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viewing 1 To 14 of 14 items
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CD
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BT 057CD
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Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie returns to Black Truffle with Nist-Nah. Like his previous solo record on the label, the abrasive hip-hop concrète of People Pleaser (BT 027LP, 2017), Nist-Nah finds Guthrie branching out in a new direction, this time in a suite of six percussion pieces primarily using the metallaphones, hand drums, and gongs of the Gamelan ensembles of Indonesia. The music presented here is grounded in Guthrie's travels in Indonesia and study of various forms of Gamelan music, from the stately suspended temporality of the courtly Javanese Gamelan Sekatan, to the delirious, thuggish repetition that accompanies the Javanese trance ritual Jathilan, to the shimmering acoustic glitch of contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat/ However, far from an exercise in exoticism, Nist-Nah develops out of Guthrie's extensive work with metal percussion in recent years (as heard, for example, on his 2015 LP for iDEAL, Sacrée Obsession), where gongs, singing bowls and cymbals are used to build up walls of hovering tones and sizzling details. Though Guthrie is broadening his palette to explore Gamelan instrumentation and pay tribute to his love of this sophisticated yet elemental percussion music, the pieces presented here are equally informed by Guthrie's interests in free jazz, electro-acoustic music, and diverse experimental music practices, exploring long tones, extended techniques, and non-metered pulse. Nist-Nah presents a variety of approaches across its six pieces, from the crisp, precise rhythmic complexity of the opening title track to the droning textures of "Catlike" and "Elders". On the epic closing "Kebogiro Glendeng", Guthrie offers an extended, layered rendition of a Javanese piece belonging to a repertoire primarily used for warmups, beginner's groups and children first learning Gamelan, elegantly gesturing to his own amateur status while using the piece's insistently repeated melody as an extended exploration of the hypnotic effects of repetition, falling in and out of time with himself to create woozy, narcotic effects until the piece eventually dissolves into a wavering fog. Images by Sylvie Meunier. Recorded in 2019 by Lucas Pizzini. Mixed and mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture, Tokyo. Cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
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BT 057LP
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LP version. Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie returns to Black Truffle with Nist-Nah. Like his previous solo record on the label, the abrasive hip-hop concrète of People Pleaser (BT 027LP, 2017), Nist-Nah finds Guthrie branching out in a new direction, this time in a suite of six percussion pieces primarily using the metallaphones, hand drums, and gongs of the Gamelan ensembles of Indonesia. The music presented here is grounded in Guthrie's travels in Indonesia and study of various forms of Gamelan music, from the stately suspended temporality of the courtly Javanese Gamelan Sekatan, to the delirious, thuggish repetition that accompanies the Javanese trance ritual Jathilan, to the shimmering acoustic glitch of contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat/ However, far from an exercise in exoticism, Nist-Nah develops out of Guthrie's extensive work with metal percussion in recent years (as heard, for example, on his 2015 LP for iDEAL, Sacrée Obsession), where gongs, singing bowls and cymbals are used to build up walls of hovering tones and sizzling details. Though Guthrie is broadening his palette to explore Gamelan instrumentation and pay tribute to his love of this sophisticated yet elemental percussion music, the pieces presented here are equally informed by Guthrie's interests in free jazz, electro-acoustic music, and diverse experimental music practices, exploring long tones, extended techniques, and non-metered pulse. Nist-Nah presents a variety of approaches across its six pieces, from the crisp, precise rhythmic complexity of the opening title track to the droning textures of "Catlike" and "Elders". On the epic closing "Kebogiro Glendeng", Guthrie offers an extended, layered rendition of a Javanese piece belonging to a repertoire primarily used for warmups, beginner's groups and children first learning Gamelan, elegantly gesturing to his own amateur status while using the piece's insistently repeated melody as an extended exploration of the hypnotic effects of repetition, falling in and out of time with himself to create woozy, narcotic effects until the piece eventually dissolves into a wavering fog. Images by Sylvie Meunier. Recorded in 2019 by Lucas Pizzini. Mixed and mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture, Tokyo. Cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
