Avant-Garde / Contemporary

Alvin Curran, an American composer / multiplayer who studied under Ron Nelson and Elliott Carter and was known to be active in Musica Elettronica Viva, which was formed with Frederic Rzewski during his stay in Italy, is Roberto Laneri and Giacinto. The gem's first album released in 1975 by his own label, Ananda, formed with Scelsi and others, is a re-vinyl reissue from Superior Viaduct!

One of the legends left by Karan when he was most experimental! Natural sounds such as the sound of waves, wind, birds, dogs, and insects, the sound of a rich synthesizer, and the minimalist melody of Kalimba that makes you feel the lyeism. A modern classical masterpiece. One piece that I want to push as much as possible from the current flow of new age / ambient re-evaluation. Francesco Messina, Steve Reich, Franco Battiato and Superior Viaduct, who evoke the musical heritage of all over the world beyond time and space, are the moments that pass through the mysterious gate. Recommended for those who like Lino Capra Vaccina, Roberto Musci and Sean McCann.

Limited edition of 150 copies worldwide. For the first time since 1984, the best of the early Merzbow catalog, newly remastered by Masami Akita, Aurora Central Records proudly presents the reissue of Material Action for 2 Microphones.

Merzbow came roaring onto the Tokyo scene in 1979. To this day, the project remains one of the most prolific and aggressively forward-thinking acts in experimental music. Initially a duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, before settling as the moniker of Akita alone, the project took its name from German artist Kurt Schwitters' pre-war architectural assemblage, The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau, and quickly set out to challenge entrenched notions of what music could be. Embracing technology and the machine, even in its earliest iterations, Merzbow broke boundaries and pushed toward new territories of the extreme, arriving at an unadulterated manifestation of sonic expression that has continued across the last 44 years, setting the pace for the entire genre of noise along the way. When it comes to Japanese noise, few projects have pushed boundaries or risen to a more iconic status than Merzbow. The mutant child of punk and experimental music, the project’s blistering sounds - as singular and wild as they are unique - are among the movement’s most important, definitive statements, continuously laying the groundwork for countless artists who have followed in its wake. Cloud Cock OO Grand marks a new era for Merzbow, the first of many CDs that will go in the direction we’d see in the ’90s. It is also the first time that this seminal document from Merzbow’s '90s period has ever appeared on vinyl. Composed and performed on synthesizers, metal devices, noise electronics and string instruments, all recorded at extreme volumes, Cloud Cock OO Grand’s five tracks present an enthralling sonic assault, deeply driven by the presence of electronic sounds, played against the sparse interjections of Akita’s heavily processed strings, that push toward new territories of the extreme, while subtly nodding toward historical gestures from the early years of the avant-garde. On the double vinyl, the tracks are not only remastered by Merzbow, but are recontextualized and open up a new sense of his studio experimentation at the time. Cloud Cock OO Grand is a stunning feat of remarkable importance within the genre of noise, delivering this long unavailable masterstroke back into our hands, while further illuminating the project’s crucial work from the 1990s. This is an absolute must for the indoctrinated Merbow fan as much as those just entering this incredible world.

