MUSIC

Iceblink is a homespun, intimate project conjured by Lynn Avery in Minneapolis. As a trans woman, everything she creates is about her experience and Lynn describes "Carpet Cocoon" as her comfort album, music to retreat to in the winter. Informed by her passion for mixtapes, oddities and crate digging blogs, the album is eclectic yet cohesively spun around the aesthetic of a bedroom new age album. Sonically, it has a fuzzy and rounded vibe incorporating nylon string guitars through vocoders, textural Prophet synthesizers, flutes and filtered saxophone. The effect of "Carpet Cocoon" is stunning and personal, melancholic yet idyllic, a spiritual ritual of baths for lying on your bedroom floor.

Atoris is the live electronic trio of H.Takahashi, Kohei Oyamada and Yudai Osawa from Tokyo. The group began as the duo of Takahashi (owner of Kankyō Records) and graphic designer Osawa who knew each other from their experimental ambient quartet UNKNOWN ME. Soon after, their mutual friend Oyamada was added to round out the trio and record their self-titled debut, released in 2020 on JJ Funhouse in Belgium. For their sophomore followup, “Sea & Forest”, the group focused their bubbling, organic sound on imaginary ocean vistas and woodland creatures to inform their abstract landscapes - subtly drifting between sunrise on the plateau and dusk in the marsh. The two sidelongs contain understated rhythmic elements of dance awash in otherworldly electronic shimmer. They consistently evolve in a minimalistic way; with ideas and fragments ever-changing across their twenty minutes resulting in a unique ambient dynamism that’s both melodically beautiful and reliably captivating.

Loris S. Sarid is an ambient composer and artist born in Rome but now resides in Glasgow. His previous release, "Music for Tomato Plants", was a quiet exploration of kalimba, glockenspiel and plucky synths. On his debut LP, "Seabed-Sunbath", Loris submerges into aquatic terrain with an expanded palette of virtual pianos, soft horns, kalimba, strings, synthesized voices, textural field recordings and a wide array of soothing electronic tones. On “Oats with Sarah” and “Lobster Island”, he also incorporates live performance with collaborators on cello and voice. Many try to use computers to write human sounding compositions but Loris works in the inverse, emulating computer generated songs via his personal touch. The final results are mesmerizing, peaceful, distinctive and varied. "Seabed-Sunbath" is the sound of contemporary electronics bubbling underwater, flowing between ecosystems and settling into a quiet oceanic basin.

British musician, multi-instrumentalist, producer and DJ cktrl returns with the release of his new EP ‘yield’. Born from a desire to change the narrative around contemporary Black British music, the boundary-pushing musician aims with this project to prioritise the art of bonafide musicianship. A stark departure from cktrl’s previous work, ‘Yield’ is a celestial and palpably more inward body of work that harkens back to the pre-electric age of modal jazz while simultaneously pulling in elements from the disciplines of classical and baroque music. Speaking on the project’s sonic identity, cktrl says: “I want to be able to show that you can make things from scratch again that have that feeling and beauty without having to sample an old record. Even though that’s an art-form within itself, I want to show raw orchestration and instrumentation can be the sole source” The origins of the title came from a period where cktrl was looking to find solace in himself after an introspective period of grief and heartbreak. As an intentionally instrumental project with minimal vocals, cktrl wants prospective listeners to see these new songs as guided meditations where they can wholly insert themselves in it. Eliciting and reaping whatever feelings come to the fore. Speaking on what ‘Yield’ means to him as a concept, cktrl explains: “Some people who I've asked to define the word ‘yield’ have looked at it from a harvest point of view, whereas others have seen it as something to submit to, to render, like you're giving up yourself. I see it as a barometer for how you feel - no matter if you're at your lowest or your highest vibration, you still need to show up for yourself. You still have to be present. It’s about getting the best from yourself no matter where you are in life” The new project is the follow up to last year’s ‘Zero’ which featured collaborations with esteemed contemporaries like the GRAMMY-nominated Mereba and anaiis. Upon the project’s release, it was met with a plethora of critical acclaim from highly regarded publications and platform such as British Vogue, Dazed, CRACK Magazine, Resident Advisor, NOTION, Harper's Bazaar and ES Magazine for its sprawling and experimental scope, spanning avant-garde jazz, classical music, alternative R&B and electronica. Moulded by a unique blend of his West Indian heritage, years of classical training in both the clarinet and saxophone, cktrl strives to do what hasn’t been done before. His approach to creation is decidedly wide-ranging and broad. In fact, where sonic descriptions might fail to encompass the breadth of cktrl’s scope, three words surface when he unpacks his musical aims: freedom, range and feeling. Elsewhere, throughout his career, cktrl has been recognised and heralded by fashion and film VIPs as he firmly embeds himself within the black cultural renaissance emerging here in Britain. Acquiring a global network of creatives that include the late Virgil Abloh, Bianca Saunders, Tremaine Emory, Saul Nash, Maximilian Davis, Ahluwalia, Stephen Isaac Wilson, Sean Frank, Campbell Addy, Ib Kamara and Jenn Nkiru who secured him a cameo in Beyoncé’s ground-breaking film ‘Black Is King’.

