Many thanks, Brighternow. I bought all three of his Touch releases and am also considering using the article here when I teach my German culture course this fall.
- You're most welcome . . .
I also bought vol. 1 from Touch for 4,49 GBP:
- This is a tad more bizzarre than vol. 2, but not unexpected since it's featuring JG Thirlwell (aka. Foetus, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel and Clint Ruin)) and the "broken music" wizard Milan Knizhak (there's a post about him @ Ubuweb Goodies.
@ jonahpwll:
I could'nt find Hauschka @ the Serein page ?
- Personally I can''t wait for Huw Roberts & Otto Totland's forthcoming Nest release . . .
@Brighternow, that's actually a little odd, because I paid GBP 3.74. I also have the feeling that before I created an account and told them where I was the price said GBP 4.00. Seems like maybe they have regionally variable pricing?
@Brighternow
Careful with that offthesky release, Subtle Trees - it's a reissue of a netlabel release, and can still be downloaded free (e.g. here). Comparing my copy to the emusic page (where it is $7.10) the track listing seems identical. (I also find the original artwork far superior). Here's another new one from Jason (described by one reviewer as "Compositionally so solid you could use it to survive in space."):
(I think I may have posted it a short while back to the bandcamp thread)
There's another new one coming in the fall on Anticipate - he's been busy!
SPEKK is proud to announce the release of British composer and installation artist Janek Schaefer, The British Composer of the Year (Sonic Art 2008), Prix Ars Electronica winner (2004) etc.
Close your eyes, we are engulfed by an ethereal tapestry of invisible radio and sound pressure waves. Phoenix and Phaedra is a live concert composition, performed by using an immersive sound system in combination with a short range radio transmitter, which broadcasts to a collection of small hand held radios given out to the audience. Performed out of sight at the back of the concert hall, the spectacle of the performer is removed, leaving a pure sonic-cinema experience. The composition weaves together foundsound textures, spatial sonorities, and the Shruti Box, an Indian drone instrument, which plays a central role with it's lulling and engulfing energies. I wrote the work to celebrate the arrival of my new born son Phoenix, and is dedicated to him". (text by Janek Schaefer)
There's a really useful article here at The Silent Ballet previewing a long list of experimental, modern composition, ambient, electronic, and post-this that and the other releases that are due to appear this fall.
Link = soundcloud preview of the track Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears. The album, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, by Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid) and Dustin O'Halloran (and also featuring Peter Broderick and Hildur Gu
For the experimentally minded, with a dash of Shakespeare. Due to be available for download Sept 26, this was rated "miss this at your peril" in a review at The Silent Ballet & album of the month bat Textura, and does indeed sound quite interesting (if perhaps a tad dark) from the preview clips:
FareWell Poetry ~ Waiting for the Invisible to Ignite
"Instrumental musician and experimental composer Sean Smith conjures fire and sweat, dew and ash through his medium - the guitar. From his Bay Area locale, Smith has been elevating the language of the acoustic steel string and exploring volume-shredding electric excursions concurrently for the better part of the last decade, forging a tightrope-walking hybridization of two seemingly disparate worlds into one highly complex and compelling sonic vision. Smith claims four solo steel string albums to his name . . . . ."
- More @ Strange Attractors Audio House
- Sean Smith is new to me but the previews @ Sean's website sounds just amazing !
Well, well. A band called 1 Mile North released a near-perfect album a few years back (somewhat in the vein of Labradford, at the dreamy end of post-rock - the first track is one of the best tracks I've heard) and then disappeared. They let their website lapse, set up a facebook page but don't post on it or appear to reply to posts. Then suddenly, with no announcement anywhere I can find and no information anywhere I can find, a new album pops up on emusic:
It appears to be in the collection-of-old-leftover-recordings genre, but perhaps it signals the continuing existence of the band? Hope so. Either that or their record company just burped. If the latter, then at least it also means that their debut album also just got added to emusic (and sounds very good).
