BRANCA, GLENN The Ascension (Acute) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
I only ever knew Glenn Branca as "the guitar orchestra guy" responsible for assembling huge groups of guitarists (often well known rock guitarists), to perform huge, throbbing, hypnotic and repetitive compositions -- some for ten guitarists, fifty guitarists, even one hundred guitarists. The recent Rhys Chatham box, reviewed a few lists back, suggested that perhaps Branca's guitar orchestra concept was 'borrowed' from Chatham, as Branca had performed in many of Chatham's multiple guitar ensembles. But in much the same way that we were surprised by the rock-ness of the early Chatham material, this early recording from Branca and his four guitar/bass/drums outfit has much more in common with noisy post punk/post rock: Bastro, Bitch Magnet, Slint and the like, than Ligeti, Penderecki, Messiaen or any of the other names dropped in Lee Ranaldo's liner notes. Extended drony, atonal rhythmic explorations stretch on and on, building horror-movie-minor-key tension, building and building and building, before bursting into unrelenting rock rhythm/riffs. Lots of the more rock parts sound like an instrumental version of North Western punk rockers The Wipers, but with lots of odd dynamics ala Bastro or Slint and with the extended riff repetition of modern minimalism stretching the songs into droning, hypnotic master works. Throbbing and relentless, pounding and intricate, weaving back and forth between ferocious, unrelenting rock-action, and epic, complex geometric stop/start, hypno-minimalism.
MPEG Stream: "The Spectacular Commodity"
MPEG Stream: "Lesson No. 2"

BRUHIN, ANTON Orax / Rotomotor (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
An archival release of '70s cassette-tape works by this odd Swiss sound artist, consisting of environmental sounds, ping-pong recording techniques, and other spatial / audio experimentation. Byram thinks most of this is the sound of good European arts funding gone to waste, except for the last piece, which is an absolute mindnumbing half-hour palindromic recitation of German words arranged by their similarity in sound. Makes the disc worth owning for this track alone. Allan agrees that "Rotomotor" is the best track, but he finds the rest of this at least intriguing, especially through earphones.
On a side note: If you come into AQ fairly frequently you may have observed this customer we have that is always knocking shit off the counter. We want to say something to him but we're too embarrassed to confront his hamfistedness, so we're passive-aggressively mentioning it here, for 6000 people to enjoy. Well, said customer has acquired a young apprentice now, and one night the two of them came in together to polish up their anti-social skills. Anyway, the younger fella comes up to the counter to ask about this cd, if we have two of them -- cuz of course these guys must be peas in a pod -- so they can both get one. Well, turns out that the nicely sealed copies we showed 'em both had ever so slight dimples on the upper right hand corner (like a light impression made by a pointed object, so slight as to be practically invisible). Because of this, annoying apprentice desired the display copy instead. But if YOU can deal with the "invisible dimple", we've still got a couple copies.
RealAudio clip: "Orax"
RealAudio clip: "Rotomotor"

BRYARS, GAVIN The Marvellous Aphorisms Of Gavin Bryars: The Early Years (Mode) cd 16.98

BULL, SANDY E Pluribus Unum (Sutro Park) lp 16.98
It's great to see these first three essential Sandy Bull lps on Vanguard finally get reissued, as his influence has been felt more and more lately. You can hear Bull's pluralistic presence especially in Sir Richard Bishop, as Bull was among the first key guitar players, along with the UK's Davy Graham, to combine styles and ideas from Middle Eastern, classical, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, chamber music and Appalachian folk sources. Yet Bull wasn't a purist, often pushing and pulling these wide-ranging ideas across instruments both acoustic and electric in ways that searched for the interior truth of the material. These were best expressed in his side-long excursionary tracks called "Blends" accompanied by jazz drummer Billy Higgins. Sadly, Bull had a short-lived career plagued by drug problems and illness, but these records are solid proof of his pioneering role in the solo-guitar genre.
There's even a documentary playing in San Francisco soon made by his daughter, K. C. Bull, that folks should definitely check out!
E Pluribus Unum from 1968 is the most experimental of Bull's recordings and perhaps our favorite. Comprised of two side-long tracks, "No Deposit, No Return Blues" and "Electric Blend" this is Bull's full on electric raga record. Using electric guitar and oud through vibrant tremolo effects, as well as Middle Eastern percussion and finger cymbals, Bull explores some psychedelic Bo Diddley territory channeled through the exotic mystique of Hamza El Din. Similar in vein to what was performed in the recently released live recording from 1969, Still Valentine's Day, time has been good to this recording as it sounds like something far more contemporary than its original critics gave it credit for. Perhaps its abandonment of classical sources and acoustic instruments in favor of more populist and drug friendly musical territory turned the more academically-minded musical purists off. And those druggy influences DID send Bull on a path he was never to return from, only recording one more full album after this one. Yet this record, like no other, captured his furthest exhilarating push into the depths of his musical being before he lost himself for good. Highest recommendation!

BULL, SANDY Fantasias (Sutro Park) lp 16.98
It's great to see these first three essential Sandy Bull lps on Vanguard finally get reissued, as his influence has been felt more and more lately. You can hear Bull's pluralistic presence especially in Sir Richard Bishop, as Bull was among the first key guitar players, along with the UK's Davy Graham, to combine styles and ideas from Middle Eastern, classical, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, chamber music and Appalachian folk sources. Yet Bull wasn't a purist, often pushing and pulling these wide-ranging ideas across instruments both acoustic and electric in ways that searched for the interior truth of the material. These were best expressed in his side-long excursionary tracks called "Blends" accompanied by jazz drummer Billy Higgins. Sadly, Bull had a short-lived career plagued by drug problems and illness, but these records are solid proof of his pioneering role in the solo-guitar genre.
There's even a documentary playing in San Francisco soon made by his daughter, K. C. Bull, that folks should definitely check out!
Fantasias (for guitar and banjo) was originally released in 1963, though it's often stuffed in the drawer behind Fahey's dirty socks though, such as it is that over the years, Fahey has taken a larger chunk of real estate in the guitar soli zeitgeist. But if Bull were to be compared with anyone, his playing style is much more influenced by Pete Seeger. Banjo was Sandy's first instrument and it was with a banjo that he first made an impression on the public as a precocious college freshman. Bull freely admits Seeger as being a mentor of his, and his "Carmina Burana Fantasy" is certainly inspired by Seeger's arrangements of classical pieces that were included on his "Goofing Off Suite" LP (released in 1955). But influenced or no, Bull had his own unique style and both his original compositions and arrangements of existing works are as good as much of the works of either Fahey or Seeger. "Blend", the first track which takes up all of side one (22 minutes), is a beautiful Sudanese-esque duet between Sandy on an open tuned guitar with jazz drummer Billy Higgins accompanying. A track that would make the Sun City Girls blush, "Blend", alternates between dark and slow musings from Bull to intense repartee between Bull and Higgins. Higgins does an excellent job of filling in, and avoids breaking the aesthetic by playing sans snare. The remaining four tracks on the album are all solo banjo and or guitar. Along with the aforementioned "Carmina Burana Fantasy", Bull pulls off a nice overdubbed arrangement of English Renaissance composer William Byrd's "Non Nobis Domine" on guitar, a rousing rendition of Appalachian folk ballad "Little Maggie" on banjo and a final piece simply entitled "Gospel Tune" played on a tremelo laden electric guitar.