Experimental musician John Also Bennett’s latest full-length emerged from a bicoastal pandemic road trip through the badlands of South Dakota. Moved by the scale and complexity of the landscape – “remnants of an ancient seafloor mixed with the ash of a volcanic eruption, eroded over millennia and now resembling the tangled folds of earth’s brain” – he sculpted a series of stark, microtonal arrangements using a 1940’s Oahu lap steel guitar, a Yamaha SY77 multi-timbral synthesizer, and field recordings. The following year, upon relocating with his wife (Kranky composer Christina Vantzou) to the cliffside village of Livaniana on the island of Crete, Bennett discovered a method of translating his minimalist lap steel phrases into live MIDI information, which he then used to trigger different waveforms to extend the resonance of the instrument. This multi-layered generative process resulted in a collection as vast and bewildering as the terrain that inspired it: Out there in the middle of nowhere. Opening with the desolate 15-minute “Nowhere,” Bennett’s playing is both glacial and geological, attuned to “the wonder and absolute emptiness” of the Badlands as “an infinite living sculpture.” Notes stretch, shift, and drift into vistas of twilit silence. Footsteps crunch across dry soil and rocky ravines, beneath skies stretching to the horizon. The use of extreme glissandos conjures a sense of windswept plains and winding canyons, primordial and unpopulated. Even outlier “Spectral Valley” – one of the few nods towards Bennett’s work in progressive kosmische trio Forma – unfolds with patient grandeur, rich swells of electronics gleaming in long golden arcs. Closing track “Embrosnerόs” (named for the verdant interior Cretan village where it was recorded) best embodies the album’s cinematic liminality, at the axis of barren and beatific. Gestural breaths of lap steel shimmer in sparkling air, with echoes of both the dusty West and some forgotten paradise. Bennett describes its creation as taking place “mostly during sunset hours, blanketed by waves of cicadas as sheep bells twinkled in the distance.” A micro-tuned DX7 radiates in the periphery while the guitar’s strings hang and reverberate like deepening shadows at dusk.

Colin Curry Group coming to Japan in April
Performance songs that will be performed for the first time in 15 years in Japan
"Music for 18 musicians" latest recording!
"Brilliant" trance experience! !

Reich recognized percussionist Colin Curry. Curry led his own Colin Curry Group to record Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, famous for The Beatles. The Colin Curry Group was formed in 2006 to play Reich's Drumming. The precision and groove that Reich recognizes are becoming more and more refined.
In April 2023, he plans to visit Japan and perform this ≪Music for 18 Musicians≫ and other works. Please experience the "brilliant" trance state woven by overlapping, synchronizing, and shifting rhythms that change little by little!

The music on this recording is performed by a kind of fictitious chamber ensemble situated in an imaginary room outlined by textures that alternate between gestural foreground and passive landscape. The three pieces contained within this release are tied together by sharing similar harmonic material and instrumentation and could ideally be perceived as parts of one long performance stretching through the two sides of the record. The textural room in which this musical performance operates is unreliable, unstable, constantly shifting in size and activity from sparse and open to dense and claustrophobic. Inside this non-euclidean performance space a chamber ensemble made up of zithers expanded through analog tape transposition, harmonium and organ, double bass, digital FM, feedback-convolution and Serge modular synthesizer perform a music made from justly tuned intervals arranged in a way that blurs the distinction between traditional minor and major tonal harmony in favor of harmonic progression within an essentially modal framework. In terms of the material used to make these pieces, essentially all non-harmonic sounds are contaminated field-recordings. They have gone through a sort of feedback process between digital and analog, or acoustic, processing where field-recorded material has been edited, processed and re-amplified and recorded again in acoustic spaces that shape the character of the material and imprint acoustic identities on the recordings. The tonal instruments were treated in a process analogous to this - harmonic material built from recordings and digitally generated synthesis was recorded, transcribed, rearranged and overdubbed again with additional electronic or acoustic instruments to form a composite electroacoustic instrumental sound.

