- "Steeped in improvisational practice and known for their visceral live performances, the pair’s sound combines Javanese folk and ritual music with metal and psychedelic influences. Rully Shabara’s extended vocal techniques arc from guttural droning to frenetic chants and upper-register ululations, while Wukir Suryadi supplies dynamic instrumenta-tion using the bambuwukir, an amplified bamboo zither of his own invention. Menjadi (meaning ‘to become’) follows from the redose-3 containing “Di Kala Sudah” (reworked by Buchla synth master Charles Cohen) and is the first in a series of new Morphine releases pro-duced by Rabih Beaini and set to arrive over the next year, with artwork by Nathalie Du Pasquier, curated and designed by Tankboys."
Jogjakarta’s Senyawa embodies the aural elements of Javanese music whilst exploring the framework of experimental music practice, pushing the boundaries of both traditions. Their music strikes a perfect balance between their avant-garde influences and cultural heritage to create truly contemporary Indonesian new music. Their sound is comprised of Rully Shabara’s deft extended vocal techniques punctuating the frenetic sounds of instrument builder, Wukir Suryadi’s modern-primitive instrumentation. Inventions like his handcrafted ‘Bamboo Spear’; a thick stem of bamboo strung up with percussive strips of the animal skin along side steel strings. Amplified it fuses elements of traditional Indonesian instrumentation with garage guitar distortion. Sonically dynamic, the instrument can be rhythmically percussive on one side whilst being melodically bowed and plucked on the other. As a duo they have been performing and playing together extensively over the last 5 years and have toured Indonesia several times over. In 2011 they were invited to perform internationally for the first time at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival sharing the stage with many great musicians such as Faust, Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine. Since then they have gone on to perform at MONA FOMA Festival in Tasmania, the Adelaide Festival with Korean singer Bae Il Dong, toured as special guests of Australian supergroup Regurgitator, performed at the Glatt und Verkert Festival in Austria along side Japanese guitar master Kazuhisa Uchihashi, as well as the Malmo Sommarscen Festival in Sweden, Salihara Literature Festival in Jakarta, CTM Festival in Berlin, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Clandestino Festival in Norway and Oct Loft Jazz Festival in China. Senyawa was awarded a one month residency at AIR Krems as part of the Krems city wide festival in Austria where they were the star guests. They have collaborated and performed with many notable musicians such Yoshida Tatsuya, Lucas Abela, KK Null, Keiji Haino, Melt Banana, Jon Sass, Damo Suzuki, Jerome Cooper, David Shea and Kazu Ushihashi. In 2012 they completed a film in collaboration with French filmmaker Vincent Moon.
This album is a good example why not to draw any final conclusions about the most significant albums of any given year, before the year has actually ended.
This is so groundbreaking, innovative and utterly brilliant, that it should have ranked within the first 3 on my list.
'What Lies In The Sea' is the fruit of a ten year collaboration between singer Lynn Cassiers and keyboardist Jozef Dumoulin, and is the first release for their duo Lilly Joel. Both musicians are free spirits and true, much-lauded innovators in their respective fields.
-"Belgian singer Lynn Cassiers is as much a singer as she can be called a sound sculptor, using her voice, microphone, and electronics to create soundscapes. Pianist Jozef Dumoulin (Belgium) redefined the Fender Rhodes keyboard through a scope that is at the same time fully contemporary, eclectic and highly personal. This recording marks a milestone on their path as a band and crystalizes a moment in a universe that was carefully shaped and daringly explored. The music is straightforward, fresh and original - the focus never being the attempt to be part of some distinct genre, but only to be honest towards one's own place in a ever changing world. There are reminiscences of experimental music, jazz, rock, electro, pop, traditional music and contemporary classical music, which is totally normal considered who's at work here. Anyhow, all those influences are fully digested and serve as countless small bricks that are used to make a new big image, that stands on it own and can be watched as such."
Lynn Cassiers:
- "Quoted to be 'one of the most remarkable voices of our improvisation scene' (enola), Lynn Cassiers' universe is one that covers a wide diversity of styles. Lynn is recognizable by her songlike approach in contexts that can range from noise over ambient to free jazz. She's part of impro-rock band Tape Cuts Tape on the sides of ex-deus guitarist Rudy Trouvé and improv-jazz drummer Eric Thielemans, and also performs with her solo project 'The Bird, the Fis and the Ball'. Besides writing music for theatre and her various collaborations with great artists and ensembles such as Marshall Allen, Octurn and The Brussels Jazz Orchestra, she is a steady member in different bands on the actual music scene of Western Europe."
Jozef Dumoulin:
- "Known for his open and luminous approach to the piano and to music in general, always anchored in tradition without being burdened by it. Besides the Fender Rhodes solo, his own projects include The Red Hill Orchestra (a trio with Ellery Eskelin and Dan Weiss) and a duo with Benoît Delbecq. Highly-demanded as a sideman, Jozef Dumoulin has recorded and toured with the finest of musicians in the domain of jazz, improvised music, rock and traditional music. He currently lives in Paris."