BULL, SANDY Inventions (Sutro Park) lp 16.98
It's great to see these first three essential Sandy Bull lps on Vanguard finally get reissued, as his influence has been felt more and more lately. You can hear Bull's pluralistic presence especially in Sir Richard Bishop, as Bull was among the first key guitar players, along with the UK's Davy Graham, to combine styles and ideas from Middle Eastern, classical, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, chamber music and Appalachian folk sources. Yet Bull wasn't a purist, often pushing and pulling these wide-ranging ideas across instruments both acoustic and electric in ways that searched for the interior truth of the material. These were best expressed in his side-long excursionary tracks called "Blends" accompanied by jazz drummer Billy Higgins. Sadly, Bull had a short-lived career plagued by drug problems and illness, but these records are solid proof of his pioneering role in the solo-guitar genre.
There's even a documentary playing in San Francisco soon made by his daughter, K. C. Bull, that folks should definitely check out!
Inventions (for guitar, banjo, oud, electric guitar and electric bass) from 1965 is considered to be Bull's best record as it fully covers his wide-ranging tenacity in interpretation and composition. Beginning with "Blend II", another side-long composition accompanied by Billy Higgins, the playing is born of a dark mystique, carving out bits from free jazz melodic motifs, and early-American folk tunes to Lebanese music and North African popular songs. The interplay between Higgins and Bull is more complex than the first "Blend" on Fantasias, with Higgins' standing on his own as a performer rather than a mere accompaniment. Side one ends with a short electric version of Bach's "Gavotte No. 2", which is repeated in a longer acoustic form at the beginning of side 2. The interpretation of Luiz Bonfa's Brazilian classic, "Manha de Carnaval" shows Bull experimenting with multi-tracking as he plays acoustic guitar, bass and oud. Here, Bruce Langhorne and Hamza El Din display their guiding hands on Bull's playing as Langhorne taught Bull the song, and El Din, the oud itself. "Triple Ballade" is a piece by renaissance composer Guillaume de Machaut, a gothic chamber piece performed with guitar, banjo and oud, while the final piece is Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennesee" a tremelo-laden rocker with Billy Higgins again on drums that sets the stage for the full on raga blues of Bull's third record, E Pluribus Unum!

CAGE, JOHN Atlas Eclipticalis / Winter Music / 103 (Asphodel) 4cd 30.00
Asphodel presents three pieces of Cage's symphonic work fortunately without DJ Spooky to add insipid post-modern liner notes or to 'digitally record' the performances. "Atlas Eclipticalis" and "Winter Music" are severely spartan orchestrations for Cage with a huge spaces set between each of the tones, set indeterminately by Cage as he traced constellations onto music paper. Here, the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble with David Tudor, perform these two scores simultaneously. The liner notes indicate that these two pieces were meant to complement each other, but it seems a little vague in terms of the rationale behind the fusing of the two. Regardless, this performance is quite spectacular.
"103" was composed more as a collection of 103 solos in which each instrument plays a series of single tones with specified windows of time for the tones to be played. Cage had intended for this piece to be performed without a conductor. Instead, the length of each of the 103 solos would determined by a digital clock. However, the performance presented here by the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra from the Czech Republic was conducted by Petr Kotik. While Cage not surpringly didn't care much for the idea of rehearsing, Kotik believes that the conceptual agenda may be augmented to maintain the integrity of a performance.

CAGE, JOHN Atlas Eclipticalis With Winter Music (Mode) 3cd 51.00

MPEG Stream: "Atlas Eclipticalis (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Atlas Eclipticalis (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Atlas Eclipticalis (excerpt 3)"

CAGE, JOHN Branches (Timescraper) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"So if a guy brought in a home made cd, you guys would sell it?" So said a homeless guy when I told him that "Branches" -- which had been playing on our house system at the time -- was more the kind of thing we were looking for than the Eric Clapton & Kenny G cds that he was hoping to get cash for. "Branches" is actually Cage's piece "Child of Tree", but augmented by several consecutive variations of the same piece. John Cage's performance notes state: "Find 10 'instruments', one of which is a pod (rattle) from a poinciana tree." Cage also indicates that no conventional instruments, nor animal or metal materials may be used in this performance. Cactus plucked with toothpicks come highly recommended however. Seven musicians -- using dried thistles, seed pods, blocks of wood, sundry other dried vegetation and taking Cage up on his cactii recommendation -- performed "Branches" inside a room within a dam at a constant 6 degrees celsius. (The track included here as a Real Audio file has been boosted about 125% so that it's a bit more audible under such a low fidelity listening situation.)
RealAudio clip: "Branches"

CAGE, JOHN Credo In Us (Wergo) cd 19.98

CAGE, JOHN Diary: How To Improve The World (Wergo) 8cd 93.00
"This landmark Wergo set presents 8 out of 10 volumes from John Cage's unfinished spoken diary. Read in the composer's own inimitable voice, these recordings provide fascinating insights into Cage's musical and life philosophies. These are not simply spoken word recordings -- each volume is sonically composed. Changes in typography in the printed text correspond to simultaneous changes in the stereophonic position and simultaneous changes in the volume of Cage's voice. This deluxe 8 CD boxed set includes a 64-page booklet containing several photographs taken in John Cage's loft and during the recording sessions in 1991, as well as a complete chronology of the composer's life." - Wergo liner notes. This is the new edition of this infamous Wergo document, with new, slimmer packaging and new written book.

CAGE, JOHN Empty Words (Parte III) (Ampersand) 2cd 17.98
What a fucking nut. Two discs of Cage reading, calmly and without expression, cut-up non-sensical passages from Henry David Thoreau's journals, live in Milan, 1977. The audience reaction is, however, quite expressive! Over the two discs the outcry builds: clapping, jeering, stomping, shrieking. Eventually the recording is more of the noise-making audience's near-riot than of Cage's performance, which is certainly in keeping with the man's philosophy of "music". Amazing and absurd. What a fucking nut!

CAGE, JOHN Four Walls (Long Arms) cd 15.98

CAGE, JOHN Music of Changes (Hat Hut) cd 16.98
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Cage's first work composed entirely by using the I Ching (the title is taken from the name of Kurt Wolff's book on the I Ching "The Book of Changes". Every pitch value, note duration, expressive marking is determined by this painstaking process -- a process that Cage caught much flack for from many of his total serialist contemporaries. This was the first recording of that piece ever made, performed by David Tudor on solo piano and recorded in 1956. Comes in a fold out cardboard slip case printed with three pages of excellent liner notes by Art Lange.
RealAudio clip: "III"

CAGE, JOHN Works For Violin 3: Two4 (Mode) cd 16.98

CAGE, JOHN / DAVID TUDOR Indeterminacy (Smithsonian Folkways) 2cd 25.00

CAGE, JOHN / DAVID TUDOR Mureau / Rainforest II: A Simultaneous Performance (New World Records) 2cd 29.00

CAGE, JOHN / KENNETH PATCHEN The City Wears A Slouch Hat (Cortical Foundation) cd 16.98
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Never-before-released radio play collaboration between John Cage and writer/artist Kenneth Patchen performed in 1942. In what has to be one of the oddest Cage pieces ever, professional radio voice talents unravel a truly surreal story in straight '40s radio drama style. Replacing the usual radio drama sound effects is a percussion ensemble led by John Cage which punctuates the dialog throughout. Along with muted gongs, tin can xylophones, and marimbula are an assortment of electronic gadgets, including an audio frequency oscillator, electric buzzers and recorded sounds. Also included on this disk is "Credo in us" with Genevieve Blons on shortwave radio, and a 1939 recording of Cage's "Imaginary Landscape" for shortwave radio. Oh, and according to the Cortical Foundation, this cd is limited to a pressing of 1000 copies.
RealAudio clip: "City Wears A Slouch Hat"

