SUBTEXT - Forced Exposure

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Koenraad Ecker and Frederik Meulyzer make their Subtext debut with Carbon. Based on field recordings made at Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a secure seed bank located on the island of Spitsbergen, Carbon grapples with the many contradictions that lie at the heart of our shift into the capitalocene. The project began in 2017, when Ecker and Meulyzer scored the performance Frozen Songs, a commission by Zero Visibility Dance Company led by Ina Christel Johannesen. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was conceived of as an effort to preserve copies of seeds from key crop varieties, ensuring their persistence in the event of large-scale crises. Yet the area is warming faster than anywhere else on earth, causing the permafrost to melt and putting the seed vault at risk. Across from the Seed Vault lie the decrepit remnants of Svalbard's mining activities of the early 20th century; Carbon wrestles with the incongruities nestled in the town's landscape. Reflecting on dissonances of stasis and change, closeness and distance, enclosure and expanse, as well as cynicism and hope, Ecker and Meulyzer consider the urgency of our situation while trying to sidestep all-too-popular depictions of dystopia. From close, supple sounds to cold, brutal sonics, Carbon meditates on the many challenging questions and contradictions raised by the Seed Vault and its surroundings; a landscape that embodies and makes visible the many intertwined phenomena that shape our current predicament. Ecker and Meulyzer, formerly known as Stray Dogs, have released works such as Wasteland (VV 018LP, 2013), recorded in deconsecrated church in Antwerp, and Kalkar, recorded in the cooling tower of a former power station in Germany. Koenraad Ecker works in the fields of electro-acoustic music, field recording, radio plays, stage performance, and text. Together with Andrea Taeggi, he is part of the duo Lumisokea. His output encompasses studio albums, audiovisual installations, texts, performances, and sound design for film. Frederik Meulyzer is a percussionist active in projects including Belgian jazz band Hamster Axis of the One-Click Panther, contemporary music and theatre company Post uit Hessdalen, and experimental psych-krautrock band Slumberland. The ecological impact of the production of this record will be compensated through a carbon offsetting program.

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Munich's PYUR (Sophie Schnell) makes her Subtext debut with Oratorio For The Underworld, a nimble odyssey through vivid, otherworldly dreams. Growing up immersed in her family's work as shamans, Schnell draws on the techniques and stories of her upbringing, through which ephemeral forms, stories, and colors seep into her sound -- a synthesis of hyperreal sound design, dramaturgy, and classical composition. PYUR's fascination with the space between life and death is expressed through the weaving together of the organic and sublime in a dramatic exercise in expansive sonic worldbuilding. The album is a form of storytelling in which Schnell reimagines and takes on the role of psychopomp, ushering the listener into a borderless realm. She relays rich legends while warm, airy timbres (courtesy of cellist Teresa Alvarez and violinist Juan Zalba Fuentes) serve as guides throughout. Working largely in isolation over a period of two years, Oratorio For The Underworld is a document of "inward archaeology", and marks an intimate yet grandiose journey through the psyche, exploring the ecstatic emotional boundaries between life and death, and body and spirit.

Since the release of her debut record, Epoch Sinus, on Hotflush in 2016, PYUR has been active performing internationally at festivals such as Berlin's Atonal and Tasmania's Dark Mofo. She is currently at work on a collaboration with the French choreographer Benjamin Bertrand developing a piece called "La Fin Des Fôrets", which will be performed in summer 2020.

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On Sutarti, Joshua Sabin draws influence from the compositional structures and psychoacoustic properties that exist within early Lithuanian folk music, exploring the emotional potency of the human voice through the manipulation of elements of archival recordings. Obtaining access to the folk music archives of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre Ethnomusicology Archive from the outset of this project, Sabin felt a particular resonance with the extensive library of vocal recordings and specifically the song forms of the Sutartinė. Derived from the Lithuanian verb "Sutarti" -- to be "in agreement", "to attune" -- Sutartinės are a Lithuanian form of Schwebungsdiaphonie, a distinct canonic song style consisting of two or more voices that purposefully clash creating extremely precise dissonances and the phenomena of aural "beating". Inspired by the psychoacoustic research of Rytis Ambrazevičius, whose computer analyses reveal the unique acoustic and harmonic complexities in these archival songs, and transfixed by what Sabin describes as their "arresting and often almost plaintive and minimalistic beauty", he sought to compose directly with the recordings them-selves as a raw material. Sutarti exists fundamentally as an emotional "response", presenting archival voices through radical recontextualizations that Sabin hopes simultaneously express both his personal perspective and experience, and also speak universally to the power and versatility of the voice as a communicator of meaning and emotion. Produced with archival recordings, instrumentation including skudučiai and fiddle, and field recordings of Lithuanian forest ambiences. Joshua Sabin is an Edinburgh based composer and sound designer, who's first LP Terminus Drift was released on Subtext in 2017 (SUB 010CD/020LP).