- "Frank LAMBERT, also known as Falter BRAMNK, likes to performs a brand of Progressive rock music Chris CUTLER would have been proud of. His art can easily be put in the style of Rock In Opposition, such as defined by HENRY COW and ENSEMBLE NIMBUS, for instance. Falter BRAMNK plays MAISIE: its title says "Music Is A Fish Defrosted With A Hair Dryer" and the action is in full accordance with the usual hallucinated pop vein that shines and glitters in MAISIE's brooding improvisation, at the same time being a feedback signal wrapped in a game of high-resolution acoustic, electric or electronic movements among arrangements which seem to flow along the stereo channels like a dynamic stroke coming back to MAISIE without ever frustrating her capricious hastiness. Published in the year 2015 on the Gazul label, "Vagal" has been entirely produced and performed by Falter BRAMNK. The artist plays piano, organ, synthesizers, sampler, guitars, strings, percussions, electronics, soundscapes... Nothing less ! Not even mentioning his voice, of course. He is helped by guests on snare drum and saxophone, for the tracks "Time Factor" and "Abschaum". To be discovered !"
French composer, improvisor and sound designer, F. B. lives and works
in Lille (France). Musical education: studied piano and singing.
Activities: starts with music for theater, video art, then contemporary
dance and at present mainly short (fiction and animated) films. Plays and composes with live bands (currently the band Grand Orchestre de Muzzix), also live music with silent films and involved in multi-instruments solo projects and sound art (sound-portraits and phonographies). Co-founder of MUZZIX DJ on the radio show "Opposition de phase" on RCV.99.FM since 1998.
- Before Pan Sonic, there was Gagarin-Kombinaatti.
The first recordings from Mika Vainio’s early band Gagarin-Kombinaatti have been released on Finnish label Sähko:
Gagarin Kombinaatti was: Janne Koski: tape loops, radio, metalls Tapio Onnela: tools, metall smashing, radio Mika Vainio: drums, synthesizers, ore percussion Kari Wikström: synthesizers, drum machine
- "The recordings date back to the period between 1983 and 1985, when Vainio was working in a slaughterhouse and teamed up with Janne Koski and Tapio Onnela to form an industrial band. The 12-track 83-85 album was compiled from original cassette recordings, only one of which had been released until now – on a 2CD collection of Finnish avant-garde music. You can preview the 2LP and digital release over at Boomkat, and frankly it makes Throbbing Gristle and Einstürzende Neubauten sound like Spandau Ballet."
Amanda Palmer and her Grand Theft Orchestra collaborator Jherek Bischoff are among the many to be impacted by the death of David Bowie last month. To cope with the devastating loss, they've prepped an EP's worth of covers calledStrung Out in Heaven, which they release tomorrow (February 5).
A statement from Palmer explains that she and Bischoff had discussed the project shortly after Bowie's passing, with Palmer opting to fund the collection using her ongoing crowd-sourcing campaign through Patreon. The money is intended for Palmer to keep producing art, such as this covers project.
Of the impact of Bowie's music, Palmer explained:
"Music is the binding agent of our mundane lives. It cements the moments in which we wash the dishes, type the resumes, go to the funerals, have the babies. The stronger the agent, the tougher the memory, and Bowie was NASA-grade epoxy to a sprawling span of freaked-out kids over three generations. He bonded us to our weird selves. We can be us. He said. Just for one day."
The collection found Bischoff scripting string arrangements for various tracks pulled from Bowie's back catalogue. This includes classics like "Ashes to Ashes" — the collection takes its title from this song's lyrics — up to "Blackstar."
The pair also reached out to a few friends for help, with Anna Calvi adding to "Blackstar," Hedwig and the Angry Inch writer John Cameron Mitchell appearing on a pair of tracks, and Palmer's partner Neil Gaiman popping up on a modified "Space Oddity." You'll find the details in full down below.
A number of visual artists have also pitched in to produce pieces for the project: Cassandra Long ("Blackstar"), David Mack ("Ashes to Ashes"), Sarah Beetson ("Space Oddity" and the EP cover), Félix Marqués ("Life on Mars?"), HA-HA ("Helden"), and Bill Sienkiewicz ("Heroes").
The EP is streaming now, and goes on sale for $1 tomorrow through Bandcamp. Proceeds will be delivered to Bowie's publisher and towards cancer research at Tufts Medical Center.
- "German composer Nils Frahm has linked up with childhood friends Frederic Gmeiner & Sebastian Singwald to release “the gamble” Now going by the name nonkeen, the trio first met at primary school in a rural suburb of Hamburg. As kids, they would make their own radio shows on rudimentary tape machine, with Frahm and his friend Frederic Gmeiner joined by East German schoolboy Sebastian Singwald in the summer of 1989 when he came over the border on an exchange with his athletics team. Throughout the 90s they would send each other their recordings, meeting each summer to perform their own material. Much later, with all three living in Berlin, they resolved to pick up their instruments again and began recording long experimental sessions in Singwald’s basement, adding parts to some of their childhood recordings and sampling others. The band refused to practise songs or record multiple takes, but they would pick their favourite passages and bounce them to computer to stitch them together. After eight years they decided they had finally finished an album."
