainsoaked melodies from the British Isles blossomed into a foundation for her own art. Being Near stands as the pinnacle in her luminous career, with achingly beautiful and elegantly simple arrangements for guitar and electronics saturated in cavernous amounts of reverb, whose semi-mystical blur extends well into the vocal melodies. Ekin Fil’s songs emote a timelessness of human desire and longing, albeit constrained to this plane of existence. For Üzeltüzenci, her music is not an escape valve from the patriarchal hammer of the dominant culture in Turkey, but a reflection through her own condition, in her own context, from her own body that may have actualized what Helene Cixous theorized as “écriture féminine” but through sound and not language.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

ORCHESTRA OF CONSTANT DISTRESS
“OOCD”

Orchestra of Constant Distress is the new Swedish supergroup featuring Joachim Nordwall (Skull Defekts, Alvars Orkester), Anders ‘Drajan’ Bryngelsson (Brainbombs, No Balls), Henrik Rylander and Henrik Andersson. Their self-titled debut LP on 8mm is a nice slab of Hard Rock from the year 3000. 5 tracks of pure mechanical alienation, built upon very minimal guitar/drums patterns and waves of harsh electronics, sounding pretty much like anything else in the actual noise rock scenario. Limited edition of 200 copies.

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

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

In stock

Sale

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.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

SATURN AND THE SUN
“In love with the extreme”

Joachim Nordwall and Henrik Rylander created Saturn and the Sun for their mutual passion in mindchanging sound experiments. Since 2005, they have created music together in ritual rock band The Skull Defekts, but since the death of the Skulls in April 2018 their common focus now is Saturn and the Sun. Deep, often monotonous and harsh electronic music inspired by 60s minimalism, early techno and tribal music. This is what you get when the two comes together. Rylander is working as a forensic photographer, makes extreme sound art and Nordwall runs the iDEAL Recordings label and records experimental music on his own and with artists like Mats Gustafsson, Mika Vainio (RIP), Ryan Martin and Leif Elggren. They both share the legendary studio space Gothenburg Sound Experiment.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

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

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

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.

In stock

Sale

Arek GULBENKOGLU
“A gift like a hollow vessel”

Melbourne based artist Arek Gulbenkoglu presents his second full length album for Penultimate Press. Following on from the 2017 release Three days afterwards, A gift like a hollow vessel sees a sharper scalpel at play resulting in a more nuanced release which unfolds a curious journey of suburban psychedelia. Sourced from voice and body sounds, recording of non-musical processes, actions and events, breath, tapes of animal sounds slowed and sped up, processed field recordings, electronics, percussion, tape delay, sample of old folkways records and Esperanto text to voice translations. A gift like a hollow vessel is striking and intimate musique concrete. A work of confounding beauty as created by one of the most unique voices operating in orbit of psychedelic music as it presents itself today. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi with artwork by Matthew Revert. Limited edition of 250 copies.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

MP HOPKINS and Mark HARWOOD
“Disfigured with Abbreviations”

Debut recording from two troubadours of oppositional creep. Inspired by Philip K. Dick and the useless machines that haunt us all, Disfigured with Abbreviations is a roundtable exquisite corpse which crawls through a miraculous environment, at once sensual and sinister. How is it that the perpetual promise of a future lands us in a deeper quagmire? How do two gentlemen with scruffy vocabularies fall into a sonic landscape of such haunted beauty? Following their debut live performance on the rooftop of a bakery in Northcote, Victoria in January 2018 Harwood and Hopkins soon set about making a recording. Initially structured with individual recordings placed on each other regardless of content and positioning. These works soon evolved into a rich labyrinth of found sound, field recordings, electronics and voice with all elements mapping out a landscape heroic in it’s embracing of utter failure. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi with artwork by MP Hopkins and Mark Harwood. Comes with a printed inner disco sleeve housed in a charming reverse board sleeve. Limited edition of 250 copies.

