Browse by Label: RECOMMENDED (UK)

Artist:	BIOTA
Title:	Object Holder BOX VERSION
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD BOX
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	RER BCD4BOX

A limited edition box set version of the 4th Biota CD (the regular version is now deleted), produced by the band in limited quantities back in 1995. A simple card box with rubberstamped cover encloses the CD (same as the regular edition), and attached to the bottom inside of the box is a small original painting by various Biota members -- in the same style as the fantastic art that has graced their releases since day one. If you've never gotten this album, your opportunity to get a one-off deluxe version has never been greater. Limited stock.

Artist:	CAMBERWELL NOW
Title:	All's Well
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	DUP 022CD

The complete works of this post-This Heat band featuring Charles Hayward, recorded 1982-1986. Featuring these original releases: Meridian, The Ghost Trade & Greenfingers LP/EPs. "This definitive edition collects the entire released output of Camberwell Now (two EPs and an LP), newly re-mastered by the band and repackaged with full notes, lyrics, additional photographs and artwork. Chronologically, Camberwell Now immediately succeeded This Heat, Charles Hayward continuing to work with This Heat's last bassist Trefor Goronwy, and the two of them joining forces with Stephen Rickard who, for the new band, designed his unique 'cassette switchboard,' a kind of proto-sampler -- though that's not the half of it (Steve's article fully explaining the device is reprinted in the new, expanded booklet that comes with the CD). Musically, Camberwell both followed and departed from the style of This Heat. Formally and gesturally there are common elements, but there is far greater transparency and the sound palette is quite different: the music is more placed than grown, as the slow accumulation and evolution of material in This Heat gives way to a more immediate and orderly development of the material in Camberwell Now. The songs -- nostalgic, scary, and quietly desperate -- peer into the future to find harbour but confront only fragments of ruin. Debris and disturbance eat away at the root and corrode each shiny surface (mostly the musical work of the cassette switchboard). The juxtaposition of powerful, virtuosic playing and the eerie, often unidentifiable keenings, chords and constant motion of the cassettes is one of the things that make Camberwell Now so expressive of its time -- when the whole social and political fabric of a no-longer-great Britain was unravelling. Camberwell Now worked and recorded in Cold Storage, and toured intermittently through Europe between 1983 and 1986, when they disbanded."

Artist:	FRITH, FRED
Title:	Nowhere. Sideshow. Thin Air.
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	FRA 007CD

"Fred's sixth CD of music for dance, featuring three commissions by three different choreographers each sharing, as Fred says ' a certain obsession with melodic deconstruction.' Two of them feature -- and were especially written for -- the remarkable violinist Carla Kihlstedt. Fred and Carla perform one of them (Fred playing a huge array of instruments here as on all pieces), are joined by Fred Guiliano, (samples) and Gail Brand (trombone) on another, while the third features Fred, Hande Erdem (violin) and Threresa Wong (cello). These are complex studio compositions characterised by a deceptive simplicity, layers and plateau, rhythm and colour."

Artist:	MINTON, PHIL
Title:	Past
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	IDA 018CD

"Since the beginnings of his career in 1962, Minton's unique vocalising and 'mouth noises' have been a regular feature of his many works with Mike Westbrook, Lindsay Cooper, Roger Turner, News from Babel and hundreds of others. On Past, Minton is accompanied by pianist Weston (himself a giant in the Euro-Jazz world), who seems to bring out the best and most remarkable of Minton's talents to date. The two embark upon this musical journey from an approach quite different than most of their contemporaries; whether going about a free-form odyssey that spurs the singer's penchant to eschew the readily received notions of Jazz, or staying more put within that style's parameters, this disk exhibits the excellence and professional confidence only obtainable by many years' worth of experience and hard work. It is an exceptional offering that pays homage to Jazz as we know it, while proceeding to take it into farther-out, uncharted territories."

Artist:	ILAIYARAAJA
Title:	Wings
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	IDA 019CD

"The name Raaja is not yet a household world in the west, but the 61 year-old East Indian composer, multi-instrumentalist, and group leader is ever gaining popularity, especially in Europe. A life-long harmonium, piano and classical guitar player from the Tamil district, Raaja has composed more than 4000 songs, scored the music for upwards of 800 Indian movies. Wings is a fascinating blend of Eastern and Western styles which, while seemingly adhering to a curriculum of modern classical ethics, transgresses the idiom by staying true to the mystical aspects of Eastern music. The implementation of Indian instruments in a modern context makes for a rich pallet of tone colors, creating a wide range of expressive possibilities. This is an excellent combination of stylings -- one which will both please those already familiar with the tonalities and sublime aspects of Eastern music, and pleasantly surprise the less initiated."

Artist:	CURRAN, ALVIN
Title:	Toto Angelica
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	IDA 020CD

2005 release. "Stylistically follows in the wake of his Tzadik release Animal Behavior, to the extent that a plethora of alienated, musical sounds become a single piece of music when altered and thoughtfully mixed together. During his Angelica Festival performance (which was the impetus for this recording), his computer crashed and, by means of a pre-recorded phoneme voice, uttered the syllables, 'It's not my fault. Please make sure the Apple Talking Network is connected.' This happy accident inspired Curran to re-evaluate both our penchant to so strongly rely on technology, and the propitious results when such technology leads the artist into unexplored and unimagined territories by reason of necessity. From this standpoint, the composer examined the entire recordings from all 10 past Angelica Festivals from 1991 to 2001, and set about to mix disparate but somehow complimentary performances together to create a new work. These are otherwise impossible combinations: Fred Frith plays with two Eskimo women. Pavarotti plays with Mike Patton, etc. that logically should not work. But as the world becomes smaller and smaller by means of technology, by design, these instances certainly do. The outcome, while certainly intense, is by no means a nod to the world of lazily thrown together noises or shock-tastic-shivarees; instead, Curran's penchant to carefully consider all of the elements at his disposal left him with a full palette of possibilities for excellence and innovation."

Artist:	ILAIYARAAJA
Title:	Ilaiyaraaja's Music Journey
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	IDA 021CD

2004 release. "The name Raaja is not yet a household world in the West, but the 61 year-old East Indian composer, multi-instrumentalist, and group leader is ever gaining popularity, especially in Europe. A life-long harmonium, piano and classical guitar player from the Tamil district, Raaja has composed more than 4000 songs, scored the music for upwards of 800 Indian movies, and was the first Asian to compose a symphony commissioned in the West (his Symphony No. 1, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London). He holds a doctorate in music, and has won many noteworthy musical awards in both India and the United States."

Artist:	OSSATURA/TIM HODGKINSON
Title:	Dentro
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER 01

"Improvisation represents the backbone of the music played by Italian group Ossatura. Their music is marked by a sequence of sound blocks and diversified interlocking timbres and shapes, where detailed textural work alternates with rhythmic accelerations and highly dense sound events. For Dentro they are joined by former Henry Cow-man Tim Hodgkinson to produce an electro-acoustic collaboration that Chris Cutler described as being: 'somewhere between musique-concrete and a kind of abstract improvisational work, using extended techniques and electrification that disconnects sound from any recognizable source."

Artist:	OSSATURA
Title:	Verso
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER 02

"Improvisation is the main raison d'�tre for this Italian trio, who met in the mid 90's, and are now one of the leading groups on the international improvising circuit. ReR released their first CD Dentro -- a collaboration with ex Henry Cow man Tim Hodgkinson -- in 1998. It was an extremely dense concoction, where blocks of sound were manoeuvred about like large objects on a building site. For their new album Ossatura have mostly abandoned the acoustic instruments which featured heavily on Dentro. Verso focuses on the electronic noise making gadgets they have built or acquired over the years. Without the ameliorating affect of 'real' instruments the sound is more stark, more elemental, and the textures are more open. It's a series of almost violent electronic interventions, in their words 'highly dense sound events'. At times it's like being trapped inside the entrails of a sci fi computer game, as one is bombarded by sonic debris. At others the music settles into hypnotic repeating gestures. Its great to hear electronic music produced by real players, in real time -- a million miles from the pre-programmed lap top fare which has recently threatened to dominate the scene."

Artist:	VA
Title:	The Recommended Sampler 1982: 25th Anniversary Edition
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	RER 25A/B

"A keystone reissue of an historic collection featuring: Vogel, Faust, Art Bears, Stormy Six, The Homosexuals, Joseph Racaille & Patrick Portella, Feliu Gasul, The Black Sheep, Univers Zero, Aksak Maboul/Honeymoon Killers, The Work, Henry Cow, Decibel, Art Zoyd, The Muffins, Heiner Goebbels, Amos, Conventum, Vera C, This Heat, The Residents, R. Stevie Moore, Ron Pate/Raudelunas, Piccio dal Pozzo and Roberty Wyatt. Total time: 2 hours. Recommended Records was set up in the late 1970s by Chris Cutler and Nick Hobbs -- both then busy with Henry Cow -- on the back of the worst possible business model imaginable: to collect and distribute music which, in Cutler's judgement, was original, important or excellent -- and otherwise generally unknown. No major labels, just releases by independents or artists themselves, with particular emphasis on ignored European releases. It was an interesting moment: punk and the new wave had unsettled the old certainties, major labels were floundering and a new generation was setting up its own channels of information and distribution. Out of this stimulating chaos, all sorts of innovations and alternative propositions emerged, especially outside the UK/U.S. axis, which by then had become complacent and arrogant -- because they had 'invented' rock and what else was there to know? Thus Recommended quickly became the principle source of information about a diverse new underground of innovative music that wasn't jazz, rock, new wave, or anything quite. By 1982, Recommended was in its fourth year. The catalog had expanded and the label was firmly established. A sampler seemed an obvious and necessary next step. Compiling extracts from existing releases would have been boring, so we asked the most interesting groups in our catalog to record something new. The result was two hours of music released as a double LP in a hand silk-screened sleeve that was, as it turned out, a time capsule -- a tidy slice taken across a fascinating forking of musical paths that captured a moment of growth that foresaw a variety of possible futures. 26 years on, it has become a highly-prized collector's item, not only because of the breadth and quality of the music it contains, but also because of its early geographical reach. A lot has changed in little more than a generation."

Artist:	CUTLER/FRED FRITH/THOMAS DIMUZIO, CHRIS
Title:	Golden State
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	LP
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	RER 966550LP

"This is a limited edition of 1,969 numbered copies, pressed into 180 gram virgin vinyl and rather extravagantly packaged. The music was recorded in California in 1999 with guest Beth Custer (clarinet) on one track and carefully mastered by Tom Dimuzio in wide frequency, solid footprint, broad compass stereo. Though we waved goodbye to vinyl decades ago, we felt this release was made to be an LP -- a CD just wouldn't be the same, sonically, visually or ontologically. And of course we took advantage of the exaggerated dimensions and physicality to make it a thing visually to savour. Off the groove, Dimuzio, Cutler, Frith and Custer do what they do and you get a ringside seat. The first 500 will be pressed on white vinyl."

Artist:	ART BEARS
Title:	Hopes And Fears
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER AB1

New digipak reissue of the first Art Bears album, originally issued by Recommended in 1978. Fred Frith : guitars, keyboards, bass, violin; Dagmar Krause: voice; Chris Cutler: percussion. With: Tim Hodgkinson: keyboards, woodwinds; Georgie Born: Bass, cello;

       Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, oboe, soprano sax, recorders. "Originally recorded as a Henry Cow album (but eventually assigned to the trio of Art Bears), during the late 70's this grouping made one of the most powerful statements yet in the world of Art-Rock. Whereas Henry Cow showed an inclination to write long-ish compositions interspersed with improvisational aspects, Art Bears' approach combined a more lyrical display, with shorter, extended-song forms. Typically, the word-strong poetry of drummer Chris Cutler was the impetus for the group's recordings. Once written, it was set to music by multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith, (often in a spur-of-the-moment fashion) and was then extrapolated upon and built up by the group during the recording/mixing process in a way that usually validated the lyrical intent.

       Hopes And Fears shows the group at its most formidable stage in terms of composition. The pieces are often highly complex, with ideas that zig-zag through a maze of musical imagery, highlighting the group at their peak of virtuosity. Dagmar Krause's vocal prowess is stunningly effective, and the recording itself was edited in a sequence where repeating themes and studio wizardry present the album as a cycle of related, 'songs'. Of the best and most bizarre of the old school of Art-Rock."

Artist:	ART BEARS
Title:	Winter Songs
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER AB2

New digipak version; originally released 1978. "The Art Bears' second album consists of twelve songs of various tensions: rest vs. speed, improv vs. pulse, space vs. density, Dagmar Kraus' vocals vs. everyone else. As usual, Chris Cutler's lyrics tell political allegories through medieval-tinged stories: slaves, castles, and wheels of fortune (and industry) dominate. Fred Frith explores discordance through his guitar, and European folk figures through his always enjoyable violin. Though not as confrontational as their other work, the centerpiece has to be the frantic 'Rats and Monkeys' with three minutes of teeth-gritting, out-of-control insanity as all three players are plugged into a wall outlet and let rip."

Artist:	ART BEARS
Title:	The World as it is Today
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER AB3

New digipak version, of the third Art Bears album, originally released 1980. "If you thought Henry Cow was a pretty political band to start with, you may be even more taken aback by the Art Bears, which was put together following Henry Cow's demise by former Cows Chris Cutler (percussion), Fred Frith (guitar, violin), and Dagmar Krause (voice). On The World as it is Today and its predecessor, Winter Songs, the Art Bears move away from the long-form art rock of Henry Cow and get much, much more politically explicit: song titles like 'The Song of the Dignity of Labour Under Capital' and 'The Song of Investment Capital Overseas' almost sound like Monty Python gags today, but if any humor was intended it was clearly meant to be mordant. Frankly, the lyrics are so overwrought and portentous that it's hard to take them seriously. But the music is something else again. Cutler and Frith are natural collaborators; Cutler's drumming always rides a very fine line between the scattershot and the funky, while Frith bounces his horror-show guitar noise and carnival piano off of Cutler's grooves with manic abandon and fearsome inventiveness. And Krause's singing is just as inventive; she whoops, croons and screams her way through the density of Cutler's lyrics without a hesitation or misstep. Easy listening it isn't, but it's sure worth hearing. Frith fans, in particular, should consider this album a must-own."

Artist:	ART BEARS
Title:	Revisited
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	RER AB4/5

2003 release; separate version of 2 of the bonus discs from the 6CD The Art Box. "As the years passed and technology marched on, the band decided to let some other artists (all of whom are well-known for their advanced focus on music thru innovation) to remix the three original albums. On Revisited, we are treated to how others perceive the importance of the Art Bears' back catalog by their own standards in the current studio world, using the resurrected master tapes as a starting point. In all cases the work is as radical today as it was when the band first offered it up a quarter of a century ago. Features remixes and reworksings by Bob Drake, Stevan Tickmeyer, Jon Rose, Christian Marclay, Thomas Dimuzio, Musci/Venosta/Mariani, Lars Pedersen (When), Warrick Swinney/Kalahari Surfers, Biota, The Residents, Otomo Yoshida/Ground Zero, and, well...too many more to mention here. You get the idea. It harkens the Art Bears' trilogy into a new era of technology, aesthetic and sound, all of which had yet to be introduced back when the albums were made. Also on these disks are previously unreleased concert recordings, a reissue of the 'Collapse' 45 rpm (from Ralph Records), a newly completed piece by the band aptly called, 'Rebirth' (which was hitherto a poem in the coveted 'Wintersongs' book), 'All Hail' from the Recommended Sampler."

