Search Result for Genre CLASSICAL
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GODREC 074LP
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$24.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 1/31/2025
GOD Records presents its first release from the controversial composer with cult status, Erik Satie. He influenced not only the entire musical language of John Cage but also an entire generation of 20th and 21st century composers, whose influence remains noticeable today. This unique release presents two of his rather obscure and lesser-known, but unique pieces, both composed for visual arts: a movie ("Cinéma") and a ballet ("Uspud"). Renowned Serbian piano player Branka Parlić, famous for her interpretations not only of Satie's works but also of other minimal composers like Philip Glass and Gavin Bryars, shares some of her impressions about the pieces: "'Cinema' is the first example of music scored explicitly for film, frame-by-frame. These facts really interested me, so I started working on it. So far, I have performed 'Cinema' live-to-film Entr'acte many times as part of my concerts. 'Uspud' is a less communicative three-act Christian ballet written for a shadow play back in 1892. This timeless, mystical work drew me in on the first reading, and I was delighted to work on it. Satie offered this piece to the director of the Paris Opera, and after he was rejected, he declared: 'I believe in the appearance of 'Uspud' at the Opera for the winter of 1927, or no later than 1943.' The meaning of the word 'Uspud' is still not fully clarified."
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5LP BOX
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NMN 083BOX
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$143.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 1/10/2025
"On the occasion of Walter Marchetti's solo exhibition at 7022 Art Space in Milano, Alga Marghen presents the new edition, limited to 80 numbered copies, of Il divano dell'orecchio, a 5LP box set including La caccia, In terram utopicam, Per la sete dell'orecchio, Natura morta, and Vandalia. LP1, La caccia, includes the same materials as the original 1974 Cramps LP. The recording of La Caccia, one of the most radical in the neo-avantgarde panorama for 35 years, is divided in two tracks: 'versione all'aria aperta' and 'versione per uno spazio chiuso.' The sound is generated by hunting calls for birds and other animals. According to Steven Stapleton, this is one of the best records ever published. The new LP sleeve reproduces the Cramps original LP layout. It also includes an insert reproducing scores, photos of both the 1965 ZAJ performances and of Marchetti recording La caccia. A second color insert presents the composer recording La caccia as well as a graphic by Gianni Emilio Simonetti. In terram utopicam includes the same materials as the original 1978 Cramps LP, or 'J'aimerais jouer avec un piano qui aurait une grosse queue' (1974/75) as well as the estreme electronic pieces 'Adversus' (Home-made electric music) (1966) and 'Osmanthus fragrans' (Home-made electric music) (1973). LP3 includes 'Per la sete dell'orecchio' (1981), previously privately issued on the LP with the same title and 'Song for John Cage' (1985), never available on vinyl before. The LP sleeve reproduces the 'Song for John Cage' score. LP4 includes 'Natura morta' (1980), never available on vinyl before. A very simple sequence of piano accidents, according to Robert Ashley one of the most beautiful piano music ever recorded. The LP sleeve reproduces a photo of the performance at Milanopoesia in 1988, as well as Marchetti's text titled 'In my music.' The full color insert reproduces a photo of the 'Natura morta' installation. LP5, titled Vandalia, includes 'Perpetuum mobile' (1981) and 'Le secche del delirio' (1989). Both pieces were never available on vinyl before. With 'Vandalia' Walter Marchetti is focusing his concrete and radical themes. The LP sleeve reproduces a photo of the 'Perpetuum mobile' performance at Musicalia in 1981. The full color insert reproduces the original 'Vandalia' layout. This edition of Il divano dell'orecchio also includes the book by Walter Marchetti titled De musica inversa, an instruction manual of both theory and practice for the proper and improper use of music. The 180-page book is published in both English and Italian."
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SR 570CD
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$15.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 12/13/2024
Outre-nuit as Outre-noir by Pierre Soulages displays the greatest nuances on subtle variations. Between Clara Levy's two original compositions is Giacinto Scelsi's "Xnoybis" (1964), a piece that makes you feel like you're listening for the first time. It is a journey amongst the reliefs contained within one single pitch. Written in three parts, the piece is an instinctive approach to the sound spectrum (the term "spectral music" was coined a decade later). Next comes a nocturne by Kaija Saariaho, which focuses on the sound material metamorphosis. Erika Vega and Eva Maria Houben, two young female composers, close the program with their own pieces. All pieces performed by Clara Levy. Levy (1991) is a French violinist and improviser living in Brussels whose career is mainly focused on new music performance. She has been developing solo project addressing different topics at the core of contemporary music practice: the blurred lines between interpretation and composition (13 Visions) or the listening experience and dramaturgy of the concert (Outre-Nuit).
