ReR UPDATE – MARCH 2008. Click For Infos.
NEW RER
STEVAN TICKMAYER
Cold Peace [£11] ReR ST3
A suite of fiendishly complex compositions for mixed real and virtual resources. Bob Drake, Djorge Delibasic, Pegja Milosavljevic and Chris Cutler make appearances – playing electric guitar, bass, drums and virtuoso violin between them, but mainly it is Stevan who plays all kinds of keyboards, strings, double bass, zither, samples and software. Three thoroughly through-composed and finely articulated pieces make up this very concentrated suite: Concerto Grosso (for keyboards, string instruments and CPU), The Cold Peace Counterpoints and Five Bagatelles for a Polyhsitor. Those familiar with Tickmayer’s earlier recordings, or the Science Group, will have some idea of what to expect – a rare commingling of high European art music (Tickmayer studied with both György Kurtàg and Louis Andriessen), various East European folk musics, experimental rock, post rock and computer assisted electronic composition. These are intense, emotionally and philosophically driven pieces that demand attention, and reward it when given.
MICHAEL MAXYMENKO
Businesscide [£11] ReR MM1
Michael, founder and brain behind the extraordinary Swedish post-Beefheartian group Kraljursastalten, and world-class ice-hockey player, here collects his extraordinary songbook including much of the two celebrated ‘70s releases by Kraljursastalten (the Reptile Institution: Michael plus the telepathic twins Stefan and Thomas Agaton), with later recordings from his solo record and released and unreleased pieces with Henry Kaiser, John ‘Drumbo’ French, Sten Standell, Andy West and others. Wild lurching swing complexity, ridiculous tempi, great rhythms, sudden mood changes, fine compositions and music that is always to the point: no fat, just coffee and cigarettes. Classic. Genre: Unpopular. Influences:
Anatolij Tarasov, chief-coach and master-trainer of the Soviet national Ice-hockey team 1958–1972, inventor of “collective telepathy at high speed”.
NIKOLA KODJBASHIA
The Most of Now [£11] ReR NK2
An exquisite and subtle new composition by Macedonian composer Nikola Kodjbashaia exquisitely realised by a broad and mixed ensemble of exemplary – and mostly Macdonian – instrumentalists: a suite of highly imaginative variations on a theme that meanders purposively through an unusual – I’d say unique – musical landscape in which reflections of everything from lounge music, Macedonian folk instrumentals, Byzantine church liturgy, contemporary orchestra composition and exotica rub shoulders without parody or embarrassment. Constantly mutating, constantly fascinating, this follows the path opened up in his first CD into a completely personal but accessible musical language. Subtle, complex, profane music, that is at the same time easy, even a joy, to listen to.
DAEVID ALLEN, HUGH HOPPER, CHRIS CUTLER: BRAINVILLE 3
Trial by Headline [£11] ReR BV3-1
Three old hands out of Soft Machine, Gong and Henry Cow stretch already flexible musical material into one shape after another, then tie it in knots and generally have a fun with it. High quality recordings combined with seat-of-the-pants playing keep the tension high, underpinning a richly labile music, full of shape and colour that is constantly in motion. Compiled from recent concert recordings in Berlin, London and Tel Aviv, this clutch of extended songs should be to the taste of anyone familiar with the protagonists – or who longs to hear a little more straightforward instrumental playing in place of computers, heavy processing and sanitised post production. Brainville offers you tightrope walking, imagination, fast thinking, and a seasoned musicality: a social music, played by old friends, that blithely goes its own way.
SPECIAL
SUN RA
Media Dreams (dbl CD) [£17] ART YARD CD 002.
Companion to Disco 3000, made on the same classic Italian quartet tour with John Gilmore, Michael Ray (trumpet) and the minimal but perfect Luqman Ali (drums). Ra himself plays piano and electronic keyboards, including the mysterious Crumar Mainman, which Ra describes as ‘like a piano, organ, clavichord, cello, violin and brass instruments’ and which also, importantly, has a facility for pre-programmed bass-lines and electronic percussion – which Ra uses constantly and to great effect in this small ensemble setting – and seldom, if ever, elsewhere. The best of this collection (most of CD1) is luminous: very electronic, often rhythmical and melodic, always economical and making every sound count. These tracks are like no other jazz ensemble and, although recognisable as Ra – who else could think of, and then get away with, this – unlike any other Ra ensemble either. Ra makes the machines do amazing, visionary, things while the band exercises restraint, remaining always in focus. Between, there are piano, saxophone, trumpet and drum vignettes, fresh and perfectly judged; this really was a fine band. This places the original vinyl release (and related releases: Sound Mirror and Disco 300) back into the context of the concerts from which they were drawn. An important addition to the Sun Ra canon since it is a rare document of an unusual Ra project that produced three classic late ‘70s LPs. Beautifully packaged and well annotated.