In late October 2019, following a successful UK tour ending in a sold-out concert at the mythical Roundhouse in London, SUNN O))) entered studio 4 of the BBC Maida Vale. On invitation to record a live session for Mary Anne Hobbs to be broadcast on Samhain via her excellent radio show on BBC6. To enter the legendary John Peel studios was to enter a temple of music and experimentation, liberty in ideas and sound. The band was nearing the end of a long touring year around the Life Metal and Pyroclast albums. SUNN O))) had developed the compositions extensively, embracing the formative concepts of the Life Metal album conceptually and emotionally, but actualised and evolved into vast, open and bright hypersaturated arrangements. Particularly the pieces the band chose to perform on this recording: Troubled Air and Pyroclasts. The former enriched into a total aspect of the band's ethos and form in many ways, and Pyroclasts had evolved to become all-inclusive radiation of O))). The radiation embraces collaboration and freedom of interpretation by each player, within a structural format of the massive monuments of sound and distortion which define SUNN O))). Anna Von Hausswolf and her band had accompanied SUNN O))) on the UK leg, and Anna joined SUNN O))) in the studio on synths and with her tremendous voice on the Pyroclasts pieces.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce a major archival release from legendary American composer and live electronics innovator Richard Teitelbaum, centred around his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt’s cult 1978 animation Asparagus. Best known to some listeners for introducing Europe to the Moog synthesizer as a founding member of Musica Elettronica Viva in Rome, Teitelbaum’s extensive and radically experimental body of work includes collaborative recordings with master improvisers like Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille and George Lewis, intercultural experiments combining electronics with non-Western instruments such as the shakuhachi, works for computer controlled piano, and large-scale multi-media operas. Recorded at York University, Toronto in 1975–1976, ‘Asparagus (European Version)’ sprawls across both sides of the first LP. Discovered by composer Matt Sargent in Teitelbaum’s tape archive, this is a previously unheard major work for Moog modular and Polymoog synthesizers, unique in Teitelbaum’s oeuvre for its lushness and gently melodic quality. The music unfolds slowly, submerging lyrical melodies and burbling arpeggios into uneasy, glacially shifting harmonic swells, the luscious texture thickened with subtle changes of modulation and phase, calling up the shifting layers of Costin Miereanu’s classic Derives or the kosmische Musik tradition more than any academic synthesizer exercise. Teitelbaum incorporated much of this material into his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt’s Asparagus, which receives its first official release here. Asparagus, famously paired with David Lynch’s Eraserhead for a two-year run of midnight screenings at New York’s Waverly Theatre, uses hand-drawn and stop animation to unfurl an oneiric succession of images, beginning with a sequence in which the female protagonist defecates two stalks of asparagus, which multiply and float out of the toilet bowl to form the letters of the title. Teitelbaum’s soundtrack interweaves delicate drifting tones from the ‘European Version’ with contributions from Steve Lacy and Steve Potts on saxophones, George Lewis on trombone and Takehisa Kosugi on violin. Edited closely to the film, even without images the soundtrack proposes a surreal journey through floating synth tones, squealing horns, propulsive arpeggios, distant chatter, and an old-timey waltz. The final side of the set presents a new realisation of Teitelbaum’s text score ‘Threshold Music’, performed at a memorial concert at Roulette, New York in 2022 by Leila Bourreuil (cello), Alvin Curran (sampler and objects), Daniel Fishkin (daxophone), Miguel Frasconi (glass objects) and Matt Sargent (lap steel). The piece asks musicians to match their instrumental volume to that of the sounds of the environment in which they play, sometimes with the addition of recorded environmental sounds, reinforcing frequencies they encounter in listening deeply to their surroundings. Here the players use a field recording taken at Teitelbaum’s home in Bearsville, New York, their long tones and shimmering, glassy textures delicately emerging from the white noise of the location recording. Released with the full approval of both Richard Teitelbaum and Suzan Pitt’s estates, Asparagus is illustrated with striking images from Pitt’s film and accompanied by detailed liner notes by Francis Plagne. These previously unheard pieces shed new light on the work of a key composer in the American experimental tradition, offering up some of Teitelbaum’s most beautiful and engaging music.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce Resonant Trees, the first vinyl release from French composer-performer Léo Dupleix. An active member of the international community of younger musicians working with just intonation, Dupleix has composed works for solo instrumentalists and ensembles in Europe and Japan, as well as performing extensively on harpsichord, piano and electronics. His music is distinguished by a formal clarity and elegance of surface, gently shaping pure intervals into delicate melodic patterns and shimmering harmonic planes. Resonant Trees presents two side-long pieces for harpsichord and ensemble, both setting slowly repeating patterns played on harpsichord and guitar within an environment of sustained tones. Dupleix performs on a French double manual harpsichord (tuned to a just intonation scheme of his own devising) and Prophet synthesizer, joined by Juliette Adam (bass clarinet), Johanna Bartz (traverso flute), Cyprien Busolini (viola), Fredrik Rasten (6- and 12-string guitars), and Mara Winter (traverso flute). The harpsichord begins Resonant Tree I alone, slowly sounding out a series of arpeggiated chords that emphasise the unique (and for unaccustomed listeners, sometimes unsettling) harmonic and timbral qualities of justly tuned intervals. Long tones from synthesiser, bass clarinet, viola and Baroque traverso flutes slowly creep into the spaces between the arpeggiated chords, joined after several minutes by delicate patterns of harmonics played by Rasten on acoustic guitars. On Resonant Tree II, a similar structure and ensemble (without the flutes) are used with quite different results. We again hear only the harpsichord at first, but this time playing a series of flowing melodic lines, each of which is repeated several times. Joined again by long tones from the ensemble, here the viola is particularly prominent and its interplay with the harpsichord creates fascinating acoustic effects. In both pieces, repetition gives the music a static, stable quality while, at the same time, the exact shape of the repeating patterns remains difficult to grasp. As Dupleix writes, these pieces dream of music as ‘space and a sound that one could grasp in one’s hand.’ As the near-static quality of the repetitions and long tones with little incident make these two stretches of musical time feel like spaces for the listener to inhabit, the small variations on a narrow range of related material act like a three-dimensional object whose each facet is examined in turn. At once austere and seductive, Resonant Trees takes its place beside the work of contemporaries like Catherine Lamb, while also calling up the languorous melodic world of Mamoru Fujieda, the dignified melancholy of Satoshi Ashikawa’s classic Still Way and the espaliered chamber atmospherics of the Obscure catalogue.