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LP
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SV 201LP
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$29.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2024
"Roberto Cacciapaglia is an Italian composer and pianist who started out in the fertile Milan avant-garde scene of the 1970s, which included Franco Battiato, Giusto Pio, Lino Capra Vaccina, Francesco Messina, and many others. After studying at the conservatory, he worked at RAI's Studio of Musical Phonology -- an electronic music laboratory similar to NDR/WDR in Germany, GRM/IRCAM in France or BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Sonanze ('Sonatas') is Cacciapaglia's debut album, a monumental work that was recorded over a two-year period and released in 1975 via seminal German label Die Kosmischen Kuriere (Ohr). While a 'sonata' is traditionally performed by easily distinguishable instrumentalists (often soloist and accompaniment) and with repeated structural themes, Cacciapaglia flips this hierarchical form on its head -- blending harpsichord, strings, brass and analog synths to create ambient mini-soundtracks. As the composer writes in the original sleeve notes, 'I am aware, unfortunately, that I am a few millennia late in how I would like music to be understood, which today I find diluted in its primary powers, in an era that is destructive of essential values. Precisely for this reason, I want to search for it in depth and not on the surface, perhaps alternating the knob of a synthesizer with a marranzano (mouth harp).' Mixed in quadrophonic surround-sound under the auspices of Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser (celebrated producer of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel), Sonanze remains on the fringe of Kosmische realms. Each movement explores hypnotic rhythms, intuitive arrangements, musique concrète techniques and a pure psychedelic awakening."
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LP
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STAUB 172LP
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$26.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2024
A limited edition of 300 copies. This is the first ever stand-alone vinyl release of the Bel Canto Orquestra's legendary concert in Montpellier in 1983. Founded by Pascal Comelade, Pierre Bastien, Cathy Claret, and Laurent Churet, the Bel Canto Orquestra was constituted of toy instruments only. During its lifetime from 1983 to 2015, other members included Victor Nubla, Pip Pyle, Jac Berrocal, and many more. Includes bonus track "Résumé Du Concert Du Bel Canto Orquestra Du 7 Mai 1992," which is a never before released piano summary of the Orquestra's 1992 concert.
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LP
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SV 202LP
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$29.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2024
"Roberto Cacciapaglia is an Italian composer and pianist who started out in the fertile Milan avant-garde scene of the 1970s, which included Franco Battiato, Giusto Pio, Lino Capra Vaccina, Francesco Messina, and many others. After studying at the conservatory, he worked at RAI's Studio of Musical Phonology -- an electronic music laboratory similar to NDR/WDR in Germany, GRM/IRCAM in France or BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Originally released in 1979, Sei Note In Logica ('Six Notes In Logic') is Cacciapaglia's second album. While his debut, Sonanze, offers a series of ambient mini-soundtracks, Sei Note presents a singular, sinuous piece. The composition is based on a finite set of musical notes, yet this limitation is the point of departure for a grand tour of possible combinations and enthralling timbres (marimbas, strings, reeds and human voice). Like Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, the joyous experiment of Sei Note is grounded in constant variation. Often doubled by multiple instruments, non-repeating patterns are exquisitely layered, while electro-acoustic signals transform and further refract through visceral effects. Within this conceptual framework, Cacciapaglia does not so much juxtapose rigid dichotomies -- acoustic vs. electronic, melodic vs. dissonant, simple vs. complex -- as fuse them into an expansive whole. What started as an inspired study in minimalism becomes a bold feat of 20th century music. Sei Note In Logica is deeply sincere and, at the same time, quite playful. With one foot firmly planted in the past and the other steeped in technology, Cacciapaglia's influence can be heard in the work of Jim O'Rourke, Fennesz, and Ben Vida."
