KOWALSKY, GREGG Tendrils In Vigne (Root Strata) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest release from this Bay Area composer, electronic musician and dronologist Gregg Kowalsky. A one sided lp documenting part of his Master's Thesis, which entailed taking one of his electronic compositions, scoring it for a live ensemble and then conducting the performance.
Kowalsky enlisted the Contemporary Performance Ensemble, directed by Fred Frith, who also contributed violin. Recorded in 2005 at Mills college, the result was sublime. A gorgeous organic piece that references Feldman and Part and Melnyk as much as Kowalsky's previous works.
The strings are low and buzz and throb dramatically, the piano is minor key and delicate, fluttering in brief little flurries, streaks of high end run through the swirling moodiness, over the top voices soar in choral fragments, washes of cymbals sizzle, horns moan, all manner of instruments are smeared into a heaving organic whole, shakuhachi, vibraphone, flute, a sonic cloud constantly expanding, intensifying chordal whir, like some moody rock band with the bones pulled out, leaving just a gloriously amorphous sound shape, slithering and drifting, creeping and billowing, building and building, some sort of classic chorale stretched out into a shimmering dreamlike blur. On the surface, it's a dark drift, but beneath the surface, sounds are roiling and churning, a sonic sea of tension and emotion, subtly psychedelic, a gorgeous, organic, orchestral drone.
Packaged in a thick cardstock sleeve, with a Xeroxed yellow paste on cover.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

KOWALSKY, GREGG Through The Cardial Window (Kranky) cd 14.98
Having earned an MFA under the tutelage of Fred Frith at Mills College, Gregg Kowalsky landed his debut album on Kranky, a perfect home for his polite and pleasant swatches of ambient music. Kowalsky blurs all of his diverse source material (i.e bowed acoustic guitar, sounds he composed for the Mills Ensemble, and even samples from Isis!) into a twinkling mass of harmonically aligned tones. Furniture Music for the 21st Century.
MPEG Stream: "That In Allepo Twice"
MPEG Stream: "Coral Gables"

KRAUS Supreme Commander (Moniker) lp 15.98
Another weird and wonderful release from Moniker records, who have recently supplied us with not one, but two aQ Records Of The Week, the weirdo warped electronic downer pop of Jealousy, and the recent sci-fi synth outing from Stacian. Somehow, even though this sounds nothing like either of those, it fits alongside them pretty perfectly. We know next to nothing about Kraus, other than they're from New Zealand, and that this is a fantastically confusional collection of low fidelity, retro-futuristic sci-fi-scapes, slipping easily from murky, stumbling, analog synth dirgery, to woozy outsider space folk, and whatever fucked up stops lay in between.
The opener sounds like Amps For Christ, if he was obsessed with the sixties vision of outer space and the future, it's raw, and garage-y, primitive and spaced out, it's the musical equivalent to some cheesy Z-move epic with aliens and monsters, heavy on the reverb, and some ridiculous drum programming, something like the Shaggs crossed with Joe Meek. Whatever it is, it's awesome. And it only gets weirder. The second track, takes harp like guitar strum, dreamy and woozy, and wreathed in in a warped squiggle of insectoid buzz from some primitive analog synth, a dizzying abstract psych folk space ballad maybe? Who knows? We just know we LOVE it.
From there on out, it's like some wild ride through the cosmos, or at least through the cosmos as envisioned by a teenaged mad scientist who built a lifesize replica of the cosmos out of paper mache, and dressed his pets up like aliens, and offered the neighborhood kids tours of this 'other world'. THIS is the soundtrack, grinding buzzing melodies, over woozy warbly basslines, swirling malfunctioning electronics, warped swells, lazer blast blurts, totally inept drum stumble, the occasional burst of seriously fierce, super distorted fuzz guitar, plenty of percolating electronics and random percussion, detuned guitars, scrapes and hum, hiss and whir. Some tracks sound like drug addled, brain damaged surf rock, or caveman garage stomp, but with a twisted futuristic bent, while other tracks are straight up kitchen sink, weirdo mad scientist electronic experiments, all seemingly recording on a busted old tape deck, giving the proceedings a very Faxed Head like productions, constant warble and pitch shifts, drop outs, bleep and blurts. Some tracks coalesce into practically being real songs, but before they can become proper songs, it's as if something malfunctioned, machine failure, or brainmelt, either way, it seems the song implodes, and splinters, and is gloriously transformed into a fantastically demented slab of warped musical whatthefuck radness.
Another shoulda / coulda been Record Of The Week! You know what that means...
MPEG Stream: "Praeludium"
MPEG Stream: "Summer Is Icumen In"
MPEG Stream: "Guinea Coin Blues"
MPEG Stream: "Bath Tube"
MPEG Stream: "Speed Queen"

KRENG Grimoire (Miasmah) cd 16.98
Record number two from the mysterious Kreng, aka abstract soundscaper / sonic surrealist Pepijn Caudron, and even more than the first, Grimoire evokes some impossibly haunted otherworld, inhabiting a world not that far removed from the land of lost memories that the Caretaker calls home. But that land is wistful and melancholy, whereas the world of Grimoire is abjectly terrifying, not merely haunting or ominous, this is the soundtrack to something or someplace truly frightening, a blackened ambience of disembodied voices, of creaking clattery percussion, hushed shimmer, deep blackhole swells of rumbling low end, swooping backwards melodies, echo drenched throat singing, tinkling chimes, wheezing drifts of chordal thrum, plink plonk piano, moaning strings, but all of those elements hushed and subdued, a whispery slice of soundtracky minimalism. Bits of glitch and crackle wreath a lumbering rhythmic thud, mournful melodies drift through fields of bleary blur, barely-there beats surface and fragment, horns bleat way off in the distance, thick impossibly low bass tones reverberate like pulsing black clouds, each track is like some spectral soundscape, equal part swoonsome classical music, grim black ambience, and minimal abstraction, the various tracks bleeding into one another, slipping from jazzy clatter, to symphonic bombast, to dark rumbling, to lurching looped rhythmic skitter, but always seeming to settle into a near static bit of black drift, this songsuite a lost soundtrack to some dark depressive mystery, a lost noir, a characterless black and white epic, these are the sounds of empty streets, of derelict houses, of dark defeating the light, of a world cast in permanent darkness, impossibly beautiful, but a beauty blackened by loss and decay, a descent into madness, a physical descent into the crumbling hidden world that lurks just beneath ours, a gorgeous sonic representation of what awaits us beyond the dark, on the other side, in the next world, the world of shadows.
Super intense, and harrowingly gorgeous. Most definitely for fans of The Caretaker, as well as other haunting Miasmah releases like Elegi, FNS, Jacaszek, Gultskra Artikler and all the various purveyors of dark minimal drift, haunting cinematic dronemusic and spectral black ambience.
MPEG Stream: "Karcist"
MPEG Stream: "Le Bateleur"
MPEG Stream: "Opkropper"
MPEG Stream: "Wrak"

KRENG Grimoire (Miasmah) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Record number two from the mysterious Kreng, aka abstract soundscaper / sonic surrealist Pepijn Caudron, and even more than the first, Grimoire evokes some impossibly haunted otherworld, inhabiting a world not that far removed from the land of lost memories that the Caretaker calls home. But that land is wistful and melancholy, whereas the world of Grimoire is abjectly terrifying, not merely haunting or ominous, this is the soundtrack to something or someplace truly frightening, a blackened ambience of disembodied voices, of creaking clattery percussion, hushed shimmer, deep blackhole swells of rumbling low end, swooping backwards melodies, echo drenched throat singing, tinkling chimes, wheezing drifts of chordal thrum, plink plonk piano, moaning strings, but all of those elements hushed and subdued, a whispery slice of soundtracky minimalism. Bits of glitch and crackle wreath a lumbering rhythmic thud, mournful melodies drift through fields of bleary blur, barely-there beats surface and fragment, horns bleat way off in the distance, thick impossibly low bass tones reverberate like pulsing black clouds, each track is like some spectral soundscape, equal part swoonsome classical music, grim black ambience, and minimal abstraction, the various tracks bleeding into one another, slipping from jazzy clatter, to symphonic bombast, to dark rumbling, to lurching looped rhythmic skitter, but always seeming to settle into a near static bit of black drift, this songsuite a lost soundtrack to some dark depressive mystery, a lost noir, a characterless black and white epic, these are the sounds of empty streets, of derelict houses, of dark defeating the light, of a world cast in permanent darkness, impossibly beautiful, but a beauty blackened by loss and decay, a descent into madness, a physical descent into the crumbling hidden world that lurks just beneath ours, a gorgeous sonic representation of what awaits us beyond the dark, on the other side, in the next world, the world of shadows.
Super intense, and harrowingly gorgeous. Most definitely for fans of The Caretaker, as well as other haunting Miasmah releases like Elegi, FNS, Jacaszek, Gultskra Artikler and all the various purveyors of dark minimal drift, haunting cinematic dronemusic and spectral black ambience.
MPEG Stream: "Karcist"
MPEG Stream: "Le Bateleur"
MPEG Stream: "Opkropper"
MPEG Stream: "Wrak"