Black Truffle announce World in World, the latest solo offering from prolific Berlin-based guitarist-composer Julia Reidy. Where the recent trilogy of LP releases -- brace, brace (Slip, 2019), In Real Life (BT 051LP, 2019), and Vanish (EMEGO 288LP, 2020) -- focused on increasingly lush electronic settings for Reidy's propulsive fingerpicking and auto-tuned vocals, arranged into wide-ranging side-long epics, World in World finds Reidy refocusing on the core elements of their approach while simultaneously pushing into challenging new areas. Comprising nine pieces ranging between two and seven minutes in length, the album's opening title track promptly introduces the distinctive palette of just-intoned electric guitars, subtle electronic processing, and voice that is rigorously explored throughout. Where much of Reidy's guitar work on previous recordings explored rapidly pulsed cycling figures, here, notes often hang in the air in a more spacious, lyrical fashion. The elasticity of rhythm and non-linear repetition of pitches initially suggests improvisation until the listener becomes aware of the precise arrangements of spatialized lines. At times, World in World suggests classic bedroom electric guitar works of the 1990s such as Loren Connors's Airs (2015) or Roy Montgomery's Scenes from the South Island (1995); like those works, Reidy's possesses a wonderfully live ambience, with frequent pedal clicks adding to the music's powerful sense of intimacy. In Reidy's case, however, the yearning, melancholic mood of Connors or Montgomery is tempered by the unorthodox guitar tuning, which at points produces a unique and uncomfortable effect somewhere between the hyper-precision of Harry Partch or Lou Harrison and Jandek's slack-stringed descent into the void. While World in World plots out its terrain with a bold single-mindedness that allows some pieces to appear almost as variations on a common theme, subtle changes in emphasis distinguish each track. Tactile percussive interjections skitter across the tremolo tones of "Paradise in Unrecognisable Colours", while "Ajar" ramps up the role played by the electronics, with glitching pitch-shifted and back-masked textures threaded through the guitars and thickly harmonized vocal layers. Ranging from autotuned melodic lines to buried murmurs, Reidy's voice is a frequent presence throughout these nine pieces, at times creating the impression that a more conventional series of songs lurks underneath the chiming microtonal guitars. On the stunning "Poised", whispers and distant, ghostly wails surround the layers of guitars, at times suggesting the foggiest outer reaches of Liz Harris's Grouper. Both rigorously experimental and emotive, World in World

A note from Hasegawa... The first LP by the Taj Mahal Travellers was recorded at Sogetsu Hall in Tokyo on July 15, 1972, which became the title of the work and was released the same year by CBS Sony Records. A live performance celebrating the 50th anniversary of this album was held on July 15, 2022. The only original members of the Taj Mahal Travellers who attended were myself and Seiji Nagai. This is because two of the six members passed away, two are religiously active and they can not play music according to their belief, and the last one has lost touch with us. Therefore, young musicians were recruited to perform with us. This performance was a spark of improvisation that broke 50 years of my silence. Let me recall a little about the day of the concert. The venue was a live house called Forestlimit Hatagaya, about 20 minutes by car from Shibuya. In the pouring rain, we ended up entering a narrow alley from where it was impossible to reach the place by car, so after unloading my instruments, we had to head back to a wider road and find another route. The venue was small and located on the basement floor. Among performers and stuff members we were more than 10 people, and including the audience, in total about 60 people gathered on that day. Indeed, the place felt packed like a crowded train in Tokyo. Many of the performers were meeting each other for the first time, and not only the audience but the participating musicians themselves could not imagine what the performance would be like. For this live performance, I asked my friends to perform stone, shadow, bamboo, and gorilla.

