MUSIC

Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation – in effect, looking beneath the hood of several decades of progression to review and renew the revolutionary intent of their microntonal foundation credo. This new Orchestra – Oren Ambarchi, Konrad Sprenger and Joachim Schütz – combine effortlessly to explore new scalar dimensions. PLAY LOUD.

Light in the Attic Records proudly presents Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996—the first comprehensive collection of Ukrainian music recorded prior to, and immediately following, the USSR’s collapse. From subtly dissenting Soviet-era singles to DIY recordings from Kyiv’s vibrant underground scene, the compilation chronicles the development of Ukraine’s rich musical landscape through rare folk, rock, jazz, and electronic recordings. “This record is a labor of love and a long time coming,” says label owner Matt Sullivan. Over the course of the last five years, Sullivan, alongside producers David Mas ("DBGO”), Mark “Frosty” McNeill, and Ukrainian label Shukai Records worked tirelessly to compile a carefully curated, chronological playlist. But behind the scenes, ongoing war & politics would shape the evolution of the tracklist, which originally featured both Ukrainian and Russian artists. “We found ourselves in the midst of a larger political issue; what began as a broader overview of a sonically underrepresented region suddenly became quite the controversial project,” Sullivan continues, “so we decided to pivot and focus only on Ukrainian music. There were times when it felt impossible to bring this project to fruition, so to be sharing it with the world today is truly humbling and long overdue.” Guiding listeners through the physical editions of the album are insightful liner notes and track-by-track details by Vitalii “Bard” Bardetskyi—a Kyiv-based filmmaker, DJ, and writer. The 2xLP is housed in a beautiful gatefold package showcasing Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko’s beloved and iconic folk paintings. The vinyl edition features a 20-page booklet with artist photos & liner notes in both English and Ukrainian, pressed on Clear Blue Sky & Sunflower Yellow wax; the CD edition features bonus content housed in a deluxe, 64-page hardbound book. Light in the Attic will donate a portion of proceeds directly to Livyj Bereh, a Kyiv-based volunteer group working to rebuild in the regions affected by ongoing war in Ukraine. “Music has always pulled Ukrainians out of the abyss,” writes Vitalii “Bard” Bardetskyi in his liner notes for Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996. “When there is no hope for the future, there is still music. At such moments, the whole nation resonates under a groove. Music, breaking through the concrete of various colonial systems, is an incredible, often illogical, way to preserve dignity.” While the songs collected in Even the Forest Hums were recorded during periods of immense societal and political upheaval—and certainly reflect the resilience of the Ukrainian people—they are rooted in the universal spirit of exploration: from post-war teenagers seeking fresh rhythms and artists experimenting with DIY recording technologies to an entire nation being introduced to decades-worth of previously-embargoed albums. Yet, until now, it has been nearly impossible for anyone outside Ukraine to explore the country’s flourishing music scene for themselves. Much of this can be attributed to Soviet-era restrictions. Music, much like any other commodity, was tightly controlled before the fall of communism. “Only state-authorized performers who had gone through hellish rounds of the permit system could record at the few monopolistic, state-run studios,” explains Bardetskyi. While many of these compositions were released and performed to mass audiences, however, they weren’t necessarily what they seemed. “Some of the artists managed, even under difficult ideological circumstances, to build a whole aesthetic platform which was essentially anti-Soviet.” Bands could slide under the radar by changing the lyrics of rock songs to reflect Soviet ideals or by performing traditional folk music with subtle outside influences. “This resulted in a whole scene that combined central-eastern Ukrainian vocal polyphony, Carpathian rhythms, and overseas grooves,” writes Bardetskyi, who refers to this era of music as “Mustache Funk.” Examples featured in Even the Forest Hums... include 1971’s “Bunny” by Kobza. While the folk-rock group was known for their polyphonic vocals, this particular composition is an instrumental waltz, which blends elements of traditional Ukrainian music with progressive rock, British beat, and jazz-rock. Another example of “Mustache Funk” comes from the latter half of the decade, with the Caribbean-influenced “Remembrance” by Vodohrai. While the group—which included some of the best jazz musicians in the country—had a multitude of traditional hits, inspired jams like this one could, for a lucky few, occasionally be heard live. While the 70s proved to be a golden age for Ukrainian music (complete with pop stars, large-scale tours, and legions of adoring fans), the excitement was short-lived. “The Soviet system finally understood that funkified beats quite strongly contradict[ed] [its] principles,” notes Bardetskyi, who adds that by the 80s, “The once