Avant-Garde / Contemporary

Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux. Side one was recorded at a private concert (on the date and time indicated by the title) and features Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone with Jon Hassell on trumpet and Garrett List on trombone. This work is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). The piece evolves with the oscillator changing pitch and dictating an ornate pattern over the course of the performance. Side two is an example of one of the sets of frequencies sustained in the Dream House, the composite sound environments conceived by Young and Zazeela. The composer suggests listening while seated – to experience how the sound interacts with the room and other perceptions of its arrangement – as well as while walking. As Young states, "The frequency ratios are monitored continuously as lissajous patterns on the oscilloscopes and, in spite of the great stability of the oscillators, the phase relationships of the sine waves gradually drift which causes their amplitudes to add and subtract algebraically. Not only does the sound become a bit louder and softer, but at very loud levels, one actually begins to have a sensation that parts of the body are somehow locked in sync with the sine waves and slowly drifting with them in space and time."

Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux. Side one was recorded at a private concert (on the date and time indicated by the title) and features Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone with Jon Hassell on trumpet and Garrett List on trombone. This work is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). The piece evolves with the oscillator changing pitch and dictating an ornate pattern over the course of the performance. Side two is an example of one of the sets of frequencies sustained in the Dream House, the composite sound environments conceived by Young and Zazeela. The composer suggests listening while seated – to experience how the sound interacts with the room and other perceptions of its arrangement – as well as while walking. As Young states, "The frequency ratios are monitored continuously as lissajous patterns on the oscilloscopes and, in spite of the great stability of the oscillators, the phase relationships of the sine waves gradually drift which causes their amplitudes to add and subtract algebraically. Not only does the sound become a bit louder and softer, but at very loud levels, one actually begins to have a sensation that parts of the body are somehow locked in sync with the sine waves and slowly drifting with them in space and time."

Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux. Side one was recorded at a private concert (on the date and time indicated by the title) and features Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone with Jon Hassell on trumpet and Garrett List on trombone. This work is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). The piece evolves with the oscillator changing pitch and dictating an ornate pattern over the course of the performance. Side two is an example of one of the sets of frequencies sustained in the Dream House, the composite sound environments conceived by Young and Zazeela. The composer suggests listening while seated – to experience how the sound interacts with the room and other perceptions of its arrangement – as well as while walking. As Young states, "The frequency ratios are monitored continuously as lissajous patterns on the oscilloscopes and, in spite of the great stability of the oscillators, the phase relationships of the sine waves gradually drift which causes their amplitudes to add and subtract algebraically. Not only does the sound become a bit louder and softer, but at very loud levels, one actually begins to have a sensation that parts of the body are somehow locked in sync with the sine waves and slowly drifting with them in space and time."

Gavin Bryars was born in Yorkshire, England in 1943. His first musical forays were as a jazz bassist working in the early 1960s with improvisors Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. Bryars later worked with composers John Cage and Cornelius Cardew, founded the Portsmouth Sinfonia and collaborated with Brian Eno on his famed Obscure imprint. The Sinking of the Titanic, Bryars' first major composition, was inspired by the tragic event of the British passenger liner's cross-Atlantic maiden voyage. Bryars eloquently reconstructs the passengers' experience – at once forlorn and eerily calming – through assemblages of understated strings and indeterminate elements. A core principle of the piece is that the ship's band continued to play as the vessel went down. One of the most sublime works in the modern classical canon, Titanic remains Bryars' magnum opus. Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, the album's second sidelong track, is based on a tape loop of a London street singer captured in the early 1970s. Featuring Derek Bailey, Michael Nyman and John White, Bryars' composition gradually builds around the cripplingly poignant voice until its emotional force is almost too much to bear. It's no surprise that Jesus' Blood is known as Tom Waits' all-time favorite piece of music. Produced by Brian Eno in 1975 as the inaugural release on Obscure, The Sinking of the Titanic draws the listener in to a majestic world. While these exquisite, hymn-like recordings have not changed in nearly 50 years, their deeply personal nature and the audience's attention to their subtlety have only strengthened over time.