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

Michael LIGHTBORNE
“Sounds of the Projection Box”

These recordings, made in 2016 and 2017, document the shifting sonic texture of the cinema projection box, as it changes from 35mm to digital projection. By 2014, the majority of UK cinemas had already converted to digital, making many projectionists redundant, and quietly altering the way that cinema works, as both an industry and an experience. Very few cinemas maintain the ability to project 35mm film alongside digital, and it was in some of the remaining, tenacious boxes that I sought the persistent sounds of analogue projection. The unique space that this album investigates is simultaneously a workshop, an engine room, and an artist’s studio. The projection box is a small room at the back of the cinema auditorium that conceals both the apparatus of the moving image, and the labour of the projectionist, ensuring that both remain invisible, and inaudible, to the cinema-goer. This album was developed as part of The Projection Project, a research project based in the Film and Television Studies Department at the University of Warwick, which seeks to record and investigate the history of cinema projection in Britain. A special issue of the Journal of British Cinema And Television Studies (Vol 15, No 1, 2018), edited by members of The Projection Project, features a number of articles about the history of British cinema projection and the work of the projectionist in Britain, through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It includes an article entitled, Sounds of the Projection Box: Liner Notes for a Phonographic Method’, which augments this album, and elaborates upon the theoretical and methodological rationale for the use of sonic field recording as a mode of enquiry. All of the images that accompany this record were made by Richard Nicholson. Some of them form part of a series of portraits entitled The Projectionists. 500 copies.

In stock

Sale

THE THING
“Again”

Recorded July 2nd and 3rd, 2017 by Øyvind Gundersen at Studio Paradiso, Oslo. Mixed October 2017, by Andreas Werliin at Repeat Until Death, Stockholm. Produced by Johan Berthling, artwork by Lasse Marhaug. Mats Gustafsson, soprano and tenor saxophones. Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, acoustic and electric bass. Paal Nilssen-Love, drums and percussion. Plus Joe McPhee, pocket trumpet, as guest on one track. “Though “Again” is the well-proved mixture of cover versions and original compositions, this time the focus is rather on jazz. The only cover, Decision in Paradise, is an old, rather conventional Frank Lowe piece. […] The center of the album is the 21-minute “Sur Face“, presenting the band at full throttle featuring Gustafsson at his most effective and juxtaposed with more aggressive playing from the rhythm section. […] Vicky Di rounds out the album, it’s the only composition that recalls the old, more rock-ish days at the beginning of their career.” By Martin Schray - freejazzblog.org

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

Ben PATTERSON
“The Lost Tape & The Three Required Musics”

“Radiophonic minutes of the search for a probably lost tape piece, and a reconstruction thereof with real instruments.” Produced by Hessischer Rundfunk (Hessian Broadcasting Corporation), Germany, in 2015. When future Fluxus artist Ben Patterson (1934–2016) traveled to Germany in 1960 in order to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen, he brought along a tape piece that he had produced in Hugh Le Caine’s electronic studio in Canada and that he wanted to show to Stockhausen. They met briefly in the context of the World Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in Cologne, but Patterson immediately sensed that their aesthetic ambitions and viewpoints differed too much, and in the end, he didn’t even present him his piece. Instead, his attention was drawn to the Contre Festival at Mary Bauermeister’s studio, a counter event to the ISCM festival presenting works by George Brecht, La Monte Young, John Cage, a.o. Virtually overnight, Patterson’s aesthetic thinking changed radically, and the cornerstone was laid for his coming role within the Fluxus movement. In 2013, Stefan Fricke, editor for new music at Hessischer Rundfunk, approached Patterson about a broadcast of that old tape piece. Patterson didn’t know its whereabouts, so Fricke and him together with Cologne-based composer hans w. koch set out for a journey through Patterson’s large collection of tapes, some labeled, some unlabeled, sometimes the labels not matching the contents. The journey was recorded with Patterson inserting and ejecting various cassettes, always commenting on what was being heard. In the end, the electronic piece couldn’t be found, so it was decided to re-record it using various toys, instruments, and small devices. For the new recording, Patterson brought a score titled “The Three Required Musics” which he considered to be related to the tape piece and which required preparatory work in the form of cutting out colored pieces of paper and pasting them into a time grid. This LP contains the recording of the search on side A and the new recording of the score on side B. It is presented in a full-color sleeve showing a detail of hans w. koch’s paper time grid, with liner notes by Stefan Fricke and hans w. koch, and two inserts: the first containing the original score “The Three Required Musics” with new notes by Ben Patterson, the other reproducing koch's complete paper score in A2 format. Edition of 300.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

Chris CORSANO – Massimo PUPILLO
“Via Combusta”

Chris Corsano, drums and percussion. Massimo Pupillo, electric bass. Recorded, mixed, mastered by Bruno Germano at Vacuum Studio, Bologna. Artwork, Lasse Marhaug.