prolific scene was almost completely colonized, appropriated, and largely Russified; the state radio and TV waves were occupied by banal VIAs and cheezy schlager singers.” With tighter restrictions, however, came the rise of the underground. While the decade leading up to Ukraine’s independence was marked by great turmoil—including the political reform of Perestroika in the USSR and the Chernobyl disaster—it also marked a time of incredible creativity. Mirroring global trends, the first half of the decade found many composers and producers experimenting with electronic music. Among them was Vadym Khrapachov, whose scores have appeared in over 100 films. His moody, Moroder-esque “Dance” (written for Roman Balaian’s iconic 1983 film, Flights in Dreams and Reality) is notable in that it was recorded on the USSR’s only existing British EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer. Producer Kyrylo Stetsenko, meanwhile, was reimagining traditional songs for the dancefloor. Among them is 1980’s “Play, the Violin, Play,” by Ukrainian pop star Tetiana Kocherhina. Stetsenko, who produced the album for Kocherhina, created a hypnotic remix of the folk tune that was fit for a disco. Stetsenko is also featured here with 1987’s “Oh, how, how?,” in which he transforms a melancholic ballad by Natalia Gura into a synth-forward, breakbeat jam. As the fall of communism approached, the scene continued to diversify—particularly as music from around the world became increasingly available. Kyiv, in particular, became an epicenter of creativity. In the early days, bands like Krok offered a preview of what was to come. Described by Bardetskyi as “The first real Kyiv supergroup,” Krok was led by guitarist Volodymyr Khodzytskyi and featured musicians from local Beat bands. In addition to backing the biggest pop acts of the day, the versatile collective explored a spectrum of styles in their own recordings, including fusion and electro-funk. They are represented here with the mellow “Breath of Night Kyiv.” By the late 80s, Kyiv “was buzzing like a beehive,” recalls Bardetskyi. “It was a period of very active socialization and exchange of musical information and ideas; local musicians evolved with supersonic speed, absorbing decades of the world's musical background and transforming it into their sound.” While rock bands comprised much of this era’s first wave, artists continued to expand their repertoire as new influences pervaded the scene. The global rise of DIY recording technology and electronic instrumentation, meanwhile, also contributed to the growing sonic landscape. Highlights from this period include the avant-garde improvisations of violinist Valentina Goncharova. Recordings like 1989’s “Silence” were created by a series of layered tracks and custom pickups. Similarly, composer Iury Lech paints a warm ambient soundscape with 1990’s “Barreras.” On the other end of the spectrum is the industrial “90” by Radiodelo (the project of Ivan Moskalenko—aka DJ Derbastler), which combines frenetic drum machine beats and haunting, reverb-soaked instrumentation. Post-punk was also thriving, with acts like Yarn (a large, loosely based collective) dominating the scene. “The interests of [Yarn’s] members extended all the way to medieval chamber music, which would clearly be noticeable in ‘Viella,’” writes Bardetskyi. The track features two of Yarn’s co-founding members: multi-instrumentalist and graphic designer Oleksander Yurchenko (who became a significant figure in modern Ukrainian music) and Ivan Moskalenko. Yurchenko is also represented here as part of Omi, a parallel project by the chart-topping electronic group, Blemish. 1994’s dramatic “Transference” (which features contributions by legendary Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and American singer-songwriter Diamanda Galas) serves up horror-movie-soundtrack vibes, particularly with the addition of eerie vocalizations. Cukor Bila Smert’ (which translates to “Sugar White Death”) were also major players in the Kyiv underground. Interestingly, Bardetskyi notes, “In the reality of the general dominance of post-punk, the aesthetic message of Cukor Bila Smert’ was countercultural to the countercultural process itself.” For their contribution to the compilation, the experimental quartet provides 1995’s “Cool, Shining.” In the years following Ukraine’s independence, Kyiv’s underground scene continued to flourish, particularly as Western trends became more accessible and Ukrainians found themselves at the forefront of their own cultural output. While the country’s music would largely evolve in new directions throughout the 90s, the final entry on Even the Forest Hums... provides a glimpse at what the future held. The album closes with 1996’s “Lion,” by Belarusian transplant German Popov, whose project, Marble Sleeves, was “one of the few Kyiv formations that tried to master jungle/drum-n-bass,” per Bardetskyi. Though this compilation only scratches the surface of Ukraine’s vast and diverse music scene, Even the Forest Hums offers an in-depth overview of a significant period in the country’s cultural history and unites a number of influential figures in the same collection for the first time. As Ukrainian artist Oleksandr Schegel writes in the foreword, “This is our Ukrainian treasure. It is impossible to lose and impossible to win.”

