MUSIC

Arthur's epic minimalist orchestral composition conducted by the late Julius Eastman 

Stunningly beautiful, mercurial and moving. 

The transcendental, ephemeral sound scape originally intended for theatrical performance. First release in 1983 on Chatham Square.

Duppy Gun, a dancehall collective formed by Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras with a crew of Jamaican MCs including I Jahbar, has released a 7-track EP with Japanese producer Element, featuring Bristol's <Bokeh Versions ＞and Japan's Riddim Chango.

The label has been involved with Seekers International, Jay Glass Dubs, and Low Jack, as well as Mars89 and 7FO in Japan, and reissues of TNT Roots, Bush Chemist, Tradition, and others, making it an obscure dub label. Bristol's cult label Bokeh Versions has joined forces with Riddim Chango Records, which has been offering new sound system music from its two bases in Japan and London.

The four Jamaican MCs - Jahbar, G Sudden, King G, and Darkblood - deliver killer vocals, and Element, whose work with Kingston's dub poet Nazamba is fresh in the mind, has produced a sound that has science fiction elements, but is also what is called The 12" will be released on April 8 and features 7 tracks (4 vocal tracks and 3 instrumental versions) that are a fusion of original rhythm tracks that are distinctly different from "techno dancehall". The artwork is by Cameron Stallones, one of the people who started the Duppy Gun collective and has left behind alternative and experimental works under the name Sun Araw.

Rare recordings of beat/cut-up writers and artists William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Comprises the complete recording of Burroughs reading live in Liverpool in 1982, plus performances by Gysin of a selection of his permutated poems, as well as home recordings made by the pair in Paris in 1970. All recordings are taken from original tapes in The British Library collection. 180 gram vinyl.

For over 50 years, Kan Mikami has stood as a master of the Japanese blues and outsider folk. His unmistakable, powerfully evocative voice and surrealistic poetry reveal a gritty, transgressive life on the margins shot through with evocations of sex and violence, religion and romance. Released in 1991, I¡Çm the Only One Around was Mikami's first album with Tokyo's legendary P.S.F. Records and heralded an artistic renaissance. It marked the beginning of an incredibly productive and wildly creative era for Mikami that extends to the present day. This opening salvo presents the essential core of Mikami¡Çs music; With nothing but his voice and a stripped down electric guitar the album is a powerful, effortlessly emotional statement filled with moments of both brutal passion and gentle revelation. It is unrestrained, direct, brutally honest. It embodies Mikami¡Çs philosophy: ¡ÈIf you¡Çre going to make music, stake your life on it - it¡Çs worth it. Making music is an intensely human act.¡É In the newly translated notes to the album, Hiroyuki Itsuki, one of Japan¡Çs most renowned writers perhaps put it best: ¡ÈWhat erupts here is all the fury and grief of Jōmon Man (the prehistoric people of the Japanese archipelago), lobbed into the middle of a 1990s city. Kan Mikami is unchanging, yet definitely in motion. He advances not forwards, but backwards. Not a retreat, rather he consciously progresses backwards. At the final destination for his full-steam astern poésie lies a massive, gaping black hole, exuding a dazzling, black light. This is the image evoked by the world of Kan Mikami that you can hear on this album.¡É Mikami would go on to release 15 solo albums with P.S.F. as well as numerous collaborative efforts with other giants of the Japanese underground including Motoharu Yoshizawa, Masayoshi Urabe and Keiji Haino, with whom, along with Toshiaki Ishizuka he formed the group Vajra. Black Editions is honored to present the first ever vinyl edition of Kan Mikami¡Çs ¡ÈI¡Çm the Only One Around¡É featuring lyrics translated by Drew Stroud and newly translated notes by Alan Cummings. Remastered and cut to vinyl at Elysian Masters Los Angeles, pressed by RTI, packaged in heavy Stoughton tip-on jackets with insert featuring textured paper, gold foil stamping and metallic inks.

Lovely Music present a reissue of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing, originally released as an LP by Lovely Music in 1979. Over the course of Robert Ashley's career his preoccupation with language and the voice took many forms. He became known in his librettos as a wonderful, funny, moving writer. But with Automatic Writing he examines language at a very "primitive" level -- the human impulse make sounds to express his inner state, whether it be regret, embarrassment, fear, or happiness -- even though there is no one else to listen. Talking to oneself.