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

4 CD

Mats GUSTAFSSON & FRIENDS
“MG 50 – Peace & Fire”

In October 2015 happened a big 3day-celebration in the Viennese venue Porgy&Bess for the 50th birthday of Mats Gustafsson - saxophone player extraordinaire in contemporary (free) jazz, for instance with The Thing, Fire!, and in various duo/trio/ensemble-formations. Many musicians Gustafsson played with or currently plays with were invited to join in various formations. Comes in a heavy cardboard box with two thick booklets including essays and many photos ! CD 1 - 26 october Mats Gustafsson / Didi Kern RISC (Billy Roisz/Dieb 13) Sven- Åke Johansson Swedish azz CD 2- 27 october FAKE THE FACTS + Paul Lytton & Martin Brandlmayr Christof Kurzmann / Sofia Jernberg FIRE! Plus guests CD 3 - 28 october Klangforum Wien & Mats Gustafsson TR!O + 1 (Günther Christman /Paul Lovens/Thomas Lehn/Mats Gustafsson) THE THING & KEN VANDERMARK CD 4 - STRENGE KAMMER Kjell Nordeson Per – Åke Holmlander Agustí Fernández Erwan Keravec Christof Kurzmann / Ken Vandermark Anna Högberg

In stock

Sale

2 LP

eRikm & LES PERCUSSIONS DE STRASBOURG
“Drum-machines”

Drum-Machines, the 2nd recording made and produced under the label Percussions de Strasbourg, marks an important turning point in our approach, that of the 4th generation of our ensemble. At the junction between contemporary and electronic music, Drum-Machines was created following a process of dynamic composition: the performers first proposed sound materials on two research residencies and then eRikm ensured the composition, the music production and mixing. Commissioned by Percussions de Strasbourg and GMEM, Drum-Machines was created on October 7 th, 2016 at Musica Festival in Strasbourg. «Les Percussions de Strasbourg perform augmented sound material that showcases the intuitive and sensitive universe of eRikm. Between rustling electric razors, the tingling of metal, swirling marbles and ballets danced by twigs, the performers caress, rub, react, transform, develop multiple modes of play and offer a fresh, delicate and unexpected exploration of sound. In a truly collective effort, both in terms of the making of materials and the design of the form and the execution of this unique piece of work, Les Percussions de Strasbourg have fully enjoyed their collaboration with one of the most recognized producers of electronic music of our time. Drum-Machines is a living sound installation marked by the imprint of five individuals that mixes sound mechanics with organic and subtle electronics, suggesting a reorganization of the boundaries of today's forms of musical expression. » Minh-Tâm Nguyen «Throughout the ages and their various uses, survival tools (rhombus wind instruments, flute-calls, etc.) have become musical instruments. In the context of this work, these vectors of affects co-exist side-by-side with an electro-acoustic system. This machine cannibalizes its own sound production while simultaneously thriving on sounds produced by the musicians. From this agora spring forth "multitimbral" landscapes whose edges dissolve into microtonal steppes, devoid of human action. From liminal pulsation to decimal infinity, the physicality of the sound summons an allegory to geology, from the infra thin (l’émoi - volute) to the supra massive (embâcle – doline). Drum-Machines consists of subconscious and collective archaic fields that reach all the way to the noise aberration of the contemporary world. The 21 st century begins in its great collapse, the imbalances and the disruptions of the sound masses deployed by (percussionist) organisms in movement compress time and sounds until their paroxysms. This work is the elaboration of a lengthy sifting approach in which process creates form through a dynamic composition. This process uses accumulation, manipulation and re-arrangement across several generations of sound data. Speed, pulse, timbre and instruments are subject to numerous distortions by real or virtual machines. The original intention is modified and transformed. Drum-Machines is polymorphic in its arrangement, suspended on a line of time and actions.» eRikm

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

Francis PLAGNE & Crys COLE
“Two Words”

