ReR Update October 2007. Click For Infos.
OCTOBER RELEASES
THE NECKS
Townsville [£11] ReR NECKS8
The Necks in quiet mood recorded at a concert recording in Townsville, Thuringowa, Northern Queensland.
Though many Necks’ pieces open with – or eventually arrive at – some discernable groove, Townsville just floats in a state of suspension from beginning to end. It’s like watching the ocean as wave follows wave follows wave: each the same; each different; assymetric. Bassist Lloyd Swanton who, on this occasion, provides the motif that set Townsville running says he had had no idea where it would lead: ‘One of the deep joys for me’ he said, ‘after twenty years of making music with this group, is that we’re still completely unable to predict where our pieces will go.’
STEVE MACLEAN
Bridges (dbl) [£11 – SINGLE CD PRICE] ReR SM2/3
These recordings collect together works spanning two decades of composition and experimentation that balance traditional musical resources (the band, compositional skills, instrumental techniques, acoustic and amplified instruments) and the new technologies (computers, software, processing). The first CD showcases polyrhythmic, careful compositions (like those on his last ReR CD, Opposite of War), which still no-one has tried to emulate. The second is more meditative, abstract and electronic, moving from Koto through electric and acoustic guitars – with and without radical effects processing – to piano and virtual orchestra, putting various softwares through their paces.
BIOTA
Half a True Day [£11] ReRB6
Six years in the making, the visual/sonic art group Biota have finally completed their Sixth CD for ReR. Unique in their history and method, Biota painstakingly construct complex, organic structures that mix extensive studio processing and musique concréte techniques with a highly eclectic orchestra of acoustic and electronic resources – from kit drums, through mediaeval winds, strings and barrel organs to early experimental electronic instruments. Their works are always performance driven and interleaved with successive stages of lamination, imbrication, and radical pre- and post-processing, Quietly ploughing their own furrow for decades, Biota resemble no one, follow no one and, if the sonic arts were like the visual arts, would by now be a national treasure.
LAST RELEASES MEMO
PAOLO ANGELI
Tessuti [£11] ReR PA3
The latest from Paolo on which he plays compositions by Fred Frith and Bjork – solo (though when you hear it, you definitely won’t believe it) on his highly customised and extended, electrified, giant Sardinian guitar. A tour de force of technique and a musical pleasure. There is so much subtlety and so much attention to the minutiae of sound, and so much going on at any given time that it is difficult to relate what you hear to just one person playing. Very concentrated, it rewards listening to a few songs at a time. Though strangely, you could probably also dance to it.
HEINER GOEBBELS and ALFRED HARTH
Hommage/Fier Fauste fur Hanns Eisler + Von Sprengen des Gartens (dbl) [£16] ReR GH1
This long and extraordinarily fruitful partnership started here – continuing though the Sogennantes Linksradikales Blasorchester – where they picked up Christoph Anders with whom they went on to co-found Cassiber, with your humble reviewer. These are jazz inflected, punk inflected but mainly spirited and imaginative renderings of Eisler material, with more pieces by the duo who, between them, cover a lot of instruments and combinations of instruments and – ah youth – are never less than hurling themselves into the performances. Both LPs have been re-mastered by Bob Drake for this release.
SPECIAL
CHARLES HAYWARD, HUGH HOPPER, LOL COXHILL, ROBERT WYATT.
Clear Frame [£12]
An all-star line-up convened and recorded for a BBC radio project, subsequently radically reworked by Hugh Hopper. These are clear, defined and shapely improvisations, music rather than noise based, invoking the best of the ‘70s rock- improvisational approaches; genre-free and structurally-minded. Robert appears in an unfamiliar role, playing trumpet throughout, and everyone is on top form. A rarity in these times, this is deep rooted music that grows with listening. DUE IN NOVEMBER.
FAUST
Disconnected [£12] D/DIS1 07
Excellent new recordings by Jean-Herve Peron, Zappi Diermier and Amaury Cambuzat, made with guests Nurse with Wound’s Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter. Four long tracks, the first of which is a classic. Nicely designed digi-pack.
FAUST
Disconnected – special limited edition [£16]
D/DIS1 07
These are the very last copies of the small festival edition of ‘Disconnected’ which has two long extra tracks, the second of which, recoded live at this year’s RIO festival in France and mixed by Udi Koomran, is especially good. Until they run out.
SUN RA
Night of the Purple Moon [£12] ALP 264 CD
A 1970 New York studio recording, released on the Saturn label in 1972 and unavailable since, this was a small ensemble record featuring Ra, Gilmore, Danny Davis and Stafford James (with Gilmore playing drums most of the time). Ra has two Moog synthesisers with him, and the elusive electric Rocksichord. The pieces are simple and essential, with the electric sonorities of the keyboards given pride of place. This, like Media Dream, is more with less and, presciently, sharply oriented toward the specifics of sound. A lot of the time it swings, and some of the time it’s like pop music. It’s good to hear this musical intelligence in a stripped down form; if the big band stings like a bee this small ensemble floats like a butterfly. These are all pieces not featured in the usual Ra repertoire (except for a great version of ‘Love in Outer Space’). With four extra tracks, one an alternative take of’ ‘Love in Outer Space’, & the rest home recordings of Ra with a Wurlitzer electric piano and a celeste – the last of which is especially interesting. L
SUN RA INTERGALACTIC RESEARCH
Intergalactic Research (The Lost Reel Collection – Volume Two)
[£11] Transparency 0302
Two live performances from separate tapes made in the classic period for
the band: Native Son from Berkeley, 1971 – just before the European tour
later that year, and Intergalactic Research, location unknown, Circa 1972
– a fully developed piece never previously released. This is something of
a classic, starting with a long Moog solo and expanding outward into a
long hypnotic 5/4 carpet upon which many good things are laid and which
eventually assumes a life of its own. 56 minutes.