CALE / CONRAD / MACLISE / YOUNG / ZAZEELA Inside The Dream Syndicate (Table Of The Elements) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
These legendary "lost" recordings finally see the light of day, likely for a brief period of time only, as LaMonte Young's lawyers will most certainly issue a cease and desist order on the manufacturing and distribution of this, soon (we assume) making this document of seminal underground '60s NYC experimental art-drone music once again unavailable to the general public. Young's complaint revolves around the poor sound quality of this recording of his lengendary (yet largely unheard) ensemble which also featured the Velvet Underground's John Cale, violinist Tony Conrad, VU-founding percussionist (and mystic cult figure) Angus MacLise, and vocalist Marian Zazeela. The admitedly lo-fi mix (yes, it sounds really crude and crappy, although that has it's own obscure, grating charm, of forbidden music struggling to be heard after many decades of silence) is dominated by the twin mesmerism of Cale's and Conrad's strings with the cryptic pitter-patter of Angus MacLise's percussion occasionally making itself heard. LaMonte Young and his wife Marian Zazeela are credited with vocals, but can't really be heard doing anything at all. Maybe that's why he's so pissed off... Really what Young wants is sole composers credit, which seems a bit ridiculous to us (and to Tony Conrad et.al.)...so, we're stuck with this less-than-sonically-perfect document, for at least as long as Youngs lawyers let us...too bad these old dronesters couldn't have worked things out so that Young's supposedly crystal-clear tapes could have been used. Oh well, the triumph of a man's ego over "his" own art.

CALE, JOHN & TERRY RILEY Church Of Anthrax (Wounded Bird) cd 16.98
More music needs to be like this! Open and unfettered yet baroquely mysterious and cryptic; taking strange careening detours that cast endlessly distorting sonic reflections. Minimal but complex, driving and repetitive, yet sloppily unraveling with a ponderous noisy pop undercurrent that is both reverent and perverse. Is this a rock record led by a chamber ensemble? Or an avant-garde composition ambushed by lurching bass and drums? Or both? Makes sense that this album is called Church of Anthrax and both of its high priests are one time Velvet Underground and Dream Syndicate members John Cale and the guru of minimalism Terry Riley.
This one time collaboration from 1971 has just been re-issued and it's never sounded better! Touching on experimental jazz, minimalist composition, free rock and baroque pop yet remaining elusive and restless, never settling neatly into any one genre. It was recorded at a time when such cross-pollination of sounds was not only new but very necessary. John Cale plays all sides of his musical personae returning to his avant-garde roots with LaMonte Young in the Theater of Eternal Music but infusing it with the noisy economy of The Velvet Underground and the poetic pop of his subsequent output. While Terry Riley allows his more purist minimal aesthetic to become looser and emotive, paving the way towards his soundtrack works a few years later. Add to it the shambling drums of Bobby Columby from Blood Sweat and Tears (uncredited here) and the strange guest appearance of little known singer, Adam Miller (probably best known for the sesame street song, "We all Live in the Capital I") and what we have is this truly odd and hypnotically amazing document. Something that sounds more Germany than New York, like a collaboration between Can and Ralf and Florian of Kraftwerk or between Faust and Cluster. Or more contemporarily and unlikely, say between Wooden Shjips and Shogun Kunitoki with a guest vocal appearance by Thom Yorke of Radiohead!
The title track opens with a deep low multi-horned drone before the bass and drums kick into what begins to sound like a more driving version of The Kinks'"Powerman". But instead of going into a formal song structure, the riff repeats with Riley's pipe organ laying circular filigree riffs over the top, maintaining a constant lurch forward, and glassy saxophone stabs and atonal guitar rising from underneath creating an uneasy rhythm that slowly unravels into a propulsively droney stew. The air clears for the beautiful "Hall of Mirrors in The Palace of Versailles" with Cale on piano and Riley on solo saxophone trading off building and lilting riffs that rise and coalesce into shimmering tones. It's the moment that feels unique to each of them: the melodic minimalism of Cale's Dream syndicate days, and the all night time-delayed sax pieces of Riley's "Poppy Nogood and The Phantom Band". But with its mirror imagery and gorgeous repetitions, it feels wonderfully cinematic like a lost score for Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad". The next track, "The Soul of Patrick Lee" is perhaps the strangest because it's the only one with vocals, which wouldn't be unusual for John Cale as he wrote it and it sounds like him, but oddly he relegates the singing duties to his friend Adam Miller, an obscure singer-songwriter who wrote a Partridge Family tune and sang the above mentioned Sesame Street song. This track provides a breather of sorts, a short baroque folk ballad interlude between the other longform pieces, but it's like a haunting theme that adds to the mysterious soundtrack feel of the whole record. "Ides of March", the longest piece, features chugging piano riffs and skittering drums over a looped but drunkenly lopsided groove that wavers in and out of sync, building in a weird way where all the notes that seem off finally becoming locked in and right. Closing the record is the short "Protege" which ups the vampy piano riffs and Moe Tucker like drums before careening into a swift blast of noisy distortion. A sudden ending to this curious record that leaves us wanting more. Thankfully there's the repeat button!
MPEG Stream: "Church of Anthrax"
MPEG Stream: "The Soul of Patrick Lee"
MPEG Stream: "Ides of March"

CARDEW, CORNELIUS Chamber Music 1955-64: Apartment House (Matchless) cd 17.98
Released on AMM's Matchless label, "Chamber Music 1955-64" is a retrospective of the early compositions from the late British composer Cornelius Cardew. After studying with Stockhausen in the late '50s, Cardew quickly shifted his personal aesthetic sympathies away from Stockhausen's exactitude and towards John Cage's principles of indeterminancy. After returning to England a few years later, Cardew began experimenting with an open ended form of composition that gave an equal weight to the purity found in his beautifully annoted graphic scores, the improvisational skill of the performers, and his own aesthetic polemics. Apartment House - a British avant-garde chamber ensemble - has recently taken the task of recording a number of these early compositions, including "Solo With Accompaniment," "Three Rhythmic Pieces For Trumpet And Piano," "Autumn '60," "Material," "Secong String Trio," "Piece For Guitar," "Memories of You," and "Octet '61." Apartment House's performances of these scores splutter through indeterminant notes and perfunctory silences, but Apartment House ringleader Anton Lukoszevieze admits the quandry for such compositions: "Through performing and organising these scores, I am convinced that some of them only really 'live' when the interpreted material is welded together by the use of spontaneous improvisation."
RealAudio clip: "Solo With Accompaniment"
RealAudio clip: "Autumn 60 (version 2)"

CARDEW, CORNELIUS Four Principles On Ireland and Other Pieces (Ampersand) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The liner notes for Cardew's "Four Principles on Ireland" state that Cardew enjoyed three stylistic phases of musical development. The first phase found Cardew breaking from the canons of the Royal Academy of Music in the 1950s and collaborating with Stockhausen, until he met John Cage and began work on "The Great Learning" and started the Scratch Orchestra. His third stylistic phase found Cardew embracing the political tenets of Maoism and completely separating himself from his previous work with his manifesto "Stockhausen Serves Imperialism." Within that provocative text, Cardew adopted the belief that music should serve the masses as an uplifting muse and an educational tool, thus denying the more conceptual agendas of the avant garde. The pieces found on this disc come from this latter period, focusing upon the melodies of historical revolutionary songs. Composed solely for piano, Cardew incorporates Irish war ballads and populist Chinese songs into the music, while drawing on his earliest training at the Royal Academy where he was "a star player of Bach." These songs are incredibly playful and are certainly uplifting in their mood, but they seem somewhat of a let down in comparison to the amazing conceptual works mentioned above.