The endlessly prolific and unpredictable Richard Youngs returns to Black Truffle with Modern Sorrow. As any Youngs fan knows, one of the great pleasures of following his career comes from not being able to predict what the next entry in his inexhaustible string of releases will bring: Unaccompanied voice? Country songs? Shakuhachi? Guitar pieces played with his feet? Shredding fuzz bass over the top of hyper-speed distorted drum machine beats? Continuing in the grand Youngs tradition of exploring new techniques, instrumentation and approaches while bringing to all of them his idiosyncratic touch, Modern Sorrow serves up two sides of twistedly elegiac, radically stark takes on contemporary pop production. The side-long title track is built from a piano sample, synthetic bass notes and organ swells, and an iterative blurt that seems to have wandered out of a 90s jungle track. Eventually joined by a shuffling drum machine, the track moves very slowly through a series of chords, each delayed long enough that its arrival comes as a major event. Over the top, Youngs’ heavily pitch-corrected voice is heard. The processing paints his signature wandering melodic improvisations with shades of contemporary R&B; at the same time, it cuts the natural swoops and glides of Youngs’ melodies into rapid microtonal trills, giving his voice a quavering, middle eastern feel. Unfolding languorously over more than 17 minutes, the piece’s final minutes make room for an extended drumless coda, returning to the stark palette of its opening moments. On the second side, the two parts of ‘Benevolence’ push this minimalism ever further, its first half consisting of nothing more than a remarkably slow drum machine hit, bass-heavy chords and pitch-corrected voice, here so heavily processed that it starts to resemble a shawn solo. In its second part, the harmonic foundation drops out from under the piece while two more voices join; at some moments the voices pause, leaving nothing more than isolated, metronomic drum hits. Though Youngs has explored the sound worlds associated with dance music and contemporary pop in previous work, here these elements are radically reduced, foregrounding a meditative bed of silence with a boldness equal to any more academically inclined contemporary composer. Embracing the accessible digital tools of contemporary music production just as at another moment he would pick up a kazoo, like much of Youngs’ work Modern Sorrow uses simple DIY tools to generous ends, producing formally radical music that remains both free from pretension and deeply moving.

For piano and tape: Lerkenfeldt explores minimalist structures with stillness and intensity. Her imaginative process is poetic and precise; distilling new registers in the field of consciousness through electroacoustic composition, like a torchlight in the dark. Alongside classical instrumentation, she augments abandoned technologies into new hybrid forms through handcraft, digitisation and experimental digital processing. Flickering piano, tape systems and their spatialised distortions unfold in repetitive motifs on With Water Up To Her Knees. In Before They Were Clouds, multi-layered acoustic refractions speculate on atmospheric systems. With Water Up To Her Knees is produced by Shelter Press in small series cassette single edition and digital with a limited pullout poster and poem by the artist. The work has its world premiere at eminent electronic arts centre The Substation, Melbourne on 24-25 November 2022, with an audio visual performance in collaboration with filmmaker Tristan Jalleh. Written and recorded on unceded Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung country, Summer 2022. “I love the sound of mechanical failure, when the sophisticated machine collapses into itself.”

Duval Timothy’s piano music grows in stature and sprawling ideas with this mix of odes to Mahler and electro-acoustic/concrète evocations of the landscapes to England, Italy, and West Africa, featuring guest input by Fauzia, Yu Su, Vegyn and Lamin Fofana ‘Meeting With a Judas Tree’ is Timothy’s first solo album since 2020 and a significant way marker on his path thus far, which has snaked from Freeport, Sierra Leone, to London, UK. Recorded 2019-22, it expands on ideas from his early pursuit of brooding avant-jazz on 2016’s introductory ‘Brown Loop’ LP, and the more angular experiments of his first sides on personal imprint Carrying Colour, to a vivid blend of inspirations and a broader emotive palette put to canvas with raw finesse. Capturing his feelings in his South London home studio, plus the Carrying Colour studio in Freetown, the Old Police Statin in Rotherhithe, and Casa Mahler in Spolete, Umbria, the recordings share a immediate vivacity and emphasis on texture that serve to heighten the emotive grip of his work. ‘Plunge’ is a case in point, makign use of an auld upright in Freetown whose palettes had lost their felt due to humidity, and lending the piece a quality of Lonnie Holley’s blues, while the smeared electronics and electric guitar licks amplify the aching cadence, and also in ‘Mutate’ whose cascading discord recalls the uneasy dreampop of A.R. Kane. But a big attraction in the record lies with Timothy’s feel for balancing raw and lofty ideas, as with the mix of warbling effects applied to stately Mahler-esque figures and field recording made with his mum in the hills outside Bath on ‘Up’, and his ability to to seamlessly bring others not the vibe, as on the utopian promise of ‘Wood’ featuring piano and synth by Yu Su, and Vegyn co-production, or the subtle disturbances of Fauzia in ‘Thunder’ that edge the piece close to Klein’s most enigmatic. The final sequence ‘Drift’ with Lamin Fofana is an ideal curtain closer, brimming with an brooding but unresolved quality that recalls his Mahler inspiration via The Caretaker and a sea of natural world inspiration that gives it a beautifully in-between worlds headiness.