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With Chords, the Stockholm-based musician and composer Ellen Arkbro returns to Subtext, following her acclaimed debut album For Organ And Brass (SUB 011CD/021LP, 2017). This new long-player sees Arkbro adopt a more minimalist approach, focusing on the immediate qualities of sound and elegantly expanding the tonal capacities of acoustic instruments using precise, subtle synthesis. Composed of a carefully selected combination of tones, Chords stretches, extends and obscures the timbral character of the instruments it is performed on. Across both tracks, Arkbro examines the sonic materiality and harmonic quality of chords. She considers how the compositions occupy space rather than time -- transposing theoretical possibilities into the phenomenal realm. As a part of Arkbro's systematic investigation of harmonic sound, Chords proffers a divergence from conventional ways of listening. "Chords For Organ" was first envisaged in Stockholm's brutalist Västerort Church. With an interest in tuned intervals and chords, Arkbro sought out particular harmonicities before synthetically supplying additional harmonic content and texture. To pure fifths and octaves, she adds synthesized natural sevenths and thirds, creating a heightened sense of harmonic stability. While this incarnation of "Chords For Organ" was recorded in Malmö's St. John's Church, this work is site-specific, requiring Arkbro to seek out appropriate chordal orchestrations in registers and tunings on each respective instrument, when performing live. "Chords For Organ" has been adapted and performed in Martin Luther Kirche in Dresden, Civico Tempio Di San Sebastiano in Milan, First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, Lutherse Kerk in Den Haag and Sint-Jan de Doperkerk in Leuven. In the corresponding "Chords For Guitar" Arkbro applies her process to a more widely accessible instrument. Employing a fine-tuned Karplus-Strong synthesis, she supplements additional tones to create a harmonically controlled blend of the acoustic and the synthetic. "Chords For Guitar" places the listener at the center of a cyclically repeating complex of harmonic strings in wave-like motion. Attention is synchronously fixed with the sound as this chordal harmony rises, vibrates, and purrs away, before rising again. As she transposes these ideas across organ and guitar, Arkbro teases out their affinities and dissimilarities, and, in doing so, effectively highlights the harmonic character of the work as a whole.

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LP version. With Chords, the Stockholm-based musician and composer Ellen Arkbro returns to Subtext, following her acclaimed debut album For Organ And Brass (SUB 011CD/021LP, 2017). This new long-player sees Arkbro adopt a more minimalist approach, focusing on the immediate qualities of sound and elegantly expanding the tonal capacities of acoustic instruments using precise, subtle synthesis. Composed of a carefully selected combination of tones, Chords stretches, extends and obscures the timbral character of the instruments it is performed on. Across both tracks, Arkbro examines the sonic materiality and harmonic quality of chords. She considers how the compositions occupy space rather than time -- transposing theoretical possibilities into the phenomenal realm. As a part of Arkbro's systematic investigation of harmonic sound, Chords proffers a divergence from conventional ways of listening. "Chords For Organ" was first envisaged in Stockholm's brutalist Västerort Church. With an interest in tuned intervals and chords, Arkbro sought out particular harmonicities before synthetically supplying additional harmonic content and texture. To pure fifths and octaves, she adds synthesized natural sevenths and thirds, creating a heightened sense of harmonic stability. While this incarnation of "Chords For Organ" was recorded in Malmö's St. John's Church, this work is site-specific, requiring Arkbro to seek out appropriate chordal orchestrations in registers and tunings on each respective instrument, when performing live. "Chords For Organ" has been adapted and performed in Martin Luther Kirche in Dresden, Civico Tempio Di San Sebastiano in Milan, First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, Lutherse Kerk in Den Haag and Sint-Jan de Doperkerk in Leuven. In the corresponding "Chords For Guitar" Arkbro applies her process to a more widely accessible instrument. Employing a fine-tuned Karplus-Strong synthesis, she supplements additional tones to create a harmonically controlled blend of the acoustic and the synthetic. "Chords For Guitar" places the listener at the center of a cyclically repeating complex of harmonic strings in wave-like motion. Attention is synchronously fixed with the sound as this chordal harmony rises, vibrates, and purrs away, before rising again. As she transposes these ideas across organ and guitar, Arkbro teases out their affinities and dissimilarities, and, in doing so, effectively highlights the harmonic character of the work as a whole.

