WEB ReR MINI-UPDATE MAY 2010
NEW ReR RELEASES
ART BEARS: Hopes and Fears LP Code:ReRVab1 Price:£21
Chris Cutler, Fred Frith, & Dagmar Krause Limited audiophile edition of 750 copies on 180 gm virgin vinyl. POST FREE
FAUST: The Faust Tapes LP Code:ReRVF1 Price:£21
Limited audiophile edition of 1000 copies on 180 gm virgin vinyl. POST FREE
HENRY COW: Legend LP Code:ReRVHC1 Price:£21
Limited audiophile edition of 1000 copies on 180 gm virgin vinyl. POST FREE
CUTLER, CHRIS, THOMAS DIMUZIO, FRED FRITH: Golden State (LP) Code:ReR196.966550 Price:£17.75
A limited Edition of 1969 numbered copies pressed into 180 gsm virgin vinyl and rather beautifully (and horribly expensively, as it turned out) packaged. The music was recorded in California in 1999 with guest Beth Custer (clarinet) on one track. Carefully mastered by Tom Dimuzio in wide frequency, solid footprint, broad compass stereo. Solid and expansive. Though we waved goodbye to vinyl decades ago, we felt this release was made to be an LP - a CD just wouldn't be the same, sonically, visually or ontologically. And of course we took advantage of the exaggerated dimensions and physicality to make it a thing visually to savour. Off the groove, Dimuzio, Cutler, Frith and Custer do what they do and you get a ringside seat - as well as something exquisite to look at and play with while you listen. A thing of beauty. The first 500 will be pressed on white vinyl, so please order early to get these. Outside Europe, please add £3 for postage and packing. Sorry.
CUTLER, CHRIS, THOMAS DIMUZIO, FRED FRITH: Golden State (LP - TRANSPARENT VINYL) Code:ReR196.9665502 Price:£21
A limited Edition of 500 numbered copies pressed into 180 gsm virgin vinyl and rather beautifully (and horribly expensively, as it turned out) packaged. The music was recorded in California in 1999 with guest Beth Custer (clarinet) on one track. Carefully mastered by Tom Dimuzio in wide frequency, solid footprint, broad compass stereo. Solid and expansive. Though we waved goodbye to vinyl decades ago, we felt this release was made to be an LP - a CD just wouldn't be the same, sonically, visually or ontologically. And of course we took advantage of the exaggerated dimensions and physicality to make it a thing visually to savour. Off the groove, Dimuzio, Cutler, Frith and Custer do what they do and you get a ringside seat - as well as something exquisite to look at and play with while you listen. A thing of beauty. * Outside Europe, please add £3 for postage and packing. Sorry. * Outside Europe, please add £3 for postage and packing. Sorry.
CUTLER, CHRIS, THOMAS DIMUZIO, FRED FRITH: Golden State (LP - SIGNED) Code:ReR196.9665503 Price:£26
Golden State Signed Collectors imprint on transparent golden vinyl - last of the 50 copies signed by the band. 180 gsm virgin vinyl and rather beautifully (and horribly expensively, as it turned out) packaged. The music was recorded in California in 1999 with guest Beth Custer (clarinet) on one track. Carefully mastered by Tom Dimuzio in wide frequency, solid footprint, broad compass stereo. Solid and expansive. Though we waved goodbye to vinyl decades ago, we felt this release was made to be an LP - a CD just wouldn't be the same, sonically, visually or ontologically. And of course we took advantage of the exaggerated dimensions and physicality to make it a thing visually to savour. Off the groove, Dimuzio, Cutler, Frith and Custer do what they do and you get a ringside seat - as well as something exquisite to look at and play with while you listen. A thing of beauty. * Outside Europe, please add £3 for postage and packing. Sorry.
MACLEAN, STEVE: Expressions On Piano Code:ReRSM4 Price:£12.5
Steve's fourth CD for us is a remarkable set of pieces for mediated acoustic piano that operates in the shadowy territory between what is playable and what is programmable; between narrative simplicity and performative complexity; between hopeful intentionality and flawless execution. Unusually, Steve has put our ear right inside the piano, sans artificial reverberations and blurring tools and, over the course of the CD, various musical dialects are explored and extended - from the plausible through the exquisite to the impossible. MacLean also mines a subtle complexity that offers more on each audition and, occasionally, an extreme (of Nancarrowistic speed or sound amplified through gongs). The process remains impenetrable, so what remains is the listening. In Steve's long and varied musical career he has consistently explored new compositional techniques and new technologies (he teaches at Berklee in Boston) and this is no exception; a unique take on the acoustic piano.
ANGELI, PAOLO: Tibi (CD/DVD Hybrid disc) Code:ReRPA4 Price:£12.5
This disc will play in stereo on a CD player and with film and 5.1 surround sound (or stereo) on a DVD player or computer. The music, as always, is prodigious, sounding like a small band, but played by one person in real time (as the film attests). In this format, you can also see the instrument close-to - a highly rebuilt and extended giant Sardinian guitar - with many sympathetic and extra strings, motor driven hurdy gurdy wheels, whirling strings, springs and other appendages, played, like a cello, vertically, with bow, fingers, plectra and machines. However Heath Robinson it may appear, however, it is clearly, under Paolo's hands, a highly serious and extraordinarily flexible beast - that requires and has given rise to new playing techniques. The programme of compositions here navigates through highly organised additive rhythms, freer Frith-like pointillism and some seemingly impossible mini-orchestrations. The film, professionally made, follows the performance, occasionally interpolating abstract passages and processed images. A remarkable player with a unique instrument, playing a music entirely his own.
LAST RELEASES
KODJABASHIA, NIKOLA: Explosion of a Memory Code:ReRNK3 Price:£12.5
An extended iterative, cycling, dissipating cloud of fragments, constantly shifting focus, which throws up detail, evolves, returns, settles and re-dissolves; it's a four-dimensional explosion in which stretches of baroque, folk themes and Byzantine liturgy exist contemporaneously alongside modern and (arguably) post-modern materials and techniques, all shaken loose out of the same experiential block, much as strata emerge as tectonic plates fold one time over another. Long, beautiful, tonal stretches eventually emerge, lighter than air, drifting and attenuating to reveal, dreamily, the old simplicities behind. Full use is made of the 70 strong Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra with subtle additional colouration from Kiril Dzajkovsi (live electronics), Nikola Kodjabashia himself (prepared piano) and Chris Cutler (extramural percussion). Immersive, timeless and unmistakably new, this music eschews existing schools to explore instead its own influences and contradictions. Great sound, massive footprint.