Artist:	ART BEARS
Title:	The Art Box
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	6CD BOX
Price:	$90.00
Catalog #:	RER ABOX

"Art Bears -- The Art Box marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most eclectic, dynamic and productive creative alliances in the history of experimental music. Featuring legendary composer Fred Frith, groundbreaking percussionist Chris Cutler & vocalist Dagmar Krouse, this assembly of genius has made an 'incalculable' contribution to the post-context art-rock scene. A 6-CD set, the collection features the first 3 albums (Hopes & Fears, Winter Songs, The World As It Is Today) remastered and in their entirety, a 2-CD set of remixes & re-workings with contributions from Christian Marclay, The Residents, Ground Zero, Biota, & more, plus a bonus CD of previously unreleased material not available elsewhere."

Artist:	AFTER DINNER
Title:	Editions
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER ADCD

Repressed and available again for the first time in years. After Dinner was the Japanese group from the late 80s, let by vocalist Haco. This reissues their original ReR studio album from 1984, plus tracks from the live cassette release that followed, etc.. "...bizarre experimental 3D surround-sound, backwards/sped up/slowed down tape technique (before the days of sampling), complex but charming arrangements featuring a huge cast of Japanese instrumentalists. The influences are many: John Cage, nursery rhymes, cabaret, free-jazz, traditional folk music..."

Artist:	AMM
Title:	AMMusic 1966
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER AMMCD

Repressed, originally reissued in 1989. Monumental debut recording (originally issued by the Elektra recording company in far different times). "The classic first recording from 1966, with Cornelius Cardew, Eddie Prevost, Lou Gare, Keith Rowe and Lawrence Sheaf. One of the first attempts to bring Noise improvisation (radios, scraped guitars, prepared pianos) into popular culture. Essential and historic." See the Matchless label for the rest of AMM's discography.

Artist:	PELTONEN, AKI
Title:	Radio Banana
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER AP1

"Just when you think it's all over, along comes something completely unpredictable -- in this case, a modest but uncompromisingly original confection that mixes Latin brass arrangements (sort of), with great drumming, medium- wave radio and the many characters of the accordion. Simplicity, complexity, surprise, familiarity -- and all without undue fuss. The result seems exotic and new. It is also one of those releases that just fell through the door in an unassuming package and an absolute minimum of explanation. So there's not a lot more to say: Radio Banana is a record that wears its heart plainly on its sleeve. There's nothing hidden. It doesn't play by any genre rules, or fashion rules; it's just someone's idea of music. It's not sampled or assembled out of parts; it's just played, the old way, by human beings. The combination of elements may be inscrutable, but it was this combination, Aki says, that he wanted to hear. Aki Peltonen was born in 1963 and lives in Pori, a small town on the west coast of Finland, where he owns and runs a recording studio and a small P.A. company. Although he plays the accordion throughout, he says his main instrument is the guitar."

Artist:	BIOTA
Title:	Tumble
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BCD

A 1989 release, their first intended strictly as a CD issue. A loose, studio-only collective from Colorado, Biota's reputation is based on an unparalleled ability to create a reality-shaking wall of dense sound, though they generally limit themselves to acoustic instrumentation ("treated" to devastating levels). Pure sound aesthetic and attention to detail dominates every second of their various releases; few American sound artist collectives have ever maintained such sonic integrity for so long. "...where nothing is quite in focus, timing is distinctly idiosyncratic, and landmarks loom in and out of the fog."

Artist:	BIOTA
Title:	Object Holder
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BCD4

Biota's fourth CD finds the band expanding into new, almost recognizable styles (ie. songs!). "...the group's 12th major release... and its first to involve the singing of Susanne Lewis and percussion of Chris Cutler. These new voices join the delicate, Satie-like piano of C.W. Vrtacek amid the circus fray. The usual Biota trademarks are still present: dangerous studio-based sound processing, unsteady, tripping rhythms, strange, medieval fanfares, and undersea melodies featuring bizarre instruments."

Artist:	BIOTA
Title:	Invisible Map
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BCD5

"If fans of Biota were shocked by the pop songs that appeared for the first time on the previous Biota release, Invisible Map is going to send them reeling. They are sung by Genevieve Heistek, from the same school of Montreal musicians who spawned Godspeed You Black Emperor. The songs provide a central point around which Biota hang their esoteric production ideas. Crazy shawms suddenly spurt out of the mix, unsteady tripping rhythms from the drums counterpoint interlocking guitars, and unsettling sound processing pushes the material to the edge of oblivion. The tracks were built up from solo accordion or rubab, drums and guitar, and the whole piece is woven into an ambiguous cinematic journey. Mixing and effects were applied in real time, 'by hand'. This gives a wonderful spontaneous feel to the music, and Biota have made an art out of accepting and working with freak accidental effects."

Artist:	BIOTA
Title:	Half A True Day
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BCD6

"Six years in the making, this is the sixth CD released by ReR from the visual/sonic art group Biota. Unique in their history and method, Biota painstakingly construct complex, organic structures that mix extensive studio processing and musique concr�te techniques, with a highly eclectic orchestra of acoustic and electronic resources: from kit drums, through medieval winds, strings and barrel organs, to early experimental electronic instruments. Their works are always performance driven and interleaved with successive stages of lamination, imbrication of parts, and radical pre- and post-processing. 'As the title suggests, in this new work a portion of a cycle -- a repeating segment of time -- is explored. We employed repeating and overlapping motifs of different lengths, allowing their staggered interaction to produce varying degrees of harmonization, dissonance, masking and reinforcement. Unpredictability of outcome was furthered by electronic processing -- both manual and automated, random and predetermined -- and by the appearance, taken out of context, of unrelated passages taken from earlier projects. Real-time performers had to interact with this instability as they constructed their contributions, and later as they gave form to the final composition. Although there are elements of chance at work in the process, the eventual architecture is intentional, and carefully worked. Mixing was done by hand and without the aid of computers, then the composition was assembled and integrated digitally.' --William Sharp, Biota. The interaction of staggered, overlapping elements reveals a changeable truth about the whole as the parts variously harmonize or dissent; reinforce or cloak one another in their unfolding. The project is, at heart, about uncertainty. Players encounter the shifting interplay between previously recorded parts juxtaposed with instrumental snippets -- out of context -- introduced from the group's archives. Electronic processing programs are employed to apply semi-random and semi-intentional alterations to the proceedings."

Artist:	BIOTA
Title:	Cape Flyaway
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	RER BCD7

"After 5 years of extensive and careful work, the new and much anticipated CD by this extraordinary collective, who have no parallels, no rivals and no peers, is at last complete. It's a dense and indescribable orchestration of electric and acoustic guitars, clavioline, trumpet, Hammond organ, micromoog, biolmellodrone, electric and acoustic violins, bass, mandolin, accordion, piano, rubab, kit percussion and sometimes voice, layered and radically processed in the unique Biota manner. There is a leitmotif of folk elements in this piece that emerge from the roiling, swirling quicksand of sound we now expect from Biota, with texts by WB Yeats and snatches, arrangements and influences floating by way of Christy Moore, June Tabor, Judy Collins, Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, the Bothy Band and older traditional sources. Biota craft sonic worlds that relate to, but are not built like, the music with which we are familiar; for them time is a continuum rather than a sequence of events; a simultaneous present in which past and future possibilities exist conterminously. With a 24 page full colour art portfolio from the Biota collective."

Artist:	BLAST
Title:	Altra Strata
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BLAST1

"Blast are a Netherlands-based avant rock and jazz quartet notable for compositionally complex music. Since forming in 1989, the band has worked to develop a sound both dense and kaleidoscopic, which uses elements of both intense composition and free improvisation. On Altra Strata, they play like a heavy metal band who've discovered new instruments and new music. With the addition of new drummer Fabrizio Spera of the Italian improvising ensemble Ossatura, there's an even greater emphasis on improvisation here than in the past, and this should strongly appeal to the new brigade of appreciators of free-music in this post Sonic Youth world. Altra Strata is a vibrant combination of influences from 20th century classical, the Rock In Opposition bands of the 1970's and a violent approach to free and composed avant music."

Artist:	BLAST
Title:	Sift
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BLAST2

"This is the second release, after a long wait, from this unique ensemble. Equally at home with the discipline of composition and the tightrope of improvisation Blast have evolved a fluid, pointillistic, unfathomable but transparent musical language that seamlessly integrates -- over very short durations -- highly complex writing and very free ranging improvisation, allowing the two languages to merge and combine into a new kind of logical exposition that makes sense but can't be reverse-engineered into its component parts. This is a music that lives through detail and exposition; neither resolving into composition, nor able properly to be understood as improvisation. In this respect Blast have solved a problem that has defeated many in the last 40 years. Founded in 1989, Blast's line up and musical focus have evolved considerably over the years, from complex, composed art-rock to a much more open style that combines elements of improvisation and austere contemporary composition."

Artist:	BRAINVILLE 3 (DAEVID ALLEN, HUGH HOPPER, CHRIS CUTLER)
Title:	Trial By Headline
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BV3-1

"Three old hands out of Soft Machine, Gong and Henry Cow stretch already elastic musical material into various shapes, tie it in knots and generally have a good time. These high quality recordings combined with seat-of-the-pants playing make for a lot of feature and color, underpinning a music that is constantly in shape-shifting 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 production and highly-sanitized post-production. Well-seasoned musicality, fast-thinking and relaxed conversation at the edge of chaos."

Artist:	WOODBURY, BRIAN
Title:	Variety Orchestra
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER BW1CD

"The Variety Orchestra is a sparkling new CD of melodic post-modern jazz compositions. The music is built around a one-of-a-kind line-up combining a driving jazz rhythm section, Latin and Big Band horns, and the down-home Americana of pedal steel, banjo, fiddles & accordion. This mix is peppered with tabla, new music violin, tone rows, NYC bar band, Satchmo cornet growls, and a 15th century brass chorale. The CD features phenomenal players from both coasts -- a who's who from New York's downtown and LA's experimental music scenes."

Artist:	CUTLER, CHRIS
Title:	Solo
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CC1

"Here at last, a solo electronic drum album from Chris Cutler, one of the world's most respected drummers. Sampling had become the electronic musician's instrument of choice, but early on Cutler decided this was not for him ?- it was too inflexible and non-interactive. He preferred to make and process sounds in real time, giving a direct, visceral and organic feeling to his playing, and allowing him to build compositions intuitively. Over the last seven years the kit has become fully electrified, with a sixteen-channel mixer, and an array of effects pedals. Drum sounds can be whipped up and down octaves, doused in wildly different reverbs, sent into eternal delays or unexpected reversals -- the whole gamut of possible effects can be applied to each individual drum or cymbal. This is the instrument heard on this CD, in recordings made at recent concerts in Europe and the USA."

Artist:	CUTLER, CHRIS
Title:	Twice Around the Earth
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CC2

"Compiled from source sounds that have been recorded in 81 different global locations, this remarkable new album collapses the planet into a Sargasso Sea of sound. The material was taken from Cutler's daily half hour radio programme for Resonance FM: Out Of The Blue Radio. 'The idea,' he explains, 'was to open a virtual window on to a different soundscape every day; to put the listener for 30 minutes into someone else's ears, somewhere in the world.' 247 contributors sent in 30 minute recordings made in real time at a location of their own choosing, but in the time window of the London broadcast (between 23,30 and midnight GMT). Cutler again: 'These were simple blocks of time whose content was uncontrollable. Contributors could choose where to be and what to be doing, but beyond that, whatever happened, happened.' The three pieces on this CD were made using only this material, unaltered, but organised into complex, self-generating narrative sequences. While relating to the specialised world of sound art and soundscape, these pieces go further: into meditations on listening and hearing; into the helpless drive of the human brain to locate meaning and generate pattern and significance. But also, and mainly, it's a fascinating hour of listening, delivering en route, puzzles, amazing coincidences and, tantalising fragments left unresolved: the earth keeps moving."

Artist:	CUTLER, CHRIS
Title:	There And Back Again Volume 2: On Memory
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CC3

"Like its companion Twice around the Earth, There and Back Again is derived from a selection of the 365 location recordings made for Cutler's daily Resonance FM radio program, 'Out of the Blue Radio' (2004-2005). It takes extracts from 44 of these environmental recordings to explore -- amongst other things -- the way memory works, and how the experience of passing time is constructed. That's subtext. More important, it should make enjoyably complex listening: surprising, serendipitous, mundane but alien -- the commonplace transfigured. There and Back Again offers an agglomeration of inadvertent sounds, made haphazardly by the world -- and some of its inhabitants that were never meant to survive, and were certainly not meant to be listened to repeatedly. And yet... since about a quarter of the locations, though not the extracts are the same as those on 'Twice,' reading across the two CDs adds another dimension of listening to the memory puzzle that these fleeting but permanent works explore. There and Back Again was commissioned by Deutschland Radio Kultur and was the subject of a special presentation at the Tesla sound art centre in Berlin."

Artist:	CASSIBER
Title:	The Way It Was: Live Recordings and Studio Sketches 1985-92
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	RER CCD5

"Cassiber (phonetically: 'a message smuggled out of prison') crashed like a locomotive into the 'Deutsche Neue Welle.' Founded by Heiner Goebbels, Alfred Harth, Christoph Anders, and Chris Cutler (his first major project after News From Babel), Cassiber managed to fuse materials and attitudes drawn from experimental rock, fringe jazz, punk, pop, plunderphonics, improvisation, close structure, and musique concrete into an energetic and complex form of studio (and then concert) composition unique in its fusion of highly diverse experimental approaches to form with risky, emotional, and expressive execution. Through a deep connection between instrumentation, form and topicality, their musical evolution tracked and anticipated the political and technological changes of their time. Thus, in the course of their ten years of intermittent touring and four records they evolved significantly through the high stakes energy of the earlier releases into their later, more complex and composed, studio works (by which time they had become a trio: Goebbels, Anders, Cutler) with access to the new (first) generation of polyphonic samplers. Highly radical, their music opened up song form by abandoning, extending, or crashing sideways into it -- and was built mainly out of noise, libido, high musicality and, uniquely at the time, a great deal of cultural debris. This CD collects unreleased live recordings and studio sketches, sequences like a typical concert and, as luck would have it, these turn out to be great recordings that paint the best -- and most devil-take-the-hindmost -- picture of this extraordinary, groundbreaking band."

Artist:	CUTLER/FRED FRITH, CHRIS
Title:	Two Gentlemen In Verona
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CCFF3

Chris Cutler: electrified drums/flotsam. Fred Frith: electric guitar/voice/jetsam. Recorded live April 16th, 1999 at Interzona -- Verona, Italy. "There must have been something special going on in Verona last April. By far the most aggressive of their duo albums, it leads us via howling fuzz guitar & machine gun percussion into walls of post-rock improvisation, obsessive industrial rhythms, and levels of excitement rarely generated by two people on a stage."