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BB 329CD
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Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale, originally released in 1976. Heldon's Richard Pinhas has never been shy of pinpointing his influences while, at the same time, making music that is noticeably distinct from any of his designated sources. He has, for instance, made it clear that a significant font of inspiration was Robert Fripp's guitar style and melding of rock music with cutting-edge electronics (especially in collaboration with Brian Eno). Indeed, Heldon's fifth album, Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale, was named after a live bootleg of a King Crimson concert. Pinhas first met Fripp in 1974, and the pair became friends and have remained in contact ever since. Pinhas was even offered a deal with E.G. Records, the company that oversaw King Crimson alongside other successful groups like Roxy Music and ELP. "That was a dream," says Pinhas. "But when you are 22, you are in a hurry. They asked me to wait one or two years before joining the team. I couldn't wait two years!" Instead, Pinhas launched his own label, Disjuncta, which he later sold to purchase the Moog synthesizer that would make a huge difference to Heldon's sound. Heldon's output also drew from radical science fiction (Philip K. Dick, Norman Spinrad, etc.) as well as philosophy: the sleeve features a quote from Pierre Klossowski's Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (1969). Heldon never represented a mere facsimile of Pinhas's musical touchstones: King Crimson, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, or Frank Zappa. Heldon was always its own beast and by 1976 it was thriving and roaring like never before. More work was being completed in a proper studio, the Moog helped strengthen the sound and direction, and Pinhas's rotating cast of collaborators was solidifying into something resembling a regular lineup, with François Auger on drums and Patrick Gauthier on synthesizers. The result was a darker, heavier, and more intense sound. The LP opens with the prog-gone-skronk onslaught of "Marie Virginie C", sounding rather like Robert Fripp being sliced into bloody chunks in Thurston Moore's basement. Auger is the star of "Elephanta", in all its Moog-assisted polyrhythmic glory. On side two, "MVC II" offers six minutes of sinister dystopian squelch rock. It's followed by "Toward The Red Line", an epic piece conceivably serving to connect the dots between Hawkwind's most freeform passages and the Detroit techno innovations of the coming decade.
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BB 330CD
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Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's 6 - Interface, originally released in 1977. A brilliant moment occurs right at the end of Heldon's sixth album, Interface. The album's final song, its side-long title track, builds up slowly into a roaring tornado of fiercely mutating drum patterns, effervescent synth work, and guitar licks that wail into the atmosphere like an abandoned astronaut. Then, after nearly 19 minutes of highly futuristic avant-garde space rock, this ultramodern music fades out and is replaced by a concluding few seconds of traditional blues-rock guitar. "We were finishing the track, the tape was rolling, and I started to play a normal boogie or whatever," remembers Heldon leader Richard Pinhas. "I think it was a good idea to keep it. It just came naturally, at the end." This event acts as a reminder of just how far rock n' roll had been transformed since its earliest incarnations. This blueprint had been jolted and nudged down all kinds of unexpected avenues after players like Chuck Berry and Bill Haley first found fame. The genre had branched out into every manner of mutated form. It had given rise to misshapen clones and had shifted into unrecognizable shapes, like a beautiful alien creature from one of the science fiction tales that were fondly admired by so many experimental rock musicians, Pinhas included. Heldon, surely, represented one of rock n' roll's most distant relatives; an innovative fusion of avant-garde rock sounds and synthesizer pulsations. At the same time, Interface's unexpected ending also tells us that such music, however improvisatory or fused with electronic elements, will forever have its roots in those early rock n' roll records that are responsible for so many varieties of aural exploration. Thanks to the increased presence of drummer François Auger and synth/Moog man Patrick Gauthier, Pinhas's project had solidified into a harder and heavier unit. Around the time of the album's release, the musician and composer Jean-Philippe Goude told Pinhas that because of its merging of synthesizer sounds with "real" instrumentation. Despite its often warm and near-funky feel, Interface has been cited as an influence on key industrial and noise musicians including Wolf Eyes and Merzbow.
