WOW !
- David Eugene Edwards and co. is as powerful and passionate as ever: Wovenhand - The Laughing Stalk
-"In almost every documented encounter with the music of Wovenhand, what is described is an experience so visceral and so universally disorienting, that one has to take note. From the first measures of music, the taste of desert earth is on the lips; neck-hairs snap to attention as strange and unfamiliar sounds whisper just underneath the surge of guitar and the rumble of bass; clouds loom on the horizon promising either the balm of rain or the threat of judgment it could be either. The smell of horses breath, like ash, carries with it messages from another place, a place that is at once very very far away and impossibly close... The music of Wovenhand is its own iconography, its own world, its own universe."
- http://soundsfamilyre.com/
From a new label on Emusic: Frames Music - "Frames is an experimental collective from Italy started in 2007 by Stefano Roncarolo, a young and virtuoso italian bass player, and Sandro Marinoni, trombone, flute and tenor saxophone player.
Many remarkable artists from around the world have worked and still working with the team: russian pianist Andrey Kutov, italian pianist and keyboardist Roberto Padovan, great avantgard singer Boris Savoldelli, japanese artist Kenji Siratori, italian singer and producer Paolo Baltaro, italian sound engineer Francesco Perugini, argentine percussionist Humberto Luis Schenone and more. . ."
-"In 2011, anticipating John Cage’s centenary, I began thinking about how to approach a work that might act as a homage to the aspects of his life and work that have inspired me over the past two decades (ironically, those in which he has been physical absent, but philosophically more present than ever). John Cage, with that beaming smile and trademarked casualness with which he operated his revelatory genius, has consistently acted as a touch stone for me; his life’s interests underscoring the way in which music, space, humour and philosophy connect (and also break apart).
I wanted to find a work that offered an openness (particularly in a sonic sense), something that might invite a new perspective of exploration into Cage’s ideas and interests. It was during this search that I found myself drawn to one of Cage’s less celebrated works—his film for solo light performer One11. Joining with video artist Scott Morrison we “restaged” the film, developing a new score for single light source devised from a range of Cagian approaches. The resulting piece was called One11 (refocused).
Part way through the process of composing music for One11 (refocused), it became clear that a body of sound work was forming (beyond the music created for the One11 (refocused) soundtrack) that drew heavily on some of Cage’s passions—specifically his interests in Zen Buddhism (and the space for contemplation this philosophy opens) and also that of chance operations.
Each of the pieces presented in this edition bare John Cage’s influence —some direct, others less so. The title of the edition reflects the sources from which the music was created—specifically from the One11 (refocused) project (For John Cage) and other pieces, created entirely by chance during one recording session (Not For John Cage).
For me, this edition is a humble tip of the hat to a mind that has sought to sow many a seed amongst us all. It’s now for us to water those seeds and tend the soil in which they sit. This is but one drop of that water." —Lawrence English @ http://www.lineimprint.com/editions/cd/line_058/ - Soundcloud
Rhyton - The Emerald Tablet
"Rhyton is an experimental/improv/psych trio based in Brooklyn that features Dave Shuford (D. Charles Speer and the Helix, No Neck Blues Band), Jimy SeiTang (Psychic Ills) and Spencer Herbst (Messages, Matta Llama)."
- "When one thinks of a power trio, the ears tend to gravitate to bands like Blue Cheer, Cream, post-"Scratching the Surface" Groundhogs, Freedom and bands of that ilk. In improvised music, the saxophone stood in for the guitar, giving us groups like Sonny Rollins trio with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones, Coltranes Chasin the Trane, and Albert Aylers unit with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray. Of course, power is a vast concept that could represent change, emotional breadth, or deep, interpersonal communication. Rhyton the trio of string multi-instrumentalist David Shuford, bassist Jimy SeiTang and drummer Spencer Herbst fits all of these characteristics as well as a whole lot more. Rhyton developed from Shufords desire to return to open-form music, which hed explored in great depth with the No Neck Blues Band. Developed out of sessions for the "Arghiledes" LP (Thrill Jockey, 2010), he assembled Rhyton with SeiTang (ex-Psychic Ills) and Herbst (ex-Matta Llama, Messages) and the results appeared on an eponymous Thrill Jockey debut. "The Emerald Tablet" is the follow up, and presents a decidedly more free angle on the Rhyton chalice, fitting well within both Three Lobed Recordings painstaking documentation of contemporary psych and outsider music and Divide By Zeros emergence within that same sphere.
The three pieces on "The Emerald Tablet" are improvised and wide-open, though they hew closely to rhythms and modes derived from North African and Middle Eastern musics and the dusky textures inherent in Shufords electric mandolin (the previous disc featured saz and baritone guitar). Like the bastard child of John Cipollina and Rudolph Grey, Shuford unspools incredible midrange fantasias, chunky and feedback-drenched but equally dexterous and graceful. Though the guitar isnt present on this album, Rhytons connection to guitar-driven ensembles and a timeless stew of folk forms is quite strong. The closing piece, Trismegistus sto Smaragda, is a perfect example of this and probably one of the most intriguing contemporary electric string improvisations youre likely to hear. Thin wires snake out over a loping, gently swinging rhythm, Shuford adding layers of clouds and grime but haltingly so, retaining sparseness and reticence. Herbst and SeiTang begin to weave a taut backbeat as plinks and inverted strums layer and dissipate, eking out bluesy asides before a dark, gnashing quality emerges. But the construction of this solo is too fragmentary and odd to be held to some sort of pyrotechnic measuring device its the kind of playing that, one can hope, will be studied by those who know not in order to imitate, but as an example of another creative step taken exploring the rock idiom. . . . . "
- Three Lobed Recordings - Emusic
-"The new CD-EP (clocking in at 20 minutes exactly) from Stephan Mathieu is a coda to A Static Place (2011, 12k), created with his highly focused setup of two mechanical-acoustic gramophones and computer. Coda (For WK) is dedicated to the legendary quiet pianist Wilhelm Kempff, whose 1927 recordings of Beethovens Piano Sonata No. 26 Les Adieux from a double 12 78RPM set on Brunswick were used as input for an autogenerative process. Mathieus process emphasizes the archaic beauty and texture of this early media while using the original tones for the body of this rich extended work that is both hypnotic and grainy; a journey into the essence of sound that can be appreciated on many levels.
