SQUIDCO NEWS January 29, 2007

As the cold settles into New York, we're settling in for another great set of releases, starting with Fred Frith's 3rd series on ReR: Impur, alongside a remastered Camberwell Now, and the 2nd volume of Chris Cutler's There and Back Again; Ned Rothenberg Sync with Strings is issued on Tzadik, and Scott Johnson's reissued Patty Hearst; Hopscotch has a new Cooper-Moore/Assif Tsahar/Chad Taylor; 3 new ones from Chadbourne, including the 1st in a series of Shockabilly reissues; 3 new Cuneiform releases, including a previously unreleased Graham Collier project; Volume 2 in the Magma Mythes DVD series; new Ron Anderson/Molecules with Karla Kihlstedt; several Acid Mother Temples and Makoto related madness; Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra; the lovely new Dust Dive Flash; a definitive Residents Freak Show; vinyl LPs from Sabir Mateen, and Steve Baczkowski on QBICO; plus superb BYG 180 Gram vinyl reissues of Art Ensemble, Sunny Murray and Archie Shepp; Sirr.records latest from Kenneth Kirschner; Pogus puts out Nick Didkovsky, and an intense CD from Dmitri Voudouris; John Cage's prepared piano Sonatas and Interludes reissued; a Theremin double release on Wergo; 2 Asmus Tietchens and new Z'ev/David Linton on Die Stadt; My Cat Is an Alien and Roberto Opalio on Important; a Volcano the Bear CD and 7"; Fennesz' reissued Endless Summer, plus new Biosphere and Tim Hecker; and a number of CDs have been added to our Used section.

Last, we've been hard at work on our catalog over the last year, and we've completed a project that allows us to have a greatly improved search engine, which you can use from the search box on any Squidco page, or from the new Advanced Search page on our site. Now you can search accurately by Arist, Title, Release Country or Label, requesting specific or general searches. We also streamlined a number of navigational elements on the site to make it easier to browse our ever-growing catalog. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions on how to make our site work best for you!

• Art Ensemble of Chicago: A Jackson In Your House [VINYL] (BYG RECORDS)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago: Reese And The Smooth Ones [VINYL] (BYG RECORDS)
• Baczkowski, Steve / Padmanabha, Ravius: Aqua Machine [VINYL] (QBICO)
• Big Satan: Live In Cognito (Screwgun)
• Chadbourne, Eugene / Centazzo, Andrea: Udine: December 29, 1978 (Chadula)
• Collier, Graham: Hoarded Dreams (Cuneiform)
• Cooper-Moore / Tsahar, Assif / Taylor, Chad : Digital Primitives (Hopscotch)
• Exploding Star Orchestra: We Are All From Somewhere Else (Thrill Jockey)
• Finn Trio, James: Plaza de Toros (Clean Feed)
• Frith, Fred: Impur (Recommended Records)
• Gauci, Stephen / Radding, Reuben / Capp, Todd: The First Third (FIVESEVENSEVENLES)
• Gayle, Charles: SHOUT! (Clean Feed)
• Greenlee, Shawn: Nysa (Utech Records)
• Leaney, Aaron / Dadge, Chris: Duo (Bug Incision Records)
• Lehman's Camoflage Trio, Steve: Interface (Clean Feed)
• Masada: Seven (DIW)
• Mateen, Sabir / Carter, Daniel / Barker, Andrew: Not On Earth... In Your Soul! [VINYL LP] (QBICO)
• Moore, Thurston: Flipped Out Bride (Blossoming Noise)
• Murray, Sunny: Hommage To Africa [VINYL] (BYG RECORDS)
• My Cat Is An Alien: Leave Me In the Black No-Thing (Important Records)
• Opalio, Roberto: Chants From Isolated Ghosts (Important Records)
• Rothenberg's Sync with Strings, Ned: Inner Diaspora (Tzadik)
• Shepp, Archie: Yasmina, A Black Woman [VINYL] (BYG RECORDS)
• Volcano The Bear: Egg and Two Books (Vivo Records)
• Volcano The Bear: The Birth of Streissand [7" Vinyl] (NO-FIDELITY)
• Yuganaut : This Musicship (Block M Records)