SPECIAL DISTRIBUTION
RADAR FAVOURITES: Radar Favourites Code:RR017 Price:£12.5
This legendary band - with Gerry Fitzgerald, Charles Hayward, Jack Monck and Cathy Williams - was put together by Geoff Leigh just after he left Henry Cow in 1973. Later, Charles Bullen replaced Gerry. Geoff and Gerry had been in Mouseproof together (and Gerry next surfaced on the second volume of Frith's Guitar Solos); Jack Monck, then best known from his time in Delivery with Lol Coxhill & Carol Grimes, and was also an old Cambridge friend of Henry Cow's [he, Fred and Chris were briefly in a band called Sparks together]; Cathy and Geoff went on to form Red Balune; Charles Hayward and Charles Bullen went on to become This Heat. So, this captures a mightily interesting socio-musical moment. The recordings here are of the first edition of the band, since everything else seems to have been lost - including the famous Virgin demo, which I remember we all loved but Virgin passed on. So, here are two great, mostly instrumental, compositions, strong, filmic and with their own unique musical identity, and a handful of rare live recordings, the last of which is an improvisation, to my ears, quite spookily Cowish. This is a recording very much of its time, eloquent of a musical climate and style that has long vanished, almost without trace. If you were there or are interested in the critical byways of the period, this is pretty essential. Carefully re-mastered from original reel-to-reel tapes, with the originally projected cover by Barney Bubbles.
SUN RA: Beyond the Purple Star Zone and Oblique Parallax Code:artyardCD005 Price:£12.5
Two related classic Saturn LP reissues on a single CD, both recorded at the Detroit Jazz Centre - in 1980 and 1981 respectively. They share an excellent sound quality and great playing - there's a classic version of Rocket No.9 and plenty of otherworldly Moog and electronic keyboards - up there with Ra's best on record. Rocket excepted, all the pieces are original to these LPs and don't appear elsewhere (though the first track of Purple is heard again at the end, with another name (exactly as it was on the 2 LPs), so it was clearly much liked by the boss. These were 10 -14 piece bands, featuring the regulars, including June Tyson, and some visiting guests. The first LP features prominent electric guitar (not identified in the personnel list on the CD - but every listing I've seen for these LPs is different; this one should be fairly accurate in general, since the promoter helped to get the CD together). A fine release, touched with greatness. And with a good sound. Comes in the usual elaborate gatefold digipack covers for which artyard is justly collected.
SUN RA: The Road to Destiny (Lost Reels 6) Code:Transparency0306 Price:£12.5
This previously unknown recording, made at the Gibus, Paris, in 1973 by 'Bugs' Hunter, the Arkestra's drummer of the time, captures a good performance by one of the classic large line-up bands, presumably from the same concert (or series) as the great 'Live at the Gibus' LP. The programme here, however, is completely different and although the band sounds pretty good, the voices are blurry and distorted from too much reflection and bad amplification. The centrepiece is an extended (38 minute) Discipline 27, which includes a long, somewhat indistinct, 'cosmo-drama' between June Tyson and Sun Ra. Overall, this is for aficionados rather than beginners; part of the picture, not an introduction. Also featured: Astro Black, Prepare for the Journey to Other Worlds, Swing Low Sweet Chariot and Why go to the Moon?
SUN RA: Live in Rome (double CD) Code:Transparency0315 Price:£15.75
Great concert. Excellent fidelity, close to studio quality a lot of the time. Recorded in Rome in March 1980, it opens with Kora, then a nice piece for flutes, a double drum solo - add tenor, (excellent), trumpet solo , driving hand percussion; now 100 mile an hour double drums section followed by a screaming Marshall Allen; more drums; the whole band in free flight, leading after 20 minutes, to an almost acapella Tapestry from an Asteroid (June Tyson); then more free flight. I won't go on with the blow by blow account, but it continues to be constantly inventive. Emerging organically out of this fluid programme are great, sometimes surprising, arrangements of Astro Black, The World is Waiting for the Sunrise, Mr. Mystery, Discipline 27, Springtime Again, Limehouse Blues, Watusa, Lights on a Satellite, Enlightment, Space is the Place, We Travel the Spaceways, Nothing Is, Children of the Sun, Calling Planet Earth, On Jupiter, Hit that Jive Jack, King Porter Stomp and Sun Ra and his Band from Outer Space - all interspersed with great solos, drum interludes and swoony collective bridges. Ra himself is pretty much quiet until a long way in when he takes storming piano solo (on a classy grand) followed by a bit of barrelhouse and a medley of super up-tempo swing classics. Some modest electronics appear on CD2. There's not much fat anywhere, it just keeps driving forward.
OTHER
FRITH, FRED / COSA BRAVA: Ragged Atlas Code:INTAKTCD161 Price:£14.5
Fred's latest touring band with Carla Kihlstedt (violin, nykelhapa, bass harmonica, voice), Zeena Parkins (keyboards, accordion, foley objects, voice), Matthias Bossi (drums, percs, voice) - and sound engineer/manipulator The Norman Conquest. Fred plays Guitar, Bass and sings. These are all tightly composed, economically arranged, layered and rhythm driven pieces; some are songs. There are many skeleton crew echoes in the form, though extended forward in time, experience and technology. A lot of great playing and intriguing compositions.
FRITH, FRED & JOHN ZORN: Late Works Code:Tzadik7634 Price:£14.5
At last this great duo went into a studio and made a CD. Most musical bases are covered and there is not a squandered or distracted moment. Here are 10 improvisations that step out with the confidence and lean-ness of compositions, while optimising invention. A duo at the top of its game. Highly recommended.