Personnel: Voices - Robert Ashley and Mimi Johnson; Electronics and Polymoog - Robert Ashley; Words: Robert Ashley; Translation: Monsa Norberg; Silhouette: William Farley. The switching circuit was designed and built by Paul DeMarinis. Recorded, produced, and mixed by Robert Ashley at the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College (Oakland), the American Cultural Center (Paris), and Mastertone Recording Studios (New York). This reissue was remastered and cut, from the original reel-to-reel tape, by Scott Hull, Masterdisk (New York). Manufactured at Record Technology Inc/RTI (California). 180 gram vinyl; Stoughton Old Style sleeve. Includes an insert with a transcription of the words, and the Automatic Writing notes Ashley wrote for Lovely's 1996 CD (that included "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" and "She Was A Visitor").

"On Automatic Writing, Robert Ashley composes under the influence of his 'involuntary speech.' (In his liner notes, Ashley revealed that he suffered from 'a mild form of Tourette's.') The piece starts quietly, with scraps of Ashley's mild, tremulous voice arranged next to more fluid French translations and barely-there touches of Moog. After Ashley's phrases lengthen enough to encompass sense-making phrases, a bass-register groove briefly appears, vanishes, then returns. Few pieces so quiet have proven as captivating; many that intend to be equally startling can't capture Ashley's range of surprises." --Seth Colter Walls, from Pitchfork's "Fifty Best Ambient Albums of All Time"

Electronic producer Jon Hopkins first came to prominence as a songwriter/producer on Coldplay's “Beautiful Life” with Brian Eno and supported Coldplay on their world tour. His last album, “Singularity,” released in 2018, took another leap forward and entered the top 10 in the UK charts, making him one of the world's top artists. He has released his latest album “Music For Psychedelic Therapy” with a new song “Sit Around The Fire” and music video at the same time. The song features producer East Forest and the late Ram Dass, author of the cult favorite “Be Here Now. The video was directed by Tom Readdy and Lucy Dawkins.

Post-minimalist American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri makes his Umor Rex debut with bold new album, The Shameless Years. Inspired by a troubled socio-political climate, buried melodies punch their way through a bleak cover of noisy drones, periodically veering into some of Irisarri’s most eerily pertinent music to date. LP limited edition of 700 copies pressed on red colored vinyl, includes a post card with original artwork and free download coupon.
One of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s most thematically and sonically cohesive records to date The Shameless Years came together in a relatively short burst of creativity starting at the end of 2016. Rediscovering some relatively older tools – namely Native Instruments’ Reaktor, Absynth, and Kontakt software – Irisarri combined them with his collection of guitars, pedals, amps, and analogue processing gear, turning his Black Knoll Studio north of NYC into a powerful writing tool. Completed quickly by Irisarri’s standards, let alone during a period of social upheaval in American society, the record faces down several key personal themes. The title, suggests Irisarri, could in fact be seen as a reflection of the era of shamelessness we’re currently living in; a time of fake news and alternative facts.

Two tracks were completely remotely between Irisarri in New York and Umor Rex veteran Siavash Amini from his home in Tehran, Iran. This music came together at the peak of all the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric happening in the USA, not to mention the banning of Iranians from entering the country, explains Irisarri. The diptych with Amini, ‘Karma Krama’ and ‘The Faithless’, seems bathed in additional waves of sorrow and dread. The wash of symphonic stormclouds of synth drones and processed notes on the latter gradually appears and disappears over the course of thirteen mournful minutes.

‘Rh Negative’ marches gigantic guitars through towering valleys of scarred ambient noise dealing with Irisarri’s own heritage, many of his ancestors having come to America to escape poverty and oppression. The refusal of modern America to extend similar sanctuary to refugees escaping turmoil weighs heavily on the composer. Elsewhere an emotional onslaught of notes buried in mounds of greyscale noise on ‘Sky Burial’ aims to deal with Irisarri’s very own mortality – something he was recently confronted with following health scares, an accident, and a near-death experience in 2016. Pushing 40 as this album was being made, the composer is constantly aware that he’s already outlived his own father, who died at the age of 32. Facing down both intolerance and the void, the epic soundscapes of The Shameless Years are a vast cry of emotion from Irisarri. The clock is ticking – gotta make the most out of it while you still can.