SPECIAL OFFER. This with partner DISCO 3000 double £25
SUN RA
Live at the Horseshoe tavern – Toronto 1978.
(10 CD set) {£27] TRANSPARENCY 0310
An opportunity to assess Ra – and the Arkestra’s – work in context. Earlier LPs and. CDs have always had to be always extracts or edits from Ra’s typically long concerts. These 10 CDs document three full concerts from March, September & November 1978 at the Horseshoe Tavern; 8 hours of excellent music, well recorded and available here for the first time (none have been on bootleg lists) and a long radio interview with Sun Ra. This is a chance to experience the flexibility and vast repertoire of the arkestra and the way sets were organised and constantly changed. This is a limited edition of 500 copies, officially released, so please order quickly.
IN STOCK
SUN RA
Detroit Jazz Centre 1980. (28 CD set) [ £55]
By Name
Handful only left of this limited edition release of Sun Ra and the Omniverse Jet Set Arkestra’s complete Detroit Jazz Centre Residency from December 26, 1980 – January 1, 1981. 28 high quality CD-Rs with three-colour printing on each disc, in custom-made cases with a poster-size insert of track listings. Good quality desk recordings. Over 26 hours and ninety Sun Ra compositions. Total edition limited to 400 copies.
IN STOCK
SUN RA
Some Blues but not the kind that’s Blue [£12] ALP 265CD
Comprising the rare 1978 Saturn release (aka Nature Boy) of jazz standards (with two Ra originals, the title track and extra 7 piece restored here, that was be cut for time reasons from the original LP). Plus two small ensemble versions of ‘I’ll get by’ recorded 5 years earlier with Ra, Gilmore, Boykins and Akh Tal Ebah. It’s Interesting to hear Ra/Gilmore’s take on My Favourite Things, now indelibly associated with Coltrane and the two quartet pieces, which are instructive. For confirmed Ra fans.
MIKOLAS CHADIMA
The MCH Band 1982-1989 Box Set (6 CDs and 40pp booklet) [£30] BP 0180-2 BOX
An important figure in the Czech underground and the history of experimental rock, with a music cast in the quintessentially Czech style: strong, full of ideas, mature and intelligent. The box collects Chadima’s work through the difficult ‘80s – when you had to be pretty serious to take your chances with a paranoiac and unpredictable state apparatus. While the Plastic People were celebrated in the world outside, and spurred on the declaration of Charter 77, they were in fact just part of a wider movement whose actors remain largely unknown outside Czecoslovakia where, for two decades, making ‘anti-social’ music would ensure that you didn’t get a licence to perform – making public, paid concerts next to impossible. And to persist was to court arrest – so the music went underground, played at secret locations and under assumed names; recorded in basements or unofficial concerts and released in Samizdat tape editions. These 6 CDs, re-mastered from the original tapes, give some sense of the life of this Czech counterculture, and of the quality and professionalism of the work they produced under such severely antagonistic conditions. The first CD set alongside the later I984WELL – a 40 minute, single, abstract work – mark the extremes encompassed here: from insistent rock to explosions and dark, abstract atmospheres. A lot of fine musicians went through these various MCH ensembles whose line ups all featured bass, guitar and drums, with most of them adding various horns and lo-tech electronics. Not be to everyone’s taste, perhaps, but these CDs are important historical documents and they do go a little way toward setting the record straight about what was going on musically in Eastern Europe – which was quite as innovative as anywhere outside. Most of this material has not been readily accessible until now and is not available in any other form. For those intrigued but not ready to spend try Chadima’s Pseudodemocritus first. In a black box with a very informative 40pp booklet.
OTHER
KEVIN AYERS and The WHOLE WORLD
Hyde Park Free Concert [£12] RR 002
Summer 1970 and a great band that drew in Lol Coxhill (national treasure), David Bedford (enfant terrible), Mike Oldfield (wildly over-qualified bass-player) and both Robert Wyatt and bandleader Kevin Ayers (respectively current and ex Soft Machiners). Someone recorded it all, and here, cleaned up as much as possible, are the traces. ‘70s PA system, big noisy space, wind blowing the sound about; it’s all engraved into this CD. And through the lo-fi you can hear what made this period so interesting; bands didn’t try to sound alike, they took risks, they shuffled up the genres and they found their own way to a musical language that was full of ideas, details and imagination. The Whole World was exemplary, and you can just about hear what it was all about here. Fans will like it, researchers will be informed and it’s nice to hear Robert in this fluid, melodic context; if you were there, this will bring it all back; but doubters should go first to the studio CDs. These are precious documents, however.