Keiji Haino is, without question, one of the truly iconic artists to rise beyond the dusk of the 20th century. An artist focused singularly of the beautiful visceral promise of music, his practice is a many headed beast taking in movements from the gentlest of guitar play, through free improvisation and noise. As divergent as the work might be, it is held tightly by his unique way in sound, one that exists moment to moment with a force like no other. 20 years since its first release, Black Blues remains one of his most provocative recordings - a collection of 6 songs, recorded twice over. On version Violent, the other Soft; and the differences could not be more radical. Black Blues exists at both margins of Haino’s sonic spectrum. At the Violent end, each piece is delivered with a sense of tangible intensity. In some moments it is as if we are inside Haino, his voice completely consuming all it comes in contact with. The guitar, carving a path that is part rhythm, part harmony, its tenderness cradling his voice with a determination and generosity. By contrast the Soft versions are almost lullabies, all be it ones that carry a mournful and anguish ladened atmosphere. Here the guitar splays out into clouds of reverb that shimmer at the edges, housing a voice which is constantly seeking a deeper resolution within the songs. Gentle but never settled. Black Blues captures the dynamic form of Keiji Haino’s work in its most raw form; voice and guitar. The songs encapsulate a very particular portrait of an artist whose work only continues to grow deeper in is wonder and profundity.

In January 2023, Tom Skinner and his ensemble performed material from his recently-released album 'Voices of Bishara' (Brownswood, IARC & Nonesuch, 2022) at London club “mu”— a venue founded by the curators at Brilliant Corners and named after the seminal Don Cherry live album. Their performance was augmented by three pieces by Abdul Wadud, whose 1977 self-released solo cello album, By Myself, was a primary inspiration for Voices of Bishara. The woodwinds featured on Skinner's original Voices of Bishara album — Shabaka Hutchings and Nubya Garcia — had already been replaced in Skinner's live ensemble with Robert Stillman (who also plays with Skinner in The Smile) and Chelsea Carmichael; with the extended rhythm section of Tom Herbert (double bass) and Kareem Dayes (cello) still rounding out the lineup with Skinner on drums. From the opening moments of Voices of Bishara Live at "mu", which was recorded on that legendary January 2023 night, it's clear that this band’s aim is to excavate the deep corners of the repertoire, kicking things off with an extended rendition of Skinner’s own composition “Bishara” that employs the same relationship to rhythmic and tonal freedom found in the Abdul Wadud cello work that inspired it. That aesthetic connection is even more clear by the time the group moves into their 20-minute exploration of Wadud’s “Oasis,” the stunning centerpiece of the set that culminates with a scorching 5+ minute sax solo by Carmichael. Hearing Skinner’s compositions - flexed and stretched with extended improvisation, and in context with works by Wadud - both places them and this band firmly in the creative music continuum they honor, and provides us with an unobstructed view of where that continuum is leading us.

Kakuhan, a unit of Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa, has released a self-released CD, which has been sold exclusively at live venues, on "Nakid," a hot label run by Koshiro Hino, who is also well known for his activities with goat and YPY and for running "birdFriend," and has released such powerful artists as Keith Fullerton Whitman and Mark Fell & Will Guthrie. The CD is a self-released CD by Kakuhan, a unit consisting of Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa, which has been sold exclusively at live venues and has won critical acclaim!

The CD includes a live performance by KAKUHAN, a unit consisting of YPY, Hino Koshiro, and cellist Nakagawa Hiroki, at the "Feldman meets freq 2022" event held at Kyushu University in February 2022.
KAKUHAN's first album "Metalzone", released at the end of 2022, was voted the 5th best release of 2022 by Boomkat and the 5th best album of the year by Music Magazine in the best electronic music category. The CD contains a total of six songs, including the previous night's "Prototype," a song from the same album, and includes a song that can only be heard on this CD.
As the unit name suggests, the various elements of both artists' activities-"electronic music/strings," "contemporary/club music," "traditional/contemporary," "physical/metaphysical," "composition/improvisation"-are literally "stirred" in the performance. It is highly recommended to listen to it together with "Metalzone"!

