Electronic / Experimental

David Behrman's work released in 1978. A masterpiece that includes "On the Other Ocean," in which flute and bassoon performances are modulated by a handmade synthesizer and computer to develop beautiful sustained sounds, and "Figure in a Clearing," which was composed by David Behrman for the first time using a computer.

Automatic Writing compiles three early Robert Ashley works from 1967-79 -- some of his most experimental works. Composed in recorded form over a period of five years, "Automatic Writing", originally issued on Lovely Music in 1979, is the result of Robert Ashley's fascination with involuntary speech. He recorded and analyzed the repeated lines of his own mantra and extracted four musical characters. The result is a quiet, early form of ambient music. The piece rather famously formed the basis for Nurse With Wound's A Missing Sense (1997). Steven Stapleton's commentary on the recording: "A Missing Sense was originally conceived as a private tape to accompany my taking of LSD. When in that particular state, Robert Ashley's 'Automatic Writing' was the only music I could actually experience without feeling claustrophobic and paranoid. We played it endlessly; it seemed to become part of the room, perfectly blending with the late night city ambiance and the 'breathing' of the building." The piece features the voices of Ashley and Mimi Johnson, with electronics and Polymoog backing, with a switching circuit designed and built by Paul DeMarinis. "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" and "She Was A Visitor" are excerpts from an opera entitled "That Morning Thing", composed in 1966-67 as a result of Ashley's impulse to express something about the suicides of three friends. "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon", originally issued in 1968, is a woman's description of a sexual experience. Ashley attempts "to demonstrate the dichotomy between the rational-whatever can be explained in words-and its opposite-which is not irrational or a-rational, but which cannot be explained in words." The lead voice performed by Cynthia Liddell, the processed back-up chorus, the recurring bell tone, and the pervading tape hiss, create an unsettling mood. "She Was a Visitor" was originally issued on the electronic compilation Extended Voices in 1967. It is another form of description, intended to be understood as a form of rumor. The chorus is divided into groups, each headed by a leader. A lone speaker repeats the title sentence throughout. The separate phonemes of this sentence are picked up freely by the group leaders and are relayed to the group members, who sustain them softly and for the duration of one natural breath. The time lag produces a staggered, chant-like effect, with the sounds moving outward from the nearest performer to the farthest. Booklet notes by Robert Ashley.

For more than three decades, Go Hirano has developed a quietly enthralling sound world on the peripheries of the Japanese underground. Emerging in the 1990s, Hirano released three albums with the revered PSF Records label and established himself as an artist with a unique sense of melody and atmosphere that was both entrancing and intimate. His work, largely recorded at home and in the field, de-emphasized technical perfection in favor of an unvarnished immediacy that imbued the quiet moments of daily life with a dreamlike splendor.

On The Habit, Hirano brings together recordings that span decades of his playing the piano and other instruments on a daily basis. The core of the album was recorded in 2020 at Pianola Records in Tokyo, while other pieces draw from recordings dating as far back as the late 1980s. Through this span of years, a coherent vision emerges, marked by patient, subtle engagement with repetition, space, and resonance. Hirano works with a restrained palette—piano, pianica, wind chime, percussion, and synthesizer—to develop simple melodic figures that gradually shift in harmony and texture. Spacious piano chords expand through soft synthesizer tones. Near-imperceptible rhythmic frameworks intertwine with tranquil phrases that drift and merge with the sounds of the world around them.

This synthesis of music and the environment in which it is created is critical to Hirano's approach. Rather than isolating the music from its surroundings, he embraces the atmosphere of the moment, the room in which each piece is played, capturing the subtle sounds and artifacts of the artist’s daily experience and the surrounding natural world. For Hirano, these “imperfections” are pathways to vibrant, living expression.

While he may share affinities with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and even Brian Eno, Hirano's dedication to “initial, unadorned expression” and processing the environment through his own particular filter sets him apart. The Habit reveals a meditative, melodic language unfolding over the decades and within the many spaces of a life in music marked by a unique warmth and beauty.