Mathieu has made this gramophone and computer setup a constant factor for his signature process of late and the work he produces becomes more deep and personalized with each release. The echoes of the past can be heard in these ghostly compositions and Mathieus love for not only the process but the original music is clearly seen in his passion for the work.
Coda (For WK) was first released by Minority Records on the vinyl version of A Static Place in an edition of 155 copies. 12k is presenting it here on CD, packaged in a sleeve that echoes the designs of the era that gave birth to this music."
- 12k
Stephan Mathieu, born October 11.1967, is a musician and sound artist based in Saarbrücken, Germany
- "Im a self taught composer and performer of my own music, working in the fields of electroacoustics and abstract digitala. My sound is largely based on early instruments, environmental sound and obsolete media, which are recorded and transformed by means of experimental microphony, re-editing techniques and software processes involving spectral analysis and convolution; it has been compared to the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, the work of Colorfield artists Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Ellsworth Kelly.
During the last decade my music has been released on 30 vinyl records and CDs. Apart from refining my solo work, I currently collaborate with Robert Hampson /Main, Tashi Wada, Sylvain Chauveau, Taylor Deupree and David Sylvian in live and studio projects.
Since 1992 I performed live in solo shows and on festivals all over Europe, Scandinavia, North and South America and created various audio installations for galleries and museums, a glass-blowing factory, a 17th century garden, Berlin Mitte, a 19th century steel plant, parks, an arrangement of 30 Peugeots, a late antique throne hall and several other unique sites.
Im a collector of 78rpm records from the 1910s and 20s, the era of acoustic and early electronic audio recording. I love the way they transport sound."
- http://www.bitsteam.de/wp/
PRESS RELEASE: - The cyanometer is a circular measuring instrument made from graduating shades of blue, originally created as means to measure the blueness of the sky. It was invented in the late 1700s by Horace Benedict de Saussore to assist his studies and fascination with the sky. He correctly supposed that the level of blueness visible in the sky was as a result of the amount of suspended particles present in the atmosphere. In recent times, not much has been written about cyanometry and a quick scour of the internet will yield you little in the way of further reading.
It was on a particularly crisp blue day, the sort that would have had Saussore engaged, cyanometer at the ready when Harry Towell (Spheruleus) happened upon the concept for his latest project. He embarked on a long walk through the surrounding countryside in Lincolnshire, UK with the intention of drawing inspiration for a new body of work. He had hoped that the quiet farmland, trees, fields and electricity pylons would provide the spark required to propell his work with sound yet on that day, it was the sky that fixated him and thus Cyanometry was born.
Back in the studio, Harry set about weaving his collection of acoustic instruments into his usual style of rustic melancholy. Inspired and fresh from his walk with a theme in mind, he allowed the resulting lo-fi sounds to retain their melodic properties and set them against a backdrop of noise, radio interference and vinyl crackle. Field recordings taken during the walk and at other locations filter into the mix; an old lady pushes her trolley through the backstreets of a sleepy village, ice cracks under foot on a cold morning and the cogs and gears of a bicycle turn, all the while permeated by fragments of forgotten radio broadcasts. The final stage of the recording process saw Harry team up with work colleague and piano owner Neil Winning to round off this set of short recordings with an additional element. After a short period of tweaking, the final outcome was married with track titles to reflect the varying moods of the sky.
For those new to the Spheruleus sound, Lincolnshire (UK) based artist Harry Towell has been releasing experimental material since 2008 on labels such as Hibernate, Under The Spire, Time Released Sound and most recently a collaboration with Ekca Liena on Home Normal. When he is not manipulating frequencies whether acoustic or otherwise, Harry spends his spare time curating netlabel Audio Gourmet and now its new sister label Tessellate Recordings.
- http://tessellate-recordings.com/
- "Bleep's guide to Electronic Music is a 55 track compilation charting the historical emergence of electronic music by looking at landmark tracks from the 1930s up to present day.
Our aim with this selection of music is to show the length and breadth of the medium, providing a snapshot of the genres forms and styles, and the development of the artform. Whilst there are omissions and compromises that we have had to make, we hope that we achieve our aims and we do some justice to the variety of music that we love.
This compilation developed out of a project to create a Facebook timeline charting the development of electronic music from the late 19th Century until now."
I seriously considered getting that Bleep collection but decided against. I would like to see someone do a different version of that task. Theirs started predictably with Messiaen and Schaeffer, but once it hit the 80s it mostly (with some exceptions) followed the trajectory that goes through popular/dance music (and with some questionable choices, though I know one will always be able to argue about inclusions on this kind of list (but seriously, Divine over New Order?)) and did not represent the more divergent tangents of microsound, field recording manipulation, drone, etc, etc. To be fair it had some Eno, Fennesz etc, but it still felt rather leaned to one (beat-driven) side. J Dilla and Burial are one place you can end up starting from the Theremin, but not the only or necessarily the most obvious one.
Nils Frahm has a new album and it's available as a free download!!!!
