Review: On the centenary of the birth of Luigi Nono, the Maurice Quartet - Georgia Privitera (violin), Laura Bertolino (violin), Francesco Vernero (viola) and Aline Privitera (cello) - reinterprets the composition for string quartet by the Venetian composer on the occasion of the 30th Beethovenfest in Bonn, in 1980. This limited edition (300) record hammers home the pensive, minimalistic innovations of Nono, considered a radical innovator in the classical music of his time.
Review: Commissioned by Meow Wolf for their Omega Mart immersive art experience in Las Vegas, Amon Tobin delivers the kind of horizon-expanding epic you would hope for from one of the world's most respected living electronic music visionaries. Running at 20 minutes, give or take 40 seconds, this collection of movements worthy of an odyssey may have been designed for a specific context, but they don't have to be trapped there forever. While nothing will compare to diving headfirst into Meow Wolf's critically acclaimed installation piece, a kind of sci-fi takedown of advanced capitalism and blind consumerism in a morally bankrupt world, separating sounds from space still makes a big impact. Noises from the future, soundscapes from the depths of a truly astounding mind, this is nothing if not captivating.
Review: This is a real gem of the English jazz revolution - Chitinous by cellist Paul Buckmaster stands tall as an obscure masterpiece. Renowned for his collaborations with legends like Miles Davis and David Bowie, Buckmaster leads a colossal orchestra of 51 players, featuring top English musicians including trumpeter Ian Carr and drummer John Marshall. Recorded in 1970, the album showcases Buckmaster's mastery of the cello and keyboards and is organised into suites where the music seamlessly blends classical, contemporary and jazz influences, offering broad yet evocative compositions. This reissue reminds us of Buckmaster's innovation as well as the era's renowned musical experimentation.
Niel Black & Patrick Gowers - "Elsie Cubitt (The Dancing Men)" (3:53)
Libera Me (The Priory School) (4:05)
North By Ten & Ten (The Musgrave Ritual) (4:10)
Old Sherman's Dog Toby (The Sign Of Four) (3:19)
Sutton's Nightmare (The Resident Patient) (5:49)
River Chase (The Sign Of Four) (1:33)
Kenneth Sillito & Patrick Gowers - "The Death Of Sherlock Holmes (The Final Problem)" (3:42)
Kenneth Sillito & Patrick Gowers - "Irene Adler (A Scandal In Bohemia(" (4:40)
Holmes In Europe (The Final Problem) (1:33)
John Hector McFarlane & His Mother (The Norwood Builder) (1:59)
Setting Out (The Prior School) (0:55)
Kenneth Sillito & Patrick Gowers - "Lucretia Venucci And Her Family (The Six Napoleons)" (1:07)
Mrs Henry Bakaders Christmas (The Blue Carbuncle) (3:31)
The Illustrious Lord Bellinger (The Second Stain) (2:14)
On The Trail (The Second Stain) (3:33)
Neville St. Clair Nostalgia (The Twisted Lip) (2:10)
The Bar Of Gold, Uppre Swandham Lane (The Twisted Lip) (3:55)
Kenneth Sillito & Patrick Gowers - "Baker Street Reunion (The Empty House)" (1:48)
Review: The Sherlock Holmes: Granada TV Series (Soundtrack) is being celebrated with a 40th Anniversary DigiMIX Edition, available on vinyl from Jay UK. This release offers fans a beautifully remastered experience of the iconic music that underscored Jeremy Brett's portrayal of the legendary detective. The score, rich with period-appropriate orchestration, enhances the atmospheric and suspenseful tone of the series, making it an essential companion to the on-screen action. The vinyl pressing promises superior sound quality, capturing every nuance of the original compositions. This special edition is not just a nostalgic trip for long-time fans but also a great introduction for newcomers to the series' aural landscape. The packaging itself is a collector's delight, offering a mix of historical insights and stunning artwork. Overall, this 40th Anniversary edition revitalises the classic soundtrack, making it ideal for fans of both Sherlock Holmes and exceptional television music.
A Piece For Orchestra (Count All The Stars) (3:20)
Water Piece (4:32)
Clock Piece (1:34)
Bicycle Piece For Orchestra (7:07)
Pieces For Orchestra - No 4: Tear (2:48)
Pieces For Orchestra - No 5: Touch (2:18)
Pieces For Orchestra - No 6: Rub (0:50)
Wood Piece (1:37)
Wind House (7:09)
Sweep Piece (1:23)
Overtone Piece (5:09)
Question Piece (8:33)
Disappearing Piece (4:50)
Review: For the first time on vinyl, through Karl Records, comes a limited edition and furtive Yoko Ono retrospective, in conjunction with the over-100-strong, Sweden-headquartered ensemble and community network The Great Learning Orchestra. These unlikely recordings were made at the time of the musician and performance artist Ono's 1964 multimedia collection Grapefruit, a cornerstone of what would later become known as "conceptual art". Grapefruit itself is a large artist's book, with a large vellum spine and browned parchment paper; it contains a series of "event scores" that outline, rather than permit the performances of, many different performance art pieces. The effect is apocryphal and ominous, as though the real performance of these instructive works may have accursed or deleterious effects. "Like a musical score, Event Scores can be realized by artists other than the original creator and are open to variation and interpretation"; and yet, Ono's book is a one of one, having never been reproduced or thus made collectable. Pre-dating John Cage by about a decade, the "event scores" described therein have now been performed by The Great Learning Orchestra, where hardly any of the performances / pieces have ever been captured sonically or laid to disc. This record changes all that, realising Ono's bewildering text instructions as tremulous suites, made up of clattering material hits and harrowing string instrumental assaults.
