MUSIC

The renowned trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi return to Black Truffle with their 11th release, “Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” Demonstrating once again their commitment to continual experimentation in instrumentation and approach, the record begins with a long-distance collaboration made in response to a commission from New York’s Issue Project Room in 2021 during widespread lockdowns and travel limitations. A unique piece in the trio’s extensive body of work, this side-long epic finds Haino performing on metal percussion, O’Rourke on electronics and Ambarchi on gongs and bells. Initially dominated by rapid patterns on resonant, high-pitched tuned percussion, the piece sets Haino’s dynamic and dramatic performance against a calm backdrop of cycling electronics, thrumming gong strikes and hanging bell tones. The performance develops a heightened, intensely concentrated atmosphere reminiscent of Haino’s classic Tenshi No Ginjinka or his Nijiumu project; when Haino moves to clashing hand cymbals in its second half, the piece’s ritualistic energy suggests aspects of the music of Tibetan Buddhism. The remainder of the double LP documents the trio live at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe (the location of all but their very first recording) in a wide-ranging set recorded in December 2017. The concert opens, in another first for the trio, with Haino on drums, O’Rourke on Hammond organ and Ambarchi on his signature Leslie cabinet guitar tones. Haino’s explosively untutored approach to the drumkit will be familiar to some listeners from the radical duo iteration of Fushitsusha heard on Origin’s Hesitation. Setting flurries of rapid activity against moments of silence, his drumming here at times suggests Milford Graves in its tumbling toms and thudding kick-drum propulsion. Accompanied by O’Rourke’s organ and Ambarchi’s guitar, which in their shared use of long tones and shifting modulation speeds almost blend into a single voice, the opening sections of this performance are some of the most magical music the trio has committed to tape thus far. After an interlude of spoken vocals in both Japanese and English, Haino makes a dramatic entrance on guitar. Against O’Rourke and Ambarchi’s increasingly intense electronic backdrop, Haino unleashes a stunning passage of slowly moving chromatic melodies and sudden shrieking explosions bathed in distortion and reverb. By the time we reach the third side, the guitar/bass/drums power trio is established and lurches into a passage of massive, lumbering rock that threatens to fall apart at every beat, O’Rourke’s strummed chordal work on six string bass creating a harmonic density equivalent to a second guitar. An abrupt edit throws the listener in media res into a frantic locked groove grounded by fuzzed out bass patterns and caveman drums. As Haino moves through a variety of approaches, from massive edifices of stuttering fuzz to ominous swarms of feedback, the trio eventually stumble into a kind of Harmolodic military tattoo, Haino’s guitar weaving and slashing across the rhythm section’s irregular accents. Moving through an epic opening duet for O’Rourke on Hammond and Haino’s wailing guitar, the fourth side eventually ramps up into a frenetic finale of mad bass riffing, crackling snare hits and guitar squall.“Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” is a testament to the continuing power and invention of this trio, who continue to seek out new terrain after over a decade working together. 2LP set presented in a lavish gatefold sleeve on heavy stock along with inner sleeves containing live pics by Tsuyoshi Kamaike. Photography by Jim O’Rourke, design by Lasse Marhaug and translation by Alan Cummings.

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.

Phew's 1992 legendary solo album "Our Likeness" will be reissued on clear vinyl, limited to 1,000 copies worldwide!

Jaki Liebezait (CAN), Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten), Chrislo Haas (D.A.F.), Thomas Stern (Lime and the City Solution) participated! Recording by Kraftwerk , NEU!, Cluster & Eno, D.A.F.

