LAUNCHING FRED RECORDS - which will reissue all the deleted RecRec Fred titles and new and unreleased material in equal measure. The first two releases are:

FRED FRITH:  Gravity - ReR/FRO1 - £11
At last this classic record is back in print in its original form. Fred's first post Cow solo album of great tunes and dancing rhythms with Samla Mammas Manna, The Muffins and various guests. A major work that mixes infectious compositions, great performances, innovative techniques, advance recordings and an overarching structure that binds the entire work together. Still a definitive statement and a great record to listen or jump around to. Remastered, repackaged.

FRED FRITH:  Accidental - ReR/FRA1 - £11
Unreleased work.11 pieces. Originally composed and recorded for choreographer Paul Selwyn Norton with big guitar, violin, voice, pedals, radios, keyboards, extraneous noises and voices off put together as rhythms, large chords, squeals, harmony ...with accidents motre than welcome. This is Fred with the stops out and the musical intelligence set at high...you want it.

NOTE - become a friend of fred records
ARTIST SIGNED LIMITED EDITION:  VOL 1. 8 CD's+Book - order by name - £95
There will be a very limited signed and numbered edition of Volume 1 - which will include a special book to accompany the first 8 releases with Fred's notes about the works and the process of their composition and recording, as well as related photographs and other documentary materials. (This will continue in Vol. 2 and will ground a definitive edition). Volume I will comprise Gravity, Accidental, Guitar Solos, Step Across the Border, Fingerprints (a new CD of songs), Middle of the Moment and Keep the Dog Live. All the reissues will be remastered and repackaged. To become a friend of fred costs 95 pounds (45 now and 50 when we send CD No.5 - with the book. For it you get the numbered 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. Members of the ReR record club will get the book free as part of their membership.

BOB DRAKE:  The Skull Mailbox - CTA 9 - £11.00
The strangest so far. Mostly songs; a lot of acoustic instruments, a lot of unidentifiable sounds, a lot of fragments borne on a wind from somewhere else; bizarre picking interludes, humour (maybe) and snatches of incandescent playing. You can't pin this one down; it's full of twists and turns and a geometry that doesn't quite add up. Seemingly casual, there's not an ounce of fat on it, and the production - or anti-production - is, on repeated listening, quite extraordinary. Impressive.

GROUND ZERO:  Plays Standards - ReR GZ3 - £11
Just when you thought it would be safe... Ground Zero are back with a CD of extraordinary covers, some are massive, others strange, all add something to their originals and were selected because of their importance to founder Otomo Yoshihide's personal musical biography - all explained in his excellent accompanying notes. Just the version of Shed a Little Tear is worth the whole CD.

CHARMING HOSTESS:  Eat - VAC 016 - £12
Voices are generally so underdeveloped at the outer fringes of rock (there are some exceptions: Mike Patton comes to mind) but here they take centre stage, with a whole set of highly individual voices and a radical approach to harmony, microtonality and multi-layering. The Hostesses make highly accessible but not simple music, characterised by excellent arrangements and strong leanings to various folk and experimental rock traditions. It's dense but clean. Sometimes Skeleton Crew comes to mind. It's an original and eclectic mixture, bound together by a central idea and highly focussed performances. A fine, fresh first CD. And nicely packaged.

FAUST and VARIOUS REMIXERS:  Freispiel - EFA CD 06289-2 - £12
Clubby remixes from Ravvivando by Matthias Schaffhauser, Dave Ball, Sofa Surfers, The Residents, Funkstorung, Howie B, Triullian, Kreidler, Surgeon,Dead Voices on Air, Dax & Peiper. Not standard Faust.

LARS HOLLMER:  Autokamp A(nd)More - KRAX 12 - £14
Ten unreleased and wonderful Hollmer pieces released in a one-off limited edition of 500 in Japan. Great. Very short supply. Last copies.

IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN:   31 Artists and 3 duos, 10 CDs, Fat booklet. Box. Limited Edition - IMJ-10CD - £120.00
Wooden Presentation Box with a nicely designed set of 5 solid double gatefold board packs and a flatbound 80pp book of notes in English and Japanese that includes pieces by Otomo Yoshihide, Haco, Ground Zero, Kasuhisa Uchihashi, Happiness Proof, Hoahio, Tetsuro Yasanaga, Toshimaru Nakamura, Yoshimitsu Icihraku cymbal orchestra, Sachiko M, Taku Sugimoto, Ami Yoshida,Yumiko Tanaka, Michihiro Sato, Michiyu Yagi, Ryoji Kaiyu, Mitsuru Natsuno, Atsuhiro Ito, Seiichi Yamamoto, Aki Onda, Eye Yamatsuka, Kazuo Imai - featuring all manner of instruments - electric, acoustic, traditional, virtual, invented, converted, adopted, unlikely - and all manner of ways of making and organising the sounds they make. A lot is covered here (fascinating to compare this set with the 'Not necessarily English Music' double - see below - at least the subject of a doctoral thesis). It is, however, pretty strictly for those who know what to expect. There is a preponderance of minimal and electronic works, mirroring developments of the last few years in Japan: austerity and abstraction rather than energy and expressionism. It's expensive, but it is a one-off limited edition and it does capture the state of play of a vital school at a critical and fascinating moment. All praise and honour to editor Yoshiyuki Suzuki.