GRAHAM, KENNY & HIS SATELLITES: Monndog and Suncat Suites Code:JBH036CD Price:£14
Another fascinating lost treasure, this one from 1956, engineered by Joe Meek and featuring amongst others the legendary Phil Seaman (nice drum parts) and Stan Tracey (who also plays celeste, accordion and vibraphone). It was the project of composer, arranger and tenor saxophonist Kenny Graham , a response to the then newly made early street recordings of the to-become-legendary New York busker, Moondog. Featuring 12 of London's finest jazz players, in various combinations, the first 10 tracks here are direct arrangements of Moondog's compositions. There's nothing remotely jazzy about them, and they are presciently early in their use of polyrhythms and additive rhythms (Paul Desmond's Take 5 wasn't released until 1959, 3 years later). The instrumentation includes a lot of tuned percussion, oboe, flute, bassclarinet and whistle. Sometimes several percussionists at once. In short, it's highly unusual, and for the time, remarkable. The last 6 tracks are new pieces composed by Graham, most inspired by Moondog, and most of these are very listenable and lounge-exotica-esque; only one sounds a bit cocktail. With an interesting Seaman solo. Altogether this is a tiny gem.
VERHELST, XAVIER & SEBASTIAN BRADT: M&M Ancient Musics Code:LPD018 Price:£14.5
For the last 40 years the Logos Foundation in Gent has featured, produced and supported a vast programme of experimental music. One of its most distinctive projects is the massive robot orchestra - a huge and growing array of invented instruments - all of them Goldbegeresque physical constructions that produce internally generated acoustic sound, programmed and played through computer driven mechanical processes... Here they have been programmed to play a broad concert of Baroque music, accompanied sometimes by a few humans (recorder, violin, tenor, viola da gamba). Works include pieces by Monteverdi, Dufay, Couperin, Purcell, Handel, Ortiz, Marais, Anon &c. A fascinating and successful CD and a pleasure to listen to, if you like Baroque - whose forms and formalisms suit perfectly these sounds and this kind of formal precision.
AMM with John Butcher: Trinity Code:MRCD71 Price:£14.5
Flawlessly recorded in 2008, this is Eddie Prevost and John Tilbury with guest John Butcher in quiet mood; every tiny sound counts and every shade of timbre has space to make its presence felt. Track one is absolutely exquisite; no one else can get close to this level of concentration. Very nice cover art in double LP style card cover. Exemplary.
AMM with John Butcher, Ute Kanngeisser and Christian Wolff: Sounding Music Code:MRCD77 Price:£14.5
Very nicely recorded in London, May 2009 at the Freedom of the City festival, this is a fairly agitated/meditative unfolding, rich with ambiguous acoustic/electronic sonorities. Wolff plays bass guitar, some piano and melodica, Kanngeisser cello, Butcher winds, but given the extended techniques employed all round, it's often unclear (and irrelevant) who or what is responsible for what the ear receives. Interesting gatefold card sleeve with intriguing notes by Harry Gilonis.
W.H.: Shakespeare's Sonnets Code:BLY001 Price:£14.5
Hungarian quartet: cello (the excellent Albert Markos), drums, bass guitar, some quite minimal synthesiser and voice - perform, on the 400th anniversary of their publication, a selection of 12 of Shakespeare's Sonnets (reproduced from the first edition in the accompanying booklet). Ghanaian Sena Dagadu has a striking voice, and the arrangements are varied, focussed and stripped down to their essentials. An interesting and unusual project.
RUINS: Vrresto Code:MGC14SON-01 Price:£15
The rhythm section takes over the world. This unique and extraordinary duo rip through 13 very convincing and virtuosic exercises in scalpel-accurate musical assault. Extremely complex, through-composed and full of additive rhythms, unison flurries and staccati - mostly all at terrifying speed - with skid stops, unison accellerandi and decellerandi, abrupt shifts of mood and dynamic - and occasional islands of quasi normality - these pieces manage variety and, with only two voices (mostly instrumentally used), bass, drums and some MIDI controlled extras, sound massive and orchestrated. The influence of Magma and maybe a little This Heat is evident, but not prominent. May need to be taken occasionally or in small doses - in lieu of a caffeine overdose, for instance. Or 500 volts of AC. Made in 1998, with Yoshida Tatsuya and Sasaki Hisashi. Sound is excellent. Japanese Import.
RUINS: 1986-1992 Code:MGC21 Price:£15
See Vrresto for general coverage of the band. This follows drum demon Yoshida Tatsuya's extraordinary project from the first EP (1986) on through another 19 tracks selected from subsequent releases, passing through 3 bass-players on the way (all hi-power virtuosi) and from 4 track cassette recording (a sound Metallica would pay half a million bucks to get) to multi-track tape. While the essential hell-for-leather, impossible speed-and-complexity menu doesn't change, the sound and mood change interestingly with the bassists (the second, Kimoto Kasuyoshi also plays violin). And the style of the music also evolves interestingly over time from simple complexity to more complex complexity - one might say - and from punk-metallic power and distortion to a cleaner more precise music of parallel but interlocked parts. The tracks with bassist Masuda Ryuichi are especially impressive and substantial. To make no mistake, there's a lot of music here. If you like the other Ruins CDs, this is a gem. Japanese Import.
RUINS: Tzomvorgha Code:MGC22 Price:£15
See Vrresto for general coverage of the band. The pieces here tend to be more evolved and are stylistically much more various, though the main characteristics remain firmly in place. Absolutely remarkable. The two minute Mahavishnu medley at the end says it all. Japanese Import.
RUINS: Vrresto; 1986-1992; Tzomvorgha SPECIAL OFFER Code:ruinsSpec Price:£42
All 3 Ruins CDs at a special price
EE- N: Carpaccio Esistenziale Code:fratto006 Price:£14.5
A lot of quietly interesting music - performed rather than electronically mediated - seems to coming out of Italy these days. Here's another: a quartet with an excellent drummer, basses and winds who play a mixture of composed and partly improvised pieces, often quite tricky time-wise, with skill and enthusiasm. Very small, independent, label. This is more a sketchbook and palette than a fully evolved record, but nevertheless worth taking some time for. Nice package art.
