Main Catalog

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

	BUTCHER, JOHN: Invisible ear Code:Fringes Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Limited numbered edition of 600 in large postcard folded art packing. What's interesting about this are the many and fascinating extended techniques for soprano and tenor saxes (not that you'd know it most of the time) involving 1) close miking, 2) amplification/feedback, 3) multitracking, 4) room acoustics.
	BUTCHER/DURRANT: Requests and Antisongs Code:erstwhile007 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	BUTLER GARY: My BachÕs worse than my Rechabite Code:HH01 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
Australian Guitar, Noise & Junk.
	BUTLER, GARY: Greatest Hits Volumes 1-5 Code:garyBulter1-5 Price: £12.93 Quantity in Basket: none
Any of you who listened to of my 'Out of the Blue Radio' shows might remember Gary Butler as the Australian contributor whose 30 minutes were recorded on a beach - he put bread on his guitar strings, set up the recording equipment and let a lot of hungry gulls make the music. Rude, noisy electric guitar, quiet, bizarre sometime acoustic guitar, extended techniques and general chaos. Joined on different tracks by a catalogue of Australian improvisers including Jim Denley, Rik Rue, Warren Burt, Sean Baxter, Amanda Stewart, the Von Krapp Family and the Illawarra Choral Society. This covers a lot of ground, reminds me of the days when improvising was fun and is satisfyingly real.
	Brotherhood of Breath: Bremen to Bristol (dbl) Code:BrthBrem Price: £21.15 Quantity in Basket: none
	CAGE, JOHN / LEJAREN HILLER: HPSCHD Code:EMFCD038 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
A monster of a work, and massive, this originated in a harpsichord commission Cage was reluctant to undertake but eventually completed in the course of three years work with (early computer programmer) Lejaren Hiller. It turned into - for its 1969 premiere - a four-hour multimedia overload for seven harpsichord soloists, electronic keyboard and 52 pre-prepared tapes (with material in 52 different computer generated microtonal divisions of the octave). A lot of existing music was used, especially Mozart - using his dice method - but also Beethoven, Chopin, Schoenberg, Busoni, Gottschalk and others. The result is a massive cacophony of wide spectrum pitches and melody fragments, like nothing before or since. This version was made by Joel Chadabe, the harpsichords played by Robert Conant. It lasts 65 minutes and there are two short demos of the materials used as extra tracks. The packaging is stunning. Flourescent colours and great design based on the small edition screened posters overseen by Cage for the first concert. The full and informative text is printed on 16 full colour cards which, when laid out form a wildly lurid poster themselves. It all comes in a psychedelic slipcase. Altogether a great work.
	CAGE, JOHN - The Arditti Quartet: Complete String Quartets Vol. 2 Code:mode27 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
This is one John Cage CD to own. The main work 'String Quartet in Four Parts', is an early pre-chance composition (it was completed in 1950). Admirably clear and simple, it is harmonically based (though these are floating, non sequential harmonies), and it sounds exquisite - in part because played entirely without vibrato, bringing it close in sonority and affect to early consort of viols music. It floats without droning and, because it is so unexpressed by its players, becomes profoundly expressive through the beauty and openness of the composition.
	CAGE, JOHN / KENNETH PATCHEN: The City Wears a Slouch Hat Code:organofcorti14 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
The original, classic radio version (1942). Absolutely great.
	CAGE, JOHN and DAVID TUDOR: Indeterminacy (Double CD) Code:SF40804/5 Price: £22.33 Quantity in Basket: none
1959. Cage tells 90 short stories, all one minute long - reminiscences, zen tales, observations, pensees - stretching or compressing them to say in the time limit - while in another room, out of earshot, David Tudor plays, sporadically, selections from the piano part of Cage's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and extracts of a tape of Fontana Mix. Recorded by the legendary Moses Asch, it was a double Folkways box years ago (1961, two years before the publication of 'Silence') and has finally been reissued by the Smithsonian Institute. A pleasure to listen to, Cage has a very engaging tone and a fine way with words; and the texts are all little gems. Well worth it.