ALBERT MARCOEUR:   Albert Marcoeur - M1 1976 - £12.75
At last, the reissue, on their own label, of the classic first Marcoeur Brothers' album; one of the great landmark records of the early 70s and still a model of originality and imagination today. Like nothing and no one else, this collection of eccentric songs, with extraordinary and extended arrangements immediately became a classic. Deservedly.

ALBERT MARCOEUR:   Plusiers cas de Figures - M8/2000 - £12.75
Like Van Dyle Parks, Albert is sparing but a perfectionist; this is his first new work for a long long time, and again an exemplar of measured strangeness; it creates its own ground. The instrumentation is extensive and unusual - but restrained - and the arrangements flawless. A modest gem.

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART:   Dust Sucker - BF6003 - £12.00
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.

BOB OSTERTAG:   Say No More (dbl cd) - BO3/04 - £15.50
First two volumes of the great set which began with Bob getting samples from Joey Baron, Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway and Phil Minton and creating a roaring piece with them (Vol 1) which the same people then learned to play, after a fashion and recorded (Vol 2). Fascinating and powerful and a rare chance to meditate on the mixed qualities of sampled and played musics. Great work. Limited Edition in metal boxes.

SOFT MACHINE:   Backwards - Rune 170 - £12.00
Soft machine recordings from November 1969 and May 1970 (the 7 piece with Marc Charig, Lyn Dobson and Nick Evans added), plus the Robert Wyatt Moon in June demo (1968/9). This is definitely one of the ones to get, a classic.

UNIVERS ZERO:   Rhythmix - Rune 165 - £11.50
A new CD from a band essentially consisting of original UZ ‘s Daniel Denis (drums and all Keyboards) and Michel Berckmans and bassist Eric Plantain, with various guests on individual tracks playing Marimba, Acoustic Guitars, Trumpet, Flute, Cello, Accordion.. Form: 13 shorter pieces with more variation of colour than usual but musically less intense than the classic era. There are a couple of very nice stretches, with interesting combinations of harpsichord and classical tuned percussion.

L'ENSEMBLE RAYE:   The Cardinal Countepoints - Kein & Aber - £12.00
Another great CD of tuneful, generically wide-ranging and beautifully played pieces; like Lars Hollmer this band misses every known category, and to say there are influences from ska to satie, Ireland to Brasil almost misses the point; this is deeply musical and never opportunistic. One of the treasures.

AMM:   Fine - MRCD 46 - £12.00
Music for dance performance. Another great and somehow different work from the masters, where every sound counts. Classic.

ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER:   The perfect record for the.. - rere 175 - £12.00
Starting with (inc) glassharp, prepared pvc clarinets, resonators, Korean gong, buzz-tars, flowerpots, mouth organ, various percussion, cello and invented instruments, this interesting quartet constructs rhythmic, faux ethnic, quasi-electronic pieces, that fall between several worlds.

BIDZILIBA:  Uchu - FMC 017 - £12
Songs, pop songs, simple - fairly -, transparent, perfectly arranged and extremely engaging. Singer Fuchigami Junko has a very personal style and great pitching. .Bass and tuned percussion are exquisitely placed. Not an earthquake but a small gem. Japanese import.

BIDZILIBA:  RocQ - FMC 022 - £12
See above - they just get better.

IVA BITTOVA:  Cikori - MAM 150-2 - £12
The only Iva Bittova, what else to say? With Vladimir Vaclavec (Bile Inferno) guitar. Plus contrabass, percussion and trumpet

MIKOLAS CHADIMA:  The City (db) - BP 0123 - £18
Part of Czech underground history, written and occasionally performed at the end of 1979 and eventually released on vinyl after the changes in 1989, this has all the characteristic qualities of the best of the productions of that period (extended rock with an unmistakable Czech inflection); especially volume 2, which is great. No Western group ever sounded like this. (In fact the only non MC song here, a radically reinterpreted 'Sunshine of your Love' could function as a kind of E-W Rosetta stone. A classic.