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2CD
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NW 80843CD
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"The inspiration for Christopher Trapani's (b. 1980) new song cycle is Michael Denning's book Noise Uprising, which chronicles the explosion of vernacular recording that took place in the late 1920s in port cities around the globe. The historical 78 rpm records of this era are the not-so-silent witnesses of the birth of son, jazz, samba, rembetiko, fado, tango, etc. They reveal a kind of B-side of music history, a people's history of music-making driven by the bustling marketplaces of colonial port cities. Noise Uprising (2024) is a polystylistic atlas that unravels a subterranean, cross-cultural network far away from, and with a wider reach than, traditional concert halls. Using Denning's book as a starting point, Christopher Trapani 'fills in the map' by composing a series of pieces for four guitars and two singers, sometimes including live electronics. In studying these 78s as primary source documents, Trapani transcribes and transforms their musical gestures. These recordings are in turn woven into electronic collages, often alongside his own field recordings, made on site in the cities where the source material originated, imagining alternative histories, fictive encounters and cross-pollinations between styles which in reality may never have intersected: gamelan meets tango, fado meets samba. With Noise Uprising Trapani uncovers hidden connections between geographically distant genres, but in doing so he always strives to create work that ultimately represents something more than a travelogue or a book of postcards. The short works he has composed for this cycle call into question notions of cultural appropriation and authenticity, challenge rather than romanticize notions of the exotic, and draw attention to the dangers of 'overtourism' and the unreflective, superficial consumption of place. The guitar, in all its possible variations, forms a common thread. But also the human voice plays a central role in Noise Uprising. This recording features the voices of Swedish-Ethiopian soprano Sofia Jernberg and Puerto Rican soprano Sophia Burgos."
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LP
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HOL 144LP
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Edition of 300 copies. Gold foil printed sleeve. Includes 12-page booklet and two leporello inserts printed on translucent paper. On the centenary of the birth of Luigi Nono, the Maurice Quartet -- Georgia Privitera (violin), Laura Bertolino (violin), Francesco Vernero (viola), and Aline Privitera (cello) -- reinterprets the composition for string quartet by the Venetian composer: Fragmente: Stille, An Diotima, dedicated to LaSalle Quartet on the occasion of the thirtieth Beethovenfest in Bonn, in 1980. The driving force of inspiration must have been Beethoven, understood as a radical innovator of the conventions of his time. This same definition was attributed to Nono after composing this work, so much so that the critics of the time spoke of the "turning point work." An extreme chamber music work, at the same time private and political, which Nono himself summarized as follows: "I have not changed at all. Even tenderness, the private has its collective, political side. Therefore my String Quartet is not the expression of a new retrospective line in me, but rather my current position of experimentation: I want the great, rebellious affirmation with the minimum means." The edition includes a set of evocative photographs of the Giudecca in Venice -- which follow the aesthetics of the fragment -- realized by Sophie-Anne Herin and a precious musicological contribution by Francesca Scigliuzzo. The Maurice Quartet -- active for more than twenty years in the field of experimentation between contemporary music, electronics and multimedia -- joins the numerous homages that the world of music pays to Nono one hundred years after his birth with a recording work of great philological and interpretative relevance, aimed at capturing the most intimate and feverish side of one of the most significant composers of the last century.
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LP
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ENCH 073LP
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$29.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/15/2024
An ingenious musician with a harmonious sense of melody, French pianist and composer Maxence Cyrin releases Passenger, his ninth album, composed and performed entirely on the piano. With influences ranging from Ryuichi Sakamoto and Brian Eno to Philip Glass and composers such as Erik Satie and Frédéric Chopin, this album weaves together ambient, minimalism and neo-classical music. This time around, the artist has sought to convey his emotions and ideas in a more intuitive and spontaneous way, even keeping improvisations such as "Under A Glass Bell" and "Dive" recorded during a residency in Brittany. Maxence Cyrin is one of France's most internationally acclaimed pianists.