GERRY FITZGERALD & LOL COXHILL
Echoes of Duneden [£12] RR 003
A record complied from many beautifully recorded performances in Edinburgh in 1975, edited and mastered by Gerry and then rejected by Virgin – after which it lay around until picked up, luckily, by Reel. Gerry, a remarkable guitarist, is virtually undocumented; his only released recordings being the legendary but obscure Mouseproof’ (with pre Henry Cow Geoff Leigh), Fleas in Custard (also with Lol) and as a contributor to Fred Frith’s Guitar Solos 2. So this is a useful addition to a meagre discography. A subtle, careful, very nicely assembled set of improvisations that keep collapsing into unison or co-ordinated sections. Both protagonists are on great form.
NATHAN HUBBARD
Blind Orchid [£12] ALP043
Eight interesting percussion and electronics centred pieces that explore sound through physical activity, microphone placement and extensive subsequent processing. Mostly extended from drum-kit into noise and pursing density and timbre rather than structure, these are nonetheless coherent and demarcated pieces.
LUTZ GLANDIEN
Kyomei [£12] By Name
Highly limited artist edition of wholly acoustic music composed for a family of specially designed and constructed string instruments (monochord, lyre, psalter and others). Beautifully recorded, simple and harmonically rich explorations of strings, space and resonating enclosures. Minimal, delicate and unusual. .
ELECTRONIC, CONTEMPORARY.
TREVOR WISHART
Machine [£12] PD25
Another landmark release from paradigm. Assembled between 1969-1971 this visionary work uses multiple recorded power station, factory and machine sounds (as well as air raids, radio noise, the Apollo landing, a Saturn rocket launch, the sea, body-sounds, exotic musics, a Palestrina mass and voices) to construct a dense, grounded, complex, organic and powerful unfolding of the clash – or infatuation – between humanity and technology as it was manifested in the white heat of technology/nuclear terror/Frankenstein years of the late ‘60s ands ‘70s. Aesthetically informed by the dreams of futurism and early modernism, and by the revolutions of electronic and musique concrete, this makes the industrial musics of the mid ‘70s through the laptop era seem rather one-dimensional. Get there early L
MAKOTO SHINOHARA
Electronic Music Domain Vol. 2 [£12] 30CM-455
A fine collection of early Japanese electronic and concrete works made between 1965-1979, mostly at the Utrecht Institute of Sonology and the legendary Princeton Music Centre. The (excellent) earliest piece, like Stockhausen’s first studies, is made entirely from sine waves, while the rest feature the increasing inclusion of environmental recordings. The last composition, City Visit, made in 1979 – which occupies 40 minutes of the whole CD – consists entirely of New York urban soundscape recordings without additional treatments or processing – a fascinating portrait of the city, and an important contribution to the history of soundscape phonography. A valuable release.
An ANTHOLOGY OF NOISE & ELECTRONIC MUSIC Volume 5 (dbl) [£18.75 ] SR270
Fifth in this important series which, by mixing early historic electronic music recordings with more contemporary laptop and ensemble pieces, takes an unusually broad view of its topic, leaving it to the listener to make theoretical and aesthetic judgements. The works featured here date mostly from the ‘60s and ‘70s, however. Of special interest are Francois-Bernard Mache and Andre Boucourechiliev (1959), Wolf Vostell (1968), Josef Anton Riedel (1963), two rare electronic works by Helmut Lachenmann and Claude Bailiff (1962) and Kagel’s Antithese. Mayakovsky and Hausmann represent earlier experiments and Pere Ubu and Ground Zero more recent abstract/noise experiments by bands. Other early works featured are by Richard Maxfield, Charlemagne Palestine, Alireza Masheyekhi (Iran, 1966), Jil Josef Wolman, Leo Kupper, Henri Chopin and a very interesting long piece by Dub Taylor (1972). Later works are by Rogelio Sosa, Christian Galaretta, Dickson Dee and Dajuin Yao (China), Yamaaki Takushi, Sutcliffe Jugend and Club Moral. The aesthetic and technological contrasts evident as the CDs unfold tell their own story, and this volume is a useful addition to an already critical and in some ways definitive collection. This is a resource and not everyone will like every track – though all are informative and many appear here for the first time. Comes with useful notes.