FRED FRITH/MAYBE MONDAY:  Digital Wildlife - 910 071-2 - £12.50
Fred with Miya Masaoka (Koto, electronics), Larry Ochs (saxes) & Joan Jeanrenaud (cello), live concert recording. In the usual lush Winter & Winter packaging...

ANDREW HODGES:  Celtic Soundscapes - order by name - £12
An original and unusual CD of sampled and processed sound that has a definite harmonic and rhythmic centre, though buried and blurred and overlain; some echoes of Biota occasionally in the swirling, coming-into-being quality of some of the sounds - which are at once recognisable and highly processed. Some sounds to test your equipment here too, but always engrossing and mysterious. Nice work.

JABLKON & SVECENY:  Mumlava - SUB 0003-2 - £12
A light, sure touch. featuring variously, acoustic guitars, violin, viola, bass, oboe, bassoon, percussion and keyboards, where every detail is important and which features an effective and unusual use of low-mixed voices to add instrumental colour. Highly articulated and imaginative music, exquisitely realised.

JANNICK TOP/ UTOPIC SPORADIC ORCHESTRA:   Nancy 75 - CODE - £12.00
OK. In this community there will never be agreement about Magma. After Top joined, there was a massive project based around Magma and a Top composition 'De Futura' at the Nancy Jazz Festival in 1975, a year in which Henry Cow also played there. In fact, Fred Frith, Lindsay Cooper and Tim Hodgkinson were all asked to join the Utopic Orchestra performance. They rehearsed but declined to do the concert. That's another story. On this CD, one of the rehearsals and the concert itself both appear - remarkably well recorded. In composition: rigour, the ramification of limited materials and internal complexity; in performance: articulation, expression and discipline - these seem to me to be the key to Magma (qualities those who hate the group are not impressed by) and while this recording is wilder and less reigned in than classic Magma, the precision and discipline are still there. The composition (uncharacteristically purely instrumental) is simplicity itself; everything is in the development and expression of a few essential musical parameters. Top's playing is frighteningly authoritative and large sections are effectively Drum and Bass led, driving too fast for the road but without a slip. Breathtaking -IF you like Magma. The 2 versions are sufficiently different to merit their both being here - in fact the differences are instructive ( I prefer the rehearsal myself but there are details of the concert that are missed in the rehearsed version). Finally, there are three extra pieces KMX E XII Opus 3 in 2 versions (the first a species of the usual jazz-rock, the second far more interesting), and La Musique des Spheres/Part (10 minute accompanied bass solo, hmm.)

JANNICK TOP:   Soleil D'Ork - Order by name - £12.00
Mostly demos of Top's Magma pieces where he plays everything - although Musique des Spheres interestingly features a lot of percussionists from Dakar. Includes. Utopia Viva, De Futura, Soleil d'Ork and Glas (never used but an interesting ambient construction of bass elements). Also the full version of Mekanik Machine performed by Magma.

DAVE KERMAN:   Abandonship - Rune 158 - £11.45
Dave plays all instruments (drums, of course, bass, guitars, keyboards and who knows what else) Thinking Plague's Deborah Perry sings. Full band material, well arranged with Kerman's trademark angular melodies, oblique texts and a curious tribute to Present (track 3). Mostly instrumental.

RENE LUSSIER and MARTIN TETREAULT:   Qu'ouis-je - AM 081CD - £12.00
Almost complete absence of recognisable sounds but at the same time informed by a sensibility and subtlety that comes from performance. More movement and information than Bernhard Gunther or the new generation Japanese minimalists, but just as radical and on adjoining ground. The map is already a distant memory. Nice work.

WILL MENTER:   Above & Below Ground Level - res01 - £12.00
Very nice work consisting of environmental/musical recordings. Some will remember his work from our Quarterlies. Here he records in a cave in the Pyrenees, a flooded and frozen field in Somerset, a stone vault at Cluny Abbey and feature his own slate and bass slate marimbas, fired earth percussion, leather soles, ersatozophone and clapping inside large pots. Excellent. CDR edition.

ROGER MILLER, LARRY DERSCH (BINARY SYSTEM):   From the Epicentre - ALP 117 CD - £12.00
Pieces for piano and drums; organised and composed.

