AGUIRRE RECORDS - Forced Exposure

$30.50 NOT IN STOCK

Low-key synth and keyboard studio album by Swedish all-rounder Gustaf Dicksson. From the early days of the found-sounds recordings -- like the downright scary Unga Röster album (2015) and the hilarious "Mandys Bil" 7" (2016) -- the homespun kitchen recordings/tape collages of the still-going Idiotmusik series to the more carefully elaborated and precise Leendet Från Helvetet (2017) and Knutna Nävar (2018) albums, the massive Livets Ord dropped like a bomb when it originally surfaced as a self-released cassette in 2018. Heavily based on synths and keyboards and clocking in on no less than close 70 minutes over four LP-sides, this is arguably the epic album from the cluster around the Förlag För Fri Musik empire. Gustaf Dickssons's fascination for Christianity/religious assemblies shines through once again, the title Livets Ord ("The word of life") derived from the Swedish free church/sect with the same name that was based in Uppsala between 1983-2013 and casting a pastoral shadow over the ambient music of the album. While dabbling with a long tradition of kosmische musik and private-pressed new age wonders, Blod's now-patented sound of a Björn Isfält-gone-sour still lingers throughout the entire recording. A cornerstone in contemporary Gothenburg underground music. Featuring guest appearances by Emelie Thulin and Jerker Jarold. Includes insert; edition of 300.

$22.00 NOT IN STOCK

Wonderful lo-fi synthpop/collage LP by Marseillaise duo Jean-Marie Mercimek. Something has been brewing in France in recent years. Underground record shops, small venues, micro labels, and young musicians are creating a new vibe in various parts of the country. A broad range of styles and genres get randomly mixed into a melting pot with refreshing results. Jean Marie-Mercimek is one of those projects coming out of this new scene. The duo of Marion Molle and Ronan Riou revisits French lo-fi synth pop in a fairytale-like way, utilizing their collection of rare automatic Casio keyboards, frequency modulation chanson, and tape collages towards a multi-layered comic book journey in form of a concert. As if there was an animated wax brush painted cartoon version of Elli & Jacno. Includes insert; edition of 250.

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Aguirre Records present a first time vinyl reissue of Morgan Fisher and Lol Coxhill's Slow Music, originally from 1981. Unique improv/ambient album by two creative minds. Cherry Red generously gave Morgan Fisher musical carte-blanche by offering to distribute a label of his own so, like his studio, he called his label Pipe. For the first album he decided to record an album of ambient music. Rather than using synths, Morgan decided to invite soprano sax supremo Lol Coxhill to supply some raw material which he then processed in various ways. The opening track is based on Lol's beautiful performance of Handel's Largo, recycled through tape delays, VCS3 filters, and octave shifts. The result (in Morgan's opinion) is somewhat like a Mexican funeral march. Other tracks transform the sound of the sax sound into bells(!) and lush orchestral soundscapes. The 20-minute title track is based on the melody of the short closing track (which Lol sang, accompanied by church bells). Morgan recorded phrases from the melody using piano, guitar, bass, and voice. He snipped off the beginning of each note (about 5mm of tape) making the sounds less recognizable, then looped each phrase and recorded long stretches of the loops onto individual tracks of his 8-track TEAC. Finally, he created this piece in real time by fading tracks in-and-out through long tape delays. This pioneering work took weeks of intense experimenting and has been cited as an influence by several top Japanese artists such as Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Lol Coxhill passed away after a long illness, on July 10 2012, aged 79. RIP. Transparent green and black vinyl.

$23.00 IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present a reissue of Maggi Payne's Ahh-Ahh, originally released in 2012 on Root Strata. Originally composed by Maggi Payne between 1984-1987 for the performance group Technological Feets. Formed by video artist Ed Tennenbaum in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1981, the group combines dance, live video processing, and music. Composed on an Apple II computer and various early sampling devices, Payne's compositions are a vibrant response to the call from the moving body. Populated with buoyant pulses, graceful analog swells, dense fog-like drones, and cascading rhythms that shift in space, Ahh-Ahh is a vital document of not only these early collaborations, but of computer-based music as well. She studied with many greats in the field, including Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley, and David Berhman.