"This revelatory album positions John Tchicai’s large ensemble, Cadentia Nova Danica (CND), in the broad context of international new music activity. All previous releases by the group presented them as a free jazz unit. There were only three—their self-titled release on Polydor (1968); “Afrodisiaca” (MPS, 1969); and “Live at Jazzhus Montmartre” (Storyville), recorded in 1967 but not released until 2016. They are all on jazz labels, so the bias is perhaps understandable.

    CND was a great free jazz group, to be sure. But the band and its leader were willing to experiment with a wide range of musical developments outside of jazz and incorporate them into their music. This LP encompasses a collaboration with classical composer Svend Erik Werner, an experiment with taped sound collage, and a remarkable sui generis composition by Tchicai. With the addition of this album to CND’s discography, a broader and deeper portrait of the band’s courageous spirit begins to emerge.

    Tchicai formed the group just after returning to his native Denmark in 1966 after four highly productive years in New York. Upon his return to Copenhagen he immediately sought out musicians with whom he could form a band. He was soon working with an ensemble that included trumpeter Hugh Steinmetz and altoist Karsten Vogel. By late 1966 they became Cadentia Nova Danica (New Danish Cadence). They made their Danish debut at Café Montmartre and quickly developed a reputation as one of the most creative bands in Europe. They remained together until 1971, when Tchicai entered the ashram of Swami Narayanananda for an extended period of meditation during which he didn’t publicly perform.

    Tchicai was absorbing new ideas from all directions. Even in New York, he drew inspiration from other art forms. Ayler’s “New York Eye and Ear Control”, in which he took part, was improvised to a film by Michael Snow. Some concerts had a theatrical aspect with Tchicai appearing in face paint or costume. He also composed and performed “Scandinavian Discoveries”, an extended composition for jazz quartet and string quartet that used both standard and graphic notation. The return to Europe gave him access to influences from classical and non-Western musics that would have been unavailable to him in the US. In Denmark, Tchicai crossed paths with other musicians, photographers, filmmakers, and artists willing to exchange ideas and work together. As a result, performances by CND began to reflect influences from other media and other cultures. Tchicai for example absorbed African influences directly from the African musicians living in Europe and made them a permanent part of CND.

    To a greater extent than in the U.S., classical composers and improvising musicians in Europe took an interest in each other’s work, and CND sometimes collaborated with classical composers who were looking for experimental settings to explore. One situation found them performing in a subway station where the chimes that signaled the train doors were closing were used as cues to play a line of the composition. They once performed on a spinning carousel at a fairground, where the music was captured getting louder and softer as the musicians passed by fixed mics. There was also a noteworthy collaboration with the improvising composers of Musica Electronica Viva.

 The cryptically, if absurdly, titled “Mc Gub Gub, (I–VIII)” is a stunning example of the creative ways Tchicai used ostinatos to structure his compositions and provide a supporting trellis for improvisation. Recorded during a Danish Avantgarde Jazz concert that also included the Contemporary Jazz Quintet, the piece opens with the band loosely repeating a phrase. There’s a constant interchange between composition and improvisation. The written passages also function as transitions between improvised sections, in one case setting up a piano solo whose fluidity contrasts starkly with the angular writing. Many of the transitions are abrupt jump cuts. But in one case the written phrase gradually dissolves as more and more players abandon it to begin improvising. Tchicai and his ensemble explore many relationships between written and improvised on a piece that’s both urgent and playful.

    Danish composer Svend Erik Werner, the producer of CND broadcasts during the band’s extended residency at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in 1969 and 1970, was among those who took an interest in writing for the group. “Ode to St. John” is contemporary in form and outlook but based on methods taken from Gregorian music. It also makes room for improvisation from members of Cadentia Nova Danica. Although vividly contrasting, the two modes of musicmaking speak to one another. The alto saxophone and trumpet duet has a songlike, vocal quality in keeping with the spirit, if not the form, of Gregorian music. It’s a rewarding meeting—and sometimes clash—between ancient and modern.

    “Pladepip,” Tchicai’s foray into musique concréte, another modern classical genre, is unlike anything else in Tchicai’s recorded canon. Two full-band improvisations bookend a remarkable audio tape created by Tchicai. At the time, he was a collector of 78s and he took several of them and gouged their surfaces so they would skip and create repeated phrases, much like the ostinatos in his improvising and composing. He then assembled the patterns into a sound collage. The tape is jittery and discontinuous, all hard angles and abrupt phrases. The group improvisations, on the other hand, are soft-edged clouds of sound that develop with a slow pulsing flow. The extreme contrast between sections creates the piece’s surreal drama.

    The wide-open borders between musics, the band’s palpable joy in exploration, and their bon homie make this an important addition to Cadentia Nova Danica’s recorded legacy. "

1st edition of 500 - no repress. Deluxe edition with two booklets. Originally released in 1974. Holidays Records: "Blending Native American references into a body of sonority that draws on free improvisation, experimental electronic music, and spiritual jazz, Pygmy Unit’s “Signals From Earth” - originally self-released by the band in 1974 - forges a singular and almost entirely unknown path, and stands almost entirely on its own in the history of west coast American jazz. First appearing on the San Francisco scene sometime during the early 1970s, almost nothing is know about the Pygmy Unit, a seven piece band steered by Darrel De Vore, who contributed flute, bass, percussion, piano, and vocals to the band's lone LP, first appeared with percussionist Terry Wilson within the psychedelic folk rock band, The Charlatans, who belonged to the legendary Family Dog scene. Jim Pepper, a Native American tenor saxophonist known for being a member of the Mal Waldron Quartet, played with Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, and numerous others, and produced the cult favourite, “Pepper's Pow Wow”, for Embryo Records in 1971. John Celona, who contributes parts on sax, synthesizer, and percussion, would later go on to be regarded as an electronic composer of some note. Of the remaining members, saxophonist Frank Albright, bassoonist Ron Grunn, and percussionist Marvin Kirkland, very little else is known. It seems this LP is more or less all they recorded. While undeniably jazz - riding a remarkable line between avant-garde electronic music, spiritual jazz, and free improvisation - the band was very much a product of the diverse creative ferment that developed in their hometown of San Francisco during the 1960s. Embodying the raw spirit of DIY (many of the instruments used in the recordings were made by DeVore himself, self-described as an “itinerant flute-maker”) the ensemble channels references - via passages of chanting and percussion, as well as conceptual underpinnings - from Jim Pepper’s Native American roots, intuiting them with the soulfulness of spiritual jazz, wild moments of avant-gardism centred around synths and electronic effects, and explosions of wild free improvisation. “Development of new music is a continuous path that grows directionally according to psychoacoustical phenomena available for unification. This record is evidence of that development, containing 12 performance pieces, at 12 separate times in different acoustical spaces with various combinations of musicians and instrumentation. The music is shaped by signals, received and sent by life forms on this planet. It is unwritten, unrehearsed, utilizing new and traditional approaches to energy, motion, and form. Eventually, music develops as a natural extension of the environment in which it exists. It is the aim of the traditions… to signal the universe from the Earth.”