KRENG L'Autopsie Pheneomenale De Dieu (Miasmah) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sombre and strange record of post-classical miniatures originally recorded to accompany various ballet and dance pieces. Sparse piano, Eastern-European strings, field recordings, eerie found sounds and electric-acoustic chamber drones with dark and haunting textures reference a kind of surrealist narrative that wouldn't be out of place in a film by Luis Bunuel. Perhaps not as somnolent as past Miasmah recordings from Elegi and Jacaszek, as the dynamics of the score can veer into some occasional, theatrical dramatics. Best not let it lull you into sleep, for fear of unsettling dreams or being abruptly jarred awake. Recommended nonetheless!
MPEG Stream: "Na De Sex"
MPEG Stream: "Meisje In Auto"
MPEG Stream: "Aspyxia"

KRENG L'Autopsie Phenomenale De Dieu (Miasmah) cd 15.98
Sombre and strange record of post-classical miniatures originally recorded to accompany various ballet and dance pieces. Sparse piano, Eastern-European strings, field recordings, eerie found sounds and electric-acoustic chamber drones with dark and haunting textures reference a kind of surrealist narrative that wouldn't be out of place in a film by Luis Bunuel. Perhaps not as somnolent as past Miasmah recordings from Elegi and Jacaszek, as the dynamics of the score can veer into some occasional, theatrical dramatics. Best not let it lull you into sleep, for fear of unsettling dreams or being abruptly jarred awake. Recommended nonetheless!
MPEG Stream: "Na De Sex"
MPEG Stream: "Meisje In Auto"
MPEG Stream: "Aspyxia"

KRISTIAN, DAVID Room Tone (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98
David Kristian spent a fair part of the winter of 1998/99 collecting various field recordings arourd Montreal (underground parking lots, freezers, tunnels, etc.) and multritracked the greyish very organic drones with subtle low-end minimal beats, not unlike Pan Sonic's minimalist techno layered sporadically with the drone work of Jonathan Coleclough.

KRISTIAN, SHALABI, ST-ONGE s/t (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98
Noted electronica minimalist David Kristian here collaborates with the Shalabi Effect's Alexander St-Onge and Sam Shalabi for this interesting improvised album of quiet acoustic drones and accompanying electronics. Thankfully not a laptop ensemble featuring Jim O'Rourke or Christian Fennesz, this trio resists the temptation to lapse into dense free jazz phrasings, and instead focuses on the subtleties that can take place between electronics and stringed instruments (in this case bass, guitar, and oud). The resulting album is a much quieter version of AMM or Taj Mahal Travellers.
RealAudio clip: "Dirt Well"
RealAudio clip: "The Heart Of The Mouse"

KRIWACZEK, ROHAN WITH TOBIAS JAMES The Art Of Funerary Violin (The Guild Of Funerary Violinists) cd-r 12.98

MPEG Stream: "From Funerarius For Micheal Wise Esquire - Orlando Addleston (1681)"
MPEG Stream: "The Sombre Coquetry Of Death Ð Hieronymous Gratchenfleiss (1810?)"
MPEG Stream: "The Dizzy Flight Of Death - Hieronymous Gratchenfleiss (1810?)"

KROKO Furia (Verdura) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Circle's Jussi Lehtisalo recommended this to us: another Finnish band that operates in the in-between realm of rock, improv, jazz, and prog. Kroko are an all-instrumental basso/perkussio/kitara trio featuring the guitarist from Bad Vugum recording artists Deep Turtle (Finland's answer to Mr. Bungle, y'know). The band's music possesses a variety of moods and textures, ranging from dense free-improv jazziness (not unlike AQ-faves the Nels Cline Trio) to more aggressive, heavier fare on a few tracks, with riffing a la the Melvins (or, more accurately, the Ruins, what with the complex twists these songs sometimes take). At one point things get so heavy and distorted it approaches Merzbow-style noise. But that's balanced by the many quieter, more delicate, atmospheric tracks. And then there's the others that sound like Gregg Ginn's Gone, gone Mahavishnu... Recorded live to digital, with some overdubs and edits. There's 18 tracks, and while a few come off merely as skronky, sometimes humorous live jams, most go far beyond that.
RealAudio clip: "Sol Ist"
RealAudio clip: "Agent Weird"
RealAudio clip: "Polanski After Ski"
RealAudio clip: "Liero"
RealAudio clip: "Setzur Au Naturelle"

KRUGER Looseness Through Redemption (Senor Hernandez / Roadburn) lp 21.00

KRUZWEG OST Iron Avantgarde (Napalm) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Austrian metallers Silenius (of Summoning) and Martin Schirenc (Hollenthon, ex-Pungent Stench) have crafted this disturbing and confusing collage of sampled sounds. If I knew more German we might have a better idea of their intent, but what we can tell you is that this combines snippets of fascist-era speechifying, ominous horror-movie keyboards, folky themes, WWII sound effects, militaristic drumbeats, electronic noise, mysterious dialogue, and brief industrial-dance interludes. It's a bit like being trapped in a bunker circa 1944 as the bombs fall, tuned into a shortwave radio that is somehow, at moments, picking up a Rammstein broadcast from the future. A very intriguing and creepy listen indeed.

KTL 2 (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
The return of KTL! Maybe our favorite of the many satellites circling the SUNNO))). One half of that dynamic doomdrone duo, Stephen O'Malley, hooked up with Austrian noisemaker Peter Rehberg (aka Pita) a year or two back, and the result was the godlike s/t debut, the soundtrack to a performance art piece (of which this also contains elements), which we can only assume was dark and creepy, considering the music on that disc was a black hole slab of expansive subterranean drones and damaged digital buzz. KTL managed to create an intense chunk of dark art, in the midst of a million bedroom drones, so while we played that disc to death, we secretly hoped it wouldn't be the last we'd hear from these two.
Not a year later, and KTL are back, with another sprawling journey, trawling through the bottomless depths of some hellish underworld and drifting weightless through a starless black sky. A bleak, but occasionally jarring landscape of sonic mystery rife with plenty of drone and buzz.
The opener is a bleak expanse of claustrophobic sound, the sound of waking up in pitch blackness, wet, cold and alone, wandering blindly, feeling your way, hands rubbed raw from sliding along rough stone, the tiniest sounds magnified into some lurking beast ready to pounce, gusts of warm wind rush past, as do strange slithery shapes underfoot, you can hear the wide open space towering overhead, but you can feel the walls closing in, suffocating. Gorgeously dark and bleak, ominous and so creepy. The perfect music for being buried alive, miles below the surface of the Earth. As the first track dissipates, a strange percussive thump gradually surfaces, a heartbeat maybe... a dense layered backdrop of shimmering low end and muted pulses undulates beneath the murky throb, very slowly building in intensity, as streaks of high end grit and buzzing glitch, and strange high pitched melodic fragments begin to materialize all around, like suddenly finding yourself inside a lightning storm, it's almost pretty, but still sharp and jagged. As the upper register peals intensify, they suddenly coalesce into some sort of deafening angelic chorus, a gorgeous layered textural wall of dreamlike skree, some demonic string section, surprisingly melodic beneath all the sonic barbs and white hot buzz. Hard to describe other than to say it's a bit like Nadja or Jesu, run through a bank of alien FX pedals and broadcast through a million tweeters. So intense and gloriously blown out.
The next step in the journey involves visiting the "Abattoir" (much of this disc was in fact recorded in an actual French abattoir) , and it sounds just like you'd imagine. A bit like O'Malley's SUNNO))), with layer upon layer of constantly shifting coruscating guitars, a drone metal Niblock maybe, stretched out and hypnotic, the texture of the guitar constantly ever changing, going from smooth and washed out to rough and sharp, a bit like Spacemen 3 or Loop at it's most propulsive, a sort of churning distorted chordal whir, and a lot like SUNNO))) at its most static. But all throughout, the rough raw shimmer is disrupted by all manner of textural disturbances, bits of grit and muted glitch and subtle shards of fragmented melody.
Finally, the record winds down with an extended coda, thick shards of glistening guitar suspended in gauzy clouds of electronic flutter and swirls of soft sonic snow. Eventually the sharp edges are worn away leaving a strangely haunting slightly degraded Basinski-esque drift that is smoothed even further out, into shimmery spacey synths and sweet chordal swells that drift away leaving nothing but static.
MPEG Stream: "Game"
MPEG Stream: "Theme"