凄まじいドローン作品、手放しでレコメンドします。La Monte Young & Marian Zazeelaに師事したストックホルム拠点の作曲家、サウンド・アーティストであり、Mats ErlandssonやMaria W. Hornといった同郷の名作家たちも参加する実験的オーケストラ”Golden Offence Orchestra”やKali MaloneにMaria W.Hornも参加のオーディオヴィジュアル・カルテット”Hästköttskandalen”などでもその手腕を見せつけてきたEllen Arkbroがデジタル・リリースしていたアルバム『Sounds While Waiting』が〈Superior Viaduct〉より初アナログ化。2020年6月にスウェーデンのウナリッドにある何世紀もの歴史のある教会で録音された荘厳かつ傑出した内容のミニマル/ドローン作品を収録。Sarah DavachiやEliane Radigue、Charlemagne Palestineなどのファンなら絶対に要チェックの一枚！

Northern Irish musician and producer David Cunningham, known for releasing two electro-punk albums on Virgin in the New Wave era and having a worldwide hit single "Money" as The Flying Lizards. The first solo album "Grey Scale" released in 1976 is the first analog reissue from the prestigious . This work was sent out as the first release from his own label , which sent out This Heat and General Strike. From avant-garde musicians such as Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman with whom he has performed live, to improvisers such as Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and David Toop, Cunningham draws influences from a wide variety of fields. At the time, he was a student at the Kent Institute of Art & Design in Kent. , a work that created an infinitely changing palette of sounds. A suite of minimal etudes that does not belong to any genre, with an attractive sound collage and free tones.

Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) formed in the mid-1970s as a loose-knit experimental music collective and multimedia publishing vehicle. Founded by teenage Le Forte Four members Chip Chapman, Joe Potts and Rick Potts and soon joined by Tom Recchion of Doo-Dooettes, LAFMS incorporated free improvisation, modular synthesizers, tape music, sampling, musique concrète, homemade instruments, noise, mail art and avant-rock in permissive and anarchic sessions at the Raymond Building and Poo-Bah Record Shop in old Pasadena. Inspired by The Residents, LAFMS self-released records and periodicals, organized performances and connected with fellow outsiders via post in the years before punk. Their uninhibited, egalitarian ideal of music-making and DIY distribution would influence generations of underground musicians. Live At The Brand documents the second performance of newly formed LAFMS core groups Le Forte Four and Doo-Dooettes on July 8, 1976 at the recital hall of the Brand Library in Glendale. Le Forte Four (now joined by Tom Potts) did not actually perform live, but rather created 44 pyramid-shaped headphone helmets with internal quadraphonic speakers and countless wires in order to share their latest tape assemblages with showgoers deprived of sight. The recordings delivered in this Fluxus-inspired manner feature the Buchla synthesizer at nearby CalArts, radio interpolations, group improvisations, addled outbursts and splices from source material lost to time. Doo-Dooettes -- Tom Recchion, Harold Schroeder, Juan Gomez, Dennis Duck and Fredrik Nilsen -- performed a series of alternately droning and chaotic duets with guitar, percussion, piano, tape loops and synthesizer, all improvised around loosely structured compositions and culminating in a spontaneous group composition at the end of the program. Originally released in 1976, the double LP would be LAFMS' third release. This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with inserts.

Phill Niblock is an 85-year-old minimalist mogul and a true pillar of the NY avant-garde scene, who is active not only as a composer but also as a videographer / photographer. The monumental second album released in 1984 is reprinted in analog with the lead player Joseph Celli, who has collaborated with John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Ornette Coleman and others. A seamless and fascinating drone minimal masterpiece consisting of dense oboe and horn sounds. One piece that I would like to recommend to fans of Alvin Lucier, Yoshi Wada, and Dome!

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 200 copies. Merzbow is a Japanoise legend who has been advocating and practicing thoroughgoing ahimsa. This is the first analogue/cassette version of their very popular CD-only release "Door Open At 8 AM" released in 1999. Recorded at his home studio, Bedroom, Tokyo, in April/May 1998 using EMS VCS3, EMS Synthi 'A', Moog Rogue, Theremin, etc., this is a career-defining album. Recorded around the same time as one of Merzbow's most adventurous works, Aqua, it pays homage to the free jazz musicians he admires. Tony Williams and John Coltrane were also sampled. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2020. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2020 with new artwork by himself. Includes additional bonus tracks.