HENRY BRANT
Collected Works Vol 9 [£12] Innova 416
Dormant Craters, Ceremony, Homeless People
Three excellent pieces very well recorded of fairly recent works (1954, 1995, 1993) by the last of the great American maverick composers (he’s 95 and still busy); the master of spatialised acoustic composition -all his pieces feature ensembles and musicians arranged around and through the listening space: never loudspeakers or electronics. Great nets of noise and polyphonic, polymetric, simultaneous but uncannily coherent sounds whirl about, and settle into conversational groups or randomised chatter, almost genre-free, always human and filled with complexity and moment-to-moment detail. Craters is for several percussion groups: two jazz kits, a gamelan ensemble, eight tympani, 14 gongs and other metallophones, a steel drum ensemble, handbells and the usual Chinese blocks, gran casas and multiple snare drums. Ceremony features a four-hand piano and most of a small orchestra divided into small groups distributed around the room, with prominent percussion and 4 singers (chorally organised). Homeless People is for a string quartet – one member in each corner of the room, the inside of a piano (here played by Brant himself) and a distant accordion. Inevitably the 360 sound picture is absent from these recordings but the clarity, originality and power of the compositions is manifest. A great CD from an important composer. Nice booklet with useful notes. L
HENRY BRANT
Collected Works Vol 8 [£12] Innova 415
Eleven pieces dating from 1932, 1933, 1938, 1940, 1946, 1964, 1982 and 1990, several of which are not spatial. Almost all are very jazz inflected, especially the Jazz Clarinet Concerto composed for Benny Goodman (who claimed it was too abstract and never played it) and then wasn’t premiered until1984 (this recording), Jazz Toccata on a Bach Theme, Double-crank hand organ music and Inside Track, all excellent pieces for two pianos (Brant himself and Gerard Hommerson) and the first two short pieces, which are also ‘light-hearted’ and rather show their age. This is an interesting CD, but not indispensable, with great moments and some great pieces. But for Brant fans first.
IANCU DUMITRESCU / ANA MARIA AVRAM
Winds of the Desert, Le Silence D’Or &c [£12] EDMN 1022
Five new pieces, two for solo instruments two for ensemble and one for computer. Tim Hodgkinson, Gustavo Aguilar, Robert Reigle and Petru Teodorescu feature as soloists. Always to the point, fans will not be disappointed.
ART HISTORY
FRANCIS PICABIA
La Nourrice Americaine. [£12] LTMCD 2509
A critical figure in the early C20 avant-garde and instrumental in the history of Dada, both in Europe and New York, Francois Picabia composed only one musical work in his lifetime but – however you listen to it, and however you account for its composition – this is a work that once encountered is impossible to ignore – notwithstanding the fact that for close to 90 years it has been glossed over in most histories of C20 art and music. Written in 1920 for the Parisian Festival Dada (until now its only performance), La Nourrice Americaine consists of ‘three notes repeated to infinity’. Although it may have been intended as a provocation, in the light of subsequent developments (Cage’s playing of the Duchamp card, the rise or rediscovery of conceptual art and the evolution of musical minimalism) it cannot be ignored. Moreover, it works: there are two 20 minute versions on this CD – one slow, the other much faster, and it is an illumination how completely different they are: a classical demonstration that the physical grain of things, the phenomenological experience of qualia, can never be discounted; that sometimes what is relegated to mere detail turns out to be the central matter of a work. For me, for instance, the faster version is a far better composition – though it is problematical to explain how and why; and the fact that it is so hard to explain itself justifies the importance of the work. There are great complexities in this apparently absurd simplicity – which, of course, anybody could have produced at any time. But the fact is that nobody did – until Picabia. And after Picabia, a barrier was broken, easing the way into new territories for generations that followed. Between the two versions there is a rare radio interview with Picabia made in the late ‘40s (in French – with an Englsh translation in the accompanying booklet). Otherwise there are notes, a brief biography and a facsimile poster from the Festival Dada programme.
L
SATIE, PICABIA, MILHAUD, AURIC, STRAVINSKY, RIBEMONT-DESSAIGNES, MESENS, DUCHAMP.
Festival DADA Paris. Soirée du Coeur à Barbe, &c. [£12] LTMCD 2513
A collection of piano pieces played at, or written for, various Dada events in Paris between 1921-3. One or two pieces are well known but most will be heard here for the first time. The whole CD is nicely programmed, getting progressively stranger before finally returning to more familiar ground. The Ribemont-Dessaignes pieces are particularly remarkable – you couldn’t date them – and for anybody interested in the history of musical ideas, very valuable. They are world premiere recordings, so this is the first opportunity to hear them. The same is true of the three Mesens pieces. The collection ends with a restored 1925 recording of Stravinsky’s played by Marcelle Meyer, the pianist who performed at the two Dada events listed here.