For the next release we head to Barbados and 1985 for the first official reissue of ‘Exit’ by Fire Flight. The best reissues succinctly capture a moment in time and this album provides a snapshot of Island life in the Caribbean region of the America’s in the middle of the 1980’s. The LP encompasses new wave, funk and early house rhythms with a backbone of calypso. The idea for Fire Flight started with Carl “Beaver” Henderson, a musician, arranger and producer who initially provided back up band services for the Royal Bank of Trinidad & Tobago’s annual staff Calypso competition. In 1981 the idea quickly evolved into the 15 piece band that was Fire Flight who took Trinidad and Tobago’s performance spaces and annual carnival by storm with their electrifying life performances. The band also travelled to Toronto, Montreal and New York for their annual carnivals. In 1984 the band entered the now defunct Coral Sound Studios in Barbados to record their debut album. The driving force behind the LP was the band’s main songwriter Francis Escayg’s desire to explore alternative avenues of recognition for the band and to perform and thrive in the carnival off season. Highlights from the LP include the slow new wave funk of ‘Best Shot’ & ‘White Horse’, the melting pot of calypso, zouk and reggae influences on ‘Hard Life’ & ‘Mornin Lovin’ and the tropical proto house of ‘Wantin U’ that was a highlight of the Fire Flight live show. The LP is pressed on heavyweight 180 Gram Vinyl with new full sleeve artwork from Bradley Pinkerton.

Musique Plastique and Séance Centre are proud to present Jacques Charlier’s “Art In Another Way”, a 45RPM double LP compilation of the Belgian multi-disciplinary artist’s inimitable chanson regressive recordings from the 1980s. Throughout a long career in the visual arts, Jacques Charlier has maintained a multi-disciplinary approach that includes forays in poetry, underground comics, acting, filmmaking and music. Besides performing with his punk group Terril (sadly, never recorded), Charlier took inspiration from the minimalist sounds of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, La MonteYoung, John Cage, and Meredith Monk. Throughout the 1970s he performed psychoacoustic pieces in Liège, Antwerp, Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Milan and Düsseldorf, and in the astounding performance art video Desperados Music, filmed by Paul Paquay for Belgian television. Charlier hit a creative stride in the 1980s — armed only with a synth, drum machine, fuzz box, and his custom guitar, with occasional duets with vocalist Martine Doutreleau. He recorded a trove of proto-pop tunes which he self-released on three cassettes (Musique Regressive, Chansons Idiotes and Chansons Tristes) between 1984–1987. “Art In Another Way” collects selections from these tapes, in addition to an ample supply of previously unreleased material, all mixed and mastered from Charlier’s original 4-track recordings for a wide angle view of his creative range. From the proto-house rhythm of “Jingle – Crepuscule”, to the minimal EBM experiment “Top” and Art Of Noise- inspired “PassingTime”. There are certain resonances within the catalogs of Belgian labels Crammed Discs and Les Disques Du Crépuscule, yet even with these genre-bending precedents, Charlier’s music is idiosyncratic and visionary to the extreme. Accompanying the release is a postcard featuring a behind-the-scenes performance photo and visual score by Charlier. RIYL: Flying Lizards, Y Records, Young Marble Giants, Ashra, Naffi, Tuxedomoon, Aksak Maboul

The work uses the language of the Ainu people, one of the few tribes left in Japan, and yet, through the use of contemporary music, especially reggae-like sound processing, it dances on the cutting edge of NEW WORLD MUSIC, which is still proliferating around the world today.