On 29th September 2017, Iglooghost will release his debut album “Neō Wax Bloom”, almost two years to the day since he made his debut as a teenager on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint with the “Chinese Nü Year” EP - four tracks documenting the time-traveling adventures of a gelatinous worm-shaped creature called Xiangjiao. Expanding on this story, “Neō Wax Bloom” follows the events surrounding two giant eyeballs crashing into the mysterious world of Mamu. Across its 11 tracks, Iglooghost builds a typically intense, hysterical, borderline batshit crazy soundtrack, introducing new characters to his fantastical world and inviting back old friends Mr. Yote and Cuushe for the ride.

In the words of Iglooghost:

“When a pair of giant eyeballs crash into the strange, misty world of Mamu, the mysterious forces that govern nature itself are disrupted. A life cycle of transforming creatures is thrown off balance, and the odd looking inhabitants of Mamu are forced to adapt to this calamity. These inhabitants include Yomi - a multicoloured pom-pom monk; Lummo - a wise blind witch training a band of melon coloured babies; and Uso - a sneaky bug thief hidden in a green cloak - as well as many others. As their respective stories begin to interlock, the mysteries surrounding the giant eyeballs are slowly revealed.”

Featuring artwork by Iglooghost, the vinyl format includes a large format 12-page Riso printed comic booklet and “Neō Wax Bloom” character sticker sheet. 

"I’ve started to work on this album before I knew it. During June 2018 I was in Japan for a month to release my previous album "Cairn" as well as my first solo exhibition of drawings in Tokyo. Everyday on my way to the gallery I passed in front of the same building, its name kept haunting me : Rogue Hill. Back then I was digging for cheap 80’s Japanese CD’s (Balearic, New Age, Ambient,...) in second hand stores. Most of them set the tone of this album and the direction I wanted to follow. I feel there’s a direct connection between these original sources and the sound I pursue by their meditative aspect. Most of the demo songs were done before my daughter’s birth on August 2019 and were finalized since then. Many of the titles refer to this main event and relate to how it changed my position in life : being a link through time by becoming a father."

Gondwana Records and Portico Quartet announce a strictly limited edition collectors-item Featuring an expanded version of their long-form composition Terrain and re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble and recorded live in Studio One Terrain (Extended) features an expanded version of the composition re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble – a subtle re-configuration of the band that features a string quartet - and which allowed for the composition's deeper textures and resonances to be fully explored, along the way expanding the dialogue between tranquillity and a subtly unsettling melancholy, that makes Terrain such a beautiful, powerful piece. 9th November 2021 was a very special session. The band (who had first recorded at Abbey Road for their second album Isla back in 2009), brought long-term collaborator, recording and mix engineer, Greg Freeman over from Berlin to work with Abbey Road’s Chris Bolster and the resulting concert film Terrain (Extended) - Live in Studio One An Abbey Road 90th Session received it’s world premiere broadcast on the Gondwana Youtube channel on Thursday 20th October. Now Gondwana Records is super proud to announce the ultimate collector’s edition of this special recording. Limited to just 1500 individually numbered and stamped LPs and 1000 CDs. Recorded live at Abbey Road Studio One. Mixed in Berlin by the band’s longterm collaborator Greg Freeman. Audio mastered by John Davis at Metropolis Studios. Vinyl cut by John Davis at Metropolis Studios Available only on beautiful transparent clear two disc vinyl pressed at Optimal in Germany or on limited edition CD or digital download LP and CD are presented in an uncoated gatefold sleeve printed in Pantone Cool Gray 4 with release details sticker. In addition, the LP features a 12 page booklet with a half front page and translucent paper overlay, glued into a gatefold and the CD features 12-page booklet, glued into a gatefold. Designed by veil projects. Each LP and CD are hand stamped and the LP comes packed in reusable 'Japanese style’ polyprop sleeves - with sealable flap - for protection

Darbuka, gongs, berimbaus, kalimbas, pandeiro, riqq, doholla, bendirs, udu,… These are just some of the instruments that make up the sound universe of Hands in Motion. This percussion trio brings together musicians Simon Leleux (Fabrizio Cassol / I Silenti, Refugees for Refugees), Robbe Kieckens (Lamekan Ensemble, Myrdinn De Cauter), Falk Schrauwen (Compro Oro, Echoes of Zoo) who create a sound universe that does not knows any limits. From Senegal to Eastern Europe, from Brazil to India, from the classical conservatory to nomadic people, it is nourished by all their influences that Hands in Motion juggles with the codes of tradition to create a new space of expression, resolutely current and innovative. Minimalist sound layers, captivating grooves, acoustic trance, their music is organic, contrasting, deep and subtle at the same time. They alternately create melodies and textures that might as well make you think of Philip Glass, Mammal Hands or Why the Eye ?. The atmospheres they create invite movement and sharing.