NOT NECESSARILY ENGLISH MUSIC:   A collection of Experimental Music from Great Britain, 1960 -1977 (dbl CD) - EMF CD 036 - £18.00
Compiled by David Toop for the Leonardo Music Journal, this is an invaluable window on a good part of the fringe music that enlivened the UK music community 30 years ago - and comprises archive recordings of documentary importance and variable quality, including performances by AMM, Max Eastley, Intermodulations, Frank Perry, Daphne Oram, Bob Cobbing, Hugh Davies, Lolk Coxhill, John Stevens, Parker/Lytton, Steve Beresford, Cornelius Cardew, Ron Geesin, Gentle Fire, Derek Bailey, Toop/Burwell, Campiello Band, Mike Cooper... of course there are many omissions, and as Toop says, space is limited (although two people have two tracks each, so there's space for a couple more at least); however - and I hope this does not seem arrogant - it does strike me as strange how thoroughly Henry Cow and its members have been airbrushed out of this particular history. This was our period, much of what we did was as experimental as anything else going on at the time - and indeed we organised concerts - and performed with - half the people on this compilation (HC was also part of the LMC, Fred Frith's 'Guitar Solos' was released in 1973 - and two of the people on this set even auditioned to join the group). Look in almost any history however and - nothing. It's strange. That aside, this is still an important, if partial temporal document.

PIDGIN COMBO:  The Long Vacation - FMC 018 - £12
From concerts in Japan in 1988 and 1989 organised by Keyboardist Okhuma Wataru and featuring Tom Cora and Shinoda Masami, plus Rorie (voice, bass marimba) and Kimura Shinya (drums and saxes), both from LunaPark Ensemble, and bassist Nishimura Takuya (from che-SIZU).These are very good recordings of a notable 'lost' band embodying some excellent extended compositions, including a previously unpublished piece by Tom Cora and Lars Hollmer, and fine performances all round. A very welcome and carefully prepared release. Japanese import.

PRESENT:   High Infidelty - C7 058 - £12.00
The best produced record by Present to date, I think, Dave Kerman and new bassist Keith Macsoud hold it down while the others beat it to death. Sorry I couldn't help that; it's not strictly true but it was irresistible. Trigaux' method is to move slowly around a riff, make arrangement interventions, power sounds and maybe state a suspended melody - then move on to the next. So the meat is in the detail and the sounds. The first, a 27 minute' epic by Roger Trigaux pretty much says it all for me; I think it works. The other, shorter pieces will not disappoint fans, one a sort of variation on the Peter Gunn theme, very minimal; the other a song.

NUNO REBELO:   On the Edge - Order by name - £11.45
Assembled from various improvisations in France, featuring Nuno (E.Guitar), Marco Franco (drums) and occasional extras. Often compared with Fred Frith, Rebelo uses a wide variety of sounds and techniques, as does the excellent Marco Franco; an impressive duo. The first half especially is a model of intelligence, musicality and imagination in improvisation. Good sound, and some classic passages.

NUNO REBELO, KATO HIDEKI, MARCO FRANCO:   Live at ZDB - Order by name - £11.45
Live concert, recorded in Lisbon, show and rehearsal.

TARAFUKI:  Tarafuki - MAM153-2 - £12
2 women, one Czech, one Polish who both play cellos and sing. But there's a lot to be got from that seemingly minimal instrumentation and these pieces are remarkably flexible, expressive and persuasive throughout. The medium is openly structured songs - with much use of additive rhythms and stretched techniques. There are some inevitable echoes of Iva Bittova here, of course, given the instrumentation and history of the region, but essentially this is an original and imaginative record.

VANDERTOP:  Best on tour '76 - UR 01005 - £12
Mekanik Zain short, extraordinarily tight with virtuoso breaks and scary tempi, excellent recorded; De Futura in another version and Troller Tanz, and Musique des Spheres ditto.

VANDER/TOP:   Paris 76 - CODE - £12.00
From a concert at the Theatre de la Renaissance 2.11.76. Versions of Hhai, La Musique des Spheres, De Futura and Troller Tanz. One of the classic incarnations, with Blasquiz, Vander, Lockwood Grailler, Federow and Top. Magma - but with that rather austere compositional style that Top specialised in predominating. Interesting version of De Futura.

BRIAN WOODBURY:   The Brian Woodbury Songbook - Some Phil 5 - £12.00
For those who like songs, a little eccentric but not too strange, with full arrangements, more in the mainstream of show tradition, except with flashes of brilliance, Brian is one of the few: 'Consummate songwriting and craft, says Van Dyke Parks, 'not since Esquivel and the young Brian Wilson have I heard sound of this romantic design. Indispensable.' A song has to please many masters. These shift from the centre to the edge. Of course I prefer the edge; and you won't come across this CD anywhere else, I'm sure.

