We've been hearing about this release for some time now. It was supposed to be out last November, but somehow it took forever for our suppliers to carry it. Nils Frahm is a modern German pianist and composer who has been releasing piano and synth-based ambient music since 2005. But we hear it's his live performances that are truly compelling as he showcases an incredible sense of control and restraint while at the same time opening up to all kinds of musical experimentation through building of passages and filtering and electronic processing. Spaces is the result of such experiments combining two years of live recordings and weaving them into each other, building up from organically plaintive melodies into full range ambient fields of sound and back to cascading watery piano passages. Gorgeous stuff!
Perhaps you're familiar with Zeitkratzer, the classically trained mavericks from Germany who have taken it upon themselves to produce orchestral arrangements of notorious pieces from scabrous noise musicians, notably Whitehouse, John Duncan, Keiji Haino, Zbigniew Karkowski, and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. The ensemble has also ventured into arrangements of austere electronica (e.g. Carsten Nicolai and Terre Thaemlitz) and revisiting the classic avant-garde pieces from Alvin Lucier, John Cage, and Xenakis. Zeitkratzer's mastermind is the pianist Reinhold Friedl, who embraces the prepared model for the piano that Cage and company presented more than a half-century ago. In the liner notes here, Friedl offers plenty of examples of techniques developed to produce sound from various objects manipulating the strings inside the piano - e-bows, fishing line, violin bows, rubber balls, and small motors. Through his own exploration of the prepared piano, he really attempts to create a vast orchestra of sounds which can be automated and / or perpepuated through extended passages. Side A is a very dynamic piece with all sorts of sonic activity erupting from within Friedl's piano, described by the man himself as his "full orchestra" with "low vibrations, bottleneck techniques, piping backgrounds, and scratching." It is an intense exploration of dissonant crashes, razor slashed glissandos, and agitated acoustic noise. Side two begins with a rasping acoustic drone slowly building and mutating through multiple strings driven by e-bows and springs. The unholy racket that follows is a variation on the first side with scraped metal and bellowing more in keeping with a Z'ev action of junkyard gamelan follows the drone stasis. All of these demonic howls and squeals answer a whole lot of questions as to how Zeitkratzer was able to render their orchestrations of Metal Machine Music and the Whitehouse pieces in particular! Oh yeah, the album was cut at 45rpm, so you know we played this at 33, where it sounds all the blacker. Thanks, Hronir!
FYI we can also get this on cd, not in stock at the moment though.
Minimalist composer Ellen Fullman speaks of her instrument quite lovingly. Considering the immense amount of time and energy that it takes to set up her long-stringed instrument, her attachment is understandable. When she recently moved to the Bay Area after many years in the Pacific Northwest, she had to radically change the architecture of her apartment by building an addition beyond the porch just to fit the multi-stringed device in the building. It's not enough for Fullman just to stretch long wires in any architectural space, for her pieces involve a complex mathematical foundation which enable Fullman an incredible amount of control when composing her extended drones and minimalist mantras.
Indebted to '60s minimalists like LaMonte Young, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Phil Niblock, Fullman's best work -- as found on Staggered Stasis -- suspends microtonal shifts amidst thick rasping drones rich with resonant overtones and complex harmonics. Fullman herself describes the work quite accurately, that "there is a flatness in this drama, what I imagine it must be like in the middle of an ocean, continually moving yet appearing the same." The end result is a much more contemplative and restrained aesthetic than the dynamic dronescapes of Organum and Andrew Chalk. This is a lovely and thororughly engaging work.
Dunno if we can keep up with all the cool stuff that Locust has been putting out lately, but we'll try. And we definitely need to let you know about this one. This here double cd set is a remastered reissue of the contents of two obsure and out of print Folkways LPs from the early '70s that documented the activities of NYC's Gamelan Son Of Lion. That's right, this Gamelan wasn't from Indonesia, instead they were a bunch of long-haired, bearded American avant-gardists, among them Fluxus composer Philip Corner. Wasn't one of the Sun City Girls quoted recently in The Wire as saying the last thing he wanted to hear was white people playing a gamelan in a traditional manner? Well he'd probably be happy with this group. As much as by the ethnic musics of the East, this group seemed to be inspired by minimalism and Morton Feldman. Unlike "real" gamelan music I've heard, this isn't nearly so dense and rhythmic. It's rather more slow and spacious. Simple, even. But the resonating metal sounds are incredibly lovely. Our resident gamelan musician, Byram, didn't care for it as much...but then he gets to play with a gamelan quite often. And probably if you had your own gamelan (a home-made one like the Son of Lion folks built, with grapefruit juice cans and the like) you could come up with music a lot like the compositions heard here. But I don't, so I found this to be totally gorgeous and mesmerizing...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Flute, whoot!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Flute, whoot!