CARDEW, CORNELIUS Treatise (Hat Hut) cd 26.00
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Even though Cornelius Cardew composed this piece from 1963 - 1967, the world premier complete recording of "Treatise" did not see the light of day long after his death in 1998. That's not surprising, considering that the manuscript of the score is 193 pages long, and serves as an open ended graphical display rather than a collection of specific notations. There are no suggestions as to how many instruments should be played, or for that matter how the score should even be read. Cardew himself expressed that this score utilizes the metaphor of a vertebrae, with the musicians moving their sounds around this backbone however they see fit. For this performance, the conductor was Art Lange and the musicians included Jim O'Rourke (electronics), Jim Baker (piano), Carrie Biolo (vibes), Guillermo Gregorio (clarinet), and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello). These musicians took all the liberties that Cardew hoped they would take with this huge free-form improvisation. Although I have to say that the idea behind this piece is much cooler than these two and a half hours of fanciful wankiness.

CARDEW, CORNELIUS We Sing For The Future! (New Albion) cd 13.98
Another collection of work from Cardew's final period of utilitarian compositions informed heavily by Maoist doctrines of Communism, "We Sing For The Future!" has been performed by pianist Frederic Rzewski, founding member of Musica Elettronica Viva. AMM's John Tilbury has some very nice things to say about the work and the perfomance, but I don't really agree. Stick with "The Great Learning" if you're looking for some amazing work from Cardew.
RealAudio clip: "We Sing For The Future! (Theme)"

CARDEW, CORNELIUS & THE SCRATCH ORCHESTRA The Great Learning (Cortical Foundation) cd 16.98
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The Cortical Foundation has been reissuing some amazing documents of avant-garde sound art from the past century, including this composition from Scratch Orchestra ringleader and AMM memeber Cornelius Cardew. This work presents three paragraphs from the much larger musical text of "The Great Learning" and is composed of sustained pipe organ tones in particularly malevolent chords, short stabs of police whistles, sheets of hammering tribal drums with human voices howling against the drums, and complex vocal choirs. All of the text that runs through the compositions are incantations from the Confucian text "The Great Learning" which lays down a basic ethical and political code. However, the recitation of these texts sounds very much like the perversions of Catholic liturgies from the black masses of the Satanic Church with an authoritative delivery, an almost Gnostic indecipherability, and a bleakly somber overtone. Cardew's intentions for using this text are to express the inherent human failings of attempting to live up to the most basic of moral codes. Despite his pairing the metaphor of failure with the distinctly sprirtual overtones in the work, Cardew may not be actually talking about spiritual collapse or the failure of religions. Rather, "The Great Learning" postulates that if there is a higher state than mankind, then it will be our goal to attempt to find a means to that state, even if that is an impossible goal. Altogether, this is an wonderful if at times terrifying work.
RealAudio clip: "Paragraph 1"

CARDEW, CORNELIUS / DAVID BEDFORD Great Learning / Two Poems... (Deutsche Grammophon) cd 16.98
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Both Cornelius Cardew and David Bedford were leading proponents of avant-garde composition in England during the '60s. Cardew's experimentation with graphical notation and a democratization of performance through improvisation were radical departures from the controlled strategies of his former mentor Karlheinz Stockhausen. His most successful realization of these ideas was the epic 7 hour composition "The Great Learning," a composition based on the set of Confucian texts of the same name which lays down a basic ethical and political code. This piece was actualized by his unprecendented Scratch Orchestra, an ensemble filled with professional and untrained musicians given simple instructions as well as the mandate to respond according to how the performance itself wanted to be performed, not by how the composer intended it to sound. "The Great Learning" comprised of 7 paragraphs, each with its own unique set of parameters. A few years back, we had offered a collection of recordings from "The Great Learning" published by the Cortical Foundation; yet, due to the continued medical situation that persists with Cortical Foundation's owner Gary Todd, that album has gone missing. However, this collection through Deutsche Grammophon includes 2 of the paragraphs (number 2 and number 7) from the same (and possibly only) session documented on the Cortical album. The recitation of these Confucian texts -- with Paragraph 2 as a tumultous drum and voice procession and Paragraph 7 as an angelic choir -- sounds very much like the perversions of Catholic liturgies from the black masses of the Satanic Church with an authoritative delivery, an almost Gnostic indecipherability, and a bleakly somber overtone. Cardew's intentions for using this text are to express the inherent human failings of attempting to live up to the most basic of moral codes. Despite his pairing the metaphor of failure with the distinctly sprirtual overtones in the work, Cardew may not be actually talking about spiritual collapse or the failure of religions. Rather, "The Great Learning" postulates that if there is a higher state to mankind, then it will be our goal to attempt to find a means to that state, even if that is an impossible goal. Later aligning himself with Maoism, Cardew's unwavering optimism for man's ability to escape the confines of oppression is most articulate within this outstanding composition.
That isn't to take anything away from David Bedford, who had been a member of Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. In his two beautiful vocal pieces, Bedford conveys a majestic impressionism of sound, drawing upon the poems of Kenneth Patchen. Where there is an undeniable tension and dischord within the Cardew pieces, there is a lightness and ephemeralism found within Bedford's. Altogether, the four pieces make for a very complementary pair of recordings.
RealAudio clip: CORNELIUS CARDEW "Paragraph 2"
RealAudio clip: DAVID BEDFORD "O Now The Drenched Land Wakes"

CARLOS, WENDY A Clockwork Orange (OST) (East Side Digital) cd 16.98
Not only is Wendy Carlos a pioneer of electornic music as we now know & love it. Her transformation from Walter to Wendy led to a new beginning in music making for Carlos. No longer was there just an academic and novelty approached to a new form of music(see "Switched On Bach"), but her music started to take a much more intense and focused eye. Haunting sounds, creepy melodies, something bubbling under the surface. Her work is most heard in film scores she has done over the last few decades..with this, her score for A Clockwork Orange being a seminal moment and a great place to start the voyage into the magical mystery of Wendy Carlos.