SUN RA
The Shadows Took Shape – The Lost Reel Collection – Vol 3 (double CD) [£14]
Transparency 0303
Early ‘70s concert that begins with June Tyson reciting The Shadows Took Shape, a Sun Ra poem unknown until now. A lot of Ra electronics and electric keyboard work follow with forests of light percussion, a classic Marshall Allen oboe solo, John Gilmour at full tilt, large symphonic ensembles and long floating grooves – with nice detailed instrument definition. There are also standards, Ra classics (Strange Worlds, Outer Spaceways Inc., Friendly Galaxy, Watusi, Shadow World, Enlightment) and wild howling chaos. Great show. Nice packaging. 85 minutes
SUN RA
Dance of the Living Image
The Lost Reel Collection – Volume 4 (dbl) [£14]
Transparency 0304
This is a rehearsal tape from late 1974 and comes raw, with cuts and edits as the recorder was started and stopped. It has been re-mastered to improve the sound, but otherwise remains unaltered. There’s minimal talk as they work up or rehearse material already known, a fair chunk of which has not been heard before. They fool about and acclimatise themselves to new riffs and tunes. It’s relaxed, and the sound is good – Ra always kept a tape recorder running and several of the early Saturn releases originated from the resulting tapes. Nice package, but for Ra fans, I think. It is a rehearsal, not a concert, which is fascinating, but specialised. 96 minutes.
OTHER
ALBERT MARCOEUR
Ma Vie Avec Elles [£12] M5 1990
Welcome reissue of the 1990 release in which the brothers Marcoeur, Francis Ovide, Elise Caron and a small crack team elaborate a set of interlocking musical tableaux in the form of possible soundtracks, complete with occasional dialogue and sound effects. Craftily arranged, excellently recorded and satisfyingly eccentric, this is never less than consummately musical.
ONJO
Live Vol. 1 series circuit [£15] (dbl) dmf 115/116
Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Orchestra Live in Berlin Tokyo and Nagara. These concerts feature expanded, and very expanded (30+musicians) versions of the project and cover a great deal of musical ground. Vol.1 features the slower, more atmospheric, textural and more obviously jazz-aligned sides of the group, although there is plenty of intensity from an ensemble filled with great performers and operating under a highly sensitive and imaginative director. Strings and voices are used to fine effect and genres are constantly subtly shifting. Excellent sleeve-notes by Otomo.
ONJO
Live Vol. 2 parallel circuit [£15.] (dbl) dmf 117/118
Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Orchestra in Berlin Tokyo and Nagara. These concerts feature expanded, and very expanded (30+ musicians) versions of the project and cover a great deal of musical ground. This second volume features the broader, wilder, louder, more Ground Zeroish side of the group, as well as exploring more open, contemporary structures. The pieces all start from compositions by Eric Dolphy, Charlie Hayden, Yamashita Takeo and Otomo himself, but they travel a great distance from there. Ideas, timbres and very intense performances are the sinews that articulate this impressive musical beast. With humane, thoughtful and intelligent sleeve-notes by Otomo. Nicely packed.
THE GOLDEN ARM TRIO
Why the Sea is Salt [£12] LKVL007
Excellent. Graham Reynolds who here plays piano, drums and organ with, on and off, 15 other musicians, including individual string, tuba, bass and reed players, the TOSCA String Quartet, and a vibraphonist. Some of these pieces were written for film and dance but most are self-standing. Together they explore a remarkable range of musical styles informed by an easy and unostentatious familiarity with the various languages of the classical, rock and jazz repertoires – intelligently referenced and mixed. There is good, careful writing, fine playing and excellent recording. Aligned to no musical camp, it takes the general approach of good film writing. Nice packaging too.
THE GOLDEN ARM TRIO
The Tick Tock Club [£12] ZZ-5805
The latest release by Graham Reynolds (responsible recently for the soundtrack of ‘A Scanner Darkly’) with a small orchestra of very fine players. A layered, evolved, interconnected set of extremely well recorded pieces which – as you would expect from a film composer – works both through high skill and a fluent grasp of many different musical genres to create a complex and highly musically satisfying net of ideas and affects. Such range and skill, combined with a refusal to make a hierarchy of musical styles, is rare. Highly recommended. L
SIMON FELL
Kaleidozyklen (composition No.57) [£12] BF46
Responsible for a great deal of stimulating work in the fuzzy area between notated composition informed by the devices of C20 contemporary music and improvisation, Simon Fell is already probably well known to most of you, but this release I think marks a particularly interesting and successful attempt to create a genuinely ambiguous musical form that keeps the listening brain on its toes. Using classical orchestral resources (26 players: brass, wind, reed, string, percussion, harpsichord and celeste) and three soloists (double bass, clarinet and piano), it explores various polarities and extremes, accurate and inaccurate quotation, superimposed tempi, polytonality, simultaneity and manipulated distortion of Mahler’s 5th – amongst other generative techniques – to intriguing effect. Useful notes.
GRAVITY ADJUSTERS EXPANSION BAND
One [£12] P20
Historic reissue of the 1973 Nocturne release featuring the GAEB, founded in the late ‘60s – a small orchestra of very interesting Invented instruments (inc. aeolian space horn, phoniums, princess oil can, microtonal revolving sound generator), more traditional instruments (inc. bazooka, saws, bass violin, water gong drums, gourds, synthesiser), played by 7 people. Consistently interesting sonorities, carefully deployed, this is in the AMM, MEV area of intelligence and competence. Microtonal, organic, subtle and highly listenable. Useful sleevenotes, pictures of the instruments and historic background.
Includes a fine extra track not on the original LP. Historic. L
ROTHKAMM
E Pluribus Unum [£12] FB03
Third and last in a series (the others are similarly highly recommended), this is another purely electronic, but very substantial CD of modern electronic music that embodies the aesthetic rigour and satisfying integrity of the best of early computer music. Indeed the (excellent) booklet notes claim that all the source sounds here (played by a quartet of Rothkamms) were produced on a Yamaha FB01 sound generator ‘previously owned by Buck Dharma of the Blue Oyster Cult and purchased on ebay for $26.’. Microtonal the CD ‘ends with the pre-established harmony of … 768 notes per octave scale. A gem. Limited Edition of 500. L
The entire trilogy – probably your last chance: £31.