"I'm sitting in a different room than you are now. I'm recording my own voice. By the resonant frequency of the room strengthening itself, my voice is excluding only the rhythmic elements. Repeat recording and playback until completely destroyed. At that point what you hear is the very natural resonance frequency of the room expressed by my voice. I have this movement in my voice. I think of it as a way to smooth out band irregularities, and I'm not conscious of revealing this phenomenon itself. "

A repress of the classic "I'm Sitting in a Room (1969)" by contemporary musician Alvin Lucier (1931-), originally released in 1981.
By repeatedly recording and playing back the sound of voices echoing in a particular space until the voices become indistinct, the work explores the acoustical engineering of the space to reveal its specific frequencies. It is a work that can only be realized by actually being there, and although it can be perceived as a mere acoustic work just by listening to the recorded sound source, its original purpose is a groundbreaking content that allows the listener to embody a vast and infinite space.

Stuart Dempster created Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel in the same cistern where the legendary Deep Listening album was recorded. Reverberating with powerful, deep tones, this double LP is intended as a companion to the acclaimed Oliveros/Dempster/Panaiotis album Deep Listening. Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel is one of the deepest drone albums ever recorded. Nine trombones, didjeridu and Tibetan bells fill the massive two million gallon cistern with dense sonic reverberations that are both haunting and healing. Packaged in a heavy duty paper sleeve printed with metallic gold ink to match the Deep Listening design.

A masterpiece of heavenly beauty minimal poetry left by Robert Ashley, a solitary composer who has made his name in the history of American contemporary music, in 1977! The most important masterpiece of Ashley's career as a legendary experimental music collective and Sonic Arts Union with Alvin Lucier, David Berman and Gordon Mumma. Recorded at Mills College's Center for Contemporary Music in 1977, and put on a clear examination of piano, polymoog, and clavinet by the famous performer "Blue" Gene Tyranny, who has also left many works on Lovely Music. Krishna Bhatt's tabla sounds fluently, and Ashley's spiritual poetry is layered on top of each other.

Don't miss it! Known for his collaborations with big names such as Ry Cooder, Vampire Weekend and Moses Sumney, and as the leader of the jazz trio Inga, he has been active in a variety of fields, from psychedelic to outsider to meditative. This is a follow up to his last album, which was self-pressed in 2018 and has been reprinted many times since then and is a huge best seller in our store. The collaboration with Sam Wilkes is now available on cassette from Leaving Records, and is a continuation of the previous album recorded between 2017 and 2018. The album is a confident work that combines a sophisticated jazz mind with a unique, experimental sound that is full of the free spirit of the West Coast, and sublimates it into a unique, even meditative, sound. The muffled sound image with a perfect balance makes the listener feel even better.

Gendel on C-Melody Saxofone and Wilkes on Fender P-Bass arrangements of selected material and original compositions a document of specific variations in instrumentation, sound, and repertoire, with a focus on melody, execution of arrangement, and total freedom The Doober follows the release of Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar (2018) and Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs (2021).

Meditations bestseller! Originally released as a self-pressed in 2018 in a limited edition of only 50 copies. A collaboration between L.A. saxophonist Sam Gendel, best known as the leader of the jazz trio Inga, and bassist Sam Wilkes, whose unique sound has been described as psychedelic, outsider and meditative, and Jon Hassell's Fourth World.This is a collaboration between Sam Gendel, a saxophonist from LA, and Sam Wilkes, a bassist from LA. You will be into a vortex of dope music. This is a work of confidence, in which a sophisticated jazz mind is incorporated into a unique and experimental sound full of the free spirit of the West Coast, and sublimated into a unique sound that is even meditative. The muffled soundscape with the perfect amount of salt makes the listener feel even better.

Sam Wilkes answers a few questions from Leaving Records labelmate Carlos Niño, on his debut full-length WILKES Listening to WILKES numerous times, considering what I might write about it for a Press Release, (which I agreed to do because I'm a fan of his Music and his collaborations with Sam Gendel and Louis Cole / Knower,) I was growing in enthusiasm, looking forward to my next radio show or DJ set including the song "Today" so I could hear it bump in a nice system. I was hyped the more I took in this 6 song offering. I thought to ask Sam about his new record and use his answers as aid to illustrate some of my feelings, but when I read his reply I thought you should too. It's so descriptive and visual, perfect to pull from and quote.

He is known for his collaborations with big names such as Ry Cooder, Vampire Weekend and Moses Sumney, and as the leader of the jazz trio "Inga", Sam Gendel is a very popular fourth-world inspired saxophonist from LA who has created a unique and free sound that can be described as psychedelic, outsider or meditative. His latest album "Fresh Bread" from Leaving, which is arguably the most important album of the year, is now in stock. It's an all-genre anthology of 52 tracks selected from his personal archive of home recordings and performances from 2012 to 2020. Carlos Niño, Jamire Williams and others also participate.