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BB 331CD
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Bureau B present a reissue of Heldon's seventh and final album of the 1970s Stand By, originally released in 1979. After the release of Stand By, Richard Pinhas focused on solo LPs before quitting music for around a decade. "It was the end of the tale," he explains. "We decided to split for many reasons. The main one was that one or two of the other musicians wanted to stop. They were session musicians, mainly. At one point they said they didn't have so much time to give. And it was a time when a lot of bands who had become reluctantly successful decided to split . . . Split at the top, not waiting to go down." Heldon certainly went out on a high. Stand By's mood remains urgent and gripping throughout, fashioned via immense synthesizer sounds, a plethora of interweaving drum patterns, spiraling guitar chops, and lurching riffs. It's been likened to krautrock, yet Pinhas never paid attention to the German scene. There are other similarities to parallel innovations that John Carpenter was making in the field of sci-fi/horror soundtracks. The hazmat-suit-wearing figure on Stand By's cover could have starred in such a movie. The album's unearthly vocals were provided by Klaus Blasquiz of Magma. Some progressive musicians of the '70s felt threatened by the rise of punk -- Not Pinhas. As producer, he worked with French punk acts like Asphalt Jungle. No, Pinhas was more troubled by wider world developments. These miseries played their own part in Heldon's demise. "We recorded Stand By in '78, going into '79. Politics had all shifted to the right with your Maggie Thatcher and, in America, that very bad actor. They started the bullshit of neoliberalism that we have to live with now, everywhere. We're going to be in a very fascistic world within twenty years. Not even that long. The initiation of this change came with Reagan and Maggie. It started in the '80s." Stand By was recorded at Studio Davout, the Parisian home to recordings by everyone from Karlheinz Stockhausen to Johnny Hallyday. That, too, has fallen victim to brutal economics. It was demolished in 2018. "They destroyed the main historical studio in France to put up a supermarket!" says Pinhas. "It was a place where a lot of things happened. Musicians were working all night long. It could've been a museum for music."
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2LP
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CPT 558LP
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Automat -- Jochen Arbeit (Einstürzende Neubauten, Die Haut), Achim Färber (Phillip Boa & The Voodooclub, Skip McDonald), and Georg Zeitblom (wittmannzeitblom) -- operates like a well-oiled machine: it buzzes, it whirrs, it follows an unswerving course. Together with modular magician Max Loderbauer and Paul St. Hilaire, aka Tikiman, Lydia Lunch, and Mika Bajinski on vocal duties, they now present Modul their most varied and consistent album to date, on Compost Records. On their fourth album, the trio shifts down a gear, further refines its musical approach and partners with other figures from the world of adventurous music. The eight pieces on Modul were written collectively based on a building block system that dynamically set the compositional process in motion and evenly divided responsibility between all participants. The result is a musical perpetuum mobile -- an album with the steady resting pulse of a dub production that always stays on the move. As an album, »Modul« captures a continuous process of transformation that was first to be experienced in the year 2018, when Automat presented an earlier version at the Pop-Kultur festival as part of a commissioned work. Having been invited by the curatorial team, Zeitblom, Färber, and Arbeit together with their guests St. Hilaire, Lunch, and Gemma Ray created a live set that was resolutely developed in the studio on the basis of single modular elements that were (re-)combined according to the principle of a resonance module: it's a to-and-fro between the individual members, structures morph and the sound incessantly takes on different shapes.
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ESPDISK 5038CD
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Gowanus Session II was seven years in the planning. Thollem McDonas, Nels Cline, and William Parker convened at Peter Karl Studios in Brooklyn on January 3rd, 2012 and recorded two complete albums. The first was Gowanus Session I, released by Porter Records in April of 2012. GS II was put aside to eventually complete the five-album palindromic cycle of trio albums Nels and Thollem ambitiously set out to realize. The albums in between include Radical Empathy with Michael Wimberly (Relative Pitch, 2015), Molecular Affinity with Pauline Oliveros (ROAR 042LP, 2016), and Reality and Other Imaginary Places, with Michael Wimberly (ESPDISK 5035CD/LP, 2019). William Parker debuted on ESP-Disk' in the mid-70s on Frank Lowe's classic album Black Beings (ESPDISK 3013CD) and has returned to the label this decade on the Black Beings sequel, The Loweski (ESPDISK 4066CD) and with Mat Walerian's group Toxic (ESPDISK 5011CD, 2017) and in a quartet with Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp, and Bobby Kapp (ESPDISK 5036CD, 2019), while being highly prolific as a leader, notably with a series of brilliant albums on AUM Fidelity. Nels Cline has spent decades changing people's ideas about the role of the electric guitar in multiple contexts, ranging from Wilco to Anthony Braxton (think about that!) as well as many projects as a leader, earning a spot on Rolling Stone's Top 100 Guitarists list. Thollem is a perpetually traveling pianist, keyboardist, composer, improviser, singer-songwriter, activist, author, and teacher. He's spent most of his adult life living on the road throughout North America and Europe. His work is ever-changing, evolving and responding to the times and his experiences, both as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of artists across idioms and disciplines. Thollem is known internationally as an acoustic piano player in the free jazz and post-classical worlds, as the lead vocalist for the Italian agit-punk band Tsigoti, and as an electronic keyboardist through a multitude of projects. Personnel: William Parker - bass; Nels Cline - electric guitar/effects; Thollem McDonas - piano. All compositions by Thollem McDonas, William Parker, Nels Cline.