• Biosphere: Cirque (Touch)
• Braasch, Jonas: Global Reflections (Deep Listening)
• Chadbourne, Dr. Eugene: Horror Part 10: Concert Band Massacre By Evil Spell (Chadula)
• Cutler, Chris: There And Back Again, Volume 2: On Memory (Recommended Records)
• Death Unit: Infinite Death (Important Records)
• Fehlmann, Thomas: Emo Pack (Kompakt)
• Fennesz: Endless Summer (Editions Mego)
• Hecker: Recordings for Rephlex (Rephlex)
• Inoue, Tetsu: World Receiver (INFRACTION)
• Kirschner, Kenneth : Three Compositions (Sirr.ecords)
• Parmegiani, Bernard: Plain-Temps (INA GRM)
• Raaijmakers, Dick: The Complete Tape Music of Dick Raaijmakers (Basta)
• Tietchens, Asmus: Geboren, Um Zu Dienen (Die Stadt)
• Tietchens, Asmus: Zwingburgen des Hedonismus / Mysterien des Hafens (DIE STADT)
• Various Aritsts: Siemens Studio für Elektronische Musik (Kultur Program)
• Various Aritsts: STRP1-Reactions to the Music of Dick Raaijmakers (Basta)
• Voicecrack / ZÍngaro, Carlos : Ba Kagpja (Sirr.ecords)
• Voudouris, Dimitri: NPFAI.1 / Palmos / NPFAI.3 / Praxis (Pogus)
• Vulture Club, The: Live Young, Die Fast and Leave an Exquisite Corpse (Utech Records)
• Z'ev / Linton, David : Untitled (Die Stadt)

• Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno: Demons From Nipples (Vivo Records)
• Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O: Wild Gals A Go-Go (Swordfish)
• Ayers, Kevin: Joy Of A Toy (Water)
• Camberwell Now: All's Well (Recommended Records)
• Chadbourne, Eugene / Kramer / Licht, David: The Dawn of Shockabilly (Chadula)
• D!O!D!O!D!: Ghost Temple (PSF)
• Far Corner: Endangered (Cuneiform)
• Grimes, Carol And Delivery: Fools Meeting (Merry Go Round)
• Makoto, Kawabata: Your Voice From The Moon (Vivo Records)
• Molecules, The: Friends (Ra Sounds)
• Moving Gelatine Plates: The World of Genius Hans (MUSEA)
• Pearls Before Swine: One Nation Underground (Abraxas/ESP-DISK')
• Residents, The: Freak Show (Mute)
• Ruinzhatova: Live In Somewhere (Magaibutsu Limited/Vivo)
• Seikazoku: Live In Japan (Vivo Records)
• The Dust Dive Flash: Tens of Thousands (free103.9)
• The Mahavishnu Project: Return to the Emerald Beyond (Cuneiform)
• Tyranny, "Blue" Gene: Out Of The Blue (UNSEEN WORLDS)

• Bresnick, Martin: The Essential Martin Bresnick (Cantaloupe)
• Buchholz, Barbara / Kavina, Lydia : Touch! Don't Touch! Music For Theremin (Wergo)
• Cage, John: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (El Records)
• Didkovsky, Nick: Tube Mouth Bow String (Pogus)
• Johnson, Scott: Patty Hearst (Tzadik)
• Nitsch, Hermann: Requiem für meine Frau Beate: Musik der 5.6.Aktion (Alga Marghen)
• Various Arstists: Magritte, le groupe Surréaliste de Bruxelles, Rupture (Sub Rosa)

• Wire, The : #275 January 2007
• Anger, Kenneth: The Films of Kenneth Anger Volume One (Fantoma Films)
• Harris, Hilary: The Films Of Hilary Harris (Mystic Fire Video)
• Magma: Mythes et Legendes, Volume 2 (Seventh)
• Molecules, The: Friends (Ra Sounds)

A Jackson in Your House was recorded while the Art Ensemble was on its initial sojourn in Paris with just a quartet - Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors, and Joseph Jarman - because drummer Phillip Wilson had left to play with Muhal Richard Abrams and Foumoudou Don Moye wasn't in the house yet. So this, along with its companion LP, A Message to Our Folks, showcases the Art Ensemble at its bravest and most vulnerable. For those familiar with the earlier recordings on Nessa, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Originally released on the French BYG Actuel label, this a classic album recorded in Paris during August 1969 while the Art Ensemble was on its initial stay there with just a quartet featuring Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors and Joseph Jarman. Reese And the Smooth Ones has a continuous piece featuring all the members playing lots of little instruments (horns, gongs, logs, bells, sirens, whistles, steel drums, marimba, banjo and more) in addition to their mainstays."-BYG

Tenor & baritone sax player Baczkowski & percussionist Padmanabha, following up on their Utech release "Tongue Rust & Lead Moth," here present live improvisations recorded in upstate New York in early 2005.

