Browse by Label: TAIGA

Artist:	TORAL, RAFAEL
Title:	Space
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	2LP
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	TAIGA 001LP

Originally released on CD in 2006 by the Staubgold label, Taiga presents the deluxe 2LP version of Rafael Toral's Space, including one bonus track. This is a 2007 release from one of the most impressive new vinyl-only labels in the world. After over 15 years of drone and ambient work based around guitar and electronics, Rafael Toral has set off on a radically new mission. Leaving the guitar behind, Toral has equipped himself with instruments such as a Theremin-controlled white noise generator, amplified coil spring percussion, and a random pulse width modulation oscillator. With these, he has launched his jazz-fueled craft through Earth's atmosphere, into outer space. The resulting voyage is one where the sounds created recall the blast of a ray gun, the gurgle of a velociraptor, the rush of a primordial geyser, all seasoned with a vintage analog appeal and interspersed with meditative moments of silence. Toral's new approach to music, entitled the Space program, runs counter to his career thus far by focusing on performance instead of composition. The foundation and fundamental release of the program is Space. Using live and in-studio performances from 2004 and 2005, Toral designed Space as "an orchestral environment for electronic instruments." Following Space, the program continues with releases from the Space Solo series, documenting performances of individual instruments played unaccompanied, and the Space Elements series, featuring various collaborators while Toral focuses on a single piece of equipment. With previous releases by Toral on such respected labels as Touch, Table of the Elements and Ecstatic Peace, this exciting album by Toral is coincidentally Taiga's inaugural release as well as that of the Space program. It is presented here in a limited edition of 500 copies on direct-metal mastered 200 gram virgin vinyl. This version includes all of the original audio from the CD plus a previously-unreleased 17-minute vinyl-only bonus track, "Space Study 1.3," a live duet with percussionist César Burago. Packaged in a gatefold jacket designed by Helder Luís with spot metallic printing, the album boasts the Daniel Malhão photograph from the CD version expanded across the entire outside in UV gloss, an essay by Toral printed inside on reversed stock and the pockets flooded black.

Artist:	TORAL, RAFAEL
Title:	Space Solo 1
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 002LP

Originally released on CD by Staubgold side-label Quecksilber in 2007, Space Solo 1 is Rafael Toral's second release in his ongoing Space Program, a venturesomely bold series of recordings. Internationally-acclaimed for his experimental drone and ambient guitar work, the Space Program is completely divergent from his past output. Equipped with handmade instruments, Toral's project is a performance-based discipline, which he calls "post-free jazz electronic music." Following the Space Program's inaugural release, Space, Space Solo 1 presents a raw exploration of a select few instruments Toral designed for the series. In contrast to Space, which consists of thoughtfully layered recordings from various live and studio performances, Space Solo 1 presents unaccompanied instruments traveling through unfamiliar territories where sounds exist in their singularity. The result grabs at the listener to stay alert, tiptoeing around silent moments, increasingly mounting tension and inspiring awe. As each instrument hints at a particular language belonging only to itself, Toral's masterful playing is revealed as an instinctual process. Space Solo 1 is 44 minutes of otherworldly splashing, ripping, beeping, hissing, etc. An indefinite number of sounds carefully coaxed from unique instruments, drawing a blurry line between ancestral and futuristic. Now available on LP through Taiga, this deluxe audiophile version was mastered direct to metal, pressed on 200 gram transparent red virgin vinyl and is presented in a limited edition of 500 copies. The jacket was cleanly designed by Helder Luís at No Type, featuring the Rui Toscano drawing from the CD version printed on reversed stock with a pantone red flood in the pocket.