First time release on vinyl of the breathtaking songs Patty Waters recorded with engineer Steve Atkins in 1970 at the Coast Recordings studio, together with the unreleased single ‘My One And Only Love’ and a recorded live session at Lone Mountain College in 1974. The album ‘You Loved Me’ is the missing link between her two groundbreaking pioneering and highly acclaimed ESP-Disk records from the end of the 60’s and her post 90’s releases. The missing link between the radical ingenue of the 1960s and her late 90’s songs wherein she expressed the resolution of all of her life’s moments through mature readings of traditional songs and jazz standards. This album aims to provide that missing link and to finally complete the picture of her storied recording career. In what would have been her third LP, the ‘You Loved Me’ album serves as the inverse of Patty’s debut. While her debut “Sings” concerned itself with themes of heartbreak, loneliness and yearning, there’s an abundance of love, joy and togetherness on “You Loved Me”. Or in Patty’s own words: “I was a young girl alone at age 19, I was longing for love and dreaming of how wonderful love could be“ On ‘You Loved Me’ Patty Waters velvet voice captures this longing for love, straight from her soul to your heart. Crossing the border of avant garde jazz entering a strange zone, somewhere between spiritual jazz, early folk vibes on the songs on the A-side while the 14 minute composition ‘Touched By Rodin In A Paris Museum’ on the B-side is (dixit David Stubbs for Uncut in 2004) a brilliant extended showcase for the uneasy Cageian minimalism of her piano playing. 'You Loved Me’ proves also again why Albert Ayler introduced her to ESP-Disk president Bernard Stollman, why Miles Davis was impressed by her and why she can count Patti Smith and Yoko Ono (to name a few) amongst her fans.

On December 11, 1980 Eliane Radigue performed live on KPFA. Her full performance is included here, remastered, on two compact discs. Upon hearing these performances for the first time in many years Radigue declared them to be the best versions she'd ever heard. Included are full in-studio performances of Chry-ptus and the world premiere of parts one and three of Tryptych.

Starting at a very young age, Katrina Krimsky developed her musical self along a pathway of strong classical, pianistic training. Highlights of her playing on the classical side include her wonderful recording of Samuel Barber’s monumental Sonata for Piano, Op. 26, (Transonic Records 3008, 1975), a composition that is a virtual dictionary of early and mid-Twentieth Century composition techniques, first performed by Vladimir Horowitz in 1949 and 1950. Another example is her equally wonderful recording of A próle do bébé (The Baby’s Family) by Heitor Villa-Lobos, (1750 Arch Records, S-1789, 1982). After studying at the Eastman School of Music, Krimsky toured with the Ars Nova Trio and soon found herself becoming immersed in the European contemporary classical scene and with composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luc Ferrari, and many others. The later 1960s brought collaborative performances and recordings with gradual-process innovators, like Terry Riley and La Monte Young, and beyond that, great jazz musicians like Woody Shaw and others. Her musical world was opening even wider. Still, in all this, her advanced technical and interpretive skills were always evident, and her sense of lyricism in all music, quite profound. 1980 was a turning point for Katrina Krimsky. It was the year in which she burst out from the restrictions of her established career in classical and contemporary traditions into free expression through improvisation. Her individual style began to reflect a wide range of sources: jazz, non-Euro-American music, the new minimalism, and more experimental forms. In 1980, she was invited to do a workshop and give a concert at the legendary Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY. (CMS was founded originally in 1971 by Karl Berger and developed in its Woodstock home by Karl with Ingrid Sertso starting in 1973.) Katrina traveled from where she was living in Zürich at the time and found an open environment at CMS in which to create anew. The tracks we hear on 1980 were all recorded live in a concert at the CMS in June of that year. What emerged was an original musical style that has remained since then continuously recognizable as Krimsky.

Look around you. In recent years ambient music has changed and encountering Jon Hassell's fourth world design has become easy. Most of the time there’s no feeling, no narrative, a nothingness of ideas through layers and layers of pastiche and boring bedroom music. This is not bashing. Just a reminder that sometimes the information trap delays an understanding of how good music really is. “Cavalcante” is the new release by funcionário (born Pedro Tavares). You’ll find Jon Hassell in these eleven pieces. And yes, sometimes you’ll think about ambient music. Most of the time you’ll wonder about what is really happening. And why it's only now you’re hearing about this twenty-something musician from Setúbal, Portugal. A little bit more than one minute into “En Garde!”, the opening track, one feels challenged by the idea that everything that was listened up to that moment was a false start. The piece abruptly stops, flips some digital sound, and restarts in a whole new direction. As this happens it becomes obvious we are in for a treat. Those two, three seconds create a sensation that everything happens in a moment that introduces you to funcionário's craft: delicate complex sounds infatuated with the idea of movement and the never-ending notion that there’s no dividers in the fourth world. Music can go beyond that. As it moves forward – “Verde”, “Sierra” or “Publicidade Arco e Flecha” -, the album (his fourth) morphs around variations or perceptions of ambient / electronic / experimental music. And as the language evolves, it hints on how funcionário keeps stretching the boundaries of digital music as he wishes to advance to a more analog setup. In a way, he confronts foundational ideas while having breakthroughs and realizing he is at a top level. Justifiably ambitious, bright and discreetly edgy. We dare to say: monumental.