Before I’m gone I’d like to see us turn the corner and give up being spoilers of the land . . . In 1975 Wallace ‘Wally’ Smith Broecker published a paper that popularised the term ‘global warming’ and against a backdrop of change and environmental uncertainty, a musical concept album was commissioned. ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ - is a musical exploration of our place within the cycle of living things. All compositions were specially commissioned for the album and blended with natural sounds recorded in the wild – lending the entire project a conceptual air that still feels fresh today. The journey begins with the sun rising in the atmospheric haze of 'Dawn' - a track composed by new-age innovator Iasos. Gospel singer Walter Hawkins soon drops in with the soulful but ever so funky 'Metropolis' backed by a heavy array of session musicians with Patrick Gleeson, Ed Bogas and Tom Salisbury all adding their own misty magic to the album. David Riordan is the sorcerer conjuring up many of the compositions and also takes vocal duties on the evocative 'Mountain' and the climatic 'Before I'm Gone'. ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ was born when environmentalist Emily DeSpain Polk assembled a group of California residents to participate in a groundbreaking conservationist project. Christening the group SWAP (Small Wilderness Area Preservation) Emily needed funds and began a project to produce a promotional nature based music album. To acquire the financial backing Emily would need to source a musician of some calibre. Contacting Cliff Branch from ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ she was told the man she was looking for was David Riordan. David Riordan had been around the music business for several years, first with The Yankee Dollar, then Sugarloaf and then Sweet Pain, he saw huge success with the single 'Green Eyed Lady'. David had worked on Cliff Branch’s 'Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends' albums and then released his solo album, 'Medicine Wheel'. But bored of touring he made the move to more concept-driven albums. First with ‘Christmas in San Francisco’ and then, in quick succession, 'Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land'. Riordan, along with Peter Scott, a music producer friend in San Francisco, began piecing together an idea for the album. They brought in Ed Bogas to do string arrangements and Tom Salisbury to conduct. David had also asked his friend Patrick Gleeson if he knew of any R&B/Gospel singers in the Bay Area, and they soon added gospel singer Walter Hawkins into the mix. Other than the track ‘Metropolis’, which was recorded in LA, the rest of ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’ was recorded and mixed by Richard Beggs at the San Francisco studio of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola was filming ‘Apocalypse Now’ at the same time – so in between studio sessions, the musicians were able to view the seemingly never-ending film rushes arriving from the Philippines. Eventually, the record produced by David Riordan and Peter Scott drifted onto the radar of vinyl obsessives and selectors as several of its key tracks began popping up on mixtapes and sales lists. It wasn’t long before this privately pressed, art-funded masterpiece became something of a holy grail for collectors. At long last, a re-issue of this masterpiece is now available on EBALUNGA!!! Records. Paul Hillery - May 2022 Paul is a heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one, who’s handpicked compilation albums have been released on the labels BBE and RE:WARM - he is also the curator at Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours

Ectopic Ents is proud to announce the long-awaited vinyl reissue of the second Foetus album, ACHE, to coincide with it’s 40th anniversary. Released under the moniker You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath, the ACHE album was originally released in 1982 on JG Thirlwell’s Self Immolation label, whilst he was resident in London. It was recorded at Lavender Sound Studio in South London and engineered by Harlan Cockburn. On its release it was acclaimed by the music press, John Peel and even cited by Leonard Cohen on more than one occasion. Over the years the album has become a highly sought-after collectors item. The 2022 reissue was remastered by Josh Bonati and is in a limited run on white vinyl. The album is packaged with a reproduction of the original promo poster from the album, and a download code.

‘My intention with this music was to create an alchemy of the studio, to bring together impossible sounds, global voices and stories, obscure ethnographic narratives, new and ancient technologies, human and non-human species...’ - David Toop We are proud to launch our new library series with an incredible 12-track selection of music from David Toop. By compiling our favourite pieces from the albums originally released on Virgin, Pink Noir (1996) and Spirit World (1997), we have distilled the essence of this fruitful period into a new form: Pink Spirit, Noir World. Following the release of his debut solo album Screen Ceremonies (1995), David turned to a more expansive palate to record his next two LPs. Enlisting the help of a whole host of friends and collaborators who joined him in the Mark Angelo Studios, including the likes of Max Eastley, Toshinori Kondo, Musa Kalamula and Jon Hassell, the two albums share an unabashed openness to new sonic possibilities. Few recordings convey such a spirit of optimism; from a time when creation could be as free, unconstrained and ambitious. These albums are remarkable in both their harnessing of new recording technologies, and their weaving together a melting-pot of genres and influences that traverse the globe across centuries of musical tradition into something distinctly novel. They also document an almost visual memory, conjuring images both vivid and dream-like. Phantoms flit in and out of focus throughout their musical dialogues - perhaps the very same ones which were haunting Toop throughout the ‘wildly contradictory mixture of emotional harshness and ecstatic inspiration’ he found his life to be at the time. It’s the first time this music has been available on vinyl and to it’s new lease of life, all the tracks on this compilation have been remastered by sound designer/engineer Dave Hunt. This stunning compilation is housed in a gatefold sleeve and contains an exclusive piece written by David, reflecting on how he came to record these incredible songs.