In an era of rampant, man-made climate chaos, “solastalgia” (the longing and distress experienced by individuals as a response to environmental change/degradation) has emerged as a useful, semi-viral concept — a catch-all term for the pervasive sense that the world as we know it is far from well, and only growing less so. But, for many of us, a problem, a trap, an ineffable hollowness, exists at the very crux of this concept/premise: how can we mourn (or even sense the loss of) that which we have never known? Especially for lifelong urbanites estranged from nature, who nevertheless grasp the severity and complexity of the problem—how might they remember? How might they mourn? Perhaps indirectly—that is to say, in an exploratory and non-dogmatic fashion—Green-House, a project birthed by Olive Ardizoni and now officially a duo project featuring long-time collaborator and confidant, Michael Flanagan, seeks to address this gap in understanding. Six Songs for Invisible Gardens, the debut Green-House EP whose 2020 release coincided with the depths of Covid-19 “lockdown,” responded to the rampant heartsickness of human and plant life, especially in non-rural areas. The packaging of the cassette release famously included wildflower seeds for the listener to scatter. This gesture (at once simple and daring, especially when one considers the logistical element) exists as testament to the sincerity and seriousness of Ardizoni’s convictions. Music for Living Spaces, the first full-length Green-House LP, followed in 2021— a refinement of the formula that enshrined Six Songs as a cult, eco-ambient hit. Out October 13, 2023 on Leaving Records, they have returned with the LP A Host For All Kinds of Life, a third entry in a series of releases whose titles have incidentally all revolved around the “for” construction: an unofficial canon of offerings, or maybe rather instructions as to how the music contained therein might, could, and should operate in/on the listener’s life and “living space(s).” Decidedly the most expansive Green-House release — one need only consider the LP’s title and the kaleidoscopic, fractal cover art designed by Flanagan—A Host For All Kinds of Life troubles the very notion of “ambient music,” a category with whom Green-House has always existed in some degree of tension. What if a song’s seeming softness constitutes its biting edge? What if easeful, contemplative pleasure can radically alter our mindset? Our very role as worldly subjects? Drawing on the works of Lynn Margulis and our burgeoning understanding of the evolutionary role of biological mutualism (associations between species in which both species benefit), A Host For All Kinds of Life is a deeply entrenched and politically grounded song suite. And there are indeed discrete songs here, with defined structure, momentum, and sway; see the gilded, sixties-evoking melodic arabesque of the record’s ninth and penultimate track, “Everything is Okay” (which incidentally ends with the release’s only human voice—a tender message left for Ardizoni by their mother). In conversation, Ardizoni speaks often of the centrality of joy—that Green-House’s very existence can be traced to a conscious decision they made to not only choose joy as an act of rebellion, but to find that joy in whatever plant life they could access in their immediate environment. In this sense, all of Green-House’s releases (and A Host for All Kinds of Life especially) embody a radicality that may elude the casual or first-time listener. To choose, model, and express joy in an ailing world requires courage, a courage that must be jealously guarded and constantly replenished. A Host For all Kinds of Life encourages the listener to slow down, take stock, tune in to the more-than-human world around them, and gather their courage and joy in light of the uncertainty to come.

A must-have for fans of Japanese environmental music such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa and Yutaka Hirose! Organic new age music that is swallowed by the beauty of nature that sways gracefully! Leaving Records is proud to present the debut EP by Green-House, a project by local artist Olive Ardizon. "The six tracks are based on the concept of "communication between plant life and the people who grow it. Based on field recordings that capture the sounds of water and the voices and movements of plants and animals in nature, this is a superb new age/ambient work that breathes an aesthetic synth sound that encompasses the beauty and serenity of the pull that is common in Japanese environmental music. Artwork by Michael Flanagan.

California-based keyboardist and composer Nico Georis, known for his ambient works created with biofeedback devices and intended “for plants,” returns with a luminous new album via Leaving Records, the spiritual heart of the West Coast’s independent scene. Delving deep into celestial realms of modern classical and new age, this album radiates with grace and compassion. Gently resonant piano tones, softly undulating synth layers, and reverberations that dissolve into space—each sound arrives as a prayer, a blessing, or the ripple of a memory devoted to someone unseen. A profound sense of calm and care pervades throughout, as if tending to the quiet growth of plants or listening closely to the cosmic order itself. A radiant and healing work of meditative beauty.