CARLOS, WENDY Rediscovering Lost Scores - Volume 1 (East Side Digital) cd 16.98
One of the most engaging pioneers of electronic music Wendy (formely Walter) Carlos has made some of the most haunting and chilling sounds over the last several decades. The collaboration with filmakers was a very natural progression for Carlos as her sounds so perfectly match the images of equally creative and twisted filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick for whom she scored both The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. This new compilation of her lost scores contains the stunning sounds she crafted for The Shining which never made it to album form before as well as tracks from A Clockwork Orange that were not included on that soundtrack. Dark electronic soundscapes years before labels like Scape or Schematic even existed. The last few tracks are devoted to her score work for several UNICEF films..those don't quite do it for us but wow how much the first 25 tracks from Kubrick's films sure do. Totally creepy and trailblazing.
MPEG Stream: "Greetings Ghosties"
MPEG Stream: "A Haunted Waltz"
MPEG Stream: "Bumps In The Night"

CARRIER BAND, THE Automatic Inscription of Speech Melody (iea) cd 14.98
A Pauline Oliveros project, with Peter Bode and Andrew Deutsch. For this release, they've taken stuff from the technical notebooks of electronic instrument pioneer Harald Bode (Peter's dad?) and with the use of the Bode Vocoder have made his writing part of their improvised drone composition. Other elements include Harald's demo tapes, Oliveros' "Difference Box" device, and Deutsch's synthesizer.

CHATHAM, RHYS A Rhys Chatham Compendium (Table Of The Elements) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There are many reasons why somebody needs to smack some sense into Table Of The Elements, with this compendium of Rhys Chatham's work being simply the latest episode of marketing blunders. Sometime in the future, Table Of The Elements has plans to release a 3CD box set of Rhys Chatham's compositions of rock-as-minimalism for multiple guitar symphonies, a fusionist strategy also explored by Chatham's contemporary / doppleganger Glenn Branca. And that boxset is scheduled to have a huge booklet with essays by Chatham, Lee Ranaldo, and Tony Conrad, as well as artwork by Robert Longo. All of this sounds enticing, but until that day (which may never come after how long it took Table Of The Elements to complete the Captain Beefheart series), all we can offer from Chatham is this overpriced, condensed version of the boxset. Groan. Oh, and supposedly this has a track that *won't* be on the alleged box set. Smack!

CHATHAM, RHYS An Angel Moves Too Fast To See (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
Always unpredictable and often a little bit frustrating, Table Of The Elements have decided to re-release 2 of the 3 discs from the now out of print Rhys Chatham An Angel Moves Too Fast To See box set (the third disc to follow later?), with no mention on either of these two new discs that they are indeed the same discs contained in the box. So if you already own the Chatham box, you already have this stuff, but if you somehow missed the box, you absolutely need this!
A gorgeously packaged and lovingly assembled disc chronicling one of the most important works of guitar experimentalist and early drone pioneer / minimalist Rhys Chatham, a man whose career seemed to always have been overshadowed by fellow New Yorker / guitarist Glenn Branca, who may have borrowed his multiple guitar idea from Chatham anyway.
The interesting thing, to us at least, is how accessible most of Chatham's pieces are. Sure, he's a minimalist composer, an artist, an avant garde pioneer, but when you get right down to brass tacks, much of his music sounds a lot like Stereolab or Neu! Filtered through Television and downtown Manhattan and with some more challenging arrangements, but very post rock nonetheless. Endless crescendos and repetitive intros build and build, until the band often launches into propulsive krautrock jams. Simple, repetitive and totally hypnotic. Echoes of AQ faves Circle and Salvatore as well as Faust and Can. Even though the pieces are for multiple guitars as well as sometimes horns and drums, it's hard to hear anything other than some really nice, spacey jams. Occasionally the dense horn jams remind us of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" slowed down and played through the sound system at CBGB.
This disc, the 5 part title track, starts off with a dense brassy drone that sounds a bit like Niblock composing for an army of trumpets or a little bit like later records by Dutch metallers Gore. That jam quickly slips into a sleepy krautrock groove before drifting off. The second movement is a blissed out brass drone beneath a dynamic mathrock workout, stacatto bursts demarcating a wide open expense of reverberent whir. The third movement is straight up Stereolab / Neu!, a loping post rock rhythm, a dreamy sunshiney melody, all propulsive and hypnotic. Next up is a much more dissonant slab of twentieth century angularity, an amorphous cloud of swirling notes and thick washes of orchestra-tuning-up clatter and cacophony. The final movement sounds like Circle or Salvatore or Tortoise or Zombi, but with strange synthy swooshes, like bits of Chariots Of Fire or something. Driving and almost rocking, totally mesmerizing and head nodding.
While this stuff is obviously of interest to folks into modern minimalism ala Maclise, Cale, Coleclough and other masters of the mighty drone, Chatham's more rock stuff, like An Angel Moves Too Fast To See, will definitely appeal to the more adventurous post/pop rockers into the above mentioned outfits (Tortoise, Stereolab, Circle, Salvatore) as well as folks into all things krautrock/free rock/space rock.
MPEG Stream: "An Angel Moves Too Fast To See - Prelude"
MPEG Stream: "An Angel Moves Too Fast To See - Allegro"

CHATHAM, RHYS Die Donnergotter (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
Always unpredictable and often a little bit frustrating, Table Of The Elements have decided to re-release 2 of the 3 discs from the now out of print Rhys Chatham An Angel Moves Too Fast To See box set (the third disc to follow later?), with no mention on either of these two new discs that they are indeed the same discs contained in the box. So if you already own the Chatham box, you already have this stuff, but if you somehow missed the box, you absolutely need this!
A gorgeously packaged and lovingly assembled disc chronicling one of the most important works of guitar experimentalist and early drone pioneer / minimalist Rhys Chatham, a man whose career seemed to always have been overshadowed by fellow New Yorker / guitarist Glenn Branca, who may have borrowed his multiple guitar idea from Chatham anyway.
The interesting thing, to us at least, is how accessible most of Chatham's pieces are. Sure, he's a minimalist composer, an artist, an avant garde pioneer, but when you get right down to brass tacks, much of his music sounds a lot like Stereolab or Neu! Filtered through Television and downtown Manhattan and with some more challenging arrangements, but very post rock nonetheless. Endless crescendos and repetetive intros build and build, until the band often launches into propulsive krautrock jams. Simple, repetitive and totally hypnotic. Echoes of AQ faves Circle and Salvatore as well as Faust and Can. Even though the pieces are for multiple guitars as well as sometimes horns and drums, it's hard to hear anything other than some really nice, spacey jams.
This disc begins with the slow building epic title track, all keening guitars and droning sustain, peppered with splashes of jazzy percussion and extra layers of chordal warmth, but like most of Chatham's pieces, it eventually kicks into a groovy post rock / krautrock jam, driving drums, soaring melodies, all with a blissed out fuzzy sheen. Definite shades of Stereolab and Circle on this one. "Waterloo #2" is the track that reminds us of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" slowed down and played through the sound system at CBGB. Martial drumming and dense horn figures float above. Up next is the scuzzy garage stomp of "Drastic Classicism", nods to Faust and Can but with plenty of distorted guitar scuzz and atonal fuzz rock jangle. The minimalism here is in the relentless repeated main riff, building to a blissed out jam, similar to the way black metal riffs at their most buzzy fuzz out into epic dronescapes. But Chatham's take is more like some sort of Stooges/Brainbombs drone. Cool. "Guitar Trio" is another spacious post rock jam, guitars hover and float, chords and notes ring out and drift into and around each other, supported by a simple solid rhythm. Finally, things finish off with Chatham's infamous "Massacre On MacDougal Street", a nearly twenty minute long, horn / percussion freak out, with honking skronking horns moaning and screeching and warbling, weaving dense stretches of marching band repetition and long slow stretches of moaning and groaning drones, all above BIG percussion, booming toms, miltary snares, chaotic drum fills and spurts of complex tribalism. The perfect soundtrack for some insane sixties psychedelic horror film. Full of tension and minor key atonalism. Intense!
While this stuff is obviousl of interest to folks into modern minimalism ala Maclise, Cale, Coleclough and other masters of the mighty drone, Chatham's more rock stuff, like An Angel Moves Too Fast To See, will definitely appeal to the more adventurous post/pop rockers into the above mentioned outfits (Tortoise, Stereolab, Circle, Salvatore) as well as folks into all things krautrock/free rock/space rock.
MPEG Stream: "Die Donnergotter"
MPEG Stream: "Waterloo, No. 2"