Artist:	CUTLER AND STEVE MACLEAN, CHRIS
Title:	Year of the Dragon
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	RER CCSM1

"A collection of 5 songs and 4 instrumental pieces that explore equally - and simultaneously - spontaneous performance values, close compositional detail and extensive processing. Made out on the rocky coast of Maine with just a TV eye keeping tabs on a world skidding to hell in a handcart, all the basic work was done by MacLean and Cutler with Julie Thompson (voice) added later alongside additional parts played by Frank Gross (bassoon), Michael Bierylo (laptop, samples, circuits) and Titus Abbot (bass clarinet and saxophone). These are complex, focused pieces, some highly rhythm-rooted - mostly at rapid bpm rates - generally wide open with a close receptivity to timbral nuance and non-linearity."

Artist:	CUTLER, CHRIS AND THOMAS DIMUZIO
Title:	Quake
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CCTD1

"This is ex-Henry Cow, Art Bears and Pere Ubu drummer Chris Cutler in improvised collaboration with electronic drone master Tom Dimuzio, recorded live in Portland, ME and Lowell, MA, 3/99. Chris performs on electric drum kit, Pin mikes & piezo mikes, Boss multi effects unit, pitch shifter, whammy pedal, digitec pds 8000, egg slicer, bows, steel bars, and beaters. Tom performs on digital sampler, shortwave radio, and CD player. The sampler allows for live sampling and processing, taking feeds from Chris, the shortwave radio and CD sound sources. A maelstrom of subterranean scrappings, violent tectonic displacements, and occasional cataclysmic beats. Watch out for the sustained notes and and melodies pouring out of the electrified drum kit. In Cutler's hands, the whole instrument is wired like an electric guitar, then Dimuzio reprocesses it all, draping the soundscape in yards of black velvet. Having said all of that, the music can also be surprisingly subtle & gentle."

Artist:	CUTLER, CHRIS AND THOMAS DIMUZIO
Title:	Dust
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CCTD2

"The two teamed up in '99 for a series of concerts and an album, Quake, where they laid down the fundamentals of their partnership; subterranean groans, vast drones and tectonic clashes. Dust follows in wake of this seismic activity. Cutler's amalgam of electrified drums and lo fi gadgets produce just about every sound imaginable, while Dimuzio's sampler captures and replays sounds and textures, simultaneously adding its own interjections. Once again its hard to tell who's doing what, as the sound melds into massive interweaving structures."

Artist:	CASSIBER/GROUND ZERO
Title:	Live In Tokyo
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	RER CGZ2

"This double CD teams the renowned avant rock band Cassiber with Tokyo's finest, the now dis-banded Ground Zero, featuring Otomo Yoshihide. Disc one is the only available live recording by Cassiber of their one & only Tokyo performance, from 10/92. Disc two features a collection of sampled & remixed works with the source materials taken from disc one and put together by Ground Zero.This re-worked material is the final Ground Zero recording project." Cassiber are the trio of Christoph Anders, Chris Cutler and Heiner Goebbels. Their music is very much in the vein of old-school art-progressive and I don't doubt that some younger Ground Zero fans are going to be pretty much melted into oblivion attempting to listen to them (it's never been easy). Otomo's resampling, however, enters into some most pleasurable territory via some almost ambient recontexturalization and this is a fine bookend to the Ground Zero legacy. File under GZ and enjoy it while you can.

Artist:	CHARMING HOSTESS
Title:	Punch
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CH1

"Charming Hostess hail from Oakland, California and are part of a the region's 'Weird music scene' which also spawned such bands as Fibulator, Eskimo, Faun Fables, Japonize Elephants and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, three of whom -- Nils Frykdahl, Carla Kihlstedt and Dan Rathbun -- are also members of Charming Hostess. Led by hyperactive troublemaker Jewlia Eisenberg (who made a fearsome impression with her Tzadik CD debut), the Hostesses here are an extraordinary 7 piece band: tight, a little rockish, comprising bass, drums, guitar, fiddle, various horns, accordion and other occasional instruments (singing saw, for instance) -- but the work is distinguished by the amazing vocal arrangements (everyone sings, and exceptionally). Full of additive rhythms stretched harmonies and pinpoint playing, this is evolved material, executed with great skill -- and great looseness. Some traditional pieces from Bulgaria, Palestine, Transylvania and Southern America appear in very personalised arrangements alongside original songs that lean on zydeco and traditional American folk music."

Artist:	MARCLAY, CHRISTIAN
Title:	More Encores
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CM1

"Since 1979 Christian Marclay has been experimenting, composing and performing with phonograph records. His interest in records, both as objects and bearers of sound, is expressed through sculpture, performance, video and music. In performance, he mixes a wide variety of records on up to 8 turntables, fragmenting, repeating, altering speeds, playing the records backwards, etc. More Encores was originally released as a 10" vinyl record on No Man's Land (Germany) in 1988, composed entirely of records after whom each track is titled. "John Cage" is a recording of a collage made by cutting slices from several records and gluing them back together into a single disc. In all other places the records were mixed and manipulated on multiple turntables and recorded analog with the use of overdubbing. A hand-crank gramophone was used in "Louis Armstrong". More Encores is a classic slice of primal Plunderphonia, the natural companion to John Oswald's suppressed Plunderphonics masterpiece, featuring a series of viciously beautiful vinyl collages from this important and influential sound sculptor and turntable terrorist." Other tracks are based on the music of Johann Strauss, John Zorn, Martin Denny, Frederic Chopin, Fred Frith, Arthur Ferrante & Louis Teicher, Maria Callas, Jimi Hendrix, Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg & Christian Marclay.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Contemporary Music
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CMCD

Six Classic Concrete, Electroacoustic and electronic works, 1970-1990 by: John Oswald, George Katzer, Lutz Glandien, Jaroslav Krcek, Steve Moore, Richard Trythall. "Musique Concrete is created by recording various sounds on tape and modifying them in some way. The term was created by Pierre Schaeffer, an early pioneer of this style, to differentiate it from 'normally' composed music, Musique Abstraite. Concentrating on found sounds or natural occurrences, the results of such alterations and manipulations cause the original recordings to express themselves in new and unique ways. This CD collects some of the very best pieces ever constructed; Each piece is a classic, influential, indispensable work, including: John Oswald - 'Parade' (1986) : uses a cube factor increase in tape speed to plunderize several existing versions of Satie's classic, and then fragments and alters the result accordingly."

Artist:	DRAKE, BOB
Title:	13 Songs and a Thing
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CTA13

"In 13 Songs we encounter complex Henry Cow type rock, heavy metal chords, Turkish influenced manic acoustic guitar, horror movie soundtrack music, and flashes of old time rock n roll. And that's just the intro! Later on Bob gets mean and dirty with his fingerpickin' guitar, a music full of dead stops and unexpected changes of texture. He occasionally sings in his pure, Yes-like choirboy tones, spitting out twisted lyrics. A dog lets off a couple of barks in unexpected places. So nothing new then; just another crazed mix of Hillbilly music, Frank Zappa-like composition, mordant wit, and some fantastically heavy guitar and drums. Bonny Prince Billy meets Beefheart via The Beatles."

Artist:	DRAKE, BOB
Title:	Bob's Drive-In
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CTA17

"A set of twisty, forty-ideas-a-minute, niftily arranged, irredeemably eccentric, but strangely brilliant songs that skip blithely across genre borders - from Nashville through the Miskatonic by way of the Beach Boys, even the production values range across the history of recording, sometimes switching inside a single song; a high information ride, but still engagingly listenable. Finished with his new CD, Bob sends the raw songs -- just chords and melody -- to Dave Kerman (ds), David Campbell (bs, vc) and Kavus Torabi (guit, vc) and, a few months later, they assemble at the Crumbling Tomes studio to work up the songs for a performance. Bob is in the band but the band is not being taught his interpretations and arrangements. It finds its own. After a week of rehearsals, there is a show for an invited audience, recorded live. So now we have a second great album - quite different from Bob's own. On the CD, both versions sit side-by-side, each very different, but still intimately linked to one another. A study, if you are so inclined; fun if you isn't. That's the sort of thing I call experimental." --Chris Cutler

Artist:	DRAKE, BOB
Title:	The Skull Mailbox
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CTA9

"Bob Drake was one half of Indie rock group Hail, and still plays bass with ruthless avant rockers The 5UUS. As a producer, he's worked with everyone from Ice T to Englebert Humperdink. Another card in Drake's hand is the bizarre series of solo albums he's produced in the last few years, with no one else there to curb his wild imagination. Little Black Train introduced us to his version of Death-Country, and Medallion Animal Carpet followed up with what sounded like a collaboration between Bonnie Prince Billy and Captain Beefheart. And now there's Skull Mailbox. With this CD Drake has lost it altogether. Strange little picked guitar pieces are the basis for grotesque songs; a seance goes horribly wrong, headless ghosts fly about, and everyone ends up dead, or locked in the cellar, or both. Interjections by massed choir and orchestra suggest a 19th Century comic opera, and influences are as diverse as the Beatles and Henry Cow. Occasionally drums pop out of the far left of the speaker, vocals far right, grunging noises appear without warning, and everything has a rotting compost quality which makes it sound like it was recorded in a decaying barn -- which indeed it was!"

Artist:	DRAKE, BOB
Title:	The Shunned Country
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CTASC01

"On his fifth full album for ReR, virtuoso bass player, guitarist, producer, studio engineer and composer Bob Drake presents a new collection of 52 very short songs on uncanny themes, illustrated in the exquisite 24pp full-colour booklet with a set of 20 commissioned paintings by Ray O'Bannon. Perhaps the scariest thing is that each of these miniatures is a fully formed, fully orchestrated and complete structure -- no lazy snippets here -- and Bob plays all the parts with his famously Paganini-esque virtuosity in spooky variable-tempo synchrony -- packing more ideas and material into 50 seconds than most could manage on an entire album. There is complexity here, disguised as simplicity; production genius disguised as eccentricity; the pursuit of an aesthetic of exquisite imperfection. These are ears that have heard beyond technical perfection (too easy, once you have the trick) and moved on to something else."

Artist:	CUTLER/ZEENA PARKINS, CHRIS
Title:	Shark!
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER CZ1

"Recorded live, Shark! captures all the onstage excitement, artistic agony and electronic ecstasy of UK drummer Chris Cutler and Detroit born harpist Zeena Parkins' concerts together. Both players can be heard attacking their instruments conventionally and outrageously, reinventing and deconstructing the shape and sound of drums and harp to produce music that caresses one minute and bites down hard the next...comes across as being frenzied, untamed and wholly unpredictable."

Artist:	DUMITRESCU/AVRAM/CUTLER/HODGKINSON/HYPERION ENSEMBLE, IANCU
Title:	Musique Action 98
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER DACH1

"Four contemporary works recorded live, with one composition each by the four above. '[They] have become leading figures in contemporary classical music, developing a musical language that sweeps boldly from very small scale insect like sounds to vast noise laden soundscapes. In recent times they have attracted a lot of attention from musicians outside of the classical field, as the music is relevant to the post-ambient, post noise, post classical aesthetic which is the sound of the moment.'"

Artist:	ARCANE DEVICE
Title:	Engines of Myth
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER DLM1

"There is a strange new electronic music about, where the musicians play no conventional instruments -- not even synthesisers or samplers. They simply set up electronic equipment to feed back on itself. Amongst the first to use this method, and perhaps the very first to work with no inputted sound at all, was David Lee Myers. The record he made under the name Arcane Device, in 1988, is a marvelous concoction of sonic vignettes, and an epic attempt to wrest vast archetypal noises from the stuff of the universe. The end result sound of this music is like a mixture of Brian Eno's ambient series, Tod Dockstader's post-cartoon soundscapes, machine sounds from an industrial dump, and more than a few wacky echoes of experimental pop musicians, from Faust to Autechre. It's incredibly varied for music that has been produced by an automated process, and Engines of Myth threatens to give electronic music a good name; it's both challenging and accessible, and has a fabulously spontaneous feel."

Artist:	KIRALY, ERN�
Title:	Phoenix
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER EK1

Superb introduction to a largely unknown avant-garde composer/instrument builder; one of the most important ReR releases in a while. "The music of little known East European composer Ern� Kiraly has finally been preserved -- a collection of original works that will impress and amaze all students of contemporary classical/electroacoustic composition, along with those who have only recently discovered the sound worlds of Pierre Henry and Harry Partch. Kiraly's experimental music stems from two sources, the first of which is his country's traditional folk music, while the second is Edgard Varese, whose 'Poeme Electronique' had an incredible impact. Thus the high pitched gypsy violin, the energetically strummed guitar and the eerie rumble of electronic music come together to create a marriage of sounds that are both ancient and modern."

Artist:	MARTUSCIELLO, ELIO
Title:	Unoccupied Areas
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER EM1

"This is a quiet masterpiece. Five tightly focused electroacoustic compositions that are austere, rich, strange and brilliantly executed. Elio has an ear like a bat and a serious antipathy toward clich�, and he never relies on repetition for structure; these pieces seem rather to grow out of themselves in surprising but somehow logical ways like perfect exotic blooms. His is also a music of extremes, never theoretical but always grounded in the grain of the sounds themselves. Working with sounds taken directly from the world -- in 'A@travero', the electronic world: disembodied voices from answering machines, radio, Television, CDs, cinema and the internet; in 'Proiezioni', the cinematic world of machines: cameras, projectors, empty film spools, and so on for each piece which starts with the collection of similarly connected materials. The final track, a hommage to Pierre Schaeffer, draws directly on Schaeffer's own captured recordings, taking, as concrete music does, already cooked materials as just another kind of raw ingredient. The sources may be quotidian, but they are not mundane. And they have been refined and polished and stretched and squashed and buffed and etherised to the point where they are like polished steel, reflecting something in a distorted plane, resembling something as a Brancusi might, but unfamiliar, transfigured."

Artist:	FAUST
Title:	BBC Sessions +
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER F5

"Of the five CD's in the box, only the BBC Sessions, derived from a John Peel radio session, has never been available before on CD. The radio session was first broadcast 1/3/73, and is 20 minutes of pure Faustian hell. The Lurcher is a kind of electric period Miles Davis slouching drum rhythm, augmented by stabs of horn and electric guitar. Krautrock is a 12-minute post Velvet Underground riff, drone and noise-driven meditation, far superior to the version on the Virgin release Faust IV. The session ends with Do So, an outrageously corny slice of sixties pop. The remaining 30 minutes of the CD is prime Faust, culled from the ReR LPs The Last LP and Munic and Elsewhere (which could not appear on the ReR CD release Faust- 71 Minutes for reasons of space). They feature splattered repeating percussion, half heard voice-overs, stray dogs, renaissance music played by kazoos, the surreal song 'We Are the Hallo Men', and alternative and wonderful versions of the classics So Far and Meer."

Artist:	FAUST
Title:	The Wumme Years: 1970-1973
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	5CD
Price:	$75.00
Catalog #:	RER FB1

"The ultimate collection from the legendary inventors of krautrock. This 5 CD set contains all Faust's early classic albums, a John Peel session, and unreleased early material. The 40 page booklet is stuffed with unpublished photos, stills from Super 8 footage from the famous studio at Wumme, and revealing interviews with many of the key players in the Faust story. CDs: Faust (the famous clear first album), So Far (the famous black second album), The Faust Tapes (for the first time ever with a track listing), 71 Minutes (The Last LP and Munic and Elsewhere LPs), BBC Sessions (classic radio session plus substantial extra material). Interviews include band members Jean Herve Peron and Jochen Irmler, with a memoir from Blegvad. Reclusive producer Uwe Nettlebeck and legendary sound engineer Kurt Graupner speak here for the first time. Many of the photos illustrating the book are from private collections, and have never been published." This box set is a limited edition and it's long term availability is not likely. The enclosed albums will be available as individual CDs in the future, but the booklet is exclusive to this box set.