California’s Nico Georis has always straddled (or, rather, negotiated) multiple dimensions. As a child, Georis flitted between the rigors of classical training and DIY experimentation—studying under a disciple of Franz Lizst (a mentorship that would enshrine the piano as his primary instrument), then squirreling away to the basement of his childhood home, strewn as it was with his father’s instruments and home-audio equipment, to play and record freely. Despite his evident virtuosity as a trained pianist, Georis has, across numerous projects, stints, incarnations, and chapters, persisted in this gentle and exploratory approach to music-making. Foregoing the pursuit of technical mastery and acclaim within the confines of the contemporary classical world, he has dedicated his talents to songcraft, broadly-defined — channeling unseen (or inaugurating altogether new) worlds through melody and repetition. Conceived after an isolating, five-year struggle with a severe case of Lyme disease, Cloud Suites (out June 9th on Leaving Records) documents Georis’s initial return to experimental ambient keyboard compositions. Conceptually, there is little ambiguity here: the songs—the “suites”—are clouds, or, rather, reflections of clouds, each named after a particular formation. Track titles range from the meteorologically specific to the expressive: “Cumuloids,” “Sundog,” and “Soft Yellow Gazers.” Georis composed the suites in real-time, peering out the windows of his Big Sur cabin-home/recording studio (dubbed The Sky Shed), responding improvisationally to render specific clouds as music—in effect to pluck them from the sky. Georis has referred to this process as a kind of musical game, and, indeed, its end product conveys the recurring and joyful revelations of play. But for a project born of levity and improvisation, Cloud Suites’ path to realization has been winding—harrowing, even. Over three years in the making, the recording process was beset by all manner of technological and environmental setbacks, ranging from broken equipment to a mudslide that tore through the Sky Shed. Nevertheless, even as other projects saw fruition (see 2022’s beautifully elegiac Desert Mirror) the Cloud Suites continued to gestate. When circumstances finally aligned, Georis entered the studio with a rag-tag collection of tape recordings. Performing over these Cloud demos, Georis would eventually weave these initial recordings into finished tracks, an analogue collage/cut-up approach recalling his childhood basement experiments, and his long-time affinity for Dub. Morphing seamlessly across eleven tracks, Cloud Suites functions wonderfully as a record (that is to say, as a discrete release—a standalone musical artifact), but one also senses the limitlessness of the project. Having stumbled, largely by accident, upon this inviting dimension (at once bracingly psychedelic and achingly nostalgic), Georis may not wish to close the door behind him. Or maybe it isn’t his door to close.

Experience the high strangeness of plant music—plants that “sing.” For years musician Nico Georis has used biofeedback instruments to
connect a variety of flora to analog synthesizers, letting their biodata
create music that is strange and existentially gorgeous.

Nico’s work in plant music happened during a six year span, and was
set in motion by a simple desire to find a fresh supply of long-form
ambient music for relaxing to at home. After a chance encounter with
an obscure technology dating back to the 70’s allowing plant
electricity to be converted to MIDI data, Nico began experimenting with using his house plants to generate endlessly evolving ambient music. “I was looking for music that I couldn’t find, and I realized the plants & I could make it.”

Here was an opportunity for another type of ambient music, one not
born of the human brain, to emerge. A music that moves beyond
human thought forms all together, and leans deeply into the green.
Culled from hundreds of plant songs recorded between 2016 - 2022
both at home and in the wild Plant Music Vol. 1 and 2 represent the
“greatest hits” of Nico’s plant music years.

Plant music Vol. 3 marks the newest installation, showcasing music
generated from psilocybin mushrooms, known by many as “Golden
Teachers”.

◯

"This music is created via an artistic translation of electrical biodata into musical data. Two mushrooms and the mycelium connecting them are hooked-up to sensors, and their fluctuating electrical conductivity is translated into an equivalent flow of music notes (MIDI). These notes are then filtered into musical scales and routed into synthesizers that generate tones.

These recordings have been arranged into a variety of solos, duets and trios. They reflect what we feel are the most fascinating and beautiful examples of psilocybin mushroom music, straight from the tub."