In 1986, the vibraphonist Tom Van Der Geld composed his personal ode to creation, a tonal poem for all natural beings. Small Mountain reveal a pure minimalist inspiration, a vibrant style of sound variations that is decidedly more Zen-Impressionistic than the mathematical-metaphysical works of Steve Reich. This music, for four marimbas and other percussion instruments suggests an emotional osmosis with all the elements, a flow of ecstatic progressions that is more immanence than transcendence. It's the rain that falls softly on fragrant moss or the fog that hides the frost on the grass; an exotic spectrum of mutliform colours, dances of leaves, branches, sticks, fronds, lianas, swirls of petals and bark. Ode to the wind, to the rainforest, a psalm to the waters energy that opens the portals of the temples of Nature. As in the aboriginal songlines, every place or being on Planet Earth becomes, through music, space for the sacred. credits

Alga Marghen/Formalibera present the first of a series of released documenting the work of Danish composer and multi-instrumentalist John Tchicai. This new LP features two previously unpublished recordings, "Beautiful United Harmony Happening" with Don Cherry and "Education Of An Amphibian" with Sahib Shihab. Tchicai returned to his native Denmark in July 1966 after spending a remarkable four years in New York City. In that short span, he helped redefine and expand the relationship between soloing, collective improvisation, and composition in small free jazz ensembles such as the New York Art Quartet, the New York Contemporary Five, and on albums such as New York Eye and Ear Control with Albert Ayler and John Coltrane's Ascension. It certainly counts as one of the most fertile periods in any artist's career. Yet when he returned to Europe, Tchicai turned his attention primarily (although not exclusively) to large ensemble music. The breakthroughs made in New York were not lost, but transferred to a large group context, opening up further avenues of exploration. "The Education of an Amphibian" by the John Tchicai Octet represents a first try at "Komponist Udøver Ensemble," or "Composing Improvisers Orchestra," an approach that further blurred boundaries between improvisation and composition. Recorded in October 1966, the piece presents Tchicai as composer and guiding presence; an organizer of sounds; and an explorer of a widening musical vocabulary drawn from contemporary classical and African influences. "Beautiful United Harmony Happening" is something different -- an opportunity to embrace new modes of interdisciplinary performance. From the beginning of his return to Denmark, Tchicai sought out not only musicians, but artists in all artforms and began to organize happenings. Although rarely noted, ideas linked to Fluxus, performance art, and happenings were a large influence of Tchicai's thinking at this time. All these related movements sought to blur or erase boundaries between media and set up juxtapositions between styles and artforms that disrupted received ideas of "high" and "low" art. Participation by non-artists introduced elements that challenged ideas about virtuosity and legitimate expression. Random elements were embraced, and non-Western music and concepts were welcome. This performance, heard here in an excerpt from the full two-hour performance, is very much in this vein. It is one of the last performances involving members of Cadentia Nova Danica, but they are only one component (and hardly the focus) of an ensemble that included a five-member chorus of disciples of the Swami Narayanananda (Tchicai lived at the yogi's ashram and had organized the choir himself), the Diane Black Dance Theatre, and trumpeter Don Cherry. Includes insert.

 

Joseijoi Banzai was released as an analog single disc only in Japan in 1973. It is now an ultra-rare disc that has become a premier item worldwide. It was one of the exhibits at the exhibition, and will be reissued again, this time only in Japan, and on white vinyl with a red label side, in a Japan-inspired format. The song is sung in Japanese in response to the “women's lib” movement in Japan at the time, appealing for women's liberation, assertion of women's rights, and improvement of women's status.