"The new MC Maguire CD, Nothing left to Destroy, is the follow up to Trash of Civilizations (2009) and Meta-Conspiracy (2007). Once again up to 300 tracks of CPU [thats Central Processor Unit to non-computer folk] mayhem, subterfuge, chicanery, skullduggery, and a smidgen of jiggery-pokery are pitted against a virtuosic live soloist, in a to-death-do-us-part showdown. The overall effect is electro-acoustic, ethno-death-metal, versus environmental, classical-fusion-electronica in a UFC cage [not John-] match.
The first piece is a Violin Concerto featuring the musical wunderkind, Ben Bowman. Mr. Bowman soars, bops and weaves over an alternately ominous and ecstatic shrinking/claustrophobic CPU landscape which consists of all things Chinese (including a famous ancient Chinese melody as the cantus firmus). It eventually morphs into the tragic irony of 70s, western, 4 on the floor, disco. In the end its a melancholic commentary on western hegemony.
The second work is a Flute Concerto, featuring the seasoned, uber-virtuoso, Doug Stewart. He nimbly leaps, dodges, and swirls around three mashed George Gershwin songs in a quasi, dirty-thirties dream world. The real raison dêtre of this piece is its hell bent on blurring the numbers 2 and 3 in a beyond-human range of tempos.
MC Maguire is a Toronto based electro-acoustic manipulator who has worked in every medium and genre as a composer/producer/engineer."
- Innova 2011 - MC Maguire Biography
"The Jayhawks have finally set a release date for Mockingbird Time, the first LP recorded with the classic Gary Louris and Mark Olson-led line-up since 1995's Tomorrow The Green Grass. It hits shelves on September 20th. Check out an exclusive video preview of the LP."Link
<p>- Brand new stuff from New World Records:</p><p><a href="http://www.emusic.com/album/-/-/12805400/"><img class="image-square" alt="Chris Brown: Iconicities album cover" src="http://cf-images.emusic.com/music/images/album/128/054/12805400/600x600.jpg"> </a></p><p>- From the linernotes @ New World: Chris Brown
- "(born in 1953), a composer, pianist, and electronic musician, is best known for his
music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics. Collaboration and improvisation are
consistent themes in his work, as well as the invention of and performance with new electronic
instruments. These range from electro-acoustic instruments (Gazamba, 1982), to acoustic
instrument transformation systems (Lava, 1992), and audience-interactive FM radio installations
(Transmissions, 2004). He also writes interactive music software that he uses in his compositions
and improvisations. He has been a member for more than 20 years of the computer network
music band THE HUB. Recent works also explore alternative tuning systems. Other recordings of
his music are available on the Tzadik, Pogus, Ecstatic Peace, Intakt, Rastascan, Red Toucan,
SIRR, and Artifact labels. He is a Professor of Music at Mills College in Oakland, California,
where he is also Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM)."
William Winant: - "Percussionist, has performed with some of the most innovative and creative
musicians of our time. He has made more than 200 recordings in a wide variety of genres,
including classical, avant-garde, free improvisation, and rock. Mr. Winant has premiered many
new works written specifically for him by such noted composers as John Cage, Christian Wolff,
Lou Harrison, John Zorn, Roscoe Mitchell, Alvin Lucier, and Terry Riley. He is principal
percussionist with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and teaches at the University
of California at Santa Cruz, as well as at Mills College.</p>
Almost new and certainly notable from the German label Ahornfelder:
"German artist Burkhard Friedrich has previously worked with opera and a sense of the operatic informs his latest multi-media production Citta Utopica. Even without the visual component theres a sense of textural density and full-spectrum coverage, Friedrich treating the various sonic layers much like theatrical elements, ensuring full dynamic range is reached, thoroughly, but patiently. The single 55 minute piece is part drone, part electro-acoustic montage, a rich, multi-tiered mysterious ocean of sound, which works wonderfully as blind abstract audio procession.
