Sub Rosa is the home of "out-of-range" artists that share a passion for music, in every form possible. They may hail from Japan, UK, USA, Germany, from all over the world, but they all share a common taste for experimentation -- not necessarily in a radical way, but often closer to some level of "abstract" forms of expression. The proof that besides the commercial circuit and the deep underground movements... there is life! The label creates connections between past, present and future. The perfect example would be the Noise Anthology series, which reaches back into the past and unlocks the vaults that offer a selection of rare and unreleased "early-electronicians," as well as presenting contemporary artists who are well ahead of their time but who are thinking in the same ways as their elders did, trying to push forward both art and music. Other releases from Luc Ferrari, Martyn Bates, Eyeless In Gaza, Stephen Vitiello, Brion Gysin, Winter Family and a fantastic release of Persian electronic music.
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SR 474LP
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$15.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 3/1/2019
On Elephantine, Maurice Louca's new album released exclusively on Sub Rosa on vinyl LP, the Cairo-based musician guides a 12-piece ensemble through a 38-minute masterwork that might best be described as panoramic. Elements of free improvisation, Sun Ra's cosmic jazz, gorgeous Arabic melody, trancelike African and Yemeni music, and minimalism meet in his wholly unique compositional vision. Louca has in recent years garnered a global reputation through two previous solo albums and an expanding, evolving lineup of genre-defying collaborations. The Wire called his 2014 sophomore solo effort, Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan (Salute the Parrot) (NAWA 002CD/LP/X-LP, 2014), "remarkable music-dense, driven and splashed with colour." In 2017, Lekhfa (MST 003CD/MST 4001LP), the debut by the trio of Louca and vocalists Maryam Saleh and Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, was praised as an "edgy triumph" by the Guardian. For Louca, 36, Elephantine serves as both the pinnacle of his wide-ranging experience and a bold next step in his development as a composer, arranger, and bandleader. "There was a blessed thing about the process of making this record," Louca says of the sessions, held in Stockholm. "The dynamic between us musically but also as people . . . What these musicians delivered was really more than I could ask for, Everyone played their hearts out on this record." The music-from its pensive lulls through its stretches of hard-grooving hypnosis and moments of avant-jazz catharsis-testifies to that rapport. Best absorbed as a continuous performance, Elephantine's six individually named tracks nonetheless present striking self-contained landscapes. "The Leper" entrances through a deft use of repetition that Louca gleaned from cosmic jazz, African and Yemeni music, and other transcendental modal traditions. "Laika" manages to evoke the minimalists, though on the combustible terms of '60s and '70s free jazz; "One More for the Gutter", on which Louca ingeniously pits one half of his ensemble against the other, albeit in a synergistic way, mines similarly fiery terrain. "The Palm of a Ghost" distills the band to a Cairo-rooted core, featuring stirring spontaneous melodies from oud player Natik Awayez, violinist Ayman Asfour, and vocalist Nadah El Shazly. The album's title track follows, and it too blurs the border between composition and improvisation with gorgeously atmospheric results. "Al Khawaga", with its colossal ensemble riffs, beautifully dirty swing, and impassioned blowing, is an ideal finale. RIYL: Sun City Girls, '70s Miles Davis, Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, Tortoise. Cover art by Egyptian visual artist Maha Maamoun.
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SR 456LP
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PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 2/15/2019
"The soundtrack of my mind. Sounds derived from the war which still and always live in my mind"
Released in Sub Rosa's Early Electronic series, Yom Kippur 1973 is a previously unheard masterpiece of Israeli multimedia artist Ami Shavit. As a professor of both philosophy and art and established kinetic artist in the 1970s, Shavit was fascinated with new and interactive technologies. While mostly focusing on visual art and mixed-media installations, a trip to New York in 1972 introduced him to synthesizers and triggered his curiosity to do some explorations into the world of music or "sound" as he preferred to call it. Ami's research was focused on the concept of meditative music that would help people to relax and create a cozy mood associated to the alpha brain waves and biofeedback. Before starting his artistic career, like all Israeli citizens, he had to serve in the army to his personal regret. Shavit had an operational position, which meant a high probability to get involved in a so called "hot situation". When in 1973 the Yom Kippur war broke out, Ami was enlisted again and got the unfortunate opportunity to encounter, in Hanoch Levin's words "the dead". Being an operation officer, he was in charge of evacuating Israeli wounded officers from battlefields to hospitals. Some 6000 injured men passed through us during that war, he recalled one year later in a newspaper interview. "I witnessed some sights that I can hardly forget. On the one hand I felt that as an artist I had to express the war events, on the other hand I felt that this is an almost impossible mission. Only Goya and Picasso, in his Guernica, addressed this topic successfully." Yom Kippur is the final and seminal of Shavit's sound experiments ever recorded and now finally available to the world. It is an extraordinarily strong piece in which the hectic moods and terrific experiences of war are deeply transmitted to the listener. May all soldiers, who are often forced to go through traumatic experiences beyond their own will, find ways to artistically digest and process the unwanted memories.