Henry House is a recurring dream song. Combining closely tuned instruments and sinetones, tape-music editing techniques, field recordings, and voice, this eighty-minute, five-part song cycle is an evolutionary step away from the spontaneity of the free jazz/noise aesthetic usually found in the music of Nate Wooley. Henry House expands on the ecstatic, durational work found in Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain, a six-part composition that has been premiered over the last ten years by an ensemble that now includes multiple drummers, guitarists, a twenty-one-person choir, and the composer on amplified trumpet. But its ritual is more serene, more natural, slower. Henry House is the first long-form piece that doesn’t feature Wooley’s trumpet. It is also the first to be constructed around his poetic writing. Wooley weaves a strange funeral mass for a fictional everyman from isolated phrases culled from essays, poems, and non-fiction written by Wendell Berry, John Berryman, Joseph Mitchell, and Reiner Stach. After organizing the fragments into a dream narrative, Wooley rewrote the text dozens of times, manipulating the stitched-together story until only glimpses of its sources remained. These texts become a slowly developing story of care and too much care in living. They are spoken by Mat Maneri and Megan Schubert and set amidst masses of instruments. The outer and middle movements explore the interactions between slowly shifting sine tone frequencies and massed, slightly detuned instruments—vibraphones, brass, pianos—to affect a warmly wobbling harmonic pad that undulates and revolves under Maneri’s performance of the text. The remaining movements move quickly, combining field recordings with hard cuts of Schubert’s singing voice constructed into a massive, tape-affected choir interspersed with her readings.

The first-ever official vinyl edition, completely remastered by Josh Bonati. The turn of the millennium ushered in an apex visionary phase for English esoteric duo Coil. Relocating from the city to the coastal quiet of Weston-super-Mare freed them to follow even more fringe obsessions, fully untethered from peer influence. During a single six-month stretch in 2000 they released the devious underworld sequel to Music To Play In The Dark, arcane drone summit Queens Of The Circulating Library, and a malevolent hour-long synthesizer exorcism prophetically titled Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil. This latter work remains one of the group’s most miasmic and mind-expanding creations, on par with Time Machines – a sustained divination of shuddering, psychoactive noise, rippling with the motion sickness of an all-seeing eye. Thighpaulsandra characterizes the album as “an exercise in brutality,” born from a thorny patch of his Serge modular unit that Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson found entrancing. Processing this sliver of electronics into a ravaged labyrinth was a trial and error process, aided by Christopherson’s visual sense of sound, stretching and manipulating it for maximum spatial disorientating. Frequencies nauseously crawl across the stereo field, burrowing into the ear like a sinister brainwashing experiment. An outlier / centerpiece is the 13-minute alien tribalist sea shanty, “I Am The Green Child,” guided by John Balance’s sung-spoken free verse concerning vengeance, oblivion, and insanity, culminating in the memorable refrain, “We're swimming in a sea of occidental vomit.” But the rest of the record seethes in unhinged instrumental chaos, divided into 18 micro-movements of a composition called “Tunnel Of Goats.” Intended to scramble the functionality of a CD player’s shuffle mode, the piece throbs, thrashes, and flatlines in compressed frenzies of twisted synthesis, at the threshold of some bottomless purgatory, forbidding and unknown.

Limited to 200 copies on Yellow Pollen Color Vinyl. For the first time on vinyl, Masami Akita's 1998 masterpiece, Vibractance, originally released in France, this is one of the most unique and beautiful releases in the Merzbow library. It stands out as an analog dream of drone, noise, ambient music: a meditative journey on the psychedelic shores of experimental music.

Noise music emerged as a distinct genre in the late 20th century, influenced by various experimental movements, such as Futurism, Dadaism, and the Fluxus movement. Artists and musicians began to reject the traditional notions of music and sought to challenge the established norms and expectations of the medium. Merzbow is the moniker of Japanese artist Masami Akita inspired by dadaism and surrealism. Akita took the name for his project from German artist Kurt Schwitters's pre-war architectural assemblage The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau. Working in his home, he quickly gained notoriety as a purveyor of a musical genre composed solely of pure, unadulterated noise. Embracing technology and the machine, first in an absolutely analog way and then welcoming digital innovation, Merzbow broke boundaries and pushed toward new territories of the extreme, arriving at a sonic space of uncontaminated, straight noise that, from its base in Tokyo, has continued, now for over 40 years, to set the pace for the entire genre of noise. During the mid-1990s, the Japanese artist went through his most prolific and inspired period of the analog era, releasing masterpieces such as Noisembryo, Venereology, Hybrid Noisebloom or Green Wheels. In that same period, one of his notable and iconic releases, Space Metalizer, released in 1997 under the Canadian label Alien8 Recordings on CD, stands as a testament to his ability to create immersive and mind-altering soundscapes. This album takes listeners on an otherworldly journey, fusing electro-psychedelic noise, EMS Synthesizer, filter and electronics with techno oriented resonance into a unique sonic experience. Opening with a surge of swirling noise and cosmic echoes, Space Metalizer pt.1 immediately establishes a sense of vastness and otherworldliness. Merzbow masterfully combines layers of distorted metallic sounds, oscillating frequencies, and disorienting textures, creating an immersive soundscape that feels like traversing the depths of the universe. The intensity builds gradually, capturing the listener's attention and propelling them into a sonic voyage. Closes the A-side of the first record of the vinyl reissue Mirage a sonic exploration of interstellar phenomena in non silent way. This track features a swirling combination of celestial textures, shimmering frequencies, and cosmic bursts of noise. The B-side, that include the bonus track Spaceout introduces a more pronounced metallic element, intertwining with the dense layers of noise, filtered with techno resonance. Merzbow's intricate use of metallic samples and distorted textures creates an industrial, almost mechanical, atmosphere with an interspatial rhythmic patterning. The tracks on second vinyl pulsates with a relentless energy, akin to the cosmic machinery of the universe. The cacophonous climax leaves a lasting impact, cementing Space Metalizer pt.2 as a standout moment on the album. Through a combination of cosmic atmospheres, metallic elements, the use of the EMS shynti, the Theremin and the filters, Merzbow takes listeners on a transcendent journey through the depths of space.