PALINCKX
Tight Spots [£12] VONK 12
A new song CD from the indefinable Palinckx’s, this one echoing maybe Beefheart and Ubu moments, nicely produced, with some good sounds and mixes. If you know Palinckx, you will be happy I think; full of pop references and fine playing, and some inevitable kitsch.
BING SELFISH
Space College & the Theory Of Everything [£12] By Name
‘Old one-eye is back’. Fresh from a never less than controversial stint on Celebrity Rehab, louche megastar BS crashes back into the sixties with the help of old stablemate Xentos (fray) Bentos WHOSE MAGIC FINGERS. 12 songs that explain dark matter, relativity, quantum theory, cosmology, evolution, virtual mathematics, ludic pharmaceuticals and – pay ATTENTION at the back – this is a new, mature Bing, dedicating the months before his next court appearance to pedagogy and some profound reflections on the mysteries of life – to a rocking beat. This is what the ‘60s would have been like if everybody hadn’t been so crap. An austin at the height of his powers. Selfish fans; you know who you are.
HINDS.PALMER.STAGNER – SHAKING RAY LEVIS
A.S.A.P. Wings [£12] SP 019
A great CD by this Rolls Royce of improvised – but tuneful and rhythmical and wild – trios from Tennessee who are at the a top of their game, like an experimental rock band that took the wrong fork at the junction of the Aylesbury Pike, just beyond Dean’s Corners – only they didn’t get all flustered, like those uptight new Englanders. To put it another way, this is great sounding, never less than gripping, relaxed, inventive and inspiring music. Here Shaking Rays Dennis (synthesisers and) and Bob (drums and) join Appalachian trance metal microtonal too-many strings customised guitar player Eric Hinds. They even cover the Residents’ Red Rider. Try it, you’ll like it.
HOLLIS TAYLOR and JON ROSE
Infidel [£12] TF11
The result of a lifetime of research, Hollis Taylor presents a CD of Hoedowns – traditional fiddle tunes, somewhat adapted and rendered more contemporary by arrangements that include fences, positive organ, camel piano, flies, spoons, banjo, bass, various pianos (played by Rose and a dog), banjo, cello, tenor violin and viola. This is both a scholarly and an inspired record. Eminently listenable, virtuosic, popular, honest and fun. Go on. You’ll never hear anything like this again. L
ELECTRONIC, CONTEMPORARY.
PERSIAN ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1966-2006
Alreiza Mashayekhi & Ata Ebtekar/Sote (dbl) [£18] SR277
An unusual and informative collection featuring two Iranian composers (I think Persian in the title is meant to refer to the deep relationship both have to the traditional music of their country), one (Mashayekhi), born in 1940, studied with Koenig and is now regarded as one of the pioneers of modern music in Iran, the other (Ebtekar/Sote), was born in 1972, and is less allied to the institutions. He is currently working in Tehran to unite traditional music with electronics. Both are deeply rooted in the forms and aesthetics of Iranian music, the older more abstractly (and backed with complex theorising – there is a dense article on ‘The Philosophy of Music’ by him in the booklet), and the younger through retellings of old melodies and variations on ancient themes (but employing very contemporary means and a great deal of processing). Personally I find Ebtekar more enjoyable and interesting; he fits nowhere in the musical world I know and has an unusual take on the use of electronic sounds. This is for those of a research, bent, I suspect, not for every listener. Mashayekhi is hard going, Ebtekar though is very interesting.
WILSON, VERANDI, CLIMENT, BARROSO,DJAMBAZOV, BRUMMER,
20 Jahre Inventione VI [£12] EDRZ 10016
A fine collection of electronic pieces from one of the major European electronic music festivals. All these pieces have some special quality that sets them apart from the generic cliché-ridden quality that much electronic music seems these days to exhibit (perhaps because academicism has so much replaced excitement in their production?). These are finely detailed, fully realised explorations of sound. RZ quality control, always reliable.
ERIK SATIE
Avant-Derniers Pensees. Vol 1. [£12] LTMCD 2501
Another excellent collection of Piano pieces, continuing in the LTM Satie series that includes many of the better known works – the Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, Sports et Divertissements – as well as lesser known but equally exquisite short, mostly melodic, enigmatic pieces that are a pleasure to listen to. Fine playing. Useful notes. To be taken in small doses for best appreciation. L
JOHN CAGE
Complete Short Works for Prepared Piano (dbl CD) [£12] MODE 180/81
Early works dating mainly from1942-47 and all written for dance performances, (except The Perilous Night and A Room, which are concert pieces. Nicely performed and recorded, these are rhythmical, often radically reiterative, riff-driven, works, centred upon the legendary 1944 concert that defined the Cage/ Cunningham partnership and both established and defined the prepared piano as a viable instrument. Played by Philipp Vandre, these are Hessischer Rundfunk radio recordings made in 2001. Useful notes in English, German and French.
SARA
HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP
Into India [£12] es2002
Three full length pieces by one of the early researchers for Murray Schaffer’s 1970s World Soundscape project. She went on to become a founder member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, and editor of its magazine Soundscape. This is only her second full CD. Assembled from field recordings made on numerous trips to India, it is filled with sounds both sacred and profane: street-vendors, insects, stone-cutters, film music, traffic, street musicians, snake-charmers, railways, individual instruments, chanting, temple bells, water, and voices.
STEPHEN FELD
The Time of Bells Vol 4 [£12] VOXLOX 206
Fourth in this excellent series of bell soundcapes. Recordings from Sardinia (including some traditional song and many sheep), Venice (St Marco on a wet Sunday), Copenhagen (the carillon through rain and traffic), Lapland (all manner of bells from bellmaker Alvi Ruonala mixed with Arctic soundscapes) and Japan (temple bells). There is also a track for Oud and modified bell recordings, and the tolling of the Peace Bell in Hiroshima on the 60th anniversary of the American devastation of that city in 1945. With a silent crowd of 60,000, and a textile factory of busy cicadas.