Artist:	TORAL, RAFAEL
Title:	Space Elements Vol. I
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 003LP

This is the third in Rafael Toral's Space Program series of releases -- his long-term research project launched in 2004, through which he has unearthed an innovative approach and a complete re-thinking of how electronic music is conceived and experienced. Using custom experimental instruments, Toral performs electronic music concerned with "phrasing and swing" and performing strange melodies with physicality, movement and gesture in flux. The result is something you're unlikely to have heard before, a kind of alien electronic jazz. After the acclaimed, orchestral Space and the follow-up Space Solo 1, this is the first volume of the Space Elements series, each release being focused on one kind of instrument, on small settings and including collaborations. Space Elements Vol. I features Rute Praça (cello), Margarida Garcia (electric double-bass), Sei Miguel's amazing percussionist César Burago, and David Toop (flute), besides a short appearance by Sei Miguel himself. From Toral's liner notes: "Having found that jazz is the field of musical knowledge where disciplined decision-making is most developed, this music is more informed by jazz than by any other. The Space Program emphasizes articulating silence and sound, by structuring musical discourse on experimental instruments with a simple and clear sonic identity. To my surprise, I found no historical precedents to this practice, being that it draws practically no information from electronic music history (which is grounded on different thinking patterns), and it draws very little from jazz history as well, since the instruments I use are inadequate to play any music based on the Western system. I regard this approach to jazz (meaning a system of individual decision-making from the standpoint of free-spectrum live electronics) as a new and exciting field of creative possibilities. I called it 'post-free jazz electronic music.'" Space Elements Vol. I was mastered direct to metal and pressed on clear 200 gram virgin vinyl in a limited edition of 500 copies. The jacket was designed by Helder Luís at No Type and features a collage by contemporary artist João Paulo Feliciano.

Artist:	IELASI, GIUSEPPE
Title:	(Another) Stunt
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	12"
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 006EP

The second in a series of 3 EPs by Giuseppe Ielasi focuses on the use of one turntable and vinyl records as the source for raw material, with pulses as the main organizational principle. Short segments and loops or longer and more complex improvisations were collected via "turntablism" rather than through traditional sampling. Mastered and cut to lacquer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Pressed on 200g virgin vinyl and packaged in a full-color gloss-varnished jacket printed on heavy stock. Photo by Italian artist Amedeo Martegani. Limited edition of 500.

Artist:	LOTUS EATERS
Title:	Mind Control For Infants
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	2LP
Price:	$38.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 008LP

Lotus Eaters is Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O))), KTL, etc.), James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher, etc.) and Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, etc.). Initially released on CD in 2002 by Neurot Recordings, Mind Control For Infants has been expanded, remixed and rearranged for this vinyl edition using alternate takes from the original recording sessions. Quietly subversive and contemplative, Mind Control For Infants features droning and silvery finger-picked guitars that conjure holy states, grumbling thunderclouds, and dark metal ambience that breathes in the stillness. This version also incorporates reconfigured material from "Marijuana," the group's contribution to The Ajna Offensive 4CD+book compilation, Infernal Proteus. This ultra-deluxe double LP release was cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl. It comes housed in an old-style Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket wrapped in foil-stamped brown linen with an 8x8" offset print mounted on the front cover. Heavy-duty printed innersleeves with flooded pockets are also included. Presented in a limited edition of 1000. Black vinyl.

Artist:	MAP
Title:	Fever Dream
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	2LP
Price:	$25.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 009LP

MAP is Mary Halvorson (guitar), Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion) and Reuben Radding (bass). Fever Dream is a vinyl-only release of high-temperature improvisations that elicit abstract thought. Following their first album, Six Improvisations For Guitar, Bass And Drums, a somber black & white affair with former bassist Clayton Thomas released on CD in 2004, Fever Dream blasts forth from the sweaty sheets of a sleepless night in vivid color. Meticulously recorded by new bassist Radding and mastered by James Plotkin, the trio sounds dense, bright and clear. Prolific in myriad collaborative configurations, all three members of MAP have been carving their own paths in the world of contemporary improvisation. According to Steve Dollar in the New York Sun, Halvorson "plays guitar in a way that fractures conventions, restlessly inventing her own paradigms." Julian Cowley wrote for Wire magazine, "Nakatani's sparse punctuation suggests observance of esoteric ritual." More than a side-project, MAP is intrinsic to these musicians' collective maturation and Fever Dream is evidence of advancement. This three-sided double LP was cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl, including a lacy D-side etching. It comes housed in an old-style Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket designed by Minneapolis firm Loaf Nest. The jacket is printed in blinding full-color on uncoated paper with cyan-flooded pockets. Presented in a limited edition of 1,000.