Artist:	FRITH, FRED
Title:	The Previous Evening
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER FF1

"Former Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith pays homage to three giants of contemporary classical music: John Cage, Morton Feldman and Earle Brown. In his own inimitable fashion, Frith has tried to incorporate the chosen composer's own working methods into each of the three pieces that make up The Previous Evening. As he explains in the enclosed booklet regarding his John Cage homage: 'Fragments of text heard in Part 1 were taken at random from Cage's book Silence. Tape editing, the structure of the events, and dynamic markings in this section were also determined using chance methods." Performed by: Christian Kaya (clarinets), Claudio Puntin (clarinets), Heike Liss (perc.), Bernd Settelmeyer (perc.), Bernd Weber (voice) and Frith (voice & all other instruments and manipulations).

Artist:	FRITH, FRED
Title:	Inpur II
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER FRFC2

"Totally different from Impur I (ReR FRFC1) -- which was a deconstructed, spatialised simultaneity of musical events that could only be heard through open windows or by wandering through rooms -- Impur 2 took the form of an unannounced performance across which audience members had to stumble by chance (and then collect their friends -- or not). Both events formed part of a commission by L'Ecole Nationale de Musique de Villurbanne in May 1996.This recording, painstakingly edited and re-mastered by Fred, appears as a full-on concert by a large 19 strong ensemble with Fred conducting as well as playing. It's built on rhythm, harmony, rock noise, exotic instrumentation, power, complexity and melodic writing -- with intermittent stretches of chaos, eccentricity and theatre, and fits comfortably into the aesthetic of his earlier performing ensemble projects, like Gravity, Skeleton Crew and Keep the Dog."

Artist:	GOEBBELS/ALFRED HARTH, HEINER
Title:	Hommage/Vier F�uste f�r Hanns Eisler
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	RER GH1

"A long and extraordinarily fruitful partnership started here -- continuing through the Sogennantes Linksradikales Blasorchester -- where Alfred and Heiner picked up Christoph Anders, the three of whom then went on to co-found Cassiber with Chris Cutler. A critical success in its own time, this duo recorded two more CDs before parting company, each more musically open than its predecessor. These first two sorties are a kind of jazz-inflected, punk-inflected, highly spirited and imaginative series of adapted Hanns Eisler compositions, as well as some original pieces by the duo itself, who between them cover a lot of instruments, and combinations of instruments, and -- ah youth -- are never less than hurling themselves into their performances. Heiner went on, after Cassiber, to become one of Germany's leading music theatre writer and directors, as well as composing for the ensemble modern, orchestras and opera companies (he had an orchestra premiere to mark the opening of the Festival Hall complex in London on July 12th). Alfred went on to form several other bands, including Gestalt et Jive before relocating to Seoul in Korea, where he now lives and works. He is currently part of Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra. Both original LPs have been re-mastered for this release by Bob Drake."

Artist:	GROUND ZERO
Title:	Consume Red
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER GZ2

Repressed. Domestic issue of the sampling masterpiece first issued by Creativemandisc in Japan. Yet another phase in Omoto Yoshihide's Sampling Virus Project. Consume Red is the first of a three volume series, and acts as Ground Zero's original document for the set. [Volume 2 (Conflagration and Volume 3 Consummation on the Creativeman label are now o/p]. Consume Red consists of Ground Zero sampling the music of Korean national treasure Kim Suk Chul, playing Hojok (literal reed streams with bagpipe-like intensities), accompanying on Shamisen, turntables, periodic noise interjections, etc. It's one 60 minute "ambient" piece, beautifully paced and powerfully presented. "Hints at the beautiful chaos ahead. A work that is spiritually uplifting and terrifying as a single squalling blast from an ancient sounding horn is overlaid with a steady building sound collage of sampled noise static, guitar overload, instrumental anarchy , and a drum duo who hammer home a beat that is subtly constructed yet relentless in its attack...will surely be regarded as one of the year's major recorded highlights."

Artist:	HAIL
Title:	Hello Debris
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER H3

"Hail are Susanne Lewis and Bob Drake, probably best-known for their work with the Colorado-based band, Thinking Plague. On this, their third ReR release, the duo explores more of the heavy, grunging, artrock side of things, aided and abetted at times by synthesizers and keyboards. Susanne's clear compositions, and heavy-handed, clever wit are augmented by Bob's inimitable production crafting, giving Hello Debris a raw and passionate feel: perfect frequencies, excellent vocal delivery, great guitar/bass/drum work, and some of the more radical recording/mixing aesthetics to date are all presented with a sense of immediacy and urgency."

Artist:	HACO/SAKAMOTO HIROMICHI
Title:	Ash in the Rainbow
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER HACO3

Previously released by the Detector label in the US. "Charismatic singer, lyricist and performer Haco came to the fore in the early 80s with the group After Dinner, a sublime incarnation of surreal, direct, and offbeat Japanese/European pop. They featured astonishing swathes of ambient sound, over which Haco's voice soared, before undertaking daring sonic maneuvers; surround sound, backwards/sped up/reversed tape work. These pioneering effects and more are brought up-to-date on Ash In The Rainbow, Haco's most crafted album yet. Her voice is interwoven with the cellos of co-star Hiromichi Sakamoto's 'cellos, starting with a massive bout of what sounds like classical strings and soprano voice forged into ambient before transforming into skewed but delicate Japanese pop, with equal parts of kitsch and experimentalism. The exquisite arrangements feature bowed saw, plunked pizzicato, and complex and seductive noise-scapes. With the help of lo-tech gadgets, songs like 'Channelling' posit a post-human persona, which the likes of Laurie Anderson can only dream of. The whole album is imbued with a magical, Zen sense of wonder, and a terrific economy of means."

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	Leg End
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER HC1

The Henry Cow catalog is now available again in the US, via ReR (note that HC1, 3 & 4 are actually old pressings on the now defunct East Side Digital label). Featuring Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, John Greaves, Tim Hodgkinson and Geoff Leigh. "At last available on CD in the original mix, this is the classic first album from the band who invented a new genre, changed music forever and carved out a permanent place in rock history. Henry Cow were among the first bands signed to Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin label in 1973, on the recommendation of Soft Machine's drummer Robert Wyatt, who described them at the time as 'my favourite band in the world'. The record with the sock on the cover made a huge impact at the time, forging on from where Soft Machine and Frank Zappa had left off. The music was incredibly dense, complex yet melodic progressive rock, with a large dose of wacky English humour."

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	Stockholm and G�teborg
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER HC12

"The first new release for 30 years from this legendary audience-splitting British group, and the first featuring Georgina Born, the group's bassist between 1976-1978. Remixed and re-mastered from the original Swedish radio tapes. Henry Cow were never going to fit in. Their compositions were way too composed and their improvising was way too improvised -- a tendency that only got more extreme as time went on, as these recordings from 1976 and 1977 demonstrate. Stockholm and G�teborg fills in some of the missing history between In Praise of Learning (1975) and Western Culture (1978) and offers music that has not been heard on record until now. First is Tim Hodgkinson's late and fiendishly complicated epic composition 'Erk Gah' (a working title), that took many months of sweat to learn and resolutely eschews any hint of riff, solo or modular assembly. At the other extreme, are the two wide-ranging improvisations built around heady extended instrumental techniques, aleatorics, quotations, more-or-less randomly inserted prepared materials and a blithe disregard for genre rules. Between constantly shifting ground, are a straight-ahead version of Phil Ochs' 'No More Songs' (one of only two covers ever performed by the band), an unreleased composition by Fred Frith, and a version of the 'Ottawa Song' -- a typical live set from that period. Finally, Stockholm is a snapshot of a band of exceptional talents having fun. And it reflects what the studio albums could not -- that Henry Cow's natural habitat was the stage -- and the real-time pressure of public performance -- because it was there that the music could live and breathe. And evolve. Stockholm and G�teborg is the first volume of a 9CD and one DVD set of unreleased material commemorating the band's 40th anniversary."

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	Unrest
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER HC2

"This is the second in our series of definitive reissues of the original Virgin Albums, dating from 1974. By the time Unrest was made, Geoff Leigh had left the group and Lindsay Cooper joined on bassoon, oboe, flute, and soprano sax. The mix is more 'live' than Legend, with the drums much more to the fore. The first half of the album is fully composed material, with some of the Cow's best loved tunes, 'Canterbury' anthems like 'Half Asleep Half Awake' and 'Bittern Storm Over Ulm'. For the second half the material was written in the studio, using loops, varispeed tapes and electronics, and superimposing live improvisation and composed passages. The compositions are poised half way between classical and rock, with Bartok and Duke Ellington re-figured for rock instruments, and there is still a residual Soft Machine influence, echoed by the gorgeous sound of Fred Frith's fuzz guitar and Tim Hodgkinson's fuzz organ. The abstract grooves laid down by Chris Cutler's drumming, and John Greaves' sprung bass, are the stuff of legend, and Lindsay Cooper adds a unique voice, with her funky bassoon and pungent oboe playing. First heard live on the John Peel show in 1974, this music is classic, historic and still relevant. This re-issue has been carefully 24 bit re-mastered with a new booklet, photos and documentation."

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	In Praise of Learning
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER HC3

"This is the third in our series of classic re-issues, following on from Leg End and Unrest. In Praise... was produced in 1975 by a new version of Henry Cow after they had merged with cult Euro-popsters Slapp Happy, and then split apart again. The process unleashed on their music the extraordinary voice of Dagmar Krause, as songs became a major component of the music for the first time. From the opening track 'War' -- a Moore/Blegvad composition covered by The Fall on the 1993 'Middle Class Revolt' album -- we are thrown into a black comedy, repeated laughter in odd time signatures, and a great Mongezi Feza trumpet solo. The centrepiece of the album, Tim Hodgkinson's 'Living In the Heart of the Beast', is justly famous; its an extraordinary 20 minute epic which manages to fuse Messiaen-like organ with vast fuzz guitar tunes, complex arrangements and revolutionary lyrics. This is the first time In Praise of Learning has been available on CD in the original mix, and it has been carefully re-mastered -- for many years only a poorly mastered remix was available. This album is essential for fans of Henry Cow, the Canterbury/Soft Machine school, and all those interested in challenging music."

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	Western Cuiture
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER HC4

"This is the 4th in ReR's series of Henry Cow re-releases, which traces the career of this most influential of experimental rock groups. Following their split with Virgin, the group's history became complicated; bass player John Greaves left, and after a dispute in the recording studio, what was intended as the next Henry Cow album mutated into the Art Bears' much respected Hopes and Fears. In 1978 the members of the Cow agreed to stay together under the Cow banner for a final six months of touring. They decided to record a final album of entirely new music, written by Tim Hodgkinson and Lindsay Cooper -- and that album was Western Culture. It's one of their very best. Titles like 'Industry', 'The Decay of Cities', and 'Falling Away' hurl the listener into a dark world of additive time signatures, spooky organ interludes, and complex instrumental textures. The invigorating blast of energy suggests a new vision of part classical, part Industrial, part Brechtian rock chamber music. Like a minimal, concentrated re-vision of the old Henry Cow, it prefigures the terrifying structures of 80's iconic rock group This Heat. For the first time the group was happy with their recorded sound. Western Culture has been digitally re-mastered, and the CD sounds better than ever before. The booklet is crammed with previously unpublished photographs and biographical material, and there are three extra tracks which have only appeared before on the ReR vinyl magazine."

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	The Road: Volumes 1-5
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	5CD BOX
Price:	$95.00
Catalog #:	RER HC40

"40th Anniversary Box Set Volumes 1 & 2. 9 CDs and 1 DVD with 2 60pp books, in two solid boxes. Limited edition. A substantial collection of all-new material that puts the depth and breadth of the work of one of the most controversial and edgy of the British bands of the '70s into an altogether new perspective. Even at 10 discs it still represents only the tip of the iceberg, but even this will oblige the histories to be amended. Henry Cow was a band viewed by almost all its contemporaries as outsiders, but embraced equally on the art fringes of rock, jazz and contemporary music (as evidenced by the festivals and venues at which they appeared) as innovators and mavericks. It was also a band that walked the talk, finessing its way out of a stifling commercial contract with Virgin and then taking control of every aspect of its life and appearances, remaining unfashionably political and evenly divided in gender (band and roadcrew) until the end. The music was extreme, often complex, constantly changing and driven, on the one hand, by an intense dialogue between craft and tight-knit composition and, on the other, radically open improvisation and experimentation - all expressed through a deep root in popular music and rock. These nine CDs embody some extraordinary and prescient music; then there is the DVD, 80 minutes of the 1976 band in performance - the only known video recording in existence, professionally made, multi camera and unseen since its original broadcast. Last but not least, there is a great deal of historical documentation in two 60 page booklets: photographs, posters, memorabilia, facsimiles -- as well as a complete biography and a series of specially written essays, recollections, histories and commentaries on the compositions by all the members of the band, and a few close friends. This 40th anniversary collection comes in two sturdy limited edition boxes, one covering the period between 1971 to 1976 and the other (Vol.2, which includes the DVD) following through to the end in 1978."
       "Volume 1 of the definitive collection of unreleased recordings, unrecorded compositions, one-off events, radio and concert recordings. These 5 CDs cover the period from 1971 to 1976 and include the legendary Hamburg radio concert, many otherwise unrecorded compositions and two remarkable one-off projects: Halsteren and Trondheim. With a substantial 60-page book of information, unpublished photographs, documents, an annotated concert list, recollections and substantial notes written by Chris Cutler, Fred Frith, John Greaves, Tim Hodgkinson, Peter Blegvad, Dagmar Krause and Geoff Leigh."
        Contents of this box:
       Vol. 1: Beginnings CD
       Vol. 2: 1974-5 CD
       Vol. 3: Hamburg CD
       Vols. 4 & 5 Trondheim 2CD

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	The Road: Volumes 6-10 with DVD
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	4CD/DVD BOX
Price:	$108.00
Catalog #:	RER HC41

"Volume 2 of the definitive collection of unreleased recordings, unrecorded compositions, one-off events, radio and concert recordings. These four CDs and one DVD cover the period from 1976 to 1978 and include the legendary Stockholm and Bremen radio concerts, many otherwise unrecorded late compositions, and the only known video ever made of the band (a complete 75 minute concert from 1976). With a substantial 60-page book of information, unpublished photographs, documents, recollections and substantial notes written by Lindsay Cooper, Georgie Born, Chris Cutler, Franco Fabbri, Fred Frith, Tim Hodgkinson and Chris Wangro."
       Contents of this box:
       Vol. 6: Stockholm & G�teborg CD
       Vol. 7: Later and post-Virgin CD
       Vol. 8: Bremen CD
       Vol. 9: Late CD
       Vol. 10: DVD - Vevey 1976 DVD

Artist:	HENRY COW
Title:	Concerts Remastered
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	RER HC5/6

2006 remastered version, replacing the old ESD version. "Originally released in 1976, this collection offers a snapshot of Henry Cow as audiences would have heard it in the year before. In the chronology, Concerts came between In Praise of Learning and Western Culture -- that is, after Virgin had lost interest in releasing any more Henry Cow studio records and before the band quit to make one of its own. It was also the year of the 'merger' with Robert Wyatt for a series of concerts in which compositions were shared -- the last show, in Rome, was also Robert's last public performance. From its earlier records, the band was known for its rather complex compositional work. This double LP for the first time gave serious space to the improvisations that accounted for maybe a third of any of its lengthy stage performances. When the double LP was reissued as a CD, the Henry Cow side of the long deleted Greasy Truckers album was added -- 5 surprisingly accessible but abstract studio pieces recorded in an afternoon in 1973 -- recovering yet another side of the group's rapidly evolving vocabulary. This new edition, repackaged and carefully re-mastered by Bob Drake, completes our definitive edition of the group's officially released recordings."