	CAGE, JOHN: Atlas Eclipticalis + Winter Music Code:MODE3/6 Price: £28.79 Quantity in Basket: none
Atlas, written in 1961, was Cage's first piece for full orchestra, written with the aid of star-maps and aleatorics. A microtonal exercise in extremes of loudness/softness, shortness and length and a succès de scandale at it's first performance (using much amplification), where it was sabotaged by a peevish orchestra. It then waited many years for a more sympathetic rendering, of which those here are exemplars.These versions are mostly delicate, floating freely, without direction or centre for their duration, but with constantly changing density and amplitude. CDs one and two are re-mastered from earlier LP release and embody two performances of Atlas by a chamber ensemble at the Cornish Institute in 1983, and two versions of Winter Music, for three pianos, conducted by Cage himself. The third CD offers a 1998 version for full orchestra, supervised by Cage and conducted by Melvin Strauss, heard here for the first time. Winter Music if performed by 20 pianos. Nicely packaged in a mini-box with the three individual CDs in board sleeves, a 35pp book in English, German and French and notes by Cage, Kocmieroski, Drury and Gillespie - as well as Cage's handwritten general directions for the piece.
	CAGE, JOHN: Bird Cage Code:EMFCD013 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Three sets of tapes, birds, Cage 'singing' and environmental sounds organised in a - you know - complicated non-random random way. Plus two extracts from an interview with the composer about the recording.
	CAGE, JOHN: Cheap Imitation Code:edel0141292CRA Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
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.
	CAGE, JOHN: Complete Short Works for Prepared Piano (dbl CD) Code:MODE180/81 Price: £21.74 Quantity in Basket: none
Early works dating mainly from1942-47 and all written for dance performances, (except The Perilous Night and A Room, which are concert pieces. Nicely performed and recorded, these are rhythmical, often radically reiterative, riff-driven, works, centred upon the legendary 1944 concert that defined the Cage/ Cunningham partnership and both established and defined the prepared piano as a viable instrument. Played by Philipp Vandre, these are Hessischer Rundfunk radio recordings made in 2001. Useful notes in English, German and French.
	CAGE, JOHN: From zero Code:mode130 Price: £18.21 Quantity in Basket: none
Four films on John Cage by Frank Scheffer and Andrew Culver. Includes 19 QUESTIONS: Cage answers 19 questions on a variety of subjects, using chance operations to determine the duration of his answers. FOURTEEN: performed by the Ives Ensemble and filmed with multiple cameras using chance operations to determine the position, angle, focus and aperture settings of each shot, and to determine the edits. PAYING ATTENTION: in the spirit of the Cage-Cunningham co-temporal works, Scheffer worked with the video and Culver with the audio (an interview with Cage) separately. Thethe two run simultaneously. OVERPOPULATION AND ART WITH RYOANJI: The audio combines Cage's spoken performance of his text Overpopulation and Art simultaneously with his Ryoanji for four voices and percussion.
	CAGE, JOHN: Imaginary Landscapes Code:HATART145 Price: £17.04 Quantity in Basket: none
The entire series, composed between 1939 and 1985 gathered together on one CD. No.1, the first to use the gramophone as a performing instrument (alongside three piano notes and a cymbal) is visionary; Nos.2 & 3 (1942) for amplified springs, percussion, electric buzzers and, again, vari-speed turntables, clatter and explode like rather psychotic junkyard skirmishes; No.4 for 12 radios was another landmark and, for No.5 (1952), Cage moved to straight ahead plunderphonics, using 42 taped recordings of extracts from (jazz) gramophone records instead of radios. 6 (1982) mixes the sound of crumpled, torn and waved paper with wood and water. These are new performances of the pieces by the maelstrom percussion ensemble conducted by percussionist and old Cage hand Jan Williams. Performances are all fine. The first 5 landscapes are the most radical and imaginative and occupy about half the time, No.6 is 26 minutes long, and is the one that sounds most meditative and 'Cagean' ('I have nothing to say and I'm saying it'). A good collection with useful notes.
	CAGE, JOHN: Imaginary Landscapes Code:HATART145 Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
The entire series, composed between 1939 and 1985 gathered together on one CD. No.1, the first to use the gramophone as a performing instrument (alongside three piano notes and a cymbal) is visionary; Nos.2 & 3 (1942) for amplified springs, percussion, electric buzzers and, again, vari-speed turntables, clatter and explode like rather psychotic junkyard skirmishes; No.4 for 12 radios was another landmark and, for No.5 (1952), Cage moved to straight ahead plunderphonics, using 42 taped recordings of extracts from (jazz) gramophone records instead of radios. 6 (1982) mixes the sound of crumpled, torn and waved paper with wood and water. These are new performances of the pieces by the maelstrom percussion ensemble conducted by percussionist and old Cage hand Jan Williams. Performances are all fine. The first 5 landscapes are the most radical and imaginative and occupy about half the time, No.6 is 26 minutes long, and is the one that sounds most meditative and 'Cagean' ('I have nothing to say and I'm saying it'). A good collection with useful notes.