It can be quite daunting to figure out how to navigate the releases of most 20th Century Composers. What is essential and what is not. That may be especially true for Philip Glass who has often walked the line between totally daring, trance inducing, mind expanding compositions and somewhat schmaltzy, overly sentimental syrupy pap. But there is no doubt, that when he's really ON, he still stands as one of the greatest minimalist composers of all time. Analog is -that- side of Glass, the side we never get tired of hearing. Recalling the intensity and brilliance of Music In 12 Parts, these recordings have been relentlessly seeping into our ears and brains and souls. Culled from never before released recordings made in the late 70's, it showcases Glass playing the electric organ, and it is absolutely hypnotic. Earlier this year you might remember us freaking out over a Finnish release from the band Shogun Kunitoki. It's uncanny how you can hear the roots of that record throughout these recordings. Warm analog notes played at a furiously feverish pitch that it's nearly impossible not to get lost in it's repetitive trance. The sound is so pleasingly physical and intense. And there are vocals, but fear not, they manage to become just another mesmerizing instrument working its way into your subconscious just like the flute, the (tasteful) sax and all the different keyboards. Originally conceived for his first scores for film as well as incidental music for a theater company, this is quickly becoming one of our favorite Glass recordings ever!
Philip Glass's first commercial success and enduring classic soundtrack is available once again and in its original completed form (76 minutes) for the first time on cd. Glass's score to Godfrey Reggio's sublime 1983 film, Koyaanisqatsi (the Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance") is a perfect marriage to the film's altered time sequences of fast-moving clouds and sped-up machine-like urban scenes of traffic and city-life. The repetitive arpeggios and slowly undulating shifts of patterned movements give off the sensation of static motion enhancing the film's captivating majestic qualities. But even without the visuals, the score by itself stands the test of time, and its longer unabbreviated format renews the film's pointed silent protest against the out-of-control pace and shortened attention spans of our so-called civilization. Recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Music by Mr. Glass composed as a new soundtrack to the Bela Lugosi vampire classic, as performed by Kronos. Did you know that the 'Bela Lugosi' and 'Bela Lugosi as Dracula' characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of one Bela G. Lugosi, presumably a descendant of the actor?
Contemporary composer Vinko Globokar began his career in Slovenia as a jazz trombone player in the '50s, and he has since worked with Luciano Berio, Stockhausen and Takemitsu. This recording consists of three pieces composed in the 1990s: one for trombone,
For the past couple of years, we've really been digging the recent unearthing of little known private press new age music whether it be Collie Ryan, William Eaton or Iasos. Lately we've been especially excited about this reissue from Universal Sound, of Edward Larry Gordon's 1978 debut. Gordon, or Laraaji, as he is otherwise known, creates long-form trance-inducing compositions using electronically enhanced zithers, auto-harps, kalimbas and other acoustic instruments that shimmer and radiate in beautifully meditative pulses. This record comprised of two thirty minute tracks, "All Pervading" and "Bethelehem" gained little notice upon its initial release, but thankfully it caught the attention of Brian Eno who subsequently produced his follow-up Days of Radiance for the EG Editions Ambient series in 1980 to wider acclaim. You can tell that Gordon was much inspired by earlier progenitors of cosmic music from Sun Ra to John and Alice Coltrane. You can especially hear the harp-like shimmer of Alice Coltrane in his treatments of the open tuned zither that he plays while in a complete meditative state. Really gorgeous stuff!
Not only do the Grey Daturas kick up a serious noiserock ruckus, they also run their own cd-r label, the mysteriously titled Diagnosis... Don't! There are three new releases, and we managed to get a handful of each.
Gordon is an Oakland-based sound artist, who designs blankets with speakers sewn into them, each connected to some sound producing device, a toy or musical instrument, the listener is then encouraged to wrap themselves in the blanket, and luxuriate in the sounds produced by the listener's movement. Incredibly immersive and so goddamn cool! This disc captures a brief snippet of Gordon's installation. A warm fuzzy soundscape of distorted electronics, droning and growling, hissing and rumbling and whirls of haunting electronic glitches all woven into an undulating swirl of thick buzz and strange murky and mechanical melody.