Black Truffle announce Genetic, the first release outside Indonesia from contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat. Alit is a major force in contemporary Indonesian music, presenting his work extensively throughout Asia, Europe and North America and collaborating with renowned ensembles such as Bang On A Can and Ensemble Modern. Involved in the composition and performance of works for Gamelan ensemble since he was a teenager, in 2007 he founded Gamelan Salukat, a 25 member ensemble that perform on instruments specially built to Alit’s designs, using a unique 11-note scale. The single composition that unfurls over the two sides of Genetic is an enchanting introduction to Alit’s magical sound world. Beginning with a stately procession of isolated, hanging chords sounded on the ensemble’s uniquely-tuned metallophones, the piece abruptly launches into a stunning passage of rhythmically complex call-and-response motifs, making striking use of abruptly muted chords – one of many moments where the acoustic ensemble sounds uncannily electronic. The piece continues to alternate between spare investigations of resounding tones and sometimes frenetic ensemble interplay using unorthodox techniques, including a stunning moment around half-way when the entire Gamelan seems to transform itself into a single, gigantic zither. Later in the piece, drums and wind instruments enter, and the metallophones begin to play virtuosic, rapid-fire passages of fragmented scalar melody. As Alit explains in his liner notes, the music of Gamelan Salukat is grounded in the tradition of Balinese Gamelan; however, he approaches this tradition not as something static, but as a set of concepts and principles that can be used to create something radically new. For many listeners, Genetic will inhabit precisely this space between the familiar and the invigoratingly unheard, as it takes the stop-start dynamics, unison melodies, and much of the instrumentation familiar from traditional Balinese Gamelan and puts them in the service of rhythmic, harmonic, and timbral experimentation, crafting a work possessed by at once by mysterious grandeur and a joyous volatility.

In 2018 experimental festival Organ Reframed commissioned Éliane Radigue to write her first work for organ, 'Occam Ocean XXV'. Radigue worked closely with organist Frédéric Blondy at the Église Saint Merry in Paris before transferring the piece to Union Chapel for its premiere at Organ Reframed on 13 October 2018. The recording on this compact disc was made at a private session at Union Chapel on 8 January 2020. 'Occam XXV' inaugurates the very special record series of works exclusively commissioned by Organ Reframed, the organ-only, one of a kind experimental music festival, carefully curated by Scottish composer/performer and London's Union Chapel organ music director Claire M Singer. Paris-born Éliane Radigue is one of the most innovative and influential living composers of all time. After working under Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in the late 1950's/early 60's she mainly worked with tape before developing a deep relationship with modular synthesis in the early 1970's. Over the next three decades she pushed her own conceptions of musicality forward developing a deep relationship with her ARP 2500. Through endless exploration and drawing on her personal journey as a practicing Buddhist she created an entirely new landscape of experimental sound. In the early 2000's she made an extraordinary shift into writing predominantly for acoustic instruments. 'Occam XXV' is the latest chapter of Radigue's broader series of works Occam Ocean which she has been composing in the last decade. Carefully selected by Radigue she has closely collaborated with various extremely experienced yet sensitive instrumentalists. For Occam XXV Radigue collaborated with pianist, organist, composer, improviser, artistic director of the Orchestra of New Musical Creation, Experimentation and Improvisation (ONCEIM) Frédéric Blondy, which is their second collaboration in the Occam Ocean series. 'Occam XXV' premiered in 2018, and was later recorded privately in 2020 at London's Organ Reframed headquarters Union Chapel. "We live in a universe filled with waves. Not only between the Earth and the Sun but all the way down to the tiniest microwaves and inside it is the minuscule band that lies between the 60 Hz and the 12,000 to 15,000 Hz that our ears turn into sound. There are many wavelengths in the ocean too and we also come into contact with it physically, mentally and spiritually. That explains the title of this body of work which is called Occam Ocean.The main aim of this work is to focus on how the partials are dealt with. Whether they come in the form of micro beats, pulsations, harmonics, subharmonics – which are extremely rare but have a transcendent beauty – bass pulsations – the highly intangible aspect of sound. That's what makes it so rich. When Luciano Pavarotti gave free rein to the full force of his voice the conductor stopped beating time and you could hear the richness in its entirety. Music in written form, or however it is relayed, ultimately remains abstract. It's the performer, the person playing it who brings it to life. So the person playing the instrument must come first. I've always thought of performers and their instruments as one. They form a dual personality. No two performers, playing the same instrument, have the same relationship with that instrument – the same intimate relationship. This is where the process of making the work personal begins. The purely personal task of deciding on the theme or image that we're going to work from. Obviously, because this is Occam Ocean, the theme is always related to water. It could be a little stream, a fountain, the distant ocean, rivers. Out of the fifty or so musicians I've worked with no two themes have been the same. Each musician's theme is completely unique and completely personal. The music does the talking. This is one of those art forms that manages to express the many things that words aren't able to. Even at an early stage, all those ideas need to have been brought together." - Éliane Radigue