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SR 457LP
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Sylvain Chauveau on Pianisme: "Piano always had a central role in my discography and this selection of short pieces showcases what might be my musical signature: quietness, slow pace, long resonances, a close as possible to silence. Music to be played at night."
Pianisme is a collection of unreleased and out-of-print piano works composed and recorded since 2004. Most of them are part of soundtracks for feature films by French director Sébastien Betbeder (from 2007's Nuage and the very rare short film Nu Devant Un Fantôme, whose music was completely unpublished until now). Also released for the first time: "In The Twilight Of Paris" (written the day after Luc Ferrari's death, as a quiet homage to a composer whose works have often been part of the Sub Rosa catalog) and "Soñando", straight repetition and variations on a minimal pattern, created for choreographer Christian Rizzo's 2010 show L'Oubli, toucher du bois. Performers include Sylvain Chauveau, Pierre-Yves Macé, Olivier Lageyre, and Rasim Biyikli.
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SR 467LP
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Sub Rosa present Octavian Nemescu's Gradeatia - Natural 1973-83. Nemescu was born in Pascani, Romania in 1940. He studied composition with Mihail Jora at University of Music in Bucharest. While still a student, he imposed himself as part of avant-garde movement in Romanian music composition. After 1965 he produced works of the "open creation" type, a blending of conceptual and environmental music. He involved himself after 1967 in the Romanian spectral trend. Starting with the work Concentric (1969), his creation received archetypal vocation by cultivating an aesthetic of the essential. Octavian Nemescu cultivated the archetypal goals on all parameters and musical forms. He is the author of Implosive Music and of Imaginary Music. He composed Multi-, Post-, Non- and Pre-Symphonies. Later, he became interested in music with initiation character, developed in a non-spectacular, ritualistic atmosphere, as a chance to reinvigorate the old mysteries and as a modality of awakening from biological, mental and spiritual sleep. Gradeatia was composed in 1982, commissioned by the Electroacoustic Music Studio in Gent (Belgium), where it was elaborated. It was conceived as ambient music for Voronet Monastery in Moldavia, as an electronic-audio fresco paralleling the existing one, embracing the idea of mural-visual consistency. It happened in a historic moment when the communist regime in Romania demolished many churches, and was conceived as a protest to these actions. Natural was composed in 1973, in its first version, and again in 1983, in a final version. This music has a spectral aesthetic orientation and at the same time, process-based and archetypal orientations.
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SR 466CD
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Sub Rosa presents Gilles Gobert's Electronic Chamber Music. Musical genre: trans, hybrid, crossbred, mongrel, whoreson, mixed, unclean, intricated, blended, interracial, bastard, harmonized, bouillabaisse, pandemonium, disorder, bewilderment, muddled, disarrayed, tangled, distraction, shambled, discorded, abashed, fuzzy, foggy, plaything, rejoicing, orgasmic, thoughtlessness, salad, undisciplined, inordinate, coded, slanged, talk, privacy, nearness, disobedient, unruly, confidante, imperfect, tainted, red. A subtle mix of electronic composition and contemporary touches.
Gilles Gobert: "I compose and play electronic/mixed music with different groups like the laptop duo [KNAPP], the LAPS Ensemble or individual instrumentalists (Nao Momitani, Véronique Delcambre) and I'm part of the SMOG organization staff. I also realized several projects with the visual artist Inger Elisabeth Gleditsch. Currently I'm a professor of electronic composition and mixed music at the Royal Academy of Music of Liège and lecturer-assistant at the Royal Academy of Music of Mons (Arts2). From these last years date some scores of vocal music, instrumental or mixed music (instruments, voice and electronics), created at, among other festivals, Ars Musica, Images Sonores, Transit, Syntax (France), Warsaw Automn (Poland), and the Spark Festival Of Electronic Music And Art (USA)."