$27.50 IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present a reissue of Maggi Payne's Arctic Winds, originally released on CD in 2010. Fully immersive electronic music by US composer Maggi Payne, inspired by the arctic winds. Payne's sound worlds invite the listeners to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile and visible. The music is based on location recordings, with each sound carefully selected for its potential -- its slow unfolding revealing delicate intricacies -- and its inherent spatialization architecting and sculpting the aural space where multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist. With good speakers, some space in your schedule, and a mind-body continuum willing to resonate with Payne's electroacoustic journey, but then it will take you to places that other music can't reach. From the sounds of dry ice, space transmissions, BART trains, and poor plumbing she immerses the listener in a world strangely unfamiliar. Maggi Payne is a composer, video artist, recording engineer, photographer, and flutist and is co-director of the Center for Contemporary Music and a faculty member at Mills College, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

$23.50 IN STOCK

New album by New Zealand composer and guitarist Roy Montgomery in close collaboration with Emma Johnston. After Nietzsche is a response to Nietzsche's assertion in Twilight of the Idols (1889) that "Without music, life would be a mistake." Roy Montgomery and Emma Johnston recast this as "Life is a mistake set to music" and they take issue with one of Nietzsche's principal tenets concerning fate. After Nietzsche is in a way the sister-album to 2018's Suffuse, where Montgomery composes songs for guest vocalists. Only this time it's in close partnership with Emma Johnston. Montgomery's distinctive, interweaving guitar play is set as background for Emma Johnston's angelic vocals and experimentations. Swimming through the four tracks of the album, it's surprising to notice how different they are. The opening track could have been plucked from one of Montgomery's '80s projects, while the rest of the A side takes you into more shadowy territory. "Realm Of The Senses" with its slow strumming and echoing vocals evokes Grouper, and the title track, with dramatic vocals and strings, cleverly builds up to a climax that never happens. The last song clocking in at just over twenty minutes is a post-postmodern duet between the two musicians in a dark philosophical mood. Included insert with lyrics; Calligraphy by Liz Harris (Grouper); Cover by Trudi Cameron. Mastering by Kris Delacourt. Edition of 500.

Roy Montgomery is a composer, guitarist, and lecturer from Christchurch, New Zealand. Montgomery's mostly instrumental solo works have elements of post-rock, lo-fi, folk, and avant-garde experimentation. His signature sound might be described as atmospheric or cinematic, often featuring complex layers of chiming, echoing and/or droning guitar phrases. He is currently head of the Environmental Management department at Lincoln University in New Zealand. Montgomery has played in several New Zealand bands since 1980, most notably The Pin Group, Dadamah, Dissolve, and Hash Jar Tempo. He has also released solo albums on labels including Kranky and Drunken Fish.

Emma Johnston, a classically trained singer, she has developed a practice that explores experimental voice in theater. This led to her MA and then PhD theses, which explore her work in the context of experimental voice in avant-garde performance. Emma has also worked as a singer and actor with Silencio Ensemble, the Christchurch Symphony, and Corrupt Productions, and has premiered vocal works by composers Chris Reddington and Gao Ping. Alongside her ongoing Free Theatre work, she enjoys collaborating with artists such as Reuben Derrick and Roy Montgomery on a diversity of projects.