- "R&S throw a curveball our way with the debut recordings from nonkeen, the recording alias of long time friends Nils Frahm, Sebastian Singwald and Frederic Gmeiner. Titled The Gamble, this collaboration has laid forth a radiophonic mixture of dreamlike electro-acoustic instrumentation that has a startlingly familiar feel to it in the same way Boards Of Canada evokes memories of childhood. The tracks have a cinematic quality that blends influence and builds upon ideas laid down from film score techno, hazy guitar led drone and post-rock funk, fuzz 'n' drums, all committed to an array of tape machines. Nils has described The Gamble as the record of which his he is most proud, and we can confirm that its a peak in his endlessly fascinating discography. The Gamble is the sound of three highly skilled musicians who when combined craft out pieces of timeless music that map out new directions to explore while keeping a familiarity that's gonna be a huge appeal to anyone into Broadcast, Erased Tapes and Jon Hopkins."
released February 18, 2016 Shane Connolly - Drums Stevie Jones - Double bass Nerea Bello - Vocals Alex South - Bass Clarinet Rafe Fitzpatrick - Violin Peter Nicholson - Cello Ross McCrae - trombone Daniel Padden - piano, guitars, vocals and everything else
An excellent new album from a truely fascinating artist:
Pierre Bastien - Blue As an Orange
"French composer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre Bastien delivers the latest entry into Morphine’s increasingly diverse catalog. Active for over four decades, Bastien is best known for building automated orchestras, and his most recent LP, Machinations, was released on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label in 2012. For this latest work, Bastien recycled components of his Silent Motors live set and assembled new mechanical organisms using amplified Meccano parts, motors, fans, rattles, paper, and nails to generate rhythmic scaffolding. Live instrumentals, from prepared trumpets to the African Kundi harp, Javanese rabab, sanza, electric harpsichord, bass, drums, and gongs, were then superimposed on top. But for all their haptic mechanics, the assembled works on Blue As An Orange spanning jungled ambience to yellow jazz grooves are surprisingly delicate and nuanced, and generously lanced with human warmth. As an installation artist, Bastien also captures shifting patterns of light and spatial texture in sound. The LP takes its name from Paul Eluard’s poem, “La terre est bleue,” and offers a fresh symbiosis of speculative anthropology and old-world jazz."
-"Pierre Bastien (born Paris, 1953) post-graduated in eighteenth-century French literature at University Paris-Sorbonne. In 1977 he built his first musical machinery. For the next ten years he has been composing for dance companies and playing with Pascal Comelade. In the meantime he was constantly developing his mechanical orchestra. Since 1987 he concentrates on it through solo performances, sound installations, recordings and collaborations with such artists as Pierrick Sorin, Karel Doing, Jean Weinfeld, Robert Wyatt or Issey Miyake. The French composer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre Bastien played first in some collective bands (Operation Rhino, Nu Creative Methods, Effectifs de Profil), and with the Dominique Bagouet Dance Company.
Around 1986 he started participating in Pascal Comelade's Bel Canto Orquesta. At the same time he created - and literally built - his own orchestra called Mecanium : an ensemble of musical automatons constructed from meccano parts and activated by electro-motors, that are playing on acoustic instruments from all over the world.
" A composer's dream : a fail-safe orchestra at one's fingertips obeying ever so gently to his every command : a timeless sounding orchestra, both futuristic and slightly dada, conjuring ancient traditions in its surprisingly sensuous music. This is, in a nutshell what Pierre Bastien's "Mecanium" is all about, a daydream of sorts that he has successfully pursued since 1976. The musicians of his orchestra are machines. And the idea behind it is simple, efficient and poetic : to have traditional instruments (Chinese lute, Morrocan bendir, Javanese saron, koto, violin, sanza, etc.) played by a mechanical instrument made of meccano pieces and recycled turntable motors. These hybrid and self-playing sound sculptures perform a series of short pieces, charming and hypnotic. " In the nineties the mechanical orchestra developed up to 80 elements. It took part in music festivals and art exhibitions in Norway (World Music Days'90), Australia (Tisea'92), Japan (Artec'95), Canada (Fimav'95, Sound Symposium'98), Poland (Warsaw Autumn'95), United States (Flea Festival'96) In the recent years, Pierre Bastien and his machines collaborated with video artist Pierrick Sorin, fashion designer Issey Miyake, British singer and composer Robert Wyatt, Trottola circus company, musicians Alexei Aigi, Steve Arguelles and Phonophani. The most recent compositions were released on Western Vinyl and Rephlex."