SUPER LIMITED (of course!). Each disc comes packaged in two squares of one of Gordon's blankets, sewn together into an oven mitt like sleeve.
Best known as one of the cofounders and directors of the great Bang On A Can new music festival in New York, Michael Gordon is also a pretty damn great composer in his own right. Performed by a guitar ensemble led by Emio Greco, this twenty minute composition finds Gordon channeling the likes of New York avant powerhouses like Glen Branca and Rhys Chatham. Sounds that conjure images of rushing waves, cascading waterfalls and thundering eruptions. [Purgatorio] Popopera has the range to appeal to not just classical music fans, but also folks into dramatic and exquisite post-rock like Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky, albeit perhaps with a slightly more avant-garde influence. Cool stuff, and cheap too.
If you were ever curious to hear how Moondog might have sounded had he been recorded by Joe Meek, then here is your chance! Trunk records rescues this exquisite rarity from complete obscurity that displays the early influence of The Viking of 6th St. on a group of Britain's finest jazz players. Recorded in 1956, and engineered by a young Joe Meek, the underrated alto saxophonist Kenny Graham assembled a band of amazing session players, including Stan Tracey, Phil Seamen, Danny Moss, and Ivor Slaney (who recorded the horror soundtracks Terror and Prey we reviewed awhile back, though he is here in less horrific mode), as well as the evocative vocals of singer Yolanda to record this two part tribute. The first part, The Moondog Suite, covers ten of Moondog's early compositions, five short percussive pieces and five longer songs including "Utsu, "Chant", "Fog On The Hudson" and Lullaby". The six pieces in the "Suncat Suite" (Suncat, get it?) are all originals inspired by Moondog's pieces. These range from short eastern influenced numbers to more complex compositions of mesmerizing exotica, sometimes swinging, and at other times more moody. The production for both is sharp. The percussion zings, the vibes crisply resonate and the horns and woodwinds sound impeccable. Trunk scores again with this amazing reissue.
The Omni Recording Corporation has been killing it lately in a string of essential vinyl reissue collaborations with the Australian Roundtable label, focusing on rare library, lounge and private press exotica. We recently listed the Orchestra Peter Thomas Orion 2000 lp of tripped out sci-fi grooves, and this week we have two extremely fine examples of Italian library music from composer Egisto Macchi and his more well known group that included Ennio Morricone, Gruppo D'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.
While we have always respected and revered this Italian improv collective, much of their recorded output has been on the difficult listening side of things. Skronky free jazz , metallic bangs and tings, tape noise and pounding prepared piano. Sometimes abstract, dissonant and sparse, though equally majestic, heavy and remarkable, it hasn't always been easy to get behind...until now! Finally, a lost recording from 1971 for the Gemelli Library that was never released, Niente is a mind-scorching set of avant-psych groove. While there are still qualities of their defining sound present, this set is marked most notably by a strong rhythm section that is not afraid to jam out. Reminding us of favorite records from Faust and Can, this is the GDNC at their most kraut. Both funky and proggy, we think that moden day-psych fans of bands like Wooden Shjips, 3 Leafs, Carlton Melton and The Heads should look into the weird sound world of this release and get their minds blown!
Limited to 500 copies and nearly out of print, we were lucky to get the copies we have, so don't snooze on this one!
Local reissue label Superior Viaduct seems to be branching out beyond the punk/postpunk/industrial genres that they'd heretofore mainly specialized in, with some surprising (but cool) reissue selections, including a record by hillbilly dronester Henry Flynt, and this one, by '60s Italian improv "gruppo" featuring famed soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, plus also Egisto Macchi and other notables. Long a favorite around here, we're happy to have this new vinyl reish, nicely done. Here's what our pal Drew Daniel of Matmos was kind enough to write about this for the aQ site the very first time we listed it:
If there was such a thing as "catchy" improv this sumptuous, careful record would be it. Not reading Italian I am in the dark as to the extent to which this recording is based on "game theory", but the numerous pictures of chess boards in the room with the assembled throng of Italian composers / improvisors suggests that some kind of game based operation produced these sounds - but you don't need to be Bobby Fischer or speak Italian to be stunned by the beauty, immediacy and focus of this gathering, which includes luminaries such as Ennio Morriconne. Far from the skronking racket which "improv" can call to mind in some listeners, there is a kind of majestic, attentive, and totally confident quality to these performances that will have the hair on your neck standing at attention, and the cinematic scope of Morricone's past work is fully in evidence here. When all six musicians build up a resonant, triumphant drone from horns and piano in "Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi", both honoring and extending the work of the Italian aristocrat / mystic composer, the result is a kind of 17 minute long "transport" that very little contemporary music comes close to. Best of all, they also know when to make a track only two minutes long! Required listening for fans of Morricone, Supersilent, Godspeed or AMM.