Review: This reissued gem offers meticulously crafted aural rituals that delve into sensual electronic music and human sexuality. Founded by Adi Newton in 1978 to merge art, science and sonology while embracing innovative, multidisciplinary approaches, The Anti Group served as a platform for exploring psycho-acoustic research and this 1994 album was recorded over three years. It is among their more accessible works - never more so than now when it debuts on vinyl after 30 years. As well as the original pieces, it comes with four bonus tracks including a film soundtrack and a remix.
To You All Kids Will Come (Metamorphosis Complete)
Review: British conspiracy thriller Utopia follows a group of young adults who, after discovering a mysterious comic book - The Utopia Experiments - embark on a manic quest for corporate restitution and prophetic fulfilment. As a shadowy government organisation detects their plans and resolves to track their every move, we watch an empathic but deadly game of cat-and-mouse; and Cristobal Tapia de Veer's acclaimed score only heightens the tension. This new 2xLP edition includes such instantly recognisable motifs as 'Brainwave Playground', 'Satan's Waltz' and 'The Monarch's Pyramid', capturing the series' eerie and intense atmosphere. The score continues to resonate to this day, following Tapia de Veer's success with The White Lotus and Babygirl.
Having Never Written A Note For Percussion (11:59)
For Percussion Perhaps, Or (Night) (10:46)
Cellogram (5:02)
Beast (7:04)
Review: Blume Records return to the forefront of the contemporary experimental canon with the first ever vinyl edition of (a study of) James Tenney's infamous Fluxus suite, Postal Pieces. The storied composer and music theorist was an alpine fixture of the modern music compositional world, with his various writings - both notated on the stave and prosaically penned in the journal - amounting to exquisitely impenetrable tracts on every isolable facet of music theory from harmonic perception to process music to sound synthesis to spectral music. Originally a set of 11 pieces but truncated to five here, drawing on a set of live recordings laid down in 2003, Postal Pieces is one of many of Tenney's works emphasising process over end result. Perhaps the emphasis on process was an attempt to treat the sufferances of "schizophonia", which had plagued musicologists since the 1930s as one of many fussed-over consequences of recorded music obscuring the original source of the sounds heard through an extended medium. The album's sonic pentagram - of long sequences resembling air-raid sirens, its basal textural swells and backroomed feedback loops - might sound doomy to the glib ear. Ultimately, though, this album could also be read as a simple formal exercise, one intended to divert Tenney's own aversion to writing letters (despite his wont to write music theory). Ironically enough, we're sure that, in the wake of this reissue and its hot demand, the postal system itself will thank Tenney for the boost in revenue.
Review: Amongst fans of the late Coil member (and prolific electronic experimentalist) Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson, the Amulet album has long been spoken of in hushed tones. The second and final set he recorded as The Threshold Houseboys Choir, it was recorded in 2008 and only available at gigs (or via mail-order) in a "hand-made four mini-CDR package housed in a circular Thai amulet case". This, then, is the set's first "proper" release, with the material now stretched across two CDs. Reminiscent of some of Coil's more colourful and polished works of the early-to-mid 1990s, much of the material on Amulet blurs the boundaries between ambient, dub, trip-hop and downtempo psychedelia, sitting somewhere between vintage Orb albums and the more out-there escapades of Future Sound of London.
Review: The second album from Stefano Ghittoni and Bruno Dorella following 2019's Estatico. The duo again explores a rich soundscape blending experimental techniques with elements from both popular and underground music. Beginning with ethereal electroacoustic tones, the album evolves with delicate rhythms, arpeggiations and broken beats that cook up a moody, introspective atmosphere. Textural depth comes from the well worked samples, tape manipulations, field recordings and other unconventional sounds that are all seamlessly interwoven with traditional instruments. Drawing from electronic experimentation, psychedelic minimalism and shoegaze, this is a complex, immersive beauty.
Review: For the first time on vinyl, P-Vine reissue one of the earliest works by Yellow Magic Orchestra founder and later film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Before the fame and notoriety, Sakamoto lent a hand to the avant-garde singer Taeko Tomioka, whose 1976 album he produced, both in the box and out. Tomioka only recorded the one album, and later went on to develop a career as a poet, novelist and literary critic. Few self-proclaimed Sakamoto heads know this, which is what makes this P-Vine reissue so special. Were it not for Sakamoto's touch, Tomioka's animalistic performances would likely not have taken on their extensible quality; Sakamoto's virtuosity was more than enough to rigorously challenge Tomioka, producing less of a debutant's declamation than a mixolydian nightwalk, bringing out the potent harmonic range of whatever the musical equivalent of a tightrope walker is.