Merzbow's impact transcends the confines of traditional music, embodying an ethos of constant innovation and fearless exploration into uncharted realms of sound. Navigating through the annals of Merzbow's extensive career reveals an artist who, for over 40 years, has remained dedicated to reshaping our understanding of music and pushing the boundaries of sonic expression. We are thrilled to unveil the highly anticipated vinyl reissue of Merzbow's groundbreaking album Oersted. This album, originally released on CD in 1996, marked a significant milestone in the experimental noise music scene, showcasing the unparalleled sonic explorations of the legendary Masami Akita, known as Merzbow. Oersted is a sonic journey through realms of noise, texture, and intensity that have solidified Merzbow's status as a pioneer in the realm of noise music. The album features a collection of meticulously crafted tracks that push the boundaries of sound manipulation and composition, creating an immersive experience for listeners daring enough to delve into its sonic landscapes. The vinyl reissue, masterfully remastered for the first time by the esteemed James Plotkin, renowned for his unparalleled expertise, breathes fresh life and depth into the album's already rich and intricate sonic landscape, unveiling new detail within its reverberant dense tapestry and complex noise palette. Each track on Oersted is a aural sculpture, with layers of distorted frequencies, pulsating rhythms, and unexpected sonic artifacts that challenge conventional notions of music and sound. Features four untitled tracks originally on CD, each occupying an entire side of the vinyl, except for the track on side D, which shares the side with two bonus tracks. These tracks epitomize a profound and multifaceted sonic odyssey, harnessing various tapes and the raw power of analog instruments and tools such as EMS Synthia, metallic electronics, various filters, and processed audio mixer. Side A plunges the listener into a kaleidoscopic amalgamation of unrefined sound elements, steadily weaving together strata of intensity and textural richness that evolve dynamically over its duration. Side B embarks on a sonic expedition delving deep into mesmerizing rhythms and intricately woven soundscapes, crafting an immersive experience that challenges traditional notions of musical structure and form. Side C boldly pushes the frontiers of sound manipulation, employing dynamic tonal shifts and varying intensities to construct a visceral and immersive sonic landscape. Side D, in its initial segment, extends the sonic narrative into uncharted realms of noise and texture, maintaining a cohesive yet unpredictable sonic progression. The supplementary tracks in the latter part of Side D provide additional depth to Merzbow's sonic experimentation, showcasing distinctive sonic palettes and layers that harmonize with the album's overarching themes and exploratory essence. The original artwork for the 1996 CD digipack, curated by Masami Akita, stands out for its minimalism and visual impact. The pink outer cover, with only the artist's name and album title in silver-gray at the center, grabs attention with its bold simplicity, foreshadowing the sonic experience of the album. Inside, the green provides a pleasing contrast, with credits in silver-gray maintaining stylistic coherence. The vinyl reissue faithfully replicates the graphics with a gatefold cover, enhancing the visual impact of the original artwork. The blending of pink and green colors creates a striking visual effect, highlighting the beauty of simplicity in Akita's graphic design. Immerse yourself in the mesmerizing world of Merzbow's Oersted and experience the raw power and beauty of noise in its purest form.

2nd solo album. Focusing on “sound” and “tone” itself, this is a radical and ambitious work that has transcended its time and continues to radiate innovative brilliance.

all music by G. Di Domenico (SIAE/SABAM) E. Ishibashi (Jasrac/Space Shower Network) J. O’Rourke (Field Code Music/BMI) J. TaliA (APRA) T. Yamamoto recorded in studio W (Brussels) Atelier Eiko, Steamroom Completamente TAZ (Tokyo) Good Mixture (Berlin) mixed by Jim O’Rourke at Steamroom (side A & B) Joe Talia at Good Mixture (side C) Tatsuhisa Yamamoto at Completamente TAZ (side D) mastering & cut by Frédéric Alstadt AT Ångström MASTERING, Brussels Cover photo by François Moret «Between Deauville and La Rochelle» Courtesy Of Spazio Nobile Gallery, Brussels Graphics & layout by Cedric D’hondt

Saltern presents a thrilling new live recording of Naldjorlak for solo cello, composer Éliane Radigue’s first piece for an acoustic instrument, paired with a remastered version of the long out-of-print, original 2006 recording. Composed in 2005 in close collaboration with cellist Charles Curtis, Naldjorlak marked a striking shift in the music of Radigue, who has since composed exclusively for instrumentalists with her celebrated Occam series. This album brings together two complete performances by Curtis, recorded nearly 15 years apart (Paris in 2006 and Los Angeles in 2020), drawing attention to the evolution of the piece and to its inherent mutability. The sound and spirit of Naldjorlak are centered around the re-tuning of the entire cello to the wolf tone, a uniquely unstable frequency, creating a haunting, almost feedback-like resonance within the instrument itself.