Nice booklet, with useful notes and illustrations. A pleasant, eccentric and – for the recording premiere pieces – useful CD.
SOUND ART
.
PETR VÁŠA
Manifesto [£12]
Now in his mid forties Petr Vasa, formerly of banned group Z Kopce, and later Osklid (both formerly on our Points East distribution lists) has, since 1990, been elaborating his idea of Physical poetry – its roots in Futurism, Dada and, more precisely, the recording/vocal experiments of the ‘60s French New Realism – in a way both original and persuasive. These are situational, abstract performances or events using vocal sounds made in unpredictable environments – a busy street, a lift, an aquarium, a sewer, a railway crossing, pub, aviary, train station; by the sea, accompanying a chair and linoleum, with coffee pot and telephone, &c. Plus a handful of unaccompanied pieces. Altogether an important – and unusually recent – addition to the catalogue of extended concrete/poetry experiments that takes in noise, music and soundscape and manages to sound both stranger and more engaging than a great deal of more complex, electronically mediated work. An exemplary record; highly recommended. The CD also contains 3 strange movie documentations of Petr at work with traffic, helicopters, doors and some heavy road building equipment.
CHRISTINA KUBISCH
Five Electrical Walks [£12] IMPREC167
In recent years Christina has organised a number of Electrical walks in various cities around the world. The walker is supplied with customised wireless headphones which pick up and make audible the electromagnetic fields generated by light systems, radar, surveillance and alarm systems, neon, public transport networks, cellphones, the internet, ATM machines, Wi-fi – and so on: a sea of normally inaudible data through which we constantly wade, oblivious to its restless chatter. The walker also has a street map with a suggested route and listening points. The CD is a composite in 5 parts of several such walks in Birmingham, Chicago, Teipei, Paris, Bremen, Riga, Tokyo, Madrid, London, New York and Berlin, each concentrating on particular kinds of sounds or environments. A vast range of pulses, roars, hums, buzzes, thin siren tones and rich chords creating rhythms, drones and shifting colours. These are the soundscapes we never hear. But here they are.
CHRISTINA KUBISCH
Night Flights [£12] IMPREC 168
Originally released on vinyl in 1987in Milan, this CD is a welcome record of Christina’s earlier work (1983-6) and of her grounding in composition and formal music. Two are electroacaoustic, combining pure electronics with musique concrete techniques and exotic instruments (seashell trumpet, eagle bone and crystal glass bowls) alongside field recordings and an early drum synthesiser. Careful and with a fine sense of sonorities, these are airy, open pieces.
NATASHA BARRETT
Trade Winds [£12] ACD 5056
A sustained and impressive electroacoustic/ documentary composition built around sounds recorded from old ocean-going wooden ships (the sea, the creaking rigging, occasional voices) as well as appropriately related sources, that blends the weight of the world’s oceans, the hyper-reality of film soundtrack, the conventions of science fiction, total sensory immersion and an imaginative suggestion of narrative. So: unclassifiable. A one-off. And great. Composed as a 16-channel installation it comes here on an SACD hybrid disc – so it will play on any CD player, but if you have SACD hardware, you will get the extra quality.
_______________________________
BOOK + CD
Earshot 5
The Journal of the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community. [£10] By Name
78pp A5 flat-bound magazine with excellent articles about auscultation (medical listening) and touch; night listening, EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena – ‘spirit voices’ found on recordings) as well as essays on sound mapping cities, Dartmoor’s bells, sonic shock and the unconscious (1890-1990) and other topics.
The first 10 pieces on the accompanying CD accompany the essay on Dartmoor’s Bells, the remaining 17 feature ‘disappearing soundmarks’. A soundmark is the sonic analogue of a landmark; a sound of significance and importance to a given community in a given locality. Not available commercially.
WILL MENTER
Bits of wood (book + CD) [£17.00] By Name
128pp 20cm x 20 cm full colour book of photographs of wood – in its natural habitat, raw and manipulated, but mostly formed into artworks, installations and instruments by sculptor/musician Menter. There is also a handful of pages of accompanying text – an anthology of wood – and a CD of wood sculptures and instruments played variously by the wind, people and chance, as well as a few compositions assembled by Will for this CD. The first monograph on this consistent and serious artist.
PLUS POSTAGE: UK £1.85, EUROPE £3.40, REST OF WORLD £5.00
YASUNAO TONE
Noise Media Language (book + CD) [£16] By Name
Monograph on one of the central figures in early Japanese sound/art and founding member of the improvisational group Ongaku (1960) who explored conceptual art, happenings and, noise performance, and later mutated into Tokyo Fluxus. He moved to New York in 1972 and has experimented with indeterminate compositional techniques, complicated games, electronics and damaged media in art, dance (Merce Cunningham) and gallery contexts. The book, 118pp 21 cm x 25 cm seriously explores and expounds Tone’s work and career through a substantial interview with Tone himself and essays by various hands including Robert Ashley, Hans Ulrich Obricht and Achim Wollsheid, that cover his early and subsequent work, aesthetic evolution, performance practice, relation to noise, sonic calligraphy and C20 avant garde art movements – liberally Illustrated with visual scores, photographs and selected documents. The CD features 7 performances – for glissando ensemble, flute and computer, electronics, ‘wounded’ CD remixes, small ensembles and electronics – all dating from the ‘80s and ‘90s, except ‘Anagram for Strings’ (1961). This will be indispensable for students of the growth of noise-experiment and fluxart from the late ‘50s, and is a comprehensive study of this important historical actor.
PLUS POSTAGE: UK £1.85, EUROPE £2.80, REST OF WORLD £4/50
ALESSANDRO BOSETTI
African Feedback (book +CD) [£14] By Name
64pp A5 flatbound booklet with CD. The book consists of interviews made in small villages in Burkino Faso. Bosetti plays noise/music (Derek Bailey, Hugh Davis, Berio, Parch, Messaien, Yoshihide, Lucier, Chion, Parmegiani &c.) individually (via headphones) to people of all ages – who have never heard anything remotely like this before – and asks them first what they hear – eliciting the most extraordinary, elaborate, graphic and mystifying responses – and then what they make of it: whether it’s music and what music is, &c. This is deep matter and the answers are sometimes luminous and always fascinating. It’s rare to escape so completely from our own cultural frames of reference, and instructive how possible it is, notwithstanding, to approach and share experiences and concepts on the apparently fragile ground of language (even when that ground is compromised through interpretation). What is common as well as what is alien is made manifest and, above all, a kind of mental hospitality that seems hardwired is revealed. Bosetti is very sharp and accurate in his accompanying footnotes and doesn’t mythologize or idealise. He is perfectly aware of his inescapable role as outsider and of the quasi parasitical relationship between white strangers like himself – neither tourists nor administrators –and indigents who know and will supply – for complex sets of motives – what they think is wanted of them. Many levels of information and of misunderstanding are at play here and they shift and elide as you read. Each short interview is accompanied by photographs of the people or the locality and a list of the specific music played. The CD is gripping – it’s worth buying the book for alone. Made of the voices and vocal sounds of the questionees, imitations and musical sounds (Western and local) and the proximate soundscape – variously raw and processed – and brilliantly organised into a form that is like nothing I have heard before. I can’t recommend it too strongly. But that’s me. L
ALAN LICHT
Sound Art (book + CD) [£25] By Name
A high quality 300pp hardback art publication, 16 x 23.5 cm, printed on glossy paper with lots of white space, and lavishly illustrated with (mostly) full colour photographs of artworks and installations. The text is wide-ranging, taking a descriptive and very selective lightening tour through the byways and connections between visual arts, recording arts, radio arts, pop music, avant- gardes of all stripes, alongside sound experiments both within and beyond the discipline of music, to try to construct a narrative about the emergence – and an account of the forms taken by – what is now lumped together under the rubric ‘sound art’ – meaning for this author, mostly, sound beyond ‘music’ often with a visual counterpart, whose natural home seems to be event, gallery or installation. As such it’s a useful resource, a nice compendium, a name-checked reference, handy for further research; and it ranges wide, though it’s focus on the Sound Art field itself is very sketchy. Coming from a quasi-internationalist American perspective, inevitably much is missing and much that is there, if Sound Art really is the topic, is there rather mysteriously. It may be that the book just has the wrong title. Its subtitle: beyond music, between categories sums up the discursive nature of the project better. This book is wholly non-analytical and its connectivities are all sympathetic, speculative and superficial; there are no theoretical insights – or even propositions made; in fact, it’s a bit of a ragbag. A perfectly untilitarian ragbag, full of references, information and usefully assembled documentation of diverse – if rather arbitrarily selected – works, nicely presented (though it must be said, the pictures are not adequately captioned; you want to know more about the works depicted, and explanations are not forthcoming). The research and breadth of approach is useful, and there is insider knowledge. Included are 34pp of artist biographies which, depending on your perspective, feature many unaccountable omissions – or strange inclusions – but are, nevertheless both informed and informative about their subjects. If you take it as a personal essay by an alert practitioner, it’s impossible to complain, but for a clarification of the field and the questions that vex it, you will have to look elsewhere. A mixed blessing, then. Worth having because it contains much raw data, if partial, scattershot and curiously uncritical. The CD contains pieces by Bill Fontana (Harmonic bridge), Steve Roden, Jean Dubuffet, Destroy All Monsters (?!), Anthony Burr and Charles Curtis (Alvin Lucier) and Bernhard Gal, which are interesting enough in their own right but not terribly informative on the topic of the book, and – like most of the photographs – they remain unaccountably unexplained and uncontextualised. PLUS POSTAGE: UK £4.25, EUROPE £6, REST OF WORLD £11. Sorry!
INACTUELLES: PERCUSSION(S)
(3-CDs plus DVD video and book) [£50] By Name
A collaboration between Mode and the Parisian art book store Tschann, combining CDs and DVDs of musical performances with an informative textbook. Volume 1 – a Euro-centric and very partial survey of C20 and C21 percussion music, performed by Roland Auzet and featuring 13 complete works (7 world premieres) for percussion solo (Xenakis, Taïra), percussion and voice (Xenakis, Pape), percussion and ensemble (Xenakis, Milhaud, Alsina) and percussion and electronics (Auzet, Bancquart, Campion, Jodlowski, Tanaka). Plus a DVD with Xenakis’ Psappha and Rebonds and a 500+ page book in English and French written by musicologist Pierre-Albert CASTENE: Percussion(s): Gesture and Spirit, which discusses the history of percussion music and includes interviews with Auzet about the interpretation and performance of percussion music, especially the works and the composers recorded in this set. Preface by Pierre Boulez, postface by American percussionist Steven Schick. The book, though rather clunkily written (or translated), includes a 90 page essay on the history and use of percussion in ‘serious’ music in the C20, which is extremely thorough and very well annotated, if occasionally infuriating – and interviews with Roland Auzet that are knowledgeable, exhaustive, but full of sentiment and pomposity. A mixed blessing all around. But….
PLUS POSTAGE: UK £2.40, EUROPE £4.30, REST OF WORLD £5.50
VINYL
CHRISTIAN MARCLAY
Ghost (I don’t live today) (Vinyl) [£15] By Name.
A tribute to Jimmy Hendrix by Marclay, recorded at The Kitchen in New York in 1985 with his Phonoguitar- a modified turntable that slung around his neck – allowing him to emulate Jimi’s moves and to use movement-controlled amplifier/guitar feedbacks. Only Jimi’s records were used. Limited number pressing, produced for an exhibition in Geneva. One sided LP in printed cardboard sleeve.
Please add £1 postage Europe and £2 Outside Europe.
DVD
MAGMA
Mythes & Legendes Vol 2 [£15.75] EPOK2
Somehow missed when it came out, this is Vol. 2 of the massive retrospective recorded at the Triton in 2005. 2 hours of the 10 piece band (4 singers), which on this evening included Jannick Top – and an uncredited appearance by the great Klaus Blasqiz. They play Wurdah Itah (aka Tristan & Isolde), Mekanik Destriktiw Kommandoh, De Futura and Quadrivium. Just Tristan and Mekanik make this a precious document, for their compositional economy and transparency, precision, exquisite articulation, breathtaking control of tempi and dynamics, and sheer concentration. In my opinion it would have been a kindness to edit out Jannick Top’s bass solo in the middle of Mekanik. I would skip the guitar solo that follows it too – it’s fine in its way, but it interrupts the tight structure of the composition which deserves to stand alone. But that’s me. De Futura is rather weak in the company of Vander’s compositions, though there are good sections and it improves as it goes along. And it is good to hear Klaus. Jannick’s bass solo around the Bach’s Suite for Cello No.3 is also in the programme… I’m not sure why, but he’s no improviser. In spite of the criticisms, this is still is a must for the 90 breathtaking minutes of Tristan and Mekanik. DVD all region – 2 hours – PAL or NTSC.PCM stereo – 16/9 compatible 4/3
MAGMA
Mythes & Legendes Vol 4 [£15.75] EPOK4
Last in the retrospective cycle. A 16 strong Magma performs Zess, In a dream, The night we died, Otis, K.A Kobaia with the participation of Klaus Blasquiz, Jannick Top, Rémi Dumoulin, Fabrice Theuillon and Yannick Soccal. DVD all region – 2 hours – PAL or NTSC.PCM stéréo – 16/9 compatible 4/3
OFFER: COMPLETE CYCLE £55
OF INTEREST
TROY SPENSER
Phase 2 [£12] By Name
Interesting and unusual CD by Dutch multi-instrumentalist of through-composed, well arranged, shapely pieces, nicely realised. The Zappa influence is palpable: Unfashionably musical.