Alga marghen very proudly presents the last chapter from the Feedback Works documentation series, a brand new LP including “In Memoriam-Ostinato” and “Danse des Dakinis”, two previous unreleased tracks by Eliane Radigue.
 
    Among the works of fixed duration from the feedback period, “In Memoriam-Ostinato” is the link between “Jouet Electronique” (alga marghen LP, cat. Alga029) and “Opus 17” (alga marghen 2LP, cat. Alga045), and allows us to understand the evolution of her approach. It is a measured gesture, slow, it is music without any major event, an extending state, contemplation. “In Memoriam-Ostinato” is a game of mirroring symbols which glide into a non-measured, bent and elastic, temporality. The ear ventures into it, lets itself go and gets lost.
As Eliane Radigue recalls: “This piece was commissioned for a Happening, Mémorial. It was a sort of secular procession to the castle of Verderonne, a beautiful place. The pools bordering the edifice were lit, and everyone was dressed or draped in mauve. It terminated in one of the grand salons of the castle where I played “In Memoriam-Ostinato”.”
Eliane Radigue’s working method and her aesthetic direction are evident in this work from 1969: her very own unique temporal space of sonic experiences.
 
    Even though it bears the same name as the third part of “Adnos III”, “Danse des Dakinis” is a peculiar work in Eliane’s oeuvre.
Conceived in a short time, with all kind of tapes from the composer's past work, it fluently shows a kaleidoscopic vision of Radigue's sensibility for sound. In 1998 she put together a curious self-portrait in sound. The piece seems to resonate between two mountains. An echo folds time untiringly. We are in the memoir echo-chamber of Eliane Radigue’s spirit, a hall of mirrors that reflects and multiplies her, diffracting her as through a prism. Or, more precisely, reflecting her sensibility at different stages of her life.
There is a feedback ostinato conceived around 1969 and which refers to “In Memoriam-Ostinato” and “Opus 17”. All through “Danse des Dakinis” we plonge into the sound of a creek recorded at Mills College campus that brings us back to the field-recordings from the beginning of the 1960s, made on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Such elements construct “Elemental1” (alga marghen LP, cat. Alga029) as well. There are also some discreet interventions on the ARP 2500 synthesizer. It is indeed a peculiar work, which doesn't have the same features of her other compositions, especially at that time of her compositional path.
There is an explanation for the composer producing this kind of sound material in 1998, and not limited to the sound waves of the ARP synthesizer. Invited to a workshop at Mills College in 1998, Eliane Radigue could not load herself down with her bulky instrument on such a trip. So she left with just a few tapes taken from her own collection, drawn from different periods, and composed “Danse des Dakinis” with those old elements.
There is tension in this composition, a certain wildness, an unpredictability of elements, those which are recognized as fundamental elements, which give structure to the universe. Such versatility will surprise those who know the music of Eliane Radigue, it is a unique but powerful example of her way of dealing with sound, of exposing herself with it, integrating with it.
In this Elaine Radigue is faithful to the theme suggested by the title: A dakini is a female deity in Vajrayana Buddhism or a female demon in Hinduism. Spirits of nature, they are witches, or female demons in India and the Himalayas. In Tibetan Buddhism they can be subjugated earthly deities, wrathful female forms of bodhisattvas or buddhas, or simply historic or legendary figures. The dakinis symbolize a wild and natural state and, according to a buddhistic interpretation, absence of ego or mental obstacles, nature itself revealed.
“Dance des Dakinis” is an intimate and wild symphony, alive and unpredictable, which is to be the next-to-last gesture of the composer before completely stopping her work with electronics.

