TAK:TIL/GLITTERBEAT - Forced Exposure

$15.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/30/2019

Slovenian "imaginary folk" instrumental trio return with a kaleidoscopic third album. Handmade and global instrumentation meets fearless sound exploration. There's a sequence in Memoryscapes, a lovely French-made short film, in which Sirom set about fashioning music from a pile of pots, pans, saucepan lids and empty cans of supermarket lager on the kitchen table. The three members of the band -- Ana Kravanja, Samo Kutin, and Iztok Koren, in any order you like for this is a collective endeavor -- are gently fending off any question that attempts to reduce their music to type. "Imaginary folk" is Samo's preferred description, but the word "preferred" is doing some heavy lifting here. The band are more than happy to bust two myths that seem to have grown up in the last couple of years. First, this is not Slovenian traditional (or traditional Slovenian) music. It might be produced from and by each of the three landscapes in which the band were raised -- the Karst, the hills of Tolmin, the eastern plains of Prekmurje -- but unpicking what came from where is an impossible endeavor. That leads you to the second misconception: that Sirom are an improvisational band. For sure, improvisation is an indispensable part of the initial songwriting process; but it's an expression of their collective manner of working rather than any musical statement per se. Keen-eared listeners will hear a continuation of the last song on Clay Snapper (GB 051CD, LP) in the first song of the new record: a nod, perhaps, to the fact that they began work on the new record immediately after the last. But whatever has gone into the music, from the band's home landscapes to their previous and in some cases still current musical projects (classical, hardcore, flatlands post-rock), Sirom sound like no one else. The world of the new record -- A Universe that Roasts Blossoms for a Horse -- is indeed subtly different to that of the last: the viola still teases and tugs at the percussion and the banjo still periodically tries to break free and set up on its own, but there's a glimpse of electricity in "A Pulse Expels Its Brothers and Sisters", courtesy of Samo's homemade tampura brač, more vocals, albeit as unsettling as ever, and a new sense of spaces being pried open.

$23.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/30/2019

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Park Jiha's debut album Communion (GB 057CD/LP) -- released internationally by tak:til in 2018 -- drew well deserved attention to the young Korean instrumentalist/composer's vivid sound world. The widely acclaimed album graced 2018 critics lists at The Wire, Pop Matters, and the Guardian. Her new album Philos -- which she calls an evocation of her "love for time, space and sound" -- is every bit as inventive, elegant, and transcendent as her debut. While Park Jiha's music is often contextualized by its kinship with minimalism, ambient, and chamber jazz, her creative backbone is Korean traditional music. Jiha formally studied both its theory and practice and has mastered three of its most emblematic instruments: Piri (double reed bamboo flute), saenghwang (mouth organ), and yanggeum (hammered dulcimer). On Communion, Park Jiha wove these ancient instruments into an ensemble sound that included other musicians contributing on vibraphone, saxophone, bass clarinet, and percussion. The effect felt revelatory; it seemed to naturally evoke Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" ethos, morphing across time and tradition. Philos is both an extension of, and a swerve away from, her previous record. It shares its predecessor's patience and deeply resonant hypnotic effects. It similarly looks to the future, while continuing to converse with a rich instrumental language from the past. But the overall tone and intent feels much more interior and personal -- more rarefied. Whereas Communion featured the classic sound field of a group of musicians playing in a room, Philos trades that for more density and concentration. Each sound has been given the artist's full attention. In Greek, "Philos" is the plural for "philo" which can mean "love" or "the liking of a specified thing." The album's compositions include "Arrival", which slowly introduces every sound featured on the record. The gift of unexpected rain in the heat of midsummer is heard on "Thunder Shower". "Easy" is a poem written and recited by the Lebanese artist Dima El Sayed who visited Korea to participate in the Hwaeom Spiritual Music Ritual and was inspired by Park Jiha's work. The title track "Philos" was created by overlapping sounds and stretching time. "Walker: In Seoul" evokes the vivid soundscape of the city in which Jiha lives. "When I Think If Her" features the ghostly melodies of the yanggeum and saenghwang. Park Jiha reaches for a sturdy simplicity. A borderless connection between her life and her accomplished musical art.