Two Words is the debut release from the duo of Canadian sound artist crys cole and Australian songwriter Francis Plagne. Building on a series of experimental live performances in which the pair toyed with possible common languages for their seemingly unrelated approaches to music, the LP’s two sides present a single piece that brings together abstract texture and slow-motion song in a sonic space where genre cedes to the logic of dreams. The piece begins with a long, nearly static sequence built primarily from rubbed surfaces, using movement in the stereo field and changing mic placements to create a unified but unstable sonic environment that mimics wind, water, and breath, opening an impossible space between nature and artifice. This artificial outdoors ultimately makes room for Plagne’s electric organ, which sounds a series of melancholic chords to accompany a wandering Wyatt-esque keyboard line as cole’s intimate contact mic textures sizzle and pop in the foreground. From here the piece makes a surprise detour into song, as the majority of the second side finds Plagne intoning a series of obtuse two word phrases (from a text by Berlin-based poet Marty Hiatt) to an austere organ accompaniment. Working closely with engineer and producer Joe Talia, cole and Plagne extend the studio-as-an-instrument tradition of Teo Macero and This Heat, introducing subtle yet unexpected production shifts that lead the listener from the initial austerity of the organ and voice to an oneiric space of asynchronised vocal doubles, creaking textures, and distant whistling, ultimately arriving at something like an imagined meeting of Organum and Arthur Russell. Packaged in a suitably mysterious sleeve featuring a lush work by Australian painter Anne Wallace on the front and text by Hiatt on the back, Two Words is both comforting and strange, a disorienting blend of seemingly discrepant elements.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

CJA
“Sido Not Dead”

As reported by Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel / Our Love Will Destroy The World / C-Psi-P) : “I narrowly avoided an English-second-language tete-a-tete in Belgium once when I refused to believe in the face of all evidence that Sunn O)))’s newly released “Flight of the Behemoth” was not CJA. I was wrong, but whatever… I was already ascending Lucifers path to the stars not garbed in chic grim-robes but a pilling homespun jersey that stunk of wet dog. I confess and repent… for me, all ‘this kinda music’ was an exercise in deftly crafted slovenliness and anonymous surface texture, but in spending time with a tape simply labeled “Sido Not Dead” I was struck dumb with the burning religious fervor of real people who had truly forgotten to give a fuck and at that very moment unto me was bestowed a mighty vision of two-bar heaters, worn cream carpet, mooching about in slippers with cups of budget herbal tea. A long winter weekend that passed too close to a tape recorder and whose glacial momentum had accidentally combed the little magnetic thingies on the cassette into recognizable geometric shapes. This was my (unwashed) fork in the road: facile, nihilistic, too lazy to make it to the letterbox, yet enlightened, enlivened, ascended, eternal…” blangblangblang
GRONGGRONG
blangblangblang
GRONGGRONG… Fellow pilgrims and travellers to furthest inner outposts…herein lies your scripture. Edition limited to 200 copies in silkscreened sleeve.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

Nicolas WIESE
“Unrelated”

Born 1976, Nicolas Wiese studied design, illustration sound art, philosophy and sociology and has since been working on various fields: his (audio-)visual art has been presented in galleries and at exhibitions in Teheran, Gent, London, Vienna, St. Louis, Istanbul, Madrid a.o. As musician / composer, he released a number of solo and collaborative albums under the [-Hyph-] moniker and his civilian name on labels like Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien or Corvo Records. Wiese’s latest effort “Unrelated” contains seven new pieces, constructed from sonic elements of various compositions, audiovisual works, fragments, remixes and experiments from a time span of 6 years, drawn from different contexts and a wide range of international musicians and collaborators. Wiese’s trademark working method is to combine complex sample-based layers with modulated feedback which is triggered by the samples, their overtones and harmonic properties. This playing technique, using the mixing board as a feedback-instrument, adds a special live feel to the meticulous musique concrète constructions based on the original acoustic source material. Rich in details, “Unrelated” is a vital proof of Wiese’s artistic skills and a highly entertaining concern, melting electro-acoustic, musique concrète and sampledelia!
3 in the Periklas series comes from Nicolas Wiese, a Berlin based electronic and audio-visual artist. Mastered & cut by Rashad Becker, artwork by Joe Gilmore, format LP (200 handnumbered items, silk-screened sleeve, DL code, clear vinyl).