LINE is happy to have artist Tomas Phillips return for his second LINE release since 2006’s haunting composition Intermission / Six Feuilles (LINE_029). Limit_Fold extends Tomas Phillips’s aesthetic of minimal through-composition that seeks a balance between electronic and acoustic sound sources and foregrounds active listening. Sparse koto notes and melodies interact with low end drones, digital, staccato flares, and abrupt string swells in a single 40 minute piece in which relative silence is given form. As in his previous work, central to the music’s ethos is the further juxtaposition of organic, meditative warmth and the immediacy of tension arising from small incursions into an otherwise soft, sonic palate; such tension that might be indicative of the sharper edges of interiority. The title draws inspiration from Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s essay “L’urgence et la patience” about the two ostensibly discordant but overlapping components of writing, or composing: the urgency to push against limits of time and capacity, and the patience that folds gently over on itself to bring a text to fruition."
- "Thomas Phillips (b. 1969) is a composer, novelist, and teacher whose sound work focuses on improvisational performance and minimalist through-composition. He began composing electronic music in the early 1990s, releasing limited edition cd-rs under such monikers as Sea Optic, Lisbon and Eto Ami (with Dean King), and has since created music for installations and collaborations in dance and theatre. Tomas has taught in the disciplines of literature and fine arts at various universities in the US, Québec, and Finland. Having completed his interdisciplinary PhD at Concordia University in Montreal, he now lives in the US, where he teaches literature at North Carolina State University."
Nathan Wouters - double bass Indré Jurgeleviciuté - kankles Bert Cools - electric & acoustic guitars Benjamin Sauzereau - electric guitar Stijn Cools - drums
- "The sound to be found in nature can have a very slow groove. A groove embedded by silence, and so slow it can almost only be felt while spending a few hours in the nature at sea, during a forest trip, in open fields, etc... It is this groove and the'silence' of nature that was an inspiration for the Fieldtone compositions. Book of air is a series of bundled compositions exploring the parameters of sound and time.Fieldtone is the first. Fieldtone refers to 'Roomtone' which is the 'silence' recorded at a location or space when no music is played or dialogue spoken. Every room is different, and these recordings always carry their unique character. The compositions of Fieldtone are inspired by the tempo and sonic textures of specific nature locations. can have. By embedding the sound to be found in nature, this silent slowness into the compositions, the details of the sounds played become much more prominent. In this way the silence itself, amplifies the sounds that are played, and will also amplify the room surrounding the listener.
„I love these guys! A totally different perspective—as open as a warm embrace. Or a hungry mouth. Or an empty grave.“ - Fred Frith
- "Throughout the last two years RUSCONI (CH/D) met Fred Frith (UK/USA) live on stage again and again. This album documents our passionate hours of creating live music."
- "Stefan Rusconi, Fabian Gisler, and Claudio Strueby are the three acclaimed and adroit musicians who make up RUSCONI. The dynamics of their close friendship, passion for music and curiosity in the world around them, have generated a harmonious and continually inventive sound. They came together as a band ten years ago and have already played over 300 concerts in Europe and Asia, performing not only at jazz festivals but also at a number of independent clubs, connecting them with a wider, more eclectic audience. RUSCONI’s unconventional combination of instruments, voices and instrumental preparation make them a band full of surprises. Their live appearances, in which they aim to create powerful, yet distinguished, soundscapes, are a unique and inspiring experience and have won them the Echo Award for Live Act of the Year (2013). Whilst ‘sound’ is the core focus of their creative work, Rusconi have developed an eloquent imagination for the visualization of their music: videos, photographs and artwork for print and digital media. Their artistic sensibility has been recognised by others and resulted in collaborations with renowned artists, such as Pipilotti Rist, Diana Scheunemann, and the collective“Zweihundfilm”. During the recording of „REVOLUTION“ Stefan Rusconi, Claudio Strüby and Fabian Gisler had the pleasure to meet the Impro-Artist Fred Frith and they decided to play a few selected Live-Shows. These concerts were being taped and this new recording „RUSCONI + FRED FRITH – Live in Europe“ ist the result. As bonus material you can hear the trio playing a song (amongst others) with Norma Winstone. This album will be released by the bands label Qilin Records, which they established in 2012. On this label also associated musicians will appear soon. RUSCONI provides their Know-How, their experience and their network."
Kassel Jaeger, Stephan Mathieu, Akira Rabelais - Zauberberg
Few years ago, an idea germinated while reading The
Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. An idea not driven by the narrativity of
the book, but by the traces and the aura invoked in it. That was it: an
audible auratic journey trough the memories of a place lost in the
heights of the swiss mountains. A century after the events depicted in the book, we went
where the story took place, trying to capture the remaining sounds that
could have been heard at the time, and the ghosts who might have still
wandered around. Zauberberg is based on these captures, on recordings of
the music played by Hans Castorp (the novel’s main character), on
acoustic/electronic instrumentation and digital processing. The result
is an evokation of time and duration, an exploration of what remains and
what is lost, a meditation of the dissolution and persistence of the
aura surrounding everything. — Kassel Jaeger, Nov. 19, 2015
"What follows in ‘Absence’ is a cornucopia of eclectic, ambient, even transitory sounds build by a whole host of talented artists. Ideas blossom, bringing the year of planning, design, and wonderful curation by Arash Akbari to life in the most intriguing and triumphant of ways. Forged from a freedom to envisage and experiment, it’s a wonder to hear the full expanding scale of Iran’s music world come to life." ANTHEM REVIEW
Marta Sainz: voice, dan bau; If, Bwana (Al Margolis): amplified detritus box, recorder, clarinet .