$23.50 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl. Includes download code. Park Jiha's debut album Communion (GB 057CD/LP) -- released internationally by tak:til in 2018 -- drew well deserved attention to the young Korean instrumentalist/composer's vivid sound world. The widely acclaimed album graced 2018 critics lists at The Wire, Pop Matters, and the Guardian. Her new album Philos -- which she calls an evocation of her "love for time, space and sound" -- is every bit as inventive, elegant, and transcendent as her debut. While Park Jiha's music is often contextualized by its kinship with minimalism, ambient, and chamber jazz, her creative backbone is Korean traditional music. Jiha formally studied both its theory and practice and has mastered three of its most emblematic instruments: Piri (double reed bamboo flute), saenghwang (mouth organ), and yanggeum (hammered dulcimer). On Communion, Park Jiha wove these ancient instruments into an ensemble sound that included other musicians contributing on vibraphone, saxophone, bass clarinet, and percussion. The effect felt revelatory; it seemed to naturally evoke Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" ethos, morphing across time and tradition. Philos is both an extension of, and a swerve away from, her previous record. It shares its predecessor's patience and deeply resonant hypnotic effects. It similarly looks to the future, while continuing to converse with a rich instrumental language from the past. But the overall tone and intent feels much more interior and personal -- more rarefied. Whereas Communion featured the classic sound field of a group of musicians playing in a room, Philos trades that for more density and concentration. Each sound has been given the artist's full attention. In Greek, "Philos" is the plural for "philo" which can mean "love" or "the liking of a specified thing." The album's compositions include "Arrival", which slowly introduces every sound featured on the record. The gift of unexpected rain in the heat of midsummer is heard on "Thunder Shower". "Easy" is a poem written and recited by the Lebanese artist Dima El Sayed who visited Korea to participate in the Hwaeom Spiritual Music Ritual and was inspired by Park Jiha's work. The title track "Philos" was created by overlapping sounds and stretching time. "Walker: In Seoul" evokes the vivid soundscape of the city in which Jiha lives. "When I Think If Her" features the ghostly melodies of the yanggeum and saenghwang. Park Jiha reaches for a sturdy simplicity. A borderless connection between her life and her accomplished musical art.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Glitterbeat's instrumental music imprint tak:til, is undertaking an exciting label partnership with VDSQ Records, the acclaimed US based label specializing in "21st century guitar". Boston-based Chris Brokaw has made an indelible mark on rock music both on his own as well as with his iconic bands Codeine and Come, and as a collaborator with Thurston Moore, Evan Dando, Stephen O'Malley, and many others. On End of the Night, he leads a group of renowned players to create an album of entrancing instrumentals. Featuring lush, indigo-tinged arrangements of horns and strings, the album expands on VDSQ's solo acoustic spirit, evoking a sublime jazz mood appearing as night passes into the early morning hours.

"End of the Night was conceived based around a simple concept. Late one evening the musician and myself were listening to records at home. After many hours it got to the point where everything became completely still, the silence permeating the walls, reverberating. We agreed to listen to one more record, but what would it be? What music could answer that existential quandary of the perfect last record of the night at home? I instantly asked him to make me the very record we needed to hear at the moment, a record for the end of the night. Several years passed before the execution of the concept could take place but Brokaw was collecting notes in the back of his mind the entire time. I suggested collaborators like Greg Kelley (on Chet Baker style trumpet, knowing Brokaw's strong affinity for that player) and Samara Lubelski (whom he played with briefly in Thurston Moore and the New Wave Bandits). Bringing in guests such as Lori Goldston, David Michael Curry, Luther Gray, Jonah Sacks, and Timo Shanko, each track has its own unique combination of small group formations (duos, trios, quartets) very much like jazz, both in instrumentation and mood, if not style or standards . . . The result is a multi-hued, jazz-tinged instrumental record with a melancholy resolve and a deep blue/purple filter. Very much a product of his song writing and playing, End of the Night's guests allow the guitarist to show his interplay and prowess in a variety of settings rooted around a common theme. The album art was done by Hollywood legend Sandy Dvore (Buffalo Springfield, The Cake, Partridge Family)." --Steve Lowenthal

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Glitterbeat's instrumental music imprint tak:til, is undertaking an exciting label partnership with VDSQ Records, the acclaimed US based label specializing in "21st Century Guitar".