JOHN CAGE:  Sonatas and Interludes - Parallele 20001 - £12
Performed by Mario Bertoncini, prepared piano. Fine performance, great document.

FRANCIS DHOMONT:  Cycle du Son - IMED 0158 - £12.50
Four very persuasive pieces: an homage to the 'discovery of sound' and the innovations of Pierre Schaeffer, starting with a 'paraphrase' of his Etude aux Objets, Concrete more digital. A substantial and important work.

CHRISTOPHER DOBRIAN:   music for piano ands computers - EMF CD 018 - £12.00
Between Conlon Nancarrow and Zappa's Synclavier work, except that the compositions are automated rather than conceived and programmed by a human author. Some interesting results.

WERNER DURAN:   The Art of buzzing - x-t 2004 - £12.00
Multilayered and processed pieces mostly made from invented resonating instruments consisting of pvc pipes with sax mouthpieces and a membrane made from a plastic shopping bag attached, except in one piece where flower pots and foil are used. Result: evolving, polychromatic drones. For drone aficionados.

DAVID FELDER - MORTON FELDMAN:   4 works - EMF CD 033 - £12.00
Includes Feldman's excellent Instruments II and The Viola in My Life, plus 2 substantial works by the more maximal composer David.Felder.

ELLEN FULLMAN,TAKEHISA KOSUGI, MARIO VERANDI, FAST FORWARD, OLGA NEUWIRTH, HORATIO VAGGIONE:   Zeitenwechsel 2 - Parallele 20002 - £12.00
Fullman: her celebrated long string instruments plus oboe multiphonics; Vaggione, tape and contrabasse flute (unconventional techniques); Fast Forward, a nice faux Japanese tape-piece and, with Kosugi, a performance with violin, steel pans and other metal percs; Verandi, for water and a plastic bottle; Neuwirth for 3 Percussionists and live electronics - a long and substantial work

PAUL KOONCE:   Walkabout & Back - mode 90 - £12.00
4 electroacoustic pieces, mixing musical (pitched, instrumental, played or sampled) elements with a vast library of collected sounds and processing. Precise, imaginative, dynamic, unusual. Employing an organising aesthetic that the phrase a 'procession of sounds' seems best to describe; fascinating but resolutely unmusical.

HUGH LIVINGSTONE:   Strings and Machines - EMF CD 017 - £12.00
4 works for Cello real-time processing, computer.

EDWARD MATTILA:   Electrophonic means - EMF CD 007 - £12.00
Six good pieces, Tape music, electronic sources, shades of Bebe Barron and the sixties echo and burble, but more.

NEWBAND:  HARRY PARTCH, DEAN DRUMMOND - Innova 561 - £12
Solid gold CD, with fine performances of Partch's 11 Intrusions and the rare Dark Brother, plus new works for Parch instruments in Harry's style by Drummond: Before the last Laugh and Congressional Record (with wonderful texts), both extremely good. Buy it! Dominic Muldowney, Bernard Rands and Jan Steele).

ROBERT NORMADEAU:   Claire de Terre - IMED 0157 - £12.00
Finely crafted, good system or headphone music where the detail really counts.

HELMUTH, OTE:   Implements of Actuation - EMF CD 023 - £12.00
Despite the title, an interesting and sustained CD for percussionist and computer. 5 pieces, for specified instruments and recorded sounds (for instance limited metal percussion and a sample of a spoon hitting a pot - not that you'd ever guess - or stones, birdcalls, bells, earth and water related sounds, or snare drum (excellent), or electric Mbira and bicycle wheels - all with recorded sounds and processing. Substantial. It works.

HORATIU RADELESCU:   String quartet no.4 opus 33 - ED RZ 4002 - £12.00
Performed by the Arditti Quartet and eight virtual quartets - or 'a virtual 128 string viola da gamba' - tuned to '128 unique pitches corresponding to components of a C spectrum, between the 36th and 641st harmonic'. The effect is a complex, pulsating, nebulous impression of gravity in operation, of clouds and particles drifting and agglomerating in an uncertain space - if you accept such metaphors - otherwise it's a suspension of apparently chaotic sounds. Would work best either as background sound or sound to be surrounded by.

GIANCINTO SCELSI:   The Orchestral Works 1 - mode 95 - £12.00
Carnegie Mellon Symphony Orchestra & choir. 9 pieces: 6 short - Canti 1,2, 14, 15, 18, 19 for Soprano and Percussion, and 3 at about 11 minutes each - Hymnos for Organ and 2 Orchestras, Hurqualia for large orchestra and Konx-Om-Pax for large orchestra and chorus. The orchestra material is especially good.

