Berlin-based violinist Biliana Voutchkova and German clarinetist Michael Thieke (Magic I.D., International Nothing) present a stunning achievement in blending compositional, pre-structured material with live improvisation, creating a blurring of virtually identical sections that create microtonal anomalies in timing, rhythm, timbre and motive, as heard in 3 amazing performances.

Inspired by the work of Hungarian-born French media artist Vera Molnar, and by the vicissitudes of natural phenomena, French pianist and composer Melaine Dalibert developed algorithmic procedures to compose this work, translating to "Music for the Daybreak", as an illusory "endless piece" of meditative layered, resonant music in the mode of Morton Feldman.

Four fascinating and detailed compositions from Canadian composer and painter Lance Austin Olsen, each work giving the performers space to collaborate on the results, using graphic scores and Cage-like elements from recordings; performers include Terje Paulsen, Gil Sanson, Ryoko Akama, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Katelyn Clark, Patrick Farmer and Apartment House.

Four fragile and mostly minimal works by Victoria-based composer Alex Jang, performed by the Apartment House ensemble, with solo pieces by Heather Roche on clarinet + field recordings, one with Cristian Alvear on guitar, an acoustic quintet, and "any three players" designed for any mix of instrumentation, here on melodica, vibraphone & cello.

Eight sophisticated chamber pieces composed by Linda Catlin Smith and realized by the Canadian Apartment House ensemble, including a solo piano performed by Philip Thomas, a piano duo with Thomas and Mark Knoop, and works for percussion & cello, 2 quintet pieces for strings, percussion and winds, and two 7-piece conducted works with two percussionists, strings and brass.

Two ensemble works and two solo pieces by Christian Wolff's favourite contemporary composer, Cassandra Miller, who is blazing a very personal trail through the experimental music world, with brilliant performances by Apartment House, Mira Benjamin, Philip Thomas, and Charles Curtis with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov.

A disc of extraordinary string works by Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, presenting four string quartets superbly played by the Quatuor Bozzini quartet of Clemens Merkel on violin, Alissa Cheung on violin, Stephanie Bozzini on viola, and Isabelle Bozzini on cello, including the large work "About Bach", awarded the Jules Leger Prize for New Chamber Music.

Many years after Pere Ubu and his work as a pilot, one of the world's most unique synth players, Allen Ravenstine, releases an album of composed works, 18 discrete hybrid miniature sound worlds that blend acoustic, real-world and synthetic sounds in unorthodox ways that elusively twist conventional approaches with unexpected elements and narrative twists.

The second issue in the 40th anniversary year of Canada's foremost magazine exploring new music in composed, improvised, experimental and other unusual musics, articles including Peggy Lee, Circuit Bending, composer Maria de Alvear, an article on the Bug Incision label, plus a 14-track CD with tracks to accompany the articles, plus album reviews, live reviews, &c. &c.

Victoriaville, Quebec electronic composer Charles Barbare creates abstract electroacoustic works, here in an impressive 6-movement work that covers a wide ground from minimalistic rhythmic sections to time-stretched voices and electronics to musique mystery, his inquisitive approach allowing his scores to unfold in decipherable, dramatic and coherent ways.

Conservatory trained Argentinian saxophonist Sergio Merce uses a prepared tenor sax and a microtonal sax to create rich harmonics and slowly moving tonal works, layering aberrant and alluring tones in restrained configurations that allow each stratum of sound to be distinguished and appreciated, creating mesmerizing compositions of elusive and illusionistic sound.

Pianist and composer Dante Boon performs his own work "Years, Numbers", alongside Antoine Beuguer's "Pour Etre Seul(e), Sans Reserve" and Taylan Susam's "Tombeau", and Bueger's "Nov. (piano)", four works of graceful and introspective beauty using minimal approaches to tone, chord, or spaciousness, recorded live at University Of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 2014.

A sextet of Cyril Bondi (vibraphone), d'Incise (metallic objects), Magnus Granberg (piano), Anna Lindal (Baroque violin), Anna-Kaisa Meklin (viola de gamba) and Christoph Schiller (spinet) perform two works composed by Bondi and d'Incise, recorded by Simon Reynell of Another Timbre, works of repetition with distinct variations that evolve as each piece progresses.

Fourteen pieces for solo guitar from Norwegian composer Johan Lindvall, sparse yet warmly spaced pieces that focus on the individual notes or simple chords in intimate ways, meditative yet warmly evocative; two sections are presented in multiple movements, with "five songs for voice and guitar", Rasten singing words written by Marianne Moore; lovely and refined.