Chuck Johnson is a composer and musician residing in Oakland, CA. His 2017 album Balsams ended up on albums-of-the-year lists at Uncut, Pitchfork, and NPR. Tak:til is releasing Balsams for the first time ever on CD -- with two additional tracks. Chuck Johnson's pedal steel guitar debut delivers a group of pieces for ambient meditation. Recorded in a single two-week session during late 2015, and subsequently arranged/constructed/treated in the studio in spring of 2016, Balsams is awash in layers of tonal perfection. The album constantly evolves while maintaining a unified approach across both sides. Balsams is a record that lives outside genre and time, one that continues to develop with each successive deep listen. A unique expansion in the VDSQ catalog, Balsams is an album created in the hopes of providing solace and regenerative energies for many years to come.

"On this expressive and singular new album, Chuck Johnson gives his steel pedal guitar the starring role, and creates a kind of country post-rock. It feels like a universe unto itself." --Pitchfork (8.1)

"Chuck Johnson often writes for solo acoustic guitar, but lately has been stretching his ambient composition skills with the tenderness heard throughout his discography. For Balsams, he layers loops of pedal steel guitar that rest on the edge of dusk, just when the tumult of day subsides and seeps into the soul's reflection." --NPR (Best Music of 2017)

$23.50 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. Raül Refree is one of the most acclaimed Spanish producers of the last decade, and tak:til/Glitterbeat now presents La Otra Mitad, his new album. Working with artists such as Silvia Pérez Cruz and Rosalía, he has been at the forefront of the so-called "new flamenco" movement. He also collaborates with rock experimentalists like Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, but Raül's musical life doesn't stop there. He has released six previous solo albums, film soundtracks among other genre-skewing projects. It is this merging of sound worlds that makes Raül's new solo release La Otra Mitad (The Other Half) such an immersive and transportive listen. Mesmerizing acoustic and electric guitar explorations meet sampled street recordings, haunted voices and hushed electronics. The Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida said, "an artist should always try to do what he still does not know how to do." Without actually knowing this quotation, Refree's musical art seems to subscribeto Chillida's edict. In 2017, he produced two instrumental 10-inch EPs. The first of these, Jai Alai Vol.01, is mostly a collection of reflective solo guitar music, with each title named according to the instrument used on the track and the date on which it was played. The second Jai Alai volume is a different proposition, with the material coming from a soundtrack project, and the sound palette expanded to include recordings of street music, voices and a subtle electronic dimension. The tak:til release La Otra Mitad is an album that weaves together the two EPs and creates a dramatic new entity in itself. Whereas the guitar tracks included from Jai Alai Vol.01 echo the spontaneity and simplicity of Derek Bailey or Durutti Column, they are balanced beautifully by the soundtrack compositions from Jai Alai Vol.02, that make up the majority of the album. Much of La Otra Mitad is music made for a movie, Entre Dos Aguas (2018) by Isaki Lacuesta, a drama which explores the world of flamenco. These pieces are an exercise in voices found and converted into samples: flamenco singer Rocío Márquez, or El Bolita, a boy who participated in the film and spontaneously started singing in front of Raül, or vocal sketches from El Niño de Elche's Antología Del Cante Flamenco Heterodoxo (2018) which was co-composed and produced by Refree. Throughout the process of making La Otra Mitad, Raül Refree found another voice: his own; always changing and expanding in richness and open to saying, what he does not yet know.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Raül Refree is one of the most acclaimed Spanish producers of the last decade, and tak:til/Glitterbeat now presents La Otra Mitad, his new album. Working with artists such as Silvia Pérez Cruz and Rosalía, he has been at the forefront of the so-called "new flamenco" movement. He also collaborates with rock experimentalists like Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, but Raül's musical life doesn't stop there. He has released six previous solo albums, film soundtracks among other genre-skewing projects. It is this merging of sound worlds that makes Raül's new solo release La Otra Mitad (The Other Half) such an immersive and transportive listen. Mesmerizing acoustic and electric guitar explorations meet sampled street recordings, haunted voices and hushed electronics. The Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida said, "an artist should always try to do what he still does not know how to do." Without actually knowing this quotation, Refree's musical art seems to subscribeto Chillida's edict. In 2017, he produced two instrumental 10-inch EPs. The first of these, Jai Alai Vol.01, is mostly a collection of reflective solo guitar music, with each title named according to the instrument used on the track and the date on which it was played. The second Jai Alai volume is a different proposition, with the material coming from a soundtrack project, and the sound palette expanded to include recordings of street music, voices and a subtle electronic dimension. The tak:til release La Otra Mitad is an album that weaves together the two EPs and creates a dramatic new entity in itself. Whereas the guitar tracks included from Jai Alai Vol.01 echo the spontaneity and simplicity of Derek Bailey or Durutti Column, they are balanced beautifully by the soundtrack compositions from Jai Alai Vol.02, that make up the majority of the album. Much of La Otra Mitad is music made for a movie, Entre Dos Aguas (2018) by Isaki Lacuesta, a drama which explores the world of flamenco. These pieces are an exercise in voices found and converted into samples: flamenco singer Rocío Márquez, or El Bolita, a boy who participated in the film and spontaneously started singing in front of Raül, or vocal sketches from El Niño de Elche's Antología Del Cante Flamenco Heterodoxo (2018) which was co-composed and produced by Refree. Throughout the process of making La Otra Mitad, Raül Refree found another voice: his own; always changing and expanding in richness and open to saying, what he does not yet know.

