Here in the middle of the coast our colors are blooming, pollen is falling from the pines, and the weather is warming. It's Spring! So what better time than to share some great music at better than average prices? This weekend we're offering a discount of 10% on all new items in the store, or 15% if you pick up 5 ore more. Sales weeks like this give us a breather from our typical publishing schedule, cleaning up work that might have been dangling over us or working on special projects. And it gives our customers a chance to pick up albums they might have been on the fence about, and helps us to bring in sales that fuel our next set of purchases.
All that means that our publishing schedule was very light this week, and there will be no "proper" mailing list. We have been working on a number of purchases though, especially new titles on Another Timbre, Euphorium, RogueArt, and ACT Music. Once we're through filling the Spring Sale orders, and finished ogling the beautiful colors outside our windows, we'll have a number of new releases that we'll catch you up on next week. But for now have a good look through our catalog and pick up some new music to accompany your own lighter, brighter season!
(with apologies to those in the lower Southern hemisphere, though you might want to pick up some new music for your impending colder season...)
Springing into Sprung Music:
While thinking about the season I noticed that the new trio album on Chicago's Amalgam label, Horizontal Shift, included Eric Leonardson on springboard. We know Leonardson from his performances on Evil Clown bands Axioms, Expanse, and Leap of Faith. The other players are the great German lowercase improvising trumpeter Birgit Ulher, and vocalist Carol Genetti; all play objects, with Uhler playing radio, speaker and Leondardo also adding electronics.
The springboard in particular is a self-built instrument that does indeed include springs, along with a number of other sound and percussive generators. I've included a YouTube video from Leondarson that demonstrated the instrument in a solo performance - a video is worth a thousand words with this unusual sonic creature.
This coincidental spring-fueled addition to our catalog at springtime set me thinking about other albums that might include springs in their instrumentation. In a search of our database I found 69 active albums that included springs or this same springboard. On a whimsical, spring-sical moment I decided to list them for you, making a very unusual collection of albums from outside thinkers, improvisers and composers. I trimmed the list to about 18 albums, each unique, impressive, possibly idiosyncratic, and absolutely springy.
The Electroacoustic improv trio of Eric Leonardson (springboard & electronics), Julia E. Miller (guitar & electronics), and Christopher Preissing (flute & electronics), present 3 collective improvisations and 3 duos between Auris members and percussionist Gino Robair.
Arranged around the core of bassist Albey onBass and poet Jane SpokenWord, who were a part of Cecil Taylor's final trio, this spoken word, drummer-less ensemble from the Boston-based Axiom collective is a live quartet performance with David Peck on reeds, winds, percussion & electronics, and Glynic Lomon on cello and aquasonic, in an extended, eclectic and electric discourse.
Understated and enigmatic, the work of Northern Italian sound artist Edoardo Cammisa, aka Banished Pills, presents a very short work on decay, and then two expanded sound works composed from synthesisers, spring reverb, microphones, field recordings, no-input mixing, organ & sampler; the environments are murky but with movement, and engaging in their dark evening ambiance.
The remarkably creative flutist & saxophonist Jean Derome often incorporates unusual instruments into his improvisations and compositions, including bird calls, harps, kalimbas, sirens, flower plastic wrappings, bells, &c &c.... on this album Derome focuses on those unique instruments and noise makers through 23 surprising pieces illustrating his incredible collection.
Two long-standing experimental sound projects join together as Legendary Bastard Noise, aka Eric Wood and +DOG+, aka Steve Davis, combine for two extended and well-paced works of dark sonics and electronics, the first piece "Misery Milestone" a haunting and desolate soundscape with disruptive punctuation; the 2nd "Beneficiary: Earth" adds agonizing voice to a work of global arpeggiation and destruction.
After receiving interest in joining the Evil Clown collective from Count Robot and DNA Girl (Deb Angelosanto), and in parallel from guitarist Tim Mungenast, collective director David Peck scheduled a session for this 7th Expanse album, adding drummer Michael Knoblach to complete this quintet configuration of the band's electric-oriented approach to space and restraint.
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.
The second album of collective free improvisation from Leap of Faith expanded by Chinese musicians, from the core duo of multi-reedist David Peck and cellist Glynis Lomon, here with Chinese improviser, Boston-based Beijing guzheng player Jiaxin Wan, alongside trumpeter Bob Moores, for two exotic improvisations of patiently evolving global elements.
Looking to configure The Leap of Faith ensemble with a 3-horn front line, Boston wind & reed player and Evil Clown label leader David Peck recruited John Fugarino to perform on trumpet, slide trumpet & trombone, and surprisingly, Japanese pianist Keiichi Hashimoto, who also performs on trumpet, cornet & flugelhorn, with cellist Gylnis Lomon filling out the band for this dynamic, extended set.
Joining the Boston free improvising duo of David Peck on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice--the core duo of Leap of Faith Orchestra--are Bonnie Kane on tenor sax, flute & electronics, and John Loggia on drums and percussion, capturing the extended title track and a brief, "possible outcome" as a summation.
A working project of the Boston-based Evil Clown collective, Metal Chaos Ensemble explores chaotic rhythms on metallic instruments, in this live-streamed performance from 2022 as a quintet with strong jazz influences, from David Peck on reeds and percussion, Bob Moores on trumpet & keys, Michael Caglianone on sax, Albey onBass on bass, and Steve Niemitz on drums & percussion.