CHATHAM, RHYS Echo Solo (Azoth Schalplatten) lp 16.98

CHAUVEAU, SYLVAIN Nuage (Type) cd 15.98
Since 2000 Sylvain Chauveau has been making delicate and minimal musics, composing for dance and film and playing live on bills with the likes of Fennesz and Sigur Ros. But it wasn't until this record that we really took note of his delicate touch, creating soft fragile sounds that perfectly capture solitude and frozen emotion. All the tracks here were originally recorded for two films by Sebastien Betbeder. Strings and piano are the main instruments, played with a perfect restraint that helps create a lush and somber beauty. The music on Nuage has made us think of the clear airy sounds of Jon Luther Adams, the melancholic beauty of Michael Cashmore, the collaborations between Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamato and recent record of the week alumni Erik Enocksson. All very fine company to be in. And such a perfect record for the chill of winter. Sounds that can give our hyperactive minds a moment to simmer and slow down. So nice!
MPEG Stream: "Fly Like A Horse"
MPEG Stream: "Nuage II"
MPEG Stream: "Andrea's Hands"

CHAUVEAU, SYLVAIN S (Type) cd 14.98

CHOPIN, HENRI Audiopoems (? Records) cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Collection of this premier French soundpoem artist's work from 1956 to 1980, including stereo voice/breathing pieces and very cool stuttering electronics. Definitely for fans of the San Francisco Tape Music Center all-stars (Oliveros, Subotnick, Reich). Recommended.

CILIO, LUCIANO Dell'Universo Assente (Die Schachtel) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yes! We're glad to have this back in stock. 'Twas originally limited to just 500 copies when it came out last year and thus quickly went out of print, but now due to demand the label has pressed more. So if you missed out, get it now. Highly recommended. Our review from the first time around on list #199:
We'd never heard of Luciano Cilio before, but of course Jim O'Rourke has. The ubiquitious O'Rourke (Wilco/Sonic Youth/you name it) contributes liner notes to this beautifully presented deluxe digipack cd reissue of what amounts to the collected works of Cilio, an Italian avantgarde composer from the '70s whose music is indeed experimental but less academic than you might expect. But even without O'Rourke's endorsement, a listen to the cd should reveal to you that Cilio was exquisitely talented, and maybe something of a genius. This disc is a simply fantastic document of what we might consider a hybrid of 20th century classical, minimalist psych-prog, and folk music, not entirely of this world. The all-white cover perfectly echoes Cilio's lovely, quietly haunting compositions for acoustic guitar, cello, piano and flute, sometimes visited by wordless female vocals. Achingly melancholic, immensely deep, truly beautiful. Limited to 500 copies [again], this cd consists of Cilio's sole album, Dialoghi del Presente, originally released on EMI in 1977, along with several previously unreleased tracks. Apparently he more or less abandoned music after the album's release, and sadly committed suicide in 1983. Allan's favorite new long-lost reissue after the Flamen Dialis disc reviewed on list #194...
MPEG Stream: "Primo Quadro..."
MPEG Stream: "Interludio..."

CLEMENTI, ALDO Punctum Contra Punctum (Die Schachtel) cd 27.00
More '70s Italian avant-garde composition nicely reissued by the Die Schachtel label.

CLOZIER, CHRISTIAN Chrysopee Electronique-Bourges (La Chant Du Monde) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Along with the awesome photographs of Vittori Gelmetti (as new wave buff) and Walter Marchetti (as polyester clad drunk) found on their recent reissued discs, this collection of two bodies of work from Christian Clozier also features another prime fashion statement from the 20th Century's composers. Sure he's donning the traditional suit & tie, along with the moppish hair and bugged-out Lennon glasses of the stereotypical mod. Beyond fashion statements, Clozier's music is quite spectaular, best described as the evil cousin of Subotnik's "Silver Apples on the Moon". The two pieces "Quasars" and "Markanian 205" are bleak pieces which teeter on the edge of the eye of some mythical cyclone, falling into violent swells of synthetic noise and back into calm (if nervous) ambient passages.

CONRAD, TONY Bryant Park (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
An interesting idea for sure. One afternoon in October, 1969, Tony Conrad found himself in a fifth floor loft in Manhattan a couple blocks from Bryant Park, which was hosting a rally protesting the Vietnam War. The TV in his loft was blaring coverage of the protest, while the echoes from the speeches bounced through the city streets and into Conrad's apartment. Not surprisingly, he was recording the co-mingling between the mediated sounds of that protest through the TV and the diffused amplification of the live event, appearing with a subtle time-lag. Given the rather tumultuous political context of 2005 with an increasingly unpopular war abroad and an administration bungling almost every task at hand, the parallels to the context of 1969 protest should be self-evident by now.
MPEG Stream: "Bryant Park"

CONRAD, TONY Fantastic Glissando (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
It's 1969 and Tony Conrad finds himself fascinated and obsessed with the sounds of sine wave oscillators. One of the godfathers of minimalism nearside LaMonte Young, Conrad was always on the more harsh side of things then other Minimalist disciples like Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Fantastic Glissando is a series of electronic compositions that Conrad created with sine wave oscillators that he then processed through a pump counter with head gap delay. The result is an aggressive textured drone that sounds like something traveling near the speed of light. This cd reissue includes a bonus 10-minute track that was not included in the LP version. The first time we heard this in the store, it was pouring outside and by the time it ended the sun was shining...San Francisco natural occurence? Or the work of Conrad's intense hand in the sky? We're still not sure.
MPEG Stream: "Fantastic Glissando"
MPEG Stream: "Process Four Of Fantastic Glissando"

CONRAD, TONY Joan of Arc (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
We've never been shy in revealing our unabashed love of the drone. Not many lists go by that we aren't singing the praise of some new dark drone or any of many drone-masters like William Basinski, Philip Jeck, Andrew Chalk, etc. Andee's love of the drone even led him to release a cd compiling selections from the amazing Drone Records 7" series on cd for the first time. So of course we're in full on awe when we get to hear the pioneers of all of that dronemusic and observe the veritable birth of the drone in modern minimalism. While it's still pretty impossible to get a hold of any LaMonte Young recordings, thankfully Tony Conrad has allowed and facilitated recent unearthings of his early drone masterpieces. Joan of Arc is the score he created in 1968 for Piero Heliczer's film of the same name. While Conrad is usually associated with his intense epic drones sourced from his violin this recording found him engaged with the pump organ in a way we've never heard before. Creating a dense and murky sonic underworld that sucks you under, burying you in its rumbling waves and wrapping you tight in a thick dense cloud of drones. Avant film aficionado's may be confused by the cover art which is actually a still of Tony Conrad in Ira Cohen's legendary film of the same year, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (reviewed elsewhere on this list).
Never before released, this is one of Conrad's favorite recordings and is fast becoming one of ours.
MPEG Stream: "Joan Of Arc"