"[...] Livein Cognito isn't Big Satan's first live recording, but given that this trio has convened at irregular intervals for a over decade, it's undeniably its best. Unlike Tim Berne's other groups-Science Friction, Hard Cell and the wholly improvisational Paraphrase-Big Satan is a more democratic collective which splits compositional duties between the saxophonist and guitarist Marc Ducret. Ducret is a charter member of Science Friction, as well as two earlier Berne groups, Bloodcount and [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Dennis Burton found this recording in a trunk Randy Hutton left behind, assumed it was a New York gig and digitized it. The source is actually a duo concert in Udine, Italy, that was originally recorded on reel to reel, professionally, sound is top notch. This is music nobody has heard, since the duet of Chadbourne and Centazzo has only been briefly documented on compilations. Lots of wild guitar--dobro, 12 string and a cheap electric from Centazzo's closet--are combined with Centazzo's marvelous [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Graham Collier is one of the best known and most important British jazz composers and over a 40 year career, his list of compositions and commissions has grown to encompass ensembles around the world. He is well-known as an author and educator, having written seven books on jazz. Hoarded Dreams is a previously unreleased long-form composition heard here in a powerful live performance from 1983 by an international all-star band that includes Tomasz Stanko, Conny Bauer, Malcolm Griffiths, Eje [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Prolific and working incredibly fertile creative ground, New Yorkers Cooper-Moore, Tsahar and Taylor release their first as a trio on Tsahar's Hopscotch label.

"Cooper-Moore and Assif Tsahar continue to amass a reservoir of creative work on the latter's Hopscotch imprint. After a couple of rewardingly eclectic duo albums, they hit genuine pay dirt teaming with Hamid Drake in a trio configuration and coming up with 2005's Lost Brother. This new one tweaks the template slightly, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"In 2005, cornetist Rob Mazurek was approached by The Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute to put together a group that would represent the more contemporary / avant-garde side of sound in Chicago for a concert in Millennium Park's Frank Gehry-designed concert hall. The music was conceptualized/composed in Manaus Brazil, Fontevraud, France and Chicago, and developed over more than a dozen performances of the Orchestra before it was recorded by John McEntire at his Soma Studio in Chicago.

[ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"James Finn not only plays brilliantly, but he also produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered this CD single-handedly. The album features bassist Dominic Duval, Downbeat Magazine 2003 Award recipient of 'Talent Deserving Wide Recognition' along with legendary percussionist Warren Smith. For this venture, Finn chose to capture in music the essence of the bullfight in all its radiant glory. The bullfight is the life and breath of Spain. It has a tradition dating back several thousand years when [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"In 1996, at the end of a two year residency, Fred organised an event at L'Ecole Nationale de Musique de Villeurbanne in France. He roped in as many of the students as he could, grouped according to their departments (early music, rock, African drumming, classical &c), and set them up in all the rooms in the building. The public wandered around creating their own mix, or sat in the courtyard listening to the sound drifting out through the open windows. For their part, each group of musicians [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"One of the tangential pleasures of Stephen Gauci's several albums for Cadence Jazz comes in the rich acoustics captured by sound engineer Reuben Radding. As readers of these pages are well aware, Radding is also an accomplished bassist and improviser who keeps busy with his own docket of projects. An immediate upshot of hearing his audio earmark on Gauci's music was the desire to hear him in league with the saxophonist on a directly musical level. That wish comes true with this recent CDR release, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Assuming you are familiar with the remarkable discography of saxophonist Charles Gayle, the first thing you are bound to notice about this recording is that it is somewhat less intense than most of his others, which have built his reputation as a scorcher. If this marks a change in direction for Gayle, however slight, the results are no less intriguing, as he is full of the usual surprises that his many admirers have come to expect. Gayle acknowledges the shift in perspective: "This album is [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Nysa represents a compendium of turbulence and singularities. The sound for drunken states on mythic mountains. A studio reshaping of several live performances with custom computer programs, gestural input devices, and circuit-bent electronics. It was assembled throughout 2006 in Providence and mixes human aktions with the performance systems: Needles(s), High, Maenads, and Augur. Each system utilizes a physical approach for exploring the hidden and creating the esoteric with digital audio. [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

In line with their other Bug Incision releases - Bent Spoon and Crocker/Dadge - this DIY release brings Calgary tenor and clarinet player together with percussionist Chris Dadge in live recordings from performances in the summer of 2006. Dadge is an unconventional drummer borrowing from the free school and using a variety of gadgets in a sometimes understated sometimes agitated approach to playing. Leaney's thick tone and active imagination takes the melodic lead on most of these pieces, in [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Excellent and mature playing from New Yorker Steve Lehman with an incredible rhythm section.