(click on the "MP3 download" link, not the "free download" button for some reason.)
i am sitting in front of a sheet of paper. my right hand is bending over my left thumb. the first day i got out of my cast i could bend it by 15°. now i am already at 50° and that makes me happy. things are going uphill...
as you can imagine, it is really bad news for a pianist when he gets diagnosed with a broken thumb. that day i was sitting in the emergency room, feeling rather dizzy while thinking of a zillion shows coming up and all the people involved around it. i realised in that moment how busy things have become. it is hard to turn down interesting projects and opportunities, since i surely love my work. it actually never felt like work. playing piano and playing it for wonderful people is the greatest joy i can imagine.
for a couple of days i felt like this all could be over. how pathetic. but hey also feeling sorry for yourself has its place somewhere. all of a sudden i had so much time, an unexpected holiday. i cancelled most of my schedule and found myself being a little bored. even though my doctor told me not to touch a piano for a while, i just couldn't resist. i started playing a silent song with 4 fingers on my left and the remaining 5 on my right hand. i set up one microphone and recorded another tune every other night before falling asleep.
the day i got rid of my cast i had recorded 9 little tunes. they have helped me feel less annoyed about my accident and reminded me that any good is something i can only achieve, when i am making the most out of what i've got.
- "Released as a short-run private press LP in 1965, Fate Is Only Once has long been a coveted collectible among American Primitive guitar enthusiasts. The album presages the broader movement. Acoustic musicians were still largely stuck in a rigid Folk mindset in 1965, and there are just not that many other examples of the exploratory guitar sounds found on Fate during this time period. Alternating between haunting originals and jaunty blues-based traditional numbers, this absurdly rare LP was reissued by Tompkins Square in 2006. Taussigs only other recorded works appear on the long out-of-print Takoma compilation Contemporary Guitar Spring 67? alongside John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Max Ochs and Bukka White. Taussig spent years as an educator, published instructional guitar books, and traveled extensively to photograph weird museums.
Amazingly, he returns with his first album in 47 years, appropriately titled Fate Is Only Twice. The same stark, smoldering playing is evident, all the humor and inventiveness intact."
- http://www.tompkinssquare.com/
- All music bio:
- "Harry Taussig issued an obscure, privately pressed album of acoustic guitar instrumentals in 1965, Fate Is Only Once, that was much like John Fahey in its combination of folk, blues, and stark Americana. Taussig, in fact, is just as obscure as the relatively unknown Robbie Basho as Basho is to Fahey. The album was one of the most sought-after collector's items of American Primitive guitar music. The only other recordings that Taussig issued appeared on a 1967 compilation, Contemporary Guitar Spring '67, which as it happened also featured Fahey (whose Takoma label issued the LP) and Basho, as well as Max Ochs and Bukka White. Fate Is Only Once was eventually reissued on CD in 2006. In August of 2012, Taussig, after being endlessly prodded and encouraged by Tompkins Square Records' label boss Josh Rosenthal, released his follow-up, titled, appropriately, Fate Is Only Twice."
- Other Music review:
- "I spent several years trying to track down an original copy of Harry Taussig's first and until now only LP, Fate Is Only Once, with no luck. The only time I even had a chance to hold the real thing in my hands was at a collector's house while he made a tape copy for me, so needless to say I was overjoyed when the record was reissued by Tompkins Square back in 2006; just to be able to play the album on my stereo and hear it in all its wild, jangling, masterful glory was a real treat to be sure. So when Tompkins Square announced they were releasing an album featuring new Taussig recordings, you couldn't blame the fans if their optimism was cautiously guarded; after all, his first album is widely considered to be a long lost masterpiece, issued on a private press label some 47 years ago, and known only to steel string guitar fanatics. Could a sequel live up?
What Harry Taussig represented was a moment in time, a lost treasure, a single artifact. And single artifacts rarely have great follow-ups, but rest assured, this one does. This album is amazing, transfixing and about as close to essential as it gets for anyone interested in guitar, American primitivism, or just a really enjoyable listening experience. From the first notes of "Rondo in D (On Southern Themes)" through the playful figures of "Children's Dance" to the spacious, dissonant title track, Fate Is Only Twice is a treasure. When we find out a new set of masters or a lost acetate from one of our favorite artists is discovered, it can be hard to describe the mixture of joy and fear. Will it be more good work to stand beside our favorite tracks, or will it be something else, something less? Every new addition to the canon re-contextualizes the other parts. For Harry Taussig, Fate Is Only Twice moves him from apocryphal legend to the status of a true master of the steel string guitar, and a performer and artist on par with his better known contemporaries like John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Recommended for fans of music, history, historical music, and mysteries. [AS]"
- "Special 12 featuring new versions of the track Fa, taken from the debut Fennesz solo album Hotel Paral.lel (1997). 15 years after its initial release, Christian Fennesz gives this throbbing monster of a track a new seeing to, extending it and adding more of that magic he is so well known for. The album was always an exercise in exploring alternate means of hearing club based music. This new version carries that concept further.
This is backed by a cracking new mix by the ever productive Mark Fell, adding his unique beat structures, and even a MLK sample, which lends his contemporary rhythmic landscape a odd nostalgic twist.
This 12 can be seen as a warm up for the new Fennesz album, which is currently scheduled for 2013 release."
- Editions Mego
- "Edinburgh's Hidden Orchestra four piece and the Tru Thoughts imprint present their second studio album, 'Archipelago'. The follow up to their debut 'Night Walks' makes fine use of dark, creeping strings, terse percussion and layers of warm, distinct texture, whilst haunting electronic effects and samples come heavily woven into their orchestral tapestry."
- Bleep Newsletter.
- "Erlik Khan is the god of death and underworld in Turkish and Mongolian mythology.This collaboration between Turkish experimental genre-hopper and multi-media artist Erdem Helvacioglu and Brooklyn, NY contextualizer Bruce Tovsky is a truly otherworldly experience.