LAURIE SPIEGEL:   Obsolete Systems - EMFCD 019 - £12.00
Classic early synthesisers and tapework by one of the mid era pioneers, these cover the period 70 - 83. High end work.... Excellent notes.

STATE OF THE UNION:  2001 (3 CDs) - EMF CD 028 - £25
171 roughly 1 minute tracks commissioned by Elliot Sharp from the likes of Fred Frith, Alvin Curran, Mezbow, Zeena Parkins, Carl Stone, Zoot Horn Rollo, The Tape Beatles, Ikue Mori, Joey Barron, Christian Marclay, Henry Kaiser, Duck Baker, Marie Goyette, Alfred Harth....with no spaces, so shuffleplay for endlessly changing soundtrack. Like the famous Miniatures LP in lengths only: this is more a whole than parts, a necklace not a string of pearls.

MARK TRAYLE:   RM:MHZ - ART 1022 - £12.00
Arcana 33/13 programmes a computer and sampler to be controlled by a gramophone turntable, artCANgel is for tin can (vehicle for a french horn via CD) + computer, capital magnetic for credit cards and computer (transforming the magnetic data into sound) and Ciprocal generatied by webs of digital circuits. So the procedures generate the music, that's interesting - but so are many of the results.

MARTY WALKER:   Bass clarinet - CD 866 - £12.00
With Tape, with Piano, tripled - all OK, the most interesting piece to me is one for solo bassclarinet overdubbed twice, a simple but effective compositional idea (composer: Arthur Jarvinen) with interesting sonic consequences, a bit too long though.

VARIOUS:   Alma Latina - LNT 113 - £12.00
Electroacoustic Music from Latin America. A useful - and good - collection of pieces from Argentina, Peru and Mexico. Very varied and much excellent material

TREVOR WISHART:   Journey Into Space - PD18 - £12.00
Composed between 1970 and 72 in one of the UK's earliest electronic music studios, privately pressed as two LP's in 1973. There are acoustic sections, mostly of junk and toys (bike bells, squeeze horns, bottles, metal tubes, combs etc; everyday field recordings, Concrete sounds and a lot of processing (also features current York University students Steve Beresford, Jonty Harrison, Roger Marsh, Dominic Muldowney, Bernard Rands and Jan Steele).

TREVOR WISHART:   Voiceprints - EMF CD 029 - £12.00
Tracks generated around the human voice (though with many other environmental, concrete and processed sounds). Four take political and social shape - cartoons almost - around the voices respectively of Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana; a longer work circles around three icons of the American Dream (King, Armstrong, Presley); Anna's Magic Garden starts from a three year old and takes in scaffolding, pears and parquet; Blue Tulips recounts the unsettling dream of an eighty year old woman. Finally there is the large work Tongues of Fire (see website or old updates for review of this on an earlier release. It is still available separately on Trevor's own imprint).

TREVOR WISHART:   Red Bird/Anticredos - EMF CD 022 - £12.00
Red Bird (a political prisoner's dream) is the 1977 work where 'birds, animals, words and mechanisms' are 'orchestrated and transformed into one another'. A classic introduction to Wishart's trademark morphing procedures, as well as being a powerful and extraordinary creation. And unique in the catalogue of electronic/concrete/electroacoustic works. Anticredos, for six amplified vocalists, was reviewed (see website) when previously released. It is also available separately on Trevor's own imprint. Classic.

JOHN YOUNG:  La limite de Bruit - IMED 0261 - £12.50
New Zealand composer with 5 carefully crafted acousmatic pieces, both near and far from laptop: even though many of the sounds used and the majority of the processing technologies converge - of course, sampling and virtual studio software is ubiquitous, and the technology at the moment appears to be overpowering simple human imagination. The acousmatic school at least bring a keen sense of order and attention to detail to their work, there is something lapidary in even the more obvious unravellings that they perform. As here. No limits are reached, and no heights either. But it's crafted.

XENAKIS:  Musique Electro-acoustique - Fractal 015 - £12
Pour la Paix Voyage Absolu des Unari vers Andromede

JOHN CAGE:  Cheap Imitation - ampere 3 - £12.50
Recorded in 1976 at Mills college. Cage at the piano. A categorically tonal work, derived from Satie's Socrate. Nice packaging and documentation (by Blue Gene Tyranny). Another Cramps reissue.