$15.50 IN STOCK

"I don't want to play only traditional music. I want to play my own music... my own stories." --Park Jiha

Over the last few years a rising tide of new Korean artists have staked a place in the global music conversation. Groups like Jambinai, Black String and Park Jiha's earlier duo 숨[suːm] have created exciting soundworlds that deftly combine the instrumentation and complex expression of Korean traditional music with an array of contemporary sounds such as post-rock, doom metal, downtempo jazz, and classical minimalism. While Park Jiha's most recent musical endeavor, her debut solo album Communion, is another decisive step towards a more personal and forward-looking musical vocabulary, it also is deeply rooted in her traditional music education and background. Jiha's main instrument is the piri, a traditional Korean instrument which is like an oboe. She also plays the saenghwang, a traditional instrument similar to a mouth organ and made of bamboo, the yanggeum (hammered dulcimer), and percussion. Park Jiha started her music career by founding the duo 숨[suːm] with Jungmin Seo in 2007 -- after she had finished her musical studies. 숨[suːm]'s music, composed with an array of traditional instruments and buoyed by unorthodox musical structures, was an immediate and profound influence on the new Korean music scene. The duo released the album Rhythmic Space: A Pause For Breath in 2010, and 숨[suːm] 2nd in 2014. But Park Jiha began to hear a much different music -- one that directly interacted with more distant sound traditions and a more eclectic instrumental palette. Putting 숨[suːm] on pause for the moment, she started collaborating with John Bell (vibraphone) and Kim Oki (bass clarinet, saxophone) to create Communion, her first solo album. Originally released in Korea in 2016, the album's compositions are sometimes hushed and other times slowly swelling and dynamic. It skillfully unites hypnotic minimalism and experimental strategies with Park Jiha's distinctive mastery of the piri, saenghwang, and yanggeum. "The Longing of the Yawning Divide" is inspired by the solemnity and resonance of a monastery in Leuven, Belgium. "All Souls' Day" constructs harmony and rhythmic lift between an unlikely grouping of instruments: the yanggeum, piri, saxophone, vibraphone, and the jing. The album's opening composition, "Throughout The Night" is a precise and keening dialogue between the piri and the bass clarinet.