THE HARMONIC SERIES: Musical works in Just Intonation Code:IMPREC272 Price:£15.5
A collection of pieces in just intonation (explained in the booklet, but essentially a venerable system using only notes projected from a single starting pitch using the natural harmonic series: whole-number ratios, in which the beats fall into co-ordinated polyrhythms). Commonly used in much of the world's music, just intonation is unfamiliar to our ears which are, from childhood, habituated to the compromises of twelve tone equal temperament. Harry Partch was a pioneer of just intonation. That said, these pieces are mostly not Partchlike but more meditative, working, in turn, with a long string installation (Ellen Fullman), synthesised sounds, re-tuned piano, bowed guitar, customised accordion (Pauline Oliveros), fretless zither, mixed ensemble and something unidentifiable and undeclared. Oliveros's piece stands out, with its highly evolved affective sensibility, but Michael Harrison (piano), Duane Pitre (zither - he also put this compilation together) and Ellen Fullman/Theresa Wong all score on the felt, expressed, organic, tactile level too. This is about sound and its minutiae as well as a useful sampler and, overall, is a record well worth investigating, and for the few really excellent pieces on it. With a thorough booklet, nicely designed, and printed on substantial paper in pungent ink.
BROWN, CHRIS & PAULINE OLIVEROS: Music In the Air Code:DL43-2010 Price:£14.5
From Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening Institute a very listenable set of three, fairly quiet, but very rich improvisations full of unplacable sounds, in which electronic sonoritiess blend seamlessly with their acoustic partners. It works.
ELECTRONIC, CONTEMPORARY
CARY, TRISTRAM: It's Time for Tristram Cary Code:JBH035CD Price:£15
One of the pioneers of Electronic music - he set up the first electronic music studio in the UK and was co-founder of EMS, source of the legendary VCS3 - and a jobbing composer, Cary was ubiquitous in English musical life outside the academy, employed frequently by the BBC as well as making soundtracks for documentary, corporate and public information films and designing sound for installations, EXPOs and exhibitions that freely mixed electronics, tape manipulation and conventional instruments. This excellent and timely collection gathers together a wide range of works (selected with Cary before his death) that gives a better sense of his flexibility and diversity than anything else released to date (and there is precious little out there). It also includes two rare-as-hen's-teeth '70s 7" releases that are miniature classics: A study on limited resources and Narcissus (an early process piece for flute and 2 tape-recorders and the only 'art' piece in the collection). All the recordings here were made between 1967 and 1973 - a fascinating period and one in which the limits of a young technology produced more human and inventive, and more interesting sounding, results than full digitalisation does today. What makes these pieces different, and of particular interest, is that they are applied musics - they have a job to do, and aren't just objects of aesthetic contemplation, making them more eloquent of the era in which they were made than are the academic electronic compositions of the same period. Parts of this release offer fragmants from a working diary - with introduced elements, samples and explanations followed by their applications... and so thoughtfully sequenced that the whole CD works as a single extraordinarily divers composition. That said, Shaped for living - a long soundtrack - is an individual gem. Nicely packaged with a short biography, useful notes, pictures and memoir.
FORBIDDEN PLANETS: Music from the pioneers of Electronic Sound (double CD) Code:CDCD5033 Price:£16.6
A fascinating collection of hits containing many classics which doesn't stop at the hermetic world of early academic electronics, or the obvious. There are pieces here by Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Herrmann, Pierre Schaeffer, Herbert Eimert /Robert Beyer, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul Gredinger, Henri Pousseur, Louis and Bebe Barron, Herman Heiss, Iannis Xenakis, Kid Baltan (inc. the great Evolution Ballet), Daphne Oram, Tom Dissevelt, Edgar Varese, Gyorgi Ligeti (a seldom heard electronic work) and Henk Badings. A great record to listen to, always interesting, offering good choices, well programmed. Even if you know a lot of this material it's a good CD to have. And cheap. Intended as a popular collection, so the documentation is minimal. Double CD with a nicely designed oversize booklet in slipcase.
CAGE, JOHN: John Cage Code:edel0136582CRA Price:£14.5
CD reissue of the classic 1974 release by the Italian experimental label Cramps containing 4 excellent pieces: the exquisite Music for Marcel Duchamp (a very early classic for prepared piano, written for Hans Richter's Dreams that Money can Buy), Music for Amplified Toy Pianos (also featuring a revolver, glass, a tobacco tin, jew's harp, cardboard, newspaper, cymbals, keys and a music stand), the historic Radio Music (time capsule as well as a music piece), 4:33 (I believe the first recording) and Sixty two Mesostics Re Merce Cunningham, performed by the late great Demetrio Stratos. Walter Marchetti, Gianni-Emeilio Simonetti and Juan Hidalgo are the other performers. This is a very listenable and charming record, with an opinionated but informative 36pp booklet of original sleeve-notes which contextualises each piece and also includes a useful general biography. Digipack facsimile of original cover.
CAGE, JOHN: Cheap Imitation Code:edel0141292CRA Price:£14.5
CD reissue of the classic 1977 release by the Italian experimental label Cramps, performed by Cage himself and recorded by David Behrman and 'Blue Gene' Tyranny at Mills College. This is a linear piece for solo piano, derived initially from Erik Satie's Socrate in which an endless modular melody unfolds, without pianistic expression or lyrical articulation. Notes by Cage himself, including an imaginary conversation with Satie.
FELDMAN, MORTON: Trio (double CD) Code:Mode216 Price:£21
For piano, violin and cello (Aki Takahashi, Marc Sabat and Rohan de Saram). An hour and 46 minutes that shifts irregularly from block to block, each exploring a different idea and each shifting internally in synchronisation, tempo and pitch between the players. Very nicely played. Excellent sleeve notes (English, French, German). For those who know what to expect.
BRAND, MAX: Kabelbrand Code:Moozak002 Price:£14.5
Born 1896, Jewish Austrian composer Brand was forced to emigrate in 1937 and, after much travel, wound up in the USA. In the early '50s he decided to work in the new field of electronic music and built his own studio. One thing and another led him to Bob Moog - who was then just setting up shop - from whom he commissioned a synthesiser - which was both an updated take on the Trautonium and the first Moog (known as the Moogtonium, a largely forgotten but important step in Synthesiser history). This CD features new pieces for the rediscovered and restored original instrument; pieces which, fundamentally, I find neither here nor there - though they point up starkly the differences between the old generation and the new: I find them all very one dimensional. If that was all, this CD would not be in the catalogue; it's here for the last 2 tracks (just over 36 minutes of music) which are unreleased works by Brand himself, and worth buying the whole CD for. Made in the early 1970s, these are neither primitive electronics, nor the glossy electrocaoustics which came later, but an amalgam of Sun Ra's Moog explorations and the planned aesthetics of electronic music - at the time when it was still exciting and hard work. This release is doubly important because, as a mostly overlooked maverick, more or less none of his work was ever released, and nothing at all is currently in print. Nicely designed.