With concentration, or elevated tension as he has called it, Akio Suzuki enters completely into the substance of sound, its emergence and its passing. What he does with sound may propose a rarefied world to many people, and yet it possesses a persuasive quality of rightness. One of the most difficult aspects of music and soundwork to explain is the concept of ‘right action’. How is that music can be evaluated almost immediately, just as quickly as a fire alarm or a baby’s cry? When Akio performs, certain qualities (grace, warmth, a quiet authority of mind and action, an engagement with the vessel of nothingness through which sound can emerge) are evident as presences, as soon as he begins. He begins from a state we call silence, by listening, yet at the same time raises questions about our ideas of what this silence might be. Time passes; fixity gives way to destruction; visual perfection is relinquished within the faintest of sound fields. As for the work, this ceremony returns us to nothing, ‘to the feeling of not knowing exactly what is before us’, so to the uncanny, to the shell-like ear found by the sea, the ‘ungraspable phantom of life’, the record of a haunting, time regained. The sound is a parabola, a finger tracing on skin, a brush point, bird in flight.

Originally released digitally by Cafe Oto in 2020, "A Queer Anthology of Drums" is Italo-British percussionist Valentina Magaletti's most satisfying set - a future-fluid evolution of post-punk/industrial murk, free-jazz fizz, electro-acoustic trickery and avant-minimalist mischief. Think Chris Corsano, Morton J. Olsen, Thomas Strønen, Han Bennink. Best known as a prized collaborator who's put in work with Raime, Helm, Jandek, Floating Points, Nico Jaar and numerous others, and making up part of Moin, Vanishing Twin, Tomaga and CZN, Valentina Magaletti is also an accomplished solo artist, and this is where her skills really tend to shine. "A Queer Anthology of Drums" stands as a blueprint for her methodology, rolling through her studied musical philosophy centering percussion without sacrificing structure, cohesion and momentum. Anyone who's heard her performances before won't be completely caught off guard, but this record is the most complete collection she's assembled thus far, balancing lucid rhythmic ritualism with playful psychedelia and fragmented melodic elements. Magaletti recorded the album at home, collaging drums, field recordings, vibraphone, toys and oscillators into a fluxing symphony of rhythm and tone. And while the original album was eight tracks, an additional piece has been added to this new remastered edition to open the record: 'She/Her/Gone', that introduces us to Magaletti's sound in a shower of delayed piano, brushed drums and jangling bells. From here, the set takes a darker turn, pattering into cavernous, metallic spaces on 'The Unity of the Mind', and erupting into a chunky, limber rhythm on the tough-as-nails title track. The fog lifts a little as the set progresses, first with the Steve Reich-cum-Broadcast lounge minimalism of 'Rumors of Bread', and then with 'Per Strada', one of the album's most disarming moments that offsets Magaletti's gamalan-influenced percussive cycles with rousing choral sounds. She utilizes these elements to illustrate her understanding of musical history - her drumming is not tied to the instrument's expected function: it's not simply jazz, or punk, and it's definitely not free improv. Her interests are deep and literate, and her sound reaches thru global folk traditions and ritual practices, touching on pop and experimental forms without mimicking them or operating in template mode. But it isn't an academic exercise either, Magaletti queers her subject matter in a way that makes it accessible and humane. Absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in percussive music, ritual music - even experimental lounge.A Queer Anthology of Drums - "a percussive collage of low-fi frequencies documenting a journey that never took place" (Takuroku), a home recording capturing Valentina's ritualistic free-improv essence, is now being presented to audiences across the world by bié Records, via both streaming services and vinyl for the first time. *A Queer Anthology of Drums was originally released on Cafe Oto's label “Takuroku” with 8 tracks solely in MP3 format. The new version by the Beijing-based bié Records, whose associate acts range across Hualun, Yu Su, Lim Giong, Gong Gong Gong and many more, is specifically remastered for vinyl format and expanded to 9 tracks with the previously unreleased “She/Her/Gone”.

Federico Ughi Together with Leo Genovese and Brandon Lopez Explores the Spaceways in the New Multidimensional LP/CD ‘Infinite Cosmos Calling You You You, Vol. 1’ Federico Ughi, drum wizard and producer, is back with an album under his own name for the first time in five years. The project features outstanding musicians: Leo Genovese, originally from Argentina but now Brooklyn-based on keyboards and synths, and Brandon Lopez from NYC on upright bass. This album celebrates the advanced creative dialogue between these artists by fully immersing the listener in the world of sound conjured by the trio. The expansive scope of this experience suggests that Ughi's artistic enterprise extends beyond the music itself to the idea of connection between artists, music, and the audience. In this conception the musicians are conduits for the delivery of cosmic sound, the music world, the cosmic dimension of sound and light. The message is launched towards the audience and refracted back through them, aspiring to achieve a sort of universal consciousness through presence and participation. The trio moves away from a specific genre, opening up to limitless possibilities. Anything is possible when these improvisers listen to each other so closely. This music is dynamic and defies particular labels. It’s the universal language of sound, frequencies, beat and vibration. The project is strongly influenced by the music, philosophy, and persona of Sun Ra, to whom one of the tracks is dedicated. The album will be followed soon by Vol. 2, containing the other half of the material recorded on the day at Sear Sound, the oldest recording studio in NYC.