$18.00 IN STOCK

In United, her debut LP as UCC Harlo, classically-trained musician Annie Gårlid distills hauntological pop, sound art, medieval, and baroque music, and left-field club production into a series of ecclesiastical-wave ventures. Written over six years in Germany, United began on train commutes during Gårlid's stint as a violist in an opera orchestra near Cologne and developed further during her time in Berlin. Through gestures such as reframing music by Bach and Magister Zacharias, through DAW experimentation and field recordings, United proposes sonic reconciliations between the old and the new. United also reflects the idea that sound and music always exist in broader, complex contexts loaded with historical and environmental information and mediated by internal emotional landscapes. For Gårlid, this acknowledgement is a metaphor for our urgent need to be attentive to non-human agencies and voices. United acts as a means of claiming a right to obscurity and of "sounding" ambivalence, doubt, and messiness in an age that demands transparency and clarity. Annie Gårlid is a New York-based writer, musician, and musicology researcher concerned with our ever-shifting, tenuous relationships with ecology, technology and care. Creating and discovering links between the old and the new, Gårlid operates equally in the realms of experimental, club and early music. She is a member of the Holly Herndon Ensemble and the band Songs, has collaborated with Caterina Barbieri, Bill Kouligas, and Emptyset, and has performed with ASMR-artist Claire Tolan. She works regularly with an array of composers and artists, and performs as a viola player and singer in both Europe and the USA.

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Continuing Subtext's exploratory electronics and devastating sonics is the expansive Ego De Espinhos, the debut full-length from 22-year-old Porto, Portugal-based artist Gonçalo Penas. Described by Penas as a series of "self-exorcisms", Ego De Espinhos is the cathartic outcome of a highly introspective process. Shaped by opposing forces and instincts, the LP touches on themes that are at once intimate, yet omnipresent. Splendor confronts destruction; id confronts super-ego. Created solely with digital instruments designed and built by the artist, Ego De Espinhos is the result of Penas's improvisations. Tracks such as "Introdução, Umbigo" and "Tecto Falso" were recorded in one take, and evidence a stark, dramatic emotional palette. The release begins as Penas chooses to reject rigidities, customs, and conventions of experimental electronic music. Of his process, Penas says: "Personally, I feel that creation should come from a completely free act of will. It is a place where there should be no rules, no expectations, no rights and no wrongs." In Ego De Espinhos, Penas turns away from his own technical background, and towards a journey of forward experimentation. This follows his education in Music Production and Technologies at Porto's School of Music and Performing Arts. For the first time, he finds the freedom to articulate himself sincerely, unearthing beauty and acceptance amidst wreckage and devastation.

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Subtext releases James Ginzburg's Six Correlations, originally composed for a commissioned performance in Berlin and recorded in early 2018 over three days. James Ginzburg is one half of Emptyset and founder of Subtext Recordings, as well as co-curator of the Arc Light Editions imprint with Jennifer Allan. Six Correlations explores the intersections between traditional music from various cultures, with a particular focus on Gaelic folk music native to the remote island regions of Scotland, where half of Ginzburg's family originates from. It incorporates influences of Iranian traditional music, Indian classical and generative composition techniques. Six Correlations considers the relationship between the organic and the digital world as a meditation on whether modernity implicitly represents a long slow goodbye to nature: a long slow goodbye to everything that is not integrated into the networked world. The response to the disappearance of both nature and non-digital culture is presented here as an aspiration to imagine and communicate a harmonious relationship between the organic and the technological. Produced using a hand drum, piano, voice, shruti box and Roland SH-101, Six Correlations brings together many of the influences from the Subtext artists with whom Ginzburg has worked with over the last years, such as Turkish artist and percussionist Cevdet Erek and Swedish composer Ellen Arkbro, as well as connecting with his instrumental explorations with Paul Purgas as Emptyset, and recent releases on Arc Light Editions such as Salm (ALE 007LP, 2018) an LP of Gaelic Psalm singing from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

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Under his guises Blessed Initiative and Ketev, as well as his own name, composer and sound artist Yair Elazar Glotman has explored extended techniques and processes to forge new sonic textures and musical forms. Compound picks up where the previous solo work under Glotman's own name -- Études (SUB 013LP, 2015) -- left off. The acoustic sound palette has now expanded from solo contrabass into a trio including pianist Rieko Okuda and percussionist Marcello Silvio Busato. Glotman guides the trio into utilizing sounds from the edges of their instruments' abilities -- arguably mere byproducts of harmony -- and through improvisation, repetition, and post-production, conjures new sonic bodies over two side-long pieces. His guidelines for each improvisation gave the players autonomy to emphasize the microscopic details of certain sounds: the shudder of a piano key, the hum of a cymbal, the incidental click of a plucked contrabass string. The recordings were then layered and reformulated by Glotman into two separate structures to complete the composition process. Both "Veil" and "Revelate" utilize the full spectral potential of each instrument, revealing new rhythmic patterns and harmonic content in the process. Taking Glotman's microscopic focus on instrument noises, using Études as a starting point, the trio on Compound ultimately bring into question both density and contrast, rhythm itself losing its stricter structures and becoming a purely pattern-based driving force in the music. The resultant unit contradicts and opposes itself, all sorts of clashing rhythms and melodies coexisting within the body of the two compositions of evolving sonic architecture. Based in Berlin, Yair Elazar Glotman is a classically-trained musician and sound artist. Besides previous works on Subtext including Études, a collaborative score with James Ginzburg's 2014 experimental film Nimbes (SUB 012EP, 2014), and the eponymous debut of his Blessed Initiative project (SUB 009CD/019LP, 2016), Glotman has released music via Opal Tapes and others under the nom de plume Ketev.