"A former student of Jackie McLean and Anthony Braxton, Steve has collaborated with such seminal artists as Eddie Henderson, William Parker, Roy Campbell, Andrew Hill, Nasheet Waits, Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Jay Hoggard, Steve Davis, Drew Gress, Mark Helias, Jimmy Greene, Mark Shim and Michele Rosewoman. His latest ensembles include, Fieldwork (Collective) with Vijay Iyer and Elliot Kavee [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Masada's seventh volume sounds almost like an odds-and-sods collection. It's a more fragmentary and disparate disc that doesn't have much musical middle ground -- the extremes between the group's atonal free improv bursts and its more melodic or atmospheric pieces are very pronounced. "Shevet" has a more overt klezmer influence and almost timbales tones from Joey Baron, while the segmented "Hath-Arob" is very Ornette Coleman-like before breaking down into free-blow sections. If the John Zorn-Dave [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"The Qbico label is always full of surprises and rarely fails to impress. With this LP we are treated with one of the most inspiring and energetic free-jazz performances of the year. The amazing drumming by Andrew Barker, the back and forth action between the two horn players and the chanted vocals make for an exhilarating and ecstatic experience. Also great about the label is their use of artwork. This one in particular is breathtaking. The musicians are captured in a moment which perfectly [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Guitar improvisations from Sonic Youth's guitarist Thurston Moore - the first in a series to feature Kim Gordon's art and to reflect Moore's literary interests. "Flipped Out Bride" is the title of a poem Moore wrote for an introduction to a book of drawings from poet David Rattray titled "How I Became One Of The Invisible." Originally released on blue vinyl, now reissued on CD.

"Originally released as part of the PYGMY series & limited to 500 copies on blue marbled vinyl this reissue [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"This was one of the first BYG productions to hit the streets, and was apparently recorded on the same day as the later and musically more successful album Sunshine. The two-part track "Suns of Africa" involves a good dozen players, many of them big names in free jazz, in a kind of big gloppy piece that, even if it was well recorded, would probably not hold up to repeated listenings. A second part of this piece, less then two minutes long, seems to have been concocted from whatever the engineer [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

2006 full length release from the improvising guitar duo of Roberto and Maurizio Opalia, recorded at MCIAA's Alien Zone, located in a remote region of the Western Alps, Piemonte, Italy.

"For MCIAA to make art means to risk daring the unknown, daring the listener himself to excel his own limits of perception of the work of art in music, without losing anything of their unique and unmistakable style. [...] Recorded in their secret recording-space up on the Western Alps of Piedmont, Italy, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Chants From Isolated Ghosts is Roberto Opalio's (My Cat Is an Alien) full-length debut album recorded November 2004 at home in Torino, Italy, and originally released on his own Opax Records label in a very limited handmade CD-R edition of 100 copies. The work consists of four tracks, for a total lenght of 38:02 minutes. Roberto Opalio is half of the Italian space duo My Cat Is An Alien.

Roberto Opalio is a visual and sound artist from Torino, Italy. His work includes painting, drawing, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Ned Rothenberg's intensely personal take on Radical Jewish Culture interprets the inner Diaspora as a place of learning and growth. Featuring his acclaimed trio Sync with guest string players Mark Feldman and Erik Friedlander (Masada String Trio, Bar Kokhba) the music is rich in rhythmic invention, instrumental color and lyricism. Drawing upon his extensive experience in world music, Ned explores the possibilities of 21st century Jewish culture through the nuances of scales, modes and feelings [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp with members of the Chicago avant-garde school including Art Ensemble Of Chicago members, Sunny Murray, Philly Joe Jones, Dave Burrell, &c. on this lovingly reissued vinyl release.

Eccentric freeform improvisation from this now 10 year old group, who emphasize percussive elements and tightly controlled chaos in extremely interesting yet idiosyncratic work. Which is to say, it's really hard to describe, but really incredible!

Leicester's oddly improvising group Volcano the Bear in an abstract and highly unusual 7" vinyl release. Volcano use an everything and the kitchen sink approach to improvising, somewhere near Biota or No-Neck Blues Band but with a distinctive sensibility and a cantankerously beautiful sound. Essential free-form music.