ANNEA LOCKWOOD
Early Works 1967-82
The Glass World and Tiger Balm [£18] EM 1064
Using only Glass – in all shapes and forms, and subjected to all manner of soundings and playing techniques – Glass World was essentially a performance piece, premiered at the Middle Earth club in London in 1978, and then recorded over the next two years for Tangent Records. It is one of the iconic works of the period; constantly referenced, making this is a valuable document. Tiger Balm is a 1970 piece, made for the BBC using loops, drones, recordings of tigers, and other found sounds in an early, and successful attempt to create a hypnotic protean drone. Limited Edition reissue in gatefold cardboard sleeve with two booklets, one of substantial notes by Lockwood, the other ‘Piano Transplants’, which documents Lockwood’s scores and events in which pianos were variously burned, sited in parks and gardens, sunk in ponds and anchored on beaches. L
ARTEFACTS OF AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC 1930-1973 [£12] SHAM 050
An important collection, not least for the oldest track, dated 1930, by the very elusive Jack Ellitt. If this dating is true, here is a genuinely groundbreaking work. Ellitt, who at this time was making soundtracks for the New Zealand abstract film-maker Len Lye – and whose later work was done for the most part privately, even secretly, to be tragically lost after his death in 2001 – has produced here musique concrete 29 years ahead of time. Presumably done on optical soundtrack (like its contemporary, Ruttman’s ‘Weekend’) this is abstract, manipulated sound. The CD continues with a 1951 recording of Percy Grainger’s ‘Free Music’ machines, a snatch of the Melbourne Dada Group (including Barry Humphries) and 11 more fascinating extracts of work by people most of us have never heard of – and whose inclusion here makes a very important contribution to the library of musical experimentation of the period. Importantly, not only electronic music is collected, but also small ensemble compositions operating far from the mainstream of contemporary music – even at this time. For instance McKim’s ‘Monotony for 8 trumpets’ or Cantrill’s ‘Soundtrack for Elkon’ are properly experimental compositions, while Nagorcka follows Cage with a piece solely for televisions, record players and radios. This is an important – and an enjoyable – document, with a useful booklet and offers a timely reminder of where we were 30 years ago, putting today’s offerings into perspective. L
MARCEL DUCHAMP
Musical Erratum + In Conversation [£12]
LTMCD 2504
Two new versions of Duchamp’s Musical Erratum – a pair of prescient scores that date from 1913 and form part of the preparatory work for ‘The Great Glass’. In one, notes are replaced by numbered keys, and virtuoso performance is discouraged in favour of novel mechanical instrumentation (in this interpretation using spinning rotary discs and open piano strings). The other, a chance composition (38 years in advance of his later friend Cage) Duchamp’s used numbered balls and a toy train in motion in its composition is played on a standard piano. This 74 minute CD also includes four spoken word extracts by Duchamp – in English -, including his important Houston lecture, The Creative Act’ (1957), earlier released by Sub Rosa but for many years out of print, and a lengthy interview from 1959. L
JOHN T BULLITT
Earth Sound [£12] AK 0701
Small edition recordings of the earth’s interior, taken from digital seismographs located around the planet. Since the true frequencies are extremely low, they have to be sped up considerably to bring them into the range of human audibility. There are 3 tracks, the first, at 2450x acceleration, captures an unbroken month, the second, at 10,000 x , about 4.5 months and the last, at 245x, three days around the December 2004 tsunami. You mostly hear earthquakes – and there are a lot of them at varying amplitudes – as pops, cracks and roars set in a constant sussurus that is the ocean’s waters moving. It’s stereophonic because the earth is round and the seismographs are far apart. The booklet notes are excellent, full and highly informative, and include the ‘scores’, showing the extraordinary frequency of events. Triple gatefold digi-pack. For total immersion or ambiance. An essential soundscape document. L
FRANCISCO LOPEZ
Wind (Patagonia) [£12] and/27
What it says on the package. This is a sustained, apparently untreated and unmixed recording (the notes are ambiguous) of the ever-present wind that agitates the vast emptinesses of Patagonia in winter. Gusts, flurries, squalls, zephyrs, darts and screamers ebb and flow, like a sea under changing weather; indeed the ear cannot always tell to which element it is listening. Wind is the bane of recordists, they try as a rule to avoid it at all costs, so a whole CD of wind is itself a polyvalent signifier – oh dear, yes, here comes a contradiction: for a man who has made a career of ‘blind’ listening there is a surprisingly exhaustive superstructure of supporting theory and guidance here in the paratextual appurtenances (sorry the language is catching); in a dense little essay we are told how to listen and how intellectually to interpret not only the sounds captured – but the overarching work itself, as an art enterprise. Even the sublime rears its hoary head. I have nothing against information, even – in some contexts – interpretation, but here it seems to detract from the elemental fact of the sound itself. Piling up the heady language that hangs like a cloud around contemporary art – functioning, it appears, as a kind of legitimation-by-contagion – does seem rather to undermine the project, since it renders hollow Lopez’s own protestations about ‘pure… listening… freed… of procedural, contextual or intentional levels of reference’. I don’t complain about the essay or its opinions, only about the seeming bad faith of its inclusion, given Lopez’s oft repeated desire to strip away all but the act of hearing. And Lopez’s own notes – in the context of this whole package – seem incomprehensibly perverse if you really try to take them seriously. However. Enough. We talk about the CD and the sound it embodies is what it is and creates its own space in its own recognisance. It’s an important document – and its completely blank label is its best explicator. L
SONDE en CONCERT
[£12] oral 21
Ondes is a group of electroacoustic composer/performers from Montreal who work with sound sculptures and found objects, the list of which would take pages. These are nicely realised, interesting pieces exploring sounds that are mysterious and complex – and far from laptop conformity. These are instruments, played by interacting human beings. I’d recommend, if you are interested, that you start with its partner Sonde en Ondes (below).
SONDE en ONDES
[£12] oral 16
Ondes is a group of electroacoustic composer/performers from Montreal who work with sound sculptures and found objects, the list of which would take pages. The sculpture/instruments are pictured and the sounds they make are controlled, organised and not at all diffuse. They are also for the most part remarkable and unidentifiable. Serious work.