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LP
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ET 938-05LP
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After the orchestral piece KlangWerk 11 in 2022 (ET 933-04LP), Edition Telemark presents the second LP from Berlin-based composer Erhard Grosskopf (b. 1934), featuring his two string quartets nos. 3 and 4 in previously unreleased recordings by the renowned Pellegrini Quartet, and pressed on multi-colored quadratic mirage vinyl. Like all of his seminal pieces, these quartets -- written after one another in 1998 -- exhibit Grosskopf's principle of composing in a space instead of on a timescale, thereby eschewing the development of a dramaturgy and instead trying to make the listener forget a sense of time passing. He utilizes so-called sound processes: layers of differing lengths that are looped and stacked according to mathematical principles, resulting in circling harmonic constellations that come to an end only when their end points coincide. Despite being meticulously planned out, the actual musical phenomena that establish themselves with this method seem unpredictable to the listener. String quartet no. 3 (op. 50) uses seven such layers mapped to the four instruments, resulting in a length of about 30 minutes. String quartet no. 4 (op. 51) on the other hand consists of 12 short pieces (five quartets, three trios, and four duos) that use a simpler algorithm, allowing the listener to observe the process in close detail. Both quartets were performed by the Pellegrini Quartet (Antonio Pellegrini, Thomas Hofer, Fabio Marano, Helmut Menzler) at the UltraSchall Festival in Berlin in 2007 and 2003, respectively. This particular recording of quartet no. 3 is unreleased, while quartet no. 4 has never been released before at all. The LP is pressed on bespoke blue and crystal quadratic mirage vinyl, optically mirroring the sound process layers. Full-color sleeve with artwork by Julia Antonia and liner notes by Matthias R. Entreß. Includes a postcard with the sleeve artwork.
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CD
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NW 80847CD
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"Rewild (2022) is not meant to be heard as a literal replication of some idealized arboreal setting, but rather a gathering of discrete yet interconnected elements functioning together in balance for a long, slow span of time, suggesting multiple layered and interacting timescales. Put more simply, the music isn't meant to sound like a forest, but instead to evoke to a listener the depth, breadth, and interdependence of a wild ecosystem's very being, as well the amount of time such actions take to evolve -- and, perhaps, how fragile and precarious the system actually is. Just as the natural processes of ecology and evolution that inspired Ben Richter (b. 1986) are too slow, spacious, and complex to command most human attention, so, too, does the resulting music exist in a space that might be imperceptible, unless listeners made a concerted effort to listen deeply and hear differently. As in the natural world, that attention is rewarded with the apprehension of something uncanny and marvelous. Ghost ensemble features Margaret Lancaster (flute); Sky Macklay (oboe); Ben Richter (accordion); Chris Nappi (percussion); Lucia Helen Stavros (harp); Martine Thomas (viola); Tyler J. Borden (violoncello); James Ilgenfritz (contrabass); Kyle Motl (contrabass); Carl Bettendorf (conductor)."
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LP
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CREP 108LP
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Continuing his fruitful relationship with Discrepant after the third volume of his ongoing Organic Music Tape Series on Sucata Tapes, Tiago Sousa returns with two long-form pieces for organ with A Thousand Strings. A self-explanatory title in itself, A Thousand Strings drifts fluidly into a celestial realm of cascading melodies and cycling patterns that never feel forced or strict throughout its two hypnotic tracks. Pulsating with life and ecstatic abandon. Taking cues from the tradition of American minimalists like Steve Reich and, particularly, Terry Riley, the Portuguese composer's work flows with a life of his own, that, while acknowledging those influences, transcends them into his own signature. On the A side, "A Thousand Strings" goes seamlessly from intertwining crepuscular harmonies to ascending keyboard runs in the manner of "Persian Surgery Dervishes" finishing with a coda of rhythmic marimba-like pulses. On the flipside, "The Things Passed" creates this maze-like tapestry of melodies that seem to drift apart only to converge back again into its internal process before setting on sustained tones infused with a sense of longing. For all things passed. For what is yet to come. Recorded by Tiago Sousa and mastered by Rashad Becker.
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LP
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R 108LP
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Recital presents composer Allan Gilbert Balon's first full-length LP. Born 1986 in Les Abymes on the island of Guadeloupe, Balon is an artist (exhibiting at MoMA PS1 in 2022) who publishes beautiful handmade books and audio on XYÄ Edition run with Uta Guan Hyë in Créteil, France where he now resides. The Magnesia Suite harbors an unhurried, coastal tranquility that flows lucidly as an album. Though prominently a pianist, a breadth of Balon's musical spheres are visited on this record. Disparate elements of percussion, reeds, organ, voice, and tape recordings are all cast together. Each slowly excavated, surveyed and then set away. "Stella Maris" opens with an organ and voice procession in the vein of a Charlemagne Palestine singing piece. "Lustras" is a patchwork of various tape captures (a la Alvin Curran, Rip Hayman, or André Thomkins); piano clusters dredge into xylophone by night with cicadas swimming in radio transmissions. First hearing the track "Pleuro Delez Waltz" is what made Recital approach Allan about making an album. The proximity of the voices against the small percussions, all laced with Balon's piano stylings. The album ends with "Ogadia," a gentle piano march with soprano saxophone and electronics. Feels like a Dave Burrell-infused rag played slowly, beautifully resolving the outsider-jazz-sound-art-poetry-collages of The Magnesia Suite. The LP includes a booklet of quiet texts and beautiful graphic scores.