Featuring two prickly longform works fusing GuitarViol (a hybrid stringed instrument), lap steel, random acoustics, and processed electronics into a colorful, polyglot stew, the enigmatic duo forge dense, dark, quivering soundscapes that recall nothing less than Thomas Koner, Shinjuku Thief, & Lull's isolationist climes skyrocketing through the improvisational smears first championed by the likes of AMM and Zbigniew Karkowski. Erlik Khan is also the first recording of its kind to combine electric lapsteel and guitarviol with live electronics, an aural hybrid navigating various sonic eddies and frequency-intensive night terrors." - €music
- "Erdem Helvacioglu is one of the most renowned contemporary composers of his generation in Turkey. His music has been called “revolutionary,” “groundbreaking,” “luscious and unique,” and “completely arresting and disarmingly beautiful.” He has received awards from the Luigi Russolo, MUSICA NOVA, Insulae Electronicae Electroacoustic Music Competitions and has been commissioned by numerous organizations, from the 2006 World Soccer Championship to the Bang on a Can-All Stars. Helvacioglu is also actively involved in composing for films, multimedia productions, contemporary dance and theatre. He won the “Best Original Soundtrack” award in the 2006 Mostramundo Film Festival, and his film scores have been heard at Cannes, Sarajevo, Locarno, Seoul, Sao Paulo, and Sydney film festivals. Ulrich Mertin’s musical activities cover a wide swath, from classical and contemporary to electronic and club music. He graduated from the esteemed “Hanns Eisler Academy for Music“ in Berlin, Germany, and has worked with composers like Pierre Boulez, György Kurtag, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Brian Ferneyhough and with groups like Ensemble Modern and musikFabrik. With his award-winning Hezarfen Ensemble (the leading contemporary music ensemble of Turkey) he has been influencing and enlarging the Turkish contemporary scene for several years. - Innova Recordings
In case you missed it...This thread had been flagged by Chrome for malware, apparently related to a link to Aquarium Drunkard. That site appears to have the all-clear from Google; I deleted the link anyway just to be safe. Malwarebytes did indeed find a Trojan on one of my computers, so you might want to scan if you followed the link or have visited AquaDrunk lately.
Ten years on since their last album 'Yanqui U.X.O.', one of the world's most revered and steadfast post-rock groups recapture that unbridled energy and celestial complexity for this new album featuring two twenty minute compositions plus two six-minute drone incursions comprising 'Allelujah! Don't Bend Ascend'.
The album is a soaring and ecstatic escape into a swirl world where folk, punk, the avant-garde and free rock immolate and salve in equal measures. It sounds - almost predictably - massive, evolving two live favourites known to fans as 'Albanian' and 'Gamelan' into fully composed storms raging with instrumental emotion ranging from terror to ecstasy with an intangible, electrifying vitality.
- "The Expanding Universe is the classic 1980 debut album by composer and computer music pioneer Laurie Spiegel. The album is reissued here for the first time in a massively expanded two-CD set, containing all four original album tracks plus an additional 15 tracks from the same period, nearly all previously unreleased. Some of the already well-know works included in this set are "Patchwork", the complete "Appalachian Grove" series, and "Kepler's Harmony of the Worlds", which was included on the golden record launched on board the Voyager spacecraft. The pieces comprising The Expanding Universe combine slowly evolving textures with the emotional richness of intricate counterpoint, harmony, and complex rhythms (John Fahey and J. S. Bach are both cited as major influences in the original cover's notes), all built of electronic sounds. These works, often grouped with those of Terry Riley, Phil Glass, Steve Reich, differ in their much shorter, clear forms. Composed and realized between 1974 and 1977 on the GROOVE system developed by Max Mathews and F.R. Moore at Bell Laboratories, the pieces on this album were far ahead of their time both in musical content and in how they were made. Each of the included works broke new ground, pioneering completely new methods of live interaction with computer-based logic - ways of creating music that are now reaching the heights of their popularity with Ableton Live, Max/MSP and other interactive music software entering mainstream music production." Unseen World - Emusic - http://retiary.org/ls/
Excellent news from Hidden Shoal Recordings: - "Gilded brings together the similar but distinct musical directions of West Australian experimental musicians Matt Rösner and Adam Trainer, forging a new approach to composition and sound creation that is based as much around rhythm and repetition as it is around drone and abstraction.
The title of Gildeds debut album Terrane comes from a geological formation that has become dislocated from its original position and sutured onto a new landscape. It retains its own distinctive form and contrasts against those around it, whilst also finding a new place, a new home. The compositions that make up this record strike at the heart of how it feels to be in a period of transition, of watching a subtle change, a shift in texture. There are moments of quietude and reflection held together by the austere and alternately punctuated by shifts toward the uplifting and revelatory. Terrane deftly operates around the intersections of melody and texture, movement and pause."
- Track By Track: Gilded - "From industrial workshops and rhythmic minimalism to field recordings and meditation balls, experimental artists MATT ROSNER and ADAM TRAINER take us through Terrane, the debut album for their collaborative duo Gilded."
Fairly new (and certainly new on Emusic) from one of the most weird and wonderful vocalists/performers on this planet:
Ghedalia Tazartes - Repas Froid - "An extraordinary combination of culled found and taped fragments juxtaposed against drums, field recordings and mystery noises, sound loops, birdsong, keyboards and emanations of his own throaty drones and voice propelled by hypnotic, ritualistic rhythms balanced on a razor sharp edge.
This is the complete work of Repas Froid; previously released on cd as brief tracks of source material and palette of various sounds. It includes archival and as of yet previously unreleased recordings from the late 1970s and early 1980s, strung together to form two long compositions."