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2CD
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SR 472CD
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Merzopo is a collaborative two CD album of Japanese noise legend Masami Akita (aka Merzbow) and the Czech seven member ensemble Opening Performance Orchestra, based in Prague. The first CD contains four compositions by Merzbow. "Futaomote" means 'double face' and it was originally titled 'Janus'. "Yasugibushi" is a Japanese old folk song which was sampled. The second CD contains two live tracks from Opening Performance Orchestra which were played live in Tokyo and Prague in 2017 and studio edited at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. No melody, no rhythm, no harmony; this is fraction music. Opening Performance Orchestra is a seven-member ensemble encompassing a wide genre span, from the 20th-century electronic thrusts of the musical avant-garde as far as contemporary Japanese noise music. Its own creations are based on fraction music, with the initial sound being digitally destroyed, fractured, and uncompromisingly rid of all its original attributes within the spirit of the credo "no melodies, no rhythms, no harmonies."
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SR 444LP
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LP version; printed inner sleeve. Se (in) de bos is a slow-paced 60 minute piece performed by Vvolk and composed by Stijn Cools. While getting deeper in the sound of Vvolk, the perception of time fades. It is astonishing how improvised music can create such a timeless, and calming experience for the listener. This is the third album in the Book Of Air series, as part of the Granvat platform curated by the brothers Stijn and Bert Cools. As in the first Book Of Air album Fieldtone (SR 412LP, 2015) and the second, Vvolk (SR 413CD/LP, 2016), the parameters of time and sound are again widely present. This time the three interwoven bass lines give the deep drive and foundation of the sound, completed with a layer of acoustic instruments and sparkling chords on top. Se (in) de bos is inspired by the fluctuation objectivity of our daily observations. Vvolk investigates performing and improvising music, in close relation to present time: what are the possibilities in playing music, when changes in this music pass by unnoticed? How do we as musicians relate to the running time of a performance? This clearly challenges the improvising musicians, and makes audience and performers discover new territories in collective improvisation. Book Of Air/Vvolk is known for its "whole night laying down" concert, and is one of the only acoustic ambient orchestras in the world.
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SR 444CD
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Se (in) de bos is a slow-paced 60 minute piece performed by Vvolk and composed by Stijn Cools. While getting deeper in the sound of Vvolk, the perception of time fades. It is astonishing how improvised music can create such a timeless, and calming experience for the listener. This is the third album in the Book Of Air series, as part of the Granvat platform curated by the brothers Stijn and Bert Cools. As in the first Book Of Air album Fieldtone (SR 412LP, 2015) and the second, Vvolk (SR 413CD/LP, 2016), the parameters of time and sound are again widely present. This time the three interwoven bass lines give the deep drive and foundation of the sound, completed with a layer of acoustic instruments and sparkling chords on top. Se (in) de bos is inspired by the fluctuation objectivity of our daily observations. Vvolk investigates performing and improvising music, in close relation to present time: what are the possibilities in playing music, when changes in this music pass by unnoticed? How do we as musicians relate to the running time of a performance? This clearly challenges the improvising musicians, and makes audience and performers discover new territories in collective improvisation. Book Of Air/Vvolk is known for its "whole night laying down" concert, and is one of the only acoustic ambient orchestras in the world.
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SR 450LP
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On the evidence on Acezantez, Acezantez, founded by the versatile Croatian composer and instrumentalist Dubravko Detoni, merit wider recognition. Acezantez is a contemporary Croatian masterpiece. Originally released in 1977, the album is comprised of rich textural pieces constructed from an unnotatable, intricate interplay of percussive squeals, scrapes and rattles, parched and pitchless woodwinds, and dislocated keyboards, with stylistic affinities with early Nurse With Wound. This Detoni (born February 22, 1937) release was the first since his LP on the Phillips Prospective series, which in the 1970s was the most credible house for innovative compositional names such as Xenakis and Pierre Henry, opening the doors for much avant-garde musical invention. Where atonality is to the fore in much avant-garde music, Detoni's sense of abrasion is met with bouts of melodic intervention. Elsewhere, heavy industrial sounds are used as percussive texture; mixed with forceful electronics and dramatic instrumental passages, they create a complex and textured series of compositions.