THE HARMONIC SERIES: Musical works in Just Intonation Code:IMPREC272 Price:£15.5
A collection of pieces in just intonation (explained in the booklet, but essentially a venerable system using only notes projected from a single starting pitch using the natural harmonic series: whole-number ratios, in which the beats fall into co-ordinated polyrhythms). Commonly used in much of the world's music, just intonation is unfamiliar to our ears which are, from childhood, habituated to the compromises of twelve tone equal temperament. Harry Partch was a pioneer of just intonation. That said, these pieces are mostly not Partchlike but more meditative, working, in turn, with a long string installation (Ellen Fullman), synthesised sounds, re-tuned piano, bowed guitar, customised accordion (Pauline Oliveros), fretless zither, mixed ensemble and something unidentifiable and undeclared. Oliveros's piece stands out, with its highly evolved affective sensibility, but Michael Harrison (piano), Duane Pitre (zither - he also put this compilation together) and Ellen Fullman/Theresa Wong all score on the felt, expressed, organic, tactile level too. This is about sound and its minutiae as well as a useful sampler and, overall, is a record well worth investigating, and for the few really excellent pieces on it. With a thorough booklet, nicely designed, and printed on substantial paper in pungent ink.
ZEITGEIST: In Bone Coloured Light Code:Innova774 Price:£14.5
Five commissions from five composers for an interesting ensemble of 2 percussionists, one woodwind player and a pianist. The orchestrations are inventive - to the extent that the limitations of the instrumentation go unnoticed. While all the pieces are rewarding, Jerome Kitzke's (b. 1955) is worth the CD. It's also the longest. Exquisitely orchestrated and highly inventive (with additional use of voices and whistles), it employs a markedly eclectic sense of musical language - like the best of film music - ready to use any and all materials, and any and all sensibilities, gleaned from all manner of musics, popular and unpopular. This pretty much escapes genre, though retaining exceptionally high performance values. Kathy Jackanich's piece one could imagine, with different instrumentation, performed by a '70s experimental group, Ethan Wickman too uses a lot of devices familiar to listeners of the fringe musics of the '60s and '70s. Only the first track is identifiable (as a branch of Glass/Adams minimalism; rather predictable and skipable) the rest is worth investigating, I think.
ART
MUSICA ELETRONICA VIVA: MEV40 Code:80675(4CDset) Price:£36
Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) - the live-electronic/electroacoustic Amercan/Italian counterpart of AMM was founded one evening in the spring of 1966 in a room in Rome. Members at various times have been Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum, Karl Berger, Allan Bryant, Steve Lacy, George Lewis, Garrett List, Carol Plantamura, Gregory Reeve and Ivan Vandor. Their importance is hard to underestimate. The contents of this box, selected by core members Curran, Rzewski, and Teitelbaum, cover the best recordings: SpaceCraft, Stop the War, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Pt. 1, Kunstmuseum, Bern, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Pt. 2, New Music America Festival, Ferrara, Italy, Mass. Pike. Unheard at time of going to press.
SANGSTER, JOHN: Marinetti Code:SIR01CD Price:£14.5
Soundtrack to Albie Thoms' 1969 full length experimental movie (about a 1/3 of the audience left during the premiere) that in some ways was a distillation of a year or two of down-underground happenings and multi-media shows. This is the late '60s in a precious phial. Hard to imagine any other way in which such a sound document might have been preserved. But here it is in all its late sixties chaos, featuring a select gang of performers from Australian psychedelic and experimental bands, plus a great deal of captured sound, plunderphonia and unidentifiable racket. In three parts, it starts modestly with conversation (about Marinetti and the Futurists) half drowned out by playing and noise and snatches of... stuff ... layered over the top. Part 2 drops the Marinetti while still retaining a cacophony of speech fragments and a lot more noise, debris and improvisation. This is pretty great, but then comes part three, which is just a piled-up din of talking, pop snatches, animals, instruments and the kitchen sink. Beautifully mixed and full of rich swirling detail. You could listen to this a lot of times.
EASTLEY, MAX: Installation Recordings (1973 - 2008) (dbl CD) Code:PARADIGMDISCS(PD26) Price:£20
These 2 CDs offer, in 39 tracks, a long-needed overview of the installation work of one of Britain's earliest sound art/ kinetic art pioneers, updating and greatly expanding upon the 1975 LP New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments released on Obscure. These pieces are powered by nature (wind & water) or various motors and were recorded on hills, beaches and in woods and galleries. Shifting from micro-sound to large scale amplification. This is an important body of work. There are also 2 short performance tracks (on one George Lewis is credited with blade of grass). The tracks are musically organised and grouped together in suites. Interesting for historians will be that although the last four decades are covered here, the bulk of these pieces date from the mid-seventies, and are important markers in the history of a nascent form. Beautifully designed, with a 20pp full colour booklet of photo documentation and text by Max.
NITSCH, HERMAN: Eighth Symphony (dbl CD) Code:TA0932010 Price:£23.5
Completely out of left field come the increasingly impressive musical productions of veteran performance artist/actionist Hermann Nitsch. Music was always part of his Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries, but this is a free standing musical composition which is at once fully evolved and yet outside the embrace of the musical world. A powerful professional recording of the premiere, in 1990, this is a vast work for brass orchestra, choir, percussion and 'noise orchestra' (the electronic parts played by composer Wolfgang Mitterer). A big, dramatic piece, organised in blocks with a lot of dynamics and mood shifts that stands in the room like a force of nature, impressive, immersive and confident. Comes in a double CD jewelcase with two posters, including an extract from the score and a short text in German. Remastered (and repackaged) from the legendary 2001 Cortical Foundation LP edition [only 185 copies were made], this too is only available in a limited edition - of 650 copies - so if you want one, please order while they last.