KTL 2 (Thrill Jockey) 2lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl!! Super limited, ultra deluxe double lp, gatefold sleeve, 180 gram wax...
The return of KTL! Maybe our favorite of the many satellites circling the SUNNO))). One half of that dynamic doomdrone duo, Stephen O'Malley, hooked up with Austrian noisemaker Peter Rehberg (aka Pita) a year or two back, and the result was the godlike s/t debut, the soundtrack to a performance art piece (of which this also contains elements), which we can only assume was dark and creepy, considering the music on that disc was a black hole slab of expansive subterranean drones and damaged digital buzz. KTL managed to create an intense chunk of dark art, in the midst of a million bedroom drones, so while we played that disc to death, we secretly hoped it wouldn't be the last we'd hear from these two.
Not a year later, and KTL are back, with another sprawling journey, trawling through the bottomless depths of some hellish underworld and drifting weightless through a starless black sky. A bleak, but occasionally jarring landscape of sonic mystery rife with plenty of drone and buzz.
The opener is a bleak expanse of claustrophobic sound, the sound of waking up in pitch blackness, wet, cold and alone, wandering blindly, feeling your way, hands rubbed raw from sliding along rough stone, the tiniest sounds magnified into some lurking beast ready to pounce, gusts of warm wind rush past, as do strange slithery shapes underfoot, you can hear the wide open space towering overhead, but you can feel the walls closing in, suffocating. Gorgeously dark and bleak, ominous and so creepy. The perfect music for being buried alive, miles below the surface of the Earth. As the first track dissipates, a strange percussive thump gradually surfaces, a heartbeat maybe... a dense layered backdrop of shimmering low end and muted pulses undulates beneath the murky throb, very slowly building in intensity, as streaks of high end grit and buzzing glitch, and strange high pitched melodic fragments begin to materialize all around, like suddenly finding yourself inside a lightning storm, it's almost pretty, but still sharp and jagged. As the upper register peals intensify, they suddenly coalesce into some sort of deafening angelic chorus, a gorgeous layered textural wall of dreamlike skree, some demonic string section, surprisingly melodic beneath all the sonic barbs and white hot buzz. Hard to describe other than to say it's a bit like Nadja or Jesu, run through a bank of alien FX pedals and broadcast through a million tweeters. So intense and gloriously blown out.
The next step in the journey involves visiting the "Abattoir" (much of this disc was in fact recorded in an actual French abattoir) , and it sounds just like you'd imagine. A bit like O'Malley's SUNNO))), with layer upon layer of constantly shifting coruscating guitars, a drone metal Niblock maybe, stretched out and hypnotic, the texture of the guitar constantly ever changing, going from smooth and washed out to rough and sharp, a bit like Spacemen 3 or Loop at it's most propulsive, a sort of churning distorted chordal whir, and a lot like SUNNO))) at its most static. But all throughout, the rough raw shimmer is disrupted by all manner of textural disturbances, bits of grit and muted glitch and subtle shards of fragmented melody.
Finally, the record winds down with an extended coda, thick shards of glistening guitar suspended in gauzy clouds of electronic flutter and swirls of soft sonic snow. Eventually the sharp edges are worn away leaving a strangely haunting slightly degraded Basinski-esque drift that is smoothed even further out, into shimmery spacey synths and sweet chordal swells that drift away leaving nothing but static.
MPEG Stream: "Game"
MPEG Stream: "Theme"

KTL IV (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
Perfect for the dead of winter, it's another quietly creepy, digital dronedoom opus from this two-man stupor group, featuring Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), this time with production assistance from Jim O'Rourke. If you've heard KTL's I, II, or III (which was vinyl-only) you have an idea of what to expect - and are probably already plotting to purchase this. This is their first studio album constructed entirely for their own dark purposes, as opposed to having been commissioned as a soundtrack for live theatrical performance or film, though it certainly still has mysterious, soundtrack-y qualities. The sort that usually causes us, in reviews of KTL (and other dronesters too) to paint word-pictures of what the music evokes in our mind's eye. Subterranean caverns, bottomless pits, fallen angelic choirs, airplanes buzzing over dark forests... but we won't bother this time, you should just listen to this and your own imagination should have no difficulty providing all sorts of esoteric imagery. It may be soothing, it may be scary. Probably scary, it's up to you though. We find a lot of this to be as sinister and grim as Dick Cheney was in his Dr. Strangelove wheelchair at Obama's inauguration!
These six tracks are full of seismic rumble, high end hiss, eerie abstract glitch, sweeping drones, ringing electronics... some more epic and/or active than others. Distorted industrial rhythms shudder through several cuts, notably the disc's longest piece, the 21+ minute "Paratrooper", which features doomic beats by the drummer from Japan's Boris (who also brings his gong for an appearance on the disc's final track). While that's KTL IV at its heaviest, most of this is more like the sound of SUNNO))) sighing and whispering... or, conversely, Pita busting out a guitar to play along to a half-melted Swans record he found in the ashes of a burned-down church.
MPEG Stream: "Paratrooper"
MPEG Stream: "Wicked Way"

KTL Live In Krems (Mego) lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ahhhh, the black ambient onslaught continues. A vinyl based campaign to rain corrosive black drones on an adoring audience moves forward unabated, and we're right there in the front, face raised to the sky, letting the buzz and whir and rumble and roar rain down on us...
KTL is the duo of Stephen O'Malley, one half of the not-so dynamic duo SUNNO))), and Peter Rehberg, aka Pita. Their sound is a bit SUNNO))) like, with O'Malley unfurling sheets of abstract riffage, and Rehberg contributing various blasts of processed sounds and power electronics, the result is in fact quite beautiful, the three full lengths have helped solidify KTL as one of our favorite SUNN side projects, taking the churning brutality of that group, and stretching it out into something more abstract and expansive, still a dark sonic trawl, but the guitar is less downtuned and sludgy and more glimmering and effulgent, not to say it's not still doomy and dark, just more colored and less BLACK. And of course, there's so much more texture, with Rehberg delivering intense subsonics, smeared buzz, and all manner of blurred wonder, it's a pretty stellar combination.
So here we have a live recording of the duo, performing a few KTL classics, and one brand new track. Which is interesting as we just assumed that KTL was improvised, and while maybe there is an element of that in their music, you can definitely here bits and pieces that you'll recognize from the other recordings, and probably the more eagle eared among you will be able to pick out whole songs.
The first side opens up with a doomy swirl of washed out guitar, corrosive and keening, the riffs unfolding and overlapping. We don't really hear Rehberg until a few minutes in, when he offers up a thick, crumbling, superdistorted low end throb, that grinds ominously just below the sprawling guitarnoise, surfacing every once in a while to nearly blow your speakers. The sound builds to a glorious crescendo, sounding a bit like Sunroof! Or GHQ or one of those sort of ur-psych combos, but with a subtly abrasive digital component, that gives the sound a bit of an alien feel, the sound constantly thickening, with Rehberg's electronic machinations gradually overtaking the moaning guitars.
The flipside is even more blown out and psychedelic, O'Malley's guitars soaring ever skyward, roaring and keening, Rehberg wrapping those guitars in billowing sheets of grumbling digital glitter, smearing the churning riffage into haunting, nearly orchestral swells. So good.
Gorgeously packaged, deluxe gatefold, striking live images from the performance, also includes a massive poster of the show. Vinyl only for now. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Each one numbered. Not sure if there is a cd planned or not, still no cd of KTL 3, so you might want to grab one before they're gone.

KTL s/t (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
SUNNO)))-worshippers alert! 1/2 of that drone metal behemoth, our pal Stephen O'Malley (who has also piloted or participated in such units as Khanate, Burning Witch, Ginnungagap, Teeth Of The Lions Rule The Divine, Thorr's Hammer, Fungal Hex, Lotus Eaters, etc.) has travelled to Europe to collaborate with Austrian experimental digital noise artist Peter "Pita" Rehberg! They're calling themselves KTL because the music they made is to be the soundtrack to some sort of stage piece called Kindertotenlieder by performance artist Gisele Vienne and novelist Dennis Cooper ("Closer") due to debut at a festival in France next year. Judging from the music, not to mention the people involved, we imagine it's gonna be beautiful, but also somehow disturbing and dark... This cd certainly is.
It starts off with the 24 minute drone "Estranged", blissful and spooky piece that builds towards its end to noisier heights, threatening the storms to come on this album. And yes, the four parts of "Forest Floor" that take up the main, middle part of the disc are a harrowing journey indeed, into a buzzing, claustrophobic realm of dangerous digital sonics and heavy drone, like SUNNO)))'s lugubrious riffage mixed with the glitchy crunch of Pita -- which is what it is, of course! Not for the faint of heart. Part four, in particular, sounds like a doomed prop engine airplane rumbling over a dark forest landscape from some black metal album cover, at night...
Finally O'Malley and Rehberg wind things up with the quieter (but still creepy) 13 minutes of "Snow", a softly pulsing, detailed improv exploration of lowercase sounds... Very nice!
Let's hope KTL isn't just a one-off collaboration, we'd like to hear more from these two! Their mastery of minimalist ambient music, electronic glitchology and Earthy guitar sludge make a fine sipping brew.
A note for all you object fetishizing consumerist completist types, be forewarned that there will eventually also be a vinyl version of this on the Aurora Borealis label, a double LP limited to 500 copies... we can take preorders now...
MPEG Stream: "Estranged"
MPEG Stream: "Forest Floor 4"