Bravo, Superior Viaduct, bravo!
And it includes a download code!
Hildur Gudnadottir has such a way with the cello, able to create such utterly moving music that is filled with nuance and texture but that is also so deeply emotional. Hailing from Iceland, Gudnadottir's resume includes collaborations and partnerships with the likes of Pan Sonic, Mum, Sigur Ros, Angel, BJ Nilsen, etc. It's so nice to get to hear her take center stage, carefully crafting a sound that is about as moody and beautiful as music really gets. Perfect for those eternal gray days we are faced with so often in San Francisco, this is a record we put on when we just want to get lost in the fog and haze. There is very nice and subtle processing throughout the album as well, and here and there Gudnadottir tries her hand at the zither with stunning results. Johann Johansson adds organ on a few tracks as well, and fans of HIS best work as well as music by folks like Sylvain Chauveau, Philip Glass, Michael Cashmore, Joan Jeanrenaud and Colleen should for sure check this out. Truly elegant and intensely resonant. And thus highly recommended!
Oh boy! This is another one of those releases that pushes all of our overwhelming music obsessive buttons, like the Conet Project, The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv 1900-2000 box, the Yahowa 13cd box, the 50 cd Merzbox, the Ayler Holy Ghost box...
Compiled and produced by Gert-Jan Blom of the Beau Hunks, Harmonic Development brings to light the long lost harmonium performances of the fascinating Georg Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949) whom some of you will know much better as a thinker and philosopher than a musician. This release consists of a beautifully designed 140 page softbound book filled with tons of photos and historical and personal minutae, accompanied by two compact discs of music in a digipack AND an additional disc of mp3's (that brings the total amount of music to over 19 hours!!) as well as a cool MPEG video of Gurdjieff home movies. Holy crap! So first, who was G.I. Gurdjieff? Well, the simple version is that Gurdjieff was an early twentieth century Russian mystic (and retired hypnotist), who drew inspiration from Sufism, and was fascinated with music. Gurdjieff had composed for piano for some years, but late in life he acquired first a wire recorder, and then a tape recorder, to document his improvisations (his "moosic") on the harmonium, a sort of pump organ, that produces a sound that is rich and full, a sort of lush, wheezing melodious moan, haunting and otherworldly. This collection gathers up recordings from the forties, from the last few years of Gurdjieff's life, and feature loads of intimate performances, several talks, and lots of ambient chit chat. It seems that Gurdjieff would perform a piece, slow and sad and gorgeously dreamy, enveloping all of his listeners in the mood, and when he was finished, he would then crack jokes and make small talk. Many of these performances feature this strange juxtaposition of almost religious intensity, and breezy lighthearted banter, which was somehow another part of his unique world view. We've yet to delve completely into the book, but even on their own, the discs are wonderful and completely mesmerizing, offering up hours of droney, mysterious harmonium music, but all sorts of ambient sounds and snippets of conversations as well, giving these recordings almost the same sort of vibe as the Conet Project, a distant dark mystery, as if these sounds were pulled from the ether, captured from another world and another time. At once recognizable, but at the same time totally alien.
And as you enjoy the hours of recordings, you can peruse the book which contains a preface by Robert Fripp, information on the unearthing and restoration of the recordings, track notes, transcriptions of the talks, as well as recollections of Gurdjieff's final year from a host of friends and students, among them the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Graham Halliwell is one of the practitioners of what has been dubbed the New London Silence, a taxonomic distinction which may have more to do with geography than stylistic differences. Lowercase, microwave, and onkyo have been other adjectives applied to Halliwell's particular sensibility, in defining quiet compositions and improvisations within the avant-garde (e.g. Alvin Lucier, Morton Feldman, Phill Niblock, etc.). Regardless of what you want to call it, Halliwell has applied a reductionist methodology to his instrument of choice: the saxophone. On Recorded Delivery, Halliwell presents a series of duets with likeminded musicians, two of which could fit into the New London Silence school as well (being that they're also from London) and the other being the Los Angeles sound artist Steve Roden. The first track finds Halliwell with harpist Rhodi Davies; and the two generate a quiet soundfield that is deceptively dangerous as the intersection of their acoustic drones from sax feedback and ebowed harp can manifest headsplitting frequencies even at very low volumes due to the purity of those sounds. The second duet is between Halliwell and Steve Roden; and while Halliwell's input appears to be minimal (perhaps just giving Roden some quiet tones), Roden's manipulation of Halliwell's sound is spectacular. If you've ever had the opportunity to see Roden live (and in all likelihood, been blown away by his breathtakingly minimal / gorgeous sets), then you'll know what to expect. He's got two delay pedals through which he captures looping passages that build into a mass of hypnotic shimmer and mirrored sinewave drone that have an impressive melodic quality. The third and final contribution is between Halliwell and tam-tam player Mark Wastell, who together concoct a sparkling drone of metallic vibration and wave pattern. Beautifully done.