◄░░░░░░►

Nico Georis is a keyboard player, producer & songwriter from
California. He produces music from his studio at Granny's Dancehall in a ghost town amidst the wilderness. His music, a unique amalgamation of global influences, presents an imposing total aesthetic that is all his own. 
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 340px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2614175823/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://nicogeoris.bandcamp.com/album/plant-music-vol-3-the-golden-teachers">Plant Music Vol.3 - The Golden Teachers by Nico Georis</a></iframe>

Think about Can as performed by a shaman commune ! Two long LP-side size compositions, focusing on tribal rhythms (without real drummer), heavy-folk and electronic samples and loops. Takahashi Yoshihiro (Brast Burn) was the man behind this cultish project originally released in 1974. Buried deep in time, this obscure artifact is something of a revelation. No group information was ever given, and no production date or location is indicated, however, it would seem that this record and the "Brast Burn" LP (also reissued by Paradigm) are both by the same group of Japanese nutters and that they were both recorded in the mid seventies in Japan. But all you really need to know is that it is stone cold fantastic, a wild and manic trip full to the brim with hypnotic jams constructed from all manner of eclectic instruments.

The tribal blues sound is augmented with fascinating tape experiments, electronics, environmental sounds, moaned (howled) vocals and a host of musical delicacies, as dangerous as they are delicious. The influence of German bands such as Can, Faust and Guru Guru is evident throughout, so too is the influence of the good Captain (Beefheart that is) whose gut wrenching blues dirges find compadres in this unearthed swamp. Deranged psychedelic music for anyone with a passing interest in Kraut rock, the new Japanese psychedelic scene (most of whom owe these pioneers a great debt) or great music from the edge of the solar system. Recommended.<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6kWuJcXCYCM?si=qzWOtQkBPaAemmZ5" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Beat Records is glad to present GOLDRAKE GENERATION VOLUME 1, the first release of a series dedicated to Italian 70s, 80s and 90s cartoons’ main titles songs. A franchise with roots in Japanese immense cartoons’ production that stormed Italy with a high wave of images, sounds and colours which left a remarkable sign in the period children. Goldrake Generation is dedicated to a musical period deeply rooted in screen emotions which, every time we experience it, generates a chain reaction, this first episode dedicated to music composed for cartoons having Robot as protagonists. Grande Mazinger, Trider G7, Ufo Diapolon, Yattaman and many more, for going back to the origins and to the memories of a wonderful childhood, among the dearest belonging to the Goldrake Generation to which we dedicate the series. This CD presents Universal TV theme songs belonging to former RCA catalogue, a selection by Francesco Piccardo that together with Simone Pellecchia and Claudio Fuiano remastered 13 cues for a great listening experience. Liner notes by Daniele De Gemini, Goldrake Generation mascotte by Jacopo Cigarini, graphic layout by Daniele De Gemini.