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

ISSS / Venzha CHRIST

ISSS (Indonesia Space Science Society). Ltd. Ed. 300 ex. w/ poster and inlet. Working with artists, scientists, astronomers and engineers in Indonesia, Venzha Christ has established Indonesia Space Science Society as a framework for the exploration of space from a different perspective. Whilst lacking the means that large space agencies such as NASA have, the Indonesia Space Science Society provides us with a compelling encounter with space nonetheless. The record presents radio waves from space, sent and collected through self-made radio antennas gathering precise data from astronomical objects in space. The transmitted signals received from the planets and stars are then decoded into audible sounds. Includes a text from Ewen Chardronnet (Association of Autonomous Astronauts / Aliens in Green / Laboratory Planet). Graphic design by Jean-Baptiste Parré.

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

George CRUMB
“Metamorphoses (Book I) (2015–17)”

“Metamorphoses (Book I)” (2015–17). First recording. Written for Margaret Leng Tan. “Five Pieces for Piano” (1962). Margaret Leng Tan, piano. This important release couples George Crumb’s (b. 1929) earliest work for piano, the Five Pieces for Piano (1962) with his most recent piano cycle, Metamorphoses (Book I) (2017). Margaret Leng Tan has long been a champion of Crumb’s music, and he composed Metamorphoses (Book I) for her. This recording is of the German premiere at the legendary Donaueschingen Festival in 2017. Crumb’s Metamorphoses is a natural descendent of his monumental Makrokosmos I & II piano cycle of the early 1970s. With a nod to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, each movement of the Metamorphoses is inspired by a famous painting. And, like the Makrokosmos, it requires the pianist to be a virtuoso not only at the keyboard but playing inside the piano and vocalizing as well. Ms. Tan is regarded as the “Diva of the Toy Piano,” and Crumb has also incorporated the toy piano and toy percussion instruments into some movements. Crumb says: “I have always been most fortunate to have had outstanding pianists who were willing to tackle the formidable technical and musical innovations in my scores. And among the very finest of these is Margaret Leng Tan for whom I wrote Metamorphoses (Book l). Margaret’s technical prowess and superb artistic sensitivity is a combination that must warm the heart of any composer!” The CD also includes the early Five Pieces for Piano. All the components of Crumb’s mature compositional language are already evident: a broad palette of coloristic effects along with an extraordinarily sensitive command of nuance, his unmistakable musical gestures, an inherent sense of drama coupled with a magical suspenseful atmosphere and a battery of interior piano effects demanding that the pianist be somewhat of a harpist and percussionist as well. This newly remastered recording is taken from Ms. Tan’s Sonic Encounters recital on Mode (mode 15, from 1988).

In stock

Sale

Michael BARTHEL
“Halber Pogo”

Edition of 300 copies in six-panel digipak. Second full-lenght release by German sound-poet and writer Michael Barthel on Tochnit Aleph. Recorded April 2018 straight to tape without overdubs. Raw, unsettling, and poetically incorrect! “Halber Pogo (half a pogo) is a 60 minute recording in which scripted text-pieces are recited from memory. The selection of the pieces is left up to the moment, as much as how much content of each piece is remembered; along with their actually determined pronounciation - that often buggers off. This inaccuracy, the resulting pauses, the sensuality that arises from these circumstances, is what is of interest to Halber Pogo.”

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

Mark VAN HOEN
“Invisible Threads”

All titles composed and recorded by Mark Van Hoen in Los Angeles 2016.“[…] Other Touch artists were also an influence here – Claire M Singer, Jana Winderen and as ever Chris Watson (who has been an enduring influence from the moment I first heard Cabaret Voltaire in 1979)… along with my project ‘drøne’ with Mike Harding… the collaborative aspect of drøne brought up a few new paths in itself.During the time I was recording the album I was editing audio and sound design for films – this too went some way to defining the structure and sound of ‘Invisible Threads’. At the time of recording several of the titles on the album, I had re-read ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’, a short story by Edgar Allen Poe… and in some ways this record is a soundtrack to that.The title ‘Invisible Threads’ refers to the intangible connection between all of the musical and personal influences that brought this record into being.”Instrumentation/sound sources : Modular synthesizer notably using modules manufactured by Make Noise, The Harvestman & Mutable Audio. Software – Ableton Live, Pro Tools and many plugins – heavily used were Max, Soundhack and Native Instruments’ Reaktor & Kontakt. Fender Rhodes piano, Fender Jaguar guitar. Farfisa Organ, Vox continental.