JOHN CAGE:  Empty Words (dbl) - ampere 6 - £15.50
An historic recording from 1977in Italy, when Cage read the broken, droning text before a public that grows increasingly dissident and enraged so that, after the first 20 minutes or so they are the music; from then on it's howling, banging, extraneous music and noise. They should be getting more than half the royalties, since what's interesting is their reaction. One can always argue that this is a truly Cagean piece therefore; but that makes it a win-win situation for him. A document, not a musical experience. Of limited appeal but… Nicely packed and documented. Originally released on the legendary Cramps label..

CORNELIUS CARDEW:  Four Principles on Ireland - ampere 7 - £12.50
Reissue of the great LP of Cornelius' Piano Music. Full description in next.

LA CASA - KWI:  Fonderie. Paccard - mts 04 - £12
Fourth in this unusual series of place recordings capturing sounds from the region of Savoie, this one centred on the bell foundry at Paccard. Machines, the forge, the tuning room organised both in raw soundscapes and in transformed listening pieces. Interesting and fresh.

MARCEL DUCHAMP:  The Entire Musical Works of Marcel Duchamp. - ampere 5 - £12.50
Unheard at press time.

GRUPPO DI IMPROVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA:  Musica Su Schemi. - ampere 4 - £12.50
Something deep connects this 60's Italian project with the British AMM. The cast reads well: Franco Evangelisti (pno,percs), Giancaro Schiaffini (tb &c), Ennio Morricone (tpt. Fl, &c), Giovanni Piazza (horn, fl, vln), Egisto Macchi (percs, strings) and Antonello Neri (pno &c) and the music is open, sonically wide and engaging, abstract and full of surprises. Altogether a fine and historical release (actually re-release, the original came out of the great Cramps label in 1976). Nicely packaged.

PHIL KLINE:   Unsilent night - CA 21005 - £12.00
From the Bang on a Can label, a nicely judged piece derived from an installation or event piece consisting of many independent but related recordings played simultaneously through moving boomboxes. The recording is high quality and carefully assembled, and the result harmonious: elements used are all close in content and pitch, morphing as they overlap. The long sections of singing voices and bells work particularly well. Altogether a fine work.

MILAN KNiZAK:  Broken Music - ampere 12 - £12.50
Historic reissue of the legendary multhipla LP by the equally legendary Knizac, the man who in the early 60s started to cut records up and glue bits of different records together and scratch, sellotape, and generally mess with them, playing them and recording the results. Historic and surprising.

CHRISTINA KUBITSCH - FABRIZIO PLESSI:  Tempo Liquido - ampere 10 - £12.50
Circular music, rhythmical with riffing pitches, like radio blips and intermittent scrapings. From an installation, excellent booklet and case. Reissue of 1979 legendary Cramps release.

CHRISTINA KUBITSCH:  Two and Two - ampere - £12.50
Unheard at press time.

YANNIS KYRIAKIDES:  A conspiracy cantata - u01 - £12
Thoroughly composed 'electronic cantata' that juxtaposes 2 cryptic sources: short-wave radio spy number transmissions and the utterances of the oracle at Delphi. For Piano, 2 voices and electronics - fascinating work. Also includes hYDAtorison (for loudspeakers with sliding tones mounted inside piano, exiting varying pitches with feldmanesque playing alongside) and tetTIX for drum machines and heavy processing: unnatural sounds of nature as the machines call to one another in an'electronic Eden'. Altogether an impressive body of work.

JAPANESE INDEPENDENT MUSIC:   Title - JIM Book - £20.00
An encyclopaedia, with a short historical overview, several more specialised articles, A-Z entries on groups and artists with full discographies, label contacts, publications, venues and website indexe and a couple of maps. 360 pages and pretty comprehensive (of course one can think of missing entries - mainly earlier groups whose vinyl records have not been reissued on CD) but that's nitpicking; essentially, this is the only resource of it's kind and invaluable. Congratulations to Frank Stoffer and his team of 20. Comes with a CD of 18 previously unreleased tracks (inc. Haino Keiji, Acid Mothers Temple, KK Null, Hoppy Kamiyama, Haco, Ex Girl, Ruins, Harpy &c.).

VARIOUS - STARKLAND DVD:   Immersion - Order by Name - £[13.50]
Specially commissioned Surround Sound works by 13 composers, including Pamela Z, Bruce Odland, Carl Stone, Ellen Fullman, Paul Dresher, Lukas Ligeti, Pauline Olivieros, Paul Dolden,Merdith Monk. Only suitable for DVD reproduction, though there is also a stereo reduction of the material on the disc, as well as some 90 images that display as the sound unfolds.

MAGMA:   Theusz Hamtaahk Trilogy - MAGMA DVD - £20
As Video in last update.

