Tzadik Difficult to find a composer today whose music evolves with the same rapidity of Noah Creshevsky’s. With each new record, his painstaking assemblages of samples – aptly seamed to bring “hyperrealism” into being – acquire a progressively superior degree of complexity, nearer to a kind of perfection that even a non-expert ear can accept [...]

New World David Mahler is not the kind of musician interested in belonging to an elite or appearing as an icon, preferring to mix with regular people – specifically, within neighbourhoods and local communities where he teaches, plays, sings and organizes joyful events such as assemblies of amateur instrumentalists and children choirs. In fact, singing [...]

ALFRED HARTH – Brocken/Biest 01/01ALFRED 23 HARTH – Laub Laubhuette Studio In 2001, Alfred Harth was enduring a bit of physical trouble, related to the many years spent with a piece of reed around his neck. He decided at that time to give an unusual spin to his music by starting to use electronics quite [...]

Fario Firstly released on compact disc in 2009, La Barca (also an audiovisual performance) was reissued in a limited 2-LP edition comprising the entire content of the first as well as a selection of previously unpublished tracks, perfectly complementary and functional to the rest of the program. Having followed Köner’s output since the very beginnings, [...]

RHODRI DAVIES / GREGORY BÜTTNER – 3 Harp Treatments The origin of this music is a 10-minute harp improvisation sent by Davies to Büttner after they decided to start a collaboration in 2006. The three chapters are completely different in character and dynamics, giving the listener a chance to discover hidden, or just elusive aspects [...]

Excellent materials on Richard Garet’s recently founded label, enclosed in an abundant hour of sounds suitable for concentration and active listening. i8u’s “Rarefaction” consists of a humming drone (enhanced by virtually inaudible acute frequencies) whose corporeality and intensity changes with the passage of time. Think an earth loop/ultrasonic activity kind of palette with deeply booming [...]

Bedroom Community Being a reviewer becomes an unenviable situation when a record like Sam Amidon’s I See The Sign appears, completely changing a day (or a whole phase of existence) by helping to bear with escalating difficulties, and – maybe in a perfect dream – throwing a heavy stone in the stagnant waters of popular [...]

New World Tom Johnson’s Rational Melodies had been released twice already in the past, both times featuring a solo instrumentalist (flutist Eberhard Blum and clarinettist Roger Heaton respectively). This edition constitutes the first recorded version of the piece performed by a chamber group, for the occasion France’s Dedalus. The painstaking study of the material and [...]

Leo Rather appealing things and a clutch of good vibrations come from this trio formed by saxophonist Gies (alto and tenor plus glockenspiel and rattles), soprano vocalist Ronni Gilla and percussionist Denis Stilke, recorded at Berlin’s Johanniskirche in 2009. The church location is ideal for this music, the acoustic properties of the sacred edifice exalting [...]

The operational area for Haptic – Steven Hess, Adam Sonderberg and Joseph Clayton Mills – is that of mesmeric elusiveness informed by a measure of physicality, causing a feel of anticipation for an event that might materially occur, but we’ll never be able to realistically justify. There’s no credible method to describe the acoustic phenomena [...]

Let’s talk about a pair of delightfully scented limited edition LPs received a few months ago by Timo Van Luijk (Noise Maker’s Fifes, In Camera, Asra among his past and ongoing projects). Translation for the inexperienced: this man – besides a considerable individual talent – has been joining people of the caliber of the late [...]

Recent – and less – outings by these labels. Thanks as usual to Taylor Deupree for the systematic support (I’ll try and analyze the DVD releases in another write-up, Taylor…) PJUSK – Sval The duo of Norwegian Rune Sagevik and Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik, Pjusk came to attention three years ago with the excellent Sart. This [...]

The Orchestra Pit Recording Company After acknowledging the wonderful name of the releasing label, let’s take a look at the tools. Violin, saw, bicycle wheel, lentils, FX pedals, voice (SH); accordion, guitar, autoharp, marble chute, percussion (MA). The instrumental array is more or less what was expected from these artists, the duo’s brilliance lying in [...]

Psi “Each sound has its own narrative!” is the original motto of Beam Stone, the trio of Per Anders Nilsson (computer, synthesizer), Sten Sandell (piano, prepared piano, electronics and voice) and Raymond Strid (percussion). Formed in 2006, the group plays intensely through a cycle of electroacoustic prospects that seem to defy whatever logic people might [...]

Edgetone The Spirit Moves Us fuses three chief practitioners of free interplay of San Francisco’s Bay Area in a completely spontaneous session recorded in May 2009. The recording gives the idea of a single microphone take, lots of natural reverberations surrounding the ceaseless spurts and fluxes generated by these stray combatants. The title is obviously [...]

Enough said. Get this stuff pronto. DANIEL MENCHE – Odradek Another grand release by our favourite Oregonian, his artistic consistency impressively unswerving for almost two decades now, not to mention a style that has become instantly identifiable across the years. Odradek is divided in a pair of long tracks, essentially created via the use of [...]

ALVA NOTO + RYUICHI SAKAMOTO With ENSEMBLE MODERN – UTP_ Time to give the proper relevance to a somewhat unsung masterpiece fusing rationality, emotion and adroitness in equal doses. In 2007, for the 400th anniversary of the German city of Mannheim, Carsten Nicolai and Ryuichi Sakamoto tackled the difficult task of developing an appropriate audio [...]

Herbal International I’m not the kind of person who squanders precious time in decoding people’s visions when they’re expressed via written concepts that, even after an accurate translation, bury the exact aims and grounds of an artistic statement under the dozens of question marks engendered by a (willingly?) unclear explanation, or the transliteration of a [...]

A fascinating title introduces the latest outing by Canadian Mathieu Ruhlmann, who’s been active for many years in the sonic fields where fading memories, concrete elements and awareness of the impossibility of changing a life’s destiny meet, often with deeply affecting results. This is an ideal case in point, an impressive work where everything is [...]

Ambiances Magnétiques Ugly Beauties is the first CD for the threesome of Lerner (piano), Brubeck (cello) and Fraser (drums). Difficult to place this music in a context without resorting to typical definitions. There is a lot of improvisation mixed with carefully trimmed material; there aren’t surpluses of extended techniques, although the musicians do explore more [...]

Accretions This is the debut album by Dawn Of Midi which, despite the name, is an entirely acoustic transcontinental group consisting of Amino Belyamani (Morocco, piano), Aakaash Israni (India, contrabass) and Qasim Naqvi (Pakistan, percussion). Dissipating any doubt about the possible incidence of electronics – there isn’t any – and mostly avoiding the typicality related [...]

The dedicatees of this pair of gorgeous soundscapes by Richard Chartier are, respectively, Steve Roden and William Basinski. Regarding the latter, the magnificently scary ebb and flow of the indeterminate cavernous resonance characterizing “A Desk For Mixing” is defined by its originator as “the starting point for the collaborative work Untitled 3” between the two. [...]