Artist:	SLAPP HAPPY/HENRY COW
Title:	Desperate Straights
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER HCSH1

2004 remaster (previously reissued on Virgin UK). Feat: Dagmar Krause, Fred Frith, Peter Blegvad, Chris Cutler, Anthony Moore, John Greaves, Tim Hodgkinson. "Regarded as a paradigm in Artrock circles, the extended line-up of Henry Cow with Slapp Happy in 1975 produced this legendary recording for Virgin Records. It features a veritable who's-who of Recommended artists, all of whom have gone on to relative fame with ensuing bands, as well as some of the more respected names associated with the famous MANOR studios during the 70's. This oddly accessible gem boasts both Anthony Moore's and Peter Blegvad's greatest creations as writers, as well as some of the Henry Cow group's greatest arrangements. The songs themselves are a bizarre mixture of slanted pop-rock, showtunes, Dadaistic revelations and 70's Prog-Rock virtuosity. This record ranks extremely high amongst life-long fans of both bands and, by means of this long-awaited reissue will surely win over a new generation of listeners as well."

Artist:	IOLINI, ROBERT
Title:	Electroacoustic, Chamber Ensemble, Soundscapes and Works for
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER I1

"This eccentric collection by Sydney based composer Robert Iolini runs the gamut from political electro acoustic documentaries, to elegant classical chamber works, electronic manipulations, and post Magma histrionics. Roberto Iolini was born in Sydney 1960. He has worked extensively in improvisation, pop, electronic and ethnic music. Commissions include works for local and international chamber ensembles, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, multi media projects and theatre."

Artist:	ROSE, JON
Title:	The Fence
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER JR5

"Since the early 80's, Rose has been busily building a series of very long string instruments. These creations were originally inspired by the wind-triggered fences of the Australian outback, where air currents hitting the stretched out wires managed to create an aeolian harp effect. When bowed, these fences were found to emit a large variety of sounds." Some very nice sounds here, but a lot of spoken text as well. The idea of contrasting droning sound and spoken text within the same context is so radically inconsideritate of the listener's pleasure center, that it probably constitutes some sort of "joke" in one of the various corner's of Mr. Rose's universe. Hard-core Rose fanatics will add a better-than-average CD to their pile with this one, but if you're merely interested in the resonant possibilities of long-stringed instruments, Ellen Fullmen (or much of the Het Apollohuis back catalog) would suit you much better.

Artist:	ROSE, JON
Title:	The Hyperstring Project
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER JR6

"For his latest ReR CD, Jon Rose has discarded his identity as humorist, joker & evil genius in favor of a single minded attack on the violin. The Hyperstring Project uses software developed in collaboration with Steim in Amsterdam, and his violin is now able to fire off independent contrapuntal lines -- in his words 'rogue counterpoint' -- drawing on countless samples from a sonic database. Backwards, forwards and inside-out strings sounds compete with harpsichords, voices, and indescribable electronic resonances, enabling Rose to accompany himself, generating a complex and intense musical argument."

Artist:	ROSE, JON
Title:	Rosin
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	3CD BOX
Price:	$64.00
Catalog #:	RER JR60

"Jon Rose is one of the most productive, original and focused people I know; he's also an extraordinary musician and an inspired composer. To mark his 60th anniversary we are releasing this three CD box of previously unreleased works ranging from radio documentary and radio fiction to virtuoso performances taken from all manner of contexts, using both the acoustic violin and the hyperstring interactive bow system. There's a remarkable improvised violin concerto (the rest of the mini-orchestras' parts are written out), as well as collaborations with Australian locals (multiple brass bands, musical whips, lounge pianists, aboriginal choirs, orchestrated corrugated iron, musical gum leaves, auctioneers, chainsaws, singing dingos, bowed saw orchestras, and so on). There's a duo with George - an Albert's Lyrebird, and concerts with contemporary ensembles and heavy earthmoving equipment. It comes accompanied by a great deal of extraordinary film - and some purely audio - material collected together on a supplementary data disc. Plus there's a generous booklet of texts, documents, and photographs - and, of course, a souvenir sample of bow-hair."

Artist:	ROSE, JON
Title:	The People's Music
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER JR7

"The People's Music is part homage, part parody, and part meditation on these themes. A string orchestra whisks through re-composed shards of the classical repertoire; a Red Guard factory guide barks instructions; a three-piece percussion ensemble from time to time intervenes destructively. Meanwhile, Rose himself conducts with a plastic replica of Mao's embalmed left hand, and interjects with bursts of his electronic hypertstring violin. Not to mention that this spectacle was recorded in the unlikely and inaccessible Australian outback location of Wogarno Station, Murchison, about six hours' drive north of Perth -- somehow with the press there in full force."

Artist:	KIDNEY BROTHERS, THE
Title:	Coal Tattoo
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	RER KB1

"Contemporaries of Pere Ubu and best known for their work with the Numbers Band, Bob and Jack Kidney were also key members of David Thomas's late '90s Mirror Man extravaganza. Early members of the Ohio generation - which included Rocket from the Tombs, Devo, Pere Ubu, Tin Huey, The Dead Boys, and the Waitresses - the Numbers Band (aka 15 60 75) was formed in 1969, in Kent. The quickly became established as a local fixture, playing for four nights a week in a series of local club. With periodic changes of personnel, they continued to do this over the following decades, still performing sporadically today. 'This group' Davd Thomas wrote, 'inspired everyone, regenerated everyone, and was a nagging doubt in the back of everyone's minds... the Numbers are better than you can ever hope for.' On this CD, Bob and Jack play their own kind of stripped down, guitar-based, narrative songs -- stained dark with deep, bluesy roots -- and a gravitas born of five decades of concentration and club audiences."

Artist:	KAMPEC DOLORES/GRENCSO ISTVAN
Title:	Koncert!
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER KD3

2003 release. "The name means 'The End of Pain' in a personal language made up from bits of Yiddish and Latin. The band cut their teeth touring Europe in the late '80s, supporting the likes of cult diva Nico, and alternative rock icons Pere Ubu. In 1987, Dutch post-punk band The Ex invited them to Amsterdam to record their first album on their own Concurrel label. Since those early days, Kampec have refined their personal take on rock music, releasing 3 albums on the ReR label, including 1999's well received Rapid. Singer Gabi Kenderesi has developed her own wordless singing, using unknown languages and innovative vocal pyrotechnics; imagine traditional Hungarian singer Marta Sebestyen reincarnated as a new wave punk. Meanwhile, the guitar, bass and drums thrash out haunting mutated melodies, which also draw on traditional folk idioms. Effects enable guitars to masquerade as zithers, and the mix swims with bubbling electronics. And then there are the sensational interjections from soprano saxophone and violin, which caterwaul and cajole."

Artist:	KALIHARI SURFERS
Title:	Vol 1 80s
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER KS1CD

A digital remix/repackage of the 2 K. Surfers LPs that ReR issued to little acclaim in the 80s. The band (actually, just one guy, Warric Sony, SA's lone white indie experimental political commentator/pop singer/hipster) was from South Africa and had illegally recorded this music, and sure, the politics of their existence is curious, but the overtly New Wave tone of their music (potentially described as "a heady mix of reggae, hi-life, and early-Zappa influence pop,") quickly mows down any possibility of contemporary digestion.

Artist:	GLANDIEN, LUTZ
Title:	The 5th Elephant
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER LG2CD

"The 5th Elephant is an album of extremely aggressive, hypnotic, Gothic, Industrial techno, which sounds like the front cover looks -- like the planet in Ridley Scott's Alien. Lutz Glandien is a Berlin based composer whose mastery of the electronic studio, and freedom to move between genres at will is confirmed by this release. Crunching sounds, repetitive driving rhythms, terrifying science fiction soundscapes, backwards voices -- there is enough here to satisfy the most hard core fan, and keep the rest of us gasping for breath. That Glandien is a contemporary classical composer just adds to the mystery, and his leaping across the genres celebrates the bizarre correlation of interests between classical electronic music and the techno underground."

Artist:	GLANDIEN, LUTZ
Title:	Lost In Rooms
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER LG3

"At the threshold of organic sound and simulative samples stands Lutz Glandien, the Berlin based composer whose multi-genre fluency in classical training and as an electronic producer make him the perfect compositional vessel for a work as quixotic as Lost In Rooms. Blending the aforementioned ingredients into a 'investigative' musical piece, Lost in Rooms examines both the conflicting and intersecting points of 'real' and manipulated sounds. Glandien deftly dissects, mixes and melds a hyper-real illumination of the powerful tensions that defines the mix-and-match metaphor, deconstructing conventions as quickly as he creates new ones with a compositional discipline that is rare for such a diverse artistic pallet."

Artist:	RAMPOLOKENG, LESEGO W/THE KALAHARI SURFERS
Title:	End Beginnings
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER LRSCD1

1993 release. "Born in 1965 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Lesego Rampolokeng is a product of his time. Whereas in the West this would have made him one of the last bastions of the baby-boomer era, in Soweto it made him an oral poet -- one that took part in the struggle against Apartheid, sometimes at the risk of life and limb. On this disk his dub and rap-inspired poetry is musically backed by Wreck Sony's Kalahari Surfers who, while offering an amazing musical presence, do not overshadow or crowd Lesego's voice or intentions. What we have are some pretty in-your-face assertions by one of the country's most talented activists which, while scathingly radical for their time and place, lose little over the ensuing changes in political climate. As a performance and a documentation of unconditional honesty, the words are as strongly projected and meaningful today as they were then: 'They spoke in the gun and rifle tone, And I answered in the language of stone.' As for the Kalahari Surfers' part, the musical restraint is commendable, but never far from the forefront are an abundance of experimental tendencies. Traces of musique concrete move from foreground to background to make space for the voice. Simpler methods are applied overall when compared to the other Surfers' albums with respect to rhythm and complexity, but this is a necessity inasmuch as the main focus here and the words and sentiments of someone who suffered the pain and anguish of Apartheid firsthand."

Artist:	WEINGER, LAUREN
Title:	Silo
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER LW1

"Lauren Weinger's album Silo is drawn from the soundtrack of a large-scale installation project, Picture Powderhorn, which was 1st performed around the grain silos in Minneapolis, in August of 2000. Featuring aerialists covered in mics and recorders ascending and descending the conical towers, historically resonant fiddle solos, sounds of children's songs, all interspersed with Latin dance music. Also included is the voice of the silo manager recounting the intricacies of making bread as the haunting echoes of rolling stock reverberate throughout the building. A provocative slice of musique concrete, a textured narrative that explores the form of the post-industrial Midwest."

Artist:	ABSOLUTE ZERO
Title:	Crashing Icons
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER M=R.2

"Absolute Zero, the spirited collaboration between Enrique Jardines (bass) and keyboards/vocalist Aislinn Quinn, is a project which integrates post-Canterbury (Soft Machine, Hatfields, Caravan) and Rock In Opposition (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Universe Zero) suffused with Teutonic precision and obsessive repetition. Joined in 1999 by drummer Pip Pyle (late of alternative super groups Deliver, Gong, Hatfield, North, and National Health) Crashing Icons offers a full album of what New England Performer called 'Epic, enthralling, edgy, twisted, and unique' music."

Artist:	MAKSYMENKO, MICHAEL
Title:	Businesscide
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	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 plus 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."

Artist:	MNEMONISTS
Title:	Horde
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER MN1

"The 1981 electro-acoustic electronic classic by the group that morphed into Biota. Their 3rd album & their first true classic, which is a high-water mark of churning sonic storms. The first release by the Mnemonists to be reissued on CD & one of their finest works overall."Based in Fort Collins, CO, the Mnemonists gave modern American experimental music a good name in the early 80s as they dug themselves out of the trenches of post-industrial alignment. Ultra-detailed processing, beautiful graphic presentation (in place of the near mandated shock/repulsion attacks of most of their contemporaries) and an overall sense of sonic attainment were some of their trademarks. A classic of its era.

Artist:	MNEMONISTS
Title:	Gyromancy
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER MN2

"The Mnemonists were a legendary group of composers and artists from Fort Collins, Colorado, who went on to call themselves Biota, and released a series of five CD's on ReR (Tumble, Bellowing Room/Tinct, Almost Never, Object Holder, and Invisible Map). They created drifting hypnotic sound collages out of pre-industrial loops, processed ambient sound, rock 'n' roll guitar, and fragments of half forgotten memory. Their work was highly visual, and always accompanied by beautiful line drawings and painted art works; the total meaning is forged from the combination of sonic and visual information. Gyromancy stands as a classic early noise album, somewhere between the work of AMM, Faust and Brian Eno. What makes it stand out is the subtlety of the work: The process begins with the recording of played acoustic and electric instruments that are later re-processed and electrically altered, leading to a spiraling of replaying, re-composition and re-structuring. This aural world is as vast as space, and seemingly as limitless; The Mnemonists were the one group most apt to embrace the latest technology, and to put it to good use to create 'anti-music'. But the outcome is so beautifully flowing and amazingly profound that their radical methods create positive change in a sonically transparent way, rather than to bludgeon the listener into submission by means of shock tactics. The result then, is elucidating and exciting. This disk is presented in a visually stunning manner as well, including gorgeous reproductions of the group's paintings, bringing the Mnemonist's penchant for 'artisanship-as-a-whole' full circle."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Hanging Gardens
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS1

"Australian trio the Necks have caused a huge stir recently, creating ripples in the usually calm waters of improvised contemporary jazz. Their daring fusion of improvised jazz with chill-out dance music and minimalism has been hailed by the international music press, and with ten years of recording and playing live behind them, they have established a substantial following. With just acoustic piano, double bass, drums and the odd sample they have created their own unmistakable style. The method is simple; they start playing, and whatever it is they start with they just keep doing it, while any changes are only allowed to be gradual. It makes for a hypnotic dream-like experience, as if Miles Davis's In A Silent Way had been filtered through the minimalist concepts of Terry Riley and Phillip Glass, and then performed with more than half an ear towards ambient dance music."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Mindset
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS10