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LP
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BLUME 022LP
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$28.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/11/2024
Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joining their broad efforts in building networks of context and understanding, Blume returns with the first ever vinyl release to attend to James Tenney's legendary Postal Pieces. This marks the first ever appearance of five of the suite's works -- "Maximusic, for Max Neuhaus" (1965), "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion, for John Bergamo" (1971), "FFor Percussion Perhaps, or... [Night], for Harold Budd" (1971), "Cellogram, for Joel Krosnick" (1971), and "Beast, for Buell Neidlinger" (1971) -- on vinyl, drawing upon recordings made in 2003, by the Amsterdam based ensemble, The Barton Workshop, under the direction of James Fulkerson. Among the most important and highly regarded efforts in Tenney's canon of compositions, as well as within the history of 20th Century music, these five pieces represent a crucial bridge between Fluxus-oriented conceptualism, minimalism, and the microtonal complexities that would emerge in their wakes. A student of composition under Carl Ruggles, John Cage, Harry Partch, and Edgard Varèse, as well as acoustics, information theory, and tape music composition under Lejaren Hiller, James Tenney carved a wide path within the contexts of experimental and avant-garde music during the second half of the 20th Century. A suite of eleven compositions, The Postal Pieces, stands among Tenney's well known and celebrated compositions, and illuminates the dualities embraced by the composer, notably his use of sound to develop consciousness in and of others, and his willingness to draw on elements and observations of everyday life; citing his strong dislike of writing letters as being the primary inspiration for their inception. The suite is composed around three themes: Tenney's concept of swell form (utilizing repetition and progressing through a structurally symmetrical arch), intonation, and the desire to produce "meditative perceptual states." A hugely important addition to Blume's ever-expanding efforts in context building and networks of creative practice, James Tenney's Post Pieces is issued in a highly limited vinyl edition of 300 copies, which includes an exact replica of the original postcard graphic scores, and features newly commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey.
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CD
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INT 34622CD
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"Nicholas Lens, a Belgian composer of contemporary music, is known particularly for his operas. One of his earliest works is the music drama Flamma Flamma: The Fire Requiem, the first part of his trilogy The Accacha Chronicles (Flamma Flamma/Terra Terra/Amor Aeternus). The fusion of non-European musical cultures and Western classical music has been described as highly unique. Flamma Flamma is conspicuous for its unusual instrumentation - apart from chamber orchestra, mixed choir and six soloists, there are also a Japanese koto, an extensive percussion set-up and three natural voices. The work is a composition beyond all conventions. Unlike almost any other requiem, Flamma Flamma not only deals with grief and pain, but also with the idea that death is a natural part of life. Tribute is paid to the afterlife without glorifying it, the positive aspects of fire -- such as light and warmth -- are praised and all human emotions in the face of death are addressed, across all philosophical and even musical boundaries. Flamma Flamma has been used numerous times for the most diverse art events and hundreds of dance and ballet creations around the world. For instance, it was performed live at the opening of the Adelaide Festival with more than 1,000 performers in front of an audience of 30,000 people. After its first release on CD in 1994, Flamma Flamma moved up various international charts and quickly went from being an insiders' tip to a huge success, with even a videoclip showing on MTV and Arte. Tracks such as 'Sumus Vicinae,' 'Corpus Inimici' or the title track 'Flamma Flamma' have even become cult classics and made it to some alternative dance floors from Paris to NY and Tokyo. Flamma Flamma by Nicholas Lens will now be re-released on an elaborately designed double vinyl in gatefold cover to mark the 30th anniversary. The composer himself artistically supervised the re-mastering."
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3LP BOX
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MOVCL 056COL-LP
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"Akhnaten is the third instalment in the Glass' trilogy of operas about men who changed the world in which they lived through the power of their ideas. Akhnaten's subject is religion. The Pharaoh Akhnaten was the first monotheist in recorded story, and his substitution of a one-god religion for the multi-god worship in use when he came to power was responsible for his violent overthrow. The opera describes the rise, reign, and fall of Akhnaten in a series of tableaus. The 3LP Akhnaten is available as an exclusive limited edition of 250 numbered copies on crystal clear vinyl. This deluxe liftoff box-set contains a 16-page libretto."