Artist:	TORAL, RAFAEL
Title:	Space Elements Vol. II
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 010LP

Space Elements Vol. II is the fourth release in Rafael Toral's ongoing project, the Space Program. Following the first Elements release, this volume features a new set of collaborators: Evan Parker (soprano sax), Manuel Mota (guitar), Afonso Simões (drums), Stefano Tedesco (vibraphone), João Paulo Feliciano (Rhodes piano), and Ruben Costa (digital synthesizer), as well as returning guests Sei Miguel (trumpet), César Burago (percussion), Fala Mariam (trombone), and Rute Praça (cello). Space Elements Vol. II displays a melodic quality that, along with a refined management of silence, marks a new area and consolidates the Space Program's complex network. Its spaciousness is explained in Toral's liner notes: "While finding ways to make decisions on sound emission, it became evident to me that such sounds should have a reason to exist, they should be essential and necessary." Dan Warburton's writing in The Wire about Space fits Space Elements Vol. II perfectly: "The melodic logic that drives certain instruments within Space also recalls birdsong, with dense, convoluted runs of twittering melody ending in single piping notes, as spontaneous as Messiaen's birdsong transcriptions were painstaking and meticulous." Toral's music is a jazz-inspired re-evaluation of live electronics: "Despite working in a sound world that is cosmetically closer to R2D2's vocabulary than Louis Armstrong's or John Coltrane's, Toral has claimed a kinship to jazz because it models instant music making within a disciplined framework." (Bill Meyer, Dusted); "Toral is looking for nothing less than a totally fresh language to work in" (The Wire). Space Elements Vol. II was mastered direct to metal from 24-bit files and pressed on clear 200 gram virgin-vinyl. With design by Helder Luis at NOTYPE, the LP features a collage by João Paulo Feliciano. Presented in a limited edition of 500. CD version available on Staubgold.

Artist:	QUIN, DOUGLAS
Title:	Fathom
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	TAIGA 011LP

Vinyl release, first 150 copies on clear vinyl. Douglas Quin is a U.S. sound designer, naturalist, public radio commentator, educator, and music composer. For over 20 years Quin has traveled widely, documenting natural soundscapes -- from Antarctic ice to Arctic tundra and from African savannah to Amazon rainforest. His recordings of endangered and disappearing habitats represent one of the most unique and extensive collections anywhere. Quin recently created the sound design for and mixed Werner Herzog's Academy Award® nominated film, Encounters At the End of the World. He contributed to the sound design for Spore, a game from Maxis/Electronic Art, and has also worked on exhibits for the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, and the Polish Academy of Sciences, among others. Quin's Fathom brings together four extended underwater soundscapes -- two each from the Arctic and Antarctic. The recordings have been gathered over a period of 15 years, capturing an extraordinary palette of sonic voices, events, spaces, and textures. To the human ear, these soundscapes are haunting and otherworldly; yet they are very much of this world -- out of ear-reach. The tracks are minimally-edited and are his first field recordings to be archived on vinyl. Included with the release is a sealed envelope containing an insert with specific locations, animals, and other elements heard, giving listeners the option to absorb sound with or without association. The envelope is printed with liner notes and comments from Dutch journalist and music critic René van Peer. Mastered by James Plotkin, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin-vinyl, Fathom comes packaged in custom letter-pressed materials and is presented as a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

Artist:	TIMELESS PULSE
Title:	Trio
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	2LP
Price:	$27.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 012LP