	CAGE, JOHN: Imaginary Landscapes Code:HATART145 Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
The entire series, composed between 1939 and 1985 gathered together on one CD. No.1, the first to use the gramophone as a performing instrument (alongside three piano notes and a cymbal) is visionary; Nos.2 & 3 (1942) for amplified springs, percussion, electric buzzers and, again, vari-speed turntables, clatter and explode like rather psychotic junkyard skirmishes; No.4 for 12 radios was another landmark and, for No.5 (1952), Cage moved to straight ahead plunderphonics, using 42 taped recordings of extracts from (jazz) gramophone records instead of radios. 6 (1982) mixes the sound of crumpled, torn and waved paper with wood and water. These are new performances of the pieces by the maelstrom percussion ensemble conducted by percussionist and old Cage hand Jan Williams. Performances are all fine. The first 5 landscapes are the most radical and imaginative and occupy about half the time, No.6 is 26 minutes long, and is the one that sounds most meditative and 'Cagean' ('I have nothing to say and I'm saying it'). A good collection with useful notes.
	CAGE, JOHN: James Joyce, marcel duchamp, erik satie: an alphabet. Code:WER63102 Price: £21.74 Quantity in Basket: none
Dbl CD. Words, words, words Ð a kind of play in fact Ð made for German radio. 2 Versions here, English and German. Some poor jokes, some engaging moments, some eclectic and interesting quotationsÉ adding up to - an acquired taste, a politeness test for the public, another Cagean experiment? Is it interesting that thereÕs not enough sense here in the text for sense and not enough music for music in the sound; that it skips about, leaving in passing some engaging thoughts, some pointless observations, some silly formulations -with half embarrassed titters from the public? I was more charmed by reading CageÕs books than hearing similar narratives and commentaries read aloud and invested with specific colour, tone and interpretation by awkward readers. So, though it is a sometimes charming trail through the unexpected byways and readings of CageÕs enthusiasms, for this listener it was more often an irritating, self congratulation session where good thoughts are devalued and bad ones delivered as gems. ThereÕs a lot of bad writing, bad reading and annoying public reaction here. Pretentious, amateurish are words that come to mind. As a performance piece it might work - if you were there; and as a radio piece maybe Ð disappearing into the air as spoken. But as a CD? For me it works only as a document, as evidence in a case; it gives no pleasure. Is it possible that thereÕs too much reverence for Cage around these days, and not enough calling a spade a spade? King John it seems was often walking naked, but his courtiers saw finery anyway. Unhappily, that way what was really fine gets devalued. Cage did a lot that was important, but some things are better left as ephemera.
	CAGE, JOHN: John Cage Code:edel0136582CRA Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
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: Roaratorio Code:MODE28/29 Price: £29.38 Quantity in Basket: none
First CD recording of the 1979 realisation of one of Cageâs most massive later pieces, with location recordings from all the sites mentioned by Joyce in Finnegansâ Wake (in sequence), with Cage reading the text and traditional Irish musicians playing· what they play, all overlaid and rolled up together. The CD includes a separate track of Cageâs reading (since itâs often lost in the stew) and an interview with Cage about the piece by Klaus Schoning (the whole project was bankrolled by West West German radio and IRCAM in the days when they still had the funds for this sort of massive undertaking). 2 books (80pp + 44pp)
	CAGE, JOHN: Sonatas & Preludes Code:MODE50 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	CAGE, JOHN: Sonatas and Interludes Code:Parallele20001 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Performed by Mario Bertoncini, prepared piano. Fine performance, great document.
	CAGE, JOHN: The Lost Works Code:MODE55 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
CD and Book in a box with excellent notes. Here are (I) the GREAT radio piece 'The City Wears a Slouch Hat' by text by Kenneth Patchen set by Cage (mostly for percussion and noise) made originally for the Columbia radio workshop in 1942, here the music is much more audible and better sounding than the radio bootleg, though the text is not so well rendered. Nevertheless, this ranks in my book as a major work, and unmissable (Cage even being programmatic!). Great text by KP. To fill up the CD are some fascinating juvenilia: 1840 Cage, before he found his metier with a peculiar mixture of genres and styles. Interesting only. But 'The City' is a must
	CAGE, JOHN: Three Code:Mode186 Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
For all manner of recorders played by three people.
	CAGE, JOHN: Two Code:Mode193 Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
For two pianos
	CAGE, JOHN: Vol 10. Europeras 3 & 4 Code:MODE38/39 Price: £24.50 Quantity in Basket: none
	CAGE, JOHN: Vol 8: Europa 5 Code:MODE36 Price: £12.50 Quantity in Basket: none
	CALON, CHRISTIAN: Ligne De Vie Code:IMED9001CD Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
(Lifeline: Electric Tales) 3 pieces from 1985, 88, 89. Classic acousmatics; electronic, environmental and concrete sources, organised with great power and sensitivity. Big works that hold together well.
