A Number Of Small Things/Labels/ImportantArtikel

Asmus Tietchens & Kouhei Matsunaga - Split 18,99 €

Limited edition split 12" curated by Kouhei Matsunaga. Side A features two new tracks from the legendary German sound artist Asmus Tietchens. Side B features two new pieces from Kouhei Matsunaga. 500 copies only!
Last summer Important released some highly praised records with Kouhei Matsunaga including a collaborative CD with Sean Booth (Autechre) and Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic), a split LP with Mika Vainio and a full length CD of his own solo work. The breath and quality of Kouhei's work was apparent across these three releases and his compositions for this split LP serve to create connections between his beat based work and his more abstract soundscapes. Kouhei's most recent solo work was just released by Skam.
Asmus Tietchen's contributions to contemporary electronic music is immense. The two pieces making up his side of the record have been sculpted from stochastic sequences of pure sine waves as well as guitar samples given to him by Dirk Serries (Fear Falls Burning) not for the purpose of collaboration but for processing purposes. Sonic events orchestrated by a sonic master.

TRACK LISTING
Asmus Tietchens:
Die kopflosen Frauen von Unger
Gitter
Kouhei Matsunaga:
Margin Sequence #1
Chasing The Night

Lawrence English - Lonely Women's Club 18,99 €

Pressed in an edition of 500 copies!
Beautiful new work from LAWRENCE ENGLISH. Lawrence English is composer, media artist and curator based in Australia. Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English's work prompts questions of field, perception and memory. English utilises a variety of approaches including live performance and installation to create works that ponder subtle transformations of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception. Over the past decade, English's sonic investigations have traversed a divergent path through which musical languages and environmental sources are granted equal focus. His work calls into question the established relationships of sound and structure. English's sound work is evocative and invites the listener to explore their own narratives and impressions informed by personal histories and experiences. Published widely on respected imprints including Touch, 12K and Winds Measure, English's work is sculpted and overwhelmingly intricate. The Wire noted his 'use of space and silence is remarkable', and U.S. sound journal Signal To Noise described the Ghost Towns work as 'extraordinarily gorgeous modern music concréte'.

Chord - Progression 19,99 €

Double LP is limited to 500 copies. First 100 are on white vinyl. Both CD & LP feature exclusive tracks spreading the entire album out over both formats. Packaged in deluxe screen printed jackets by both Monoroid and Delicious Design League.Featuring members of Pelican, X-Bax & Sacred Cities. View CD packaging here.

Recorded at Electrical Audio for the ultimate analog fidelity.

For the new album three single-chord compositions were charted out, one freeform and tone driven, one long-form piece with charts dictating the players’ intensity of performance, and one grid-like chart where each players' note continually shifts, though the combination of voices continue to maintain the chord. . Six chords were chosen and arranged in a progression that encompasses two separate performances of each of the three compositions. Though the CD and LP share a similar internal structure and can be listened on their own they are intended to be played consecutively forming the full six chord arc of the total piece. The CD & LP are intended to be listened to concurrently making one full album.

Eleh - Radiant Intervals 15,99 €

CD reissue of the most recent Eleh full length LP. Remastered for the digital domain. Heavy duty letterpressed gatefold jackets.

Eleh was formed in 1999 as an exploration of analog synthesis. Eleh create highly minimal
and deeply personal/spiritual pure analog electroacoustic music with emphasis on tonal juxtapositions, harmonic intervals, bass tones and various acoustic phenomenon. Eleh's work emphasizes the physical presence of sound as it has been inspired by the physical world.

Asva - Presences Of Absence 14,99 €

Intention. The thing I'd always felt deep down about Asva recordings was that sense of... Intention. Good as they have been they rang hollow, as if the truth of what nature born those tracks was hidden behind a venear of having to 'be' a definable thing, genre specific, a way to 'belong' somewhere in the midst of other musics. The intention behind Presences Of Absences has been to make something real and unbiased, an honest effort at reproducing what is Asva's nature as a band and as individuals. Not heavy in the traditional sense of 'heavy' but emotive and powerful, not quirky, not elusive or exclusive, but a different breed entire. Presences Of Absences is about sincerity, goodwill and compassion, honesty, hard work and in the deepest sense, thanks and reflection at the end of the day. It's a discussion in music utilizing traditional elements (liturgical, plain chant, tintinnabuli musics, folk and gospel musics, acoustic organ and wind instruments, etc) and contemporary electric instrumentation and playing methods to expose our shared origins, our pasts, presents and futures and the common thread passing through our relationships to all of it... Presences Of Absences is a big work.

P of A began as a singularly personal project. I had envisioned creating a solo work and had recorded the basis for these tracks (Reed and electric organs, electric bass and guitar, bells) over the course of perhaps a hundred and fifty early morning sessions in my rehearsal room. As the concept grew and after a lot of deliberation I realized that involving other creative minds to form a true collaborative we could, together, could push P of A into a whole new arena with considerable added dimension. Greg Gilmore, Toby Driver, and Jake Weller are musicians and composers of whom I have long admired and feel possess an intuitive sensitivity towards music and who-like myself- are not afraid of exposing themselves as truly individual voices unencumbered by any need to 'be' anything namable. Presences Of Absences speaks the naked truth about it's creators and ultimatelyabout us as people.