Kristin Oppenheim is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for installation art based in performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York. INFO is pleased to announce Night Run, the first collection of early sound works of Kristin Oppenheim. This 2LP release features eight pieces recorded between 1992 and 1995 in her Brooklyn studio. In each recording, Oppenheim’s voice is the sole medium, forming repetitious phrases half-sung and half-spoken to compose disciplined but haunting environments that drift back and forth, panning across the stereo field. Over the last three decades, Kristin Oppenheim has composed vocal works not as a musician, but as an artist working in gallery and museum contexts. These immersive sound installations saturate space, touching on fragmented memory that blurs the lines between reality and abstraction. Oppenheim uses the physicality of sound to underscore the emotional tension between the absence and presence of her voice. Kristin Oppenheim is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for installation art based in writing, performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York. Since the early 1990s, Oppenheim’s work has been exhibited internationally. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including the 45th and 46th Venice Biennale, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Among others, She has had solo exhibitions at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva; at Secession, Vienna; KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; at FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Oboro, Montréal; the Jewish Museum, New York; and at the Villa Arson, Nice. Her work has also been seen in exhibitions including “X”, at FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou (2021); “Sound Museum” at D MUSEUM, Seoul (2020); “H(a)unting images. Anatomy of a shot” at Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona (2017); “Never Ending Stories” at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva (2014); “The International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias”, (2014); “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, ‘Nuit Blanche’, in Paris (2013); “NYC 1993: Experimental, Jet, Set Trash and No Star” at New Museum, New York (2013); “Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou” at Seattle Art Museum, (2012); “Volume” at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2011); “Silence. Listen to the Show” at Sandretto Foundation, Turin (2007); “Don’t Call it Performance” at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2003); “Voices” at Witte de With, Rotterdam (1998); “Young and Restless” at Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997); “29’ – 0 / East” at New York Kunstahalle (1996); “Threshold” at Fundacao de Serralves, Porto (1995); “Murs du son” at Villa Arson, Nice (1995); and “Encounters with Diversity” at PS1 MOMA, New York (1992). Kristin Oppenheim’s work is included in public collections of the Art Foundation Mallorca Collection, CCA-Andratx in Mallorca; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the FNAC Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; the FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; MAMCO Museum d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York. INFO is a label and interdisciplinary platform highlighting unique applications of sound in the field of contemporary art. Kristin Oppenheim artist page portrait courtesy of the artist, greengrassi, and 303 Gallery, 1985.

CV & JAB is a duo consisting of John Also Bennett (JAB), a Brooklyn-based sound designer who is also a member of RVNG, and Christina Vantzou, a composer based in Brussels, Belgium. & JAB", a duo from Kranky, consisting of JAB (aka Bennett) and Christina Vantzou, a composer based in Brussels, Belgium, released a popular album on their own label "Editions Basilic" in 2020, which has been reissued on vinyl! The artwork for this album was created by Zin Taylor, a Canadian artist living in Paris who is known for his elaborate installations that incorporate elements of performance and sculpture. Their previous work was an attempt at a musical interpretation of a 90-meter-long panoramic mural created by the same artist. The beauty of the work is similar to that of Japanese environmental music by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Yutaka Hirose, and Satoshi Ashikawa, but this is a more melancholic and introspective view of the world. This is a great masterpiece of modern classical ambient, with enigmatic piano investigations spreading endlessly, interweaving naturalistic field recording materials and electronics in a dotted pattern. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu and cut in analog by Dubplates & Mastering. Limited edition 357 copies.

A dub version of Niyabinghi's masterpiece "Rastafari" with the participation of such great artists as Peter Tosh (Guitar, Clavinet), Chinna Smith (Guitar), Tommy McCook (Flute), Robbie Shakespeare (Bass).

Canadian composer Bruce Haack one of the true pioneers in the field of electronic and children's music. Originally released in 1962 "Dance, Sing & Listen" was Haack's debut album. Following instructions from children dance teacher Esther Nelson the album comes as a hyper-eclectic work based on a great variety of sound material. A hybrid soup of medieval, country, classical, and pop styles including tons of electronic effects, guitars, banjos and other acoustic string instruments and bongos!!! This is open minded music for children at its best.

Carlos Niño & Friends, who are familiar with our store as a signboard act of , which is a major sacred place of the LA underground presided over by Matthewdavid. A compilation of sound sources from previously analog-released works, compiled into a cassette, to create a best-of cassette-like work. The title "Assortment for Susan's" is dedicated to their dear friend and collaborator Justin Hansin. A total of 4 tracks of ultra-high-quality new age and contemporary jazz, including sound sources with the participation of gorgeous people such as Laraaji and Ariel Karma! Limited to 200 copies.