This is a tribal experimental sound where the horizons of another world appear, whether it is a fantasy or a cutting edge? Marco Shuttle's third album, Cobalt Desert Oasis, features a varied collection of music recorded across a two year period. Often traveling to remote destinations, Marco would come back to Berlin with field recordings, images, and other inspirations to process in his studio and turn into sound. The theme of the journey turns into a something more abstract than a travel diary, where environmental sounds blend in with modular synthesis, drum machines, effects and analog oscillators resulting in a cinematic listening experience where psychedelia, ritualism, and mysticism weave together in a sort of alien soundscape - that as the title of the album suggests, is reminiscent of a parallel utopian world. The album is rich in complex rhythmics, and more than in any of his previous work, has strong acoustic elements. Amongst other percussion instruments, Marco used the Tombak, a traditional Persian hand drum capable of reaching a very wide range of frequencies - from deep round subby toms, to high pitched sharp rimshots, throughout the record. Marco Shuttle is certainly not new to these sort of elements, but in Cobalt Desert Oasis he brings the environmental element of his sound into the forefront in a way that takes the listener into a hazy expanse where it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the machine elements from the natural - and where the music almost becomes a visual experience, which relates to Marco's own photography used throughout the cover and insert images.

AD 93 is proud to present the new album from Polish composer Wojciech Rusin, due for release on the 4th February 2022. Syphon is the second instalment of an ‘alchemical’ trilogy which started with The Funnel on Akashic records. The record consists of speculative medieval and renaissance music, imagined composed in the future, where it is reconstructed from the ashes of the past, via incomplete fragments. "In a future where the old semantic systems don’t apply anymore, what we are left with is some kind of delirium." The album features 3D printed instruments, multilayered bagpipe chanters, double recorders and other hybrids. With additional voices of soprano Eden Girma and Emmy Broughton. Artwork by Wojciech Rusin and Nicola Tirabasso Mastered by Rupert Clervaux

Delroy's in love. With House. Absolutely essential again.

Unusually even for an out-there progressive jazz musician, Sun Ra came from Saturn which gave him a completely unique take on this round place we call Earth. The Antique Blacks was his 1974-era album which has been out of print since 1978. It's rather more sprightly than some of his more abstract work with free-form noise, poetry readings and sax solo-ing all competing for space. Truly an originator.

Originally released in 2008 on CD and in a very limited vinyl edition, "The Malady Of Elegance" by Goldmund aka Keith Kenniff finally gets its long-deserved vinyl re-release, featuring a new artwork and remastered audio by Taylor Deupree. Taking cues from 'Corduroy Road' Keith Kenniff (aka Helios) again restricts himself to the piano in conjuring up his humble soundscapes and again we are pulled into a deep, meditative and filmic world as the notes glide to a slow, pensive meter. Keith's precedent release was the challenging 'Two Point Discrimination' EP, released on the Western Vinyl label as part of their portrait series, but where that record was a collection of haunting experiments in form and sound, 'The Malady of Elegance' sees us back into the warming, homespun territory of 'Corduroy Road'. That's not to say these compositions are upbeat, far from it in fact, but there are lines to be drawn to folk music, and while Keith no longer draws on the American Civil War as a primary influence there is still the sense that the ghosts of old America haunt the keys. On top of these references we see Keith tripping somewhat fittingly into a flickering filmic world somewhat in line with his taste in European film. There is a delicate narrative on show throughout the record from the opening hopefulness of Image-Autumn-Womb through the melancholy of Now to the sensitive romance of the album's closer Evelyn. Listening to the record almost creates its own cinematic accompaniment in the minds eye, and this is simply a testament to Keith's incredible talents as a composer. Fans of Erik Satie, Sylvain Chauveau and Hauschka need look no further, 'The Malady of Elegance' is a deeply personal meditation which you cannot help but get lost inside.

deeper and deeper: studio mule excavates another treasure from japan’s rich modern music history. this time spiritual leaning rhythms that come from none other then eitet-su hayashi, one of japan’s most renown taiko drummers, a percussive instrument that is deeply rooted in the mythology of japanese folklore.

with “kaze no shisha”, studio mule reissues a crucial album of his long-spanning career, that started in 1971, when hayashi joined the globally famed ondekoza group. the so called “demon drum group“ established the taiko drumming to a global audience and intensively toured around the globe between 1975 and 1981 - the year the group split.