"Now in their twenty-fourth year, the Necks' new release, Mindset, their sixteenth album, and first LP - features two starkly contrasting tracks: the pulsating, raw, 'Rum Jungle' and the slower building, rather hypnotic 'Daylights.' Polyrhythms imbue both pieces with powerful forward motion, embroiled with which ethereal piano patterns interweave with bass, drums, electronics, churning Hammonds and noise-guitars. Drummer and percussionist Tony Buck writes: Mindset shares some elements in common with our previous album Silverwater (RER NECKS9), mostly in some mixing approaches and rhythmic devices - a reflection of our ongoing fascination with polymetric material and varying simultaneous pulses, but it's a whole other thing again, and the two tracks are very different from one another --'Rum Jungle' captures the live approach of the piano, bass, and drum trio a lot more, while 'Daylights' features a bed of electronics and little sounds that slowly converge, coalescing into a multi-layered, multi-tempo, swirling soundscape."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Mindset
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	LP
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS10LP

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Aether
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS2

"The Necks are an improvising post-jazz trio from Australia, whose music is about as far from New Orleans as you could imagine. It's jazz that has been stripped of all its excess, and been re-forged out of the belly of minimal trance club culture. Hanging Gardens used a single rhythm held for an hour, with sumptuous chords occasionally rising and falling at huge intervals. For the first 30 minutes of Aether they've gone even further; they've dropped the rhythm altogether, and what remains is just a single chord which emerges and then fades into nothing, again and again. There are just small variations on electric piano, bowed double bass and electronics. At the 35-minute point a high-pitched keyboard pattern gradually emerges, and imperceptibly the group swing in to a Steve Reich inspired interlocking pattern, which builds to a climax. It finally subsides into a series of hypnotic cymbal washes. The Necks are drummer Tony Buck, double bassist Lloyd Swanton and pianist Chris Abrahams. Their records and live concerts are all made using the same process; they start with an improvising idea, and then transform the material ever so slowly as each piece progresses. It's a devastatingly simple but original approach."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Drive By
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS3

"Hypnotic, sensuous, dream-like, enveloping, funky, seductive, subtle, credible -- Australian jazz trio The Necks have re-written all the rules. They are a (mostly) acoustic piano trio whose music sounds as much like ambient electronic dance music as it does like conventional jazz. But healthy doses of influence from R&B, Kraut Rock, The Doors, ethnic musics, Miles Davis and John Coltrane also abound. The Necks are drummer Tony Buck, double bassist Lloyd Swanton and pianist Chris Abrahams. Their records and live concerts are all made using the same process; they start with an improvising idea, and then transform the material ever so slowly. It's a devastatingly simple but original approach, which calls for extreme concentration from the players, but for the listener the experience is as fluid and profound and as meditating on a sunset or watching the ebb and flow of the ocean. Somehow with a seemingly effortless cool they charm the sounds out of their instruments."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	The Boys
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS4

"The latest release by the extraordinary Australian improvising ambient/jazz trio, The Necks, is drawn from a soundtrack the group composed for the prize-winning Australian movie, The Boys. For the Necks this is a revolutionary move; gone are the hour-long shifting luminous improvisations which they have made their own special territory. Here you will find seven short-ish instrumentals, each developing a different sound and mood. The usual Neck's components (floating acoustic piano, anchoring double bass, and skimming drums are all present, but are set to very different tasks. There's a darkness absent from their other releases, and the CD ends with full-blown Joy Divisionish rock, with fuzzed up bass and heavy tribal drums. Along the way, The Necks expand on Erik Satie-like vignettes, tempered with electronic sounds and ambiences, insistent rhythms reminiscent of the Velvet Underground, and music and sounds that are subtly sensuous and extremely addictive."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Mosquito/See Through
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS5/6

"Another scorching, hypnotic, ground breaking, concept-expanding release from outstanding Australian trio The Necks. Their last few CDs have caused a huge stir. Hanging Gardens was a shimmering space age journey (fuelled by sparkling high hat patterns and lush piano chords), Aether was a profound meditation (on a chord that just kept on coming), while Drive By was a classic R&B road movie soundtrack. This new double CD re-writes the rules yet again. Mosquito begins with the scrunching sound of a hand drum with hanging rattles being draped over percussion, while a fragmentary high piano melody tinkles in the distance. These two elements persist for the entire hour of the CD, providing a supporting texture for the most gorgeous piano chord sequence you've ever heard, gently coaxed by a ride cymbal. There's a hint of Massive Attack's 'Protection' about these chords, which just repeat in an endless melancholy ecstasy. For Llloyd Swanton Mosquito is 'quite austere, but in a rewarding, refreshing way. I think it's one of the most rigorously minimalist pieces we've ever done.' Austere and rigorous it may be, in terms of its beautifully organised structure and economy of means; but don't be fooled. This record is seriously haunting and sensuous. See Through is another beast entirely. Taking its cue from the ultra minimalist Aether, it counter poses ripe piano chords and splashing cymbals (reminiscent of Alice Coltrane) against long passages of silence. Like Aether the music comes in waves, which suggest a vast scale and an open organic structure. But here the silences demand their own space, and the music operates as part of an environment, into which it constantly retreats and from which it endlessly re-appears."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Chemist
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS7

"This is the13th release from Australian maverick trio The Necks, now approaching their 20th Anniversary, and still occupying a genre-group of one. Their slow, gripping, development of a single idea over the length of a whole CD, while somehow obvious, has proved un-copyable, mostly because it so much depends on the unique musical personalities and extreme virtuosity of these three, profoundly different, musicians. Having established their theme, The Necks, with Chemist, break the habit of a lifetime and juxtapose three 20-minute tracks. Bassist Lloyd Swanton, pre-empting his critics, wrote: 'We just wanted to see what we could do by contrasting different aesthetics on a single CD. These pieces are calculatedly different, and the contrast is important.' Perhaps they were hoping with this minor scandal to draw attention away from the guitar, played by drummer Tony Buck, which features on all three tracks. Another major break with tradition? Our commercial department has, however, extensively road tested this departure from niche on a selection of fanatical Necks purists and, so far, it does seem to be working."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Townsville
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS8

"For over two decades, The Necks have been stepping onto stages with absolutely nothing in mind, waiting for the first sound to happen and then following it through -- with glacial inevitability, and never any sudden shift of gear or introduction of new material -- for an hour or so. Never mechanical minimalism -- since each moment is invested with an intense presence. This is more a dense liquefaction of time; a form unique to The Necks; no one else has even tried to do it. It's a musical form the band evolved over more than 20 years of performing, and no two concerts are ever the same. Though many of their 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: each the same; each different: asymmetric. Bassist Lloyd Swanton who, on this occasion, provided the motif that set Townsville in motion 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.' It's a paradox that makes the band addictive and keeps its music fresh. While there's an apparent inevitability that should shut the music down, somehow it seems always to remain open. It's never clear exactly how it's going to unfold."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Silverwater
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS9

"Their first studio CD for three years - named after an industrial suburb in Sydney -- famous mainly for its correctional facility -- Silverwater ranges further and wider than the Necks' former releases, exploring a more sectional structure that counterposes extremes and contrasts, and possesses a greater sense of forward motion than we are accustomed to with this most economical of bands -- though it still retains the long, hypnotic single-track iterative form for which they have been praised. Layers and skeins of overdubs and shifting textures give way to almost empty stretches as the piece evolves, and there is much play with asynchronous time. Paradoxically, for a band renowned for its slow, cycling, repetitions, the Necks show again that they are a band who try constantly not to repeat themselves."

Artist:	NEWS FROM BABEL
Title:	Sirens and Silences/Work Resumed on the Tower/Letters Home
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	3CD
Price:	$28.00
Catalog #:	RER NFBOX

"This is the first time that these two long out-of-print LPs have appeared separately on CD. Both have been carefully re-mastered and re-packaged. This slipcase edition contains an extra illustrated CD of the 7" single, Contraries, which was issued originally only to subscribers to the original release of Sirens. News from Babel was Chris Cutler's second song project, following Art Bears in 1979. Lindsay Cooper, also late of Henry Cow, was the main composer and Zeena Parkins completed the group, making her recording debut, on acoustic harp. 'I first met Zeena when she was in The Janus Circus; she was an accordion-playing bear (that costume was wild to be in; I tried it) and a lion tamer there. Then I discovered she was also a harpist, and we made the plan to do a record there and then.' --Chris Cutler. The incomparable Dagmar Krause took the singing chair for the first LP, and was joined on the second by Robert Wyatt, film director Sally Potter and Phil Minton. Most of the recording was done at This Heat's Cold Storage, engineered by The Work's Bill Gilonis, who also played a little bass and guitar. There was still a close knit community of musicians back then. Chunks of 'Letters Home' were recorded in the thick of the Brixton riots, which the band were blissfully unaware of until it came time to go home, when they stepped straight into the middle of them. Henry Cow's second bassist, Georgie Born, also appears. She has since retired to academia -- her weighty anthropological studies of IRCAM and the BBC are notorious and she teaches at Cambridge University. These records were, like Art Bears' records, conceived for the studio and were never meant to be performed. Harp, bassoon, piano, accordion, saxophones and voice was even then an eccentric line-up for what was essentially a kind of rock group -- or at least thought of itself that way."

Artist:	KODJABASHIA, NIKOLA
Title:	Reveries of the Solitary Walker
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NK1

"The award-winning Macedonian composer, Nikola Kodjabashia, is best known for his classical works, having studied extensively with Anatol Vieru. Reveries Of The Solitary Walker is an oddly beautiful mixture of contemporary, Balkan-esque folk aesthetics, Byzantyne-age leanings, and just enough shards of Avant-gardism to make it appeal to those who like things a tad 'different'. Joining him on this disk is his latest group, the Project Z'lust Ensemble, who augment his piano work with an arrangement of brass, upright bass, percussion and a violin duo. Strictly speaking, this wonderful song cycle adheres to the melodic principles of Eastern Orthodox chant music as composed by the 18th-century Macedonian cantor, St. Joan Harmosin-Ohridski, but this ensemble's interpretations display an up-to-date twist, which eschew the rigorous routine of classical theorems while pushing forwards in a stylistic way."

Artist:	KODJABASHIA, NIKOLA
Title:	The Most Of Now
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NK2

"A lapidary and subtle new composition by award-winning Macedonian concert, film and theatre composer, Nikola Kodjbashaia, exquisitely realized by a broad and mixed ensemble of exemplary -- and mostly Macedonian -- instrumentalists. A suite of highly imaginative variations on a theme that meanders with purpose through a 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 Kodjbashia's first CD into a completely personal but accessible musical language. Subtle, complex, profane music, but at the same time easy -- even a joy -- to listen to."

Artist:	RATSIMANDRESY & MATTEO RAMON AREVALOS, NADIA
Title:	Messiaen Et Autour De Messiaen For Onde Martenot And Piano
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER OM1

"A signature collection of exquisite works for onde Martinot and piano by Olivier Messiaen, N'Guyen Thien Dao, Jacques Charpentier and Tristan Murail, exploring the many voices of this extraordinary instrument. The onde (or ondes musicales or le Martenot) was first demonstrated at the Paris Conservatoire in 1928 and immediately attracted the attention of Varese, Milhaud, Koechlin, Jolivet, Honegger and Messiaen, who all wrote for it -- cumulatively ensuring its survival. Although only a year younger than the theremin, the onde is a far more sophisticated, complex and versatile instrument, not least because of the combination it offers of pitched and glissando tones, and the wide range of filters and different resonating media through which it can sound: loudspeakers, gongs, sympathetic resonating strings and reverberant enclosures. The compositions here exploit every unearthly aspect of the instrument and are beautifully performed: a remarkable and exquisite collection."

Artist:	ANGELI, PAOLO
Title:	Bucato
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PA1

"Bucato is an album of solo guitar music performed on the 'Giant' Sardinian guitar, which is sized between a conventional guitar and a double bass, and is tuned lower than a standard guitar. Paolo Angeli has taken this folk instrument and has completely re-tooled it: There is a large mechanical claw stuck onto the side of the body of the instrument, which he uses to pluck counter melodies, piano-like hammers, operated by foot pedals strike the strings and lastly, many extra strings as well as 13 pickups and microphones have been added to further extend the variety of what his instrument can do. Bucato is a recording of Angeli and his extraordinary music in concert, recorded without overdubs." An extremely interesting and beautiful album of solo guitar. For fans of: Derek Bailey, Steffen Basho-Junghans, John Fahey, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, Hans Reichel and Elliott Sharp.

Artist:	ANGELI, PAOLO
Title:	Nita L'angelo Sul Trapezio
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PA2

"Known best as an experimental guitarist, with his 'Giant' Sardinian guitar -- which has a large mechanical claw stuck to the side of its body (to pluck counter melodies), piano-like hammers operated by pedals (to strike the strings), extra strings crossing the main strings at right angles with yet another set of sitar strings mounted on the body, a rope, a viola bridge -- which holds yet more strings -- and thirteen pickups and microphones which can separately amplify all the elements, sending them to different parts of the stereo picture, Paulo Angeli here steps neatly sideways into a different musical universe, bringing only an unmodified guitar and some pedals with him. Involving a small orchestra of musicians -- about thirty of them: a name-check of the disproportionately creative Bologna music community -- this composition adds up to an epic programme of highly evolved, minutely composed pieces covering half a planet of styles and audible references. At one pole there are involved pieces that bring to mind Uncle Meat-period Zappa (or maybe Waka Jawaka?), and contemporary experimental music -- and at the other, the straightforward influence of traditional Sardinian folk music. In between there blooms a broad bouquet of combinations, each telling its own part of the story. Throughout, Paulo's compositional voice remains the single thread on which all these episodes are strung."

Artist:	ANGELI, PAOLO
Title:	Tessuti
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PA3

"Another extraordinary release by Sardinian virtuoso, Paolo Angeli, this time featuring compositions by Fred Frith and Bj�rk -- all played solo in real time (though when you hear it, it's hard to believe it) on his highly customized and extended, electrified, giant Sardinian folk guitar. A tour de force of technique and at the same time highly musical; and there is so much going on here at any given time that it is difficult to relate what your ears tell you to just one Frankenstein instrument. Dense enough that it rewards listening to a few songs at a time, though you could probably also dance to it. This is Paulo's 3rd release for ReR; the first introduced his remarkable instrument and more remarkable technique, the second was of closely scored, very large ensemble works; here he returns to the guitar but under the discipline of the real-time realization of written and arranged compositions."

Artist:	ANGELI, PAOLO
Title:	Tibi
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD/DVD DUALDISC
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	RER PA4

Paolo Angeli's live soundtrack to the film (viewable on the DVD) by Nanni Angeli. "This disc will play in stereo on a CD player and with film and 5.1 surround sound (or stereo) on a DVD player or computer. The music, as always, is prodigious, sounding like a small band, but played by one person in real time (as the film attests). In this format, you can also see the instrument -- close to a highly rebuilt and extended giant Sardinian guitar -- with many sympathetic and extra strings, motor-driven hurdy gurdy wheels, whirling strings, springs and other appendages, played like a cello, vertically, with bow, fingers, plectra and machines. However Heath Robinson it may appear, it is clearly under Paulo's hands, a highly serious and extraordinarily flexible beast that requires and has given rise to new playing techniques. The programme of compositions here navigates through highly-organized additive rhythms, freer Frith-like pointillism and some seemingly impossible mini-orchestrations. The film, professionally made, follows the performance, occasionally interpolating abstract passages and processed images. A remarkable player with a unique instrument, playing a music entirely his own."