Probably better known for his famous pop-star progeny (that's Beck Hansen to you), Al Hansen is one of the grandaddys of the Fluxus movement. This is a collage of 1986 recordings by the "New York City Audio/Visual Group." Figures like Gerard Malanga, Angus MacLise, Valerie Solanas, Warhol are called out and memorialized with absurb little cut-up poems.
We barely need to write anything for this one really. Everyone we know, has wanted one of these without even hearing it. Hell, Andee even ordered one from overseas without hearing a note. They're called Harpsicorpse, which would probably be the best band name ever, even if this wasn't solo harpsichord. But it IS. SOLO HARPSICHORD. Solo ELECTRIC harpsichord, played by a guy who when he's not crafting solo electric harpsichord music, is creating crazed breakcore using samples of classical music (and yeah, that stuff rules too, will try to get copies in to review!).
So yeah, Andee got a copy of this played it on his radio show, played it for everyone he knew, and we all became a bit obsessed, and so we ordered a bunch for the store, and when they finally showed up, it was like music nerd Christmas! So what is it exactly beyond the above mentioned obvious stuff, that had us all flipping out? Well, the harpsichord is an amazing instrument, and this electronic version not only offers a weirdly buzzy distorted version of the actual sounds, it also makes the player able to unfurl impossible super fast flurries of notes, the result is somewhere between a creepy soundtrack for exploring some old abandoned house in the middle of a lightning storm, complete with levitating candelabras, cobwebs, creaking doors and wailing spirits, the music from some demented post battle feast/orgy with all the knights, in your crumbling castle in the time of King Arthur, or an 8 bit Nintendo soundtrack for some alternate universe version of Castlevania. However it strikes you, it's awesome, bizarre, beautiful, demented, baffling, but absolutely one of the most amazing things we've heard. When things really get going it almost sounds like someone took a chunk of Venetian Snares style drill and bass, and replaced all the beats with harpsichord sounds, while at it's most creepy and ambient, it couldn't be more scary, a total horror movie soundtrack, late night drive in movie freakfest bliss out. And the tracks that feature a lot of low end, those are the notes that don't really sound like a real harpsichord at all, and instead sound like some sort of ominous buzz/drone weirdness, which again, only adds to the WTF factor.
But to be fair, beyond all the weirdness (of which there is plenty), this is definitely some cool, beautiful, haunting stuff, and odds are if you're like us, and EVERYbody we've played this for, all it's gonna take is one listen, and you will be as crazy obsessed as we are!
WARNING: These lps seem to have had a long difficult journey across the ocean all the way from Europe, and the sleeves are a bit worn after such an arduous trip. So there are some dented corners, and while for the most part it's not really that dramatic at all, if you require your records to be in pristine, ultra mint, record collector nerd condition, then you just might have to pass on this, which would be a bummer, cuz it's AMAZING�
My God, this release has been blowing our minds! A 72 minute solo piano epic by this protege of LaMonte Young and disciple of the late Pandit Pran Nath, Michael Harrison. Michael Harrison is probably not as well known of the second generation minimalist composers after Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Charlemagne Palestine, but his mastery of Indian Classical Musical and his design and invention of the harmonic piano, an extensively modified grand piano with the ability to alternate between two different tunings to play 24 notes per octave on a conventional keyboard, has earned him much respect in new music circles. Revelation is arguably his master work, utilizing the tuning system of 'just intonation' to conjure beautifully melodic and mesmerizing tonal clusters of sound. Just intonation is, on the basic level, any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of whole numbers. While we here are not completely able to wrap our heads around the theory behind the Pythagorean principles of harmonic resonance, the tones in the scales applied here are far from conventional, and the shifting patterns of harmonic overtones as they bounce against each other create oddly-tuned and haunting harmonies. Revelation starts deliberately slow. The first track, "Revealing The Tones" is just that taking the time to visit each note than a pairing of notes, then finally triads. But it's not all just about academics, some tracks evoke the mysteries of night or desert solitude, creating lilting passages of melody similar in feel to Harold Budd's best work. Some use percussive Eastern scales as if the piano was being played as a gamelan. But with each track, the beauty of the tones gains in intensity so that by the finale, it sounds like three pianos are being played in an almost Lubomyr Melnyk-like technique of 'continuous music', which is incredible because in fact no effects or overdubs were used in the recording. It's been a while since we were blown away by a contemporary recording of minimalist composition, and any fans of any of the folks mentioned above, should definitely check this out!