Melbourne, Australia's Astra Choir directed by John McCaughey use choral voice and appropriate instrumentation to interpret and present music from mediaeval to modern electronic and post-minimal music, here taking on compositions from Morton Feldman, Will Ogden, Pauline Oliveros, Warren Burt, Earle Brown, and Robert Carl.

Written in 1963 for up to 15 peformers plus a conductor who may also make sound, Japanese composer and Fluxus artist Toshi Ichiyanagi's score has 16 pages marked with combinations of lines, dots and letters indicating duration, number of events, and moments of restraint, each player using a different page, with certain options of switching pages with another player during performance.

Marianne Schuppe continues to reimagine songs and their relation to tone and melody, here in a series of 11 songs realized with voice, lute, and uber bows, creating delicate accompaniment to her lucid movements between pure sound and words, singing and speaking her lyrics of succinct phrases rich in subtle intimation and evocative imagery; beautiful.

Spectral composers Iancu Dumitrescu & Ana-Maria Avram present 4 works recorded live in Berlin from 2009-14, with participants including Yoni Silver, Tim Hodgkinson, Stephan O'Malley, orchestration including stretchable steel and computer, crystals, prepared piano, &c.

The Swiss Kukuruz Quartet of 4 pianists--Duri Collenberg, Lukas Rickli, Philip Bartels, and Simone Keller--continue their explorations of the works of late NY composer & pianist Julius Eastman, a pioneering figure in minimalism and an influential member of the 1980s Downtown New York scene; here in four works: "Fugue No.7", "Evil Nigger", "Buddha" and"Gay Guerrilla".

Two guitarists -- Gyan Riley and Julian Lage -- perform 10 lyrical John Zorn compositions inspired by Shakespeare and written for the moon, a symbol of love, lust, madness and dreams, as the two guitarists play in unison and interweaving figures, a beautiful album of contemplative, refined and elegant works from one of New York's most prolific composers.

Pianist and vibraphonist Karl Berger is also a professor of composition, having won numerous awards and commissions for his work, here presenting the final part of a trilogy written for Tzadik, a beautiful 14-part suite for piano and string realized with Berger himself at the keys in a septet of well known NY performers including Ken Filiano, Tomas Ulrich, Jason Kao Hwang.

An hour-long work for an ensemble of six musicians by Swedish composer Magnus Granberg performed by Anna Lindal on baroque violin, d incise on vibraphonen electronics, Cyril Bondi on percussion, Anna Kaisa Meklin on viola da gamba, Christoph Schiller on spinet, and Magnus Granberg himself on prepared piano, transforming material from a song by Franz Schubert.

With backgrounds in both improvisation and compositional music, the new trio of Cyril Bondi on harmonium, Pierre-Yves Martel on viola da gamba, and Christoph Schiller on spinet, agreed on a sequence of pitches for this 5 part improvisational work, allowing space for the players to explore pitch and melody within a contemplative and pensive framework.

One of a handful of John Cage's number pieces, this work for two pianists follows the forms of Renga poetry, composed with 36 lines of music, each containing 5 measures, and each line having 31 events occuring in the sequence 5-7-5-7-7, with the pianists allowed their own tempo but waiting to synchronize each measure, as performed by Mark Knoop and Philip Thomas.

A new set of works from Downtown New York composer John Zorn inspired by the surrealism of Luis Bunuel and the psychotropic dream world of William S. Burroughs, in three compositions performed by Jack Quartet, the rhythm section from the piano quintet Obscure Objects of Desire, plus vivbraphonist Sae Hashimoto, pianist Steve Gosling, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey.

Two electroacoustic orchestral compositions with machine analogies from composer, percussionist and electronic artist Matt Weston, mastered by Jason Lescalleet at Glistening Labs; unusual works that use abstract components against melodic snippets, electronic washes, glitch, altered voices, abrupt shifts and genre-defying resolutions; curious and unorthodox music.

Between 2014-16 Jakob Ullmann composed the orchestral work "steine, feuer, sterne" (stones, fire, stars) based on a modular structure, such that individual sections can be played outside of a complete performance, solo or in predetermined combinations; this album presents one section for solo bassoon titled "Muntzers stern" performed by Dafne Vicente-Sandoval.