Even after years of living in the same area, there can be mind-bending moments of revelation about its layout. An attempt to avoid traffic, or a time-killing meander on a weekend morning gives way to a mix of novelty and confusion as a new pocket of the district materializes like a dream about hidden rooms in a childhood home. Suddenly a recognizable cross street appears, and for a few seconds it’s hard to reconcile with all the new ground that was just covered. Just around the corner the old landmarks take shape, and logic returns. Despite spending the last several minutes in a seemingly unfamiliar place, perhaps you barely left your own neighborhood, if at all.
This kind of pathfinding lies behind the name Way Through, a collaborative album between Toronto musicians Chris Cummings, Joseph Shabason, and Thom Gill under the moniker Cici Arthur. Seeking to create large-scale setpieces to showcase Cummings’ vocals and writing, producer-instrumentalists Shabason and Gill have parked their brand of smartly subverted adult contemporary aesthetics near the mid-century slink of Antonio Carlos Jobim, or the romantic opulence of Frank Sinatra. Way Through takes the communal spirit of Shabason’s previous ventures to panoramic heights, featuring everyone from drummer Phil Melanson (Sam Gendel, Sam Amidon, Andy Shauff) and frequent collaborator Nicholas Krgovich, to famed arranger and violinist Owen Pallet who helms an honest-to-God thirty-piece orchestra for the affair. Perhaps most importantly, vocalist Dorothea Pass winds glassy harmonies through all the moving parts, emulsifying the core trio’s take on a heyday Capitol Records session. The result is akin to so much music in Joseph Shabason’s orbit in that it spins around a centerpoint of humanness and vulnerability, placing even its most colossal elements comfortingly within arm’s reach.
The seeds of the album were sowed in 2020 when Chris Cummings lost his job of twenty years amid the COVID shockwaves. In his early fifties with his Plan A having lapsed, Chris found himself diving into full-time music creation for the first time in his life. The leap of faith inspired his collaborators, galvanizing them to thoughtfully tailor arrangements just for him. “I wanted to make a really big sounding record for Chris, to really figure out a way to call in favors and make this album as grand as I possibly could,” Shabason recalls of Way Through’s Creed Taylor ethos. “I really wanted Chris to sing to fully mixed songs so that it was in the spirit of playing with a full band with all the energy of hearing an orchestra swell behind him with horns blaring,” he continues, “and I think this is the grandest approach to making a record that I have ever embarked on.”
The resulting outsize backdrop sits in poetic contrast to Cummings’ comparatively discreet delivery and intimate lyricism. Steering the Shabason-Gill cruise liner with delicate intonation and quiet introspection, Cummings paints a picture of city lights gleaming in rain puddles, mapping subtle emotional territories within the urban gloom while resigning in a kind of joyous ennui. “If I could be all that once looked so great and grand, I would have died for an occasion to rise to,” he sings through the horn section of ‘Cartwheels for Coins’, “but it’s a gray sky, nothing to say, mixed emotions always get in the way”. Lines like these epitomize Way Through; when the bandstand empties out and the singer finds himself alone on a darkened soundstage, the emotional complexities of life still lie waiting to be confronted. Cummings lends a literary counterweight to Shabason and Gill’s sonic splendor, and in doing so spotlights the inherent tension between pragmatism and ambition. As a film major who was raised by community theater actors before taking up music as his main creative outlet, it’s evident that Cummings has grappled with this polarity in his own life (not to mention the perfect sense this makes out of Way Through’s filmic overtones).
Punctuating the cinematic heft, the decidedly uptempo midpoint ‘Damaged Goods’ bounces and strolls around Dorothea Pass’s doo-wop harmonies giving affirmation to anyone coming out of a troubled relationship, while the successive piece ‘Prior Times’ addresses those very relationships head-on. “Honestly, I was-- and am still-- very affected by romantic relationships I had before I met my wife,” Chris admits, explaining that the track “tells about a time when I was caught in an unhappy situation, looking back on happier times, and being hit with the painful realization that time doesn't go backwards.” With its understated Samba lilt, the song lands Cici Arthur closest to their aforementioned Jobim/Gilberto target and serves as the stylistic centerpiece. The pensive and movielike ‘No Fight Or Flight (So Much Tenderness)’ brings the album to its finale over one of Owen Pallet’s verdant string arrangements, marking one of the fullest realizations of Joseph Shabason and Thom Gill’s production aspirations-- and likely reaching far beyond what Cummings ever imagined when his life completely changed a few long years ago.
Back in 2020, newly careerless and grasping at an uncertain future in a world of uncertain futures, Chris found himself taking exploratory bike trips through nearby suburban areas he’d never been to before. His attempts to avoid the bustle of major roads would lead either to dead ends or completely new ways of seeing the geography of a city he’d lived in for decades, mirroring the joy and heartbreak of life’s circuitous path. “What good are dead ends when I’m looking through a way through,” he repeats on the album’s title track over the crest of a weary and sweet brass section. “When the miracle you’d hoped for never comes it’s hard to take, but it’s your fault for hoping.” For all of Way Through’s orchestral technicolor wonder, Cummings delivers refreshingly honest doses of realism about how dreams unfold across a lifetime.<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/86pMq1IpjAc?si=4ewpJcmKv3MgzHNL" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

LIMITED EDITION OF 5000 180 GRAM OPAQUE DARK BLUE VINYLProduced by Brian Paulson at River North Recorders in Chicago and released by Touch and Go Records in April of 1991, the six songs on Spiderland methodically mapped a shadowy new continent of sound. The music is taut, menacing, and haunting; its structure built largely on absence and restraint, on the echoing space between the notes, but punctuated by sudden thrilling blasts of unfettered fury. It is a sound that no one had heard before and that no one will ever forget. The eerie, now-iconic black and white cover photo of the four-band member’s heads breaking the surface of the water was taken by their friend Will Oldham. Spiderland spawned a whole new genre, frequently called Post-Rock, and came to be regarded as one of the most important and influential records of the past thirty years. SLINT broke up shortly before Spiderland was released. Band members went on to play in Tortoise, the Breeders, Palace, The For Carnation, Papa M, Evergreen, Interpol, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