Artist:	ANGELI, PAOLO
Title:	Sale Quanto Basta
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	RER PA6

"Welcome to Paulo's sixth release for ReR, an extraordinary collection of pieces that explore the full range of his highly modified, extended and prepared Sardinian guitar. And although it's just him and electricity, it seldom sounds like fewer than three people playing. There are twelve fine compositions, each as crafted as a short novel, and beautifully recorded. Paulo's is a music that pretty much defies genre or category; accessible, experimental, tuneful, tactile and ambient - with a folk root, a rock inflection, and a contemporary outlook."

Artist:	BLEGVAD, PETER
Title:	Hangman's Hill
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PB3

"Peter Blegvad is a cult singer songwriter with a history in the avant garde, who makes accessible guitar based music which relaxes, titillates, confronts and charms. He has carved out a uniqe position as performer, songwriter and cartoonist. He played a part in many important groups, starting in the late 70s with Slapp Happy, Henry Cow and Faust. He went on toplay with The Golden Palominos for two years. This is Peter's third solo album for ReR. Featuring the sparkling ex-Henry Cow rhythm section of Chris Cutler/John Greaves, and produced by Bob Drake, the album carries you on a journey through the mind of this eccentric UK-based American."

Artist:	BLEGVAD, PETER
Title:	Just Woke Up
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PBCD2

1995 release (this is actually ESD label stock, inherited by ReR). "Peter is a cult singer/songwriter with a history in the avant garde, who makes accessible guitar-based music which relaxes, titillates, confronts and charms. Described by Wired magazine as a 'fusion of Lou Reed and Bob Dylan, cross bred with English humorist Jon Hegley,' he has carved out a unique position as performer, songwriter and cartoonist. He played a part in many important groups, starting in the early '70s with Slapp Happy, Henry Cow and Faust. He was half responsible for the classic Kew. Rhone. duo album with John Greaves (which boasts arguably the greatest, certainly the most literate lyrical content of any avant garde recording to date). Peter then went on to play with The Golden Palominos for two years, and worked with Michael Stipe, Carla Bley, Jack Bruce, and John Zorn, and his own band, Breadvan."

Artist:	CUSACK, PETER
Title:	Where Is the Green Parrot?
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PC1

"Guitarist Peter Cusak has been active in the UK improvising scene since the early 1970s and has recorded with Clive Bell, Nicolas Collins, Max Eastly and Thomas Koner, among others. He is curating The Week Of Small Miracles, a multimedia millennium project on the river Lee in North London, to run in the year 2000. Where Is The Green Parrot is not really an album, but more of a series of locations. The roaming microphone is like a camera, recording events, ambiences and interactions, with music merely one part of the fabric. Peter reprocesses the sounds, adding electronics and samples, and some of the soundscapes are also then laced with bazouki and guitar improvisations."

Artist:	CUSACK, PETER
Title:	Baikal Ice
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PC2

Subtitled: Spring 2003. "Over the last thirty years Peter Cusack has built a reputation as an improvising musician, and is often to be found plucking an array of string instruments, including guitar and balalaika, while simultaneously triggering live electronics. Peter had known for some time about the extraordinary Lake Baikal, a 600 kilometre long lake in Siberia. It is thought to be the world's oldest and deepest lake and holds one fifth of the earth's fresh water. It was only recently, however, that he came across a reference on the internet to the mysterious noises made by the ice, which covers the lake from autumn to spring to the depth of a meter. The sounds are most spectacular when the ice melts and breaks up, and the lake transforms itself back into water. This album is a document of Peter's journey, on a mission to record these sounds. There are humorous incidents, as when a telephone engineer unexpectedly falls through the ice while Peter is recording (he made it out to safety!), or when the local children take over the village's PA system. There are haunting vignettes; a young girl burst into song on the train, on the small branch of the Trans-Siberian railway part of which runs along the shore of the lake; an accomplice of Peter's performs bell-like angular music on the broken metal fountain which they find in the town of Angarsk. But centre stage belongs to the sounds of the ice break-up itself, as ghostly creaks and agonising groans emerge from the tinkling, sparkling flow. Baikal Ice is comparable to Chris Watson's pristine sound recordings, to be found on the Touch label."

Artist:	CUSACK, PETER
Title:	Sounds from Dangerous Places
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD/BOOK
Price:	$46.00
Catalog #:	RER PC3

"Two remarkable and important CDs of very diverse site recordings, made in Chernobyl (occupying the whole of CD1), the Caspian Oilfields around Baku (Azerbaijan), and in various UK sites, including Lakenheath, Dungeness, Sellafield, Snowdonia &c. (CD2). The CDs are accompanied by a beautifully made 90 page hardback book filled with a huge number of original colour photographs, background information, interviews and detailed documentation of the recordings, their collection, the history of the environments recorded and the curious and inadvertent inverse relation between human hazard and broader environmental recovery. This is an essential and unusual document. Peter Cusack is best-known as a member of the avant garde musical quartet, Alterations (1978-1986; with Steve Beresford, David Toop and Terry Day), and as the creator of field and wildlife recording-based albums."

Artist:	PICCHIO DAL POZZO
Title:	Abbiamo Tutti i Suoi Problemi
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER PDP

"Amongst the cognoscenti, Picchio dal Pozzo is regarded as one of the most original, impressive and highly respected of all the experimental groups to have come out of Italy in the 1970s. They share their original label with Henry Cow's Concerts, and were early invitees to the canonical Recommended Sampler. Aldo De Scalzi, Andrea Beccari, Giorgio Karaghiosoff and Paulo Griguolo all met at infant school and began playing Teleman, Corelli, Bach and Mozart together in their school orchestra. In 1969, Aldo's brother, one of the locally hailed 'New Trolls,' founded his own recording studio, and the proto-Picchios, then about 12 years old, began hanging out there, messing around with the instruments and studio equipment. In 1974 the studio asked them to record an LP for its label, obliging them to come up with a name. They chose Picchio dal Pozzo from the nonsense lyric that ends one of their songs. They didn't have a drummer, so they invited Aldo Di Marco. Later Claudio Lugo (sax) and Roberto Romani (sax) also joined, and by 1975, the group was doing concerts and attracting attention. They were invited by the local council to set up a music school in 1977, and at the same time they started to make music in a psychiatric hospital. These activities introduced them to Area's ex-singer Demetrio Stratos, with whom they then collaborated until his premature death in 1979. Abbiamo was originally released by l'Orchestra Cooperativa in 1980, after which the group officially wound up."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Baku: Symphony Of Sirens
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD/BOOK
Price:	$50.00
Catalog #:	RER RAG1/2

Subtitled: Sound Experiments In The Russian Avant Garde -- Original Documents And Reconstructions Of 72 Key Works Of Music, Poetry And Agitprop From The Russian Avant Garde 1908-1942. "These two CDs and 72 page clothbound book offer the most comprehensive presentation of the experiments and innovations in the exploration of sound by the historical Russian Avantgardes ever attempted. This publication is based around the sounds themselves. Though much was not documented at the time, and some has been lost, what remains is collected on the second CD, which centres around Dziga Vertov's prescient environmental sound composition for the 1930 film Enthusiasm..The Dombass Symphony -- and also collects together for the first time 22 original recordings of Mayakovsky, Mossolov, Jakobson, Khlebnikov, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Kollontay, Trotsky, Pasternak, Meytuss, Akhmatova, Mandelstahm, Naum Gabo, Shostakovich and others. But what makes this collection doubly valuable, and unique, are the contents of CD1, which consists of 40 painstaking reconstructions -- made by the Laboratorio de Creaciones Intermedia, Dept. of Sculpture at the faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, Spain -- of documented sound-works that have subsequently been lost, above all the now legendary 'Symphony of Sirens' at Baku, by Arseny Avraamov. This massive open air composition, for two artillery batteries, several full infantry regiments, all the foghorns of the Caspian flotilla, several sea-planes, twenty-five steam locomotives, multiple choirs, arrays of pitched steam whistles and all the city's factory sirens can now, for the first time, be approached as a physical event through this careful and accurate spatialised audio reconstruction (using original contemporary source materials) as well as 39 other priceless lost works, including the legendary Victory over the Sun (mayak &c) and other works by Vertov, The Orchestra of Noises, Prokofiev, Mayakovsky, El Lissitsky, The Nothingists, Jandinsky, Malevich, Rozanova, Larionov, the Psycho Futurist Group, Kamensky, Jakobson, and others. The CDs give body to Miguel Molina Alarcon's comprehensive overview of the complexity and breadth of the many early C20 Russian avantgarde movements, and there are extensive detailed notes and contexts for all the individual recordings, as well as biographies of the artists, additional work-notes on the process of the Baku reconstruction, a bibliography, rare photographs, web research links, related artwork, facsimiles of contemporary documents, a comparative timeline of European and Russian Avantgarde movements, and the first English translation of an article by Avraamov about his events. Apart from a general appeal, this is a work particularly suitable for libraries, educational institutions and galleries."

Artist:	REIMAN, DALABA, DEMPSTER
Title:	Lung Tree
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER RDD

"This is one of those recordings that arrived unannounced in the mail. I knew Lesli Dalaba, of course, but the others were new to me. The project is Eric Glick Reiman's and I found it immediately intriguing. There seemed to be something quite subtle going on; it's minimal, microtonal, economical and eccentric; it plays subtly with timbre, pitch and structure and never quite does what you expect. At first blush, it seemed as though it would be another interesting, but conventional, improvising trio, but after a few minutes the organising intelligence, and the clear compositional discipline became clear. And after this, throughout the CD, it sticks to the point: a deep investigation of a very few simple principles. Acoustic instruments rub ambiguously up against electrified objects and electronics, but these in the main provide atmosphere and harmonic complexity, never overpowering the mingling air-columns on which the wave of this CD floats. Attachments, modifiers, objects all make an appearance, but the topic is the small, the tenuous -- and the tenacious -- and, above all, breath. It's really quite a gem, modest but unyielding." -- Chris Cutler

Artist:	IOLINI, ROBERT
Title:	Songs From Hurt
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER RI2

"Robert Iolini is a composer who transcends the divisions between music, documentary and radio art, mixing investigative journalism, sound ecology, storyboarding and conventional notated composition -- using songs, spoken word, field recording, improvisation and electroacoustic manipulation to make complex audio works that might equally be music, documentary or fiction. He works, initially, like a radio journalist: researching, collecting materials, conducting interviews. The bulk of Songs From Hurt have been constructed in this way, around the extraordinary testimonies of aboriginal teenagers, prisoners, shadow communities and witnesses to a world in which the interviewees are continually told that they are surplus to requirements. Then this raw data is organised, transformed and integrated into complex musical compositions, becoming itself musical in the process -- its pitches no longer simply prosaic, its rhythms driving the structure of its setting while remaining intact -- not looped or pressured into becoming servants to the overall organisation of an aesthetic fiction. The witnesses and sounds converse and conspire in Iolini's work, but never give way to one another. It is rare for conventional and electronic compositions to remain so respectful of voices and what they have to say, and this plain matter of fact-ness makes most rap sound like bluster, and most opera sound like history."

Artist:	MUSCI/CHRIS CUTLER/JON ROSE/CLAUDIO GABBIANO, ROBERTO
Title:	Steel Water Light
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER RMGC

"This ensemble was formed to perform live music to films. The score straddles genres, running the gamut between composed, improvised, graphic, atmospheric and avant garde movie soundtrack. The films were three silent black and white classics: Joris Iven's De Brug (1928) and Regen (1929), and Paul Strand's Manhatta (1921). They deal with a level of abstraction that was pioneering for documentary film making at that time. Roberto Musci provides the samples -- robot voices, strange looping backwards melodies, crazy voices from innumerable forgotten movies; Jon Rose hits a peak of improv violin virtuosity; Chris Cutler spatters the textures with electronically processed drums and percussion; and Claudio Gabbiano interjects with restrained electric guitar phrases. The live score has been re-edited as a purely listening experience."

Artist:	MOORE, R. STEVIE
Title:	Phonography
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER RSM1

"Phonography was Stevie's first LP release, and an out-of-the-blue masterpiece: terminally idiosyncratic but with all the compositional qualities of great pop. A gifted songwriter, R Stevie (son of Bob Moore, Elvis' bassist) grew up and was steeped in Nashville's countrypolitanism; but, as a recidivist rebel, he inevitably slipped into strange byways, following his own, unique path into celebrated obscurity - as this strange and compelling record attests. Hans Arp said, 'My paintings are like fingernails: they keep growing and I keep cutting them off'. R Stevie's songs seem to follow the same rule. They create worlds, tell stories, trifle wantonly with form, harmony, structure and execution, and throw off passages of casual brilliance on the way. Lo-fi is integral to its purpose. You can't pay to get a sound like that. So, when nobody seemed to want to keep Phonography in print, ReR Megacorp were happy to oblige - it's history. We took the opportunity to re-master and restore it to its original form. Instruments used: Red plastic Hagstrom electric guitar, Gibson SG Junior electric guitar, Fender Precision Bass, Yamaha acoustic guitar, Alvarez classical guitar, Premier snare drum, upside-down cardboard box bass drum, various full drum kits, Fischer grand piano, Franz metronome, Maracas, Tambourine, Cry Baby Wah Wah pedal, Jordan Creator sustain pedal, Korg synthesizer, Elka string synthesizer, Magnus chord organ, Realistic frequency equalizer, Maestro phase shifter, Univox echo chamber, hi-hat cymbals, extra cymbal (old), Panasonic cassette player, Koss and Vanco headphones, Fender Twin Reverb and Eenque amplifiers, Cords, Picks, Voice."

Artist:	SCIENCE GROUP, THE
Title:	Spoors
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER SCIENCE2

"Experimental rock that breaches the boundary of impractical theory, The Science Group's second groundbreaking album Spoors is an intense, emotional mix of instrumental virtuosity, wild sonic extremes and implosive compositional forms. Using song cycles as the musical schematic, Spoors delves into the ambiguities of Chaos Theory, the mysteries of Black Holes, and galaxy formation. Featuring legendary percussionist Chris Cutler, classical composer Steven Tickmayer, and ex-Hail member Bob Drake on bass, Science Group offers a richly textured primer on the exigencies of science and the fundamental laws of physics."

Artist:	SLAPP HAPPY
Title:	Acnalbasac Noom
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER SH

2005 repressing of this art-rock classic now available. Slapp Happy were a trio of Peter Blegvad (guitar, vocals), Dagmar Krause (voice), and Anthony Moore (keyboards, guitar). "Slapp Happy met in Germany in the early seventies, where they recorded their first album Sort Of for Polydor ('Years ahead of its time'-- NME). Acnalbasac Noom was their second LP, recorded in 1973, and engineered by Kurt Grauner, in Faust's legendary Wumme studio. Like the first it was produced by Faust's Svengali Uwe Nettelbeck, using Faust as the Slapphappy house band. Unaccountably it was rejected by Virgin Records, who made the group re-record all the material with different musicians and another producer in their own studio. That version is still available through Virgin as 'Casablanca Moon' -- they straightened up the name too. As time has told, it is now universally accepted that Acnalbasac is the definitive version of this material. This rather overdue reissue, taking advantage of significant technological advances, has been completely re-mastered by Bob Drake from the original tapes. The CD also features a handful of extra tracks, including the single 'Everybody's Slimming' released to coincide with a one off concert at the ICA in the '80's." Bonus tracks: "Everybody's Slimming," "Blue Eyed William," "Karen," and "Message."