"Marta Sainz and Al Margolis (If, Bwana) met and performed together in Madrid, Spain for the first time in October 2014. That initial performance – she on voice/performance and he on laptop, was such a joy, that they both determined that they would work together again as soon as possible. That opportunity arose again in June 2015, when the duo did a brief tour in Spain, as well as going into the studio in Madrid – which is Sable.
On this recording of 3 improvised pieces, Sainz vocalizes as well as performs on an amplified dan bau – a Vietnamese single string instrument. Margolis makes use of what he calls a “detritus box” – one side wood, one side laminate, each half amplified with contact microphones – and all manner of detritus used to make sounds, as well as alto recorder and clarinet.
Through the use of her voice and body, Sainz’s performance refers to elements of German Expressionism and the theater of cruelty of Artaud: she is seeking to emotionally shock the viewer with their own experience, without the content and performance having a specific meaning intended in itself. Margolis shows increasing clarity of vision in his work – both as a composer, and on this recording, as an improvisor.
Together, they manage to fuse beauty and terror into something truly remarkable. This recording is a very special experience for anyone willing to travel the length of a terrifying way with these accomplished and visionary performers."
"The investigation of sound has led Marta Sainz to develop her work beyond using just her voice – the butoh dance practice has also been fundamental to her search for and within “chaos.”
Using both her voice and body, her work refers to both elements of german expressionism as well as Artaud’s theater of cruelty. she seeks to create an emotional shock for the spectator, as they are confronted with their own experience of her performance, without implying that the musical content or performance have any specific meaning or intent itself."
- released March 18, 2016 David Rothenberg, clarinet, bass clarinet, contralto clarinet Bernhard Wöstheinrich, keyboards and electronics Jay Nicholas, bass Performed and recorded on B Street, October 2015 Mixed and mastered by Markus Reuter
David and Bernhard have been playing together for three years, and it happens whenever the two are in the same country. Last October we found them both in the Hudson Valley of New York, where they were joined in the studio by bass player and producer Jay Nicholas in the village where David and Jay live, definitely a Cool Spring.
ECM recording artist David Rothenberg wrote Why Birds Sing, published in six languages and turned into a BBC TV show. He has written other books about making music with whales and bugs, has sixteen CDs out and is working on a book about the nightingales of Berlin and the musicians who play with them. www.davidrothenberg.net Bernhard Wöstheinrichleads his own solo project "The Redundant Rocker" and among others he has collaborated with Markus Reuter (in centrozoon) Tim Motzer, Ian Boddy, No-Man singer Tim Bowness, Conrad Schnitzler†, and Erik Wøllo. Bernhard elicits meaning from abstraction in electronic music and painting. He has studied graphic design and has created an eclectic body of work in both graphics and music. Using a compositional approach akin to his work as a visual artist, Bernhard usually begins by improvising abstract sonic structures which are subsequently developed into an increasingly detailed aural picture. www.redundantrocker.com
Jay Nicholas, bass player extraordinaire and legendary studio engineer, has worked at Chung King Studios with the likes of David Bowie, Wyclef Jean, the Neville Brothers and the Wu-Tang Clan
- "the musical chameleon Niklas Rundquist (The Leather Nun - ShapeShiftingAliens) (on violin). Rundquist has also composed commissioned works, such as music for films, documentaries and commercials, for example the vignette for Sandrew Metronome and other large companies. He has created music for acts like Iodine Jupiter, Cirkus Cirkör and various artists on the London scene."
- "Allen Ravenstine, erstwhile eminence grise of classic-era Pere Ubu, was one of the best-integrated and least predictable pioneers of analogue synthesis in rock until, in the late 1980’s, he quit both the public and the musical arena to pursue entirely different interests. But he never lost his interest in, or his feel for, analogue electronics. A few years ago, with Pere Ubu’s current synthesist, Robert Wheeler, he recorded ‘Farm Report and City Desk - in the context of a documentary about modular synthesisers. Now he is releasing this limited edition solo CD, reaching back to the glory days of Princeton and Cologne in its acceptance and celebration of the almost human, frail, fallible, delicate and mysterious qualities of handmade analogue electronics."
This is Pere Ubu synthesizer Allen Ravenstine's first solo album, recorded in 2015. He played the Moog Theremini and a Doepfer Dark Energy. William Blakeney helped produce and master the recordings.