$23.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Includes download code. "I don't want to play only traditional music. I want to play my own music... my own stories." --Park Jiha

Over the last few years a rising tide of new Korean artists have staked a place in the global music conversation. Groups like Jambinai, Black String and Park Jiha's earlier duo 숨[suːm] have created exciting soundworlds that deftly combine the instrumentation and complex expression of Korean traditional music with an array of contemporary sounds such as post-rock, doom metal, downtempo jazz, and classical minimalism. While Park Jiha's most recent musical endeavor, her debut solo album Communion, is another decisive step towards a more personal and forward-looking musical vocabulary, it also is deeply rooted in her traditional music education and background. Jiha's main instrument is the piri, a traditional Korean instrument which is like an oboe. She also plays the saenghwang, a traditional instrument similar to a mouth organ and made of bamboo, the yanggeum (hammered dulcimer), and percussion. Park Jiha started her music career by founding the duo 숨[suːm] with Jungmin Seo in 2007 -- after she had finished her musical studies. 숨[suːm]'s music, composed with an array of traditional instruments and buoyed by unorthodox musical structures, was an immediate and profound influence on the new Korean music scene. The duo released the album Rhythmic Space: A Pause For Breath in 2010, and 숨[suːm] 2nd in 2014. But Park Jiha began to hear a much different music -- one that directly interacted with more distant sound traditions and a more eclectic instrumental palette. Putting 숨[suːm] on pause for the moment, she started collaborating with John Bell (vibraphone) and Kim Oki (bass clarinet, saxophone) to create Communion, her first solo album. Originally released in Korea in 2016, the album's compositions are sometimes hushed and other times slowly swelling and dynamic. It skillfully unites hypnotic minimalism and experimental strategies with Park Jiha's distinctive mastery of the piri, saenghwang, and yanggeum. "The Longing of the Yawning Divide" is inspired by the solemnity and resonance of a monastery in Leuven, Belgium. "All Souls' Day" constructs harmony and rhythmic lift between an unlikely grouping of instruments: the yanggeum, piri, saxophone, vibraphone, and the jing. The album's opening composition, "Throughout The Night" is a precise and keening dialogue between the piri and the bass clarinet.

$15.50 IN STOCK

First reissue of Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" masterpiece, originally released in 1981. Featuring contributions from Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel), and Michael Brook (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan). Beautifully remastered, with a bonus track ("Ordinary Mind") and liner notes written by Hassell himself. "Fourth World is a viewpoint out of which evolves guidelines for finding balances between accumulated knowledge and the conditions created by new technologies" --Jon Hassell. From his time studying with Stockhausen in Cologne and a passage through the New York minimalist sphere with Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and Philip Glass to his mentorship with the Indian vocal master Pandit Pran Nath and collaborative excursions with Eno, the Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, Björk, and Ry Cooder, Jon Hassell has pursued a continuous questioning of the dichotomies between North and South, sacred and sensual, primitive and futurist. These cross-pollinating influences and pan-cultural musical educations led Hassell to the gradual development of musical concepts and gestures that he grouped under the "Fourth World" umbrella theory. "I wanted the mental and geographical landscapes to be more indeterminate -- not Indonesia, not Africa, not this or that. . . . What would music be like if 'classic' had not been defined as what happened in Central Europe two hundred years ago. What if the world knew Javanese music and Pygmy music and Aborigine music? What would 'classical music' sound like then?" In the late 1970s in New York, Hassell began to produce a series of astonishing albums on which his trumpet explored both non-Western modalities and dramatic sound processing (deftly rendered by nascent digital effects like the AMS Harmonizer). Brian Eno, who was living New York at the time, was thrilled by Hassell's 1978 debut album, Vernal Equinox, and sought out its creator. Together they produced the classic 1980 album Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics (GB 019CD/LP), before Eno charged headlong into "Fourth World"-ish collaborations with a new partner, David Byrne, on Remain in Light (1980) and My Life in The Bush of Ghosts (1981). Hassell began to feel that they were at least borrowing concepts and sounds to which he had introduced them, and at worst, that a full-scale appropriation was taking place. As Hassell undertook the process of recording and finalizing Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two -- the follow-up to Possible Musics -- Brian Eno was again present, as both mixer and musician, but this time the back cover credits leave no room for interpretation or confusion: "All compositions by Jon Hassell. Produced by Jon Hassell."