shortly after, hayashi and some like-minded spirits formed kodo, a new drum troupe with hayashi as lead drummer. after their first live performances he left the ensemble again in order to launch his solo career, whose first output marked “kaze no shisha”, released in 1983 on the japanese subsidiary of the us record company victor.

the album’s six compositions feature hayashi on taiko drum and other percussion, famed japanese composer midori takada on marimba, cymbal and bells, shuichi chino on synthesizer, chi soungja on the traditional korean zither gayageum and the korean janggu drum as well as the singers kamur and tenko, also known as the honeymoons.

all songs have been written by eitetsu hayashi and been recorded between july and august 1983 at sunrise studio and victor aoyama studio in tokyo. it must have been an intensive time. a time, in which hayashi transformed the drumbeat of his heart into a variety sounds, melodies and rhythms, without losing the melancholic, yet demanding kaito air.

the record’s a-side starts rough and traditional with “kintonun”, a tune in which hayashi bangs the taiko stormy while charmingly dancing with chi soungja’s korean janggu drum performance. a propulsive start that slides into “cosmos” – a slow glooming melancholic trance-folk-spiritual tranquilizer, featuring hayashi playing the piano and koto, while chi soungja weeps ghostly on his gayageum zither.

a perfectly built folk drama, deeply charged with musical infinity. its followed by “kalavinka”, an industrial leaning composition, that lifts off with metal tones and meditative chanting, only to melt into a mesmerizing melodic marimba crescendo, played by midori takada. again, the myths of ancient japanese music kisses modern minimal realms and nothing seems to refer to the pure percussive genre hayashi is famed for.

the b-side opener “kaze no shisha” presents a slow growing performance by hayashi on the japanese zither koto. his nervous play transforms into a synth drone played by shuichi chino, that slowly makes space for hayashi’s tribal taiko drumming that again disappears in another wave of koto string notes.

the follow up “bakuon” launches with a supersonic transport sound and operatic singing by the honeymoons, that amalgamates with hayashi’s feverish performance on his main instrument, the taiko. every now and then strange synth sounds and disparate voices open the short composition, that abruptly ends after 2 minutes and 30 seconds. the final of “kaze no shisha” is reconciliatory.

on “seiten” hayashi creates a conversation between the taiko and mokugyo, also known as the buddhist wooden fish. they turn into some kind of call and response talk, always leaving enough space between the rhythms and tones to create a deeply spiritual psychic sphere.

an utterly captivating, keen to experiment album, full of japanese music mysticism, surprising non-linear shock-waves, repetitive minimal structures and frenziedly drumming, who in interaction introduce a less popular side of one of japan’s most prolific drum poets.

Faitiche presents a new album by Andrew Pekler: Sounds From Phantom Islands brings together ten tracks created over the last three years for the interactive website Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas. With his 2016 album Tristes Tropiques, Pekler created a highly unique cosmos of ethnographic sound speculations. Sounds From Phantom Islands continues and simultaneously expands this concept: finely elaborated chordal motifs float like fog over fictional maritime landscapes. A masterpiece of contemporary Exotica.

Phantom islands are islands that appeared on historical maps but never actually existed. The status of these artefacts of European colonial expansion from the 15th to the 19th century oscillates between cartographic fact and maritime fiction. Sounds From Phantom Islands interprets and presents these imaginations as a quasi-ethnographic catalog of music and synthetic field recordings. The pieces on this album are based on recordings made for Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas, an online interactive map developed with cultural anthropologist Stefanie Kiwi Menrath.

Originally released in 2006, Eingya by Helios aka Keith Kenniff returns in a new 2021 edition vinyl re-release, remastered by Taylor Deupree.

Beginning the album on a high with the pastoral beauty of "Bless This Morning Year," Kenniff showcases of what he does best: heartbreaking guitar and piano melodies punctuated by crumbling beats and backed by the most atmospheric synthesizer sounds this side of Eno's Apollo. The appetizing "Halving the Compass" blends subtle field recording with the kind of piano melodies so beautiful they could be compared to Virginia Astley or Harold Budd. This is followed by the album's clear highlight, "Dragonfly Across an Ancient Sky." It's an unsurpassable folk guitar piece with a decomposing percussive background and the sort of melodies that would turn evil tyrants into weeping babies. An album that could appeal as easily to fans of Nick Drake as to fans of Boards of Canada or even early AIR, this truly has something for everyone.