Announcement // Due to a pressing fault, this vinyl has been delayed and we are waiting to have more news on when it will be available to start shipping. Sorry for the inconvenience. Masses is an utterly unexpected, and utterly gripping, collaboration between the East London duo, Spring Heel Jack and a group of top-flight improvisers, drawn largely from New York’s ascendant free jazz network but also including Evan Parker and microtonal violinist Matt Maneri. If there are precedents for this particular mix, in which studio-processed audio environments are played back in real time as the triggers for, and fixed components in, a series of group improvisations, they feel few and far between. George Rusell’s 1967 Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature, Bob Ostertag’s Say No More Project, and some of Evan Parker’s explorations in the realm of synergetic electroacoustics provide three possible and very different models. But as Matthew Shipp points out, Masses “creates its own space and time”. Masses opens a tunnel on a space where matter and anti-matter can co-exist without the vernacular power of either state being compromised or diminished. It is a total triumph. (Soundcheck, The Wire - Tony Herrington,2001)

Music From Memory is excited to introduce the self-titled debut album of Habitat Ensemble, a new musical collective headed up by musician Marius Houschyar. The collective originates deep in the south of the Czech Republic, on the border with Austria, amongst the idyllic hills and fields of a village called Maříž, where a summer school of outsiders and creatives have been gathering since the 1990s. Enriching each other through intercultural exchange, summer school participants have created a unique gathering of artistic expression and interdisciplinary research. Originally grown out of the idea of translating the unique energy of the community and its environment into a musical journey where each member makes their own individual contribution, during the summer of August 2022, Habitat Ensemble became an exciting vehicle for connection and co-creation. Whether it be musical experimentation, composition, poetry, song or dance, Habitat Ensemble, having started as a series of multidisciplinary workshops, slowly developed into a unique musical recording. The album serves to conjure the unique nature, community, experimentation surrounding the school and the collective’s search for harmony across all of these, both musical and spiritual. MFM065 will be released in LP and digital format, comes with artwork by David McFarline, and is expected to release in November 2023.

Jessica EKOMANE « Manifolds » Entirely computer-generated, Manifolds is a work that explores the multiple possibilities of polyphonic writing, extending it to the “multiphonic” universe where sources and timbres diffract themselves in the listening space. The different voices of the composition no longer follow the traditional parallel trajectories of musical dialogue, but find themselves propelled as if into a particle accelerator, a “collider” freed from all formal rhetoric to reach a state of liberation of energies that is truly confounding. It is then that, in the multi-layered universe of sonic electrons, as if against its own will, a “chant” of overwhelming humanity is revealed. Laurel HALO « Octavia » (2022) Octavia, a piece for piano and electronics, explores the relationship between melodic motifs and textures in a singular way, intermittent moments of melody, harmony and sound materials connecting and disconnecting, to indicate a series of nets or webs, swaying in and out of one another. These sonic nets gently float, spin and merge, and the effect is one of gently floating over an abyss. The work is inspired by the “spiderweb city” of the same name in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities: “Below there is nothing for hundreds of feet: a few clouds glide past; further down you can glimpse the chasm’s bed….Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long.” — François J. Bonnet, 2023