JULIUS, ROLF: Music for the ears Code:smallmusicno.1 Price:£14.5
Sound art pioneer Julius offers two long pieces here: Song from the Past and Music on two High Poles. These are small, very human, pieces made from unidentifiable sounds microtonally articulated; fragile but dogged, like young plants; structure without much form; busy being rather than doing; neither flesh nor fish. They are working but it's hard to know how - or what they want. So, an acquired taste but, for the curious, informative. Works especially well half-heard, pianissimo, or accidentally from another room, blended with the world.
VINYL
CHRISTIANSEN, HENNING: Op. 39. fluxoram organum (double LP) Code:EVTL07 Price:£44
Danish composer and Fluxus alumnus, Henning Christiansen wrote this 5 part organ piece in 1967 for Joseph Beuys' Euranienstab action in Vienna. It was recorded in a church in Dusseldorf on a 'manipulated' tape machine (meaning that there are small manually induced fluctuations, interferences and lacunae). The event was presented twice, and that seemed to be that. Then, in 2008, the tapes came into the possession of Ursula Block who had them restored and remastered (by Markus Schmickler) for this release. An interesting and very listenable work, sometimes reminiscent of Satie's Mass for the Poor, minimal but not boring. In a limited edition of 450 copies, cleanly packaged and well protected.
MONAHAN, GORDON: Speaker Swinging (LP) Code:GM002 Price:£18
Already part of the Sound Art canon. Speaker Swinging explores the Doppler effect by manually swinging several independent loudspeakers in large arcs in an acoustic space. The speakers emit minimal oscillator tones which foreground the pitch-shifting caused by their motion. Eerie and fascinating, and it tells you a lot about ear/brain sensitivity; you can really sense this motion as motion. It could not be simulated. Recorded for CBC in 1987. On the B side is Monahan's Long Aolian Piano - recordings of a construction made with 50ft piano wires strung into the wind and fixed at one end to an upright piano that acts as a sounding board. Double fold-out insert with diagrams, notes, credits and an interview with GM. Last copies, LP now out of print.
MONAHAN, GORDON: Piano Mechanics (LP) Code:GM001 Price:£18
Active since the late '70s in the field of electronic music but more visibly in performances, installations and sound art, Gordon Monahan is famous for his extensions and deconstruction of pianos. This LP carries two classic works: Piano Mechanics - seven pieces that explore the outer reaches of the instrument as a source of complex sound - avoiding any conventional playing at all - a live recording for CBC made in 1984; and Large Piano Magnified - 9 pieces for studio manipulated piano recordings, made for CBC's Two New Hours in 1985. An important document. DMM. Last copies, LP now out of print.
OF INTEREST
DECODER DVD Code:decoderDVD Price:£17
I can't recommend it, but we have some because it's historically significant and I know a few of you will be interested. Cult German narrative film from 1984 based on writings by William Burroughs (a kind of non-fun paranoid '80s version of the blaxploitative Space is the Place). Bill himself appears, along with FM Einheit, Christiane F, Genesis P Orridge and Bill Rice. The plot concerns sound experiments, tape- terrorism, multinational companies and street fighting. With English subtitles. Plus: trailer, 46 minute interview with director Klaus Maek, footage of Derk Jarman filming Burroughs, Berlin riot footage (why not?). Music by Soft Cell, The The, Einstuurtzende Neubauten, Dave Ball and Genesis P.
BACK IN STOCK
CASSIBER: Beauty and The Beast Code:ReRCCD3 Price:£12.5
Out of print for years. A handful of copies found. A reissue of this long out of print classic - includes the great "In Eine Minute", "Last Call" and "Robert".This is the full UK version - plus the rare 7'; special "Time Running Out" as a bonus track. Listen to a sample of this release
NECKS, THE: Aquatic Code:FOM0002 Price:£14.69
Australian minimalist so-called ambient jazz ? I guess that's a stab at it. Simple idea easy to think of but hard to do. Long tracks of acceptable steady low key grooves with slow micro developments. Aquatic is maybe the bravest - just one long track. An acquired taste but nobody else is quite on this case.... Features the ubiquitous Tony Buck (drums) with Lloyd Swanton (Acoustic and Electric Bass), Chris Abrahams (Piano, Keyboards). Heroes of 'Mixing It'.
NECKS, THE: Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab (4 CD set) Code:FOM0008 Price:£37.6
These are full concert recordings, very nicely packaged, that reveal the range and method of this unique project . Athenaeum particularly unfolds in classic Necks style and Raab is altogether remarkable. The other tracks also surprise. For a band whose essence is slow modulation it's interesting that at the start you can never predict which way any piece will go; and that, although it seems hardly to change, by the end you are in completely different musical territory. The Necks may seem simple but they are never obvious.
SALAH RAGAB: Egyptian Jazz (Vinyl) Code:salahRagabLP Price:£14
Limited edition Sorry - weight: outside Europe please add 3 p&p
STOP PRESS
KAREL, ERNST: Heard Laboratories Code:ernstHeard Price:£14.5
Small edition from pioneer specialist soundscape label responsible for the great phongraphy series. A sonic ethnography of scientific research environments (laboratories of various sorts), thoroughly annotated and with a nice looking cover.
SEATTLE PHONOGRAPHERS UNION: Live field recording improvisation Code:seattleUnion Price:£14.5
EFI XIROU. IANNIS XENAKIS: Charisma X Code:Mode218DVD Price:£18.75
A documentary film that presents the visionary work and ideas of Iannis Xenakis - structured around musical performances, interviews and testimonies from his collaborators. With performances by Sylvio Gualda, Elisabeth Chojnacka, Benny Sluichin, Frances-Marie Uitti, Lori Freedman, Christophe Roy, and Spiros Sakkas. Xenakis speaks and is seen in rare archival footage of performances of Polytope de Mycenae, La Legénde d?eer and the opera Oresteia. It examines his architecture, including the Philips Pavilion at Expo 58, the convent of La Tourette and his own house in Corsica, and investigates the UPIC - Xenakis? pioneering system which allowed music to be composed by drawing on a computer screen - a culmination of his quest to turn forms realised in space into sound.