Eliane Radigue - Transamorem - Transmortem 14,99 €

"Transamorem - Transmortem" was premiered on March 9, 1974 at The Kitchen in NYC, where the music programmer at the time was Rhys Chatham - this was right before his guitar phase. During this period, "Transamorem - Transmortem" was presented along with other compositions by Eliane Radigue in a linear mode of listening, although the piece had originally been conceived, during its composition, as a sound installation. Of course, both modes of listening are possible, and each works marvelously in its own way.

In their original form, Eliane Radigue's works are magnetic tapes. After being played a few times in public, the tape disappears to its case until a release proposal makes it available again through a disc.

During this period Eliane Radigue's compositions became fairly long, some lasting over an hour. Because the tracks could not be edited for some obvious reasons, a vinyl release was unthinkable. It was only in the 90's, with the advent of the CD format, that the long compositions of Eliane Radigue were made available (with the exception of the "Song of Milarepa" LP on Lovely Music, a work already divided into multiple movements and thus able to be fit onto two sides of an LP). For these reasons, the work of Eliane Radigue remained virtually unknown for twenty years - from the 70's to the 90's.

It was in 2004, when she accepted my aid in digitizing her archives, along with Lionel Marchetti, that I discovered "Transamoren - Transmortem." Immediately, I was awed by the majestic grace of this very long tangle of frequencies, this set of seemingly unchanging tones, whose variations are of a delicate subtlety. "Transamoren - Transmorten" is recognizable as one of the most radical of Radigue's compositions, comparable to the first "Adnos," the work that follows "Transamoren - Transmortem" chronologically. Very few transformations, an apparent formal aridity that is then contradicted by the physical play of the frequencies as the listener turns her head gently from right to left, or better yet as the listener moves slowly throughout the music space. Moving through zones of specific frequencies, the listener's body experiences localized zones of low, medium and treble frequencies which vary according to the acoustic properties of the space. As Radigue wrote of "Adnos": "to displace stones in the bed of a river does not affect the course of water, but rather modifies the way the water flows." Here, we find the same meditative tension proposing a peaceful movement through the spaces created by the different frequencies that compose "Transamoren - Transmortem."

Very well-organized, Eliane Radigue's archives are a pleasure to explore, and "Transamorem - Transmortem"'s case contained a mine of information. What excited me most was the short text entitled "Inner Space", which described the ideal conditions under which "Transamorem - Transmortem" should be presented. That is to say as a sound installation.

"Inner Space - This monophonic tape should be played on 4 speakers placed in the four corners of an empty room. Carpet on the floor. The impression of different points of origin of the sound is produced by the localization of the various zones of frequencies, and by the displacements produced by simple movements of the head within the acoustic space of the room. A low point of light on the ceiling, in the center of the room, produced by indirect lighting. Several white light projectors of very weak intensity whose rays, coming from different angles, meet at a single point".
Eliane Radigue - 1973

Eleh - Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis 36,99 €

This deluxe 3 CD set presents Floating Frequencies/Intuitive Synthesis in its completed 3 part entirety. Metallic silver print on a heavy duty matte black jacket. Intuitive Synthesis/Floating Frequencies takes full advantage of the low noise floor and clarity provided by the digital medium. Mastered by Eleh specifically for the digital environment. This box is not intended to be a replacement of the analog records but an entirely different experience. Edition of 1000.

Eliane Radigue - Tritych 14,99 €

Back to music after three years of silence... On the suggestion of Robert Ashley, Douglas Dunn commissioned this piece from Eliane Radigue for choreography. Only the first part of Triptych was staged at the premiere at the Dancehall/Theatre of Nancy on February 27 1978.

After the premiere of Adnos I in San Francisco in 1974, a group of French students introduced Eliane Radigue to Tibetan Buddhism. When she returned to Paris, she began to explore this spirituality in depth, which slowed her musical production up until 1978. Triptych marks her return to composition, and draws its inspiration from "the spirit of the fundamental elements", water, air, fire, earth....Eliane Radigue likes to add that this has often been useful to her in her moments of research and transitions.

This three-part composition, with its great humility and contemplative simplicity, heralded a new period of work and was the first in a series of masterpieces inspired by Tibetan Buddhism: Adnos II (1980), Adnos III (1981), Songs of Milarepa (1983) - with the voices of Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Robert Ashley -, "Jetsun Mila" (1986), as well as the Trilogy of Death: Kyema (1988), Kailasha (1991) and Koume (1993). Archival images included in the accompanying booklet.