Alga Marghen very proudly presents a remastered version of Vice-Versa, Etc..., an LP originally included in the first 400 copies of Eliane Radigue's Feedback Works 2LP. Vice-Versa, Etc... was originally a small handmade box, signed and numbered and released on the occasion of a show at Lara Vincy's gallery in 1970. The box contained a reel of magnetic tape and the instructions for use. It indicates that all playback speeds are possible, forward or backward, as well as any combination of two channels, on several recorders, ad libitum. This LP presents two versions done by Emmanuel Hoelterbach following the indications of Eliane Radigue to the letter, respecting her composition methods. There is no doubt that Eliane Radigue's vocabulary is based on observing and entering into dialog with the fundamental behavior of sounds: pulsing, beating, sustained, very light, a subtle and delicate evolution. When she moved from feedback sounds to the ARP synthesizer, she naturally continued the same music -- a continuity where the original use of feedback sounds stands out for its cruder and more savage inner character. One could say that somehow it's the very texture of the sounds, which leads the form of her compositions. At the same time, this approach favors an intense sensuality in the listening.

Alga Marghen very proudly presents a remastered version of the complete documentation of Eliane Radigue sound installations from 1969-1970, including the broad tectonic vibrations of "Omnht," the celestial voices of "Usral," the massive chant of "Stress Osaka," and more -- the works of this artist's feedback period finally revealed. It is amazing that Radigue could build such formidably organic sonic edifices in her home studio with the primitive machines given to her by Pierre Henry: three tape recorders, a mixing board, an amplifier, two loudspeakers and a microphone. Eliane previously worked for Henry at the Studio d'Essai of the R.T.F. from 1955 to 1957, after having met Pierre Schaeffer almost by chance, who invited her to learn the techniques of musique concrète. Created 10 years after her Studio d'Essai experience, the feedback works of Eliane Radigue immediately take a new direction from the explorations of musique concrète. Her adventure intuitively goes towards flux, towards contemplative stasis -- a music of continuous sounds, of apparently simple structures, which permits the revelations and expansion of rich acoustic phenomena. It is as if her musical work was in some way a martial art -- as if she meditated for 10 years before striking the first blow, with impressive precision. This is the context in which Eliane composed "Omnht" in 1970 for the architectonic spaces of the visual artist Tania Mouraud titled "One More Night," presented at the Gallery of the Rive Gauche in Paris; "Usral" (the title comes from a phonetic compression of ultrasounds slowed-down, in French "ultra-sons ralentis") is one of the first works by Eliane Radigue to be given in public as a sound environment for a sculpture by Marc Halpern in the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs at the Grand Palais of Paris in 1969; "Stress-Osaka" was conceived when the artist was invited to create a sonic environment for the International Fair in Osaka in 1970. There is no doubt that Eliane Radigue's vocabulary is based on observing and entering into dialog with the fundamental behavior of sounds: pulsing, beating, sustained, very light -- a subtle and delicate evolution. When she moved from feedback sounds to the ARP synthesizer, she naturally continued the same music, a continuity where the original use of feedback sounds stands out for its cruder and more savage inner character. One could say that somehow it's the very texture of the sounds, which leads the form of her compositions. Includes a 16-page LP-size booklet with original photos, scores and liner notes.

Alga Marghen presents the new edition of Eliane Radigue's "Jouet Electronique" (1967) for feedback on magnetic tape and "Elemental I" (1968) for feedback of natural sounds on magnetic tape. This LP was first issued in 2010, and it's now presented for the first time with its own specific artwork and layout. Both works were recorded at Pierre Henry's Studio Apsome in Paris. Between 1967 and 1968, Radigue was Henry's assistant, mainly for the editing of L'Apocalypse de Jean (1969). Henry also put her in charge of organizing his sound archive; Radigue enjoyed doing this work, even if it took a long time. She decided to set the machines of the studio to do some work of her own. "Jouet Electronique" and "Elemental I" were born this way during her time as an assistant; working with feedback is something that Radigue learned through Henry. Do you remember Henry's Voyage (1969)? There's that fluid part which is made of feedback constructed with a microphone. Everything had to be set at a precise distance from the loudspeakers because that is the specific problem with feedback; one has to be at the right distance. Afterwards, these high tone recordings were slowed down in order to discover the deeper character of their color. This work with feedback was in the end quite limited and the composer preferred working with two reel tape machines to produce sounds. The first was set on the recording mode while the other was playing and it was the accidents happening in this phase that made the feedback richer. Fine-tuning could yield beautiful results: low pulsations, high-pitched sounds (sometimes both at the same time), or long sounds. All of these could be slowed down or accelerated, which gave beautiful source material. With "Jouet Electronique", Radigue had a lot of fun, hence the title. As far as "Elemental I" is concerned, it was the first attempt at something which was important to her based on the theme of the basic elements: water, fire, air and earth. Eliane had the chance to record in open air thanks to a small Stella Vox that Arman gave her in the beginning of the 1960s. Using it, Radigue built a minimal sound library, consisting of not more than ten reel tapes. This was the starting point; in 1968 she used these recordings for her work with two reel tape machines. New edition of 200, with liners by Radigue and portrait photos by Arman.