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LP
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LOVE 131LP
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Delphine Dora is a prolific composer, improviser and musician who has released on a plethora of labels including Recital, Morc, Sloow Tapes, Feeding Tube, Okraïna and more. Le Grand Passage is a stunning set of songs for piano and voice, recorded in one take without overdubs or edits, contrasting gilded piano motifs with improvised and abstracted vocal expressions, channeling the divine. Delphine Dora was nearing the end of a three-day prepared piano residency when a technician stepped in to tune her grand piano for her final performance. He removed the objects from the strings and fixed the pitch, leaving Dora with a freshly tuned instrument. Mesmerized by its new sound, she proceeded to switch on her recorder and pour out her soul, channeling, in her own words, "something greater than myself." The result is some of the most unusual but elevated material the prolific composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist has ever recorded, rooted in a deep understanding of European musical history but willing to push at its boundaries, questioning the earthly logic of life and death, asceticism and impiety. Baroque paradigms bleed into fragile, introspective mantras, expressed through a made-up language of existential yearning and channeled through piano and voice. It's music that caresses the sublime, made without any premeditation. Dora conjures affecting, plainspoken poetry, like a bedside diary written in a hypnagogic, delirious state: a stream-of-unconsciousness, channeling the beyond. The album title connects to a book dedicated to French philosopher and activist Simone Weil, who famously pored over global religions to ascertain spiritual truths. To Weil, meditation was a passage to access mystical experience, or a bridge between humanity and divinity. In Dora's hands, this idea is a corridor between herself and the listener, a liminal place where she's able to address feelings without making anything explicit. The title, of course, also refers to life, its impermanence, finitude, and fragility, presenting the complex, multidimensionality of being through one of the most undiluted, unbridled set of songs imaginable. RIYL Andrew Chalk, Virginia Astley, Dominique Lawalrée, Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru. Mastered by Rashad Becker.
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RM 4151CD
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On Stone, Suzuki expounds his approach of "throwing and following," casting out sounds and gestures into space and catching their returns. Each of the pieces explores the materiality of his chosen objects and the space within which each is activated. The recordings catch this process of sonic offering, and receiving, that characterizes the generosity of his relationship with sound, space and time. Originally recorded in 1994 in Berlin, this 30th anniversary edition features a new booklet with text by David Toop and photo documentation, some of which has not previously been published. The edition is also entirely remastered from the original recordings. From David Toop (excerpt from the Stone booklet): "With concentration, or elevated tension as he has called it, Akio Suzuki enters completely into the substance of sound, its emergence and its passing. What he does with sound may propose a rarefied world to many people, and yet it possesses a persuasive quality of rightness. One of the most difficult aspects of music and soundwork to explain is the concept of 'right action.' How is that music can be evaluated almost immediately, just as quickly as a fire alarm or a baby's cry? When Akio performs, certain qualities (grace, warmth, a quiet authority of mind and action, an engagement with the vessel of nothingness through which sound can emerge) are evident as presences, as soon as he begins. He begins from a state we call silence, by listening, yet at the same time raises questions about our ideas of what this silence might be. Time passes; fixity gives way to destruction; visual perfection is relinquished within the faintest of sound fields. As for the work, this ceremony returns us to nothing, 'to the feeling of not knowing exactly what is before us,' so to the uncanny, to the shell-like ear found by the sea, the 'ungraspable phantom of life,' the record of a haunting, time regained. The sound is a parabola, a finger tracing on skin, a brush point, bird in flight." Recorded in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Studio I on 11, 12, 13, and 17 October 1994. Mixed by Hans Peter Kuhn. Recorded by Junko Wada. Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space.
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2LP
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GODREC 071LP
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Morton Feldman's last composition, Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, was completed in 1987; although its instrumentation largely corresponds to that of Piano and String Quartet, with one instead of two violins, it differs in almost every other respect from the composition written only two years earlier, for here, in contrast to Piano and String Quartet, Feldman makes every effort to integrate the piano into the string section, and the basic formal components of the composition are no longer staves, as they were in Piano and String Quartet. Double LP with 4th side etched.