The Timeless Pulse trio is Pauline Oliveros (accordion), with percussionists George Marsh and Jennifer Wilsey. Released in honor of the 20th annual Deep Listening Retreats held this year in Camallera, Spain and Petaluma, California, this is the third Timeless Pulse album. Formed in 1991 during a residency at the Deep Listening Institute, the full ensemble, including Thomas Buckner and David Wessel, has released two live recordings on CD: Live At CNMAT and Quintet. This is the first time this entity has been stripped down to a trio, recorded in a studio and released on vinyl. Divided into four sides with titled subsections, the album includes guests Ione and Joyce Kouffman contributing spoken word and cello on "Real As Any Dream." Mastered for vinyl by Kenny Evans at Mesa Recording, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl, this double LP is limited to 500 copies. It comes packaged in the custom designed slipcover and jacket with double-wide spines used for the Deep Listening Band Then & Now Now & Then 2LP. The slipcover features two exquisite photographs and is dual-finished with a gloss front and uncoated back. The jacket is printed with metallic ink, has a flooded pocket and features an essay by Amy Beal, Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The sound world within which Timeless Pulse Trio prefers to work: sustained sounds like Pauline's accordion drones, gongs, bowed cymbals, ornamented by rattles, bells and the cracks and pops of the drum set and struck resonant objects ... These recordings emanate from a culture of active listening, as promoted and practiced by this trio, as well as by many other ensemble-based improvisers and meditative musical practices around the globe. The heart of free improvisation rests in the act of listening, and in the discovery inherent to that process." --excerpted from Beal's essay

Artist:	BEVERLIN II, BRYCE
Title:	Seizing Fate By The Throat
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	TAIGA 013LP

Bryce Beverlin II is a prolific multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. His primary discipline is music -- specifically, freely-improvised vocals and percussion. Seizing Fate By The Throat is a distillation, the spirit of 15 years of spittle and brass vapors collected in this studio recording from March 14, 2010. Quietly tinkering with an array of metal, plastic and wooden objects, Beverlin draws the listener in only to reveal that he is unlocking the cage of a life-threatening animal. Suddenly: gnash, gurgle, grunt, the sounds of saliva smacking on hand-peeled lips. His performances overwhelm, frighten and suck the air out of the room, exorcising burden and frustration. This recording captures every detail in extreme close-up from inside the artist's mouth to the tips of his fingers. Mastered by James Plotkin, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl, Seizing Fate By The Throat comes packaged in a full-color gloss varnished jacket with spot metallic printing and liner notes printed in the pocket. Limited to 300 copies only and co-released with Beverlin's label Insides Music.

Artist:	KAYO DOT
Title:	Coyote
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP
Price:	$25.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 014LP

Originally released on CD by Hydra Head in Spring 2010, TAIGA records now presents the deluxe vinyl version of Kayo Dot's melodramatic masterpiece Coyote. The album was mastered for vinyl by Mell Dettmer, cut direct-to-metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl with full-color labels featuring artwork by Toby Driver. The LP features alternate artwork from the CD version and is packaged in custom letterpress materials as an edition of 750. Printed on 200lb art paper, the letterpress jacket has notches at the opening where the ends of a 28x7" belt tuck in. The belt has more of Driver's art printed in offset full-color on the inside with letterpress printing on the outside. Coyote, Kayo Dot's fourth studio album, is a single, narrative-driven, long-form composition written with story and text provided by a close, terminally-ill friend of the band, Yuko Sueta, in the final stage of her life. Coyote was engineered by Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Six Organs Of Admittance) in Seattle, Washington, forging a new genre of "goth fusion," which combines elements of early The Cure, Faith And The Muse, and Bauhaus with Herbie Hancock's psychedelic album, Sextant, and Scott Walker's album, The Drift. The lyrics and story were constructed with deliberate melodrama to pay homage as well to the intended gothic vibe, expressing the protagonist's loneliness and longing to be in a better place, and her journey through her own personal looking-glass into a hallucinatory world of fear and wonder.