KTL s/t (Aurora Borealis) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl for a super limited time. Gorgeously elaborate packaging, deluxe gatefold sleeve, thick vinyl, includes a poster as well. Looks as amazing as it sounds. And it sounds like this:
SUNNO)))-worshippers alert! 1/2 of that drone metal behemoth, our pal Stephen O'Malley (who has also piloted or participated in such units as Khanate, Burning Witch, Ginnungagap, Teeth Of The Lions Rule The Divine, Thorr's Hammer, Fungal Hex, Lotus Eaters, etc.) has travelled to Europe to collaborate with Austrian experimental digital noise artist Peter "Pita" Rehberg! They're calling themselves KTL because the music they made is to be the soundtrack to some sort of stage piece called Kindertotenlieder by performance artist Gisele Vienne and novelist Dennis Cooper ("Closer") due to debut at a festival in France next year. Judging from the music, not to mention the people involved, we imagine it's gonna be beautiful, but also somehow disturbing and dark... This cd certainly is.
It starts off with the 24 minute drone "Estranged", blissful and spooky piece that builds towards its end to noisier heights, threatening the storms to come on this album. And yes, the four parts of "Forest Floor" that take up the main, middle part of the disc are a harrowing journey indeed, into a buzzing, claustrophobic realm of dangerous digital sonics and heavy drone, like SUNNO)))'s lugubrious riffage mixed with the glitchy crunch of Pita -- which is what it is, of course! Not for the faint of heart. Part four, in particular, sounds like a doomed prop engine airplane rumbling over a dark forest landscape from some black metal album cover, at night...
Finally O'Malley and Rehberg wind things up with the quieter (but still creepy) 13 minutes of "Snow", a softly pulsing, detailed improv exploration of lowercase sounds... Very nice!
Let's hope KTL isn't just a one-off collaboration, we'd like to hear more from these two! Their mastery of minimalist ambient music, electronic glitchology and Earthy guitar sludge make a fine sipping brew.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. ON BLACK VINYL!!!
There was a version on white vinyl, but those were direct mailorder only from the label and are completely gone. And with these too, there's a good chance when they are gone they will be gone forever....
MPEG Stream: "Estranged"
MPEG Stream: "Forest Floor 4"

KTL V (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
As the title no doubt led you to believe, this is in fact the fifth release in the ongoing collaboration between Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), and like IV before it, V was realized as a stand alone record, unlike the first three releases, which were all conceived and composed to accompany art installations. And again, like IV, the sound does not seem to be dramatically effected by this shift, although there does in fact seem to be a bit of a shift from IV to V, with V seeming, to our ears at least, to be a bit more academic, with an ear toward twentieth century classic and modern minimalism, further evidence which may be found in the two tracks here "Phill 1" and "Phill 2", which we presume are an homage to the master dronelord Phill Niblock, but of course done in their own inimitable style, with "Phill 1" opening up a thick gaseous dronescape, that is pocked with glitch and skitter, woven into the fabric of the tracks woozy undulations, and softly moaning choral shimmer. Where on past records much of the sound was barely there, and required close listening, "Phill 1" is much more immediately rewarding, lush and lustrous, thick and warm, and layered, the sort of minimalism that would probably still appeal to fans of O'Malley's SUNNO))) project. The track is definitely active, with plenty going on beneath the surface, and in the spaces surrounding the drone, be they thick slabs of blurred buzz, shards of computer glitch, and all manner of sonic detritus.
"Phill 2" finds O'Malley and Rehberg teaming up with the Prague Philharmonic, where they are joined by Johann Johannsson, who helps with the orchestration, the track transformed into something haunting and symphonic, yet still dark and droney, the sound even more rich, and somewhat cacophonous, a glorious noisy ur-drone, that definitely casts the orchestra as something much more chaotic and abstract that they are perhaps used to, the results are stunning.
In between these tracks, O'Malley and Rehberg do explore more minimal soundscapes, "Study A" features long tones, deep buzzes and sine wave like high end shimmers, stretched out into near static layered mesmer, allowing the two tones two subtly interact, and create all manner of overtones, gradually building in intensity, and at times sounding down right cinematic and psychedelic. "Tony" is another thick minimal dronescape, this one focused around a distorted stretch of slow shifting buzz, surrounded by warm melodic tones, and strange echo drenched percussion, the main drone ever shifting, creating a gorgeous slow motion melody, the background sounds lush and lustrous, maybe the prettiest thing we've heard from KTL yet. And finally, the record finishes off with the 20+ minute "Last Spring: A Prequel", which introduces text, a haunting spoken word, draped over a hissy shimmer, the breath urgent in the microphone, the vibe dark and claustrophobic, the music itself more like old KTL, ultra minimal, high end hiss, minimal static hum, bits of glitch laced throughout, the track all about the dramatically delivered vocals, which grow more and more agitated, more heavily effected, the music subtly following suit, like some strange abstract play, with some of the creepiest sound design ever, courtesy of KTL.
Housed in a super striking 6 panel digipak, with original artwork by Mark Fell. Meanwhile the vinyl comes in an equally colorful gatefold sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Phill 1"
MPEG Stream: "Study A"

KTL V (Editions Mego) 2lp 32.00
As the title no doubt led you to believe, this is in fact the fifth release in the ongoing collaboration between Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), and like IV before it, V was realized as a stand alone record, unlike the first three releases, which were all conceived and composed to accompany art installations. And again, like IV, the sound does not seem to be dramatically effected by this shift, although there does in fact seem to be a bit of a shift from IV to V, with V seeming, to our ears at least, to be a bit more academic, with an ear toward twentieth century classic and modern minimalism, further evidence which may be found in the two tracks here "Phill 1" and "Phill 2", which we presume are an homage to the master dronelord Phill Niblock, but of course done in their own inimitable style, with "Phill 1" opening up a thick gaseous dronescape, that is pocked with glitch and skitter, woven into the fabric of the tracks woozy undulations, and softly moaning choral shimmer. Where on past records much of the sound was barely there, and required close listening, "Phill 1" is much more immediately rewarding, lush and lustrous, thick and warm, and layered, the sort of minimalism that would probably still appeal to fans of O'Malley's SUNNO))) project. The track is definitely active, with plenty going on beneath the surface, and in the spaces surrounding the drone, be they thick slabs of blurred buzz, shards of computer glitch, and all manner of sonic detritus.
"Phill 2" finds O'Malley and Rehberg teaming up with the Prague Philharmonic, where they are joined by Johann Johannsson, who helps with the orchestration, the track transformed into something haunting and symphonic, yet still dark and droney, the sound even more rich, and somewhat cacophonous, a glorious noisy ur-drone, that definitely casts the orchestra as something much more chaotic and abstract that they are perhaps used to, the results are stunning.
In between these tracks, O'Malley and Rehberg do explore more minimal soundscapes, "Study A" features long tones, deep buzzes and sine wave like high end shimmers, stretched out into near static layered mesmer, allowing the two tones two subtly interact, and create all manner of overtones, gradually building in intensity, and at times sounding down right cinematic and psychedelic. "Tony" is another thick minimal dronescape, this one focused around a distorted stretch of slow shifting buzz, surrounded by warm melodic tones, and strange echo drenched percussion, the main drone ever shifting, creating a gorgeous slow motion melody, the background sounds lush and lustrous, maybe the prettiest thing we've heard from KTL yet. And finally, the record finishes off with the 20+ minute "Last Spring: A Prequel", which introduces text, a haunting spoken word, draped over a hissy shimmer, the breath urgent in the microphone, the vibe dark and claustrophobic, the music itself more like old KTL, ultra minimal, high end hiss, minimal static hum, bits of glitch laced throughout, the track all about the dramatically delivered vocals, which grow more and more agitated, more heavily effected, the music subtly following suit, like some strange abstract play, with some of the creepiest sound design ever, courtesy of KTL.
Housed in a super striking 6 panel digipak, with original artwork by Mark Fell. Meanwhile the vinyl comes in an equally colorful gatefold sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Phill 1"
MPEG Stream: "Study A"