Returning to the unreleased oeuvre of the master of cybernetic sound Roland Kayn, frozen reeds hereby unveils a new high watermark for longform electroacoustic composition, unfolding across 15 CDs in a luxurious gold-stamped boxed set. Big tip! In 1970, Roland Kayn began a decades-long period of research, development and creation at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Utrecht. In the mid to late 90s, he retired, relocated to the Dutch countryside, and began to realise new electronic works at Reiger Recording Studio – his modest home facility. “I finally came to the conclusion,” Kayn would later point out, “that I no longer needed studios to construct my own electronic music.” The working methods Kayn arrived at individually – without the room-filling synthesisers, mixing desks and signal-processing equipment of Sonology at his disposal – saw him turning his own career into a cybernetic process. From the hours of recorded sound amassed in prior decades, he began processing and assembling a mountainous quantity of new music. His works of this period are focused on reabsorbing and recontextualising his life’s work to produce yet another series of utterly alien landscapes. From his retirement until his death in 2011, Kayn was wildly prolific, leaving an archive of dozens of finished electronic pieces. Earlier source material is often re-sculpted using the technology Kayn had available to hand, while other techniques such as sampling radio broadcasts or the plunderphonic quotation of others’ works occasionally intercede. No notes accompany any of this music – no word of explanation or expression of intent. Only the works and their titles remain, the latter often simply deepening the mystery. Their durations range from around 20 minutes to almost 18 hours. ‘The Ortho-Project’, presented here in its 14-hour entirety, is among the longest. At this scale, Kayn’s music is perhaps at its most immersive; the listener senses they are being invited to envelope themselves in a rich environment of diverse timbral physicality rather than a programmatic work. This is simply electronic music as you have never experienced it before. With Jim O’Rourke applying his signature restorative touch to the audio, and Robert Beatty taking his cryptic cybernetics-inspired artwork several steps beyond the label’s previous Kayn box, ‘The Ortho-Project’ (2007) – in its 14-hour entirety – finally sees a fitting release.

These recordings were made in Bombay in 1968 by Bengt Berger (Bitter Funeral Beer Band) during a stay with Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, who was primarily responsible for the revival of the Rudra Veena as a solo concert instrument. His home in the suburb of Chembur was at the time the magical haunt of a plethora of fantastic musicians, including Ritwik Sanyal and K. Sridhar, who took part in the session. In perfect and stern Duphrad vocal style, these two Raga lead us to different atmospheres and perceptions : Malkauns is the contemplative state of the evening, of the abandonment of the senses before the breaking of the silence in the night; Miyan Ki Todi is the first breath of the morning, the gentle awakening of the limbs before a puja. The two Dagar brothers, Mohiuddin on the Rudra and Fariduddin on the chant, complement each other, become ocean and fire, stillness and storm, in an intimate and tight dialogue of exploration and expressive subtlety, in which the purity of an Indian summer becomes the highest symbol of beauty and freedom of spirit. Originally released on CD by Country & Eastern.

150 copies made available for international distribution, limited LP edition including an insert with drawings, score and notes. Over the past two years, Lorenzo Abattoir's work has focused on researching various breathing and amplification techniques to create a sort of non-verbal language through which to express the sounds of an 'inhuman' being. A key element of his work is the relationship between spiritual practices and unusual methods of audio processing, mainly focusing on the use of microphones as a medium for the amplification of an act. He explores the boundaries between sound and noise using breathing techniques, bodily sounds and different kinds of amplified objects as instruments to structures his performances. The first act of this transformation took place in "Disincarnazione" (CD, Flag Day Records, 2023); the artist frees himself from his own corporeal state and the cultural structures sedimented over millennia of evolution to explore the sonic possibilities of the animal body as a medium and instrument of his work. Continuing to explore these possibilities in "Second Act" (cassette, Vice de Forme, 2023) and then "Third Act" (cassette, Titania Tapes, 2023), Lorenzo Abattoir's new work succeeds in giving shape to this creature. The artist assumes the form of this new beast, delineating its field of action and incorporating movement into his practice. With "Mess (akt IV)", the fourth act of his research issued now on LP by Planam, Abattoir consecrates a new being in a state of sonic confusion, no longer human but not entirely beast, taking its first steps in his sonic and performative universe. The amplification delivers to the listener the sonic image of a hybrid primate amidst the entirety of the noises of its body, from breaths to movements, in a non-place that allows us to explore the depths of the animal body. All the material of "Mess (akt IV)" was recorded at Nub Project Space, Pistoia Italy.

TRACE is a collection of 11 unreleased tracks produced by Yutaka Hirose during the Sound Process Design sessions, right after the release of his classic Soundscape series album Nova. Sound Process Design was Satoshi Ashikawa's label, home of his Wave Notation trilogy (Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards, Satsuki Shibano's Erik Satie 1866-1925 and Satoshi Ashikawa's Still Way). Following Wave Notation, Sound Process Design worked with museums, cafes and bars to create site-specific soundscapes, starting with the sound design of the Kushiro Museum. Yutaka Hirose was called to work on sound for these spaces.

Rather than simply providing pre-recorded compositions, Hirose sought to create a "sound scenery". To achieve this, he participated in the conception of the space and paid particular attention to the accidental combination of sounds by placing the speakers and using a multi-sound source, and following the concept of "sculpturing time through sound".