With But remember what you have had, Stephen O’Malley continues and expands his musical approach by transposing it to multiphonic electroacoustic writing and acousmatic listening. Drawing not only on his extensive experience as a composer and live instrumentalist, but also on the countless studio production and mixing sessions he has taken part in the course of his many projects (in solo, with SUNN O))) or KTL, to name but a few), Stephen O’Malley’s work on this new piece is ambitious, engaging in an inspired research that delves into the deep intricacies between polyphony, intonation and timbrality, enhanced by melodic motifs. To do this, O’Malley summons up his own very personal sound universe, constellated with amplified textures, instrumental sustained tones and raw energy, in order to diffract them into wavefronts, waves and blows that weave a complex, rich and fascinating matter. But remember what you have had stands out as an important work in Stephen O’Malley’s repertoire: it brings together the multiplicity of his musical approach in an exemplary way, while laying the foundations and promises for the future of an already extraordinary journey.

Alex Zhang Hungtai stands in stillness on 'Dras', but it's the kind of stillness that contains entire ranges of possibility. Recorded in 2019 inside Montreal's Saint Joseph Oratory (right before a piano demolition, no less), these nine pieces sat dormant on his hard drive through pandemic years until something finally clicked. What emerges now feels like watching someone trace the contours of their own interior landscape, each melodic line a careful negotiation with the unconscious. This is only a saxophone record in the barest sense.

The terrain here is tactile and unforgiving. On the title track, difficult melodies get torn apart and molded into emotive drones, dissonance interlocking where tones cut paths through the senses with metallic sheen. "El Khela" refracts into spectral layers that pull with eternal gravity, while "Estado" finds solace inside its own haze, rhythms barely audible but guiding forward with their cadence smeared against grey walls. These are small moments that become cathartic sonic breaths, each one revealing new passages through psychic geography.

There's beauty encased in the subtle repetitions of opener "Erg,” and in the glowing progressions of "White Dwarf." Zhang's saxophone becomes a dowsing rod for the uncharted, with electricity running through the album's veins while his breath anchors everything to something wordlessly human. The digital manipulation applied to those church recordings doesn't obscure that human element of 'Dras'. It transforms the raw material into something that navigates between external space and internal landscape.

By the time closer "Mazil" arrives, Alex Zhang Hungtai lets his saxophone speak its full resonance. Low, guttural expressions open up like chasms beneath melodic constellations floating in thick gravity. There’s a finality here even though something in these passages feels weightless. This is music permeated with inner dialogue, a wordless spell dancing above the psychic abyss. Tonal sequences disintegrate into narcotized sonics, a sharp elegant edge that cuts without drawing blood. This lonely work of exploration becomes something communal. 'Dras' is a map for traversing the space between where we are and where we might go.

The first release to document the solo cello work of musician and composer Lucy Railton, the 40-minute composition Blue Veil recorded at Église du Saint-Esprit in Paris invites listeners into the realm of precision-tuned states of resonance: states made manifest through Railton’s careful traversal of her cello's most subtle acoustic characteristics as they harmonically interlock with mind’s embodied modalities of attention and imagination.
Blue Veil arises out of, is sustained in and finally dissolves back into Railton’s momentary presence with her intimate connection to the cello, a way of hearing that allows for a deeper engagement with harmonic resonance, one that opens a space for immediate encounters of mind and sound.
Railton’s exploratory practice of harmonic perception emerges from a focus on the physical qualities of intervallic and chordal sounds, their textural qualities, degrees of friction, and inner pulsations. Composing in the moment guided by resonances within the cello’s body, her own, and their shared vibrational space, Railton moves through Blue Veil by giving sounds what they ask for: sounds of pure texture manifesting as a move through temporal transparency, sounds of rough texture marking regions of dimensionally dense space.
Railton’s creative and highly refined use of just intonation harmony deforms sound's inner movements in ways that suggest a mode of listening that actively supplies imagery of sounds implied or completely absent rather than merely savouring those fully present. This active mode of “listening-with”, playfully and semi-metaphorically referred to by Railton as “sing-along music”, allows listening to reflexively participate in the music’s movement as it gradually passes through richly saturated domains of harmonic imagination. And just as the precision-tuned tones of Blue Veil lose their individuality when fusing multifaceted uniformity, listening’s structures of reference and recognition dissolve into nameless waves of intensity, continuously unfolding themselves upon and merging with the listener.
Blue Veil is the result of a deep exploration of the inner worlds of tuning, an undertaking in turn informed by and emerging out of Railton’s realisations of the music of Catherine Lamb and Ellen Arkbro, her collaborative work with Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley as well as her interpretive practice in performing the work of Maryanne Amacher, Morton Feldman and others. 