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 (Masami Akita), the seminal Japanese noise project since 1979, remains one of the most influential and prolific figures in modern electronic composition. Originally a limited CD-only release on Waystyx in 2005, ‘Scene’ is now available on vinyl for the first time with remastering by Masami Akita and an exclusive bonus track from the original recording session. Scene is revered by fans as one of Merzbow’s best surrealist works from the mid-2000s ‘laptop era’. The intro track, Part 1, immediately grabs listeners with hysteric carnival music. The ascending parts then warp into hallucinatory passages with rhythmic drum patterns, metalworks, echoing bird calls, and eerie wind chimes tinkling atonally in the gossamer moon. Ultimately, Scene is a vital part of Merzbow’s ever-evolving experimentations with analog and digital manipulations. Limited to 300 copies, the long unavailable Scene is officially back in our hands.

First time on CD for this classic Merzbow duo album from 1983...
......Material Action is a favorite among early Merzbow free-music, junk-noise workouts. Psychedelic improvised instrumental energy abounds on this essential early recording that is PURE MERZ.

Masami Akita plays tapes, percussion, electro-acoustic noise, organ
Kiyoshi Mizutani overdubs tapes, synthesizer, violin, machine noise

'noisembryo' definitively presented here on cd with bonus disc noise matrix including unreleased material from the same sessions as noisembryo and counterpart 'hole' and selected recording from the time period.

absolutely can’t be missed for fans of this period of noise deity merzbow. the bonus disc alone makes this essential for any merzbow fanatic as well as new listeners. When people ask where to start with merzbow? this is the answer!

the holy grail, not only of merzbow’s obsessive discography, but of the entire 90’s noise movement. you’ve heard the stories surrounding the infamy of this release, but beyond that stands the depth and wild energy over two decades later that ‘noisembryo’ encapsulates. velocity loops, roving automotive bass and cacophonic drum machine gel together with the surprising inclusion of a sound rarely heard within merzbow’s many years...masami akita’s own voice. akita’s surrealism of the past stands prominently relevant to this day. art images from unseen classic paintings and collages of masami from the original ‘noisembryo’ session.

The original 'noisembryo' on disc one as well as the following tracks included on the 'noise matrix' bonus disc:

1. Noisembryo Extra 01
2. Noise Matrix Extra 01
3. Noise Matrix Extra 02
4. Noise Matrix Extra 03
5. Noise Matrix Extra 04
6. The Amazing Maya H
7. 94526

Track 1: taken from original DAT tape which including ‘noisembryo’ recording on 1994.
Track 2-5: taken from original DAT tape which including ‘noise matrix’ (in ‘hole’) on 1994.
Track 6: a track recorded on 1995 for releasing eskimo compilation.
Track 7: taken from original cassette tape which recorded on 1994 and remixed on 2019.

all music by masami akita
all remastered on 2020 at munemihouse, Tokyo

portion of proceeds go to animal rescue. 

20th Anniversary Repress! 
Merzbow's Merzbeat is one the most unique and legendary titles in the artist's vast archive. This 20th anniversary repress is being issued at the same time as CD reissue of his 1983 album Material Action 2 and a brand new collaboration with Arcane Device, all on Important Records....

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.

Inspired by the original Industrial Records release of William S. Burroughs's Nothing Here Now but the Recordings, Belgian record label Sub Rosa worked with Burroughs to release another album: Break Through In Grey Room. Originally compiled in 1986 by producer Bill Rich, the album features Burroughs's experimental recordings from 1961 to 1976, featuring field recordings by Burroughs of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, experimental collaborations with mathematician Ian Sommerville and painter/cut-up originator Brion Gysin.Break Through In Grey Room documents William S. Burroughs during his time in Europe and England, working with Ian Sommerville on recording with the 'cut-up' technique. Sommerville's technical background enabled him to contribute to the early development of sound-and-light shows in London, leading to work with gear provided by Paul McCartney in an apartment owned by Ringo Starr. Experimental in nature, the record is as much an exhibition of studio and composition technique as it is a document of underground culture at that time.For the 2023 reissue, Dais Records has collaborated with the Estate of William S. Burroughs on reissuing the album on vinyl and compact disc, fully remastered by mastering engineer Josh Bonati.

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.