Artist:	MACLEAN, STEVE
Title:	Bridges
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	RER SM2

"Steve MacLean began playing drums and guitar at the age of seven and composing at twelve. Completing high school early, he met Roswell Rudd and began playing concerts with him in New York. He moved to the city and took a job in a busy recording studio, working with cutting edge artists of every genre and spending his free time moving around the NYC 'downtown' free improvisation scene. He soon joined Nick Didkovsky's Dr. Nerve and made a slew of records. By 1980 he was scoring for dance, performing his own compositions on PBS's New Music Directions series, and setting up his own studio, which over the next two decades produced award-winning scores and sound design for hundreds of TV and radio commercials, films and disparate multi-media projects. Between times he co-founded the Portland Experimental Music Collective, established his own permanent ensemble and had compositions performed at numerous festivals. He moved to Boston in 2000 to take up a professorship in the Synthesis and Ensemble Departments at Berklee College of Music. He continues regularly to perform composed and improvised music -- alone, with a student ensemble and in numerous projects with Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Nick Didkovsky, Ken Field, Chris Cutler, Jonathan LaMaster, Eric Rosenthal, and others. The recordings on this double CD collect together works spanning two decades of composition and experimentation. They balance traditional musical resources (the band, compositional skills, instrumental techniques, acoustic and amplified instruments) with the new technologies (computers, signal processing, sampling and recording software). The first showcases the kind of signature polyrhythmic, precise, instrumental compositions familiar from his last ReR CD, Opposite Of War, while the second is more meditative, abstract and electronic, moving from acoustic koto through electric and acoustic guitars -- with and without radical effects processing -- to piano and virtual orchestra."

Artist:	MACLEAN ENSEMBLE, STEVE
Title:	GPS
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER SM5

"Careful compositions converse with focused improvisations under the precise direction of Steve MacLean who, on this CD, after various excursions that took him through experimental works for piano, interactive insect/guitar compositions and pure electronics, returns to a performing band and a journey through complex polyrhythmic compositions imaginatively intercut with careful, atmospheric inventions, for guitar, bass, keyboard, percussion and various objects. There is a quiet rigor, almost a formality, about this release, quite unusual in modern electric music - the compositions, which follow the remarkable parallel-metre style pioneered in his under-rated classic Opposite of War, are almost understated and, throughout, overproduction is strenuously avoided so that the recordings can concentrate on the human scale of the performances. The improvisations, too, don't strive for effect, the players concerning themselves exclusively with structure and content. In other words, this is a solid, almost old-fashioned, unashamedly musical, record that celebrates distinctive compositions, high performance values and imaginative playing."

Artist:	TICKMAYER, STEVAN KOVACS
Title:	Repetitive Selective Removal of One Protecting Group
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER ST2

"After a long absence Stevan roars back with this dense and complex work -- a rare example of a truly uncategoriseable music: neither electronic nor acoustic but somewhere in between -- or outside. Taken often at impossible Nancarrow/late Zappa/Ligeti tempi, a cascade of material constantly forms and reforms into different kinds of order: fragments of New Complexity performed with a kind of rock, dance, jazz undercurrent; shards of popular musics dressed in contemporary classical and electroacoustic clothes; debris from the C20 soundworld train-wrecked together as if all possible musics had been crammed into a bag, smithereened, and then somehow self-regenerated into viable but hybrid mutant forms: a kind of Burgess Shale of emergent musical life. However, alien as some of this music may seem at first hearing, it is coherent, through-composed and wholly intentional; nothing is arbitrary and every detail counts. Microtonality, polymetricality, slicing, shuffling and extreme processing sit easily alongside atmospherics, performance, and subtle explorations of timbre and acoustic space. Perhaps it is a monster, but it is a viable monster; a form so unfamiliar that it may take a few listenings just to learn how to listen to it. Order will percolate out, with attention, because it is there. 'The techniques I employed on this CD are heterogeneous in the broadest sense: live playing alongside sequencing, sampling, massive sound processing and some leftovers from previous Science Group recording sessions (mainly those of Chris Cutler and Bob Drake), then re-arrangement and re-orchestration. However, the complete material -- as usual -- is completely written out; even when it sounds quite improvised'."

Artist:	TICKMAYER, STEVAN KOVACS
Title:	Cold Peace Counterpoints
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER ST3

"A suite of fiendishly complex compositions for mixed real and virtual resources. The real are Bob Drake, Djorge Delibasic, Pegja Milosavljevic and Chris Cutler who, between them, cover electric guitar, bass, drums and virtuoso violin, but it's mainly Stevan here, who plays all kinds of keyboards, strings, double bass and zither, on top of samples and software. In this collection of highly concentrated compositions, we are presented with three thoroughly-composed and finely articulated pieces: 'Concerto Grosso' (for keyboards, string instruments and CPU), 'The Cold Peace Counterpoints,' and 'Five Bagatelles for a Polyhistor.' Those familiar with Tickmayer's earlier recordings, or with the Science Group, will have some idea of what to expect -- a rare co-mingling of high European art music (Tickmayer studied with both Gy�rgy Kurt�g 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."

Artist:	DIMUZIO, THOMAS
Title:	Slew
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER TD2

"Dimuzio is a true sonic alchemist who can seemingly create musical events out of almost anything. Those paying close attention to this innovative sound artist's recorded activities are also familiar with the large and compelling body of work Dimuzio has produced for compilation projects. This material has finally been united by R�R Megacorp into a single release, the aptly named Slew. Slew blurs the bounds of electro-acoustic, digital musique concrete, drone, noise, dark ambient and industrial. Dimuzio's sonic reworkings range from an Elvis impersonator (on parade), junkyard talk, electric guitar, piano, voice, clarinet, feedback and shortwave sounds to cellist Tom Cora and the music of Dr. Nerve."

Artist:	DOCKSTADER & DAVID LEE MYERS, TOD
Title:	Pond
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER TDDM1

"Tod Dockstader and David Lee Myers are two pioneers of electronic music, but from very different epochs. Dockstader started working with optical sound in the 1950s, later working with vast Telefunken tape recorders that became so hot they had to be left overnight to cool down. His electronic soundscapes ('Lunar Park' and 'Apocalypse' among them) are now being re-discovered and given the respect they deserve. Pond is his first new album-length piece since 1967. David Lee Myers, on the other hand, made his name in the 1980s under the name Arcane Device, and the music was derived from almost uncontrollable feedback systems. His Engines of Myth was originally released by ReR on vinyl in 1988, and was re-released on CD in 2001. A collaboration between these two legendary figures -- the painstaking, highly organised researcher Dockstader with the younger, more go-with-the-flow Myers, is an intriguing proposition. The first problem to overcome was computers; Dockstader had never used them, having perfected methods of working with optical and tape formats. It was only with much coaxing from Myers that it became possible. Dockstader recently remarked that when he began working with computers he 'realised that many of the old principles -- slowing, speeding, pitch-change, reversal -- were the same -- but with much more control and better sound. And no tape hiss. Because it was faster and I could keep my belief in what I was doing, more fun.' Fun is what they had. Most of the sounds derive from frog and toad calls, garnered by hanging around ponds with recorded equipment late into the night. The results are extraordinary -- the cries are transformed into an electronic melee that does not so much resemble a pond, as fragments of a road-movie soundtrack left over by Kraftwerk or Eno."

Artist:	DOCKSTADER & DAVID LEE MYERS, TOD
Title:	Bijou
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER TDDM2

"A subtle, moody, rich and wide-ranging work, in which atmosphere, emotion and dramaturgy lead the ear far beyond music into a world of hints, evocations, anticipation and association -- and, in passing, reveal a complex metonymic language that, at a deep level, invokes that mostly unconscious lexicon of sound we have all absorbed collectively and subliminally in the course of a century of movie-going, television viewing, documentary recording and electroacoustic experimentation. Once sounds have been abstracted from events, they are free to act and interact as signs; they are no longer indications of the real. And from their use as indicators we learn new meanings (the low drone from Jaws, the shower strings from Psycho, a TV theme -- these are all as directly meaningful to us as a barking dog or an approaching train; after 1000 movies, the sound of a helicopter has as many fictional as factual meanings, and these accretions make experience imaginatively richer. This is the language Dockstader and Myers explore, and although, in a sense, such signs are weightless (there is nothing there) nevertheless we cannot unhook them and they conjure instinctively fragmentary narratives, events, places, situations and meanings. Where their last CD (Pond) abstracted sounds from real life (in fact, documentary recordings of frogs), this one invokes a fictional life invoked in a language of purely mediated abstraction."

Artist:	DOCKSTADER & JAMES REICHERT, TOD
Title:	Omniphony 1
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER TODD1

"In the early 1960's Tod Dockstader was a young maverick composer of electronic 'organised sound', and James Reichert a film composer and music supervisor. They met in New York in 1963, and launched one of the most extraordinary collaborations in modern music, a unique attempt to integrate electronic sounds and the classical orchestra. Unlike Varese's Deserts, and Stockhausen's Kontakte, it does not merely have the orchestra play along with a tape, or even process orchestral sounds live. What makes this project unique is that the orchestra was transformed by electronic processes at a fundamental level, and organically fused with the purely electronic sounds. The completed work is a bizarre blend of Dockstader's fundamentally intuitive approach to sound, and Reichert's more conservatoire-based feeling for melody and orchestration. It often sounds like an unlikely collaboration between Stravinsky and Frank Zappa in avant garde mode, or Stockhausen and his alter-egos, Stock, Hausen and Walkman. Its not simply an important historical document, but an intriguing and entirely convincing listen; a truly extraordinary combination of electronic and orchestral textures, in which the orchestra seems to have been drenched in Technicolor, and dragged through a cartoon sound studio."

Artist:	VOGT, MICHAEL
Title:	Argonautika
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER TUBA2CD

"One doesn't normally think of the tuba as a sexy, dark electronic instrument, fronting a megalithic industrial soundscape band. Here Michael Vogt, lead tuba player with the Berlin Symphony orchestra, seems to have done just that. 'One very childish trace is my wish to be Jimmy Hendrix playing the tuba', he says. It's a turn of events that must have the rather conventional 'Tubby The Tuba', a staple of children's novelty tunes from the 1950's, turning in his grave. The story of Tubby, however, was also that of a tuba who wanted to carry the melody line, so this turns out to be extremely appropriate. In Argonautika the melodies are restrained fanfares, rather in the manner of a Laibach opera. At other times the tuba is played through a vocoder, or processed electronically to sound like a fuzz metal guitar. There's a series of disturbing, threatening electronic environments through which the tuba stalks; occasionally the raw brass of the tuba cuts through, summoning up a lost classicism that only intensifies the gothic atmosphere. The journey of the tuba is a perfect metaphor for the heroic, epic journey of the Argonauts, as they make their way through terrifying adventures. You will believe a tuba can not only fly, but plunge right down to the very depths of hell."

Artist:	PERE UBU
Title:	London Texas
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER U01

"A missing piece of the Ubu jigsaw, and a fine memento of a great band, London Texas is a satisfyingly hi-fi live recording of the sadly short-lived line-up that toured briefly between the arrival of Eric Drew Feldman and the departure of Chris Cutler. Certainly it's the best recording of the Scott, Cutler, Maimone rhythm section - though the whole band is on lean-back-intense concert form. Coming back to it, this was the end of a particular era, of a certain kind of band: the songs are economical and tightly arranged but harmonically elaborated -- with strongly performative and musical underpinning (there's a new aesthetic in place now); it's an approach that takes no prisoners. Then there's the bonus of that scary live energy. Studio recordings just can't do this. London Texas stings like a bee -- in a beret. Play it loud. Special mention -- guitarist Jim Jones; mind-bogglingly great. Recorded 1989; transcription and file mastering by David Thomas; edited by Chris Cutler; CD re-mastering by Bob Drake."

Artist:	VRIL
Title:	Effigies In Cork
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER VRIL1

"VRIL is an adrenalized, poppy, rampant batch of rock guitar instrumentals. The Shadows, The Ventures, Surf music, early Hendrix are invoked, but they're all put through the intense mangle of 21st century thinking and studio trickery. It's a twangy guitar album gone mad, complete with a fascinating art-and-texts booklet which reads like a liner notes by Edgar Allen Poe. The album features three unlikely avant-garde musicians: Dutch guitarist Lukas Simonis, bass player/mastering wiz Bob Drake and famed percussionist Chris Cutler."

Artist:	VRIL
Title:	The Fatal Duckpond
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER VRIL2

"After a break of six years, Chris Cutler, Bob Drake and Lukas Simonis, now with added ingredient Pierre Omer, present the second volume of recordings by the elusive VRIL -- a band who revive and update both the great institution of the guitar instrumental and the now sadly neglected practice of collective arrangement, intense rehearsal and live studio performance. Appropriate to the half century that has passed since the birth of the form, these hits dodge about, get bored easily and blend both concentration and complexity with the still indispensable traditional qualities that made the genre great: hummability, crafted sounds, nifty arrangements, ridiculous gimmicks and ensemble playing. 'Neither tribute nor parody, these enigmatic pieces are never more nor less than exactly what they are,' wrote Lothar Preen in his Melbourne concert review, 'but perfectly realised'. With film stills, misleading sleeve-notes and storyboard by the Diogenesian recluse Frank Key."

Artist:	ZNR
Title:	Barricades 3
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER ZNR 1

Featuring: Hector Zazou & Joseph Racaille. With: Patrick Portella, Andre Jaume, David Reuff, Harvey Neneux. "This disk features Hector Zazou, arguably the most bizarre of French contemporary musicians, playing predominantly electric piano and chromelodion (the tube-version precursor to the modern synthesizer), and partner Joseph Racaille on acoustic piano. Both share songwriting duties and vocals, the latter of which at times are so overdriven and messed-up that they create an ironic disparity to the seemingly Satie-like atmosphere. While the overall feel is delicate, it is nonetheless difficult to characterize this music as 'chamber rock' of any sort because the tension and energy are more immediate and overwhelming, spawned by an almost naive sense of quiet destruction of forms. This disk is highly idiosyncratic, immaculately realised and performed, and an absolute landmark in terms of stylistic thought. Barricades 3 has stood up to the test of time better than almost anything else. It remains as startling and mystifying as the day it was first released on vinyl in 1977."

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page

Artist:	5UU'S
Title:	Hunger's Teeth
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	RER 5UU1

Artist:	ROBERTS, JOCELYN
Title:	Folie/Culture
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER JORCD

Artist:	VEES, JACK
Title:	The Restaurant at the End of the Pier
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER JV1

Artist:	KAMPEC DOLORES
Title:	Rapid
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER KD1

Artist:	COOPER, LINDSAY
Title:	Rags
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER LCD

Artist:	LUSSIER/JEAN DEROME/CHRIS CUTLER, RENE
Title:	Three Suite Piece
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER LDC1

Artist:	MUSCI/VENOSTA
Title:	A Noise A Sound
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER MVCD2

Artist:	(EC) NUDES, THE
Title:	Vanishing Point
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER N1CD

Artist:	SUN RA ARKESTRA
Title:	Cosmo Sun Connection
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER SR1

Artist:	HODGKINSON, TIM
Title:	Pragma
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER TH1

Artist:	THINKING PLAGUE
Title:	In This Life
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER TPCD1