KUBIN, FELIX Bruder Luzifer (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 17.98
Omni may be primarily a country reissue label, but every once in a while they'll come up with something distinctly NOT country and more often from way out of left field. Most recently it was the amazing Russkie Wig-Out compilation of demented surf, electro and exotica from Russia, and now comes this, a career retrospective of German outsider sci-fi electro pop visionary Felix Kubin, whose career has been an ongoing series of twisted sonic experiments, from lo-fi mad scientist sonic tinkering, to freaked out chaotic noise, to hypnotic krautrock grooves to super catchy sci-fi pop to twangy almost soundtracky Morricone-esque soundscapes and beyond.
Even after nearly three decades of recording, Kubin remains unknown to all but a select few of far-out music obsessives, which is perhaps the way it will remain, cuz this stuff is indeed pretty dang far out. But for all its weirdness and willful obscurity, it's also catchy, and crazy, and fun, and in places funny, the sort of thing, that if it were some 20 year old kid and it was a limited lp on Not Not Fun, or some self released cd-r folks would be losing their shit. So go ahead, freak out, this stuff is well deserving of that sort of worship, and it's long long overdue!
From the opening jam "Phonebashing", all skittery, electro new wave, warped and lo-fi, like some mash up of Kraftwerk and the Radiophonic Workshop and Herbie Hancock's "Rockit", to a killer WAY twisted version of "Lightning Strikes", originally written and performed by Lou Christie, but later covered by Klaus Nomi, which makes sense, since Kubin is a lot like Nomi in many ways, and musically sounds like Sparks crossed with The Residents, but more glitched out and electronic. Then there's "Schnitzler", which does in fact feature krautrock legend Conrad Schnitzler, a loopy, woozy bit of electro skitter, the refrain being simply "Schnitzler" and then "Conrad Schnitzler". The title track is a creepy bit of haunted house electronica, all creepy ambience, and super lo-fi programmed drum skitter, processed vox, and some cheesy, eighties drama soundtrack music woven in, again, twisted, but weirdly genius, and again, if this were some new hip underground band, blogs would be singing its praises.
The collection covers pretty much all of Kubin's far out sounds, from manic, stuttery, carnivalesque Devo style video game synth buzz freakouts, to swoonsome soundtracky slow jams, to lush cabaret pop, all deep dramatic vox and pizzicato strings, to manic Love Boat style soundtracks all chopped up and electrified and freaked out, to super lo-fi 8 bit electro crunch, to faux big band almost Lawrence Welk sounding easy listening, to shuffling warped jazzy weirdness, to full on Legend Of Zelda style Nintendo core, to moody groovy electro slow jams, and pretty much every warped and gloriously twisted sonic stop in between.
So good! Anyone into the current crop of lo-fi, electronic fractured pop experimentalists, this is will blow you away, and puts lots of that stuff to shame!
Features an extensive full color booklet, with liner notes, but the liner notes are quite cryptic, but very interesting, and fantastically written, appropriately mysterious for the music they accompany.
MPEG Stream: "Phonebashing"
MPEG Stream: "Lightning Strikes"
MPEG Stream: "Schnitzler"
MPEG Stream: "Bruder Luzifer"

KUBIN, FELIX TXRF (It's) cd 17.98
Lots of folks got their introduction to German outsider sci-fi electro pop visionary Felix Kubin via the Bruder Luzifer compilation we reviewed last year, a career spanning retrospective that offered up a handful of tracks that touched on nearly every aspect of Kubin's schizophrenic and ever-morphing soundworld, leaning heavily toward his twisted electro-pop / new wave popsmithery, but also giving us glimpses of warped lo-fi minimal electro-buzz, lush twang flecked soundscapes, freaked out chaotic noise and pretty much every stop in between. TXRF is something else entirely, a seriously high concept record, apparently based on a method of X-raying microchips to detect microscopic defects, these tracks, ostensibly some sort of sonic test for the X-ray system, and this record in effect, the sonic printout as it were, a document of the processes and their musical byproducts. Which is definitely believable, since on the one hand much of TXRF sounds weirdly clinical and academic, machinelike and robotic, the sort of thing you might hear on Raster Noton or some other label that traffics in such things, but Kubin, as we've discovered is a kind of a nut, and that definitely shows here, the sounds surprisingly playful, occasionally groovy, dizzyingly tripped out and most definitely psychedelic, shifting from a sort of stuttering 8-bit IDM to a woozy glitched out rhythmic abstract house music, to full on sci-fi mad scientist weirdness, all of those various sounds and elements somehow woven into a surprisingly cohesive whole, the record constantly transforming and morphing, the tracks impossibly varied, whether it's pulsing, pounding squelch and stutter, or skittery laser-beam, alien staticscape, playful Perrey And Kingsley style analog experimentation or haunting soundtracky psychedelic synthscapery (the closing track is a KILLER), it's all great, and yet another bafflingly brilliant piece of Kubin's unsolvable sonic puzzle, which of course, if you couldn't tell by now, means absolutely WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Total No.2"
MPEG Stream: "Total No.4"
MPEG Stream: "Reflection No.5"
MPEG Stream: "X-Ray No.8"

KUBIN, FELIX TXRF (It's) 2lp 22.00
Lots of folks got their introduction to German outsider sci-fi electro pop visionary Felix Kubin via the Bruder Luzifer compilation we reviewed last year, a career spanning retrospective that offered up a handful of tracks that touched on nearly every aspect of Kubin's schizophrenic and ever-morphing soundworld, leaning heavily toward his twisted electro-pop / new wave popsmithery, but also giving us glimpses of warped lo-fi minimal electro-buzz, lush twang flecked soundscapes, freaked out chaotic noise and pretty much every stop in between. TXRF is something else entirely, a seriously high concept record, apparently based on a method of X-raying microchips to detect microscopic defects, these tracks, ostensibly some sort of sonic test for the X-ray system, and this record in effect, the sonic printout as it were, a document of the processes and their musical byproducts. Which is definitely believable, since on the one hand much of TXRF sounds weirdly clinical and academic, machinelike and robotic, the sort of thing you might hear on Raster Noton or some other label that traffics in such things, but Kubin, as we've discovered is a kind of a nut, and that definitely shows here, the sounds surprisingly playful, occasionally groovy, dizzyingly tripped out and most definitely psychedelic, shifting from a sort of stuttering 8-bit IDM to a woozy glitched out rhythmic abstract house music, to full on sci-fi mad scientist weirdness, all of those various sounds and elements somehow woven into a surprisingly cohesive whole, the record constantly transforming and morphing, the tracks impossibly varied, whether it's pulsing, pounding squelch and stutter, or skittery laser-beam, alien staticscape, playful Perrey And Kingsley style analog experimentation or haunting soundtracky psychedelic synthscapery (the closing track is a KILLER), it's all great, and yet another bafflingly brilliant piece of Kubin's unsolvable sonic puzzle, which of course, if you couldn't tell by now, means absolutely WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Total No.2"
MPEG Stream: "Total No.4"
MPEG Stream: "Reflection No.5"
MPEG Stream: "X-Ray No.8"

KUBISCH / PLESSI Tempo Liquido (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.
Continuing to dig into the vaults of 'new music' composers, Ampersand offers another reissue from the collaborative team of Christina Kubisch and Fabrizio Plessi. Just as their previous outing "Two and Two" centered conceptually around the primal elements of earth, air, water, and fire, "Tempo Liquido" was a multimedia performance based upon primal archetypes, here the connection between time and water. During the original performances in the late '70s, Kubisch and Plessi bathed themselves in film loop projections of cascading waterfalls and time pieces, while they played elliptical patterns of interlocking percussion on steeldrums and carillon as well as scraping across an amplified piece of glass with a steel thimble. They complemented these repetitive elements with a backing tape of endless repetitions of simple computerized bleeping and sustained organ chords. Kubisch admits having "always been fascinated by the idea of musical compositions without a precise beginning or ending, pieces that could go on forever and ever, where you could enter and leave at your own pace. Tempo Liquido is a piece about the concept of time. Time reveals itself in the theme of water and in the form of the circle as a symbol for continuity and timelessness." A nice archival document.
RealAudio clip: "Tempo Liquido 1"

KUBISCH, CHRISTINA Armonica (Semishigure) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In the late 18th Century, Benjamin Franklin invented the Glass Harmonica as a musical instrument with the idea of improving upon the parlour trick of rubbing the rim of a wine glass with a wet finger to produce a constant drone. Franklin heard a pristine beauty resulting from from this action but immediately recognized the limitations if one wanted to play more than one or two wine glasses at once. For his Glass Harmonica, Franklin cut off the stems of several dozen wine glasses and drilled holes directly in the center of the glasses. He then mounted these augmented glasses along a horizontal rotating spindle, so that the player of the Glass Harmonica could effectively be rubbing the rims of several glasses at once and create harmonies and chords out of those pure tones. The Glass Harmonica was quite a novelty instrument for plenty of composers of the day; but it fell out of favor with the discerning public (possibly because some of the players had actually fainted from the frequencies they were creating with the Glass Harmonica).
In recent years, there's been a resurgance of interest in the glass harmonica amongst avant-garde composers, including Simon Wickham-Smith, Manu Holterbach, and Christina. As one of Germany's most reknowned sound artists, Kubisch typically operates in the realm of installation with almost all of her previous recordings being documents of those installations; thus, Armonica is a rare documentation of Kubisch's compositional sensibility. In using the glass harmonica as the source material for this album, she constructs a beautiful polyphony of never-ending timbres, resulting in an exquisite piece of haunted minimalism on par with the likes of Phill Niblock, Andrew Chalk, and Eliane Radigue. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Armonica"