After a portentous rumble, akin to pitched down aircraft engines, bursts of static start to intrude, alongside twinkling runs of dinky synthetic chimes. These return throughout the recording, either as trebly jazzy keyboard riffs or as repetitive warning tones, or somewhere between the two. We also get clunky organ stabs, spacey synth sweeps and blasts, gasping accordion-like wheezes and chattering metallic clinks, high, low and in-between, well-spaced, measured, resistant to clutter. This latter detail is Friedrichs real achievement, as it would be all too easy to switch into overdrive, letting the wacky-tabacky take charge and the music to froth into a molten mess. Instead we get the dying gasps of his Casio collection, well tempered and remarkably articulate for such hoarse-throated creatures."
- Joshua Meggitt @ Cyclic Defrost
Fourcolor is the solo project of Keiichi Sugimoto (Minamo, Filfla) and should be well known to the 12k audience with his two previous releases, Air Curtain (2004) and Letter of Sounds (2006) both highly regarded and now out of print, which established him as one of the labels leading roster figures.
As Pleat takes the familiar sound of Fourcolor and explores some subtle new sonic territory. Its as tonal and warm as always but he expands on his style by including more fractured, accidental sounds and an obvious growth in experience and talent. What makes Fourcolors music so engaging is how Sugimoto manages to coax a lovely spectrum of sounds from his guitar without it ever sounding too over-processed or digital. From bubbling, low bass that provides a foundation to woven harmonies, pulses, and shimmers, there is a rich palette of sounds created. Add in a bit of careful, jittery skip-editing and implied rhythms and a groove starts to emerge from the ambience. Hints of his poppier Filfla project also come into play once again as Fourcolor brings in some guest-vocals courtesy of Sanae Yamasaki (aka Moskitoo) who lends her angelic voice to Quiet Gray 1 and Iris (Familiar) adding further dimension to the works.
As Pleat is unquestionably Fourcolor, but there is a pillow-like quality to the sound, a softness that plays beautifully off of the more organic edits and sharper plucks that all combines to create the most engaging Fourcolor album to date."
Escuse me if these not-exactly-new releases have already been mentioned....but I just noticed this Capitol Jazz Vaults Series over at Amazon. Released over the summer, these seem to cover the same ground as some of the Mosaic box sets, notably including otherwise OOP albums by Bobby Hutcherson and Don Pullen. Pricing is good, in the range of $3-5 per disc. They seem to be DL only, not avail on CD (or on eMu).
- Posted elsewhere before, however:
Part 3 of the Seasons series from Serein has been released. (Colorlist was the first, Donato Wharton the second)
Nest - Body Pilot
"Nest is Huw Roberts (Wales, Serein label owner) and Otto Totland (Norway, of Deaf Center fame). They have crafted a unique combination of acoustic piano and electronic 'sample manipulation' with additional field recordings.
There are quite a lot of releases in this musical area, crossing over electronic sound art with acoustic post-classical romanticism - but what distinguishes Nest from a lot of other contemporary artist is their ability to create a delicate balance. Their music is sweet - but never too sweet.
To illustrate this: the opening track 'Stillness', with its quiet introvert piano theme, is quite different from Koretz's Meteor, which is mainly electronic and starts with a a SF-like tension that is almost threatening.
Roberts and Totland are not only mastering delicate balance, but also 'restraint': the piano parts are effective but modest, and the release only clocks 20 minutes (four tracks).
This may be the only downlside if this release: however fine they are, these delicate 20 minutes only leave us wanting for more.
So let's hope that it won't take another five years to see the next Nest release!"
- Ambientblog.net.
- As freshly ripped @ Emusic as it possibly can be:
"Those Who Didn't Run EP is an amazing addition to what will no doubt be an expanding Colin Stetson discography in coming years; a wonderfully-realised portrait of Colin's solo playing before he embarks on a year's worth of touring as part of Bon Iver's live band."
Not released digitally yet, but CD and samples already up at Boomkat.