ART EDITIONS
FERDINAND KRIWET
Hortexte (3 Picture LPs, Book, Box) [£42 includes postage cost] ED RZ 9003/9004/9005
This very substantial box contains six radio works on three LPs, each with an exquisite and intricate text-art design taking up an entire side (there are no labels). The designs are directly associated with the LP content and explained in the booklet. They are exquisite. The set comes in a sturdy box along with an explanatory booklet. The six horspiel are taken from a series made for the most part between 1969 and 1975 – there is one later work from 1983. All this radio is about radio. All the sounds are sourced from radio broadcasts around the world, and explore single events or topics. The first. ‘Apollo Amerika’, is about the1969 space mission; the second, ‘Campaign’, treats the 1973 US election; the third and fourth ‘Radioball’ and ‘Ball’ ( mostly in German – the rest are mainly in English) celebrate radio football (the purely visual as the purely aural); the fifth ‘Voice of America’ speaks for itself; and the last, ‘Radio’ tunes into radio in general. These are all excellent and quite unique productions and work on many levels; few other horspiel are so purely plunderphonic. These are artworks in every sense, and highly recommended. The price takes into account heavy costs of shipping. L
FRANCOIS DUFRENE
Oeuvre Désintégrale. 4LP boxset [£40] By Name.
A key post war artist, deeply involved with the New Realism, the Lettrists, Ultra-lettrists and the still mostly neglected Sound Poets. Like his friends Hain, de la Villeigle and Mimmo Rotella he is probably most famous for his work with posters torn from walls and manipulated (he worked with the reverse sides). His work (all of the work at this time) with tape recorders, pre-recorded sounds and sound poetry is less known, and every newly released artefact is useful. This 4 LP set collects a lot of it. These are works – as he insists – made directly with the tape recorder, they are not documents of live performances. Made between 1958 and 1970 these are key works in the field from the period of greatest innovation. Essential for anyone interested in the genre, or the cultural ferment of the period. Limited art edition of 345 copies. The last few.
CHARLOTTE MOORMAN
Cello Anthology (4 CD box and book) [£52] plana-M 27NMN.064
An Alga Marghen box with 154 page book and a lot of original documents, including full colour original posters and programmes from the New York Avant Garde Fesival, which Moorman organised between 1963 &1980. Her work with Nam Jun Paik has rather overshadowed the rest of her career so this collection re-inserts her in the heart of the New Music activities of the time. There are performances of works by Cage, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Guisppe Chiari, Earle Brown, Sylvano Busotti, Stockhausen (+ robot) and others, a choral work performed by Paik, Ben Patterson, Philip Corner, Malcolm Goldstein and Jackson Mac Low, and of course collaborations with Nan Jun Paik (one with a tape collage made by Ornette Coleman, apparently). There is also a long interview with Moorman. Last few copies of a Limited Edition of 500 copies.
NOTE: COLLECTORS EDITIONS ADVANCE NOTICE: Many Art editions often come out in very small numbers and sell out very quickly. If you want to be notified immediately, or in advance, of any new releases of this type, please send your email address to us with the message IMMEDIATE ART NOTIFICATION, PLEASE.
OF INTEREST
·YASUJIRO OZU HITOKOMAKURA
(dbl) [£18] and/26
A collection of 31 commissioned pieces inspired by Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu’s ‘pillow shots’ – resting shots with a fixed frame focus on material not instrumental to the trajectory of the narrative; there is a marked emphasis on soundscape and environmental recordings – some manipulated, some accompanied, some as they come; a few tracks are performance based, mostly meditative, and one is silent. Invitees include Steve Roden, Bernhard Gunther, Roel Melkoop, Haco, Toshiya Tsunoda, Hitoshi Kojo, Marc Behrens, Sawako, Jason Kahn, Dale Lloyd, Kiyoshu Mizutani and Michael Shannon. A mixed bag; some fine tracks, some less engaging – perhaps listening to one piece at a time would serve the project better? Each track is associated with a still photograph (the ‘booklet’ is on each CD as a computer readable pdf file, so you can watch the picture as you listen; though, as is generally characteristic of the field, even with no limitation on information space, only a few contributors offer more than a bare minimum of supplementary data).
·GUSTAVO AGUILAR
Unsettled on an old sense of place [£12 ] Henceforth 103
6 pieces, for different resources and lots of processing. Most interesting is the solo electric guitar piece, which offers a new twist on an old instrument. Also the solo snare drum piece is interesting – essentially one event and a lot of pasting and processing. Then a piece for voice and (multi, processed, glockenspiel(s). Anne Le Baron and Mary Oliver appear on another.
DAVID WATSON
Fingering an Idea (double) [£18] XI 132
The first CD features mobile drone pieces for up to 6 bagpipers, overdubbed solo pipes (Watson) and other combinations, experimenting with specific acoustic environments and recording techniques. Sonically somewhere between what we think of as electronic and acoustic sounds, with many overtones and many microtones. The second CD comprises a number of solo electric and acoustic guitar pieces, subsequently processed. These are properly experimental pieces, interesting but not always – to this ear – continually engaging. Charming sleeve-notes by Jon Rose Anthony Coleman and Chris Mann.
SPEEQ
Or [£12] RN13
Luc Ex, Hasse Poulsen, Mark Sanders and Sidsel Endresen, live in Strasbourg.
LUKAS SIMONIS & TAKAYUKI KAWABATA
News [£12] Z60893
TAAVI KERIKMAE – MART SOO +1
[£12] MKDKCD 0018
A pair of experimental Estonian guitarists (with theremins, keyboards and electronics on the side) improvise with a series of guests: Jean Marc Montera, Xavier Charles, Chris Cutler and Isabelle Duthoit.
HERB HEINZ DVD
Dud Eyes [£12] By Name
DVD of some pretty extraordinary visual manipulations and image processing, with fine performed and processed musical soundtrack – songs and instrumentals. A brave venture into a more or less untested medium. Abstract film meets, light projection meets very stretched electric band music.