Largely derived from piano recordings by Netherlands pianist Reinier van Houdt, a member of both the Ensemble MAE and the Ives Ensemble and heard on the Wandelweiser label, expanded by several field recordings recorded by Michael Pisaro in Syros (Greece), creating a work in three pieces of rich environments that contrast peaceful passages with powerful ambiance.

The full two-hour performance of Cornelius Cardew's entire 193-page legendary Treatise graphic score, performed at Iklectik in London, England on January 28, 2017 in an 11-member ensemble of some of London's most interesting improvisers including participants in Scratch Orchestra, in a double CD release with liner notes by AMM founder Eddie Prevost.

NY free jazz drummer and composer Harris Eisenstadt brings his talents to the compositional world with this four movement suite performed by the Mivos Quartet of Olivia De Prato, Josh Modney, Victor Lowrie and Mariel Roberts, a creative composition blending melodic and textural approaches to the strings in a bold rendering of Eisenstandt's work.

The Canadian Council for the Arts commissioned this work by Hungarian composer Gyula Csapo, a student of Morton Feldman amd John Cage, realized by Montreal's Quatuor Bozzini quartet, "Deja? Koja?" meaning "Already? Where to?" is a three-part work with two intermissions, an epic work that references the same basic materials in a variety of perspectives.

New ensemble pieces by Jurg Frey and Magnus Granberg played by Ensemble Grizzana, commissioned by Another Timbre with the request that both start from the same two fragments of early music, one by Johannes Ockeghem, the other by William Byrd, each composer producing fascinatingly different pieces that both contain echoes of the source material.

A double CD of delicate music from the French composer Bruno Duplant, the first disc containing three chamber pieces exquisitely played by the Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble, the second disc a long piece for solo guitar, performed by Taku Sugimoto in a public park in Tokyo, incorporating an extraordinary variety of environmental sounds.

An extended and beautiful composition for two guitars, exquisitely played by Taku Sugimoto and Cristian Alvear, captured in concert at Ftarri in Tokyo in 2017, and the first appearance on Another Timbre for this Japanese composer-guitarist Sugimoto, who is best known as an improviser, and who also features on the "Chamber and Field Works" album by Bruno Duplant.

Spanish composer and guitarist based in France, Clara de Asis performs her own work "Do Nothing" in 6 sections, an electroacoustic, minimal studio composition for guitar and percussion, in 3 movements using space between distinct sound events to let each take its own life, offset by 3 movements of rotating or ringing percussive sound and punctuation.

Electroacoustic composer Francois Bayle, a member of Pierre Schaeffer's Groupe de Recherches Musicales, and who worked with Stockhausen and Messiaen, in two 2-part compositions from 1978 and 1979, acousmatic music of mysterious sound sources that are presented with impressive pacing, tension and drama, using a rich and diverse palette of sound.

French composer Christian Zanesi, a student of Pierre Schaeffer and Guy Reibel at the Paris Conservatory and an artistic director of the Ina GRM, in an album presenting works from 1983 ("Stop ! L'horizon") and 1991 ("Grand Bruit"), the latter built on field recordings of train travel, the former an hommage to the potential of the recording studio itself.

A collaborative composition by Veryan Weston, Christine Duncan and Jean Martin, performed with Jesse & Joshua Zubot on violin and Andrew Downing on bass & cello, based on Weston's score "Tessellation IV (Make)", the composed material based on 52 quotations by women writers, each sung on a 5-note (pentatonic) scale, each scale changing by one note when the word "make" is sung.

Five years in the making, composer Scott Johnson transcribed the speech of philosopher Daniel C. Dennett (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) into this extended, 8-movement suite, using a rich, detailed set of musical landscapes blending musical genres that run in parity with the voice of Dennett, as Johnson emphasizes and highlight his insightful thinking.

Recording in the Polish Radio studio, the quintet of Evan Ziporyn on clarinets, Adrien Lambinet on trombone, Mikolaj Palosz on cello, Kuba Sokolowski on piano and Kamil Szuszkiewica on trumpet improvise on the compositions "Musiquette IV op. 28" and "Lerchenmusick op. 53" by H. M. Gorecki using conceptual approaches to his scores.

Five works for harp and voice from composer Eva-Maria Houben and soprano Tatiana Kuzina, opening with a lovely "Aeolian Harp", and including two works from her "Voice and Piano" album recorded for harp--"Adagio" in 3 movements, and "Songs for the Island" in 5 movements--alongside "Hatid" and "Two Songs with Piano" in two movements.