KUBISCH, CHRISTINA Diapason (Semishigure) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For nearly 4 decades, the German sound artist Christina Kubisch has explored the dynamics of a restricted pallette from unconventional sound sources, including water jets, metronomes, marbles, and bells (her most widely used sound source). She situates these sounds within a number of poetic installations, which depend upon architechtural, environmental, and object-relational contexts to literally activate the sound. Some of her work including the recordings from the "Klangraumlichtzeit" monograph never translated very well outside of their original installations, but there have been examples of her sound work which transcend the borders of the installations. "Dreaming Of A Major Third" (1998) was one such piece, as a wonderful drone recording of churchbell tones whose sharp attacks had been curtailed into muffled swells. The album is so strong that the technological gimmickery of her solar panel interface to control those churchbells is almost a footnote. Similarly, "Diapason" is another successful composition outside of its original installation context, having been exclusively composed with medical tuning forks. Utilizing the intrinsically long acoustic decay of those forks to her advantage, Kubisch spartanly strikes these instruments in variety of delicate patterns that emerge, dissolve, and re-appear with the vast expanses of time and space. In the end, this album has many of the ephemeral and transient characteristics of late period Morton Feldman.
RealAudio clip: "Diapason excerpt 1"
RealAudio clip: "Diapason excerpt 2"

KUBISCH, CHRISTINA Twelve Signals (Semishigure) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

KURENNIEMI, ERKKI 50 Years On-Off (Ruton Music) cassette 9.98
This super limited (and hand numbered) cassette from legendary Finnish composer, inventor, instrument designer and musician Erkki Kurenniemi, celebrates the 50 year anniversary of his first, and perhaps most famous record work, 1963's "On-Off". This track has been included in various Kurreniemi compilations, and was inspired by the roar of turbines Kurreniemi heard as a child once while visiting a power plant. It's a sprawling abstract expanse of howling buzzing electro acoustic musique concrete, lots of thrums and rumbles, disembodied voices buried in the background, slow shifting textures, and gristled drones, all spread out into shimmering, undulating sheets of sound. Super dynamic too, flitting from hushed murmur to explosive and caustic howl, and often settling somewhere right in between. It sounds occasionally like jet engine noise, and at others, rushing water, or whirling wind, multiple variations of dense hypnotic sound. Noisy enough to predict much of the industrial/noise music that would follow, but also prescient of so much electronic and experimental music as well. Grey and austere, but somehow also lush and lovely.
This tape includes the original version of "On-Off", along with a second, shorter German edit. The flipside features a 2013 reimagining of / homage to "On-Off", which attempts to capture the same spirit with a whole different set of sounds, lots of electronics, and strange FX, the sound less grey and more multihued, not as raw or primitive, and a bit more psychedelic, but quite a cool piece, regardless of its provenance.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered and housed in a thick black and white J-card, the whole tape sealed in a plastic bag.
MPEG Stream: "On-Off"

KURENNIEMI, ERKKI Recording (Love Records) cd 21.00
This is an awesome document of early computer music from Finnish inventor/composer Erkki Kurenniemi, who is featured on the Arktinen Hysteria: Suomi-Avantgarden Esipuutarhureita compilation, one of this week's Records of the Week, which is a brief sonic overview of Finnish experimental/electronic/avant garde in the sixties. Kurenniemi's track on the comp is a sort of precursor to Pan Sonic, stiff robotic dance music made from blips and bleeps. This collection of his work from 1963-1973 shows multiple sides of Kurenniemi, the silly, playful side, like the comp track (which also appears here) and then a much darker, noiser side. Having spent time as an artist, a photographer, and a musician, Kurennemi was always an enthusiastic amateur, with most of his works remaining in a raw and unfinished state. Which in no way detracts from the power of these amazing pieces. In fact like lots of home-recorded/primitively recorded music, the quality of the recording is a huge part of the overall sound. A combination of computers, synthesizers and home made automated sound making devices, resulted in a broad range of sound, from grainy rough walls of sound to boinky primitive rhythm tracks to thick rumbling tones and ear piercing sine waves to dorky spastic freak outs to twinkly spacescapes. Really cool stuff.
MPEG Stream: "Sahkosoittimen Aania #1"
MPEG Stream: "On - Off"

KURENNIEMI, ERKKI Rules (Ektro) 2lp 28.00
A while back we reviewed a killer compilation from this legendary Finnish composer / inventor / early electronic music pioneer. This new release on Jussi from Circle's Ektro Records offshoot Full Contact, features many of those same tracks on vinyl for the first time, along with a bunch of others that weren't on the cd version. Here's what we had to say about that collection:
This is an awesome document of early computer music from Finnish inventor/composer Erkki Kurenniemi, who is featured on the Arktinen Hysteria: Suomi-Avantgarden Esipuutarhureita compilation, a past aQ Record of the Week, that collection a brief sonic overview of Finnish experimental/electronic/avant garde in the sixties. Kurenniemi's track on the comp is a sort of precursor to Pan Sonic, stiff robotic dance music made from blips and bleeps. This collection of his work from 1963-1973 shows multiple sides of Kurenniemi, the silly, playful side, like the comp track (which also appears here) and then a much darker, noisier side. Having spent time as an artist, a photographer, and a musician, Kurennemi was always an enthusiastic amateur, with most of his works remaining in a raw and unfinished state. Which in no way detracts from the power of these amazing pieces. In fact like lots of home-recorded/primitively recorded music, the quality of the recording is a huge part of the overall sound. A combination of computers, synthesizers and home made automated sound making devices, resulted in a broad range of sound, from grainy rough walls of sound to boinky primitive rhythm tracks to thick rumbling tones and ear piercing sine waves to dorky spastic freak outs to twinkly spacescapes. Really cool stuff.
Really cool indeed. This comp definitely expands on the earlier cd version, in part by introducing the music in the context of Kurenniemi's 'rules', the first of which was "A work has to be completed in a single day." The second was: "Consecutive sounds must be chosen so that they are totally inconsistent or surprising and have no rational relationship with each other." And most interesting, the third rule stated simply: "...?" Not sure exactly what that means, but perhaps we're not meant to know, or perhaps it means nothing. What we do know is the music of Kurenniemi is fascinating and beautiful, difficult and perplexing, sometimes it's like mad video game music gone haywire, at other times it's darkly delicate and downright haunting, much of this created on machines he built and invented, electro-acoustic experiments give way to tape collages which in turn give way to primitive early synthesizer compositions which in turn give way to pure electronic sounds. Gorgeous mysterious stuff, and absolutely recommended for fans of early electronic and computer music pioneers like Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel, F.C. Judd, Daphne Oram, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, as well as imaginary pioneers like Ursula Bogner!!
Incredible deluxe packaging, super thick full color heavy duty gatefold jacket with extensive liner notes, pictures and detailed notes on each song.
MPEG Stream: "On-Off"
MPEG Stream: "Inventio / Outventio"
MPEG Stream: "Preludi"
MPEG Stream: "Virsi"

KUUPUU Kulta Sulka (self-released) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another leafy, spacey, dew laden, sun dappled folk flecked free rock missive from this Finnish female who has done time in both Avarus and Anaksimadndros, which should give you an idea of the sort of spaced out freeform spacefolk loveliness to expect here. Gently looped guitar distortion, swooping spacey FX, clattery percussion, bird calls, warbly machinelike whirs, drifting shimmery organs and sing songy vocals, haunting detuned guitars, creepy atonal melodies, all buried under dreamy swaths of fuzzy gauzy swirl. So nice. Fans of all things Finnish will want to act fast as we only have 20 or so.
Third and last edition, limited to 100, packaged in hand made, watercolored sleeves.
MPEG Stream: "Linnut"
MPEG Stream: "Jaa Maa"

KUUPUU Unilintu (Dekorder) lp 16.98
Yet another blurry, bleary eyed, sleepy and soft, dreamlike missive from the mysterious KuuPuu, another of the Finnish forest denizens who have captured our hearts.
Unilintu is the second of two vinyl only releases compiling the best tracks from long out of print cd-r's. The record begins with a burst of blown out electronic buzz and stuttering machinelike rhythms seemingly crafted from a skipping record, but don't be scared off, once you've waded through this brief blast, you'll find yourself in a dark and wondrous abstract forest folk wonderland. Soft and warm, whirring organs drone and drift over lilting sing song vocals, various lines all lazily intertwined,ultra lo-fi acoustic guitars wrapped in all sorts of natural ambience, the sounds of rain and thunder, and again those dreamy ghost like vocals. The whole record has that rainy day back porch vibe, or sometimes that late night dark forest campfire feel, both so intimate and personal.
Old pianos plinked and plonked in big echoey empty rooms, wheezing violins, atonal detuned guitars, warm washes of fuzzy ambience, occasionally interrupted by little chunks of noise drenched 4-track fuckery, but for the most part, Unilintu is one long sweet sonic dream. Definitely for fans of Islaja, Grouper, Fursaxa, Valet and the like.