Reissued and remastered for the first time on vinyl since its initial 1980 release, and previously long out of print on cd too, this beautiful collaboration between minimalist composer / experimental trumpeter Jon Hassell and ambient music pioneer Brian Eno has never sounded better! Such a gorgeous classic. Made between Eno's production work on Larajji's Ambient 3: Days of Radiance and the David Byrne collaboration, My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, Possible Musics was an early investigation into world music influences tempered through modern, Western studio techniques (synth treatments, tape delay, echo effects) resulting in a music of a borderless hybrid world of geographical intrigue. It greatly influenced the future-primitive recordings of My Life In The Bush of Ghosts made only ten days after the Fourth World sessions finished, though really they are different sides of the same coin.
Hassell, studied under Pandit Pran Nath and learned to transcribe Indian classical vocal techniques to the sound of the trumpet. Through various effects, he is able to conjure a vast array of sounds and textures, animalistic and mystical, sometimes flute-ish and even didgeridoo-ish. It never once sounds like a trumpet. There are definitely influences of Aboriginal, African, island and tribal music, but the aim feels more topographical than ethnological. The slow and deep attention to detail like the timbre of strings, the deep pulse of water drums and the loping liquid rhythms suggest big expanses of weather and terrain, movement and landscape. Hassell's trumpet treatments processed through Frippertronic-like tape loops and reverse echo effects are like deep rain clouds slowly moving across sparse tundra but seen and heard at a far distance. And indeed the whole album has this remote field recording quality like one is witness to something far-off, slightly foreboding, perhaps mystical, but also magnetic and alien, especially felt on the final side-long track "Charm (Over 'Burundi Cloud')". One of our favorites of the whole Eno/Ambient catalog!! Vinyl version comes with a copy of the cd.
What else can we say about a recording that guitar great Glenn Branca describes as "A gigantic piece, a killer, a work which exists outside of style or genre. It is unbelievable. It creates blacks of sound that move in and out of each other to create the effects. It is a pure, perfect piece of music that resonates and resounds and creates a universe that it is impossible by other means. In our primitive and unenlightened culture, it becomes a work of transcendent power." Very little. Or more accurately, more of the same. A legendary yet relatively obscure document of modern minimalism, recorded in 1976, Hennix, who studied with Pandit Pran Nath and LaMonte Young, and recorded with Henry Flynt, crafted The Electric Harpsichord using just-intonated keyboards and time lag accumulators, a la Terry Riley, creating a lush layered expanse of raga like dronemusic, buzzing strangely melodic, rife with overtones and rhythmic fluctuations, dark and psychedelic, mesmerizing and hypnotic, a sound active and alive, organic, yet electronic, this is the sort of sound that a million floorcore wannabes strive for, but will never achieve, absolute blissed out, mind expanding, ur-drone, sonic transcendence for sure. Brief, at only 25 minutes, but the power and energy and depth of sound, makes it feel way longer. And of course, if you're like us, you'll just set your stereo to repeat, and drift off...
Second pressing, packaged in a nice mini white cardstock box, with a foil stamped cover, and an extensive booklet inside, featuring two poems by La Monte Young, a piece on the Electric Harpsichord written by Henry Flynt, and some very confusing liner notes from Hennix herself, an excerpt from "notes on the composite sine-wave drone over which The Electric Harpsichord is performed."