Carsten Nicolai is hardly a slouch in terms of his release frequency, but it feels like a rare treat to hear the Raster Noton boss exploring the jerky rhythmic variations he does so well. Univrs is a followup to 2008s Unitxt, and has an equally lofty and academic sidestory, but we dont really need to go into that. The fact is that this might be Carstens best full-length since the genre-numbing Transform back in 2001. Yep, ten years ago and while hes had some cracking releases since, few seem as perfectly crafted and dangerous as this.
Recorded live in concert at the South Pasadena Conservatory of Music by Giovanni Di Simone, February 20th, 2010.
Don Preston: piano, acoustic bass, electronics, mini moog
Andrea Centazzo: gongs, cymbals, drums, mallet kat
"Former Frank Zappa pianist Don Preston and composer/improviser Andrea Centazzo play improvised music recorded live in concert, mostly based on a peculiar use of electronics and a fierce mix of double bass, piano, keyboards and percussion playing."
-Ictus Records. http://www.andreacentazzo.com/ http://www.united-mutations.com/p/don_preston.htm
"Quite unannounced, this offering from Tim Hecker on hallowed, all-things-ethereal-music label, Kranky, was in fact the pre-cursor treatment to the highly-lauded, 'Ravedeath, 1972' album. In essence, this is isn't a 'Tim Hecker' album as such, but a 'sketch-pad' insight into the very core of the workings of what then became, 'Ravedeath...'. Minimal in nature, but just as absorbing and compelling a release as his most revered work."
- Bleep Newsletter.
Comments
I also bought vol. 1 from Touch for 4,49 GBP:
- This is a tad more bizzarre than vol. 2, but not unexpected since it's featuring JG Thirlwell (aka. Foetus, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel and Clint Ruin)) and the "broken music" wizard Milan Knizhak (there's a post about him @ Ubuweb Goodies.
@ jonahpwll:
I could'nt find Hauschka @ the Serein page ?
- Personally I can''t wait for Huw Roberts & Otto Totland's forthcoming Nest release . . .
Yeah, odd indeed.
- A new label showed up @ eMu today: Nomadic Kids Republic:
Off The Sky - Subtle Trees
Ten And Tracer - Friendless Now
Careful with that offthesky release, Subtle Trees - it's a reissue of a netlabel release, and can still be downloaded free (e.g. here). Comparing my copy to the emusic page (where it is $7.10) the track listing seems identical. (I also find the original artwork far superior). Here's another new one from Jason (described by one reviewer as "Compositionally so solid you could use it to survive in space."):
(I think I may have posted it a short while back to the bandcamp thread)
There's another new one coming in the fall on Anticipate - he's been busy!
Thomas Lehn & Marcus Schmickler - Live Double S
- Youtube.
Link = soundcloud preview of the track Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears. The album, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, by Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid) and Dustin O'Halloran (and also featuring Peter Broderick and Hildur Gu
FareWell Poetry ~ Waiting for the Invisible to Ignite
Sean Smith - Huge Fluid Freedom
"Instrumental musician and experimental composer Sean Smith conjures fire and sweat, dew and ash through his medium - the guitar. From his Bay Area locale, Smith has been elevating the language of the acoustic steel string and exploring volume-shredding electric excursions concurrently for the better part of the last decade, forging a tightrope-walking hybridization of two seemingly disparate worlds into one highly complex and compelling sonic vision. Smith claims four solo steel string albums to his name . . . . ."
- More @ Strange Attractors Audio House
- Sean Smith is new to me but the previews @ Sean's website sounds just amazing !
It appears to be in the collection-of-old-leftover-recordings genre, but perhaps it signals the continuing existence of the band? Hope so. Either that or their record company just burped. If the latter, then at least it also means that their debut album also just got added to emusic (and sounds very good).
"The new MC Maguire CD, Nothing left to Destroy, is the follow up to Trash of Civilizations (2009) and Meta-Conspiracy (2007). Once again up to 300 tracks of CPU [thats Central Processor Unit to non-computer folk] mayhem, subterfuge, chicanery, skullduggery, and a smidgen of jiggery-pokery are pitted against a virtuosic live soloist, in a to-death-do-us-part showdown. The overall effect is electro-acoustic, ethno-death-metal, versus environmental, classical-fusion-electronica in a UFC cage [not John-] match.