blueblue is the latest full-length from multi-instrumentalist and all-around vibe wizard, Sam Gendel. The record, out October 14 via Leaving Records, is a concise, tightly wound song suite whose 14 tracks each correspond to a pattern within sashiko, a traditional style of Japanese embroidery. This conceit remains playfully ambiguous — to what extent, if at all, is Kagome (籠目, woven bamboo) meant to evoke the pattern of the same name, for example? But there is an intuitive sense, throughout blueblue, that Gendel has, in this instance, narrowed his focus. To say that blueblue feels richly textural might be a little on-the-nose, thematically, but alas…it does. There is an intimacy, a humility, and a strength at play here that typifies the work of a master craftsman. Only an artist could make it sound so effortless. A Los Angeleno by way of Central CA, Gendel is by now an institution. Across a dizzying slate of solo releases and collaborations, he has amassed a reputation for not only virtuosic musicianship (primarily as a saxophonist, though the songs that would become blueblue were all initially composed on guitar), but also for his mercurial and prolific output — a corpus of work, which, while obviously indebted to jazz and hip hop (and the farther flung, experimental corners of both) is, in a word, unpindownable. In this regard, Leaving Records, with its cri-de-cœur of “All Genre,” is a natural home for Gendel. The bulk of blueblue was recorded in isolation in a makeshift studio built in a cabin floating atop a tributary of Oregon’s Columbia River. Having sketched out a set of guitar melodies, Gendel recorded the album in five-or-so weeks, during which time he became well-acquainted with the river’s tidal rise and fall. This organic rhythm, which daily lifted the house to meet the horizon, later setting it down gently upon the riverbed, permeates the record. There are pops and groans and artifacts, and, in Tate-jima (縦縞, vertical stripes)—one of blueblue’s more plaintive tracks—even the faint lapping of water. Equally essential to the feel of blueblue is Craig Weinrib’s kit work. Gendel and Weinrib collaborated long-distance during Gendel’s time in Oregon, with Gendel sending Weinrib half-finished songs, and giving him carte-blanche to record percussion. The end result is a relaxed, confident exchange between two clearly simpatico musicians, particularly evident in Weinrib’s gorgeously attentive brush technique. blueblue is a conceptually sound, mesmerizing, evocative, and sonically idiosyncratic LP. In keeping with its name, blueblue functions as Gendel’s color study, conveying, through repetition and deviation, his devotion to a certain mood — unnamable, but certainly noirish, nostalgic, quasi-psychedelic, and existing in some permanent twilight. Real ones know, and for those who don’t yet, blueblue is an accessible and intoxicating entry-point into Gendel's ever-expanding catalog.

AKARMA

Recorded at Harry J and Channel One in 1982 with iconic musicians as China Smith, Flabba Holt, Robbie Shakespear, along with Norris Reid and Delroy Williams on backing vocals.The album includes a recut of the classic "Java" and the singing of Hugh Mundell on "Ratafari Tradition". Reissued with the artwork of the original Jamaican press.

Part of a series of three new archival releases from Ndeya that showcase Jon Hassell and group in the late 1980s exploring a radical tangent on his Fourth World sensibility.

Further Fictions is a double CD anthology of the music on the vinyl editions, with a disc devoted to each album in hardbound book style
packaging, and an extensive booklet containing sleevenotes and archival images.

The first disc ‘The Living City’ documents a performance at the Winter Garden in New York City on 17 September 1989, mixed live by Brian Eno. The second disc ‘Psychogeography’ sees Jon taking a Teo Macero style scalpel to the original session tapes of the 'City: Works Of Fiction' album and coming up with a situationist inspired alternate version of the City album. Beguilingly different takes and the raw excitement of early demos are skillfully sequenced to concoct a different dimension of sounds from the original release.

Comes with 32 page booklet featuring extensive liner notes and photos.

Historical set recorded live on April the 28th in London, right before the departure of second drummer Bob Bert. The selection indulges on recent masterpiece Bad Moon Rising and the influential Kill Your Idols Ep

the most live-sounding Yo La Tengo album in years, This Stupid World. Times have changed for Yo La Tengo as much as they have for everyone else. In the past, the band has often worked with outside producers and mixers. In their latest effort, the first full-length in five years, This Stupid World was created all by themselves. And their time-tested judgment is both sturdy enough to keep things to the band’s high standards, and nimble enough to make things new. At the base of nearly every track is the trio playing all at once, giving everything a right-now feel. There’s an immediacy to the music, as if the distance between the first pass and the final product has become more direct.

Outsider released Early Live In Germany on Fri Dec 23 2022. The 4 track Leftfield release features Kraftwerk.

Grateful Dead played an extended set on Saturday night at Woodstock. Introduced by their friend Ken Babbs, the band took off with “Saint Stephen,” a song from their classic Aoxomoxoa album. A major shock to rhythm guitarist Bob Weir (the result of touching his ungrounded microphone and guitar at the same time) blew the power out momentarily, ensuring that the second verse of the song was not captured by either the film or audio recording. Perhaps it was this shock that forced the band to abandon the song halfway through, ducking into a cover of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” instead.