The composer explains: "sculpturing time through sound means that the time, the space itself, the sound played in it, and the audience all become one sculpture. It is close to the idea of a Japanese tea ceremony where you use all of your 5 (or 6) senses to taste the tea."

TRACE: Sound Design Works 1986-1989 is divided into two parts. "Reflection" is based on an ambient soundscape. It narrates "a sleep that starts with the sound of water droplets at dawn and slowly disappears into darkness" and feels like a natural and soothing progression of Nova. It was played at entrances of spaces, at events, in cafes and bars. "Voice from Past Technology" expresses the dream world born out of that sleep and is based on what Yukata Hirose calls hardcore ambient, environmental music with a noise approach. It was played in museums and science centers.

All in all, TRACE is a crucial addition to every Japanese environmental music fan’s collection, alongside Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green, Satoshi Ishikawa’s Still Way, Motohiko Hamase’s Notes of Forestry, Inoyamaland’s Danzindan-Pojidon, and Yutaka Hirose’s very own Nova.

Forma by Lucy Railton, is a work that burrows deep inside. It disorientates and teases, without malice. Its beauty lies in gentle projections, which, though subtle, leave deep impressions, like the wings of a nocturnal moth reflecting dark light. Its path, too, is unpredictable, but such disorientation is not a reflection of chaos. Instead, a mysterious intention appears through an imperious unfolding - its logic escapes us, but nevertheless captivates us. It is the story of a becoming of forms, as well as of their fading away and their appearance as a disappearance . Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly), by Max Eilbacher is a teeming piece, a matrix where textures and structures merge together, where the polyrhythmic instances become timbre, where the formal abstraction of the harmonic volutes coagulates around a vibrating form that is actualized in the dramatic reality of a dying fly. And this formal mastery is not disembodied in Max Eilbacher’s work and the kaleidoscopic forms of the sound spectra that he has deployed know how to resonate in the sensations and experiences of each one. These works, each with their own agenda, evolve with grace and inspiration in their exploration of vast sound worlds, and it is with great pride that we present them in the new collection. Released in association with Editions Mego. Coordination GRM: François Bonnet, Jules Négrier 
Executive Production: Peter Rehberg

Living Torch, through its unique structural form and harmonic material, is a bold continuation of Kali Malone’s demanding and exciting body of work, while opening new perspectives and increasing the emotional potential of the music tenfold. As such, Living Torch is a major new piece by the composer and adds a significant milestone to an already fascinating repertoire. Departing from the pipe organ that Malone’s music is most notable for, Living Torch features a complex electroacoustic ensemble. Leafing through recordings from conventional instruments like the trombone and bass clarinet to more experimental machines like the boîte à bourdon, passing through sinewave generators and Éliane Radigue’s ARP 2500 synthesizer. Living Torch weaves its own history, its own genealogy, and that of its author. It extends her robust structural approach to a liberated palette of timbre. Living Torch was initially commissioned by GRM for its legendary loudspeaker orchestra, the Acousmonium, and premiered in its complete multichannel form at the Grand Auditorium of Radio France in a concert entirely dedicated to the artist. Composed at GRM studios in Paris between 2020-2021, Living Torch is a work of great intensity, an oeuvre-monde that is singularly placed at the crossroads of instrumental writing and electroacoustic composition. Living Torch proceeds from multiple lineages, including early modern music, American minimalism, and musique concrète. It’s a work as much turned towards exploring justly tuned harmony and canonic structures as towards the polyphony of unique timbres, the scaling of dynamic range, and the revelation of sound qualities. GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), the pioneering institution of electroacoustic, acousmatic, and musique concrète, has been a unique laboratory for sonorous research since 1958. Witnessing the extreme vitality of the music championed by GRM, the Portraits GRM record series extends and expands this momentum with Kali Malone’s Living Torch. The French label-partner Shelter Press is proud to continue the collaboration with GRM, which Peter Rehberg of Editions MEGO set the foundation for in 2012.

A discreet but essential figure in the field of musical creation, Horacio Vaggione has been crafting an ambitious, precise and highly significant body of work for over the last fifty years, coupled with a demanding research activity. This disc offers four purely electroacoustic pieces which illustrate, each in their own way, this singular and fascinating grammar developed by Horacio Vaggione, a complex but fertile grammar which establishes a very special relationship between structure and texture, between matter and formula, to create a fascinating musical space, made up of polyphonies and metamorphoses.