In stock

Sale

Dino SPILUTTINI
“Heaven”

Heaven is a work of contemporary church music. Centrally occupied with the subject of death, its conceptualisation was catalysed by Spiluttini’s discovering his mother’s preparations both for her own death and for his. He arrived at her home in 2015 to be led into the local church and shown the two adjacent places she had reserved for their urns. The tracks on Heaven together consist of an analogously personal and anticipatory negotiation with death. Partly derived from organ recordings made in the same church, the album frequently enlists Arvo Pärt’s compositional method of tintinnabuli. Aside from the thematic logic of its sacred associations, the method suits Spiluttini’s tendency, in spite of heavy and dynamic passages, to minimise tonal complexity. His characteristic uses of gnashing bass, restlessly irregular pacing and serrated distortion return. This time, they combine with pads, harps, fluttering organs and swooping choirs. Track titles throughout Heaven conjure intense emotional conflicts, especially those arising from experiences of embodiment. Touch isolation is a term for the toxic masculine stigma against platonic touch between men. If such a reference on an album preoccupied with death and afterlife raises the question of whether Spiluttini considers any touch – let alone platonic – to be possible in Heaven, the title ‘Flesh Angel’ perhaps answers it. As with ‘Body at War’ and ‘Weakened Centurion’, such a title positions the agitation of its music among ongoing struggles with body acceptance. Meanwhile, ‘Rainbow Bridge’ recalls the 1980s prose poem promising an eternal reunion in death with one’s beloved lost pets. In context, these various indices seem to capture the yearning speculation that, as the nexuses of experience, bodies are not discarded in death; on the contrary, they achieve a state of perfection. Heaven revolves within dramatic and ever-changing vignettes. As church music, it lacks real communal participation or fidelity to hymnal text. Instead, it must come to terms with negation and eternity as dependable threats to generational and spatial distance, to personal struggles with earthly embodiment and to the anxious, hyperactive navigation of identity in late modernity. (Edward Trethowan)

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

Jacob WICK
“Feel”

A trumpeter and improviser living in Mexico City, over the last ten years Jacob Wick has become known for deconstructing the instrument itself and any expectations of how it "should" be played. The explorations on Feel focus on sound as it relates to specific spaces and in turn the subtle but profound connections they have to emotions and the body. The result is a highly personal music that is both unique and immediate, abstract yet undeniably visceral. On Feel, Wick creates two intense side-long improvisations. On the surface they appear to be works of rigorous minimalism; on closer listen they reveal sounds that slowly but constantly shift and evolve. Texture and plosives replace melody and rhythm. Body and breath become indistinguishable from the instrument, the moment is stretched and expanded. Each sound is so closely linked that the player and listener are drawn completely into the present. Feel is an uncompromising and entirely original album -- an intimate sound experience that rewards anyone that chooses to enter.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

MOPCUT
“Accelerated Frames of Reference”

MOPCUT is a medium-length noise-style that covers the head and ears with a vertical bang and a horizontal wave. It's a popular style for all ages, genders and generations.The soundscape should be trimmed evenly all around the circumference so that the noise at the front reaches the inner eye while the waves on the sides cover (or almost fully cover) the ears. The beats at the back maintain the same length as the samples at the front and sides. Once the overall sound is achieved, trimming is used to achieve minimalism or maximalism, depending. Improvisation, noise and electronic beats work well as backgrounds for the MOPCUT. Electronic appliances and devices may be used to give the MOPCUT a bit more volume, but effects may lead to standing up instead of hanging low. (Lukas König)

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

HOWLROUND
“The Debatable Lands”

In December 2017, Howlround (Robin the Fog) was invited to perform at "The Winter Solstice Soundscapes" event for the recently opened record store "Vinyl Café" in his home town of Carlisle, Cumbria. Inspired by the reception to his first ever performance in the great border city, he covered his parent's dining room table with the same equipment, stretched loops of tape around his mum's seasonal candlesticks when she wasn't looking... and this LP is the result. The only equipment used on the album is two 1/4" reel-to-reel tape machines and one microphone. The sounds created are entirely at the discretion of the machines (much of them derived from 'closed-input' recordings) and all tracks were produced in a single take. There are no edits, no overdubs and no additional effects. This marks a new, heavier direction for Howlround, a project better known for more ambient work. Described as 'Tapeloop Techno', thick knotty tangles of dense, pulsating bass are an echo of Robin's early days making bad dance music, while the abrasive snarls of feedback swirling around these tracks point to his more recent embrace of indeterminacy and chance composition. Previous vinyl releases on Psyché Tropes, The Wormhole, A Year in the Country and Front & Follow as well as his own label The Fog Signals have shown a deep understanding of the possibilities of tape manipulation. On The Debatable Lands Howlround eschews the usual field recordings in favour of exploring the interior world of the machines themselves.

