Royals
(Monotype - MONO034) CD $12.75
(Monotype - MONO034) Used CD $8.50
Three new pieces somewhere between composition, song, literary essay, poem and unreligious mantra, without embracing any genre in particular. Bosetti translates intonations of speech into complex and seemingly orchestral scores where meaning, tone and noise melt together. Inspired by Arcimboldo's 16th Century paintings, which he calls "examples of hand made convolution and shadowing," he pours words into notes, notes into noise, and noise into meaning. Repetition, meditation, hallucination. Harpsichord, piano, guitar, soprano saxophone, field recordings. The core of the sinuous "Gloriously Repeating" is generated from a short fragment from the W.G. Sebald poem "After Nature." "Life Expectations" is constructed around the intricate emotional, rhythmic and melodic counterpoints of a casual conversation, where the sensitive interaction between voices becomes the matter. The text of the surreal and short “Dead Man” implies a ready-made pseudo-zen philosophy of resurrection derived from quotes of Iron Maiden lyrics.
JOHN BUTCHER / TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA
Dusted Machinery
(Monotype - MONO041) CD $13.50
“Whisper-soft soprano squeaks and gently coaxed feedback saxophone meld fluidly [and] seamlessly with the stripped-metal tones from Nakamura,” writes an Internet poet. “Butcher’s occasional crackles and sizzling flareups from his electronics derail … restrained inclinations in provocative ways.”
The Knotted Constellation (Fourteen Rotted Coordinates)
(Monotype - MONO039) CD $12.75
Field recordings from around the world, surreal collage techniques and synthetic sounds derived from digital audio tools. With contributions by C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core), Lithuanian sound artist Darius Ciuta and Berlin-based circuit bender Guido Henneböhl, among others.
EUGENE CHADBOURNE AND THE DROPOUTS
Zupa Dupa Kupa
(Monotype - MONO007) LP $16.50
A Renaissance man, a rebel among rebels. What began with a boyhood dream and a Herman's Hermits record is now Chadbourne’s musical odyssey that connects the dots between the Appalachians and the edges of the known musical universe.
WERNER DAFELDECKER / AXEL DÖRNER / SVEN-AKE JOHANSSON
Des Kreis Des Gegenstandes
(Monotype - MONO008) LP $16.50
Dörner’s unique style of trumpet playing is based in part on unusual, self-invented techniques. Dafeldecker’s projects are inspired and deduced by outside influences such as architecture, physics, photography and film. Longtime sound and structure studies and the formulation of distinct articulations are in the center of his work as a composer and musician, parallel to technological developments connected with with electronic formats. Johansson is a composer, musician, poet and visual artist, writer and legendary protagonist within the European free improv.
Razine
(Monotype - MONO043) CD $13.50
Self-described by the improvisers as “the wild horseman of sound,” Razine slides, breaks rhythmical lines, transforms textures suddenly, and suggests the ring of the “Trumpet of the Martians,” caught through utopian poetry by visionary and transreason linguist Velimir Khlebnikov, inspirer of futurians, serialism, surrealism and lettrism.
I Am Sitting In Phill Niblock's Kitchen
(Monotype - MONO042) CD $13.50
Warburton time-stretched about one-hundred If, Bwana recordings and multitracked them into a single forty-five minute sludge cocktail, before decanting and editing them into a single span of music. Al Margolis then added the ambient sounds of the food-preparation parlor of the titular multimedia minimalist. The two subsequently performed live in Belgium in 2008, mixing the recording with live electronics, clarinet, violin, and a time-stretched and pitch-shifted piano piece of Warburton’s, Speed Study I.
Intervals
(Monotype - MONO032) CD $12.75
Duo performances by two outbound percussionists (with Kahn on synthesizer also) from Switzerland 2009 recorded by Kahn, composited into their final versions here by Z’ev. Not surprisingly, the heavy processing transcends the inherent rhythmic quality of percussion and settles instead on their complex sonic qualities. “Lausanne” layers metallic noises with delicate grains running through a hollow wooden body; dark clouds gather, undefined sounds appear, a soft metallic hum becomes for a moment the sole audible component, underlying drum tremors rise to the surface. “Zürich” goes through light and dark phases, and rather bare moments where only drone-like electronics and processed drum noises create an impenetrable vacuum.
Scope
(Monotype - MONO044) CD $13.50
Driven to amalgamate mechanically and electronically generated sounds, Carl Ludwig Hubsch (tuba), Thomas Lehn (synth), Philip Zoubek (piano), and Franz Hautzinger (trumpet) create vividly structured architecture. Multilayers, soundscapes, and chamber compositions created in the peak of the moment.
Twist of Fate
(Monotype - MONO035) CD + DVD $30.00
A provocative journey into the dark groove of endless night where possibility, mystery and mania entwine the listener in a deep cocoon of sound and voice. Processed acoustics, field recordings, found sounds, electronics, turntables, percussion, synth, organ, piano, inflatable balloons and knives by Petit; vocals, guitar and found sounds by Lunch. Six-page digipak, case, and thirty-two-page, full-color book. CAVEAT EMPTOR: THE DVD IS PAL FORMAT (not playable in all US DVD players).