$19.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. Under his guises Blessed Initiative and Ketev, as well as his own name, composer and sound artist Yair Elazar Glotman has explored extended techniques and processes to forge new sonic textures and musical forms. Compound picks up where the previous solo work under Glotman's own name -- Études (SUB 013LP, 2015) -- left off. The acoustic sound palette has now expanded from solo contrabass into a trio including pianist Rieko Okuda and percussionist Marcello Silvio Busato. Glotman guides the trio into utilizing sounds from the edges of their instruments' abilities -- arguably mere byproducts of harmony -- and through improvisation, repetition, and post-production, conjures new sonic bodies over two side-long pieces. His guidelines for each improvisation gave the players autonomy to emphasize the microscopic details of certain sounds: the shudder of a piano key, the hum of a cymbal, the incidental click of a plucked contrabass string. The recordings were then layered and reformulated by Glotman into two separate structures to complete the composition process. Both "Veil" and "Revelate" utilize the full spectral potential of each instrument, revealing new rhythmic patterns and harmonic content in the process. Taking Glotman's microscopic focus on instrument noises, using Études as a starting point, the trio on Compound ultimately bring into question both density and contrast, rhythm itself losing its stricter structures and becoming a purely pattern-based driving force in the music. The resultant unit contradicts and opposes itself, all sorts of clashing rhythms and melodies coexisting within the body of the two compositions of evolving sonic architecture. Based in Berlin, Yair Elazar Glotman is a classically-trained musician and sound artist. Besides previous works on Subtext including Études, a collaborative score with James Ginzburg's 2014 experimental film Nimbes (SUB 012EP, 2014), and the eponymous debut of his Blessed Initiative project (SUB 009CD/019LP, 2016), Glotman has released music via Opal Tapes and others under the nom de plume Ketev.

$11.00 NOT IN STOCK

Ahead of his representing Turkey at 2017's Venice Biennale, Subtext presents Istanbul-based Cevdet Erek's first full-length album Davul. The title refers to the instrument performed by Erek, a large drum with many names, common from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, known variably as a daouli (Greek), tapan (Macedonian), dahol (Kurdish), or tabl (Arabic), to cite a few. Erek plays the drum with his own unusual method, utilizing a large soft mallet alongside various smaller implements to beat and distort the skin of the drum, tuned lower than normal, taking advantage of being able to walk around the studio or installation spaces with the instrument. Erek acquired the drum from a Roma musician, and proceeded to play it in private for years where he developed this new textural approach, integrating the instrument into his A Room of Rhythms installation piece at Istanbul Biennial in 2015. Comprising extracts culled from hours of solo drum improvisations recorded over two days in Berlin, Davul features no editing or overdubbing. At times Erek describes "playing to get the negative and aggressive away from inside of me, hoping that I could do the same for the other people surrounding me." He refers to a shamanic history of healing rituals -- although the davul is most commonly used for weddings, dances, and celebrations. "Of course the aesthetics of dark electronics and noise that I've been exposed to for decades informs the overall feel as well," adds Erek. Over seven improvised pieces, Erek conjures a massive variety of uncharacteristic sounds and colors from the drum, from deep scrapes and grinds to heavy rubs and drones, creating complex rhythms. Experimentation with rhythm, meter, and silence has always been at the core of what Erek does -- from his work as a conceptual artist, presenting work at the likes of dOCUMENTA, to decades as the drummer in Turkish experimental rock band Nekropsi -- but Davul is his purest statement-of-intent to date; a raw and hypnotic exploration of flow and dynamics. Cevdet Erek was born in Istanbul in 1974, where he would initially study Architecture. Originally formed in 1989, Erek has also been the longtime drummer with Turkish experimental music stalwarts, Nekropsi. Erek has also worked on sound and music for film, most recently contributing original music and sound design to Emin Alper's 2015 film Frenzy (SUB 017LP, 2016).