- "Allen Ravenstine was born on May 9, 1950.He had much exposure to music at a young age, his interest derived from his mother playing Sergei Rachmaninoff and other classical music and his father's interest in jazz and percussion records. He played the trombone in grade school but quickly lost interest. Ravenstine's first real experience as an artist came in 1971 after abandoning his college pursuits. He met visual artist Bob Bensick, who was experimenting with sending distortion into oscillators and out a stereo system. Eventually, they discovered a way to attach lights and have them work in conjunction with the sounds being produced and decided to stage art shows. The act was short lived as Ravenstine moved out of the area and lost contact with Bensick. Soon after, Ravenstine purchased his first synthesizer, an ElectroComp EML 200, and began associating with the garage band band Rocket from the Tombs and recording their performances.
Ravenstine first worked with Pere Ubu in 1975 after being asked to contribute to the band's recording of "30 Seconds Over Tokyo". However, he was discouraged by the thought of having to perform live shows and opted to discontinue his involvement with the band. After watching Pere Ubu perform at a few venues, Ravenstine changed his mind and returned as a full-time member of the band, replacing keyboardist Dave Taylor.[3] He continued his work with Pere Ubu until 1989 with the release of Cloudland, when he decided to leave the group and pursue his own interests. Ravenstine obtained a pilot's license after Ubu's initial breakup, and after leaving the band permanently, worked as a flight instructor and charter pilot. He also completed a novel which was never published. Ravenstine largely avoided musical activity of any kind after leaving Pere Ubu, once making a guest appearance at a Red Krayola show in Los Angeles in 2004.In 2012, an invitation to contribute to "I Dream of Wires: The Modular Synthesizer Documentary" led to the recording of an impromptu duo performance on the EML-101 and 200 synthesizers, with current Ubu synthesist Robert Wheeler. Culled from this were a pair of albums and singles, entitled City Desk/Farm Report, which were self-released in 2013"
- "In 1963, Dutch abstract-expressionist painter Karel Appel (1921-2006), one of the founders of the avant-garde movement Cobra in 1948, logged time in the Instituut Voor Sonologie to compose music for a documentary being made on himself by cinematographer Jan Vrijman. Musique Barbare was born, released by Philips, this masterpiece of Musique Concrete is a real jewel for any record collectors. Made in collaboration with the Insituut's member Frits Weiland, the result is a fantastic mix of electric organ fumblings to full-on riots of distorted kettle drum and assorted percussion-room filigree, assembled into an extremely edit-heavy suite - much use of tape-speed manipulation"
Karel Appel was a forceful and fascinating personality, and his Musique Barbare does not less bear the stamp of it than do any of his other artistic creations. A more remarkable gramophone record has not been produced in many a year.
- "Violinist, composer and filmmaker Tony Conrad started his career in New York in the early 1960s. As a member of the Theatre of Eternal Music (a.k.a. the Dream Syndicate) alongside John Cale, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Angus MacLise, he participated in now-legendary and often legendarily loud drone performances with many pieces having no beginning and no end. During a fateful trip to Germany in 1972, Conrad met with avant-rock visionaries Faust and made the very first record to bear his name.
Outside The Dream Syndicate, originally released in Europe only in 1973, is a stunning debut. Two side-long tracks – "The Side Of Man And Womankind" and "The Side Of The Machine" – show just how far Conrad had moved beyond his minimalist peers. Werner Diermaier's repetitive drum beat and Jean-Hervé Peron's stripped-down bassline conjure a tense, ascetic groove, while Conrad's seamless violin, initially so controlled, reveals a surprising adaptability. The music shifts almost on a subliminal level, pushing and pulling to the drone's internal pulse.
It is hard to imagine Conrad's trajectory from downtown Manhattan to a farmhouse in the German countryside that ultimately resulted in Outside The Dream Syndicate, yet no other record captures – so completely and instantly – the intersection of avant-garde and rock forms. Outside The Dream Syndicate remains ahead of and bracingly outside of its time.
This first-time vinyl reissue has been carefully mastered from the original master tapes and includes liner notes by musician Jim O'Rourke and author Branden W. Joseph."
I was lucky enough to see the boys perform this in the 90's. As I was with a noted zine editor we got access to the Green Room afterwards. The contrast between performers couldn't have been more different. J-H Peron was laughing and joking with everyone; Zappi just wanted to play with a baby but Tony Conrad just strode up and down the room in a furious trance like state obviously still mentally where the music had taken him.
- "Lesley Flanigan is a New York based
artist/vocalist who sculpts electronic music by hand, using an
orchestrated mix of sounds that originate entirely from the acoustics of
live feedback and voice. Out of deliberate choreography of motion and
improvised layering of sound, Flanigan’s melodies emerge to reflect
interrelations between noise, amplification, speakers, and the human
voice.