JACOBS, HENRY: Around the world with Henry Jacobs Code:Imprec299 Price:£14.5
Radio art pioneer
JACOBS, HENRY: The weird wide world of Henry Jacobs-The fine art of gooding off Code:Imprec054 Price:£14.5
BOOK AND CD SUZUKI, AKIO: Résonances: Akio Suzuki - Ossip Zadkine Code:isbn2-87900-875-1 Price:£14.5
50pp catalogue from the Paris exhibition Résonances: Akio Suzuki - Ossip Zadkine at Musée Zadkine in 2004. Texts in French and English. Includes CD with recordings of performances of Akio Suzuki and a sound walk recorded by Eric La Casa. Last copies.
DVD
PRESENT: Barbaro (Ma non troppo) DVD + CD Code:adhoc3031 Price:£26
Formed by Roger Trigaux after he left Univers Zero to follow an even darker and more insistent musical path, built on complex additive rhythms, obsessive iteration and modernist mechanic precision, Present seems here to have found a solid, dependable line-up that can give the compositions their best expression. The CD offers three long pieces, all through-composed, with insistent iterations, big piano, strong cello, shifting accents and slow melodic colouration - all played at a high level of competence. Hard not to file in the (very) rough vicinity of Magma. On the DVD are 3 hours of (mostly) professionally recorded, multi-camera videos of fine live performances in France and Portugal. With impeccably mixed sound. The DVD is persuasive - this music, this band, makes a lot more sense when ear can follow eye through gesture and grimace; then it's gripping, as well as technically impressive. Rhythm team Dave Kerman and Keith Macksoud do sterling work making reiteration convincing. The DVD closes with three extra film extracts from earlier days, featuring other incarnations of the band, all impressive (one with Daniel Denis at the kit). Bands like this are an endangered species. This is less barbaro, than ostinato, martellato, funebre, giusto & imperio.
FELDMAN, MORTON: Music for Piano & Strings. Vol 1. Code:MRDVD01 Price:£18.5
John Tilbury plays For John Cage, 1982 with Darragh Morgan (violin) and Piano and String Quartet, 1985, with the Smith Quartet, recorded live at the Huddersfield Festival in 2006. Exquisite, unsurprisingly. This is a sound only DVD - in this format because of the length - 3 hours (each piece is about 90 minutes). It will play on a DVD player and on a computer. Nice package too.
MESSAGE BOARD
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NEW SUBSCRIPTION
CASSIBER: The CASSIBER box Code:cassiberBox Price:£60
Cassiber (phonetically: 'a message smuggled out of prison') crashed like a locomotive into the Deutsche Neue Welle. Founded by Heiner Goebbels, Alfred Harth, Christoph Anders and Chris Cutler (his first major project after News From Babel), Cassiber managed to fuse materials and attitudes drawn from experimental rock, fringe jazz, punk, pop, plunderphonics, improvisation, close structure and musique concrete into an energetic and complex form of studio (and then concert) composition unique in its fusion of highly diverse experimental approaches to form with risky, emotional and expressive execution. Through a deep connection between instrumentation, form and topicality, their musical evolution tracked and anticipated the political and technological changes of their time. Thus, in the course of their 10 years of intermittent touring and 4 records they evolved significantly through the high stakes energy of the earlier releases into their later, more complex and composed, studio works (by which time they had become a trio: Goebbels, Anders, Cutler) with access to the new (first) generation of polyphonic samplers. Highly radical, their music opened up song form by abandoning, extending or crashing sideways into it - and was built mainly out of noise, libido, high musicality and, uniquely at the time, a great deal of cultural debris. This box collects it all (most of it out of print for some time now) alongside a lot of unreleased material - and full concert DVD. The 4 released albums will be thoroughly re-mastered and there will be at least one CD of unreleased studio and live material and at least one DVD of live and studio footage, including a mini documentary made during the recording of 'A Face We All Know': 5 or 6 CDs and a DVD - in the usual sturdy box with a fat booklet of documents, interviews, information, photographs, pictures, itineraries and miscellaneous memorabilia. Subscribers will also get an extra, otherwise unavailable, CD in a limited and numbered edition. In hard times for physical media, this inevitably will be an expensive undertaking, so we are asking anyone who wants to subscribe please to do so as soon as possible (no money will be taken until 2 months before release) - if it is released; and that will depend the number who are ready to assist the production with their subscriptions. In recognition all subscribers' names will be credited in all boxes sold.
OTHER OFFERS
THIS HEAT: Japanese Box Version Code:thisHeadJapBox Price:£123.38
A HANDFUL OF THE HIGHLY LIMITED THIS HEAT: Japanese Box Version A strong double box with each CD packaged in a perfect cardboard facsimile of the original LP, plus the box booklet (in English) and the unreleased mini 'Nivelles' extra 8cm CD - at the eye-watering price of £ 100. Since the CDs are the same pressings as the UK edition, this set is for collectors only.
1. ReR LOSS LEADER
With each update we offer one £5 ReR loss leader to encourage wider listening.
FAUST: Faust So Far Code:ReRF7 Price:£12.5
The second Polydor (black) release, classic companion to 'Faust', opens with the iconic 'Krautrock' and just gets better. Remastered and repackaged.
2. MORE NEW STUFF - BUILD A LIBRARY. From each update I will select those CDs I think most remarkable or important - those which I think should be in any living library - and offer a discount for anyone buying them all. There will be 2 categories must have and essential history. Offers will be available for either or both together. If you find this essential library idea useful, I will slowly work backwards and compile a list from the whole catalogue.