"A French musician of Turkish parentage, Ghédalia Tazartès is an uncompromising character who defies categorization. Born 1947 in Paris, is one of France's most idiosyncratic talents. He has spent over 30 years within musical practice and experimentation, letting his musical work wander from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. Utilising magnetic tape recorders into a rough collage and loose ethno-instrumental mulch, he paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. He traces vague landscapes where the mitre of the white clown, the plumes of the sorcerer, the helmet of a cop and Parisian anhydride collide into polyphonic ceremonies." - PAN
I've always had a thing for her music, the way it switches from the sublime to the chaotic. Her newest brings that equation to an even higher level. Just beautiful. An octet w/Lee's cello in the lead position. A mix of jazz, folk, and classical. Fans of Frisell or some of the music on Zorn's Tzadik label will take a shine to this.
I'm setting up an AAJ download of the day, and writing a review for my own site, too. Beautiful stuff.
On first listen, I think it's pretty awful. All tracks have vocals, which I've always felt were a strong element of Broderick's albums when he used them sparingly (think of the way his voice sound both startling and comforting when it breaks out on Float's "Another Glacier).
From the Erased Tapes site... "An exploration from gospel and soul to spoken word, beatboxing and rap this is Peter at his most natural."
I'll give the album another shot down the road... I enjoy Broderick's music too much not too. But I fear this is one I'll avoid.
- "A collection of 5 songs and 4 instrumental pieces that explore equally - and simultaneously - spontaneous performance values, close compositional detail and extensive processing. Made out on the rocky coast of Maine with just a TV eye keeping tabs on a world skidding to hell in a handcart, all the basic work was done by MacLean and Cutler with Julie Thompson (voice) added later - alongside additional parts played by Frank Gross (bassoon), Michael Bierylo (laptop, samples, circuits) and Titus Abbot (bass clarinet and saxophone). These are complex, focused pieces, some highly rhythm-rooted - mostly at rapid bpm rates - generally wide open with a close receptivity to timbral nuance and non-linearity." - ReR Megacorp - http://www.smaclean.com/
Daniel Maze: bass, guitar, keyboards, electronics. Bryan white: drums, percussion. Dave Zeal: trumpet, drums on “Revenge of the cosmic debris”. Jerry Cromwell: bulbul tarang, tape effects.
- "Walltapper (Daniel Maze) born in 1980 is a Canadian producer of Vancouver known to approach composition by means of very different styles in a very personal way. We know of Daniel immediately because of his releases on numerous netlabels such as Test-tube, 12rec and of course EKO (Lifeguard ep ref. 013) and SKM (Skuba ref. 011). Emotional, experimental, deep and pop, the words fail us to define his whole discography, we can say however that Daniel has no particular limits and always pushes the boundaries of his compositions by concentrating on textures, energy and melody.
His new album Monaco (SEM 017) confirms this eclecticism delivering an album mixing trip-hop jazz, experimentations and very groovy drums-beats." http://semlabel.com/walltapper/ - Emusic
Out today on Amazon, new full length. No sign of it on emusic yet (but it's $6.23 at Amazon so I wonder how much the saving will be, if any; most recent Editions Mego releases have been $5.99 there). Blurb at Boomkat.
Comments
- David Eugene Edwards and co. is as powerful and passionate as ever:
Wovenhand - The Laughing Stalk
-"In almost every documented encounter with the music of Wovenhand, what is described is an experience so visceral and so universally disorienting, that one has to take note. From the first measures of music, the taste of desert earth is on the lips; neck-hairs snap to attention as strange and unfamiliar sounds whisper just underneath the surge of guitar and the rumble of bass; clouds loom on the horizon promising either the balm of rain or the threat of judgment it could be either. The smell of horses breath, like ash, carries with it messages from another place, a place that is at once very very far away and impossibly close... The music of Wovenhand is its own iconography, its own world, its own universe."
- http://soundsfamilyre.com/
Frames Music
- "Frames is an experimental collective from Italy started in 2007 by Stefano Roncarolo, a young and virtuoso italian bass player, and Sandro Marinoni, trombone, flute and tenor saxophone player.
Many remarkable artists from around the world have worked and still working with the team: russian pianist Andrey Kutov, italian pianist and keyboardist Roberto Padovan, great avantgard singer Boris Savoldelli, japanese artist Kenji Siratori, italian singer and producer Paolo Baltaro, italian sound engineer Francesco Perugini, argentine percussionist Humberto Luis Schenone and more. . ."
Lawrence English - For / Not For John Cage
-"In 2011, anticipating John Cage’s centenary, I began thinking about how to approach a work that might act as a homage to the aspects of his life and work that have inspired me over the past two decades (ironically, those in which he has been physical absent, but philosophically more present than ever). John Cage, with that beaming smile and trademarked casualness with which he operated his revelatory genius, has consistently acted as a touch stone for me; his life’s interests underscoring the way in which music, space, humour and philosophy connect (and also break apart).
I wanted to find a work that offered an openness (particularly in a sonic sense), something that might invite a new perspective of exploration into Cage’s ideas and interests. It was during this search that I found myself drawn to one of Cage’s less celebrated works—his film for solo light performer One11. Joining with video artist Scott Morrison we “restaged” the film, developing a new score for single light source devised from a range of Cagian approaches. The resulting piece was called One11 (refocused).
Part way through the process of composing music for One11 (refocused), it became clear that a body of sound work was forming (beyond the music created for the One11 (refocused) soundtrack) that drew heavily on some of Cage’s passions—specifically his interests in Zen Buddhism (and the space for contemplation this philosophy opens) and also that of chance operations.