Une Saison
(Monotype - MONO036) CD $18.00
Four previously released tracks of fantastic musique concrète: La grande vallée (Metamkine 1998); Portrait d'un glacier (Alpes, 2173m) (Ground Fault Recordings 2001); Dans la montagne (Ki Ken Taï) (La Muse En Circuit 1997 and Chloë Recordings 2003); and L'oeil retourné (Selektion, 1999). All are elaborately composed galaxies of static and aggressive, self-sustaining sound explorations. The more sensitive among us will admit to feeling paralyzed by the swiftness of the reactions of the sounds from one layer to the next in Marchetti’s “microtonal stance of sound snorkeling.” Michel Chion says, “To my mind, the characteristics of numerous compositions by Lionel Marchetti, including those featured in this collection, are fullness and perfection, a design both obscure and transparent at the same time, so typical of a classic work.” Tri-folded cardboard jacket, sixteen-page booklet with Chion's "The Suspension Bridges.”
Kiss of Acid
(Monotype - MONO033) CD $12.75
Wastell’s misfortune-prone project started with a gigantic tam tam, recorded in 2004 by Graham Halliwell; Marhaug applied his electronics, computer, and compositional structure to the recording in 2005. A mere five years later, here is the forty-minute result -- dark, haunting atmospheric. Cardboard gatefold jacket with twelve-page book.
Wigry
(Monotype - MONO006) 2xLP $28.00
Instrumentation within this electronic music orchestra of ten-ish musicians ranges from analog (Thomas Lehn) and digital synthesizers (Marcus Schmickler), amplified objects and old analog equipment (Gert-Jan Prins) to software designed especially for improvisation (Phil Durrant); the line up varies from improvisers who started in '60s (Keith Rowe) to a younger generation of electronic musicians (Christian Fennesz); its aesthetics float from space-jazz (Rafael Toral) to noise (Peter Rehberg). Their massive sound does not sacrifice sensitivity for site-specific acoustic and social restraints; new concepts for each performance guarantee thrills. Wigry was performed in a church on a dark and stormy night. Each musician, seated by the long table placed between two rows of benches, had a separate loudspeaker. Despite regular church reverb, there is no cloud of noise, just sounds in the air coming from somewhere by someone.
PHILIPPE PETIT / EUGENE S. ROBINSON
The Crying of Lot 69
(Monotype - MONO040) CD $12.75
(Monotype - MONO040) Used CD $8.50
The sound, the song, the words, and the mounting narrative spool of the efforts of Petit and Oxbow founder / frontman Robinson draw in equal parts on Pynchon and the dog-eat-dog laws of senseless jungle indifference. Compassion denied. Tales from a killing. The Crying Of Lot 69 pulls up a blanket of concrete and cozies you into the comfort of a world where the mildest intentions have the wildest effects. The first part in a trilogy. With Rhys Chatham on trumpet, Helena Espvall on cello, and Hervé Vincenti on guitar and synths.
You Can’t Get There From Here
(Monotype - MONO038) CD $12.75
(Monotype - MONO038) Used CD $8.50
The works of the London-based conceptual artist, writer, plasticien sonore and composer Robin Rimbaud traverse experimental terrain between sound, space, image and form. Philosopher, musician, and author Rothenberg takes his inspiration from the melodies and beats of birds, insects, whales, water, and wind.
Become The Objects of Daily Use
(Monotype - MONO037) CD $12.75
(Monotype - MONO037) Used CD $8.50
Making music based upon two simple principles (it is derived from speech; it repeats incessantly), the main project of Alessandro Bosetti, fretless guitarist Kenta Nagai, and drummer Tony Buck is entirely dedicated to Bosetti's loop compositions. Melodies are crafted out of speech profiles of recordings of Bosetti's emotional, often surreal or non-sequitur lyrics. Words cast into everyday speech are subsequently transcribed and played as endless loops. Speech becomes song and the non-metric, irregular rhythms that it creates turn into powerful grooves and precise pulsations never lining up with any regular beat. The band's performance is a meditative exercise in precision and intensity. Musical action begins in little shifts of intonation and inflections, anticipation and delay, played out by voice, fretless guitar, drums and electronics. Music warms up to a calm incandescence. Development is patient and inexorable. It never misses to reach a further level and it never loses its bizarre sameness. The controlled but restless energy mutates and transforms this trio into a devastating stage monster during live performances. The insistently repeated speech fragments at the center of the music end up disappearing from perception while leaving a cloud of vaporized meaning behind.
M
(Monotype - MONO045) CD $13.50
The unique musical language of this Austrian pioneer of electro-acoustic performance and composition is based on the de- and reconstruction of the sonic possibilities of the violin, expanding the instrument with live electronic effects and innovative performance techniques. Primal and organic, screaming, lyrical, explosive and composed, her "automatic playing" is a continuous exploration of sound and music as physical phenomena, constantly pushing back the boundaries in radical and provocative performances and compositions.