$23.50 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Includes CD. First reissue of Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" masterpiece, originally released in 1981. Featuring contributions from Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel), and Michael Brook (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan). Beautifully remastered, with a bonus track ("Ordinary Mind") and liner notes written by Hassell himself. "Fourth World is a viewpoint out of which evolves guidelines for finding balances between accumulated knowledge and the conditions created by new technologies" --Jon Hassell. From his time studying with Stockhausen in Cologne and a passage through the New York minimalist sphere with Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and Philip Glass to his mentorship with the Indian vocal master Pandit Pran Nath and collaborative excursions with Eno, the Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, Björk, and Ry Cooder, Jon Hassell has pursued a continuous questioning of the dichotomies between North and South, sacred and sensual, primitive and futurist. These cross-pollinating influences and pan-cultural musical educations led Hassell to the gradual development of musical concepts and gestures that he grouped under the "Fourth World" umbrella theory. "I wanted the mental and geographical landscapes to be more indeterminate -- not Indonesia, not Africa, not this or that. . . . What would music be like if 'classic' had not been defined as what happened in Central Europe two hundred years ago. What if the world knew Javanese music and Pygmy music and Aborigine music? What would 'classical music' sound like then?" In the late 1970s in New York, Hassell began to produce a series of astonishing albums on which his trumpet explored both non-Western modalities and dramatic sound processing (deftly rendered by nascent digital effects like the AMS Harmonizer). Brian Eno, who was living New York at the time, was thrilled by Hassell's 1978 debut album, Vernal Equinox, and sought out its creator. Together they produced the classic 1980 album Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics (GB 019CD/LP), before Eno charged headlong into "Fourth World"-ish collaborations with a new partner, David Byrne, on Remain in Light (1980) and My Life in The Bush of Ghosts (1981). Hassell began to feel that they were at least borrowing concepts and sounds to which he had introduced them, and at worst, that a full-scale appropriation was taking place. As Hassell undertook the process of recording and finalizing Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two -- the follow-up to Possible Musics -- Brian Eno was again present, as both mixer and musician, but this time the back cover credits leave no room for interpretation or confusion: "All compositions by Jon Hassell. Produced by Jon Hassell."

$15.50 IN STOCK

Hailing from Slovenia, Sirom play vividly textured instrumental folk musics in which handmade global instrumentation meets fearless sound exploration. Samo Kutin and Ana Kravanja first met at the improvisational music workshops conducted by leading Slovenian improviser Tomaz Grom and Japanese improvisational percussionist Seijiro Murayama. Other shared influences include classical minimalism and global musics. The couple eventually formed the kalimba-based duo Najoua, before forming Sirom with Iztok Koren. The band's emergent sound oscillates between a wide array of acoustic folk sounds and contemporary post-rock meditations, often drifting from improvisation to structured composition and then back. The trio describes it as "imaginary folk" or "folk from a parallel universe." According to Kutin, the guiding concepts of their music-making are: "To play on acoustic instruments, to work with repetition and a common sound. Each of us can play a simple thing, but the overall result is that a complex thing comes to life. The quality of sound depends on the combination of the instruments and that's why we modify and prepare instruments or create our own." As an avid sound-seeker, Kutin began to develop an interest in building instruments out of everyday objects like drawers, computer boxes and other "junk" (as he lovingly calls his creations), in addition to re-tooling the ones he brought back from his globetrotting adventures (which have included personal encounters with local musicians in India, Morocco, Mali, Greece, and elsewhere). In the little village of Lesno Brdo, tucked in the rolling hills six miles south of Ljubljana, Kravanja and Kutin organize music performances and festivals on a farm they rent, and divide their time between music-making and vegetable farming. With I Can Be A Clay Snapper, the trio have devised a work of fearlessly textured sonic landscapes both linked to and unbound by the past and present, geography and tradition, the real and imagined. Hypnotic, otherworldly, and epic, Sirom's music moves like the restless waters of their homeland. No matter how hushed or slow it may seem, it is never standing still. Iztok Koren: banjo, three-string banjo, bass drum, percussion, chimes, balafon, objects; Ana Kravanja: violin, viola, ribab, cünbüs, balafon, ngoma drum, mizmar, objects, voice; Samo Kutin: lyre, balafon, one-string bass, frame drums, brač, gongoma, mizmar, objects, voice.