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2LP
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MOVCL 055COL-LP
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"Naqoyqatsi is the third and final film in the Qatsi trilogy, meaning 'life as war.' About eighty percent of Naqoyqatsi uses archive footage and stock images manipulated and processed digitally on non-linear editing (workstations and intercut with specially produced computer-generated imagery to demonstrate society's transition from a natural environment to a technology-based one). Just like its predecessors Koyaanisqatsiand and Powaqqatsi, the music was composed by Philip Glass. Performed by members of the Philip Glass Ensemble, and featuring the amazing Yo-Yo Ma on cello, this completes the lengthy score which was begun for this film series with Koyaanisqatsi in 1982. The music is more in the traditional orchestral tradition than much of Glass's work as a familiar doorway to images so disconnected from the familiar world. One instrument, the cello, plays through much of the piece. Some unconventional instruments are used in addition to traditional ones, including a didgeridoo and an electronically created jaw harp. Naqoyqatsi is available as a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on translucent red colored vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve and contains an eight-page booklet."
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2LP
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ND 010LP
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Following up on his Night Dreamer debut, accomplished pianist Nicolas van Poucke returns with a recording of the works of Chopin. Originally entering the studio with the intention of recording the Chopin pieces, van Poucke's technical skill and emotional depth resulted in producing two direct-to-disc recordings, the other being a Beethoven record released in 2022 on Night Dreamer. Although an unusual method of recording for this style of music, the one-take process was met by van Poucke head-on, balancing the fine lines of emotion and detail, and following in the footsteps of the greats who once recorded in this way. Van Poucke says: "[Chopin]'s music has long held a special place in my heart and remains central to my repertoire. A towering figure in the history of piano music, Chopin's genius has left an indelible mark on the world of pianism. His Etudes Opus 10 were a seminal moment in the development of the art of the piano and are studied by every serious pianist at some point in their development. This new album features a selection of Chopin's works that showcase his mastery in various forms... [H]is skills as a master of the small form are evident in such pieces as the haunting Nocturne Opus 32 No. 1, four Mazurkas Opus 33, the mysterious and harmonically daring Prelude Opus 45, and three Waltzes Opus 64, including the celebrated 'Minute' Waltz, the equally renowned 'Waltz' in C-sharp minor, and my personal favorite, the 'Waltz' in A-flat major." The album also features two of Chopin's larger works, the Polonaise in Fsharp minor Opus 44, a dark and volatile composition that stands as one of his most energetic pieces. Its bold and defiant main theme, as Franz Liszt once noted, is like 'the repeated roar of artillery, as if we caught the sounds from some dread battle waging in the distance'... A charming and innocent idyllic Mazurka is inserted in the middle of the piece, infused with the sweet perfume of lavender and marjoram... The other larger work on the album is the Ballade in G minor Opus 23, a composition that I deeply adore for its narrative power and dramatic sweep. As the final piece on the album, it is a fitting and dramatic conclusion to this collection of Chopin's works."
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LP
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OI 001-2024LP
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A live performance of four early works by Steve Reich: "Four Organs," "My Name Is," "Piano Phase," and "Phase Patterns." This 1970 performance marked an important moment in San Francisco Bay Area new music history with the triumphant return to the East Bay by Reich, who studied at Mills College with Luciano Berio and performed the 1964 world premiere of Terry Riley's seminal In C at the San Francisco Tape Music Center. The resonant acoustics of the University of California at Berkeley Museum's concrete interior were especially appropriate for "Four Organs", with its long additive sustained chords over a maraca pulse. 180-gram LP. Black vinyl. Limited edition of 500.