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2CD
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SR 437CD
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Something undoubtedly cosmic but with a DIY, home-made edge: a cosmos for sure, but dirtier than clean, noisier than technology-based. All songs are unreleased. Recorded and mixed in March 1975. After some years rather cosmic and raga-esque music, Kosmose slowly began to explore some more experimental and noisy sonic expression. At the time, the band only owned a few instruments and sound effects and, no drummer. They used to play long tracks in order to follow the trend of the alternative music of the period -- remember, this was 1975. The event was a total spectacle with an inventive light-show including a stroboscope and a frantic projection of strange abstract slides on a giant screen by Freddy Pourcel. Some incense was burnt time-to-time. Personnel: Alain Neffe - monophonic synthesizer, flute, primitive rhythm box, bell, clumsy voice, tarang; Francis Pourcel - bass, bass with violin bow, electric guitar; Daniel Malempré (aka MAL) - electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar.
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SR 411LP
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Sub Rosa present a reissue of Jean C. Roché's Birds Of Venezuela, originally released in 1973. The bird on the cover is a potoo; this metal-looking bird is one of the sonorous curiosities of this mad nature, the sound that he produces essentially is a death song that David Toop heard on his 1978 expedition, but was unable to record, amazement playing its role.
Jean C. Roché on his recordings: "The bird songs which I had recorded in the West Indies in 1969 made me inclined to find out more about those of the nearby South American continent, and convinced me, moreover, that musically speaking, they possessed an unquestionable originality in comparison with those of Africa and Europe. I therefore decided to carry out a series of ornithological trips on this continent, starting in the north with Venezuela. With this in mind, I disembarked at Caracas on 27th May, 1972. The unusual musical volume of this tropical country made its impact known to me on my arrival in town, where the unbearably shrill chirping of the cicadas overwhelmed me each time I passed under a tree. At night fall, around even the meanest of ditches filled by the daily rain, myriads of toads and frogs struck up a concert, which, through its sheer intensity, muffled all other surrounding noises. When I penetrated the forest, I could hear bird species literally by the dozen and individuals by the hundred, all calling and singing together at dawn and at dusk."
David Toop on Jean C. Roché: "Jean-Claude Roché (b. May 11, 1931) is a French ornithologist and wildlife field recordist. Roché recorded bird songs worldwide for over 30 years and has released over 130 records out of his recordings. Among many of his amazing records, I came across Birds of Venezuela, a beautifully produced LP of birdsong. I began to plan a trip to Amazonas, to record for myself the unearthly song of potoos and Yanomami shamanism."
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SR 403LP
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Ceux Du Dehors is the third album by Belgian band Univers Zero, originally released in 1981. The title alludes to the short story of the same name by H. P. Lovecraft; the players read the story in studio, then proceeded to record the piece. A key release for the band, Ceux Du Dehors sometimes suggests a darker and more complex version of the motorik minimalism of classical music contemporaries Philip Glass and Steve Reich. It finds the group continuing to evolve and return to the more general and varied chamber music sound of their first release, 1977's 1313 (SR 399LP), except with more precision and skill. The tricky charts of percussionist Daniel Denis and new keyboardist Andy Kirk are executed with great panache. The labyrinthine compositions are typically filled with unexpected twists and turns, and angular repetitions of jagged riffs that accelerate, decelerate and mutate in passages of acute tension or quiet but ominous dread. Vinyl comes on clear/red vinyl.
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SR 470CD
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New compositions for ancient Korean instrument: the Geomungo. Follow-up to Baudouin de Jaer's highly-acclaimed Compositions for Geomungo and Gayageum (SR 373CD, 2012). Baudouin de Jaer tells... his large hands stir the air, drawing soft and assured lines, they connect distant planets and micro-particles in a space that does not exist yet. There is the encounter with the Geomungo. a traditional Korean instrument, the geomungo is an ancient table zither, an improbable association of wood and tense strings, with sounds in turn soft, brutal, limpid, rough, mute, and light. It is the voice that imposes itself and guides us through the worlds. Baudouin de Jaer takes you irresistibly, back and forth, from the deepest of oneself to the universality of life. Four-panel digipack with 16-page booklet.