"Yuganaut is a collective of improvising virtuosos. Playing pre-written and structured compositions, they explore sonic spaces by listening deeply to each others' articulation and interpretation of the score. The surprising dialogue that results from this process is like watching an extremely well-honed basketball team pass the ball. Well-oiled, communicating, intuitive, and almost ESP-like in it's performance. The group is comfortable in many styles/genres, so the music flows from funk to swing, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Geir Jenssen's Bioshphere project started in 1990, named after the Biosphere 2 Space Station Project, a sealed, gigantic glass dome in the Arizona Desert. Associated with the ambient electronica world of intelligent dance music (IDM), Jenssen's work rises above the fray through his excellent skills at sound sculpting, and the beautiful abstract environments he creates which bear up to detailed and repeated listening. Cirque was originally released in 2000 and was inspired by the true [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Jonas Braasch is a soprano saxophonist, improviser/composer, acoustician and a dedicated collector of binaural soundscapes. He grew up in the Ruhr Area, Germany's cultural melting pot, and Pusan, South Korea. His saxophone style expands the traditional repertoire (in both classical music and jazz idioms) by incorporating various non-Western elements, as well as original extended techniques. Another aspect of his work is the integration of soundscapes and other concrete elements, a clear reflection [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"The acquisition of a stack of locally produced recordings of the Grimsley High School concert band from the '60s set this new composition in motion. I took part in all manner of sonic mayhem with these sides: listeners will sometimes hear a dozen concert bands at once, all playing different pieces. This piece is dedicated to the wonderful Herbert Hazelman, who conducted the Grimsley band for nearly a half a century, introducing much contemporary music. But nothing that sounds like this, it should [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"A companion to 'Twice around the Earth, 'There and Back Again' uses 44 environmental recordings to explore - amongst other things - the way memory works, and how the experience of passing time is constructed. Mainly it's just meant to be good to listen to: surprising, serendipitous, mundane - but alien, the commonplace transfigured - an agglomeration of inadvertent sounds made haphazardly by the world and some of its inhabitants that were never meant to survive, and certainly not to be listened [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Infinite Death is the first full length CD release from Death Unit, a supergroup of total psychedelic noise destruction formed by Carlos Giffoni, on electronics, in early 2005 and which includes Chris Corsano and Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police) on double drum attack and Brian Sullivan (Mouthus) on guitar. Covering all areas from total minimal graveyard tonal strange work to massive wall of drums/electronic/guitar assault, Death Unit was put together with one purpose: to leave nothing alive behind. [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

The Orb's Thomas Fehlman in a techno and dub release.

This reissue of Christian Fennesz's breakthrough classic Endless Summer has been remixed, remastered, and rereleased with two extra tracks. Originally released in 2001 by Mego, Endless Summer brought his name and music towards the first steps of mainstream recognition with its micro sounds and warm guitar, harkening the dreamy serenity and quick-fading sentimentality of a California sunset. Following on from the more experimental Hotel Paral.lell and the Beach Boys homaged Plays single, Endless [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"This is Vienna-based sound artist Florian Hecker's first full-length release on the Rephlex label. Hecker has been working with computer music, independently and in collaboration with other artists such as: Farmers Manual, Russell Haswell, Shunichiro Okada, Peter Rehberg, Marcus Schmickler and Yasunao Tone since 1996. Hecker's works emphasize the connection of the most recent as well as the most historic developments in computer music, hard- and software. Often working closely together with [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Where to begin? World Receiver is quite possibly the one seminal disc that defines what ambient music is. It is the modern version (although recorded in 1996) of Brian Eno's On Land. In the middle of 1996, Inoue put together a recording combining atmospheric ambient and soundscapes evoking distant lands, faraway places. Nothing though particularly new to the followers of Inoue's work or in the field of ambient at that time. What separated World Receiver from Inoue's history and from [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Three Compositions" presents a cross-section of composer Kenneth Kirschner's highly diverse output. The collection includes "July 17, 2006", a spare study in simple harmony and silence; "April 27, 2004", an ever-shifting, rhythmic juxtaposition of acoustic percussion and digital sound; and the nearly 40-minute "May 3, 1997" for microtonal piano, percussion, and noise, one of Kirschner's signature pieces. For those new to his music, "Three Compositions" offers an ideal introduction to Kirschner's [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Bernard Parmegiani (1927) is a French composer of musique concrete who trained (1959) under Pierre Schaeffer in person. This 2006 release presents 3 versions of "Plain-Temps," a new work. The first part of the suite, "Le Present Compose" is from 1991, recorded here in 2006. "The second part is "Entre-Temps" from 1992. "The gradual slowing down of the tick-tock sound of a penduluum with which the this piece opens provides us with not only the most symbolic but also the most illusory image of [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

In 1998, the complete tape music of Dick Raaijmakers was published by Stichting Donemus under the label NEAR (Dutch electro-acoustic repertoire). This large and ambitious project was joined by another CD-box, The complete tape music of Jan Boerman, both elaborately documented and carefully edited by René Uijlenhoet in close collaboration with the composers. The CD series continued with a 6 CD-box with electroacousic music of Ton Bruynèl, Looking Ears complete, and CDs with compositions [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

If I'd ever recorded an "Industrial" solo album, it must be "GEBOREN, UM ZU DIENEN". Although I obviously wasn't one of the inventors of "Industrial Music", I clearly felt an affinity to it. So I tried to learn my lessons well adding my own musical aspects to the general apocalyptic noises of this genre. My main concern was to dive deep into the canonical topics of fear, hysteria, claustrophobia, machine and threat. The end was imminent as hundreds of Pershings and SS20 all pointed in the direction [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Part 9 of the ongoing re-release series of all early Tietchens albums from 1980-1991 on CD. This combines two seperate releases from 1987 ("Zwingburgen des Hedonismus") and 1988 ("Mysterien des Hafens" on "FACE TO FACE, VOL. 1"). "Zwingburgen des Hedonismus" was originally released as a one-sided LP on swedish label Multimood and features a singles 21 min. long track composed on a Fairlight CMI. "Mysterien des Hafens" was part of a split LP (the other side feat. DIE FORM) originally released [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Privately issued by Siemens Kultur Programm in Germany in 1998 and never made available to the public before. This is an amazing collection of historical electronic music recordings from the Siemens Studio in Munich, Germany.