_____________________________________
DVD
MAN RAY
Les Films de Man Ray [£18]
Man Ray made 4 films in the 1920s, which secured his place as a major figure in avant-garde cinema. They are collected here along with ten seldom seen short autobiographical films. All the films are in French with English subtitles. Contents: Le Retour à la Raison, Emak Bakia, L’Étoile de Mer, Les Mystères du Château du Dé. All zones PAL DVD. 112 minutes, with bilingual booklet.
BOOK + CD
MUSICWORKS Summer 2007-10-07 [£12] By Name
A great CD with a long extract from Cage/Hiller’s extraordinary HPSCHD, 8 great pieces by Trevor Wishart, a fine piano/synthesiser piece by Mike Kane (composed by cut & paste), three excellent multi-text pieces by Micheline Roi and two new vocal pieces by John Oswald. The 64 page magazine has illustrated interviews and articles with and about all the above, plus reviews of events, books and recordings, and notes on James Tenney and copyrights. Buy it. L
HOLLIS TAYLOR
Post Impressions [£20] By Name
DVD with 244pp17.5 x 25 cm paperback book. 88 colour plates.
Violinists JON ROSE and HOLLIS TAYLOR travel 25,000 miles playing (and documenting) the Great fences of Australia, including the now famous Rabbit-Proof Fence and the 3300-mile–long Dingo Fence. They meet, amongst others, a flying priest, an auctioneer, an aboriginal gum leaf virtuoso, Central Australia’s first piano, a singing dingo and various fence runners, and survive a plague of flies, a flea infestation, various deadly snakes, crocodiles, heatstroke, floods, storms and bush fires. This travelogue lets you trot safely alongside and includes a substantial and exhaustive DVD documenting 40 outback fence performances, colour photos, fence music and birdsong transcriptions. Remarkable.
Weight – please add £3.50 for shipping outside Europe.
SPECIAL OFFER: ADD THE CD INFIDELS (above) HALF PRICE: £6
JEAN DUBUFFET
Experiences Musicales Book + CD [£23] By Name
232pp book in French, lavishly illustrated. Born in 1901 Jean Dubuffet studied painting, gave it up to become a wine merchant. Then in 1943 he became a full time artist, working in various media, including what we would now call installations, in a style often referred to as Art Brut ( now associated with the art of children, the mentally ill, or naifs) – a term coined by Dubuffet himself, though not to describe his own work but that of outsiders who had no stake in the artworld, and who eschewed representation, working from their own individuality rather than fashion or cultural conditioning. In 1960 he began, with a tape recorder, at home, to make improvised music, with all manner of instruments (formal or conventional expertise was not an issue) with Danish painter Asger Jorn.
The CD that accompanies this book collects a selection of their improvisations – on various instruments – that are abstract, sometimes rhythmical, always focused and, somehow, visual – like Pollocks or Twombleys they pullulate with a diffuse Brownian motion. They also express a kind of serenity – gentle charm – without ever being less than extremely radical, especially considering when they were made. All the pieces here are dated 1961, with one late work from 1978. The book, 16.5 x 24 cm, 232 pages is in French and lavishly illustrated with photographs, facsimile documents, drawings, paintings, sculptures, stage-sets and photographs (18 in colour), as well as articles and interviews covering all the facets of Dubuffet’s musical involvements and experiments, including his ‘animated painting performance’ Coucou Bazar (with original music by Ilhan Mimaroglu). Very nicely produced, well laid out (wide spaced text) and thorough, it also has a complete annotation of the tapes, a discography and a short biography and bibliography. Weight means we have to add postage to this – sorry: £3.00 UK, £4.00 Europe, £6.00 World
FRANCOIS DUFRENE
Catalogue plus CD [£30 inc. postage inside Europe] By Name.
A key post-war artist, deeply involved with the New Realism, the Lettrists, the Ultra-lettrists and the still mostly neglected Sound Poets, Dufréne. Like his friends Hain, de la Villeigle and Rotella he is probably most famous for his work with posters torn from walls and manipulated (he worked with the reverse sides). His work (indeed all of the work at this time) with tape recorders, pre-recorded sounds and sound poetry is less known, and every newly released artefact is useful. This CD has a good representative selection. It’s hardly poetry in any sense of the word in everyday use; in some pieces classical music pounds while distorted roaring, howls, squeals, overtones and feral noise accompany it, elsewhere Dufréne duets with Chico Hamilton, and with himself, neither of him sounding particularly human. Once or twice he sounds almost normal. Otherwise, this is a substantial catalogue from a comprehensive 2007 retrospective exhibition in Portugal, 250 19 x27 cm. pages, beautifully produced, filled with high quality colour prints of his found and manipulated poster work, drawings, elaborate illustrated writings, paintings and objects, as well as photographs, a discography, a filmography, biography, bibliography, exhibition calendar and list of works. In Portuguese, French and English. L
Postage please add £5 shipping outside Europe.
CARSTEN NICOLAI
Static Fades [£27] By Name
158 page large 24 x 29 cm monograph art book, filled with photographic (mostly in colour) documentation of installations, light and sound sculptures and some drawings, representing a conspectus of 10 years of East German sound artist Carsten Nicolai’s work, published in conjunction with the artist’s first major solo exhibition in Switzerland, With explanatory and descriptive notes by Nicolai and short essays in German and English by curators, academics and critics. Includes a full biography, discography and bibliography of selected publications. Definitive. L
Weight means we have to add postage to this – sorry: £3.00 UK, £4.00 Europe, £6.00 World
ARTCOUSTICS. The stories told by record covers.
With CD ‘Modern Shit’ [£28] By Name.
Limited Edition of 300 copies, this is a 500 page 16 x 20 cm. book containing 175 pages of colour pictures of LP sleeves from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s that the organisers– it was published by the international centre of graphic arts in Ljubljana as the catalogue for a major exhibition – feel somehow captured the zeitgeist. With explicatory chronological texts that philosophise, deconstruct and attempt to justify their choices. There are also interviews with local iconic cover designers, meditations on vinyl and typography, notes on installing sound, sound art and spatiality, a brief chronology of key dates, and a bibliography. Useful because being Slovenian it includes materials from the east-block that are seldom seen. And its orientation is not predominantly Anglo-American . The accompanying CD is not related, but is a CD transcription of the impossibly rare cassette release ‘Modern Shit’, made in the early 1980s by Amos/ L.Voag/ Xentos (fray) Bentos/&c and Lepke B (who both went on to be It’s War Boys, Milk From Cheltenham, the Just Measurers, &c.) which is ia continuous mix of all sorts of materials, many swiped from hopeful pop bands who recorded by day in the duo’s 8-track studio in Brixton.