Each of the pieces presented in this edition bare John Cage’s influence —some direct, others less so. The title of the edition reflects the sources from which the music was created—specifically from the One11 (refocused) project (For John Cage) and other pieces, created entirely by chance during one recording session (Not For John Cage).
For me, this edition is a humble tip of the hat to a mind that has sought to sow many a seed amongst us all. It’s now for us to water those seeds and tend the soil in which they sit. This is but one drop of that water."
—Lawrence English @ http://www.lineimprint.com/editions/cd/line_058/ - Soundcloud
http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/album/tobias-hellkvist/everything-is-connected/13585457/:
Very ambient, electro-acoustic dude. Guitar mostly with drone.
His cover of Efterklang's "Step Aside" is about one of the most heartbreakingly pretty songs I've ever heard...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gUCNjobQQA
Rhyton - The Emerald Tablet
"Rhyton is an experimental/improv/psych trio based in Brooklyn that features Dave Shuford (D. Charles Speer and the Helix, No Neck Blues Band), Jimy SeiTang (Psychic Ills) and Spencer Herbst (Messages, Matta Llama)."
- "When one thinks of a power trio, the ears tend to gravitate to bands like Blue Cheer, Cream, post-"Scratching the Surface" Groundhogs, Freedom and bands of that ilk. In improvised music, the saxophone stood in for the guitar, giving us groups like Sonny Rollins trio with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones, Coltranes Chasin the Trane, and Albert Aylers unit with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray. Of course, power is a vast concept that could represent change, emotional breadth, or deep, interpersonal communication. Rhyton the trio of string multi-instrumentalist David Shuford, bassist Jimy SeiTang and drummer Spencer Herbst fits all of these characteristics as well as a whole lot more. Rhyton developed from Shufords desire to return to open-form music, which hed explored in great depth with the No Neck Blues Band. Developed out of sessions for the "Arghiledes" LP (Thrill Jockey, 2010), he assembled Rhyton with SeiTang (ex-Psychic Ills) and Herbst (ex-Matta Llama, Messages) and the results appeared on an eponymous Thrill Jockey debut. "The Emerald Tablet" is the follow up, and presents a decidedly more free angle on the Rhyton chalice, fitting well within both Three Lobed Recordings painstaking documentation of contemporary psych and outsider music and Divide By Zeros emergence within that same sphere.
The three pieces on "The Emerald Tablet" are improvised and wide-open, though they hew closely to rhythms and modes derived from North African and Middle Eastern musics and the dusky textures inherent in Shufords electric mandolin (the previous disc featured saz and baritone guitar). Like the bastard child of John Cipollina and Rudolph Grey, Shuford unspools incredible midrange fantasias, chunky and feedback-drenched but equally dexterous and graceful. Though the guitar isnt present on this album, Rhytons connection to guitar-driven ensembles and a timeless stew of folk forms is quite strong. The closing piece, Trismegistus sto Smaragda, is a perfect example of this and probably one of the most intriguing contemporary electric string improvisations youre likely to hear. Thin wires snake out over a loping, gently swinging rhythm, Shuford adding layers of clouds and grime but haltingly so, retaining sparseness and reticence. Herbst and SeiTang begin to weave a taut backbeat as plinks and inverted strums layer and dissipate, eking out bluesy asides before a dark, gnashing quality emerges. But the construction of this solo is too fragmentary and odd to be held to some sort of pyrotechnic measuring device its the kind of playing that, one can hope, will be studied by those who know not in order to imitate, but as an example of another creative step taken exploring the rock idiom. . . . . "
- Three Lobed Recordings - Emusic
Stephan Mathieu - Coda (For WK)
-"The new CD-EP (clocking in at 20 minutes exactly) from Stephan Mathieu is a coda to A Static Place (2011, 12k), created with his highly focused setup of two mechanical-acoustic gramophones and computer. Coda (For WK) is dedicated to the legendary quiet pianist Wilhelm Kempff, whose 1927 recordings of Beethovens Piano Sonata No. 26 Les Adieux from a double 12 78RPM set on Brunswick were used as input for an autogenerative process. Mathieus process emphasizes the archaic beauty and texture of this early media while using the original tones for the body of this rich extended work that is both hypnotic and grainy; a journey into the essence of sound that can be appreciated on many levels.
Mathieu has made this gramophone and computer setup a constant factor for his signature process of late and the work he produces becomes more deep and personalized with each release. The echoes of the past can be heard in these ghostly compositions and Mathieus love for not only the process but the original music is clearly seen in his passion for the work.
Coda (For WK) was first released by Minority Records on the vinyl version of A Static Place in an edition of 155 copies. 12k is presenting it here on CD, packaged in a sleeve that echoes the designs of the era that gave birth to this music."
- 12k
Stephan Mathieu, born October 11.1967, is a musician and sound artist based in Saarbrücken, Germany
- "Im a self taught composer and performer of my own music, working in the fields of electroacoustics and abstract digitala. My sound is largely based on early instruments, environmental sound and obsolete media, which are recorded and transformed by means of experimental microphony, re-editing techniques and software processes involving spectral analysis and convolution; it has been compared to the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, the work of Colorfield artists Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Ellsworth Kelly.
During the last decade my music has been released on 30 vinyl records and CDs. Apart from refining my solo work, I currently collaborate with Robert Hampson /Main, Tashi Wada, Sylvain Chauveau, Taylor Deupree and David Sylvian in live and studio projects.
Since 1992 I performed live in solo shows and on festivals all over Europe, Scandinavia, North and South America and created various audio installations for galleries and museums, a glass-blowing factory, a 17th century garden, Berlin Mitte, a 19th century steel plant, parks, an arrangement of 30 Peugeots, a late antique throne hall and several other unique sites.