	CAMBERWELL NOW: All's Well Code:DU0022 Price: £13.51 Quantity in Basket: none
After the demise of This Heat, Charles Hayward continued to work with Trefor Goronwy, bassist from the last manifestation of the group, the two of them joining forces with Steve Rickard who, for the new band, designed the cassette 'switchboard' a kind of proto-sampler - but that's not the half of it (Steve's article fully explaining the device is reprinted in the new, expanded booklet that comes with the CD). Musically, Camberwell both followed and departed from the style of This Heat. Formally and gesturally there are common elements, but there is far greater transparency and the sound palette is quite different: the music is more placed than grown, as the slow accumulation and evolution of material in This Heat gives way to a more immediate and orderly development of the material in Camberwell Now. The songs - nostalgic, scary, quietly desperate - peer into the future to find harbour but confront only fragments of ruin. Debris and disturbance eat away at the root and corrode each shiny surface (this is mostly the musical work of the cassette switchboard). The juxtaposition of powerful, virtuosic playing and the eerie, often unidentifiable keenings, chords and constant motion of the cassettes is one of the things that make Camberwell Now so expressive of its time - when the whole social and political fabric of a no-longer-great Britain was unravelling. This definitive edition collects the entire released output of the group together (two EPs and an LP) newly re-mastered by the band and repackaged with full notes, lyrics, additional photographs and artwork.
	CAMERON, ALISON: Ornaments Code:SPP202 Price: £14.10 Quantity in Basket: none
An austere record, not for casual listening, but there is something very interesting here. These are small pieces, where every sound counts and where the distinction between acoustic and electronic is sometime hard to draw - though all these pieces are acoustic. Using parallel and unison lines, very open phrasing, silences, sometimes audibly baroque echoes, these pieces traverse a unique territory. The first, for clarinet, violin, cello piano, toy piano and bells is a long linear unfolding, the second for piano and the third for bass clarinet explore the edge of sounds and a minimal structure, the last, for a reconstructed forte-piano mixes musical languages, and even has some busy passages. Not for all, but a rewarding release for careful listeners.
	CAMERON, ALISON: Raw Sangudo Code:X1112 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Contemporary Music with a strong individual print. Minimal but not minimalistic; sparse landscapes full of luminous tension. Exquisite instrumentation somehow moving from music that has almost disappeared to a kind of rock. A true original.
	CAMPBELL, DIRK: Music from a Walled Garden Code:MFA002 Price: £14.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A second solo CD from Dirk/Mont Campbell of wide-ranging, mostly quietish pieces performed on a vast array of (mostly exotic) instruments [inc. bansuri, kora, cello, clarinet, ukulele, fujara, filimbi, zampogna, recorders, violin, oud, irish flute, viola, ney, shenai, rabab, uileann pipes, mezoued, zither, coach horns, and a lot of percussion]. Hard to describe, since it has an atmosphere and wholeness that conceals the conditions of its making, origins and musical-linguistic vocabulary, leaving just what you hear. It's more like an hour with a good - and smart - companion than anything else. Intelligence + modesty = pleasure. There are world music echoes (inevitably given the instrumentation) and dance elements and more abstract stretches, but mostly this is generically non-aligned music, not out to shock, and not wasting its or your time.
	CANTU, PAULO / CERINA, FABIO / CIFFO, LUCA / IRIONDO, XABIER: Four gardens in One (8cm) Code:wallace31 Price: £8.81 Quantity in Basket: none
More from the unique Wallace label, again of sounds not songs, made by recognisable, played instruments. There is structure, though episodic, and occasionally melody and rhythm. It's generally quite delicate. Again, unlike laptops or samplers, you always hear human performance here. The aesthetic is ... their own; it doesn't read like free improvisation, or Cage (though more like Cage). If you liked the others, you'll like this.
	CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND: Dichotomy Code:OZITCD8003 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
23 tracks of pieces known and (mostly) unknown - all unreleased versions whose provenance is not given on the CD but which are all pretty fine, and will be wanted by Magic Band fans.
	CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND THE MAGIC BAND: Grow Fins (5 CDÕs and Book) Code:Revenant210 Price: £51.70 Quantity in Basket: none
5 CDs of unreleased material, tracing the Magic Bands from the beginning. Includes a whole CD of Troutmask rehearsals at Beefheart's house and one collection (no 5) that is just unspeakably great, showing how completely extraordinary the magic band could be in concert and including a Don piano original (Odd Jobs) and the band "demo" version of Odd Jobs from the unreleased Batchain Puller. Plus Don acapella, Don plays the Mellotron and synth live and some unbeatable performances. Plus a long historical memoir by John French (aka Drumbo), occupying the larger part of a 112 page book full of fascinating material and pictures. Definitive. Indispensable. And reasonably priced! Book and Box. Possibly limited supply. Sorry but credit card payment on this box is a horrible £2 extra)
	CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND THE MAGIC BAND: The captain's last live concert plus. (dbl CD) Code:OZITCD9004 Price: £21.15 Quantity in Basket: none
Limited edition, more than fair-quality recording, of Don with the last Eric Drew Feldman/ Robert Williams/ Jeff Tepper/Richard Snyder Magic Band, very rehearsed and on form. 19 songs, predominantly Trout Mask/Decals era, with 3 extra tracks: a fascinating full-strummed, folk guitar version of Orange Claw Hammer; Don speaking a little about music and the band; Ry Cooder reminiscing about working with Don on Safe as Milk. Nicely designed though poorly documented. For fans rather than beginners.
	CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: Dust Sucker Code:BF6003 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Being the unreleased Bat Chain Puller LP (tracks came out on later LP's mostly in re-recorded versions with different personnel). I remember when this showed up at Virgin's A&R dept., we all thought it was the best thing since trout mask (and like TM was also recorded by Frank Zappa). Because of sordid and petty money and attorney dramas, it never saw the light of day; so it's great to see it out at last, not in the best reproductive condition but still extremely good. And the songs are stunning. Floppy Boot Stomp is one of the very great Beefheart songs, Owed t' Alex shows, like Veteran's Day Poppy, what a great original John French was, Harry Irene is so much more than it seems, Poop Hatch is scary, A Carrot· breathtaking, 1010th day and Apes-Ma ...prophetic - and so on. Trout Mask may have been the strangest but Batchain was the most rounded and complete of Beefheart's works - in my opinion, whatever all the other commentators have said. I certainly would not choose between them. In addition there are 7 extra tracks here, 5 of which are absolutely indispensable, being (though not credited here information on the CD is meagre to say the least the short-lived band consisting I'm almost certain of Elliot Ingber (Winged Eel), John French, Tom Fowler, Denny Walley and Eric Drew Feldman. The last two tracks, well, it would have been better to put them on another compilation. Don't miss this CD.
	CARDEW, CORNELIUS / PLM: Consciously Code:mncd009 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A collection of 27 songs by Cardew and/or People's Liberation Music - the agitprop band Cardew worked with between 1972-80. In support of strikes and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), at demonstrations, socials and in factories, combating racism, police brutality and imperialism, PLM, armed only with a quiver full of earnest, clunky and often rather ungainly songs, merged traditional melodies, workers' songs and pop clichés in pursuit of some sort of proletarian authenticity. Their sympathies were in the right place - and certainly they worked selflessly for the causes they espoused (mainly the chimera of 'the' revolution), but musically they seemed wilfully to betray their own culture and talents, while at the same time failing completely to understand the people or the cultural forms they so earnestly aped. The problem seemed to be that, at root, their work didn't grow out of their experience but was imposed upon it in the name of theory. In fact, the forms of folk, rock and pop seemed positively antithetical to them. Nevertheless, they soldiered on, as if wrapping themselves in wool might yet turn them into sheep. Particularly at the level of political and aesthetic failure, this music rewards attention: It ticks so many of the right boxes - so why doesn't it work? One obvious lack is any understanding of the role of the human voice in the forms they adopt; only Cardew, in a composition of his own, manages to find a voice that seems actually to inhabit the song he is singing. Cornelius, Keith Rowe and Hugh Shrapnel feature on many of these recordings, Dave Smith, Evan Parker and Pip Pyle make appearances, John Tilbury is credited as the co-composer of a proposed PLM single (never released) and, importantly, these are mostly recovered documents from the time, not recent reconstructions - though individual annotation is poor in what are otherwise very useful notes). A very British document.
	CARDEW, CORNELIUS & THE SCRATCH ORCHESTRA: The Great Learning (1968-70) Code:organofcorti21 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
CD reissue, limited quantity of original recordings of paragraphs 1,2 and 7. 1 - for chorus and organ and stones - recorded at The Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1982; 2 - for singers and drummers - and 7 - for untrained voices - studio recordings from the Deutsche Grammophon release in 1971. This is the real thing.
	CARDEW, CORNELIUS : Four Principles on Ireland Code:ampere7 Price: £13.00 Quantity in Basket: none
Reissue of the great LP of Cornelius' Piano Music. Full description in next.