"STRP is based in the technological area of Eindhoven. Strijp-S, the characteristic industrial inheritance from Philips, forms the cradle of this region. On this spot, revolutionary inventions which have had an enormous impact on several art forms, were realized. Electronic music composer Dick Raaijmakers completed the first electronic music album almost 50 years ago at Strijp-S. His work has been remixed or reinterpreted by renowned contemporary musicians from different scenes. The result of [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Both Andy Guhl and Norbert Moslang have what we could call a geographic perspective on music. To say it this way might sound a little strange, but the fact is that the duo, expert in what they call "cracked everyday electronics", wants their sound constructions to be formed as maps or topographical projections, with variable accidents, from high mountain rises with their sharp slopes to wide green valleys. It is as geographers that, for this world's edification, they feel the need to get their [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Intensely interesting soundscapes and sonic compositions from South African composer Dimitri Voudouris, who began composing in the 90¹s. His work fuses acoustic instruments with electronic sound sources, and he has worked in multimedia disciplines including dance and theatre. His work is sometimes based on research in cognitive psycho-acoustic behavioral patterns in humans, and the behavior of sound in relationship to continued environmental changes. His socio-cultural interests have led [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"The guitar is not dead. It is still humming and I believe in it. Copper wound is copper wound, today and yesterday. Magnets are magnetic, today and yesterday. Wood is wooden, today and yesterday. Electricity is electric, today and yesterday. These things shift in their own time and on their own basis. They are not forced and in my own capacity, I do not force them. The editor's role is Advocate. The rattle you hear, that is the energy and the idea. It is not all mine and it is not all theirs [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Released in conjunction with a concert on the November 11, 2006 at the "Lagerhaus" Bremen the CD feat. exclusive tracks by Industrial Music legend Z'EV and New York based percussionist and multi media artist DAVID LINTON who has worked with among others Lee Ranaldo, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Diamanda Galas, Christian Marclay and Elliot Sharp. Each artist is featured with a solo track plus a remix of the other artist."-Die Stadt

Acid Mother Temple's third release from their prolific year of 2005, presenting 2 long tracks of beautiful psychedelic rock. The title track is the real gem here, a driving piece of over 39 minutes of guitar and synth in their Gong-soaked carefully controlled rock improvisations.

Wild Gals A Go-Go was originally self released in an edition of 1300 on their own AMT label in 1999, and then reissued on vinyl by the Eclipse label in 2004. Wild Gals A Go-Go is considered the "lost" third album from the Japanese underground collective, it's original limited release was sandwiched between the two PSF albums Pataphisical Freak Out Mu!! & Troubadours From Another Heavenly World and has been unavailable on CD ever since. This album marked a departure [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

2003 remaster of original Soft Machine guitarist/vocalists first solo release. Bonus tracks include: 'Religious Experience (Singing A Song In The Morning)' featuring Syd Barrett, 'The Lady Rachel' extended mix, 'Soon Soon Soon', 'Religious Experience (Singing...)' previously unreleased mix, 'The Lady Rachel' single version, and 'Singing A Song In The Morning' single version.

"As the Soft Machine's first bassist and original principal songwriter, Kevin Ayers was an overlooked force behind [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

After This Heat broke up in 1982, Charles Hayward formed Camberwell Now. The new group included Trefor Goronwy, from the short-lived four-piece version of This Heat, on bass and guitar; and Steven Rickard, who is heard on Sub Rosa's Myths 1 compilation, on tape manipulation and field recordings; Charles Bullen from This Heat, who subsequently left to study music in India, is heard as a guest on the first 12" single "Meridian."