Im a collector of 78rpm records from the 1910s and 20s, the era of acoustic and early electronic audio recording. I love the way they transport sound."
- http://www.bitsteam.de/wp/
PRESS RELEASE:
- The cyanometer is a circular measuring instrument made from graduating shades of blue, originally created as means to measure the blueness of the sky. It was invented in the late 1700s by Horace Benedict de Saussore to assist his studies and fascination with the sky. He correctly supposed that the level of blueness visible in the sky was as a result of the amount of suspended particles present in the atmosphere. In recent times, not much has been written about cyanometry and a quick scour of the internet will yield you little in the way of further reading.
It was on a particularly crisp blue day, the sort that would have had Saussore engaged, cyanometer at the ready when Harry Towell (Spheruleus) happened upon the concept for his latest project. He embarked on a long walk through the surrounding countryside in Lincolnshire, UK with the intention of drawing inspiration for a new body of work. He had hoped that the quiet farmland, trees, fields and electricity pylons would provide the spark required to propell his work with sound yet on that day, it was the sky that fixated him and thus Cyanometry was born.
Back in the studio, Harry set about weaving his collection of acoustic instruments into his usual style of rustic melancholy. Inspired and fresh from his walk with a theme in mind, he allowed the resulting lo-fi sounds to retain their melodic properties and set them against a backdrop of noise, radio interference and vinyl crackle. Field recordings taken during the walk and at other locations filter into the mix; an old lady pushes her trolley through the backstreets of a sleepy village, ice cracks under foot on a cold morning and the cogs and gears of a bicycle turn, all the while permeated by fragments of forgotten radio broadcasts. The final stage of the recording process saw Harry team up with work colleague and piano owner Neil Winning to round off this set of short recordings with an additional element. After a short period of tweaking, the final outcome was married with track titles to reflect the varying moods of the sky.
For those new to the Spheruleus sound, Lincolnshire (UK) based artist Harry Towell has been releasing experimental material since 2008 on labels such as Hibernate, Under The Spire, Time Released Sound and most recently a collaboration with Ekca Liena on Home Normal. When he is not manipulating frequencies whether acoustic or otherwise, Harry spends his spare time curating netlabel Audio Gourmet and now its new sister label Tessellate Recordings.
- http://tessellate-recordings.com/
Parallel paths
by Cello+Laptop (Edu Comelles & Sara Gal
(click on the "MP3 download" link, not the "free download" button for some reason.)
- "Special 12 featuring new versions of the track Fa, taken from the debut Fennesz solo album Hotel Paral.lel (1997). 15 years after its initial release, Christian Fennesz gives this throbbing monster of a track a new seeing to, extending it and adding more of that magic he is so well known for. The album was always an exercise in exploring alternate means of hearing club based music. This new version carries that concept further.
This is backed by a cracking new mix by the ever productive Mark Fell, adding his unique beat structures, and even a MLK sample, which lends his contemporary rhythmic landscape a odd nostalgic twist.
This 12 can be seen as a warm up for the new Fennesz album, which is currently scheduled for 2013 release."
- Editions Mego
http://www.hiddenorchestra.com/
- "Erlik Khan is the god of death and underworld in Turkish and Mongolian mythology.This collaboration between Turkish experimental genre-hopper and multi-media artist Erdem Helvacioglu and Brooklyn, NY contextualizer Bruce Tovsky is a truly otherworldly experience.
Featuring two prickly longform works fusing GuitarViol (a hybrid stringed instrument), lap steel, random acoustics, and processed electronics into a colorful, polyglot stew, the enigmatic duo forge dense, dark, quivering soundscapes that recall nothing less than Thomas Koner, Shinjuku Thief, & Lull's isolationist climes skyrocketing through the improvisational smears first championed by the likes of AMM and Zbigniew Karkowski. Erlik Khan is also the first recording of its kind to combine electric lapsteel and guitarviol with live electronics, an aural hybrid navigating various sonic eddies and frequency-intensive night terrors."
- €music
- "Erdem Helvacioglu is one of the most renowned contemporary composers of his generation in Turkey. His music has been called “revolutionary,” “groundbreaking,” “luscious and unique,” and “completely arresting and disarmingly beautiful.” He has received awards from the Luigi Russolo, MUSICA NOVA, Insulae Electronicae Electroacoustic Music Competitions and has been commissioned by numerous organizations, from the 2006 World Soccer Championship to the Bang on a Can-All Stars. Helvacioglu is also actively involved in composing for films, multimedia productions, contemporary dance and theatre. He won the “Best Original Soundtrack” award in the 2006 Mostramundo Film Festival, and his film scores have been heard at Cannes, Sarajevo, Locarno, Seoul, Sao Paulo, and Sydney film festivals. Ulrich Mertin’s musical activities cover a wide swath, from classical and contemporary to electronic and club music. He graduated from the esteemed “Hanns Eisler Academy for Music“ in Berlin, Germany, and has worked with composers like Pierre Boulez, György Kurtag, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Brian Ferneyhough and with groups like Ensemble Modern and musikFabrik. With his award-winning Hezarfen Ensemble (the leading contemporary music ensemble of Turkey) he has been influencing and enlarging the Turkish contemporary scene for several years.
- Innova Recordings
Bruce Tovsky:
Offthesky is keeping up his industrious release schedule. This one has violin.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
Out Oct 16.
Ametsub - All is Silence
Not brand new, but I just found out it was out. His last album, The Nothings of the North was very good.