Please add £5 for shipping outside Europe.
VINYL
ROBERT ASHLEY & WALTER MARCHETTI
“Oct 25th, 2001. Merkin Concert Hall, NYC”
Art Edition Double LP in gatefold sleeve
Edition of 300 copies
[£28 POST INCLUDED INSIDE EUROPE]
choose 11
In 2001 Thomas Buckner organised a series of concerts at the Merkin Hall in New York City, the idea was to have one contemporary classic composer invite another and then perform together. Side1 and 2 feature works by Marchetti, “Nei mari del sud’, Musica in secca” and “de musicorum infelicitate. Side 3 includes Robert Ashley’s “Yes, but is it Edible?” for piano and voice dedicated to Thomas Buckner who performs it here with the composer. Side 4 includes “Practical Anarchism”, by Ashley and “Musica per un bicchiere non molto grande”, by Marchetti, performed by Ashley. Limited edtion of 300 copies. Unheard and unseen at time of writing.
ADD £7 shipping outside Europe. Sorry, blame the post authorities.
TONY CONRAD
Fantastic Glissando [£15] SWCLP 82
An important minimalist document from 1989 by Conrad, film-maker, member of La Monte Young’s Dream Music, collaborator with Faust and violinist. Here however he manipulates sine-wave generators and multiple glissandi. High intensity.
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NOTE: A bold L after an entry indicates we think this should be in any comprehensive Library.
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STOP PRESS
UNHEARD AT TIME OF WRITING
GAVIN BRYARS
The Marvellous Aphorisms of Gavin Bryars: The Early Years. [£12] Mode 177
Composed between 1969 and1971, when Bryars was working with ideas from Cage, Fluxus, free improvisation and experimentalism. There are 4 compositions here: Pre-Mediaeval Metrics for guitar and saxophone, a graphic score, Made in Hong Kong, for mechanical toys, 1, 2, 1-2-3-4, for ensemble: the musicians all listen to the same cassette (a new technology then), and ignore one another, improvising along with what they hear (Beatles songs). The cassettes slowly get out of synch, The Squirrel and The Ricketty Racketty Bridge, written for Derek Bailey. The performer has to play two guitars simultaneously, placed flat on their backs, hammering on and off. These are all new recordings with sleeve notes by Bryars.
JOHN CAGE
Atlas Eclipticalis + Winter Music [£12] MODE3/6
Remastered edition, with extra tracks. Cage himself conducting.
EARLE BROWN DVD
Tracer-Chamber works 1952-1999 [£16]
MODE 179
Ensemble pieces performed by Ne(x)tworks. This is the first DVD of Earle Brown’s music. Plus a 36-minute video interview with Susan Sollins (Brown’s wife and an expert on his music), Cornelius Dufallo (founder of the Ne(x)tworks ensemble and Brown’s godson), and Micah Silver (former director of The Earle Brown Foundation). An important career summary.
STEVE RODEN
Dark over light earth [£12] by Name
Limited Edition of 1000
Created for Moca’s Mark Rothko exhibitions – for harmonium, glockenspiel, and violin, parts derived from a colour analysis and external material partly generated via Feldman’s Rothko composition and a lot of post-production.
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
THIS HEAT LIMITED VINYL EDITION
THIS HEAT Audiophile pressing, Limited Vinyl Edition
Blue and Yellow [£15]
THIS HEAT Audiophile pressing, Limited Vinyl Edition
Deceit [£15]
THIS HEAT Audiophile pressing, Limited Vinyl Edition
Health & Efficiency [£15]
All Three [£40]
THE POINTS EAST BOX
Historic numbered art edition: 12 CDs, book and box [£58] pe/box
The Rock experiments of Eastern Europe were no less interesting (though they were somewhat rarer) than those in the West, but they went undocumented for years – they made no commercial or official CDs and could not tour. Concerts were rare even in their own countries. Outside, to all intents and purposes, they didn’t exist. To begin to redress this lack, in the late ‘80s, Recommended launched Points East, a label dedicated only to this music. Because of its historical importance – and musical excellence – we plan to manufacture a very limited edition of the 8 PE LPs (re-mastered on CD), plus 3 or 4 extra CDs filling in further details of the music of the various territories in that time, mostly taken from other Recommended releases as yet not reissued – including the extraordinary ‘Raab’ and Zygmunt Krauze’s luminous ‘Folk Music’- plus a couple of CDs with samples of other groups from the time and new materials by the original artists. All the CDs will be in facsimile edition, fully re-mastered, in a box with a fat book outlining the way it was in the old East and the way it is now, as well as a more general overview of experimental music in each of the territories. In other words this will be an historic documentation of a missing part of the history of progressive and experimental music, a documentation much needed. It will be made to our usual standards and very thoroughly documented, but we want to make it as cheap as possible – since this for art’s sake; it’s certainly not a commercial proposition. So we will try to keep the 12 CDs, box and book down to £58 – close to cost. However, origination, manufacturing and production costs will be huge, and we will only be able to make it if there is sufficient interest and enough pledged advance orders. To that end, if you are interested in this project, please subscribe – just write in and say you want your name put down, we will not take any money until and unless the box is actually realised. If and when we reach a viable number, we will announce the issue, confirm your subscriptions and go ahead.
– The original PE series was:
BORIS KOVACS. Ritual Nova 2 (YU)
ZGA. Zga (Riga)
STRANGE GAMES, Strange Games (Russia)
DER EXPANDER DES FORTSCHRITTS. Der Expander &c. (GDR)
BORUT KRZISNIK Currents of Time (Slovenia)
KAMPEC DOLORES Levitation (Hungary)
REPORTAZ. Reportaz (Poland)
PULNOC. Midnight Mouse (Czechoslovakia)
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OTHER OFFERS
1. ReR LOSS LEADER
With each update we offer one £5 loss leader to encourage wider listening. This Update it’s CHRIS CUTLER. Twice around the Earth.
2. MORE NEW STUFF – BUILD A LIBRARY.
From each update I will select those CDs I think most remarkable or important – those which I think should be in any living library – and offer a discount for anyone buying them all. There will be 2 categories must have and essential history. Offers will be available for either or both together. If you find this essential library idea useful, I will slowly work backwards and compile a list from the whole catalogue.
This update’s must have library items:
1. ONJO. Live Vol. 2 parallel circuit (2 CD)
2. THE GOLDEN ARM TRIO. The Tick Tock Club
3. ARTEFACTS OF AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC 1930-1973
4. MUSICWORKS Summer 2007
MUST HAVE price: £39 [save £5]
Essential history
1. MARCEL DUCHAMP. Musical Erratum + In Conversation.
2. FRANCISCO LOPEZ. Wind (Patagonia).
3. ERIK SATIE. Avant-Derniers Pensees. Vol 1.
4. GRAVITY ADJUSTERS EXPANSION BAND
One.
ESSENTIAL HISTORY price £43 [save £5]
All of it £77 – save £15
3. RER MUSIC CLUB: SERIOUS DISCOUNTS
People keep asking. So, for those who want, we can automatically send you all our new releases (and press only promotional material) as soon as we get them – at a very serious discount. This can also include all our American Sister company Ad Hoc’s titles. Ask us for the leaflet or visit the website for details.
NEW
CLUB MEMBERS MAY ALSO SUBSCRIBE BACKWARDS, THAT IS, RECEIVE EARLER CDS AT THE SAME DISCOUNT. ASK FOR DETAILS WHEN YOU JOIN.
4. FRIEND OF FRED VOLUME 3.
Volume 2 wraps up with the current release Impur and The Happy End Problem. The rather fat signed free book that accompanies it is will go out with them. You can still sign up for it, and for Volume 3 (the next 8 releases).
To become a Friend of Fred costs 95 pounds (45 now and 50 when we send CD No.5, You get the ARTIST SIGNED LIMITED EDITION of Vol 3:
8 CDs with a special signed book with Fred’s notes on the works, the process of their composition and recording, related photographs and other documentary materials. You get the CDs as soon as they come out, the signed book, occasional other additional materials and 1.50 pounds off any other Fred CD you buy from us during the subscription period – whatever label it’s on.
Volumes 1 and 2 can still be purchased separately at £100, with the signed book.
NOTE. Members of the ReR record club will get the book free as part of their membership.
5. MORE INCENTIVES: 10% ADHERENT DISCOUNTS
Every 11th CD* you buy from the catalogue, whatever it is, will be a gift from ReR. There is no time limit on this. Effectively it reduces our prices by a average of £1.20 per CD, which makes us competitive even with collapsed US dollar suppliers and enables us to deliver very good prices for regular buyers: a £12 CD becomes £10.80, an ReR title £9.80 – and they are all still post free. You get the discount as a free CD on your 11th order. We’ll keep track. Register with your first purchase as an ADHERENT. Since there is no time limit, even if it takes 4 years to get to the 11th, it’s still free.
·For counting: Double CD = 1.5 CDs, a triple as 2, boxes of 4 as 2.5, boxes over 5 as 3.
·Any order of 15 CDs at once gets you two free CDs (the two cheapest)
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MEMO COLLECTOR SUBSCRIBE:
ART editions often come out in small numbers and sell out very quickly. To be notified immediately, or in advance, of any new releases of this type, please send your email address to us with the message IMMEDIATE ART NOTIFICATION PLEASE.
NOTICES
PAYPAL
You can now pay with Paypal, if that’s easier for you, BUT, as with credit cards, there is a 60p per CD charge (we pass on to you what Paypal charges us) because our prices are already cut to the bone, and postage is free. Just follow the payment options on the website (and remember to come back to the shopping cart and complete the order).
If not shopping online, log into your paypal account and transfer the total plus 60p per item to
Rermegacorp@dial.pipex.com , you can write your order in the paypal message box, or send us the order and tell us to look for paypal payment.
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sign up at
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– for advance news of concerts, new releases, ReR artists’s activities, commentary, and communication with fellow enthusiasts, just go to the following link and sign up:
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Phone 0208.771 1063, Fax 0208 771 3138
www.rermegacorp.com
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COMING SOON
ARSENI AVRAAMOV and Others
Baku: Symphony of Sirens and other critical reconstructions of key works of music, poetry and agit-prop from the Russian avant-garde (1908-1942) [£11] ReR BAKU
The legendary Baku concert reconstructed, plus other priceless sound including the legendary Victory over the Sun, and other reconstructed documents of Vertov, Mayakovski, El Lissitsky, The Nothinists, The orchestra oif noises, Jandinsky, Malevich, Rozanova, Prokofiev, Larionov, the Psycho Futurist Group, Kamensky, Jakobson, and others. Full documentation.
DZIGA VERTOV and Others
Enthusiasm: Dombass Symphony, and other original recordings of key works of and agit-prop from the Russian avant-garde(1908-1942)
[£11] ReR VERTOV
The prescient 1930 environmental sound composition
on optical film soundtrack and other original recorded documents of Majakovsky, Jakobson, Khlebnikov, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Kollontay, Trotsky, Mossolov, Pasternak, Meytuss, Akhmatova, Mandelstahm, Naum Gabo, Shostakovich and others. Full documentation.
AVRAAMOV/VERTOV Also available as a set: two CDs in slipcase. Numbered Subscription Edition, with extra item, available until JANUARY 1 “2008 £20
NIKOLA KODJBASHIA
The Most of Now
ReR NK2
FRED FRITH
Technology of Tears (reissue re-mastered)
FRED FRITH & JOHN ZORN
Art of Memory 2
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ReR Megacorp
79 Beulah Rd.
Thornton Heath
Surrey CR7 8JG
UK
44 (0) 208 771 1063
www.rermegacorp.com