  MARTIN ARCHER - GERALDINE MONK:   Angel High Wires - LCVP 149 CD - £12.00
12 songs inspired by Schubert, assembled using pre-recorded material supplied by Philip Thomas (prepared piano) & Chris Cutler (processed percussion), performed material by Chris Meloche (electronics), Charlie Collins (flute) & Mick Beck (bassoon), and sung by Julie Tippets, Steve Roden, Sedayne and Rachel McCarron. Sparse, abstract, austere.

CURTIS BAHN:   R!g - EMF CD030 - £12.00
Pieces for sensor bass and live electronics, Bahn has designed a highly sensitive and interactive instrument with which he can generate real-time electronic music, though unlike Rose he is aligned more to the genre of computer music than to charting the experimental badlands, still it's solid work, if a little narrow and rather hectic.

  BUDAPASTIS:   La Bouche Fermee - HD CD003 - £11.00
2 very open, sound orientated atmospheres, somehow played but sounding like Cage for large room, hanging mike and small activities..

  JOHN CAGE:   Bird Cage - EMF CD013 - £12.00
Three sets of tapes, birds, Cage 'singing' and environmental sounds organised in a - you know - complicated non-random random way way. Plus two extracts from an interview with the composer about the recording.

  FUSION 80:  Riverbop Paris (Dbl CD) - UR 01006 - £12.00
Top, Vander, Widermann and Lockwood
7 pieces of fusion jazz played by Vander, Top, Lockwood and Widemann. Fast, accurate..pieces by Lockwood, Hammer, Holdsworth, Top.

  IF BWANA:  L'Angelica (Dbl CD) - POGUS P21024-2 - £12.00

  STEFFEN BASHO JUNGHANS:   Waters in Azure - SAAH005CD - £12.00
Very minimal steel string and slide guitar..

  ROBERT MAGGIO:   Riddles - CD 870 - £12.00
Pieces for Piano, piano and flute, piano, clarinet and and violin, 2 flutes.

  MIYA MASAOKA:  Beams and Waves - SNEH CD 003 - £12
For laser Koto.

  LUCA MITI:  Mansions - order by name - £12.00
Open mike ambient recording, sound of talk in resonant space, distortion, electrical noise, distortion, mysterious whistling, malfunctions, irritating noise. it has something..especially the last track with piano, organ, voice, accordion,

  PIPE WRENCH:   Pieces for Flute and Computer - EMF CD 025 - £12.00
By Andrew May, Corte Lippe, Eric Lyon, Barry Moon, Philippe Manoury.

  PIERRE REDON:  Solo - order by name - £12
Pieces for Electric Guitar and radical stereo set up. In a very nice package bound by exquisitely riveted metal rods.

  SOUTHERN CONES:   Various Artists - EMF CD 027 - £12.00
Collection of - one way or another - electronic pieces out of Africa and South America, leaning on rhythm and repetition, but with several interesting pieces.

  JEAN DEROME PIERRE TANGUAY:   Pling Plong - AM 092 CD - £12.00
Live

  JANNICK TOP. STS:  Spirale Paris 98 - UR 01007 - £12
Top's 'ochestral suite' - bass drums, guitar, saxophone.

  VETROPHONIA:  Strappadology - CDLA 00011 - £12.00
Zga's Nick Sudnick and Alexander Lebedev-frontov in more abstract vein.

  SALVATORE LINGUIDO:  West mantra - ant02cdr - £12.00
CDR. Programmed piano pieces.

  GIGI MASIN:  Lontano - ant04cdr - £12.00
CDR. Minimal, cyclic, harmonic pieces.

  ALBERT MAYR:  Suono Ambiente - ant01cdr - £12.00
CDR. Talking in Italian about environmental sound and soundscapes, with some examples .

  ARKHAM:   Arkham - Rune 160 - £11.45
Strictly for fans or historians. 1970-72 demos of highly Soft Machine derivative keyboard dominated trio (compositionally repetitive and predictable) - Daniel Denis' pre Necronomicon pre Univers Zero group.

  CURLEW:   Meet the Curlews - Rune 157 - £11.45
Inc. George Cartwright, (saxes) Davey Williams (Guitar), Fred Challenor (Bass), jazz/rock.

  MUJICIAN:   Spacetime - Rune 162 - £11.45
Keith Tippet's free jazz quartet. Studio recording.

  NeBeLNeST:   Nova Express - Rune 154 - £11.45
Heavy contemporary French prog/symphonic rock. Guitar and keyboard dominated, big sound, produced by Bob Drake. For aficionados.

NOTE: the sign "" in front of a title indicates Of Interest, a category that is not specifically recommended but stocked because they are- of interest - for specialist users.