From Gascia Ouzounian’s liner notes: “Even as it expands conceptions of what sound is, and thus what music can be, to understand Naldjorlak only as music would be to limit its scope. It is music, but it is also physics and philosophy. Naldjorlak is a detailed investigation of the physical properties of resonating bodies and dynamic systems; it is a meditation on the condition of instability; it is a metaphysics of chaos and uncertainty.”

"In bringing these recordings together, the album presents the composition as a living, breathing document, illustrating how Radigue’s music embraces time’s unpredictability in both structure and performance." —Vanessa Ague, Pitchfork 
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THE HOLY MOTHER – MADHUVANTI PAL PLAYS THE RUDRA VEENA This is the first Vinyl LP ever released featuring a woman playing the Rudra Veena. Madhuvanti Pal is from Kolkata India, teaches the Rudra Veena and builds her own instruments. The name rudra veena derives from two Sanskrit roots: Rudra, which is a name for Shiva, and veena, which means ‘instrument.’ According to Hindu mythology, the Rudra Veena has a unique origin. It is said that Shiva saw his beautiful wife Parvati sleeping, with her arm over her breasts, and decided to build an instrument in her form. It is a stick zither, with two large gourds attached to a hollowed neck. The first historical accounts of the instrument are given in the Vedas, and then the Puranas. Dhrupad is the oldest form of North Indian classical music that is still performed today. During the Mughal period, the rudra veena was a popular Dhrupad instrument, and was often played in courts throughout north India. Dhrupad musicians, including rudra veena artists, enjoyed the patronage of various Kings and Princes. In recent years the rudra veena has gained some popularity, in part thanks to interest from musicians outside of India. Madhuvanti Pal is one of the new generation of rudra veena artists who is teaching students in India and abroad. Early documentation of the rudra veena suggests that women played the instrument. This can be seen in sculptures in Hindu temples—some dating back more than 2000 years—which depict only women playing the rudra veena, and miniature paintings from the 15th - 17th centuries often depict a woman playing the rudra veena. However, in more recent times there has been significant stigma around women playing the instrument. Some earlier texts went as far as to suggest that women could not play the instrument, lest they be subject to a “curse.” Jyoti Hegde, who is perhaps the most famous female rudra veena artist, broke this barrier; her courage enabled younger musicians like Madhuvanti Pal to learn. However, while Jyoti Hegde plays the so-called traditional rudra veena, Madhuvanti plays a modified Dagar-style instrument. Very few recordings of the rudra veena have been released; most current recordings are of Ustad Asad Ali Khan, Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and his son, Bahauddin Dagar. This is for a number of reasons, including that the rudra veena is notoriously difficult to capture in recorded form. Instead of traveling to a studio and availing technicians more accustomed to modern instrument needs, these recordings have been made in Madhuvanti’s apartment. In preparing the album, she has used her own equipment to record, mix, and master each raga. (Limited Edition Double LP spanning over 90 minutes in length, full-color Gatefold with extensive liner notes inside.) ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

We are pleased to reissue the masterpiece cassette of the early Acid Mothers Temple, which is an exquisite mix of psychedelic and noise that creates an unidentifiable sound. The reason for the mysteriousness of the sound is the editing that forms the composition and development of the sound in a way that would normally be unthinkable, and will reaffirm the uniqueness of Acid Mothers Temple.

(advaita records)

UEVPD - Usage/Efficiency/Variance/Platform/Domain - is the solo project of Dominic Goodman, a former member of Mosquitoes and currently one half of Komare. The self-titled UEVPD debut LP, released on 22nd November via World of Echo, consists of eight sequentially numbered electro-acoustic tracks made over approximately five years, living recordings that have morphed in shape over time, each systematically stripped back to their elemental form before being deemed complete. From the outset, Goodman purposefully deployed a relatively limited array of equipment and adopted a determinedly minimalist approach to composition, a practice in restraint that privileges detail and nuance. Field recordings, made using a combination of dynamic, condenser, contact and electret microphones, geophones and hydrophones, were allied to a basic modular/analogue synth setup, allowing for little in the way of excess or indulgence. The results are markedly defiant, displaying an expert exercise in control and restraint that lets in little light but plays a great service to space and time. This is patient, claustrophobic sound design that bears out the value in attentive listening, a meditation on the acceptance of passing time, change, growth, death and regeneration. As such, listeners might connect associative lines with the likes of Pan Sonic and Mika Vianio’s solo work, Emptyset and Civilistjavel (who’s Tomas Bodén shows up on mastering duties here), though this remains distinctively Goodman’s vision, a continuation of his interests shown in Mosquitoes and Komare that further pushes out into the murky unknown.

A limited edition 2024 repress of 'Descending Moonshine Dervishes' by Terry Riley. Originally recorded live in Berlin in 1975 and released by Kuckuck in 1982, Beacon Sound reissued the album in 2016 to widespread acclaim.