$23.50 IN STOCK

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Includes download code. Hailing from Slovenia, Sirom play vividly textured instrumental folk musics in which handmade global instrumentation meets fearless sound exploration. Samo Kutin and Ana Kravanja first met at the improvisational music workshops conducted by leading Slovenian improviser Tomaz Grom and Japanese improvisational percussionist Seijiro Murayama. Other shared influences include classical minimalism and global musics. The couple eventually formed the kalimba-based duo Najoua, before forming Sirom with Iztok Koren. The band's emergent sound oscillates between a wide array of acoustic folk sounds and contemporary post-rock meditations, often drifting from improvisation to structured composition and then back. The trio describes it as "imaginary folk" or "folk from a parallel universe." According to Kutin, the guiding concepts of their music-making are: "To play on acoustic instruments, to work with repetition and a common sound. Each of us can play a simple thing, but the overall result is that a complex thing comes to life. The quality of sound depends on the combination of the instruments and that's why we modify and prepare instruments or create our own." As an avid sound-seeker, Kutin began to develop an interest in building instruments out of everyday objects like drawers, computer boxes and other "junk" (as he lovingly calls his creations), in addition to re-tooling the ones he brought back from his globetrotting adventures (which have included personal encounters with local musicians in India, Morocco, Mali, Greece, and elsewhere). In the little village of Lesno Brdo, tucked in the rolling hills six miles south of Ljubljana, Kravanja and Kutin organize music performances and festivals on a farm they rent, and divide their time between music-making and vegetable farming. With I Can Be A Clay Snapper, the trio have devised a work of fearlessly textured sonic landscapes both linked to and unbound by the past and present, geography and tradition, the real and imagined. Hypnotic, otherworldly, and epic, Sirom's music moves like the restless waters of their homeland. No matter how hushed or slow it may seem, it is never standing still. Iztok Koren: banjo, three-string banjo, bass drum, percussion, chimes, balafon, objects; Ana Kravanja: violin, viola, ribab, cünbüs, balafon, ngoma drum, mizmar, objects, voice; Samo Kutin: lyre, balafon, one-string bass, frame drums, brač, gongoma, mizmar, objects, voice.

$15.50 IN STOCK

CD release of one of 2016's most acclaimed albums, the first release on Glitterbeat's tak:til imprint. 75 Dollar Bill's second full-length crashed onto many of the year's most prestigious best-of lists, including those of The Wire, Uncut, The Village Voice, and more. The NYC-based duo of Rick Brown and Che Chen creates hypnotic, pulsing music that weaves an ecstatic line from raw electric blues, Arabic modes, and entrancing folk minimalism back to the streets of New York. Notes by Rick Brown: "I feel very lucky to have wound up playing in 75 Dollar Bill with Che. I'll take some credit for the early setup, as I pursued the idea of us jamming together for a few years before we actually made some music together. But when it comes to focusing our sound, putting together a good set-list, imagining how to expand the group with guests and designing almost all of the visual/package aspects, Che has taken the lead. Obviously, he is responsible for his own parts and playing and his interest in the Arabic modes of Mauritanian music has marked our sound quite a bit but I have brought some things, too. The plywood crate I play is a big factor, defining, by its positive qualities (a nice warm 'boom' sound) as well as by its simplicity, what we're likely to do in the percussion realm. WMPPRR, this new record, differs quite a bit from the previous one, notably in the rhythmic 'tone.' Wooden Bag (released in 2015 on Other Music Recording Co.) was all forward momentum, stomping and shaking, but the new record explores a long-standing interest of mine: odd and 'compound' meters. In most of my previous musical activities, I've convinced my partners to delve into this, but in 75 Dollar Bill it has just felt natural and I believe Che's modal investigations and melodic/harmonic tendencies enhance (and are enhanced by) this combination. The current record differs from the last in another big way: reinforcements! Over our few years together, Che and I have frequently had friends play with us at some of our gigs. There have been all sorts of permutations of instruments and some great friends/players who don't all appear on this record but here we are lucky to have a bunch of them: Cheryl Kingan (of The Scene Is Now) on baritone and alto saxes, Andrew Lafkas (of Todd Capp's Mystery Train) on contrabass, Karen Waltuch (of Zeke & Karen) on viola, Rolyn Hu (of True Primes) on trumpet and Carey Balch (of Knoxville's Give Thanks) on floor tom. 75 Dollar Bill's plans for the future involve much more playing with these friends and others in bigger and smaller combos -- as well as me and Che stripped back to the core guitar and crate duo. For the present, though, please enjoy Wood/Metal/Plastic/ Pattern/Rhythm/Rock."