Another side of Serge Gainsbourg permeates this 1963 film soundtrack about 'a stripper lost in the nocturnal world' of Paris, according to director Jacques Poitrenaud, who cast Nico in the lead role (after her appearance in La Dolce Vita and just prior to the single she cut with Jimmy Page for Andrew Loog Oldham). Created by Gainsbourg with arranger and longstanding collaborator Alain Gourager, the music is fittingly the cool jazz of dingy nightclubs and seedy bordellos, with Gainsbourg on piano, and there's the sultry title track, delivered breathlessly by Juliette Greco. Another lost gem for all serious Gainsbourg fans.

The song that marked the return of Joe Bataan in 2004 finally makes it into a 7” single for the first time. Recorded at the Daptone studio this is a dancefloor favourite by the King of Latin Soul!

Debut album by Ani Zinc, member of the Spanish experimental duo Diseño Corbusier and co-founder of the iconic record label Auxilio de Cientos. Originally released in 1986, this record is a showcase of her radical blueprint, comprising sound collages and voice experiments, and also welcomes the use of conventional instruments such as drum machines and keyboards, resulting a richer and more diverse outcome. First time reissue of this much sought-after record on the highly collectable Spanish experimental label Auxilio de Cientos.

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

Genji Sawai’s classic LP “Sowaka”, featuring Midori Takada and Bill Laswell, reissued for the very first time. Sowaka will be re-released on February 10th with remastered audio. Sowaka, recorded in 1984, displayed an innovative sound that went beyond genre – mixing dub, world, jazz, electro, hip-hop and avant-garde. A perfect match of some of the most experimental artists of that time resulting in an extremely sought after and singular piece of music of the golden Japanese era. A talented crossover. In 1984, working with Bill Laswell, Michael Beinhorn and Midori Takada would be unlike working with anyone else Genji Sawai had before, pulling him out of the J-jazz experimental scene he was based on. Rather than work off written music, they’d build songs like cooks. Genji might supply the ingredients, perhaps the tonal choices – sax, FM synths, drum machines, and Bill would task himself to do the “cooking”, creating the overall image of the song. It’s the use of imagery to have a conversation with each other, musically, that just felt so different to Genji. Unlike the other musicians who contributed to Sowaka, musicians of impressive, rarefied technique like Midori Takada, Shuichi “Ponta” Murakami, and Kazuhiko Shibayama, notation or sheet music wasn’t a part of Genji’s vocabulary with Bill. With him, drawings were how songs were built from the ether. Whatever image a demo conjured up – that’s where the song had to go. You hear it on songs like “Hikobae” that predicted the chopped and screwed sound that would revolutionize hip-hop years later. On this track what started with a mental picture, of some kind of tree shoot, metastasizes a vision full of no-wave sax skronk dosed with pointillistic dub affectations. Although, Sowaka wasn’t tied inherently to it’s original meaning – the final utterance from the Buddhist Heart Sūtra – it’s philosophical meaning wasn’t too divorced from the true meaning (or at least, his truest meaning) Genji placed on it here: getting things done. Simply put, all his high-minded ideas wouldn’t have come to fruition unless all involved put some serious work into getting the project over the finish line. In five cracking days the album was put on tape and was then jettisoned off to NYC for Bill to put its final touches. What’s fascinating about Sowaka, or at least what will make it so, is just how it perfectly captures a certain atmosphere, somewhat alien to overground Japanese music at the time. Forget about a starry-eyed, futuristic, technopolis. The Japan heard in songs like “1969 (The Real)” is found in its iconic back alleys and constantly changing cityscape. It would use hip-hop, jazz, folk, and world music, to drop its sonic graffiti. That pull of “tradition” trying to co-exist with increasingly hypermodern ideas is palpably heard in music defined by its mix of organic and synthetic instruments paired with hard-nosed melodies. Genji’s Japan, as heard in Sowaka, pulls no punches, it wants you right in the middle of that public maelstrom. It wants you to sonically be there. Behind the mysterious chopped-and-screwed-with jazz of songs like “Hikobae” or the no-wave, nu wave-fried jazz of the titular track, there was a new kind of fusion being presented. Moving beyond world music, there was territory to be uncovered that was even more unplaceable. Somewhere, between the mind, body, and spirit, closer to one’s neck and booty, was this music urging you to simply move elsewhere, further, until you’re closer to where Genji’s music would land. Somewhere between history and his story, there’s still room to rewrite our story by absorbing this spectacular music that remains completely, forever, out of time.