Release date Feb. 9th. Kali Malone's anticipated new album "All Life Long" is a collection of music for pipe organ, choir, and brass quintet composed by Kali Malone, 2020 - 2023. Choral music performed by Macadam Ensemble and conducted by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Brass quintet music performed by Anima Brass at The Bunker Studio in New York City. Organ music performed by Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley on the historical meantone tempered pipe organs at Église Saint-François in Lausanne, Orgelpark in Amsterdam, and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden. Kali Malone composes with a rare clarity of vision. Her music is patient and focused, built on a foundation of evolving harmonic cycles that draw out latent emotional resonances. Time is a crucial factor: letting go of expectations of duration and breadth offers a chance to find a space of reflection and contemplation. In her hands, experimental reinterpretations of centuries-old polyphonic compositional methods become portals to new ways of perceiving sound, structure, and introspection. Though awe-inspiring in scope, the most remarkable thing about Malone’s music is the intimacy stirred by the close listening it encourages. Malone’s new album All Life Long, created between 2020 - 2023, presents her first compositions for organ since 2019’s breakthrough album The Sacrificial Code alongside interrelated pieces for voice and brass performed by Macadam Ensemble and Anima Brass. Over the course of twelve pieces, harmonic themes and patterns recur, presented in altered forms and for varied instrumentation. They emerge and reemerge like echoes of their former selves, making the familiar uncanny. Propelled by lungs and breath rather than bellows and oscillators, Malone’s compositions for choir and brass take on expressive qualities that complicate the austerity that has defined her work, introducing lyricism and the beauty of human fallibility into music that has been driven by mechanical processes. At the same time, the works for organ, performed by Malone with additional accompaniment by Stephen O’Malley on four different organs dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, underscore the mighty, spectral power that those rigorous operations can achieve. All Life Long simmers in an ever-shifting tension between repetition and variation. The pieces for brass, organ, and voice are alternated asymmetrically, providing nearly continuous timbral fluctuation across its 78-minute runtime even as thematic material reiterates. Each composition’s internal framework of fractal pattern permutations has the paradoxical effect of creating anticipated keystone moments of dramatic reverie and lulling the listener into believing in an illusory endlessness. On an even more granular level, the historical meantone tuning systems of each organ used, and the variable intonation of brass and voice, provide further points of emotional excavation within the harmony. The titular composition “All Life Long” appears twice on the album, first as an extended canon for organ and again in the final quarter, compactly arranged for voice. In the latter, Malone pairs the music with “The Crying Water” by Arthur Symons, a poem steeped in language of mourning and eternity. For organ, “All Life Long” moves with a patient stateliness, the drama concentrated in moments when shifting tonalities generate and release dissonance and ecstasy. For voice, each word is saturated with feeling, the singers swooping gracefully downward to capture the melancholy of the narrator’s relationship to the timeless tears of the sea. “Passage Through The Spheres,” the album’s opening piece, contains lyrics in Italian pulled from Giorgio Agamben’s essay In Praise of Profanation. In it, Agamben defines profanation as, in part, the act of bringing back to communal, secular use that which has been segregated to the realm of the sacred, a process Malone enacts each time she performs on church organs. This is not music of praise, or of spiritual revelation, but it is an artistic enactment of translating the indescribable. It carries the gravity of liturgical chant, and its fixation on the infinite, but draws its weight from the earthly realm of human experience. A music that draws the listener into the present moment where they can discover themselves within the interwoven musical patterns that can come to resemble the passage of days, weeks, years, a lifetime.