$19.50 NOT IN STOCK

LP version. Ahead of his representing Turkey at 2017's Venice Biennale, Subtext presents Istanbul-based Cevdet Erek's first full-length album Davul. The title refers to the instrument performed by Erek, a large drum with many names, common from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, known variably as a daouli (Greek), tapan (Macedonian), dahol (Kurdish), or tabl (Arabic), to cite a few. Erek plays the drum with his own unusual method, utilizing a large soft mallet alongside various smaller implements to beat and distort the skin of the drum, tuned lower than normal, taking advantage of being able to walk around the studio or installation spaces with the instrument. Erek acquired the drum from a Roma musician, and proceeded to play it in private for years where he developed this new textural approach, integrating the instrument into his A Room of Rhythms installation piece at Istanbul Biennial in 2015. Comprising extracts culled from hours of solo drum improvisations recorded over two days in Berlin, Davul features no editing or overdubbing. At times Erek describes "playing to get the negative and aggressive away from inside of me, hoping that I could do the same for the other people surrounding me." He refers to a shamanic history of healing rituals -- although the davul is most commonly used for weddings, dances, and celebrations. "Of course the aesthetics of dark electronics and noise that I've been exposed to for decades informs the overall feel as well," adds Erek. Over seven improvised pieces, Erek conjures a massive variety of uncharacteristic sounds and colors from the drum, from deep scrapes and grinds to heavy rubs and drones, creating complex rhythms. Experimentation with rhythm, meter, and silence has always been at the core of what Erek does -- from his work as a conceptual artist, presenting work at the likes of dOCUMENTA, to decades as the drummer in Turkish experimental rock band Nekropsi -- but Davul is his purest statement-of-intent to date; a raw and hypnotic exploration of flow and dynamics. Cevdet Erek was born in Istanbul in 1974, where he would initially study Architecture. Originally formed in 1989, Erek has also been the longtime drummer with Turkish experimental music stalwarts, Nekropsi. Erek has also worked on sound and music for film, most recently contributing original music and sound design to Emin Alper's 2015 film Frenzy (SUB 017LP, 2016).

$14.00 IN STOCK

Subtext presents Clear Stones, the first meeting between two distinct voices from New Zealand. In a unique collaboration, sound artist working with Māori instruments Rob Thorne (Ngāti Tumutumu) and Berlin-based electronic composer Fis dismantle boundaries in space, time, and genre, juxtaposing Thorne's living, breathing practice with the weight of modern sound systems. Recording sessions at Berlin's Red Bull Studios were the starting point, committing Thorne's traditional Māori instrumentation to tape. Made of wood, stone, bone and shell, the instruments of taonga pūoro ("singing treasures") include various oblique-style flutes, horns, percussion, and objects spun above the player's head during performance. Amongst the instrumentation deployed by Thorne on Clear Stones is the Pūtātara (conch horn), Pūrerehua (bullroarer), and Tumutumu Kōhatu (stone percussion). However it's the Pūtōrino that features most regularly throughout; an instrument that is both flute and horn, both voices captured in one single take by Thorne on mid-album epic "Glurn Herrin". Thorne has been performing in New Zealand for some 25 years, and the release of his debut solo album Whāia te Māramatanga on Rattle Records in 2014 garnered wide critical acclaim, including a nomination for "Best Maori Traditional Album" at the 2014 Waiata Māori Music Awards. Since his debut on Tri Angle Records in 2013, Fis has released a string of acclaimed albums, including his Subtext debut From Patterns To Details in 2016 (SUB 008CD/018LP), ending up in end-of-year lists at both FACT magazine and The Quietus. Starting with Thorne's taonga pūoro recordings, Fis sculpts bold new settings for the music, mired in deep bass and vast synthetic tones, at times pushing Thorne's wood, stone, and bone into total transformative saturation. The conversation that emerges between these two artists encompasses technology and nature, computers and physical instruments, historical narrative and the present, perceived secularity and sacredness, framing them all as aspects of one single, conscious whole.

$19.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Subtext presents Clear Stones, the first meeting between two distinct voices from New Zealand. In a unique collaboration, sound artist working with Māori instruments Rob Thorne (Ngāti Tumutumu) and Berlin-based electronic composer Fis dismantle boundaries in space, time, and genre, juxtaposing Thorne's living, breathing practice with the weight of modern sound systems. Recording sessions at Berlin's Red Bull Studios were the starting point, committing Thorne's traditional Māori instrumentation to tape. Made of wood, stone, bone and shell, the instruments of taonga pūoro ("singing treasures") include various oblique-style flutes, horns, percussion, and objects spun above the player's head during performance. Amongst the instrumentation deployed by Thorne on Clear Stones is the Pūtātara (conch horn), Pūrerehua (bullroarer), and Tumutumu Kōhatu (stone percussion). However it's the Pūtōrino that features most regularly throughout; an instrument that is both flute and horn, both voices captured in one single take by Thorne on mid-album epic "Glurn Herrin". Thorne has been performing in New Zealand for some 25 years, and the release of his debut solo album Whāia te Māramatanga on Rattle Records in 2014 garnered wide critical acclaim, including a nomination for "Best Maori Traditional Album" at the 2014 Waiata Māori Music Awards. Since his debut on Tri Angle Records in 2013, Fis has released a string of acclaimed albums, including his Subtext debut From Patterns To Details in 2016 (SUB 008CD/018LP), ending up in end-of-year lists at both FACT magazine and The Quietus. Starting with Thorne's taonga pūoro recordings, Fis sculpts bold new settings for the music, mired in deep bass and vast synthetic tones, at times pushing Thorne's wood, stone, and bone into total transformative saturation. The conversation that emerges between these two artists encompasses technology and nature, computers and physical instruments, historical narrative and the present, perceived secularity and sacredness, framing them all as aspects of one single, conscious whole.