A superb, inventive duo collusion between percussionist Ra Kalam Bob Moses and double bassist Damon Smith, continuing their collaborations that started with "Astral Plain Crash" with Vinny Golia, Henry Kaiser & Weasel Walter, here in concentrated form, recording and layer in the studio for 14 diverse dialogs using advanced techniques on drums, gongs, spring drums and double bass.
Leveraging the real time signal processing of Evil Clown house engineer Joel Simches, this project from the Boston free improving collective centers around reedist & multi-instrumentalist David Peck and Simches, who provides the "perturbations" of each player through his processing, making him the 4th in this quartet with bassist Albey onBass and reedist Michael Caglianone.
This ensemble features 3 core Evil Clown members--David Peck on reeds, winds, percussion & electronics; Eric Woods on analog synth; and Bob Moores on space trumpet, guitar & electronics--with guests Michael Caglianone on reeds & percussion, Robin Amos on electric zither and keyboards; Faruq Hassan on samplers & keys; Albey OnBass on bass; and Michael Knoblach on military devices.
Turbulence is the extended horn section for the Boston collective Leap of Faith Orchestra, along with guests on other instruments, here in a large ensemble performance with Bonnie Kane (sax), Dennis Livingston (flute & winds), John Fugarino, Bob Moores & Eric Dahlman (trumpets), Duane Reed (double bell euphonium), with the rhythm section of John Loggia (drums) and Scott Samenfeld (bass).
An international electroacoustic improvising trio of German trumpet player Birgit Ulher, also on radio, speaker & objects, and two Chicago outside improvisers--Carol Genetti on voice & objects, and Eric Leonardson on his unique self-built instrument the springboard, objects & electronics-- heard in a live performance at Elastic Arts, in Chicago, Illinois in 2018.
Squidco Publishing Roundup:
As is typical, I end with updates to Squidco and The Squid's Ear over the last week. You can see our latest fully cataloged albums in our Recently Section.
You can see new albums as they enter our Just In Stock Section, meaning that we physically have an album and are able to ship it with an order, but that we're not satisfied that we've added all the information we can about that release.
You can also see recent restocks of previously listed items at our Recently Restocked page.
You can ask us to inform you via email of any upcoming release that you're interested in, with no obligation.
A relatively brief entry this week as staff vacation time for the start of spring pushed us slightly back in schedule. That didn't stop us from getting the mailing list out, and filling our Just In Stock Section section with 24 new albums that we'll be working on in the coming week, from labels including Mahakala, Ambiances Magnetiques, Edition Wandelweiser, Amalgam, Trost, Cold Spring Records, Important Records, KARLRECORDS, and Balance Point Acoustics. All of the aforementioned are in stock and ready to ship now.
When I'm not running our record store and distribution service you can often find me in my music studio working on sound art under my project name CHANGES TO blind. I started composing music in the early 1980's, inspired by the DIY tape and 'zine culture. The "group" name is a give-away for the era, when abstract band names were more of the norm than taking one's own name. In fact, my "band" was a fictional trio, somewhat inspired by the then-opaque configuration of The Residents. My group was described as Mortimer DeSquid (keyboards), Heraldo DeSquid (percussion) and Phil Zampino (voice, treatments, &c). At the time I was writing and singing electronic songs, which included plundered elements from records and field recordings.
By the 90s the songs stopped, Mortimer and Heraldo "quit" the band, and the experimentation and composition using the studio took over. After moving myself and Squidco to Wilmington, NC I fell in with other adventurous experimenters and began performing live regularly, developing systems to create layers of sound from unusual electronic sources, and drawing on a collection of thousands of samples that I had modified and mutilated in the studio.
Squidco takes up most of my time, but this month I finally completed the production on my 8th volume, collecting what I hope are the most interesting of my work over the last eight years. Many of the pieces started as live improvisations recorded to multi-track and then augmented and manipulated in the studio. Others, like the title track "Before Birth to Expiration" are studio compositions from the start, larger works that were developed over months.
I list three albums below, the latest; the 7th volume which summarizes a number of years of work; and a very early project with Chester Hawkins when he was still known as Blue Sausage Infant (another very 80's project name). For those who prefer their music in bits, the new and 7th album can also be purchased on Bandcamp.
The eighth album from the long-running CHANGES TO blind project of Phil Zampino, eight works drawing on compositions & improvisations, acoustic & synthetic instruments, field recordings & samples, with guests Levi Erik providing field recordings & voice and Wilmington, NC's 910 Noise Members of Carl Kruger, subterrene, John Bishop, Authorless and Ryan Lewis.
Collecting works from 2010-2017, Squidco's own Phil Zampino presents 10 tracks of electroacoustic composition sourced from studio work, live improvisation, field recordings, plunderphonics, and other indescribable approaches, a diverse set of recordings sharing a similar foreboding aesthetic and curious sonic desire.
Blue Sausage Infant and CHANGES TO blind met in 1992 for these improvised studio recordings, and to perform CTb's sonic tour of a house live at Troy, NY's Last Exit.
Squidco Publishing Roundup:
As is typical, I end with updates to Squidco and The Squid's Ear over the last week. You can see our latest fully cataloged albums in our Recently Section.
You can see new albums as they enter our Just In Stock Section, meaning that we physically have an album and are able to ship it with an order, but that we're not satisfied that we've added all the information we can about that release.
You can also see recent restocks of previously listed items at our Recently Restocked page.
You can ask us to inform you via email of any upcoming release that you're interested in, with no obligation.