Flanigan plays speaker feedback using handcrafted, wooden
speaker instruments. One by one, she samples tones and rhythms from
these instruments, blending raw sounds of electricity with the warmth of
her voice. In addition to her solo work with speaker electronics and
voice, Flanigan also performs as part of Bioluminescence, a
collaboration with R. Luke DuBois that explores the modality of human
voice through live sound and video processing; and she performs
regularly as a guest member of the Loud Objects, the noise group that
set the standard for live circuit bending."
- "Coming in 2016/17 is a mountain of new Liles material.
Here is a sweet little entrée served as a delicious taster for the excessive feast of music and audio obesity to come.
As with all Liles releases there is an array of unpredictable,
outlandish and hitherto yet to be invented musical styles, bizarre
narratives and the usual unusual themes. This download features music
from the following Box Sets, CDs and L.P.s -
All Hail Andrew Liles is from the forthcoming L.P. album 'The
Unimportance of Being Earnest' to be released on Black Friday, the 25th
November 2016. The album will be released by NoiseNoiseNoise.
Orban Explorer is from the forthcoming L.P. 'Monstrous Medical Mishaps
(Horrendous Hospitals And Disastrous Dentistry)'. 'Monstrous Medical
Mishaps' is another instalment in the MONSTER series of releases. This
MONSTER is entirely based on medical themes.
Many of the rhythm tracks used on the recording were constructed from an
array of samples of assorted medical and dental instruments being
tapped, scraped and plucked.
'Monstrous Medical Mishaps' will be released by Blackest Rainbow.
Stooge is from the forthcoming box set 'The Flesh Creeping Gonzoid:
Speciality Offal & Other Choice Cuts' which is the sister collection
to 'The Flesh Creeping Gonzoid & Other Imaginary Creatures'. The
box consists of 6 CDs and a DVD of studio out-takes, deleted
obscurities, compilation appearances and vinyl and download releases.
The DVD included is an extended version of the very limited DVDR of
Life Is An Empty Place. All discs are over 75 minutes in length and
feature a wealth of previously unreleased material. 'The Flesh Creeping
Gonzoid: Speciality Offal & Other Choice Cuts' will be released by
Dirter in the summer of 2016.
My Disgusting Daughter is from the forthcoming album Retrograde Volume
3. This CD is an excursion in to 'classical' compositions of a very
avant-garde persuasion. Difficult music for difficult people. Volume 3
is the final instalment in a 3 disc series that will be issued in 2016
and 2017, released yet again by our very good friends at Dirter.
Zero is Indeterminate (Event Horizon Mix) is an alternative mix of the
version which appears on the forthcoming album 'Anomie'. 'Anomie' is an
album of pure tones, science fiction bleeps and audioscopic existential
angst. Expect to see this CD available in late spring/early summer 2016.
To be released by Norton North.
Acedia (II) is the final track from the forthcoming album 'Acedia'.
'Acedia' is a very limited ‘Art Edition’ release of 150 copies which
includes a unique signed piece of original art by Andrew Liles. To be
released by U.M.P in the summer of 2016"
Life on the Inside is the audio companion (created and recorded in 2015) to the french sculptor Pierre Besson's
exhbition (D'objets noires et de Choses carrées - Black Objects and
Square Things). Never published before, this more than 30 minuts long
musical ambient track was diffused inside of the sculpture. This album
is an excellent addition to the David Toop discography of any
wide-ranging ambient fan.
AS WRITER David Toop is a musician, composer, writer, musicologist
and sound curator. He has published three books: Rap Attack (now in its
third edition), Ocean of Sound, and Exotica (selected as a winner of
the 21st annual American Books Awards for 2000) ". . in my opinion it's
the best music-related book of the 90s." (Chicago Reader) "Ocean of
Sound is as alien as the 20th century, as utterly Now as the 21st. An
essential mix." (The Wire)
AS MUSICIAN His first album, New and
Rediscovered Musical Instruments, was released on Brian Eno's Obscure
label in 1975; since 1995 he has released six solo albums - Screen
Ceremonies, Pink Noir, Spirit World, Museum of Fruit, Hot Pants Idol and
37th Floor At Sunset: Music For Mondophrenetic - the last on Sub Rosa.
"This is sound that only reveals its true power, its ability to unease
listeners, in still, silent darkness when you pick up on every single
twitch as if it were some sort of threat." (Grooves)
AS CURATOR He
has curated Sonic Boom, the UK's largest ever exhibition of sound art,
displayed at the Hayward Gallery, London, from April to June, 2000.
Other recent projects include the composition of a soundtrack for
Mondophrenetic (CD released by Sub Rosa), a CD-ROM installation created
in Belgium and exhibited in Brussels and Santiago de Compostela, and
'Needle In the Groove', a collaborative album with novelist Jeff Noon
AS TRAVELLER AND ETHNOLOGIST RECORDING
1975 - 1985: Recorded three pieces released on Brian Eno's Obscure
label as one side of New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments (David
Toop/ Max Eastley, Obscure 4, EG Records, reissued 1997). Released
improvisation albums on Bead, Incus, Quartz.