CONRAD, TONY WITH FAUST Outside The Dream Syndicate Alive (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
Recorded live at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in '95 this was the reunion of one of minimalist's great torch holders Tony Conrad along with one of experimental rocks greatest bands Faust. When they originally teamed up at a German filmmakers request, they made Outside The Dream Syndicate over three days together in 1971. A landmark record that took Conrad's affinity for building drones mixed with a rhythm section that added intense pulsations and textures to the sounds. While apparently Faust didn't really remember the recording sessions (what were they on?) they met up only two more times since the original recording to perform the piece live. This show was the third and last time they performed together and at this show they were also joined by the helping hands of Jim O'Rourke (is there a band he hasn't played with?). And wow! What an amazing show to have been at. With his La Monte Young cap on tightly, Conrad masterfully created a piece that no matter when it was produced evokes such a strong physical reaction. This is raw, building, blistering, pounding, droning brilliance! The way momentum keeps building works its way into your body and about half way into the piece you can't stop from getting completely wrapped up in it. The droning violin, the dirty percussion, the gut wrenching passion underneath and above it all! It's amazing how in these sounds you can hear so much of a handful of contemporary AQ favorites: Godspeed You Black Emperor's explosive drama, The Dirty Three at their most wild and rocking, Swans/Angels Of Light's blistering poignancy, but it all ends up seeming sorta like little league in comparison to the blood and guts that oozes out of this performance. As always Table Of The Elements appropriately package the cd with the care it deserves including some nice short conversations with Conrad and two great stickers of Conrad's face. Absolutely recommended!
MPEG Stream: "From The Side Of Man & Womankind"

CORNER / KNOWLES / BRECHT Fluxus (Wergo) cd 19.98
"Whenever 'Fluxus' comes up, the three New York-born artists whose radio plays are collected on this CD seem to always be mentioned. They have appeared together in performances and they are also connected by their relationship to John Cage's aesthetic, working with chance operations. The intermedia artist Philip Corner pays homage to the French composer Erik Satie -- his piano piece consists of two chords. Alison Knowles' litany-like recitation of many poetic names for beans, one of the oldest 4 forms of human food, sounds like a mantra. Brecht's voice play in four languages is created by chance operations from texts by one of the great poetic and philosophical texts of Zen Buddhism, the Hsin Hsin Ming as taken down by its third Chinese patriarch, Seng Ts'an, who died in 606." Part of the Wergo Ars Acustica series.

CORNER, PHILIP 3 Pieces For Gamelan Ensemble (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
As can be inferred from the title, Philip Corner presents three meditative works using the Indonesian instrumentation. However, Corner's organization priniciples follows more of a Western minimalist aesthetic with regular numeric structures. The first piece simply entitled "Gamelan" slowly adds new sounds at intervals that are half the amount of time for the previous sound to emerge. Starting with a huge silent gap of 64 seconds, the long resonant gongs increases in intensity as the rhythms multiply to 1/8 of a second. "The Barcelona Cathedral" is composed of slow beats by the gamelan enemble that clamour hypnotically every few seconds for 20 minutes. "Belum" appears to be a composition that originated in an 108 measure 'improvisation' that is repeated with variations throughout the composition. Though perhaps not as beautiful as Loren Nerell's "Lilin Dewa" as a Western synthesis of gamelan sounds, Corner's experiments are interesting fusions of gamelan within the context of '60s academically minded minimalism.

CORNER, PHILIP 40 Years And One (XI Records) cd 14.98
Solo piano works performed by avant-garde/Fluxus composer Philip Corner, recorded 1998. "Non-compulsive indeterminacy" never sounded so good.

CRAIG, CARL & MORITZ VON OSWALD Recomposed By (Universal) cd 36.00
Here's yet another record that under different circumstances could have been and yeah probably should have been a Record Of The Week. But for one thing, it's crazy expensive, and for another, it's taken us months to get enough just to list, and highlight, let alone make it ROTW. So that said, be prepared when we sell out to patiently wait while we try to get more. But for now, dig it:
Classical music by Ravel and Mussorgsky, recut, remixed, and recontextualized by techno legends Carl Craig and Moritz Von Oswald. The result? A gloriously plunderphonic soundscape that slips from shimmery soft focus drift, to a subtly chopped and screwed version of the original piece, to jumbled and blurred Oval-like digital collages, to skittery minimal house music, to dubbed out electronica, to groovy cinematic disco, to spaced out rhythmic ambience, well heck, needless to say, these guys basically pulled off the techno version of a kick ass Tim Hecker / Philip Jeck / Oval record.
The liner notes go into great detail about the process and the idea and the recording, but as with most records, it's the sounds that matter most, and the sounds here are divine. And the whole record somehow works as a single multi movement-ed piece. Each one drifting into the next, the segues seamless, even if the tracks are dramatically different.
The intro is a gorgeous hushed drone, laced with delicate melodies and soft breathless shimmers, almost new agey, a gorgeous ethereal drift that introduces the fanfare that will be the basis for the next few movements. And thus the first movement, a bit of dramatic fanfare, shuffling snares, stuttering horns, the arrangement is subtle, so on the surface it almost feels unaltered, but the notes seem to skitter, and overlap, creating a subtle yet dizzy march, until the second movement introduces the trill of still other horns, locked into a loop over the original, that in turn draped over the deep soft shimmer of the intro, a dense layered landscapes of sampled snares and horns, that grows more hypnotic and mesmerizing, until near the end, the first sign of added rhythms surfaces, a simple high hat pattern draped over that looped horn mesmer, building even more in the beginning of the third movement, before shifting gears completely part way through, the drums taking the lead, the Mussorgsky and the Ravel, relegated mere building blocks, samples transformed into wholly new shapes. The fourth movement follows suit, a gorgeous skittery, late night chunk of minimal Kompakt style techno, with plenty of synth buzz and dubby effects.
There's a brief interlude beginning with some jagged rhythms, and ending with some swoonsome swirling synths, which is simply preparing us for the two loooong closers.
The first, Movement 5, begins with a flurry of deep ominous horns, and dramatic strings, subtly looped into a never ending high end drone, the click in the loop a rhythmic pulse, pounded piano, all very ominous and sinister and epic, before giving way to something much more house-y and clubby, sounding a bit like a house music version of the James Bond theme, complete with those ominous horns, and plenty of sinister strings, which brings us to the final movement, quickly becoming our favorite, a woozy soundscape, all the various strings and horns muted and blurred into a slow shifting backdrop to simple stripped down percussion, distant drones, moaning strings, all hovering beneath the surface, an awesomely hypnotic main loop, and a groovy minimal rhythm, bells chiming in the distance, the backdrop gradually growing ever more ominous and atonal, but fading out completely. Leaving just the rhythm to play itself out.
So so good. Occupies some strange nether region between minimal techno, processed soundscapery, classical, new age, avant dronemusic, plunderphonics, pushes all our buttons, and most likely yours too. Gorgeously packaged like an old Deutsche Grammophon classical record, deluxe booklet with lots of photos and liner notes, and again, these have been tough to get a hold of so please be patient if we run out.
MPEG Stream: "Intro"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 1"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 4"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 5"