Essential Library May 2010 Code:LibraryMay2010 Price:£54
MORE NEW STUFF - BUILD A LIBRARY. From each update I will select those CDs I think most remarkable or important - those which I think should be in any living library - and offer a discount for anyone buying them all. There will be 2 categories must have and essential history. Offers will be available for either or both together. If you find this essential library idea useful, I will slowly work backwards and compile a list from the whole catalogue. 1.Forbidden Planet 16 2. Sun Ra. Live in Rome (double CD) 15 3. JOHN CAGE. John Cage 14 4. TRISTRAM CARY. It’s Time for Tristram Cary (save £8)
Essential History May 2010 Code:HistoryMay2010 Price:£52
2. MORE NEW STUFF - BUILD A LIBRARY. From each update I will select those CDs I think most remarkable or important - those which I think should be in any living library - and offer a discount for anyone buying them all. There will be 2 categories must have and essential history. Offers will be available for either or both together. If you find this essential library idea useful, I will slowly work backwards and compile a list from the whole catalogue. 1. Sun Ra. Beyond the Purple Star Zone and Oblique Parallax 2. The Harmonic Series 3. John Sangster Marinetti 4. Max Brand Kabelband 5. Kenny Graham: Moondog and Suncat Suites (save £10.50)
Essential History & Library May 2010 Code:historyLibraryMay2010 Price:£108
Both Updates (Essential History & Essential Library, January 2009 at a savings. ESSENTIAL HISTORY: From each update I will select those CDs I think most remarkable or important - those which I think should be in any living library - and offer a discount for anyone buying them all. There will be 2 categories must have and essential history. Offers will be available for either or both together. If you find this essential library idea useful, I will slowly work backwards and compile a list from the whole catalogue. This update's Essential history Essential library: 1.Forbidden Planet 16 2. Sun Ra. Live in Rome (double CD) 15 3. JOHN CAGE. John Cage 14 4. TRISTRAM CARY. It's Time for Tristram Cary Essential history items: 1. Sun Ra. Beyond the Purple Star Zone and Oblique Parallax 2. The Harmonic Series 3. John Sangster Marinetti 4. Max Brand Kabelband 5. Kenny Graham: Moondog and Suncat Suites (save £24)
3. RER MUSIC CLUB: SERIOUS DISCOUNTS
People keep asking. So, for those who want, we can automatically send you all our new releases (and press only promotional material) as soon as we get them - at a very serious discount. This can also include all our American Sister company Ad Hoc's titles. Ask us for the leaflet or visit the website for details. NEW CLUB MEMBERS MAY ALSO SUBSCRIBE BACKWARDS NOW, THAT IS, RECEIVE EARLER CDS AT THE SAME DISCOUNT. ASK FOR DETAILS WHEN YOU JOIN.
4. FRIEND OF FRED VOLUME 3.
FRIEND OF FRED VOLUME 3 Code:FredVol3 Price:£95
Volume 2 will wrap up with the next batch of releases in October [Impur, Technology of Tears, The Happy End Problem]. The signed free book that accompanies it is in preparation. You can still sign up for it, and for Volume 3 (the next 8 releases). What it means. To become a friend of fred costs 95 pounds (45 now and 50 when we send CD No.5, You get the ARTIST SIGNED LIMITED EDITION of Vol 3: That's 8 CDs with a special signed book full of Fred's notes on the works, the process of their composition and recording, related photographs and other documentary materials. You get the CDs as soon as they come out, the signed book, occasional other additional materials and 1.50 pounds off any other Fred CD you buy from us during the subscription period - whatever label it's on. Volumes 1 and 2 can still be purchased separately. NOTE. Members of the ReR record club will get the book free as part of their membership.
5. MORE INCENTIVES: 10% ADHERENT DISCOUNTS Every 11th CD* you buy from the catalogue, whatever it is, will be a gift from ReR. There is no time limit on this. Effectively it reduces our prices by a average of £1.20 per CD, which makes us competitive even with collapsed US dollar suppliers and enables us to deliver very good prices for regular buyers: a £12 CD becomes £10.80, an ReR title £9.80 - and they are all still post free. You get the discount as a free CD on your 11th order. We'll keep track. Register with your first purchase as an ADHERENT. Since there is no time limit, even if it takes 4 years to get to the 11th, it's still free. For counting: Double CD = 1.5 CDs, a triple as 2, boxes of 4 as 2.5, boxes over 5 as 3. Any order of 15 CDs at once gets you two free CDs (the two cheapest)
MEMO COLLECTORS SUBSCRIBE: ART editions often come out in small numbers and sell out very quickly. To be notified immediately, or in advance, of any new releases of this type, please send your email address to us with the message IMMEDIATE ART NOTIFICATION PLEASE.
SUB ANNOUNCEMENT
THE POINTS EAST BOX Code:peBox Price:£58
Historic numbered art edition: 12 CDs, book and box [£ 58] pe/box We are slowly moving toward a number that may make this release possible but we are not there yet.. The Rock experiments of Eastern Europe were no less interesting (though they were somewhat rarer) than those in the West, but they went undocumented for years - they made no commercial or official CDs and could not tour. Concerts were rare even in their own countries. Outside, to all intents and purposes, they didn't exist. To begin to redress this lack, in the late '80s, Recommended launched Points East, a label dedicated only to this music. Because of its historical importance - and musical excellence - we plan to manufacture a very limited edition of the 8 PE LPs (re-mastered on CD), plus 3 or 4 extra CDs filling in further details of the music of the various territories in that time, mostly taken from other Recommended releases as yet not reissued - including the extraordinary 'Raab' and Zygmunt Krauze's luminous 'Folk Music'- plus a couple of CDs with samples of other groups from the time and new materials by the original artists. All the CDs will be in facsimile edition, fully re-mastered, in a box with a fat book outlining the way it was in the old East and the way it is now, as well as a more general overview of experimental music in each of the territories. In other words this will be an historic documentation of a missing part of the history of progressive and experimental music, a documentation much needed. It will be made to our usual standards and very thoroughly documented, but we want to make it as cheap as possible - since this for art's sake; it's certainly not a commercial proposition. So we will try to keep the 12 CDs, box and book down to £ 58 - close to cost. However, origination, manufacturing and production costs will be huge, and we will only be able to make it if there is sufficient interest and enough pledged advance orders. To that end, if you are interested in this project, please subscribe - just write in and say you want your name put down, we will not take any money until and unless the box is actually realised. If and when we reach a viable number, we will announce the issue, confirm your subscriptions and go ahead. - The original PE series was: BORIS KOVACS. Ritual Nova 2 (YU) ZGA. Zga (Riga) STRANGE GAMES, Strange Games (Russia) DER EXPANDER DES FORTSCHRITTS. Der Expander &c. (GDR) BORUT KRZISNIK Currents of Time (Slovenia) KAMPEC DOLORES Levitation (Hungary) REPORTAZ. Reportaz (Poland) PULNOC. Midnight Mouse (Czechoslovakia)
The ReR Newsgroup
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