Review: Laurie Torres is a Canadian musician and composer of Haitian descent and she spent years as a trusted collaborator for artists like Julia Jacklin and Pomme. In 2023, she shifted focus to her own solo work, resulting in her debut album Apres coup. Inspired by contemporary artists such as Tirzah and Valentina Magaletti, the album blends piano, drums, synths and field recordings to create a rich and meditative sound that was recorded at Studio Wild in Quebec. It reflects Torres' journey towards creative freedom and self-expression while exploring themes of introspection, marginalisation and the beauty of imperfection.
Review: Brighton-based Australian vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappes shares her fifth album, requiescing ten captive ambient soundscapes, all of which share the aim of integrating dreamsand nightmares, grief and personal empowerment. Through the use of carnal, transcendent cello drones, Trappes explores historical and generational traumas in a chilling piece of gothic experimentalism. In a residential prelude, Trappes trapped herself in Scotland, eking remote studio solitude as a cranny in which to unleash personal demons, exploring and transmuting familial chaos and history. Raw and spiritually charged, the album offers a powerful meditation on loss; its threat, its meaning, and the process of coming to terms with it.
Review: Brighton-based Australian vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Penelope Trappes drops her fifth full length album and invites us on a bare bones, spiritual journey. Making herself incredibly vulnerable in the process, these are the kind of tracks that induce meditative and psychedelic trains of thought, haunting and beautiful, blissful and tense. Cello drones, gothic aesthetics, a king of futurist folk, at least some of the inspiration for which has come from time spent in isolated corners of Scotland. You can almost feel the wind blowing through the room as A Requiem lures and entices, breaks and mends hearts. Ambient, neo-classical, trance inducing works of wonder. This is the kind of record that can help make you see the world for what it is, and realise just how lucky we are to be here at the same time.
Review: Somewhere between Scotland, Leeds and the Welsh border, sometime in or around the year 2022, arose Tristwch Y Fenywod, the craven coven of Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth (Guttersnipe, The Ephemeron Loop), Leila Lygad (Hawthonn) and Sidni Sarffwraig (Slaylor Moon, The Courtneys). Building on years of esteem accrued through their separate solo projects, Tristwch Y Fenywod still marks a stylistic curveball from any of their original works, not taking on a fusion of each, but rather presenting an entirely new triadic, spellbound sound. Tristwch Y Fenywod is an entirely Welsh-language affair, pairing sonic connotations of witch house and 'outsider' folk with otherwise subtle electronic elements and Celtic motifs, inviting instinctive comparisons to ravencore peers Kelora, electro-somnambulists oOOoO, or reverb-doused studio ident This Mortal Coil; but always eluding a facile reduction to any combo of these influences. Their name and eponymous title translating to 'The Sadness Of Women', these eight tracks land us somewhere in a no-go forest between two middle-of-nowhere roads, making for the best gloom-fest of the year.
Review: Yellowstone is an American neo-Western drama centered on the Dutton family, whose massive cattle ranch borders Yellowstone National Park, the Broken Rock Indian reservation, and land developers. Kevin Costner, Luke Grimes, and Kelly Reilly play the crossfire-caught Dutton family, and composer Brian Tyler, influenced by his experience in a Native American music group, evokes such turmoil and unchecked exploitation, through traditional Native American sounds and Western elements; percussion, woodwinds, and exotic instruments alongside cellos and basses are all incorporated, invoking the harrows of modern factionalism.
Review: It's not hard to see just how ahead of their time Dumb Type were. And still are. Founded in Kyoto, Japan, in 1984, the artist collective looked to interpret and portray the changes they could see beginning to happen around them in society - specifically the start of the (information) technology age. Presenting work that took a dark and cynical view of the increasing importance and prevalence of equipment and digital in the every day, they do this though art exhibitions, performances and publications. Audiovisual installations have always been particularly prominent, and Every Dog Has His Day - one of two Dumb Theater albums previously only available on tape, now issued on vinyl for the first time - makes it clear music was never an afterthought. Credited to Toru Yamanaka, who wrote much of their heard work, and the late Teiji Furuhashi, who translated that onto stage, it's an avant garde essential.
SF (Dedicated To Verne) - A Song Of Escalators (Love & Sex) (5:16)
Quartet (6:43)
Sweet Home (9:15)
Review: Dumb Type Theater have been at the forefront of Japan's performance art landscape since 1984, although the years between then and now have seen some significant changes - culturally and in terms of the group. The death of Teiji Furuhashi, one of the central members, is just one example. A pivotal player in performances, he was often tasked with translating the instrumentation and arrangements of musician Toru Yamanaka into on-stage directions. Removed from that context, Yamanaka and Furuhashi's sounds still work incredibly well. There are aspects of Plan For Sleep that evoke the US avant garde of the time, perhaps reiterating the fact that the late-20th Century saw a closing of distances and a shared vision of where the future was heading among broad communities. Sound art, in the most musical and listenable sense.
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