Artist:	LOTUS EATERS
Title:	Wurmwulv
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	2LP
Price:	$32.00
Catalog #:	TAIGA 015LP

Lotus Eaters is Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O))), KTL, etc.), James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher, etc.) and Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, etc.). Previously issued on CD, Plotkin has remixed, remastered and rearranged Wurmwulv for this vinyl edition using alternate takes from the original recording sessions. The 2LP also includes reworked material from Lotus Eaters' self-titled 7" released by Drone Records. 52 minutes and 29 seconds on 3 sides of direct metal mastered 200 gram virgin vinyl, the 2LP has a drawing by Turner etched on side D. Housed in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket designed by O'Malley, Wurmwulv features Stephen Kasner paintings printed on linen-textured woven paper, a spot varnished interior and flooded pockets. The Kasner paintings and Turner drawings included were created specifically for this vinyl edition of 1,000. Reconfigured for vinyl, Wurmwulv is a solvent-soaked carpet ride into loose soil. Worms writhe over cilia as moist roots lick and graze skin. The dampened howls of wolves reverberate through water freezing into creaking crystals. When oxygen levels reach a critical low, a cacophony of clanging metal provides an inhalation of humid air.

Artist:	TORAL, RAFAEL
Title:	Space Elements Vol. III
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	TAIGA 016LP

According to Rafael Toral, the Space Program is all about a simple idea: to perform abstract electronic music under jazz values. The result is full of fascinating paradoxes: "melodic without notes, rhythmic without a beat, familiar but strange, meticulous but radically free." Taiga now releases its most eloquent example so far: "Space Elements Vol. III is the strongest and musically most diverse statement within Rafael Toral's Space Program to date. You will experience "jazz on electronics" in full effect -- a totally new language in sound." --Staubgold; With blooming sound, compliments of the mastering by James Plotkin (not found on previous releases in the Space Program), Space Elements Vol. III has a very rhythmic, percussive character. It unfolds a fresh set of collaborations with an array of drummers and percussionists, while Toral's electronic phrasing reaches previously-unheard heights of maturity. Edition of 500 LPs featuring João Paulo Feliciano's artwork and graphic design by NOTYPE. Pressed on 200 gram plasma virgin vinyl, the LP was cut with DMM.

Artist:	HOUSE OF LOW CULTURE
Title:	Poisoned Soil
Label:	TAIGA
Format:	LP+12"
Price:	$31.00
Catalog #:	TAIGA 017LP

House Of Low Culture is the long-running solo project of Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer, Lotus Eaters, etc.) and Poisoned Soil is their first proper album to be released in nearly a decade. HOLC's first release, Submarine Immersion Techniques Vol. 1, would set the tone for all that would follow. Recorded from 1997-1999, released in 2000, the album explored lonely, lysergic drone territories and the construction of textural weavings. Over the course of the next several years, Turner broadened HOLC's sonic palette considerably -- incorporating voices, keyboard textures, and other non-guitar instrumentation -- while engaging in collaborative efforts with the likes of Merzbow/Masami Akita, James Plotkin, Z'ev, Stephen O'Malley and others. As of late, Faith Coloccia, Turner's wife (and bandmate in Mamiffer), has become a regular contributor. Her presence can be heard and felt on HOLC's new full-length recording, as can that of percussionist B.R.A.D (Asva, Master Musicians Of Bukkake, Burning Witch, etc). The three lengthy compositions within conjure a wide variety of spatial effects and spectral imagery when experienced under headphones: distant rumblings, ominous premonitions and strange equilibrium disturbances, all underscored by the hiss of naked electrical current. Mastered by James Plotkin, cut by John Golden and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl, Poisoned Soil is presented as a grand LP+12" set with spot colors, printed innersleeves and flooded pockets in an edition of 500.

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