CRAIG, CARL & MORITZ VON OSWALD Recomposed By (Universal) 2lp 42.00
Here's yet another record that under different circumstances could have been and yeah probably should have been a Record Of The Week. But for one thing, it's crazy expensive, and for another, it's taken us months to get enough just to list, and highlight, let alone make it ROTW. So that said, be prepared when we sell out to patiently wait while we try to get more. But for now, dig it:
Classical music by Ravel and Mussorgsky, recut, remixed, and recontextualized by techno legends Carl Craig and Moritz Von Oswald. The result? A gloriously plunderphonic soundscape that slips from shimmery soft focus drift, to a subtly chopped and screwed version of the original piece, to jumbled and blurred Oval-like digital collages, to skittery minimal house music, to dubbed out electronica, to groovy cinematic disco, to spaced out rhythmic ambience, well heck, needless to say, these guys basically pulled off the techno version of a kick ass Tim Hecker / Philip Jeck / Oval record.
The liner notes go into great detail about the process and the idea and the recording, but as with most records, it's the sounds that matter most, and the sounds here are divine. And the whole record somehow works as a single multi movement-ed piece. Each one drifting into the next, the segues seamless, even if the tracks are dramatically different.
The intro is a gorgeous hushed drone, laced with delicate melodies and soft breathless shimmers, almost new agey, a gorgeous ethereal drift that introduces the fanfare that will be the basis for the next few movements. And thus the first movement, a bit of dramatic fanfare, shuffling snares, stuttering horns, the arrangement is subtle, so on the surface it almost feels unaltered, but the notes seem to skitter, and overlap, creating a subtle yet dizzy march, until the second movement introduces the trill of still other horns, locked into a loop over the original, that in turn draped over the deep soft shimmer of the intro, a dense layered landscapes of sampled snares and horns, that grows more hypnotic and mesmerizing, until near the end, the first sign of added rhythms surfaces, a simple high hat pattern draped over that looped horn mesmer, building even more in the beginning of the third movement, before shifting gears completely part way through, the drums taking the lead, the Mussorgsky and the Ravel, relegated mere building blocks, samples transformed into wholly new shapes. The fourth movement follows suit, a gorgeous skittery, late night chunk of minimal Kompakt style techno, with plenty of synth buzz and dubby effects.
There's a brief interlude beginning with some jagged rhythms, and ending with some swoonsome swirling synths, which is simply preparing us for the two loooong closers.
The first, Movement 5, begins with a flurry of deep ominous horns, and dramatic strings, subtly looped into a never ending high end drone, the click in the loop a rhythmic pulse, pounded piano, all very ominous and sinister and epic, before giving way to something much more house-y and clubby, sounding a bit like a house music version of the James Bond theme, complete with those ominous horns, and plenty of sinister strings, which brings us to the final movement, quickly becoming our favorite, a woozy soundscape, all the various strings and horns muted and blurred into a slow shifting backdrop to simple stripped down percussion, distant drones, moaning strings, all hovering beneath the surface, an awesomely hypnotic main loop, and a groovy minimal rhythm, bells chiming in the distance, the backdrop gradually growing ever more ominous and atonal, but fading out completely. Leaving just the rhythm to play itself out.
So so good. Occupies some strange nether region between minimal techno, processed soundscapery, classical, new age, avant dronemusic, plunderphonics, pushes all our buttons, and most likely yours too. Gorgeously packaged like an old Deutsche Grammophon classical record, deluxe booklet with lots of photos and liner notes, and again, these have been tough to get a hold of so please be patient if we run out.
MPEG Stream: "Intro"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 1"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 4"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 5"

CRANDELL, RICHARD Spring Steel (Tzadik) cd 15.98
As much weird, loud, obtuse, and left of the margin music that we love and champion here, we also never shy away from music that we know is undeniably beautiful. Whether it's the majestic West African Kora music of Djibril Diabate and Lanaya or the evocative piano compositions of Lucian Cilio or the sweeping elegance of The Rachels. There is a long list of music that we cherish that manages to be both so beautiful and filled with soul. Richard Crandell deserves a spot right on the top of our all time beautiful music list. Playing the mbira (the thumb piano) to mesmerizing perfection, his last record was one of our favorites of 2004. Three years in the making and Spring Steel is another batch of stellar minimalist compositions that make us melt every time we hear them. There is a tenderness and focus to Crandell's playing that has the ability to make everything else in the world just fade away as you let his soft hypnotic sounds entrance you. Crandell is a rare performer, with such a delicate touch and impeccable taste.
Spring Steel sounds almost like Colleen paying homage to Steve Reich. Methodical and skilled yet so filled with soul and soothing power.
MPEG Stream: "Inner Circle"
MPEG Stream: "Japanese Lullaby"
MPEG Stream: "Spring Steel (A.K.A Ichiro 51)"

CRESHEVSKY, NOAH The Tape Music Of... 1971-1992 (EM Records) cd 23.00
Digging ever deeper into the EM back-catalog (just like this wonderful Japanese label digs ever deeper and deeper into the realm of obscure and out-of-print LPs, looking for weird gems like this to reissue), we are so psyched to finally review this disc, devoted to the music of Noah Creshevsky. Like the recently reviewed EM releases by Barton Smith and David Rosenberg, this Creshevsky guy is another eccentric electronic music pioneer -- just look at him on the cover, with his bald head, mustache, and little sweater vest! But appearances aside, the eight tracks of audio found on this cd definitely live up to the EM standard of wonderful weirdness as well. What you've got to know about Creshevsky is that he was totally into the gospel of ol' JC -- no, not Jesus Christ, we're talking about 20th century avant-garde composer John Cage. Chance and randomness! The thick cd booklet (pretty much all in Japanese, but heavily illustrated with pictures and graphics) includes a color photo of Creshevsky hanging out with his hero in 1986, and there's also a track here, 1976's "In Other Words (Portrait Of John Cage)", that consists of nine minutes of quietly ominous electronic drone backing some words from JC. That's probably the "calmest" cut on this disc, though, as the rest are much more in the mode of tape-spliced mayhem. You get a display of musique concrete as chop socky boom-bap on the cut-up, percussive first track, "Strategic Defense Initiative" (which with a title like that you won't be surprised to learn dates from 1986). Puts us in mind of early Boredoms, almost! The next track, "Highway" from 1979, brings in more snippets of speech, a collage of non-sequiturs sampled from TV and records. But track three, 1971's "Circuit", sources its sounds, layered and looped, from the chiming strings of the harpsichord only. It's a mesmerizing, maddening bit of music that verges on suspense movie spookiness (with sudden jarring jumps in volume). Other cuts here include "Drummer" (1985), a choppy battery of drumming, of course, plus ambient street sounds and screwy tape garble; the amusing "Great Performances" (1978), a cartoonish concert of sampled symphonic sounds and more spoken non-sequiturs; "Sonata" (1980) which continues the classical theme but adds drum machine blasts and a dose of Nyquil to the verbal component. And then things wind up with the last and latest piece found here, 1992's "Cantiga", another jagged "classical" piece that sounds like the work of an ADD-afflicted Carl Stalling, that manages to establish a nicely moody effect in the end. Overall, The Tape Music Of Noah Creshevsky is damaged, deranged, and full of a lot of detail to delve into. Today's breed of digital Plunderphonicans perhaps could claim Creshevsky as an ancestor, and certainly the pop-culture element here posits Noah Creshevsky as a precursor to the (pioneering themselves) Tape Beatles, for instance. Neat.
MPEG Stream: "Strategic Defense Initiative"
MPEG Stream: "Circuit"