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CD
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ANGELICA 054CD
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Born in 1933, with a career spanning over 65 years, the American composer Philip Corner has explored the most diverse artistic and musical expressions: as a pianist and trombonist, he performed historic and contemporary authors such as Ives, Cage, Cacioppo, Hellerman (in 1963 he also took part in the first integral performance of Vexations by Satie curated by Cage in New York). As a composer and performer, he was a member of Fluxus (defining with his Piano Activities the most iconic performance of the movement, albeit in the "over the top" rendition by Maciunas, Williams, Vostell, Paik, Higgins, Patterson, and Knowles in Wiesbaden in 1962); but also (between 1962 and 1965) of Judson Dance Theatre, composing music for dance and theatre pieces by Lucinda Childs, Yvonne Rainer, Living Theatre, etc. In 1963 he co-founded the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble with Malcolm Goldstein and James Tenney; in 1972, with Julie Winter, the ensemble Sounds out of Silent Spaces (at whose performances took part Annea Lockwood, Alison Knowles, Ruth Anderson, and Tom Johnson); and in 1975, with Barbara Benary and Daniel Goode, the Gamelan Son of Lion. He experimented with both "action music" and "meditative music," electronic or concrete montages, proto-plunderphonic collages, graphic scores, verbal philosophical/poetic instructions, contemporary gamelans, extreme minimalism (in 1977 in New York his Elementals lasted 123 uninterrupted hours on a single note, played in turn by guests spanning from Beth Anderson, to Cage to Paik); but he also composed for string quartets, chamber music ensembles, and orchestras. As a visual artist he created countless assemblages, calligraphies, collages, drawings, paintings and objects made of various materials, showcased in museums and collections around the world. Corner has been living in Italy since 1992, and he presented several projects at AngelicA (amongst which an unprecedented trio with Joan La Barbara and Alvin Curran paying homage to Cage), but perhaps the most peculiar one has been Chorus at the Corner: A Joyfull Noise, a commission entirely dedicated to his compositions for choir. A concert made possible by the availability of two "resident" choirs at the festival.
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CD
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ANGELICA 055CD
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In May 2022, at the age of 88, Christian Wolff performed once again at AngelicA, nine years after the monographic concerts the festival had dedicated to him in 2013, which was documented on the CD album Angelica Music, (ANGELICA 030CD, 2020). Among the greatest and most singular living composers, for the opening of the thirty-second edition of the festival he presented a world-exclusive program, alongside two of his long-time collaborators, the percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky and the drummer Joey Baron, and an Angelica orchestrA of seven electric guitars, made up for the occasion around students and teachers of the Conservatory "G.B. Martini" of Bologna led by Walter Zanetti. Spanning over 58 years of the composer's production, the program offered on May 7th revolved around Sveglia, a new composition for seven electric guitars commissioned as a world premiere by the festival. Renowned up to that point as a pianist, it was apparently Wolff's interest for several rock bands of the time who pushed him to buy an electric guitar in the mid-'60s, and the first of his compositions to incorporate this instrument were the three Electric Spring of 1966-67. In the 2000s he also composed three pieces for solo guitar (two of which were recorded by Sergio Sorrentino, guest of Angelica orchestrA at this time), but he had never composed for an ensemble of guitars only, as on this occasion. Largely completely notated, but with a series of compositional features left open (i.e. no specification of tempi, dynamics and spacing of musical elements), Sveglia also includes short quotations from other compositions (Bach's Brandenburg Concertos n. 3 and 6, and a motet by Gombert), "that need not necessarily be noticed." The other piece composed specifically for the concert in Bologna (and for one held later in New York, at the space for experimental music from which it took its title) is Roulette, performed by Wolff with Schulkowsky and Baron.
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LP
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GREYFADE 005LP
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$27.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 2/9/2024
Originally released in 2022. A beautifully meditative and architectural set of loops for solo piano, Filters is the solo debut of pianist and composer Phillip Golub (b. 1993). Approaching the concept of endless repetition through the lens of his delicate and expressive pianism, Golub's loops unite the austerity of the systems-based with the infinite variety and imagination of live performance. The process of manual repetition resembles for Golub a kind of ritual, rather than merely a technological process. It is the act of participation in an entity unfolding over time that interests him. He explored different durations and performance contexts, sometimes quietly performing a loop or two as guests arrived to a recital hall, other times programming afternoon-length performances in which each loop extended to durations of 45 minutes or more. He even experimented with orchestrating the loops for various mixed chamber ensembles. For the recording of his debut solo album, however, Golub wanted to distill the timeless quality of these pieces into a piano-only, LP-length experience. In summer 2019, while in Los Angeles for work on an opera with Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding, he scheduled time to record on a privately owned and beautifully maintained Steinway D. Golub then edited together his favorite sections of these extended performances to construct the final album versions. Structurally, each loop proceeds by ordering two internal sections into larger patterns. While the harmonic and formal dimensions of Filters are meticulously controlled, some aspects of the compositions are left intentionally open. There is no explicit rhythm specified in the composition, for instance; the approximate timing of each event is indicated with space-time notation. Filters is intentionally designed to work in many contexts. Although the structural integrity and endlessly variegated details of these loops reward focused listening, they never demand it. This is also just beautiful music to get lost in.
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