KUUPUU Yokehra (Dekorder) lp 14.98
Another gorgeous dreamy slab of free floating Finnish forest folk. From Kuupuu who delivers the very dreamiest of the bunch. Sonic similarities abound to countrymen Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat and the rest, but Kuupuu are dreamier and driftier, less tribal, less linked to this mortal plain, the music of Kuupuu is like some mysterious lullaby that drifts like the smell of burning leaves through the forest. Shimmery atmospheres of delicately plucked strings and music box melodies, detuned guitars and thick droney warble, lo-fi but strangely lush, a whirl of haze and murk, warm and soft and inviting, disembodied vocals, wordless, more like another instrument than a voice, another layer of sound. These are late night lullabies for forest folk and we just can't stop listening. So easy to drift off and float away.......

KUWAYAMA - KIJIMA 01.06.16 (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A slight departure from the silence and drones that often-inaudible composer Bernhard Gunter's Trente Oiseaux label is known for, this disc by Japanese cello and violin duo Kuwayama Kiyoharu and Kijima Rina is a live acoustic improv set. Not exactly jazz improv, though! More of an avant-garde modern classical chamber improv thing, but minus the actual "chamber", 'cause the real twist is that "01.06.16" isn't just live, it's what you might term a "field recording" -- they recorded it outdoors, beside a highway at midnight! So you get the sound of passing cars and trucks, adding a whooshing, rumbling texture to the proceedings. We're not sure if they're really listening to the traffic and interactively improvising with those sounds -- although it seems that way at least some of the time -- but the ambient (and very present) pulsation of the highway noise makes a nice setting for the creaking, scrabbling, droning interplay of their strings. This type of thing is this duo's modus operandi, as we've also heard Mr. Kuwayama's and Ms. Kijima's previous, self-titled disc on GG Records which featured them improvising similarily in a warehouse and on the construction site of an expressway. Although we're still a bit surprised to find this on Trente Oiseaux -- being the label that released Reynols' "Blank Tapes", we'd have expected them to want even more highway and less violin and cello on this release...
RealAudio clip: "01.06.16 f"

KUWAYAMA - KIJIMA 02.08.23 (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here's the Japanese cello and violin duo of Kuwayama Kiyoharu & Kijima Rina's second release for Bernard Gunter's Trente Oiseaux label. Their creaking, mysterious improvisations are always set within a larger sound-environment. Their previous disc had them playing next to a highway at midnight, this one finds them in a warehouse on a pier, so rather than the buzz of traffic the ambient sounds are gently lapping, sloshing water in a large acoustic space, interwoven with their fog horn cello droning and deep string stroke scritch-scratch. Really nice and evocative, for fans of both modern free improv and field recordings -- it's maybe like violinist Malcolm Goldstein jamming with field recordist Toshiya Tsunoda. We're also somewhat reminded of works by Pauline Oliveros, Koji Asano, Philipp Wachsmann, and Akio Suzuki.
MPEG Stream: "02.08.31 e"

KWISP Teriyaki Vest Odyssey (Pinephone) cd 11.98
Attention fans of that '60s experimental psychedelic freakout The Fifty Foot Hose: members of the '90s reunion group have resurfaced with this new entity simply named Kwisp. Walter Funk and Reid Johnston craft sonic DaDa-esque squirreliness composed of squelch-effected vocalizations, a jumble of found sounds and dialogue samples, wheezy horn spasms, analog burblings and masses of custom made instruments. With guests Daevid Allen, Fifty Foot Hose founder Cork Marcheschi, and Mandible Chatter's Grant Miller.
MPEG Stream: "Dragon Titties"
MPEG Stream: "Ether Bunny's Music For The Masses"

KWJAZ s/t (Not Not Fun) cd 13.98
Sold about a billion (really) of this record when it first came out on cassette early in 2011, then even more (a trillion?) when it was reissued on lp, and now it's finally available on cd, and it tacks on TWO BONUS TRACKS not on either of the other versions!!
Here's what we had to say about Kwjaz when we first laid ears on it/them way back when:
Wow. We can't get over this incredibly cosmic, tripped-out debut cassette from KWJAZ. SF mastermind Peter Berends decides that space is the place and sets his sights for uncharted musical territory. Falling somewhere between outsider instrumental pop and dubbed-out psychedelic ethno-jazz, Berends leads a colorful excursion into the astral unknown. The two, side-long tracks unfold like some otherworldly mix-tape, deep basslines giving way to sizzling warbling drones, cut-up bits of rhythmic clatter ooze and materialize into slow grooving monuments to the stars. Chopped up samples and distorted swells melt into a lo-fi woozy web. Hazy, primitive beats (picture a slowed down Ethiopiques loop) rock and sway as horns, electric piano and weirdo samples add to the celestial crunk. And keep in mind, though KWJAZ is weird, far-out and strange, this humble album is overflowing with musicianship and close attention to layering and detail.
What makes all the tripped-out, genre defying weirdness so satisfying is Berends's ability to form these diverse elements into a propulsive, evocative musical journey through time and genre. Moments of cool jazz tranquility unexpectedly morph into trip-hop fantasy ballads, long-tone new age bliss suddenly shifts into West African romps, and somehow all these tangents seem impossibly and seamlessly linked. We can't recommend this one enough!
Fans of Hype Williams, Rangers or Ducktails will not want to miss out on this lysergic masterpiece!
MPEG Stream: "Once In Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Frighteous Wane"

KWJAZ s/t (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98
Sold about a billion (really) of these when it came out on cassette via Brunch Groupe, which of course rapidly went out of print, and have been waiting eagerly ever since for the vinyl version, which is now here at last thanks to Not Not Fun, yay!
Wow. We can't get over this incredibly cosmic, tripped-out debut cassette from KWJAZ. SF mastermind Peter Berends decides that space is the place and sets his sights for uncharted musical territory. Falling somewhere between outsider instrumental pop and dubbed-out psychedelic ethno-jazz, Berends leads a colorful excursion into the astral unknown. The two, side-long tracks unfold like some otherworldly mix-tape, deep basslines giving way to sizzling warbling drones, cut-up bits of rhythmic clatter ooze and materialize into slow grooving monuments to the stars. Chopped up samples and distorted swells melt into a lo-fi woozy web. Hazy, primitive beats (picture a slowed down Ethiopiques loop) rock and sway as horns, electric piano and weirdo samples add to the celestial crunk. And keep in mind, though KWJAZ is weird, far-out and strange, this humble cassette is overflowing with musicianship and close attention to layering and detail.
What makes all the tripped-out, genre defying weirdness so satisfying is Berends's ability to form these diverse elements into a propulsive, evocative musical journey through time and genre. Moments of cool jazz tranquility unexpectedly morph into trip-hop fantasy ballads, long-tone new age bliss suddenly shifts into West African romps, and somehow all these tangents seem impossibly and seamlessly linked. We can't recommend this one enough!
Fans of Hype Williams, Rangers or Ducktails will not want to miss out on this lysergic masterpiece!
MPEG Stream: "Once In Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Frighteous Wane"

KWJAZ s/t (Brunch Groupe) cassette 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow. We can't get over this incredibly cosmic, tripped-out debut cassette from KWJAZ. SF mastermind Peter Berends decides that space is the place and sets his sights for uncharted musical territory. Falling somewhere between outsider instrumental pop and dubbed-out psychedelic ethno-jazz, Berends leads a colorful excursion into the astral unknown. The two, side-long tracks unfold like some otherworldly mix-tape, deep basslines giving way to sizzling warbling drones, cut-up bits of rhythmic clatter ooze and materialize into slow grooving monuments to the stars. Chopped up samples and distorted swells melt into a lo-fi woozy web. Hazy, primitive beats (picture a slowed down Ethiopiques loop) rock and sway as horns, electric piano and weirdo samples add to the celestial crunk. And keep in mind, though KWJAZ is weird, far-out and strange, this humble cassette is overflowing with musicianship and close attention to layering and detail.
What makes all the tripped-out, genre defying weirdness so satisfying is Berends's ability to form these diverse elements into a propulsive, evocative musical journey through time and genre. Moments of cool jazz tranquility unexpectedly morph into trip-hop fantasy ballads, long-tone new age bliss suddenly shifts into West African romps, and somehow all these tangents seem impossibly and seamlessly linked. We can't recommend this one enough!
Limited to an edition of 121, fans of Hype Williams, Rangers or Ducktails will not want to miss out on this lysergic masterpiece!
MPEG Stream: "Once In Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Frighteous Wane"