$15.50 IN STOCK

Repressed. CD release of the follow-up to Joshua Abrams's critically acclaimed 2015 album Magnetoception. Credited to Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society (NIS), this the first recording in the project's four-album history made by a regularly gigging manifestation rather than a special assembly of friends. Recorded in 2014 and 2015 in single takes by the full ensemble during and after tours of the U.S. and Canada, Simultonality once more affirms the project's unique approach to joining traditional musics, American minimalism, and jazz with the Gnawa ceremonial instrument the guimbri. Stasis, continuity, and repetition -- central qualities of Abrams's language -- defined Magnetoception, a double album of beautifully spacious and unhurried music that rated high on both Pitchfork's "Experimental Records Roundup" and The Wire's "Releases of the Year" at the end of 2015. These same qualities form the heart of Abrams's music on Simultonality. But while Abrams once said Magnetoception is about "winter & death," Simultonality, in Abrams's words, is an album of "pure motion." Without sounding frenetic it is the most explosive NIS music on record, and without sounding over-determined it is Abrams's most structured and thru-composed music yet. Much of it is also fast ("the last record was slow"), a mass of densely patterned elements swiftly orbiting constantly reconfiguring centers that are variously harmonic and rhythmic, clearly stated or implied. While so teeming and tightly packed as to sometimes seem impossible to parse, the music is at no time any more disorderly than a colony of bees pollinating a vast garden. Its many moving parts function in a mutualistic relationship toward fulfilling Abrams's long-stated intention for the project: to help listeners achieve a meditative center and to consciously use music as a gateway to living. Abrams credits the great bassist and composer William Parker as an inspiration for this intention. The musicians on Simultonality date back to the nascency of NIS. Along with Hamid Drake, Mikel Avery and Frank Rosaly are Abrams's first-call drummers for the project. Abrams prefers two or more drummers in NIS whenever possible. On Simultonality, Avery is in the left channel, Rosaly the right. The metallic shaker sound sometimes heard in the center of the stereo image is the rattle attached to Abrams's guimbri. Astute heads may recognize the rhythm in "Sideways Fall" as Jaki Liebezeit's drum break from Can's "Vitamin C." At Abrams's behest the two drummers divided the beat into separate parts. According to Hamid Drake the rhythm was popularized, if not originated, by John "Jabo" Starks and Clyde Stubblefield of The J.B.'s. Nearly ten years into an existence that began in 2008, Abrams and the NIS wear their influences with creativity and ease. Longstanding NIS members Ben Boye and Emmett Kelly were previously together with Abrams, or not, in Bonnie Prince Billy's band, and Abrams and Boye have at different times played in Kelly's band The Cairo Gang (while Boye and Kelly are in Ty Segall's Freedom Band as of 2017). Harmonium player Lisa Alvarado also contributes the large-format pattern paintings used by NIS at concerts and for its album covers.