This is the first release of Henry's recent musique concrete composition "Antagonismes IV" (1996) which is the result of reworking one pre-existing composition according to the framework of another work. While Henry poetically states that "'Antagonismes' is a radiography, a sort of horn-in-the-eye of 'Intérieur/Extérieur' (which was a manner of ritual, an Imaginary corridor layout for
Chapter 4.2 in the Philips reissue series of the musique concrete works of Pierre Henry features 3 pieces: "Fragments pour Artaud" (1970), "Entite" (1959), and "Prisme" (1973). "Fragments Pour Artaud" lives up to its name as an absurdist homage to Antonin Artaud, in jumpcutting through 13 interlocking segments of monotonous voices that have been manipulated into eeriely sputtering fluctuations of synthesized noise. Henry opens and closes this composition with the random plucks of an untuned steel-stringed instrument flapping against its soundboard. Quite obtuse, yet bombastically theatrical. "Entite" is a brief 6 minute piece for tape, with nonspecific grey sounds fluxing in and out of the audible range whilst generative metallic clatter and tape whirr pop throughout the stereo field. "Prisme" rounds out the collection as another investigation into the realm of possibilities for magnetic tape manipulation. These concrete sounds filtered through an arsenal of effects are quite typical for Henry and those at the INA-GRM institution, with the biggest difference being the advancement in technology and sound quality between 1959 and 1973.
All liner notes are in French.
Composed in 1980 as an homage to Luigi Russolo, author of the Futurist manifesto "The Art of Noise," Pierre Henry's "Futuristie" centered around the recreation of Russolo's "intonarumori." Henry designed similar looking noise intoners (which are odd shaped boxed with huge metal speakers sticking out their sides) based on the photographs of the objects, as the originals had long been
Anyway, I doubt that Pierre Henry knew either as the dense collage of sounds that he broadcast through those loudspeakers falls well within his musique concrete signature. Henry does claim a strong influence from Futurism, as a manifesto which promoted the removal of semiotic barriers between noise and music. His complex abstraction scrounges for the sounds of aluminum cans getting crushed, the clatter of wooden pegs falling, scraped metal wires, sporadic electronic bleeping, and layered rhythmic grunts and vocalisations sounding like a multi-dubbed Jaap Blonk. Henry certainly is following the spirit of Futurism, but if he is actually following its sonorous aesthetics, I guess we'll never know.
The liner notes are all in French, compounding the quandry.
In the fourth chapter in the continued archival project for musique concrete composer Pierre Henry, Philips presents this collection of Henry's earliest material from the 1950s, which had been previously issued on the long out of print Mantra 3CD set. The compositions (number 4.3, if you must know) within this set include "Microphone bien tempÈre" (1950-1952), "Concerto des ambiguites" (1950), "Musique sans titre" (1950), "Bidule en mi" (1950). "Spirale" (1955), "Voile d'orphÈe" (1953), "Spatiodynamisme" (1954), "Aut-voltage" (1956), and "Coexistence" (1958). These pieces, which are all based upon magnetic tape playback, splicing, and speed manipulation with various filters, reflect Henry's early mastery over his material despite the lack of dynamics from his equipment (which generated very little pure bass reflex at all)... disembodied vocals, metallic cymbals with variable attack, sustained organ, spring reverb manipulation, and any other obtuse sound that resonates within the mid-range timbres.
Liner notes are all in French.
Are you a musique concrete connoiseur who already has the Pierre Henry box sets "Mix 01.0" and "Mix 02.0"? Then wethinks you'll have to pick this one up too! Again, a hefty helping of Henry's brilliant music. Contains 4 discs: "Variations Pour Une Porte Et
In the reissue campaign from Philips of Pierre Henry's work, his compositions "Pierres Reflechies," "La Noire A Soixante," and "Gymkhana" constitute the volume 4.1. "Pierre Reflechies" (1982) is a good example of Pierre Henry's current aesthetic with a greater emphasis on the dialogue between orchestral instruments and electronic synthesis. Here, Henry composes the orchestral elements through serial repetition of blurted notes, then disfigures them through a number of filters which resemble contemporary DSP techniques. For this piece, Henry has translated the work of Proust into sound and dedicated it to the other Pierre of musique concrete (Pierre Schaeffer, that is). "La Noire A Soixante" jumps back to 1961 and to a minimal application of Henry's electro-acoustic pings and reverberations. "Gymkhana" (1970) appears to be a 'remix' of the aforementioned "La Noire A Soixante" with acoustic instrumentation (sustained oboes and pointillist flutes) laid over the backing tape.