The Flaming Pines label is part way into a series of releases called Tiny Portraits, soundscape compositions based on specific small, unnoticed locations. It has a very cool interactive web page where you can explore where each recording is from as a way of navigating them.
- "Humankind seems to teeter between hubris and paranoia:the hubris of our ever-growing power contrasts with the paranoia that we're permanently and increasingly under threat. At the zenith we realise we have to come down again... we know that we have more than we deserve or can defend, so we become nervous. Somebody, something is going to take it all from us: that is the dread of the wealthy. Paranoia leads to defensiveness, and we all end up in the trenches facing each other across the mud.
On a musical level, I wanted to make a record of songs that didn't rely on the normal underpinnings of rhythmic structure and chord progressions but which allowed voices to exist in their own space and time, like events in a landscape. I wanted to place sonic events in a free, open space.
One of the starting points was my fascination with the First World War, that extraordinary trans-cultural madness that arose out of a clash of hubris between empires. It followed immediately after the sinking of the Titanic, which to me is its analogue. The Titanic was the Unsinkable Ship, the apex of human technical power, set to be Man's greatest triumph over nature. The First World War was the war of materiel, 'over by Christmas', set to be the triumph of Will and Steel over humanity. The catastrophic failure of each set the stage for a century of dramatic experiments with the relationships between humans and the worlds they make for themselves.
I was thinking of those vast dun Belgian fields where the First World War was agonisingly ground out; and the vast deep ocean where the Titanic sank; and how little difference all that human hope and disappointment made to it. They persist and we pass in a cloud of chatter.
Written in the late sixties, Lou Reed's song 'I'm Set Free' seems even more relevant now than it did then. Perhaps
anybody who's read Yuval Noah Harari's 'Sapiens' will recognise the
quiet irony of "I'm set free to find a new illusion"... and
its implication that when we step out of our story we don't step into
'the truth' - whatever that might be - but into another story.
This album is a succession of interleaved stories. Some of them I know, some of them I'm discovering now in the making of them.
“The piece started as an Ambient work intended for a multi channel
sound installation in Stockholm, but during the making of it I
discovered that I could now sing a low C - which happens to be the root
note of the piece. Getting older does have a few fringe benefits after
all. From that point the work turned into an unusual kind of song...a
type I've never made before where the vocal floats free, untethered to a
rhythmic grid of any kind.”
Comments
Senyawa - Menjadi
Morphine Records.Four tracks from the album:
This is so groundbreaking, innovative and utterly brilliant, that it should have ranked within the first 3 on my list.
Lynn Cassiers:
Jozef Dumoulin:
- Sub Rosa
I Can See You From Afar and A Wheel In The Palm Of Your Hand at Soundcloud.
- Gazul/Musearecords
- Before Pan Sonic, there was Gagarin-Kombinaatti.
Gagarin Kombinaatti was:
Janne Koski: tape loops, radio, metalls
Tapio Onnela: tools, metall smashing, radio
Mika Vainio: drums, synthesizers, ore percussion
Kari Wikström: synthesizers, drum machine
- Fact Magazine - Sahko Recordings
Wil Bolton - February Dawn
New out today on eilean rec and gorgeous! (The CD is sold out already on release date)
Nice video here:
- Exclaim.ca
From Twitter.
Nonkeen -The Gamble
- released February 5, 2016R&S Records - http://www.nonkeen.com/
- Bleep
http://www.danielpadden.com/ - http://brainwashed.com/padden/
Pierre Bastien - Blue As an Orange
Tomas Phillips - Limit_Fold
Nathan Wouters - double bass
Indré Jurgeleviciuté - kankles
Bert Cools - electric & acoustic guitars
Benjamin Sauzereau - electric guitar
Stijn Cools - drums
- Sub Rosa / Granvat - Emusic
BOOK OF AIR - Fieldtone: Live@Bijloke
(Soundcloud, free and a lovely track)
Kassel Jaeger, Stephan Mathieu, Akira Rabelais - Zauberberg
- Shelter Press - EmusicMarta Sainz: voice, dan bau;
If, Bwana (Al Margolis): amplified detritus box, recorder, clarinet .
- Pogus Productions
NP: 9T Antiope, Syzygys
- released March 18, 2016
David Rothenberg, clarinet, bass clarinet, contralto clarinet
Bernhard Wöstheinrich, keyboards and electronics
Jay Nicholas, bass
Performed and recorded on B Street, October 2015
Mixed and mastered by Markus Reuter
The Sublunar Society . Emusic
ReR Megacorp
Hearpen Records
- Sub RosaZappi just wanted to play with a baby but Tony Conrad just strode up and down the room in a furious trance like state obviously still mentally where the music had taken him.
Philippe Petit - You Only Live Ice
Releases May 20.
- With thanks to @confused
- Bandcamp
Andrew Liles - PROSPECTIVE DISCHARGES
Brian Eno • ‘The Ship’
About the title track: