MUSIC

オリジナル盤カセットは最早入手不可能にも近い一枚！配給元最終ストック。ウクライナ出身の作曲家、映像作家、ライターであり、70年代中盤から90年代にかけてスペイン・マドリッドの前衛音楽シーンで絶大な影響を誇っていたIury Lechが同国地下実験音楽の聖地〈Hyades Arts〉より1989年に発表した1作目のアルバム『Otra Rumorosa Superficie』が〈Utopia Records〉からアナログ・リイシュー。〈Grabaciones Accidentales〉の〈El Cometa De Madrid〉（マドリッドの彗星）シリーズで紹介されたアクトを筆頭に筆頭に独創的なアーティストたちが世界でも類を見ないクリエイティヴなシーンを興隆させたマドリッド音響派周辺のシーンを代表する１枚。先に再発されていた次作同様、天上風景を醸すモダン・クラシカルの傑作ですが、こちらにはよりアヴァンギャルドかつ仄暗い影を滲ませており、深い内省を感じさせる一枚となっています。そこ知れず幽玄にして幻影的なモダン・クラシカルの傑作。180g重量盤。限定300部。

Tibor Szemző presents two compositions on his new album Snap #2 – The Other Shore and the first release of his CUBA. As the title implies, Snap #2 can be considered a sequel to his cult album Snapshot from the Island (released in 1987, 2000 and 2020). In that first album the island was a metaphor for isolation and now Snap #2 offers Szemző’s reflections of his visits to real islands, Cuba in 1988-1990 and Japan in 1992-1994. As usual, Tibor Szemző processed the themes both visually and musically and has presented them many times live as cinematographic performances. The previous version of The Other Shore was released in 1999 on CD. On this album the original recording from 1997 is used; it has been recomposed, remixed and remastered and some additional recordings have been included. The core of Szemző’s Gordian Knot ensemble of the mid-nineties (Tibor Szemző on bass flute, Péter Magyar on drums and Tamás Tóth on bass guitar) has been enlarged by a string section and additional percussionists. The Other Shore composition has a multilayered texture; it starts with strings and is followed by prerecorded voices reciting the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law (Myôhô-Renge-Kyô in Japanese), the most important sutra of Mahayana Buddhism. Then percussion introduces the basic beat of the piece and the voice of the 102 year-old Buddhist priest Ônishi Ryôkei giving a lecture on Kannon sutra is heard. The following uneven entries of drums and bass guitar are like paint brush strokes in Zen calligraphy. The long tones of Szemző’s bass flute enters the piece as the last element suggesting itself as a connecting thread through all previous layers. When Tibor Szemző first visited Cuba in 1988 he had just started shooting film on 8mm, something of a personal diary. When he met Jonas Mekas in Budapest a few years later, he realized that this footage could be screened publicly and also be an integral part of live performances. CUBA, presented on the Snap #2 album, is the recording from 2000 of one such performance and was remixed by the author in 2021. It is as similar to and yet different from The Other Shore. The Gordian Knot band seemingly structures the piece in the same way, but the resulting sound is much heavier especially thanks to drummer Péter Magyar. Nevertheless, the contributions of Szemző on bass flute, Mihály Huszár on electric bass and T. Bali on prepared electric guitar also inject the proper rock sting. Incorporated Havanna street sounds and local radio broadcasts recorded by the author provide even more steamy roughness to the sound of Szemző’s CUBA. The cover design of the Snap #2 album with photo reproductions from Szemző’s films reflects the aesthetics of the Snapshot from the Island album. This vinyl LP runs at 45 RPM for better sound quality.

This sprawling collection by Belgian loner blues savant Bram Devens aka Ignatz encapsulates the mystery, murk, and melancholy of his uncanny craft at its most windswept and wayward. Originally issued via Goaty Tapes in September of 2015, this long-anticipated vinyl edition expands the saga with an additional 17 minutes of archival material. Deven’s palette remains constant throughout: feathery fingerpicking, modal loops, and intuitive six-string navigations interspersed with candlelit passages of mournful voice, alternately whispered, mumbled, moaned. His is an aesthetic of embers and resin, cracked masks and distant lights, of what’s left behind and what lingers on. I Live In A Utopia was recorded following a relocation from his longtime base of Brussels to Landen, with a second child due soon: “I remember the weather being nice and having just bought a hammock.” The change of scenery seeded a promise of slower days and lighter times – no utopia perhaps, but a sense of faint hope glowing on the horizon. The songs slide between loose acoustic spirituals and smoky basement ragas, late afternoon haze and midnight moons, a seesawing restlessness reflected in the titles (“I Have Found True Love,” “Time Does Not Bring Relief,” “We Used To Smoke Inside”). The fidelity is grainy but vivid, refracted by tape warp and Flemish dust. As always, Deven’s playing is deceptively elegant, raw but precise, attuned to resonance, radiance, and negative space. Echoes of Fahey and Jandek reverberate in certain moments but ultimately the world Ignatz maps is one incomparably his own. A landscape both doomed and dawning, weary but undefeated, tracing outlines of lengthening shadows. “I walk in the sunshine,” he sings, uneasily. This is music of a rare inner wilderness, poised at cryptic crossroads, devoted to its ghosts. I Live In A Utopia stands as an apex work by one of the underground’s most veiled and visionary talents.

Vertigo is album number 18 for Australian jazz trio, The Necks. They like to take a simple idea and allow it to develop organically through improvisation. They don’t know where they’re going when they set off but they always seem to get there. Their music is very human, it allows room for space, it’s ambiguous allowing the listener to interpret it in their own way.

Legendary performer Nico of the Velvet Underground released his last album in 1985. Featuring The Faction as his backing band, this eight-track album features the lead singer's voice and readings, striding with overwhelming presence through a variety of post-noise, industrial, and improvisational productions.　The album, which is also considered to be Nico's best work in the latter half of his career, includes a cover of the jazz standard "My Funny Valentine". For this RSD release, the album has been remastered from the original analog tapes to 24-bit HD audio, and reissued on blue vinyl in limited quantities.