Raised in rural Pennsylvania, Kenniff put out Helios's 2004 debut album, Unomia, while studying percussion at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Since then, he's released six more albums as Helios, in addition to collaborating with his wife Hollie Kenniff in the shoegaze-inspired pop duo Mint Julep and composing music for films and archival use.

"A protracted sunset of an album guaranteed to see you through the longest days of summer and into the twilight of the autumn." - The Wire "A soundtrack of molasses-sweet, midsummer sunset melancholy and pastoral mellifluence." - Tinymixtapes
 

“This heat are one of those bands that (as a person wanting to be in a band) I aspired to be like. Not to sound like them or rip them off in anyway, but just be one of those bands that you hear and you know instantly, that your listening to This Heat and none else. They’re a band that set their own rules and did it without ever sounding pretentious or like they were trying too hard. The first record i had by them was This Heat but I thought it was amazing that i could be into them for some years and keep discovering other EPs or songs by them like Health and Efficiency that still felt completely fresh and still do. - Dave Porter (Avey Tare, Animal Collective)

Few copies available. Terry Riley's incredible early tape manipulation works from the 1960s, “Bird of Paradise” and “You’re No Good. Incredible audio quality

Ted Curson (1935-2012), a renowned jazz trumpeter from Philadelphia, has performed with many legends including Cecil Taylor and Charles Mingus. His masterpiece leader work released in 1971 from Futura Records, a legendary French avant jazz and free music label, has been officially reissued! This album was recorded at Europasonor Studio on June 18, 1971 during a visit to Paris, and features Georges Arvanitas (piano), Jacky Samson (double bass), and Charles Saudrais (drums). A gem of an album that transcends the boundaries of classical, modal jazz, fusion and free jazz.

For a label that wasn't around long, Strata East achieved the same sort of label recognition that Impulse! or Blue Note managed to build. In other words, you knew what you were getting when you bought a record on the label, even if you didn't know the names on the outside of the cover. This is no exception. Who is Shamek Farrah? Who knows? Who cares? It's the music that's important. This is the standard spiritually intense new jazz one learns to expect from the label, soaked in some Eastern influences but always with its ear to the street. Musicians took their roles as leaders and spokesmen very seriously back then.

This very adult statement from a group of very serious men is no exception. However, what might be an average, forgettable session is rescued by the propulsive engine of Milton Suggs' bass. He adds the fire and the drive that keeps things interesting and prevents the music from wandering into a circular spiritual morass.

Uwalmassa shape their relationship with various forms of musical heritage into technical and stylish forms on Malar, marrying acoustic sonics with a contemporary outlook that reflects their Indonesian identity; evolving, mutating, and scavenging traditions to draw parallels to dance music, and to test the adaptability and flexibility of those sounds. Here the collective go dark and deep in their first album-length collaboration with Mana, casting long shadows and moving snake style at speed across nine tracks. Using a mix of synthetic and acoustic instruments - the texture of Malar feels enigmatic, occasionally industrial, and the result magical in its mystery and fluctuating impact. Uwalmassa is the name with which DIVISI62, arts & music collective from Jakarta, Indonesia, perform and produce music.

早くも第2弾が登場です！今回は女性アーティストがメインとのこと。最早誰からも忘れ去られた、浮世離れしてうっとりとさせられる別世界的室内楽ジャズ！60年代に南米エクアドル・キトで活動していた知られざるスイートスポット的レーベル〈Caife〉に残された魅力的なカタログを専門家によるガイドのもと一挙24曲紹介したコンピレーション・アルバムが〈Honest Jon's〉から登場。空前のオイル・ブームとクンビアなど国外から流入する音楽スタイルに押し流される前、エクアドルのムジカ・ナショナルの黄金時代と呼ばれた時期に残された、土着とメスチーソの伝統が融合した痛々しいまでに美しく幻想的にしてユートピア的な音楽の数々を捉えた傑作コンピ！これはまさしく未知のゾーンです。豪華フルサイズ&フルカラー・ブックレットが付属。