Baudouin de Jaer is a composer and violinist. Baudouin de Jaer studied composition with Philippe Boesmans, Henri Pousseur, Frederic Rzewski and at McGill University (Montréal) with Bruce Mather. He composes for the Korean instruments Daegeum, Haegeum, Gayageum, and Geomungo, and for orchestras of Korean traditional instruments. In 2010 he resolved the enigmatic music system of Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli and released a CD called The Heavenly Ladder on Sub Rosa (SR 312CD, 2011). In 2010, Baudouin de Jaer was awarded a prize from the National Gugak Center for his Gayageum compositions.
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SR 460LP
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Sub Rosa present a collection of Pauline Oliveros's early material, aptly titled Early Electronic Works 1959-66, released as a part of the label's Early Electronic series. Oliveros was an important American composer, born in Houston, Texas on May 30, 1932; the music she produced in the latter part of her life is akin to the breath of life, notably, through her pieces for accordion (particularly those which she herself performed). In addition to her performances, she also made an impact in the world of contemporary composition through the creation of the Deep Listening Center, her approach to improvisation, and her numerous and varied collaborations including those with John Cage, Morton Subotnick, Terry Riley, Sonic Youth, Erold, and Andrew Deutsch. The music presented here is her early and definitive contribution to the tape and electronic music of the late 1950s and 1960s through her systematic exploration of electronic sounds, which was fundamental during this period. Silver vinyl; Edition of 400.
"My work with electronic music began in 1959. My first tape piece was an ambitious four channel work called Time Perspectives (1959). The piece was made by recording small sounds from objects resonated on a wooden wall and changing the tape speed. I used cardboard tubes as filters by inserting the microphone into the tube and recording sources through the tubes. I used my bath tub as a reverberation chamber." --Pauline Oliveros.
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SR 437LP
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Something undoubtedly cosmic but with a DIY, home-made edge: a cosmos for sure, but dirtier than clean, noisier than technology-based. All songs are unreleased. Recorded and mixed in March 1975. After some years rather cosmic and raga-esque music, Kosmose slowly began to explore some more experimental and noisy sonic expression. At the time, the band only owned a few instruments and sound effects and, no drummer. They used to play long tracks in order to follow the trend of the alternative music of the period -- remember, this was 1975. The event was a total spectacle with an inventive light-show including a stroboscope and a frantic projection of strange abstract slides on a giant screen by Freddy Pourcel. Some incense was burnt time-to-time. Personnel: Alain Neffe - monophonic synthesizer, flute, primitive rhythm box, bell, clumsy voice, tarang; Francis Pourcel - bass, bass with violin bow, electric guitar; Daniel Malempré (aka MAL) - electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar.
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SR 458LP
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Next One's Called could be seen as the missing link between Slaughter in a Tiny Place (SR 298CD/LP, 2010) and 1982's Europa (SR 372LP) -- the third and final LP report from Pseudocode. All songs here are previously unreleased; Recorded and mixed between 1980 and 1981. Pseudocode were a Belgian electronic improvised music band, active from 1980 to 1982. Featuring Xavier Ess (Thrills), Guy-Marc Hinant, and Alain Neffe (Insane Music, Bene Geserit), the material on Next One's Called sees Pseudocode in a kind of free form minimal electronique concrete mood. There's even the odd suggestion of a pop tune here and there, maybe even some danceable beats; if you've got one leg shorter than the other. While Xavier S. contributes most of the lyrics and vocals, Guy-Marc Hinant plays the core melody often on guitar or electric piano. Neffe's contributions are particularly noteworthy throughout, as he weaves together the bulk of the sonic cloth through overdubbing and mixing -- one of his parts is remotely virtuosic (hence his self-identification as a non-musician), but they are always unexpected and perfect in and of themselves, emotionally and sonically, and in that sense, they are deeply musical. Green/clear vinyl; Edition of 400.
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SR 459LP
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Sub Rosa present the first LP issue of Bass Terror from Bill Laswell and Nicholas James Bullen, originally released as a CD in Sub Rosa's Subsonic series in 1995. Bass Terror Tetragrammaton" is the dark side of Bill Laswell at the peak of his art in 1995 -- he goes into a black trance. The piece is not from a collaboration, it was designed alone, in his studio in Brooklyn. "Bass Terror Tetragrammaton" is also to be linked to an alchemical process. "Nocturnal Crawl" is a totally hypnotic piece, the first that Nik Bullen designed outside of Napalm Death and Scorn. The two pieces answer each other strangely, like two sides of the same hidden anxiety. The concept of the Subsonic series was the confrontation of electric guitars as the tutelary instrument, but here and this time only, it came out of bassists confronting each other. Red vinyl; Edition of 400.