- "The Expanding Universe is the classic 1980 debut album by composer and computer music pioneer Laurie Spiegel. The album is reissued here for the first time in a massively expanded two-CD set, containing all four original album tracks plus an additional 15 tracks from the same period, nearly all previously unreleased. Some of the already well-know works included in this set are "Patchwork", the complete "Appalachian Grove" series, and "Kepler's Harmony of the Worlds", which was included on the golden record launched on board the Voyager spacecraft. The pieces comprising The Expanding Universe combine slowly evolving textures with the emotional richness of intricate counterpoint, harmony, and complex rhythms (John Fahey and J. S. Bach are both cited as major influences in the original cover's notes), all built of electronic sounds. These works, often grouped with those of Terry Riley, Phil Glass, Steve Reich, differ in their much shorter, clear forms. Composed and realized between 1974 and 1977 on the GROOVE system developed by Max Mathews and F.R. Moore at Bell Laboratories, the pieces on this album were far ahead of their time both in musical content and in how they were made. Each of the included works broke new ground, pioneering completely new methods of live interaction with computer-based logic - ways of creating music that are now reaching the heights of their popularity with Ableton Live, Max/MSP and other interactive music software entering mainstream music production."
Unseen World - Emusic - http://retiary.org/ls/
Wiki biography:
- "Gilded brings together the similar but distinct musical directions of West Australian experimental musicians Matt Rösner and Adam Trainer, forging a new approach to composition and sound creation that is based as much around rhythm and repetition as it is around drone and abstraction.
The title of Gildeds debut album Terrane comes from a geological formation that has become dislocated from its original position and sutured onto a new landscape. It retains its own distinctive form and contrasts against those around it, whilst also finding a new place, a new home. The compositions that make up this record strike at the heart of how it feels to be in a period of transition, of watching a subtle change, a shift in texture. There are moments of quietude and reflection held together by the austere and alternately punctuated by shifts toward the uplifting and revelatory. Terrane deftly operates around the intersections of melody and texture, movement and pause."
Ghedalia Tazartes - Repas Froid
- "An extraordinary combination of culled found and taped fragments juxtaposed against drums, field recordings and mystery noises, sound loops, birdsong, keyboards and emanations of his own throaty drones and voice propelled by hypnotic, ritualistic rhythms balanced on a razor sharp edge.
This is the complete work of Repas Froid; previously released on cd as brief tracks of source material and palette of various sounds. It includes archival and as of yet previously unreleased recordings from the late 1970s and early 1980s, strung together to form two long compositions."
"A French musician of Turkish parentage, Ghédalia Tazartès is an uncompromising character who defies categorization. Born 1947 in Paris, is one of France's most idiosyncratic talents. He has spent over 30 years within musical practice and experimentation, letting his musical work wander from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. Utilising magnetic tape recorders into a rough collage and loose ethno-instrumental mulch, he paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. He traces vague landscapes where the mitre of the white clown, the plumes of the sorcerer, the helmet of a cop and Parisian anhydride collide into polyphonic ceremonies."
- PAN
http://soundcloud.com/gwfaa/thinking
I know some of you are fans.
The Peggy Lee Band - "Invitation"
I've always had a thing for her music, the way it switches from the sublime to the chaotic. Her newest brings that equation to an even higher level. Just beautiful. An octet w/Lee's cello in the lead position. A mix of jazz, folk, and classical. Fans of Frisell or some of the music on Zorn's Tzadik label will take a shine to this.
I'm setting up an AAJ download of the day, and writing a review for my own site, too. Beautiful stuff.
You can stream it in advance of release date on Erased Tapes soundcloud page...
http://soundcloud.com/erasedtapes/sets/peter-broderick-these-walls-of-mine/
On first listen, I think it's pretty awful. All tracks have vocals, which I've always felt were a strong element of Broderick's albums when he used them sparingly (think of the way his voice sound both startling and comforting when it breaks out on Float's "Another Glacier).
From the Erased Tapes site... "An exploration from gospel and soul to spoken word, beatboxing and rap this is Peter at his most natural."
I'll give the album another shot down the road... I enjoy Broderick's music too much not too. But I fear this is one I'll avoid.
- "A collection of 5 songs and 4 instrumental pieces that explore equally - and simultaneously - spontaneous performance values, close compositional detail and extensive processing. Made out on the rocky coast of Maine with just a TV eye keeping tabs on a world skidding to hell in a handcart, all the basic work was done by MacLean and Cutler with Julie Thompson (voice) added later - alongside additional parts played by Frank Gross (bassoon), Michael Bierylo (laptop, samples, circuits) and Titus Abbot (bass clarinet and saxophone). These are complex, focused pieces, some highly rhythm-rooted - mostly at rapid bpm rates - generally wide open with a close receptivity to timbral nuance and non-linearity."
- ReR Megacorp
- http://www.smaclean.com/
Daniel Maze: bass, guitar, keyboards, electronics.
Bryan white: drums, percussion.
Dave Zeal: trumpet, drums on “Revenge of the cosmic debris”.
Jerry Cromwell: bulbul tarang, tape effects.
- "Walltapper (Daniel Maze) born in 1980 is a Canadian producer of Vancouver known to approach composition by means of very different styles in a very personal way. We know of Daniel immediately because of his releases on numerous netlabels such as Test-tube, 12rec and of course EKO (Lifeguard ep ref. 013) and SKM (Skuba ref. 011). Emotional, experimental, deep and pop, the words fail us to define his whole discography, we can say however that Daniel has no particular limits and always pushes the boundaries of his compositions by concentrating on textures, energy and melody.
His new album Monaco (SEM 017) confirms this eclecticism delivering an album mixing trip-hop jazz, experimentations and very groovy drums-beats."
http://semlabel.com/walltapper/ - Emusic
Emeralds - Just to Feel Anything
Out today on Amazon, new full length. No sign of it on emusic yet (but it's $6.23 at Amazon so I wonder how much the saving will be, if any; most recent Editions Mego releases have been $5.99 there). Blurb at Boomkat.