The group, recording in This Heat's Cold Storage studio, only [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"With rights officially reverting back to Doc Chad, the story of Shockabilly will now be available again in a new series of CD sets. Each one will combine one of the classic Shockabilly releases with superb live material from the same period. For the opening release in the series, the introductory Shockabilly EP The Dawn of Shockabilly is combined with an amazing Halloween recording in which Shockabilly expands to a quartet with the addition of bassist Shep the Hep. A costume contest is part [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Fantastic album of pure guitar and drums brutality (and the first non-Japanese release for PSF in several years) from the greatest noise musician in China, Li Jianhong. Long resident in Hangzhou, Li has released several records on his own 2pi label, including solo noise work for TV monitors and an album by his avant-rock unit Second Skin. He also curates the annual 2pi noise festival in Hangzhou. He played in at the Nuit Blanche festival in Paris in 2004, and this will be his second non-Chinese [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"An instrumental chamber/classical rock quartet, Far Corner combine group improvisation with completely scored works, composed in a contemporary, post-Bartokian style in an extremely assured way. Far Corner's second release, Endangered, sees the group expanding their sonic palette with a variety of instruments outside of their core piano/organ, bass, cello, and drumset. This release features instruments such as violin, spring drum, melodica, trumpet, and a greater variety of keyboard sounds, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Korean version of the 1999 Cuneiform album, in digipak packaging. Same audio content as the Cuneiform CD release from 1999. "The ultimate official reissue of a very rare 1970 album which was the first professional band by musicians who would later fame in a number of other bands: Steve Miller (Caravan), Phil Miller (Matching Mole, Hatfield & The North, National Health), Roy Babbington (Soft Machine), Pip Pyle (Gong, Hatfield, National Health), Carol Grimes + Lol Coxhill. Contains the original [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

In May, 2005, Magma took over the Parisian club "Le Triton" for four weeks to present a retrospective of 35 years of Magma music, showcasing some of their best known pieces from 1970 to the present. This is the second in a series of four DVDs which captures the best of those performances and presents them to the world beyond Le Triton. This release covers the intensely creative period of 1973-1974.

Three tracks full of modulated analogue synthesizer sound, spacious and hypnotic improvisations from Acid Mothers Temple mastermind Kawabata Makoto.

This project was started when Thomas Scandura got The Molecules video archives from Ron Anderson and spent many hours going through dozens of performances from 1990 ~ 1997. The best and/or most interesting are found on the DVD, including performances with the three different bass players - Chris Millner, Ryo and John Shiurba The CD contains 68 minute CD of unreleased new music: in 1997 & '98 Ron Anderson, Thomas Scandura and John Shiurba recorded and assembled a huge amount of work for a triple [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Second release from this brilliant and complex French prog band, working in long compositional forms that present thematic material with eclectic and humorous twists. References to Faust, Magma, Zappa or Amon Duul II.

"New 2006 version in mini LP-style sleeve.

Psychedelic-folk debut from one of the most erudite, literate minds in rock, Thomas D. Rapp (and the first of his ever-changing Swine). Although the songs here lack some cohesion, this is still a stunning piece of work, from the nightmarish sleeve art -- the "Hell Panel" from Hieronymus Bosch's 15th century painting "Garden of Delights" -- to the strange yet powerful songs. "Another Time," the most memorable selection, is an understated acoustic [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

The Resident's 1991 Freak Show, musical stories based around carnival freaks, has had many forms: the original CD release, a graphic novel on Dark Horse with Matt Howarth, Brian Bolland and Savage Pencil, a CD-ROM in 1994, and a 1995 stage adaptation in Prague. This definitive release reissues the CD along with a DVD of animated films on Herman The Human Mole, Benny The Bouncing Bump and the Pickled Punks, along with an excerpt from the Freak Show Live in Prague, and the Jelly Jack video [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Japanese prog/experimental virtuosos Yamamoto Seiichi (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba, Rovo), Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Korekyojin, Zubi Zuva, AMT) and Tsuyama Atsushi (Akaten, Haco, Omoide Hatoba, AMT) join force in live recordings of their improv progressive free-rock.

While Japan may have birthed some of the most elegant and elegiac experimental rock of this decade so far, it has also seen a rise in acts that tear massive holes in speakers and fry amp cables. Taking this disc as [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Seikazoku is Ruins drummer Yoshida Tatsuya with Acid Mothers Temple guitarist Kawabata Makoto and Akaten's bassist/guitarist Tsuyama Atsushi in a mixture of progressive psychedelic rock, improvised rock and world music inspirations. Great stuff, but when do these prolific performers find time to sleep?!

[...] as well as spreading psychedelic joy with bits of gong, energising AMT and all the other stuff, Kawabata Makoto has found time to play in the strange yet awesome trio [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

The Dust Dive Flash is The Dust Dive's Laura Ortman solo, working in a dreamy and detached world similar to The Dust Dive, who's "unconventional sound borrows from ill-American landscapes, edge-city teenage hangouts, and overgrown, overlooked places. Conceived in a noisy railroad apartment in Brooklyn, New York, the trio's songs possess the quirky sincerity of a youth recital while burrowing into mesmerizing, urban pastoral, and ghostly terrain. Employing violin, chord organ, piano, electric [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Founded in 2001 by drummer and composer Gregg Bendian, The Mahavishnu Project is dedicated to reviving and bringing to today's audiences the excitement and the transcendent experience of visceral intensity of the early days of jazz/rock in general and the music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra specifically. The band was formed by Gregg to perpetuate the spirit of live performance in which this music was created by performing this great music live! Return to the Emerald Beyond features a 11 piece [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