The first piece is a Violin Concerto featuring the musical wunderkind, Ben Bowman. Mr. Bowman soars, bops and weaves over an alternately ominous and ecstatic shrinking/claustrophobic CPU landscape which consists of all things Chinese (including a famous ancient Chinese melody as the cantus firmus). It eventually morphs into the tragic irony of 70s, western, 4 on the floor, disco. In the end its a melancholic commentary on western hegemony.
The second work is a Flute Concerto, featuring the seasoned, uber-virtuoso, Doug Stewart. He nimbly leaps, dodges, and swirls around three mashed George Gershwin songs in a quasi, dirty-thirties dream world. The real raison dêtre of this piece is its hell bent on blurring the numbers 2 and 3 in a beyond-human range of tempos.
MC Maguire is a Toronto based electro-acoustic manipulator who has worked in every medium and genre as a composer/producer/engineer."
- Innova 2011 - MC Maguire Biography
- My two cents: WOW !
"The Jayhawks have finally set a release date for Mockingbird Time, the first LP recorded with the classic Gary Louris and Mark Olson-led line-up since 1995's Tomorrow The Green Grass. It hits shelves on September 20th. Check out an exclusive video preview of the LP." Link
Chris Brown
- "(born in 1953), a composer, pianist, and electronic musician, is best known for his
music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics. Collaboration and improvisation are
consistent themes in his work, as well as the invention of and performance with new electronic
instruments. These range from electro-acoustic instruments (Gazamba, 1982), to acoustic
instrument transformation systems (Lava, 1992), and audience-interactive FM radio installations
(Transmissions, 2004). He also writes interactive music software that he uses in his compositions
and improvisations. He has been a member for more than 20 years of the computer network
music band THE HUB. Recent works also explore alternative tuning systems. Other recordings of
his music are available on the Tzadik, Pogus, Ecstatic Peace, Intakt, Rastascan, Red Toucan,
SIRR, and Artifact labels. He is a Professor of Music at Mills College in Oakland, California,
where he is also Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM)."
William Winant:
- "Percussionist, has performed with some of the most innovative and creative
musicians of our time. He has made more than 200 recordings in a wide variety of genres,
including classical, avant-garde, free improvisation, and rock. Mr. Winant has premiered many
new works written specifically for him by such noted composers as John Cage, Christian Wolff,
Lou Harrison, John Zorn, Roscoe Mitchell, Alvin Lucier, and Terry Riley. He is principal
percussionist with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and teaches at the University
of California at Santa Cruz, as well as at Mills College.</p>
"German artist Burkhard Friedrich has previously worked with opera and a sense of the operatic informs his latest multi-media production Citta Utopica. Even without the visual component theres a sense of textural density and full-spectrum coverage, Friedrich treating the various sonic layers much like theatrical elements, ensuring full dynamic range is reached, thoroughly, but patiently. The single 55 minute piece is part drone, part electro-acoustic montage, a rich, multi-tiered mysterious ocean of sound, which works wonderfully as blind abstract audio procession.
After a portentous rumble, akin to pitched down aircraft engines, bursts of static start to intrude, alongside twinkling runs of dinky synthetic chimes. These return throughout the recording, either as trebly jazzy keyboard riffs or as repetitive warning tones, or somewhere between the two. We also get clunky organ stabs, spacey synth sweeps and blasts, gasping accordion-like wheezes and chattering metallic clinks, high, low and in-between, well-spaced, measured, resistant to clutter. This latter detail is Friedrichs real achievement, as it would be all too easy to switch into overdrive, letting the wacky-tabacky take charge and the music to froth into a molten mess. Instead we get the dying gasps of his Casio collection, well tempered and remarkably articulate for such hoarse-throated creatures."
- Joshua Meggitt @ Cyclic Defrost
Fourcolor is the solo project of Keiichi Sugimoto (Minamo, Filfla) and should be well known to the 12k audience with his two previous releases, Air Curtain (2004) and Letter of Sounds (2006) both highly regarded and now out of print, which established him as one of the labels leading roster figures.