PETRU TEODORESCU
Selected Works [£12] EDMN2008
Tractatus, Tribute to Cioran, Eliade, Ionesco, Shadow Wave, Illumination (1), Morphogenesis, Illumination (2), Aetheric Convulsion, Tribute to KS. In the Very solid work mostly involving computer assisted sound, in the Dumitrescu style, with the addition of soloists Tim Hodgkinson, Gustavo Aguilar and Ana Maria Avram on some pieces. One piece for computer and the Hyperion ensemble.
MIKOLAS CHADIMA
Nech Sv tlo Doho et, Kate ino [£12] BP 0181-2
New recordings.
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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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BACK IN STOCK
IANCU DUMITRESCU – ANA MARIA AVRAM
Laboratory [£12] EDMN 1021
Seven new pieces. The first for a long time for (almost) purely acoustic resources; no pre-recorded tape or computer material. This where this approach to organisation of sound really scores; when set in empty space. Two of Iancu’s pieces are scored for The Hyperion Ensemble with soloists Tim Hodgkinson, Gustavo Aguilar, Vinny Golia, Robert Reigle, Victor Arsene and Denis Simandy, and two for The Hyperion and prepared piano (with soloists Ana Maria Avram & Iancu Dumitrescu respectively), including a rare outing for the Harryphone. Nucleons stands out; a great track. Ana Maria’s pieces feature The Hyperion with Soloists Tim Hodgkinson (a great piece with Tim in fabulous form), Chris Cutler (with electrified kit) and Iancu Dumitrescu. For me one of the freshest and most different CDs from EDMN for a while.
ALTERED STATES
Altered States [£12] ZEN 001
The first great volume. Uchihashi Kasuhisa’s classic Japanese music and noise improvisation trio (all were also members of the last Ground Zero). Highly musical and inventive work that shows what can still be done with bass, drums and guitar (plus a few pedals !) and a lot of sensibility. Such a group only comes along once in a rare while. Japanese pressing. Few copies only.
ALTERED STATES 4 [£12] Zen 003
BACK IN STOCK
In fact, discovered, a handful of copies of CHARLES HAYWARD & MICHAEL PRIME’s collectable shared LP Wash, Rinse, Spin £12, why not?
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SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
THE RECOMMENDED SAMPLER
(double CD) [£18] ReR 1982
Faust, Art Bears, ZNR, Robert Wyatt, The Residents, Henry Cow, This Heat, Art Zoyd, Univers Zero, Stormy Six, Aqsak Maboul, Picchio Dal Pozzo, Decibel, Goebbels and Harth, The Homosexuals, The Work, Amos and Sarah, The Black Sheep, Feliu Gasul, The Muffins, R.Stevie Moore, Robel Vogel, Ron Pate/Raudelunas, Conventum, Joseph Racaille and Patrick Portella
Originally released in 1982 this is a collection of specially commissioned and (at the time) newly recorded pieces by the most interesting groups and individuals then in the Recommended catalogue. Never reissued, this compilation has slowly become a prized collectors’ item – and remains an indispensable snapshot of the range and musical brilliance of this critical moment in the history of a small community of left-field groups in the process of defining a new musical language. It is amazing how fresh and original this music still sounds – and how much things have changed in 25 years. The breadth of imagination revealed is exemplary, and by today’s standards somewhat unfamiliar. So what was intended as a practical compendium on its release, has now become a definitive document, To mark the occasion of Recommended’s30th anniversary, we have decided to reissue it, re-mastered and with additional accompanying material. The subscription edition will come, lavishly packaged and documented with a free extra CD, a facsimile of the very first handwritten Recommended catalogue….and various other bits of Recommended memorabilia and trivia..
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: three CDs in slipcase. Numbered Subscription Edition, the extra art CD only with this Subscription. ___________________________________________
THE POINTS EAST BOX
Historic numbered art edition: 12 CDs, book and box [£58] pe/box
We are slowly moving toward a number that may make this release possible.
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
THE NECKS . Hanging gardens
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. TREVOR WISHART Machine
2. ALESSANDRO BOSETTI. African Feedback
3. FRANCIS PICABIA. La Nourrice Americaine.
4. NATASHA BARRETT. Trade Winds
5. NIKOLA KODJBASHIA. The Most of Now
MUST HAVE price: £53. [save £9]
ESSENTIAL HISTORY
1. HENRY BRANT. Collected Works Vol 9
2. MAKOTO SHINOHARA. Electronic Music Domain Vol. 2
3. PETR VÁŠA. Manifesto
HISTORIC Price: £30 [save £6}
BOTH £77, Save £18
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
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