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SR 455CD
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Tarab (in literary Arabic: euphoria, secular exaltation, ecstasy), Oiseaux-Tempête's sixth release on Sub Rosa, is the result of live recordings captured during the AL-'AN! (SR 440CD/LP, 2017) tour. In a handful of improvised albums circumnavigating the troubled waters of the contemporary Mediterranean -- Greece with the eponymous Oiseaux-Tempête (SR 381CD/LP, 2013), Turkey and Sicily for Ütopiya? (SR 396CD/LP, 2015), and Lebanon with AL-'AN! -- the collective Oiseaux-Tempête has stretched its electric arc over musical genres and borders, imposing itself in a river of tours and releases like a wild UFO within the hexagonal indie scene. It is little surprise that following the remix album -- Re-Works (SR 387LP, 2014) -- and collection of B sides -- Unworks & Rarities 2012-15 (SR 424CD/LP, 2016) -- Oiseaux-Tempête unveils, by way of a new opus, an album entirely recorded in concert. Tarab is the result of live recordings captured during the AL-'AN! tour which led the group, after a preliminary residency at l'Autre Canal in Nancy, to cross Europe and into Canada, performing at Le Guess Who? in Utrecht, opening for Suuns and Jerusalem In My Heart in Montreal and Toronto, following Jerusalem In My Heart through France then from Brussels to Berlin, and closing at the Irtijal festival in Beirut. Tarab is a meeting of the Parisian founding members Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul, electronic sound wizard Mondkopf, G.W.Sok (The Ex), Sylvain Joasson (Mendelson), videographers As Human Pattern, and the Lebanese musicians Charbel Haber, Abed Kobeissy, and Ali El Hout (Two Or The Dragon). The studio pieces are stretched, deconstructed, and rearranged here while new works from the road -- poems "Grasse Matinée" by Jacques Prévert and "Tuesday And The Weather Is Clear" by Mahmoud Darwish -- find unique musical settings. It is in symbiosis, in the fever and visceral experimentation, that the musicians seek rapture. Arranged in a semicircle, they invoke the elements and attempt the catharsis, inviting the spectator to spiral with them, entwined in the sonic explosions, finding beauty and peace in the spaces of improvisation and elaboration. Marrying free-rock, organic electronics, traditional instruments, and unbridled electricity, Tarab, far beyond the vibrant testimony, is a generous invitation to experience, to meditate, and to share. CD version comes in an eight-page digipack.
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SR 445CD
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The third chapter in the Sufi Word's series. Jean-Luc Fafchamps on the release: "The Sufi Letters is a vast project of 28 compositions (for the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet) undertaken in 2000 and still ongoing. I am drawing inspiration from the symbolic charts found in Sufi mysticism. Each Letter is a sonic meditation on the frontiers of conscience and the paradoxes of time. Today's word, 'Du seuil' ('From the threshold'), is the third word to be released by Sub Rosa. It is a journey of sort through grief: stages of conscience, journey through hell, nocturnal anxieties, meditation, resilience. Do not worry too much though, for isn't it from the distance of death that one can shine the best light on life. Isn't all grief also a threshold?" H1KhH2WM (Du Seuil), a Five-letter Sufi Word features Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, Centre Henri Pousseur; conducted by Jean-Paul Dessy. Includes 20-page booklet.
Jean-Luc Fafchamps is a pianist and composer. He studied at the Conservatoire in Mons and at Louvain University. A member of the Ictus Ensemble, he has taken part in many concert performances in large ensembles or chamber groups (performances of works by Lindberg, Reich, Aperghis, Mernier, Leroux, Harada, Francesconi, etc.) and in mixed performances, particularly accompanying dance -- multiple performances with Rosas (Anne-Teresa de Keersmaeker -- and theater -- several creations with Aperghis. He has made recordings for Sub Rosa -- with the Bureau des Pianistes and as a soloist -- of works by Bowles, Liszt, Feldman, Dallapiccola, Duchamp, Scelsi, and Berio and has contributed to numerous recordings with the Ictus Ensemble and has accompanied many singers.