KYRGYZ (TOM CARTER, ROBERT HORTON, LOREN CHASSE, CHRISTINE BOEPPLE) s/t (Digitalis Industries) cd 12.98
Not sure what you call a group like Kyrgyz, um... other than Kyrgyz, but if this were some stadium rock record, or eighties hair metal record, one might call it a supergroup. But since it's more of a rumbling trancey free drone record we'll just stick with Kyrgyz. The fruits of an afternoon hang out / dinner party / recording session / jam, this disc is a gorgeous, dreamy, noisy slab of slow shifting abstract drones. Not the sort of minimal, single tone stretched out into infinity sort of drone, no these tracks are dense with varied instrumentation and lots of cooks in the kitchen, all swirled into a hypnotic whole. Kyrgyz just so happens to feature Robert Horton, Tom Carter of Charalambides, Loren Chasse (Thuja, Blithe Sons, etc.) and one of our former mailorder ladies Christine Boepple (Whysp, ex-Skygreen Leopards Skyband).
Equal parts, traditional minimalism (La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise) and modern free folk drone new weird America whatever (Sunroof!, Birchville Cat Motel, Omit, Avarus, etc.), Kyrgyz take an impossible array of instrumentaion and somehow boil it all down into a deep, dark msyterious sound all their own. Lap steel, dobro, e bow, voice recorder, guitar, wah wah, computer, boot, sex machine, el flosser, dulcimer, vitaminder, cd-r's, tapes, minidisc, sleigh bells, percussion, Tibetan bells, cassette recorder, sheng, pitch pipe, hurdy gurdy, phlanger, music box, khaen and even saxophone, all beautifully tangled up into blissed out smears of dense ambience and dreamy drone.
MPEG Stream: "Clown Hands Dokalmak"
MPEG Stream: "Hirzur Vadisi (Peaceful Valley)"

L'INFONIE Vol. 333 (Tir Groupe / Mucho Gusto) 2cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This swank double cd reissues the 1972 third album from Canada's craziest new music/psychedelic rock collective, the anarchic L'Infonie which flourished from '67-'74. (Giving you some clue about their methodical madness, their other LPs were titled "Vol. 3", "Vol. 33", and "Vol. 3333", of which only the first has also been reissued on cd as yet -- we recommended it here back in '01.) Hailing from Montreal, Quebec these academic avant-garde freaks mixed classical chamber music, acid fuzz rock, weird warbling vocal babble, jazzy groove, free improv, musique concrete, prog overload, etc. etc. into a confusing, chaotic, comedic happening that should appeal equally to Terry Riley and Zappa fans. I know sometimes mentioning Zappa is the kiss of death, so don't take it the wrong way. Let's mention some other stuff this reminds us of, in part: Soft Machine Goblin New Trolls Univers Zero Faust Mahogany Brain Art Zoyd Nurse With Wound. This is pretty darn cool and weird and original, bizarrely funny sometimes and simply strange and beautiful on other occasions. Disc one is more "rock", disc two more "classical." What it all means, I don't know -- there's lotsa liner notes, but useful only to the francophones among us.
MPEG Stream: "Section 19-23"
MPEG Stream: "Ubiquital"

L'INFONIE Volume 3 (Tir Groupe / Mucho Gusto) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
On the same label that reissued that weird Les Maledictus Sound album, comes this even weirder French-Canadian late '60s artifact. But this isn't really like the pop-psych commerical craziness of the Maledictus disc. L'Infonie was a much more avant-garde group, playing psychedelic-rock infused "new music", mixing Moog synths, primal screams, 20th century academic experimental chamber music, and more, over the course of their 1967-1974 career ("seven years of pure mayhem" say the liner notes), the weirdest and wildest examples of which seem to be compiled onto this cd. Youthful anarchic energy and serious somber musical beauty are simulanteously evident here. Terry Riley fans may already know L'Infonie as the student group who performed a somewhat more psychedelic than usual version of his minimalist classic "In C", which is found on the Cortical Foundation cd version of Riley's Reed Streams.
RealAudio clip: "J'ai perdu 15 cents dans le nez froid..."
RealAudio clip: "Ode a L'Affaire -- Ouverture"
RealAudio clip: "Viens danser le 'OK La!'"

L.A.F.M.S. Unboxed (Cortical Foundation) cd 15.98
Excellent sampler of the limited and prohibitively priced Los Angeles Free Music Society box set. From noise to spoken word rants to sappy jazz to avant garde audio fuckery.

L.O.S.D. The Man Who Made Radio / Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
L.O.S.D.'s contribution to the recently prolific Mort Aux Vaches series (which includes John Duncan, Stillupsteypa, Zoviet France, Maeror Tri, etc...) is more of an aural documentary of neo-historicism which fuses primitive hiss, noise, and static from shortwave radio broadcasts with a running narrative of flowing vocal samples offering a fascinating history of the birth of the radio.

L/R When I Lift I Can Feel My Sunburn Singing (Paha Porvari) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're so excited to finally be holding this long in the works release in our grubby little paws. A long term collaboration between Loren Chasse and Ray Guillette, When I Lift I Can Feel My Sunburn Singing was originally intended to be released as a picture disc on tUMULt, but through a series of strange circumstances, the picture disc series was put on hold indefinitely, and the L/R record just sort of languished on a dusty shelf somewhere, which was an absolute shame as this is a beautiful piece of work. Thankfully, the folks at Paha Porvari tracked this record down and decided to give it a proper release. While we sort of wish they had pressed this as a real cd, the cd-r format's transitive nature is perfectly suited to the record's sound and theme.
Culled from a series of field recordings collected at the site of a ruined factory in South San Francisco way back in 1996, When I Lift I Can Feel My Sunburn Singing is the document of several live performances in 1997 and 1998 assembled from those sounds.
L/R explore a world of thick washed out drones, swirling seas of whir, gorgeously shimmery expanses of sun dappled sound, all peppered with crackle and glitch, cavernous windblown soundscapes, haunting metallic chimes and muted percussive events, jagged shards of sound, recontextualized into haunting rhythmic grooves, a constantly shifting soundworld of mystery and magic, alternately jagged and caustic, soothing and dreamlike. Incredible stuff!
Gorgeously packaged in an oversized black on black cardstock sleeve, inside lots of beautiful full color inserts, drawings and etchings and paintings reproduced on super nice paper, as well as two delicate vellum inserts with liner notes and credits.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

LA BARBARA, JOAN Voice Is The Original Instrument (Lovely) 2cd 26.00
Lovely has done a good thing and reissued some classic Joan La Barbara recordings from the seventies along with some rarities from the eighties to boot. When it comes to extended vocal technique, La Barbara is the queen. Not only can she boast a lengthy career as one of the top vocal performers in the avant garde and a strong resume of academic compositions, but she's even got a film credit as the voice of one of the evil baby aliens in Alien Resurrection. How many performers of her stature in academia can claim to have voiced a slimy little puppet? Not many we'd guess. The set is divided up into an "Explorations" disc and "The Music" disc, and includes her entire 1976 self-released album "Voice Is The Original Instrument". The "Explorations" half is all live, and/or real time, solo voice performances. None of them use any form of processing (digital or otherwise) of the voice and as such are not just intimate, but down right claustrophobic to listen to. Reactions here in the store (from customers and staff alike) range from extreme discomfort to uncontrolled mirth. Andee said that this was the kind of stuff he liked to do as a kid. La Barbara's vocalizations range from slow hooting glissandos like a breathing exercise gone awry to feral animal-esque growls. The second disc, while including much of the same vocal techniques as the first, contains La Barbara's studio works using multi-tracks to over lay multiple overdubbings of growls and such on tape. A definite must for fans of sound poetry.
MPEG Stream: "Circular Song"
MPEG Stream: "Twelvesong"

LA CASA, ERIC Air Ratio (Sirr) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "One"
RealAudio clip: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

LA CASA, ERIC L'empreinte de L'ivress (Digital Narcis) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eric La Casa - who has also recorded as Syllyk - presents these elemental recordings from mineral ore, electrical buzz, and aquatic field recordings (from the coasts at both the North and Adriatic Seas) ebb and flow against ascending metal drones from a number of Tibetan bowls and bells. Quite lovely in fact.

LA CASA, ERIC Les Pierres du Seuil 4-7 (Edition ... ) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eric La Casa is a French sound artist primarily interested in curating unprocessed field recordings, which are usually of the most common natural element of minerals, wind, and water. With only the contextualizing resources of the recording level and the narrative position, La Casa masterfully reveals the volatile sonic properities of seemingly inert substances. If you're a fan of Chris Watson's incredible field recordings, you should certainly check this one out.