$11.00 NOT IN STOCK

2018 repress. For Organ And Brass is comprised of two works by the Stockholm-based composer Ellen Arkbro. Both works focus on tuning, intonation, and harmonic modulation. In previous projects, Arkbro composed for early music ensembles, wrote a series of durational pieces utilizing synthetic tones and processed guitars, and, most recently, presented a work lasting 26 days at the Stockholm Concert Hall. For Organ And Brass looks back to Arkbro's studies in just intonation with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and their disciple Jung Hee Choi in New York, as well as with kindred spirit Marc Sabat in Berlin. The title composition was written for an organ with a specific kind of historical tuning known as meantone temperament. It was only after locating an appropriate instrument -- the Sherer-Orgel dating back to 1624 in St. Stephen's Church in Tangermünde, Northeastern Germany -- that Arkbro set about recording both for organ and brass and its counterpart, Three. "Hidden within the harmonic framework of the Renaissance organ are intervals and chords that bare a close resemblance to those found in the modalities of traditional blues music," explains Arkbro. "The work can be thought of as a very slow and reduced blues music." The work moves gradually through a series of long, sustained tones played by the organ and in parallel by a brass trio comprised of horn, tuba, and trombone. Arkbro's treatment of pitch resembles the tuning strategies of La Monte Young. The brass parts were performed by microtonal brass trio Zinc & Copper, a group whose repertoire has included works by C.C. Hennix and Christian Wolff. In Arkbro's words, "the brass instruments and the organ fall into patterns of interaction in which a new breathing instrument emerges." Three, which follows the 20-minute title work, deploys the same principles of harmonic relativity. In removing the organ from the instrumentation and switching to a different meter, Three acts as an intimate counterpoint to the ritual drone cycles of the title piece. For Organ And Brass was recorded in Tangermünde, Germany in September 2016. The performers were Johan Graden (organ), Elena Kakaliagou (horn), Hilary Jeffery (trombone), and Robin Hayward (tuba). Ellen Arkbro's work has been performed in Brooklyn, Stockholm, Norberg, Bologna, Gothenburg, Berlin, Birmingham, and Malmö, and on Swedish National Radio.

$20.00 NOT IN STOCK

2018 repress; LP version. For Organ And Brass is comprised of two works by the Stockholm-based composer Ellen Arkbro. Both works focus on tuning, intonation, and harmonic modulation. In previous projects, Arkbro composed for early music ensembles, wrote a series of durational pieces utilizing synthetic tones and processed guitars, and, most recently, presented a work lasting 26 days at the Stockholm Concert Hall. For Organ And Brass looks back to Arkbro's studies in just intonation with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and their disciple Jung Hee Choi in New York, as well as with kindred spirit Marc Sabat in Berlin. The title composition was written for an organ with a specific kind of historical tuning known as meantone temperament. It was only after locating an appropriate instrument -- the Sherer-Orgel dating back to 1624 in St. Stephen's Church in Tangermünde, Northeastern Germany -- that Arkbro set about recording both for organ and brass and its counterpart, Three. "Hidden within the harmonic framework of the Renaissance organ are intervals and chords that bare a close resemblance to those found in the modalities of traditional blues music," explains Arkbro. "The work can be thought of as a very slow and reduced blues music." The work moves gradually through a series of long, sustained tones played by the organ and in parallel by a brass trio comprised of horn, tuba, and trombone. Arkbro's treatment of pitch resembles the tuning strategies of La Monte Young. The brass parts were performed by microtonal brass trio Zinc & Copper, a group whose repertoire has included works by C.C. Hennix and Christian Wolff. In Arkbro's words, "the brass instruments and the organ fall into patterns of interaction in which a new breathing instrument emerges." Three, which follows the 20-minute title work, deploys the same principles of harmonic relativity. In removing the organ from the instrumentation and switching to a different meter, Three acts as an intimate counterpoint to the ritual drone cycles of the title piece. For Organ And Brass was recorded in Tangermünde, Germany in September 2016. The performers were Johan Graden (organ), Elena Kakaliagou (horn), Hilary Jeffery (trombone), and Robin Hayward (tuba). Ellen Arkbro's work has been performed in Brooklyn, Stockholm, Norberg, Bologna, Gothenburg, Berlin, Birmingham, and Malmö, and on Swedish National Radio.

$14.50 IN STOCK

Subtext's latest signing is Joshua Sabin, a Scottish musician and artist based in Leith, Edinburgh. Joshua's debut album Terminus Drift explores humans' relationship with environment and space, and how this experience is augmenting us as we further embrace a digital age. Our structures of communication, exploration, and discovery are mediated by technological shifts and we exist in simultaneity between our physical environment and emerging cyberspaces with a blended perception of embodiment and orientation within both - sirens reverberating through station tunnels, fluctuating harmonics of subway engines, echoing tannoy systems, piercing screams of electromagnetic fields. The sonic material of this album is composed exclusively of field-recordings captured in transit through Kyoto, Tokyo, and Berlin, in addition to electromagnetic field recordings captured in Glasgow and Edinburgh. By interrogating the sonic properties of our physical environment, Terminus Drift imagines the sonic landscapes of these dualistically navigable "cyberspaces" we transiently create and move through interacting with our world.