Three compositions for voice and piano from German composer Eva-Maria Houben, also performing on piano with soprano vocalist Irene Kurka--"Adagio" in three pieces; "Lyri"; and "Lieder Fur Die Insel (Songs for the Island)--with texts from poet Felix Timmermans (adagio) and Hilde Domin (lyrik); beautiful, stark, haunting music that presents at its own pace.

Composer Michael Winter uses the "maximally complex, incomputable number" known as Chaitin's Constant, plus text adapted from Gregory Chaitin's 1994 book "The Limits Of Mathematics", samples from 36 creative musicians, the voice of Muirgen Eleonore Gourgues, plus cello from Judith Hamann and piano from Winters, to create this curious and compelling narrative work.

Composer Eva-Maria Houben in a collaborative work with bass flutist Rebecca Lane and bass clarinetist Samuel Dunscomb, the composer performing on piano and orgran, for two renderings of "Observing Objects", a patient work of long notes and tones interspersed with silence, lower registers in the winds balanced by the piano or organ's upper register.

German pianist Dominik Blum presents his second album for the Wandelweiser label, performing a selection of compositions from Swiss composer Hermann Meier (1906-2002), whose forward-looking work with reduced scores, modern use of time and space, and graphics scores in compositions pre-dating Messiaen, Stockhausen, Boulez, &c. that are only recently being rediscovered.

Swiss composer and percussionist Cyril Bondi, recording with d'incise, renders his piece "euhesma" (a genus within the bee family in Australia), a work performed on indian harmonium, melodica, harmonica, pitch pipes, and electric organ that slowly introduces and overlaps tones, varying the pitch, harmony, and amplitude to create rich aural environments.

With many participants from Ensemble Musique and the Montreal Musique Actuelle scene, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jean Derome directs an ensemble into the exploration of electricity and "Resistances", blending electronics, turntable, 60 Hz hums and other electronics into an orchestra of improvisers executing his dynamic 16 movement composition.

Hubert Zemler is a classically educated percussionist who works with both symphony orchestras and improv, here performing 3 works, his own 4-part "Pupation of Dissonance", revealing an incredible knowledge and exultation in approaches to solo percussion, alongside Steve Reich's "Music for Pieces of Wood" and Per Norgard's study in drifting pulses and overlapping accents, "Waves".

Australian / Polish composer Dominik Karski presents several works for flute performed with collaborators Ewa Liebchen on piccolo, flute, alto flute, bass flute, tam tam, Rafal Jedrzejewski on flute, alto flute, bass flute and tam tam, and Zofia Dowgiatto Zynch on harp, including the 4-part "Veiled Voice", "Glimmer", and two parts of "Streamforms".

Polish guitarist Raphael Roginski presents works from baroque English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695), considered one of the greatest English composers, performed on solo guitar and with accompaniment by Sebastian Witkowski on synth and Olga Myslowska on voice, a beautiful and languorous album that pays homage to the profound lasting qualities of Purcell's music.

Raphael Roginski's Trilogy - 3 CDs in Bolt's Populista series: CD 1. "Raphael Roginski plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes African mystic music"; CD 2. "Zywizna plays Zaswiec Niesiacku and other Kurpian songs"; CD 3. "Populista presents Raphael Roginski plays Henry Purcell featuring Olga Myslowska and Sebstian Witkowski"; in a slip box with a poster.

Polish composer and recorder player Dominik Strycharski wrote these pieces in response to a work for the recorder by composer Louis Andriessen that he dedicated to Frans Bruggen: "Melodie"; Strycharski response is "Harmonie", performed in a duo with pianist Sebastian Zawadzki to demonstrate the impracticability of harmony in its purest forms.

Czech composer Leos Janacek was fascinated with speech melodies, writing them down in notebooks to use in his compositions; Italian composer Alessandro Bosetti has adapted these notes, using the words themselves to create a series of works that builds rhythmic structures in place of melody, injecting himself and other performers into Janacek's interest in the voice.

Several compostions by Polish composer Boguslaw Schaeffer developed in the Polish Radio Experimental Studio from 1966-1978, including works for tape, electronic computer, voice, a quadraphonic generator, the SynLab synthesizer, composed using both graphic and notated scores, and realized with incredibly detailed layering and development of the material.

In memory of the late polymath avant-garde artist Tony Conrad (1940-2016), longtime friend and coconspirator Charlemagne Palestine returned to the site of their first encounter for a tribute performance on what would have been Conrad's 77th birthday, performing on the bells at St Thomas's Church, in New York City for a rich album of ritualistic ringing and tones.