As Pleat takes the familiar sound of Fourcolor and explores some subtle new sonic territory. Its as tonal and warm as always but he expands on his style by including more fractured, accidental sounds and an obvious growth in experience and talent. What makes Fourcolors music so engaging is how Sugimoto manages to coax a lovely spectrum of sounds from his guitar without it ever sounding too over-processed or digital. From bubbling, low bass that provides a foundation to woven harmonies, pulses, and shimmers, there is a rich palette of sounds created. Add in a bit of careful, jittery skip-editing and implied rhythms and a groove starts to emerge from the ambience. Hints of his poppier Filfla project also come into play once again as Fourcolor brings in some guest-vocals courtesy of Sanae Yamasaki (aka Moskitoo) who lends her angelic voice to Quiet Gray 1 and Iris (Familiar) adding further dimension to the works.
As Pleat is unquestionably Fourcolor, but there is a pillow-like quality to the sound, a softness that plays beautifully off of the more organic edits and sharper plucks that all combines to create the most engaging Fourcolor album to date."
- As Pleat Microsite.
"Volker Bertelmann and Hildur Gu
Part 3 of the Seasons series from Serein has been released. (Colorlist was the first, Donato Wharton the second)
Nest - Body Pilot
"Nest is Huw Roberts (Wales, Serein label owner) and Otto Totland (Norway, of Deaf Center fame). They have crafted a unique combination of acoustic piano and electronic 'sample manipulation' with additional field recordings.
There are quite a lot of releases in this musical area, crossing over electronic sound art with acoustic post-classical romanticism - but what distinguishes Nest from a lot of other contemporary artist is their ability to create a delicate balance. Their music is sweet - but never too sweet.
To illustrate this: the opening track 'Stillness', with its quiet introvert piano theme, is quite different from Koretz's Meteor, which is mainly electronic and starts with a a SF-like tension that is almost threatening.
Roberts and Totland are not only mastering delicate balance, but also 'restraint': the piano parts are effective but modest, and the release only clocks 20 minutes (four tracks).
This may be the only downlside if this release: however fine they are, these delicate 20 minutes only leave us wanting for more.
So let's hope that it won't take another five years to see the next Nest release!"
- Ambientblog.net.
- Also available from Serein and streaming from Soundcloud.
"Those Who Didn't Run EP is an amazing addition to what will no doubt be an expanding Colin Stetson discography in coming years; a wonderfully-realised portrait of Colin's solo playing before he embarks on a year's worth of touring as part of Bon Iver's live band."
- Much more: http://cstrecords.com/cst084/
Not released digitally yet, but CD and samples already up at Boomkat. Looking forward to getting this.
"Berlin-based pianist Nils Frahm is already a firebrand in the modern classical world, collaborating with contemporaries such as Peter Broderick,
Recorded live in concert at the South Pasadena Conservatory of Music by Giovanni Di Simone, February 20th, 2010.
Don Preston: piano, acoustic bass, electronics, mini moog
Andrea Centazzo: gongs, cymbals, drums, mallet kat
"Former Frank Zappa pianist Don Preston and composer/improviser Andrea Centazzo play improvised music recorded live in concert, mostly based on a peculiar use of electronics and a fierce mix of double bass, piano, keyboards and percussion playing."
-Ictus Records.
http://www.andreacentazzo.com/
http://www.united-mutations.com/p/don_preston.htm
Amute - Black Diamond Blues
"Amute is Belgian musician J
"Quite unannounced, this offering from Tim Hecker on hallowed, all-things-ethereal-music label, Kranky, was in fact the pre-cursor treatment to the highly-lauded, 'Ravedeath, 1972' album. In essence, this is isn't a 'Tim Hecker' album as such, but a 'sketch-pad' insight into the very core of the workings of what then became, 'Ravedeath...'. Minimal in nature, but just as absorbing and compelling a release as his most revered work."
- Bleep Newsletter.