$20.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. Subtext's latest signing is Joshua Sabin, a Scottish musician and artist based in Leith, Edinburgh. Joshua's debut album Terminus Drift explores humans' relationship with environment and space, and how this experience is augmenting us as we further embrace a digital age. Our structures of communication, exploration, and discovery are mediated by technological shifts and we exist in simultaneity between our physical environment and emerging cyberspaces with a blended perception of embodiment and orientation within both - sirens reverberating through station tunnels, fluctuating harmonics of subway engines, echoing tannoy systems, piercing screams of electromagnetic fields. The sonic material of this album is composed exclusively of field-recordings captured in transit through Kyoto, Tokyo, and Berlin, in addition to electromagnetic field recordings captured in Glasgow and Edinburgh. By interrogating the sonic properties of our physical environment, Terminus Drift imagines the sonic landscapes of these dualistically navigable "cyberspaces" we transiently create and move through interacting with our world.

$14.50 IN STOCK

Blessed Initiative is a project by Yair Elazar Glotman which suggests a dissonant, coexistent state of extreme highs and lows. This self-titled album attempts to articulate a mental state of simultaneity, in which equilibrium is fleeting, fragile, and its scarcity is embraced. Opposite states coincide, contrast, and reflect, creating moments of uncertainty and insecurity. Absurdity, and at times even bliss, are possible results in the attempt to channel anxiety into creative forces rather than debilitating ones. In an environment where personas are the sums of the images they project, sounds are also no longer evidence of invention but of ever-changing combination, curation, and editing. The final persona is a sum of the chosen and the deleted, as well as what may be projected from outside, creating a confusing and conflicted self. The sounds collected here are attempts to compose on these uncertain grounds, and to reflect the anxiety released in all these sources meeting and interaction. As a singular project, Blessed Initiative stops to comment on the conditions that inform Glotman's composition before and after it, and to acknowledge it as a non-linear, ongoing process. The focus on process and uncertainty is apparent in the album's phrasing, re-articulation and cycles of repetition and deviation. The pieces were composed from sounds generated on the KYMA system, personal foley recordings, as well as tape manipulations techniques. Minor sounds on major scales and micro-tonal tuning suggest an ambiguous harmonic sphere. These were then integrated within idiosyncratic rhythmic structures, at times integrating real spaces and resonating bodies, as reverb and augmented echo chambers. Concrete, almost-recognizable organic sounds contrast with these abstract spaces and connect them to tactile experiences. These textures and structures are a palette that reforms and deforms as it cycles throughout the album. The photographic series "Relax (blue)", 2004, by the artist Josephine Pryde was chosen for the album's cover. The two images represent a closed cycle of energy and unfulfilled release. Yair Elazar Glotman is a classically trained musician and sound artist based in Berlin whose previous works on Subtext include the LP Études (SUB 013LP, 2015) and a collaboration with James Ginzburg titled Nimbes (SUB 012EP, 2014).

$20.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Blessed Initiative is a project by Yair Elazar Glotman which suggests a dissonant, coexistent state of extreme highs and lows. This self-titled album attempts to articulate a mental state of simultaneity, in which equilibrium is fleeting, fragile, and its scarcity is embraced. Opposite states coincide, contrast, and reflect, creating moments of uncertainty and insecurity. Absurdity, and at times even bliss, are possible results in the attempt to channel anxiety into creative forces rather than debilitating ones. In an environment where personas are the sums of the images they project, sounds are also no longer evidence of invention but of ever-changing combination, curation, and editing. The final persona is a sum of the chosen and the deleted, as well as what may be projected from outside, creating a confusing and conflicted self. The sounds collected here are attempts to compose on these uncertain grounds, and to reflect the anxiety released in all these sources meeting and interaction. As a singular project, Blessed Initiative stops to comment on the conditions that inform Glotman's composition before and after it, and to acknowledge it as a non-linear, ongoing process. The focus on process and uncertainty is apparent in the album's phrasing, re-articulation and cycles of repetition and deviation. The pieces were composed from sounds generated on the KYMA system, personal foley recordings, as well as tape manipulations techniques. Minor sounds on major scales and micro-tonal tuning suggest an ambiguous harmonic sphere. These were then integrated within idiosyncratic rhythmic structures, at times integrating real spaces and resonating bodies, as reverb and augmented echo chambers. Concrete, almost-recognizable organic sounds contrast with these abstract spaces and connect them to tactile experiences. These textures and structures are a palette that reforms and deforms as it cycles throughout the album. The photographic series "Relax (blue)", 2004, by the artist Josephine Pryde was chosen for the album's cover. The two images represent a closed cycle of energy and unfulfilled release. Yair Elazar Glotman is a classically trained musician and sound artist based in Berlin whose previous works on Subtext include the LP Études (SUB 013LP, 2015) and a collaboration with James Ginzburg titled Nimbes (SUB 012EP, 2014).