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HK 013LP
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In April 2019, improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist Elvin Brandhi moved into the "villa" in Kampala Uganda working on a collaborative album with several artists from the Nyege Nyege collective. Auto-tune blast beats from field recordings of Evangelist churches, the swamps surrounding the studios, with warped drums by Kampala based percussionist Omutaba, improvised stream of consciousness lyrics from local rappers Hakim and Swordman Kitala, with glitched-out bassy productions with Boutiq Studio manager Don Zilla and Congolese producer Oise. This new project called Viillaelvin is the first full LP to be released on Hakuna Kulala.
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LMS 5521284
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London Records present the first vinyl reissue of Happy Mondays' Squirrel And G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), originally released in 1987. Released in April 1987, the Happy Mondays debut album was a perfect snapshot of a very different kind of pop culture coming from beyond the fringes. It would be an underground album but a game changer. Produced by Velvet Underground legend, John Cale, this was the accidental sound track for the endless housing estates sailing away from Manchester City center and into Salford-perfectly captured by this gang of misfits. Artwork lovingly replicated by original Manchester designers Central Station Design. Featured the singles "Tart Tart" and "24 Hour Party People". 180 gram vinyl; silk-screen printed PVC O-card; printed inner-sleeve; includes download code.
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LMS 5521286
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London Records present the first vinyl reissue of Happy Mondays' Bummed, originally released in 1988. Like many an influential album in rock history, the cultural significance of Happy Mondays' Bummed was apparent to precious few listeners upon its first release on November 5th, 1988. Within a decade or two, Bummed would be hailed as one of the best records of the '80s, often by the self-same publications that had slated it back in the day -- a harbinger of the seismic shift about to take place in British popular music, away from the squeaky-clean, corporately ordained pop-radio fodder which had increasingly dominated the charts since punk, and back towards the more aggressive, unruly, and experience-hungry urges which had always pulsed through rock n' roll. Artwork lovingly replicated by original Manchester designers Central Station Design. Featured the singles "Wrote For Luck" and "Lazyitis - One Armed Boxer". 180 gram vinyl; gatefold sleeve with embossing; printed inner-sleeve; includes download code.
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LMS 5521288
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London Records present a reissue of Happy Mondays' Pills 'N' Thrills And Bellyaches, originally released in 1990. Pills 'N' Thrills And Bellyaches was Happy Mondays commercial peak, both a No. 4 victory (in the UK) and a benchmark album in history. That year the Mondays made a generation feel like the freaks were winning again, the dreamers and schemers hurtling in from the shadows to park themselves, like grin-faced goblins, in the daylight glare of the mainstream. Artwork lovingly replicated by original Manchester designers Central Station Design. Featured the singles "Step On", "Kinky Afro", and "Loose Fit". 180 gram vinyl; gatefold sleeve; printed inner-sleeve; includes download code.
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LMS 5521290
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London Records present a reissue of Happy Mondays' ...Yes Please!, originally released in 1992. The last Happy Mondays album on Factory Records -- reaching no. 14 in the UK chart. Produced by Talking Heads' Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz. Artwork lovingly replicated by original Manchester designers Central Station Design. Features the singles "Stinkin' Thinkin", "Sunshine & Love", and "Angel". 180 gram vinyl; printed inner-sleeve; includes download code.
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HELLEX 001CD
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The self-titled original soundtrack from the much-hyped Berlin-based movie Yung (2018). Music supervision by DJ Hell. First release on the brand-new DJ Hell label, The Hell Experience. Features DJ Hell, Tyrell, MCNZI, Fango, Abblou, YUNG, Malakoff Kowalski, and Vegas by Night.
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VL 900068LP
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Restocked; originally released in 2008. Cream's fourth and final album, released in 1969, after the band had already broken up and featuring an all-live side A, recorded in Los Angeles at The Forum, and a studio side B with one song written by each member of the group. "Badge" was a song written by Clapton & George Harrison (with Harrison also playing rhythm guitar) and is considered to be one of both of their best.
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