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SR 454LP
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Sote aims to devise an idealized fusion of the musical heritage and tradition of Iran with the forward-thinking vision which has propelled his storied career producing techno, hardcore, and computer music for labels like Warp, Ge-stell, Morphine, and Repitch. Now living in Tehran, his music has frequently grappled with the strict cultural restrictions imposed in his country over the past few decades, finding a space and setting to nurture new developments in experimental sound and performance. Working with Arash Bolouri, who plays the santour (Persian hammered dulcimer), and Behrouz Pashaei on the long-necked, four-string setar, Sote frames and responds to their traditional artistry. On occasions he directly manipulates the music emanating from their ancient instruments, cultivating, and thickening up a surreal and beautiful tonality plucked from their strings with a series of processing techniques, but mostly each track is a peaceful arrangement and partnership, Sote electro-acoustically augmenting their movements within his own cybernetic framework. Unusual color and complex microtonality found in the classical music of Iran. Blurts of noise, sour tones, and a vaguely technoid or dub-wise impression expose the inner rhythm and counterpoint embedded in this strummed music. Emotional, mathematical and polyrhythmic principles underpinning Persian music, the record reveals a dramatic blend of acoustic Persian instrumentation and contemporary electronics. Artwork by Ala Ebtekar.
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SR 453CD
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Phil Maggi is a composer, vocalist, and film maker from Belgium. Known as the lead singer of heavy-rock combo Ultraphallus, Phil Maggi develops an extensive body of work as a solo musician for several years. This new album Animalwrath is a combination of his different forms of music, from ambient-drone, electro-acoustic, sampling, and field recordings to free-jazz. Phil Maggi has invited a few generous collaborators -- Oren Bloedow, Maja Jantar, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, Tom Malmendier, Gabriel Séverin, and Ludovic Medery -- on these eight tracks inspired by Henry Corbin's writings, Nico, Scott Walker, and traditional music. Six-page digipack.
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LP
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SR 432LP
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LP version. 40 years later the mythic album is available!
Lies of omission and appropriations. The story of a magnetic tape that contained a trade secret. Four decades after My Sixteen Little Planets's release (on OHR, 1975), Inventions For Electric Guitar, the solo debut by Ash Ra Temple guitarist Manuel Göttsching, is now a classic, an undisputed worldwide reference. Inventions was made using only an electric guitar and a simple four-track tape recorder. Inventions was the challenge, and so was its impact. Göttsching recorded it in July-August 1974 in Berlin, after a sudden technical revelation. The original LP sleeve had the following printed on its back: Manuel Göttsching (guitars only). Manuel played his guitar and used a 4 track TEAC A3340, Revox A77 for echoes, wah-wah pedal, volume pedal, Sola Sound Fuzz, Schaller Rotosound, and Hawaiian steel bar. The reaction was unanimous: this was a significant innovation, in terms of both technique and creativity. However, there are little-known facts to this case. In early 1974, Göttsching's label received a tape sent by M.A.L. -- same design, same configuration, almost the same tracks. This is known by only a handful of experimental musicians from the Charleroi area. M.A.L., aka Daniel Malempré, is the actual inventor of this technique which Göttsching reproduced a few months later. Given the above, it's suggested that you listen to both albums. As doubts are removed, the truth sets in, forty years later. Here's hoping that this will ease the deep disgust that made M.A.L. leave his guitar untouched for so long. All music by M.A.L. on Fender Stratocaster 1964 with a wah-wah Cry Baby. Recorded and mixed at home between 1972-1976 on a reel-to-reel recorder, Sony TC-630.
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CD
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SR 432CD
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40 years later the mythic album is available!