$15.50 IN STOCK

FIS presents From Patterns To Details, his second full length release. Natural patterns of organic life make the most efficient use of space and surface area and in permaculture design one observes natural patterns in a landscape and plans details accordingly. Taking a self-occurring pattern like the veins of a leaf, contour lines, or the spirals of water and letting that guide interactions with the surface of the earth. The ethos is to work with natural flow and processes rather than to impose. Mirroring this idea, From Patterns To Details draws from the sense of a deeper underlying order. It sees continuity between environment and individual, continuity between external bodies and the internal emotional landscapes that music can communicate beyond the affordances of language. The album embraces technology as something that is not in conflict with the organic processes of nature. Technology is treated as life in a different state. Human beings are gardens in a different state; all temporary forms of the same thing. From Patterns To Details imagines states of alignment with all and harmonious design, a complete integration between personal and external systems whether organic or technological. FIS composes physical, spirited, exploratory electronic music inspired in part by his work as a permaculture designer. Initially developing his craft on the sound systems of his birth country New Zealand, he went on to a string of critically acclaimed releases on Tri Angle Records and Loopy.

$21.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. FIS presents From Patterns To Details, his second full length release. Natural patterns of organic life make the most efficient use of space and surface area and in permaculture design one observes natural patterns in a landscape and plans details accordingly. Taking a self-occurring pattern like the veins of a leaf, contour lines, or the spirals of water and letting that guide interactions with the surface of the earth. The ethos is to work with natural flow and processes rather than to impose. Mirroring this idea, From Patterns To Details draws from the sense of a deeper underlying order. It sees continuity between environment and individual, continuity between external bodies and the internal emotional landscapes that music can communicate beyond the affordances of language. The album embraces technology as something that is not in conflict with the organic processes of nature. Technology is treated as life in a different state. Human beings are gardens in a different state; all temporary forms of the same thing. From Patterns To Details imagines states of alignment with all and harmonious design, a complete integration between personal and external systems whether organic or technological. FIS composes physical, spirited, exploratory electronic music inspired in part by his work as a permaculture designer. Initially developing his craft on the sound systems of his birth country New Zealand, he went on to a string of critically acclaimed releases on Tri Angle Records and Loopy.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Subtext presents Barotrauma by Eric Holm. Eric Cardinale was born in New Jersey and moved to England in 2000. His first album Andøya (SUB 011LP), composed primarily out of two 30-second recordings of power lines in arctic Norway, was released on Subtext in 2014.The source material for Barotrauma was recorded in the Nordic fjords south of Oslo, an adjunct to Eric Holm's training at the Norwegian School of Commercial diving (Norsk Yrkesdykkerskole). While he was training, world oil prices collapsed leaving him with an uncertain future. Holm decided to record and film his dives, capturing the lonely calm of his isolation in the dark water. Like environments on land, the seabed is populated with machines, industry, and noise. Interference is everywhere. Engines, equipment, drilling: it is a mirror of on-land environmental exploitation. These six tracks were created between 2014 and 2016, using the sounds Holm collected from the sea floor and subsea equipment, which he then manipulated and processed, shaping a vision of his time in this underwater environment.

$14.00 IN STOCK

Subtext presents new work by the Istanbul based artist and musician Cevdet Erek in extracts from his soundtrack to the Turkish crime thriller Frenzy, winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. These two compositions shed light on Erek's diverse sonic background, both as a member of the seminal band Nekropsi and as a celebrated conceptual artist presenting sound and installation works internationally such as his "Room of Rhythms", which has been shown at Documenta, as well as the Istanbul and Sydney biennials. The first track, "Abluka Final", presents a tense and driving percussive wall of sound that mirrors Frenzy's dramatic storyline set against a backdrop of political violence in Istanbul. Accompanying this is a textural recording exploring aspects of warped time and shifting geometry that references the films disturbing subtext of social paranoia.

$15.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Continuum emerges as a crystallized vision deploying sound to explore the spectrum of life, power, and energy present in the universe. Creating a speculative soundtrack to a timeline stretching from the primordial emergence of organic life through to the unknowable trajectory of the universe, it explores the magnitude of science's reach and the precarious role of humanity within this vast, evolving system. The compositions adopt the central premise of mirroring celestial events, algorithmic action, and cellular behavior, fusing these with a defiant tonal grandeur and an ever-present sense of chaos. The album sits at a meeting point of fiction, composition, and philosophy, considering how the past, present, and unknown future could be consolidated and perceived on both human and non-human terms. Examining whether the conditions that support life and the digital and atomic mechanisms that surround it can continue to work together as one ecology in the face of dynamic and unpredictable change.