This is a work released in 2008 by Dragging an Ox through Water, a solo project by Portland-born musician Brian Mumford, and was later released on CD by Yellow Swans' Pete Swanson's label Freedom To Spend and the famous Japanese indie label Sweet Dreams Press! It's a masterpiece of deviant, underground country music, filled with a penchant for industrial, noise, and punk, and exuding an outsider atmosphere throughout!

A site-specific sound piece created by Akio Suzuki, a master of sound art, with a transcendent echo space.

Since the 1960s, Akio Suzuki, a pioneer of sound art, has focused on "listening" and has visited numerous echo spaces such as caves, tunnels, palaces, and oil tanks in search of places of resonance, calling himself an "echo man." This work is a record of the master's being led to a 40-second otherworldly world of reverberation inside the embankment of Uchinokura Dam, located deep in the mountains of Shibata City, Niigata, and recording without an audience. Stones, bamboo, sponges, hand mirrors, combs, cardboard, glass bottles, and his own voice. Everyday objects and bodies are instantly transformed into "sound instruments," and performances are performed in various ways, such as hitting, rolling, rubbing, spinning, blowing, and pulling, and an acoustic sound piece is created with the unique reverb effect of natural reflections in a huge concrete space without any electrical amplification. The scene transforms into both micro and macro scenes, evoking us, the audience, the infinite universe. 

On this new LP Harry Bertoia shows why he may have been the first industrial musician. Bertoia often referred to his sound sculptures as a "collaboration with industry" and on this new LP Bertoia is intentionally creating heavy, rhythmic music he described as "mechanized," "mechanical" and "factory like." This first edition is packaged in a full color sleeve with metallic inks. Mastered by Tom Eaton at Sounds & Substance. Recorded in 1971, percussion and repetition emulate the pounding rhythms of machinery on this unique pair of conceptual Bertoia compositions. Bertoia utilizes innovative performance techniques to create new sounds unheard in his ouevre. Even in the busy factory of Bertoia's mind, distant stillness rises up as Bertoia exhibits the massive amount of control he possesses over his many looming sculptures. "Mechanization" is just one of the many sonic directions Bertoia took while composing and recording between the late 1950's and his death in 1978. He documented all of his ideas and directions in notes accompanying the hundreds of tapes discovered in his barn.

A key document of the late ’70s experimental music scene in Kansai, Japan, R.N.A. Organism’s R.N.A.O Meets P.O.P.O (first released by legendary Osaka label Vanity Records in 1980) is a hallucinatory trip of dubby bass, churning guitars, sputtering rhythm boxes, twisted vocals and unidentifiable sound effects. With the vinyl out of print for decades now, Mesh-Key is honored to present this deluxe, fully authorized reissue, sourced from the miraculously well-preserved, original reel-to-reel tapes. Carefully remastered by Stephan Mathieu, this album has never sounded better.

Belt of Orion by Stockholm-based Isak Edberg is the composer’s second solo release on XKatedral, and his first to focus solely on instrumental music in the form of two pieces of extended duration for solo piano. Edberg is a composer of electronic and acoustic music as exemplified by Ondulations from 2017 and Lamé written in 2010 and released in 2022, both on XKatedral. Edberg was also a member of Golden Offense Orchestra, active from 2012 to 2014. Edberg writes that his music is informed by an enchantment of being and a search for holiness, rapture and transcendence through stillness, contemplation, dreaming and an attempt to uphold the present. Edberg regards his music to be an adornment of time. The two works presented here were composed in the south of France and in Stockholm during a period spanning the years 2016-2018. The music was inspired by the cold winds, starry nights and desolate, palely bright landscape of the provençal autumn, as well as reflections during a time of escapism and isolation in the life of the composer. More concretely, this music grew out of hours of improvised playing on an old piano while living alone on the countryside, during which harmonic structures and gestures were slowly worked out by means of performing and listening, assessing and balancing sounds and silences. Stylistically, the music draws on a range of sources, such as Feldman’s use of space and resonance as projected through both harmonic and temporal distance, the ritualistic gestural repetitions of Satie, as well as Messiaen’s resonant harmony, together with some of the harmonic lushness of Scriabin’s late work. Belt of Orion is a piece that explores the contrast of two musical textures, the one being fluid, airy and progressive, the other being more static, steady and repetitive. The music sequences through a series of harmonic tensions in search of a place of peace, exposing a rift in the weave of time where everything momentarily stands still. In Vestiges repetitive and rhythmic materials form a major part of the musical structure, while sections of sparse, floating harmonies temporarily interrupt with reflective pauses of stillness. The music thus employs two different and contrasting kinds of musical hypnosis, with the aim of cradling the listener into a dark and perhaps unsettling sleep. The music on this recording was performed by the renowned Swedish pianist Mats Persson, who has for many decades been a legend in the art music scene of Stockholm. Through his languid yet distinct interpretations the delicacy and intimacy of these works are elegantly brought to the fore. The recordings heard here were made over the course of two evenings at Fylkingen in Stockholm. Isak Edberg's music moves slowly through the seemingly endless world that is harmonic sound. In his practice he uses heavily reduced and carefully controlled materials to create states of maximum clarity.