The official reissue of 'Blue' Gene Tyranny's first solo release from 1977, originally issued on the Lovely Music label. Tyranny is a Grammy-nominated composer and pianist who has performed on records by Robert Ashley, David Behrman, John Cage, and Laurie Anderson. This work shows Tyranny composing for a chamber rock ensemble with a cast of female vocalists, and himself on the Polymoog and RMI synthesizers. Tyranny created a song-cycle that reflects his intensely melodic and free piano techniques. [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Martin Bresnick has been a leading figure in the education of an entire generation of American musicians, having served as spiritual advisor to many of our most innovative and active composers, including Michael Torke, Evan Ziporyn, and Bang on a Can's Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe . As a composer, his music has been heard around the world. He is a kind of composer's composer, making music that is subtle and intelligent, thoughtful and meticulously crafted. With [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

New recordings from 2005, featuring premiers of various compositions for Theremin, as performed by the world renowned Lydia Kavina & Barbara Buchholz. "The Theremin, invented by Russian Leon Theremin, is one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments. It is unusual in that it requires no physical contact in order to produce music and was, in fact, the first musical instrument designed to be played without being touched. The instrument consists of an array of circuitry including two [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

New UK issue the premiere recording of this historic work, originally issued by Dial Records in 1951 performed by Maro Ajemian; later reissued by CRI, but long unavailable on that label. "This vintage recording dates from the early '50s when nothing like it had ever been heard before and is the perfect introduction to Cage. Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano is John Cage's magnum opus. This is the first recording of this work, played by the Armenian pianist Maro Ajemian over 50 years [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Subtitled: Music for electric guitar, string quartet, computer, and live electronics.

Nick Didkovsky is perhaps best known from his avant-rock band Doctor Nerve, or his association with Fred Frith's Guitar Quartet or John Zorn's New Traditions in East Asian Bar Bands. Since the late 80's Didkovsky has worked increasingly with electronic compositions systems, which he applies to his various projects. This Pogus release focuses on combinations of computer and traditional instrumentation, [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

"Released briefly on the Nonesuch label in 1988, and unavailable for years, Scott Johnson's score for the Paul Schrader film on Patty Hearst was one of his greatest achievements. Deliriously complex and remarkably colorful, the music is a further exploration of Scott's personal technique of blending voices on tape with instrumental counterpoint. Dramatic and breathtaking music from a downtown legend who has been mixing classical traditions with pop vernacular for over three decades."-Tzadik

"Alga Marghen presents the documentation of Requiem für meine Frau Beate, which took place in the Chiesa di Santa Lucia in Bologna, Italy, in 1977 shortly after Beate Nitsch's death. This was not only one of the strongest and most powerful aktionen by Hermann Nitsch but also a crucial point in the development of his art.

Beginning in 1977, Beate Nitsch was travelling in Schwarzwald. She has been inaugurating a nursery-school and wanted to meet some relatives in Stuttgart when, near [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

This second volume aural document is devoted to the Brussels Surrealist Group, 1926, following in the surrealist footsteps that Dada, Pansaers et Correspondance Volume 1 (1917-1926) established. On this compilation you can hear rare documents, including the voice of Magritte explaining why it's impossible to answer the questions of journalists. As a nucleus started forming in 1924 around Magritte, Nougé, Lecomte, etc., dissension arose, spawning Correspondance (1924-26). This release documents [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

On the cover: Rewind 2006 + musicians' and writers' reflections, Wire's annual survey of the last 12 months in underground music, with 16 pages of charts, including the 50 Records of the Year, as voted for by our crack squad of critics, plus reflections from writers and musicians on the highs and lows of the last year of alternative music activity.

Features:

Carla Kihlstedt (The San Francisco violinist tells Clive Bell about Tin Hat group and her customized 'trumpet-violin')

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"Cinematic magician, legendary provocateur, author of the infamous "Hollywood Babylon" books and creator of some of the most striking and beautiful works in the history of film, Kenneth Anger is a singular figure in post-war American culture. A major influence on everything from the films of Martin Scorsese, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and David Lynch to the pop art of Andy Warhol to MTV, Anger's work serves as a talisman of universal symbols and personal obsessions, combining myth, artifice and [ ... continued @ Squidco ]

Hilary Harris (1930-1999) was a New York City film maker who's vision of the 50's through the 70's is documented with these four short films.

"9 Variations" and "Organism" were restored and funded by Cineric Lab. "Longhorns" and "Highway" were restored by Western Cine and funded by The National Film Preservation Foundation.

"Organism," an Academy Award™ winning film, is Harris' epic vision of New York City shot over 15 years [1959-74] during which time Mr. Harris pioneered [ ... continued @ Squidco ]