Recorded in the composer's studio in Paris.
Eliane Radigue: Arp 2500 Synthesizer

James Blackshaw - Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death 15,99 €

Written at a time of great emotional disquiet, the hauntingly beautiful and bittersweet ninth full-length studio album, Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death, from British guitarist-composer JAMES BLACKSHAW was recorded at Soma Electronic Music Studios, Chicago in December 2011 by engineer ANDREW HERNANDEZ (Balmorhea). The six original pieces contained on the album (whose titles are lovingly misappropriated from those of short stories by the late, great science fiction author James Tiptree Jr. aka Alice B. Sheldon,) are based alternately around nylon-string classical guitar and grand piano, with spare and subtle vibraphone and B3 organ parts overdubbed by Blackshaw himself. GENEVIEVE BEAULIEU (Menace Ruine/Preterite) adds her stunning and powerful voice and words to the track “And I Have Come Upon This Place By Lost Ways.” Love Is The Plan is an incredibly warm and intimate recording and perhaps Blackshaw's most concise, consistent and overtly melodic to date. Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork.

Scientist - In The Kingdom Of Dub 16,99 €

SCIENTIST began as King Tubby's protege at Tubby's Drumalie Avenue Studios in Kingston (essentially the birthplace of dub) and In The Kingdom Of Dub was one of his first records released under his own name. This classic dub album is now available remastered and reissued on vinyl for the first time. Brand new bass heavy master by Scientist. Recorded at Channel One and mixed at King Tubby's. Pressed in an edition of 1,000.

Scientist - Best Dub Album In The World 16,99 €

SCIENTIST began as King Tubby's protege at Tubby's Drumalie Avenue Studios in Kingston (essentially the birthplace of dub) and Introduincing Scientist: The Best Dub Album In The World was one of his first records released under his own name. This classic dub album is now available remastered and reissued on vinyl for the first time. Brand new bass heavy master by Scientist. Recorded at Channel One and mixed at King Tubby's. Pressed in an edition of 1,000.

Master Musicians Of Bukkake - Totem 1 18,99 €

Vinyl reissue of the impossible to find first release in MMOB's Totem trilogy. From the orignal release: “MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKKAKE’s newest record and part of a Northwest trilogy, Totem One marks an evolution from their first record Visible Sign Of the Invisible Order. MMOB has now solidified into a 7 piece cosmic psyche force. Like a reverse dark side of the New Age sound, on the Totem series Master Musicians of Bukkake perform ritualistic electric excursions into the outer and inner reaches. Relying more on the electric power of psyched guitars, analog synth chants, and exotic heavy percussion, Totem one echos with the delusions of a West Coast Death cult. Outer spaced Gamelan, dusty fuzz rock from celestial deserts, meditations of a deranged Krishna gathering, and the Blurry acoustic guitar majesty of The Cascade mountains all reveal themselves here in epic form On Totem One. Every sound and note played was put to tape by a group with a singular purging purpose. Totem one also features Vocals By MMOB honorary member ALAN BISHIOP of THE SUN CITY GIRLS." Edition of 1,000 copies.

Machinefabriek - Secret Photographs 15,99 €

Beautiful new soundtrack work from MACHINEFABRIEK to accompany a film made by MIKE HOOLBOOM using photographs taken by notorious bank robber ALVIN KARPIS. Filmmaker Mike Hoolboom discovered a batch of Karpis' photos for auction on eBay. He was the lucky winning bidder, and with his newly found treasure, Hoolboom began working on a film, consisting of still images, slowly dissolving one into another. Intensifying the slow, hypnotic pace and transitions, the musical score follows the three parts of the film (black and white, color, black and white) with dream-like, barely moving sonic structures. In the film (which is still in the making, working title Secret Photographs), the music will be accompanied by a voice-over and additional field recordings. On this album though, the original score is presented in it's pure, unhurried form. Machinefabriek's music combines elements of ambient, modern classical, minimalism, drone and field recordings. His pieces unfold as 'films without image', with a sharp ear for detail.

James Blackshaw & Lubomyr Melnyk - The Watchers ab 15,99 €

The best improvisations and collaborations often force musicians to work beyond their boundaries to approach their typical interests in atypical settings. As British guitar wonder James Blackshaw acknowledges in his introduction to The Watchers, his full-length work with pioneering Ukrainian pianist Lubomyr Melnyk, neither he nor Melnyk are natural improvisers, both preferring to consider their ideas and create worlds of sound where each note and phrase has been carefully placed. Such consideration is as important to Melnyk’s stunning “continuous music” for piano as it is for Blackshaw’s one-man orchestras of acoustic guitar. Nonetheless, The Watchers doubly forced the hands of Blackshaw and Melnyk, who, while still relative strangers early last year, set up shop in a London café for a six-hour improvisational session.
“Haftorang,” the record’s final track, is a marvel that finds the style of both instrumentalists dovetailing perfectly. Blackshaw plays a lot of notes, each cascading into arrays that rise and fall like tides. Melnyk’s ever-present piano provides a righteous complement, with his pervasive haze blurring into Blackshaw’s more pensive moments and coiling against the busier passages. Melnyk and Blackshaw sound no different than they ever have here, but their simpatico approaches make the effect of their respective styles that much more grand and gorgeous. They compromise their comfort zones simply by sharing them. - Pitchfork!