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

MOPCUT
“Accelerated Frames of Reference”

In stock

Sale

Tujiko NORIKO
“Kuro (OST)”

"Composed and recorded during the editing of the film in Berlin, the Kuro OST by Tujiko Noriko (with contributions from Joji Koyama, Sam Britton and Will Worsely), is a crucial and integral part of the film, acting not only as a glue to bind the layers of the film together, but along with the sonic palette of the film’s sound design, evokes it’s claustrophobic atmospheres and moments of haunting beauty. I tried to think of the pieces in abstract terms, like moods and atmospheres. In a way, the process was quite similar to how I usually make music, in the sense that I have images in my head. Of course in this case there were actual images and a lot of them very close to me, but I didn't want to get overly conscious about them either—I didn't want to get stuck by trying to be too specific." -Tujiko Noriko

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

2 LP

ELECTRIC INDIGO
“Ferrum”

Ferrum is a large-scale exploration of inharmonic timbres, oscillating between brutal grinding textures and intricate percussive singularities, created by digitally transforming recordings of various metallic objects. Susanne Kirchmayr's new album takes a close personal look at the spectral richness of iron and other metals, in various shapes and sizes, recorded, processed, and arranged to a carefully curated selection of musical miniatures. Some of the results are an obvious nod to her Electric Indigo DJ alias, music that could be played on the dancefloor of an alien cargo ship, both highly familiar and foreign at the same time. Others offer almost steady-state like meditative qualities, vibrations from deep within, on a sub atomic level, full of light and motion on the tiniest possible scale. The limitation in material opens up a seemingly unlimited world of colors and rhythms, oscillating, resonating, and highly immersive. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Artwork by Tina Frank.

Add to cart

In stock

Sale

2 LP

Fred GALES
“Het Jacoba Prieel”

Originally released on tape by Sound Reporters in 1986. Het Jacoba Prieel is a very weird compendium of imaginary soundscapes, in which every coordinate seems lost and totally deviated. Fred Gales, in collaboration with Walter Maioli and Pit Piccinelli, presents his idea of a concrete organic music, a diary of signals and sound impressions inspired by the great tradition of primitive music, an extreme investigation of love on the primordial beauty of sound expression. Travelling into the properties of all matter of the sonic environment, the members of the legendary Sound Reporters generate, transform, mix, filter and modulate natural and electronic sounds in the magical analogical studio of the Utrecht Institute of Sonology. From a single movement of sound fragments are opened catalyst flows and circuits, flickering sequencers and oscillations of luminous channels. Futuristic tribalism, hypnotic fossil percussion, alien sounds, dreamlike trips in the jungle, echoes of rustling and rumbles otherworldly, rain waterfalls and shells in the pond, calls of animals and insects, heart beats and radar waves. Everything is just pure sound and surrounds us.

Add to cart

Out of stock

Sale

Masami AKITA
“Wattle”

Elevator Bath’s series of picture disc LPs (each record being adorned with full-color artwork by the recording artist) comes to its conclusion with a top-notch new release from the great Masami Akita. “Wattle” is a new, two-part composition featuring Akita’s traditional soup of unidentifiable metallic clanging, crushing feedback, jagged white noise, and various effects. It does not disappoint. There are no drums, no guitars, no vocals; just scorching electronic mayhem of the highest quality. The colorful images here are based on photographs shot and subtly manipulated by Masami Akita, who sends the following message: “Turkey is beautiful animal and do not eat them.” Agreed. Masami Akita is, of course, the artist behind the seminal, vegan, straight edge, noise project, Merzbow. He lives in Tokyo. This picture disc LP has been released in an edition of 270 copies.

Catalogue

CORTICALART

NEWSLETTER

INFORMATIONS