"Variations For a Door and a Sigh" may in fact be Pierre Henry's most well known piece, simply because it has become the unwitting self-parody / archetype of musique concrete as a solipsistic study by academic farts recording creaking doors and passing the
"La Reina Verte" is a 30 minute electronic / orchestral work also from 1963; it's an incomplete edit of the original 46 minute composition, but significantly longer than its previous inclusion on "Messe Pour Le Temps." His intent in combining the artificial sonorities of musique concrete with the timbres of orchestral instruments, was "not only in search of unwonted conceits, [but also] a lyrical or even a poetic counterpoint to the different forms of this spectacle."
This composition for 12 prepared pianos sounds pretty much just like what you would expect, being heavy on the muted percussive thwap of objects stuffed in between all of the strings. Originally released on Cramps back in the '70s from this Spanish avant-garde composer.
We knew John Hill as producer of the stunning folk funk lps of Susan Christie and Margo Guryan, but this concept record is where his producing genius is on full display: an epic electronic space jazz composition featuring Susan Christie, Jimmy Valerio, Gerry Mulligan and Walter Sear. Based on a poem by Ian Michaels called "I Am The Storm of Dawn" that suggests life on Earth originated on one of the six moons of Jupiter, Europa (the only other place in the solar system with water and ice), the 6 Moons of Jupiter features Susan Christie reciting the poem with Moogy electronic drones, cellos,� delayed flutes, and percussion. While we're not always huge fans of spoken word, somehow it works here, adding some serious tripped out drugginess to the already pretty far out proceedings.�
According to the liner notes, this was the first part of a proposed 13 piece concept performance, with each piece written in a distinctly different style, somehow combining poetry, electronic technology, classical, jazz and of course 'space rock' (quotes required!) Not sure sure how that would have panned out had they stuck to the plan, especially since it seems that for this first volume they jammed all that stuff together, into one single awesomely mind melting sonic hodgepodge.�
The tracks range from shimmery free jazzscapes, all abstract percussion and buzzing raga like drones, haunting and mysterious, to full on groovy keyboard drenched space-y garage jams, complete with fluttering flute, wheezing organs, creepy chanted vocals, and wailing psych leads, to strange off kilter chamber music, heavy with reverb and long lonesome tones, to pounding sixties style stomp, but all twisted up around jazzy horns, and jaunty Springtime shuffles, to haunting solo strings, dour melancholic melodies over buried soft buzz, to total acid wah guitars, laced with creepy pizzicato strings and warbly rubbery funhouse melodies. Mix in Christie's deadpan spoken word and this becomes a serious jazzy groovy musical mindfuck. And you know what that means. BUY IT!
A small collection of compositions written in the late nineties by Hosokawa. Influenced by Cage and the significance of silence in modern composition as well as the slowly building, meditative characteristics of Takemitsu, Hosokawa applied this wisdom to the Western standards of composition and instrumentation. "Koto-Uta" is a stripped down piece for voice and Koto. Lyrical and mysterious, beautiful as it is perplexing. "Voyage I" for violin and ensemble painstakingly takes its time to find a melody, resigning itself to settle on the exploration of space and texture. Minimalist passages hover in suspension, patiently awaiting the monumental crecendos that eventually engulf the piece. Likewise, the suspenseful and restrained "Konzert F�r Saxophon und Orchester" pairs pained, sweltering and erratic saxophone against an anxiety-ridden orchestra, swelling up with anticipation and longing for a culmination, unfulfilled. A wonderful introduction to an underdocumented contemporary composer who we're hoping to hear more of.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The original recording of "Clara Nostra" (initially called "Clarinots") was additive piece for a singular clarinet which was bounced back and fourth between multi-tracked recording units resulting in the sound of 106,476 clarinets being played / recorded at the same time(!?!). For "Clara Nostra," If, Bwana remixed the maximalist sound down to half speed, causing a deep resonant rumble. A solid piece of dronology from an outfit that we think usually sucks. Anyway, that's a lot of clarinets for sixteen bucks!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Two new songs by two of favorite Finnish artists. They couldn't be more different, but this reminds us of why we love and have such a soft spot for split 7"s. Groups that sound nothing alike but share geography or friendship with each other. And with the increasing price of making vinyl, split 7"s are truly a labor of love and such a sweet token, as really its quite impossible to make money from them. First be forewarned as it will become obvious that the single was labeled wrong and the side that says Islaja is TV-Resistori and vice versa. TV-Resistori give us more of their upbeat totally fun synth pop that if we didn't know better we'd think they were another great Japanese pop band. And a new song by Islaja is of course something to rejoice about. Tiding us over until whenever her next album comes out, her track is so lovely and will for sure get you standing up every few minutes to reach for the needle to hear it over again and again.