Lies of omission and appropriations. The story of a magnetic tape that contained a trade secret. Four decades after My Sixteen Little Planets's release (on OHR, 1975), Inventions For Electric Guitar, the solo debut by Ash Ra Temple guitarist Manuel Göttsching, is now a classic, an undisputed worldwide reference. Inventions was made using only an electric guitar and a simple four-track tape recorder. Inventions was the challenge, and so was its impact. Göttsching recorded it in July-August 1974 in Berlin, after a sudden technical revelation. The original LP sleeve had the following printed on its back: Manuel Göttsching (guitars only). Manuel played his guitar and used a 4 track TEAC A3340, Revox A77 for echoes, wah-wah pedal, volume pedal, Sola Sound Fuzz, Schaller Rotosound, and Hawaiian steel bar. The reaction was unanimous: this was a significant innovation, in terms of both technique and creativity. However, there are little-known facts to this case. In early 1974, Göttsching's label received a tape sent by M.A.L. -- same design, same configuration, almost the same tracks. This is known by only a handful of experimental musicians from the Charleroi area. M.A.L., aka Daniel Malempré, is the actual inventor of this technique which Göttsching reproduced a few months later. Given the above, it's suggested that you listen to both albums. As doubts are removed, the truth sets in, forty years later. Here's hoping that this will ease the deep disgust that made M.A.L. leave his guitar untouched for so long. All music by M.A.L. on Fender Stratocaster 1964 with a wah-wah Cry Baby. Recorded and mixed at home between 1972-1976 on a reel-to-reel recorder, Sony TC-630.
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2CD
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SR 451CD
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Mani is the very first recordings of the new collection Contra Naturam, a collaboration between Ictus Ensemble and Sub Rosa. Mani is released as a double-CD; Includes 24-page booklet.
The concept of Contra Naturam: The "magic of the record" befits contemporary music, which starts by adhering to an open, flexible sonic space where magnetic bolts of lightning shoot through. In that respect, at least, it has always been pop. The record lifts the curtain on a virtual stage; it creates its own space time; it reports on a listening project. And home computing has changed the game: the digital kitchen doesn't intimidate anyone anymore: editing and mixing are now part of the performer's daily routine.
The composer: Italian composer Pierluigi Billone (1960) is known for works which often "reinvent" the performance techniques of the instruments involved. He studied under Salvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann. He focuses on the nature of sound. He also draws on free jazz and non-European music for his research on sound matter. After a brief return to Italy in 2000, he decided to move to Vienna. His music has privileged performers such as the Klangforum Wien. It is broadcast by German and Austrian radio, is regularly scheduled in international festivals such as Donaueschingen.
The performer: Tom De Cock (1982) received his Master's degree in percussion at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, as well as a Master's degree in contemporary music at the HFMDK Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Next to his position as percussion soloist at the Brussels Philharmonic orchestra, Tom has been working as a freelance musician in Europe: he played with Ensemble Modern, MusikFabrik, Radio Kamer Philharmonie, among others, and is a fixed member of the Ictus Ensemble, Tom has collaborated with Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Philippe Hurel, Bruno Mantovani, Philippe Manoury, Georges Aperghis, and many other prominent figures of international contemporary music.
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LP
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SR 449LP
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35 years after the release of their critically acclaimed 1981 album, Vibrant Stapler Obscures Characteristic Growth (SR 428LP), the British dadaist group Hastings Of Malawi release their second album, an epic sound poem entitled Visceral Underskinnings. It is a 40-minute film without light that reflects on the human condition, on modern society, on the nature of telephony and electricity and an attempt to make sense of the world in which we live that provides no answers. It is a sound collage of diverse elements including the voices of George Washington Johnson ("the whistling coon", 1846-1914) and Dr Hastings Banda, the first president of Malawi. It includes randomly generated computer music, voice synthesis, recordings of cold war number stations, American military sound weaponry, and recordings of the some of the many sound sculptures produced by Hastings Of Malawi over the last 30 years. Hastings of Malawi produce sounds that sit in that grey area where sound art and music meet but they reject both labels and cannot be comfortably placed in either camp. This is not an easy album to listen to, but persevere and you may or may not be able to decipher its meaning. "Rarely has an album so consistently made me question what the actual fuck is going on," is how the Wire magazine described Hastings Of Malawi's first album Vibrant Stapler Obscures Characteristic Growth and the second album makes things no clearer. If you are a fan of the tedious, puerile, repetitive beats that populate the insipid sonic environment that is popular music today, you probably won't like this album. Assembled with no regard for musical convention, Hastings Of Malawi follow their own rules and have created another fascinating journey into their world which makes it no easier to understand our world. Apparently, the Chinese voice that starts the second side of the album translates as "the deaf mutes have so many intimate words they want to share with you" and this perhaps sums up what Hastings Of Malawi are trying to do with Visceral Underskinnings. Another musique concrète jewel created with the same peculiar, disjointed, uncommercial, and totally original Hastings Of Malawi aesthetic. Limited edition yellow vinyl.
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