A massive work from composer Jurg Frey focused on the dynamic relationship between sound and silence, and how it can affect our perception of the silence in a frame of space and time, using environmental sounds of field recordings and silence to create a massive work over six hours, modifying pitch, rhythm, dynamics, texture, and overtone, here properly released on 5 CDs.

San Diego's Parkeology director Kate Clark and composer Samuel Dunscombe organized this concert to take advantage of the Balboa Park's Spreckels Organ, inviting local and regional experimental composers to develop works for the 5,017 pipe instrument, attracting artists like Michael Pisaro, Samuel Dunscombe, Steven Andrew Flato, Wen Liu, &c.

New York's literate and genre-encompassing rock band Barbez led by guitarist and journalist Dan Kaufman present their 5th album, renderings of protest songs from The Spanish Civil War in a tribute to the Spanish International Brigades, blending avant-rock, contemporary classical, and folk music styles into a compelling and historically important set of songs.

John Cage's 1957 composition in a visceral realisation for four pianos, played by John Tilbury, Philip Thomas, Mark Knoop and Catherine Laws, using chance procedures to assign each of the pianist's five of the twenty pages of the score, the pianists agreeing on an overall duration of 40 minutes and preparing their parts independently, performed without rehearsal.

A double CD with five beautiful pieces that engage with the work of the extraordinary French-Swiss poet Gustave Roud, with performers including Dante Boon, Stefan Thut, Andrew McIntosh and Jurg Frey himself, 10 compositions that Frey wrote in the manner that Roud would, roaming with a sketchbook and developing the pieces based on impressions of his surroundings.

Four fascinating compositions by Pascale Criton exploring microtonalities on instruments tuned in 1/16th tone (violin, viola, guitar) based on gestural processes developed in close collaboration with the musicians: one duo with Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker, one solo piece with Deborah Walker, and two pieces performed by Dedalus Ensemble.

Earle Brown conducts a chamber ensemble including John Tilbury on piano through a number of compositions, including versions of "October", "November", & "December", "Corroboree 1964 For Three Pianos", "Trio For Five Dances", and "Tracking Pierrot For Ensable".

Legendary trumpeter, composer and educator Bill Dixon in a 17 piece orchestra playing original compositions live at the 12th Vision Festival in New York City.

The first Hopscotch release from the then husband/wife duo of wind player Assif Tsahar and drummer Susie Ibarra, lyrical and textural powerfully woven improvisation.

The quartet of Cosottini, Melano, Pisani, Miano (EAQuartet Electroacoustic) in compositions referring to the 4 cardinal map points using graphic scores, games, open readings, &c.

6 works from a series of minimal compositions loosely based on the art & writings of Sol LeWitt, performed by the Edges Ensemble: Philip Thomas, James Saunders, Tim Parkinson, Angharad Davies, Stephen Chase & Rhodri Davies.

Composer Michael Pisaro teams up with Toshiya Tsunoda for an 85 minute work in 8 sections developed over 14 months, a profound saga of subtle lowercase interactions using electronics and field recordings.

Composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler presents three solo pieces, one for accordion (Teodoro Anzellotti) one for piano (Marianne Schroeder) and the third for organ (Huub Ten Hacken).

Pianist Stephen Clarke plays seven works for solo piano by Estonian-born, Canadian-naturalized composer Udo Kasemets that focus on specific designs of micro-detail.

Ensemble Recherche plays chamber music pieces by Polish composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati that are dynamically explosive and allow for the free communicating of the musicians.

A series of musical "mobiles" from European composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, sonic transformations of the visual experiences of Alexander Calder's dynamic sculptures.

Composer Clarence Barlow, like Beethoven, builds his own labyrinths, brick by brick, and then searches for an escape by creating conceptual forms to get around the traps of time, tonality, and style.

Peter Ablinger's works for three pianos are made up of overlapping sound-layers, repeated octaves, and barely audible sounds made by fingers darting across keys; played by Hildegard Kleeb.

Four composers - John Carisi, Eddie Sauter, Christian Wolff, and Stefan Wolpe - create a program of works with a measured balance in the interrelated and contrasting material.

Pianist and composer Daniel N. Seel plays four pieces from four generations of different composers including Stefan Wolpe, Morton Feldman, Walter Zimmerman, and his own work.