$33.00 IN STOCK

Double LP version; Edition of 700. High glossy gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves; Includes download code. Aguirre Records present Sleepline, a crucial album by vaporwave pioneer Ramona Vektroid, here released under the moniker New Dreams Ltd. Ramona is widely recognized as instigator of the vaporwave genre with her celebrated album Floral Shoppe (2011). Vektroid (Ramona Xavier) is an electronic musician and artist based in Portland, but her reputation has hinged almost entirely on her hypertextual virtual presence. While she's most often pigeonholed as being a primary artist behind vaporwave -- a net-based microgenre notorious for its wholesale appropriations and meme-like propagation -- she has been releasing music since 2006 in a variety of styles and under a dizzying array of nom de plumes, from Vektordrum and Macintosh Plus to Laserdisc Visions and 情報デスクVIRTUAL. Within the sprawling, obsessive vaporwave community, Vektroid's 2011 album Floral Shoppe (as Macintosh Plus) has become canonized as its most representative transmission, an unlikely feat for a style of music that challenged not only our taste profiles, but also what could be considered "art" to begin with. But like most styles of music, what's on paper never aligns perfectly with the actual music, and Vektroid is a shining example of an artist whose talents extend beyond the regurgitated checklists of a now concretized genre. Two of her strongest albums, though, served as beautiful outliers that continue to resist easy categorization. Sleepline (released as New Dreams Ltd.), plays in the liminal space between states of consciousness, inducing a hazy, deteriorating quality that stands in contrast to Shader Complete's mostly hi-definition aesthetics (ZORN 057CD/LP). It was written in winter 2013-2014, but it didn't see an official release until 2016. Originally conceived as a Sacred Tapestry sequel called Transcontinent, the album saw Xavier returning to her plunderphonic tactics, looping and down-pitching what sounds like decades-old Japanese commercials. This time, Xavier sought out source material that would more readily fall under fair use, attempting to bridge the aesthetic gap between her works by foregrounding her editing techniques as much as transforming the source material. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

$14.50 IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present Sleepline, a crucial album by vaporwave pioneer Ramona Vektroid, here released under the moniker New Dreams Ltd. Ramona is widely recognized as instigator of the vaporwave genre with her celebrated album Floral Shoppe (2011). Vektroid (Ramona Xavier) is an electronic musician and artist based in Portland, but her reputation has hinged almost entirely on her hypertextual virtual presence. While she's most often pigeonholed as being a primary artist behind vaporwave -- a net-based microgenre notorious for its wholesale appropriations and meme-like propagation -- she has been releasing music since 2006 in a variety of styles and under a dizzying array of nom de plumes, from Vektordrum and Macintosh Plus to Laserdisc Visions and 情報デスクVIRTUAL. Within the sprawling, obsessive vaporwave community, Vektroid's 2011 album Floral Shoppe (as Macintosh Plus) has become canonized as its most representative transmission, an unlikely feat for a style of music that challenged not only our taste profiles, but also what could be considered "art" to begin with. But like most styles of music, what's on paper never aligns perfectly with the actual music, and Vektroid is a shining example of an artist whose talents extend beyond the regurgitated checklists of a now concretized genre. Two of her strongest albums, though, served as beautiful outliers that continue to resist easy categorization. Sleepline (released as New Dreams Ltd.), plays in the liminal space between states of consciousness, inducing a hazy, deteriorating quality that stands in contrast to Shader Complete's mostly hi-definition aesthetics (ZORN 057CD/LP). It was written in winter 2013-2014, but it didn't see an official release until 2016. Originally conceived as a Sacred Tapestry sequel called Transcontinent, the album saw Xavier returning to her plunderphonic tactics, looping and down-pitching what sounds like decades-old Japanese commercials. This time, Xavier sought out source material that would more readily fall under fair use, attempting to bridge the aesthetic gap between her works by foregrounding her editing techniques as much as transforming the source material. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

$33.00 IN STOCK

Double LP version; Edition of 700. High glossy gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves; Includes download code. Aguirre Records present Shader Complete, a definitive version of the Shader album by vaporwave pioneer Ramona Vektroid, here under the moniker Sacred Tapestry. Ramona is widely recognized as instigator of the vaporwave genre with her celebrated album Floral Shoppe (2011). Vektroid (Ramona Xavier) is an electronic musician and artist based in Portland, but her reputation has hinged almost entirely on her hypertextual virtual presence. While she's most often pigeonholed as being a primary artist behind vaporwave -- a net-based microgenre notorious for its wholesale appropriations and meme-like propagation -- she has been releasing music since 2006 in a variety of styles and under a dizzying array of nom de plumes, from Vektordrum and Macintosh Plus to Laserdisc Visions and 情報デスクVIRTUAL. Within the sprawling, obsessive vaporwave community, Vektroid's 2011 album Floral Shoppe (as Macintosh Plus) has become canonized as its most representative transmission, an unlikely feat for a style of music that challenged not only our taste profiles, but also what could be considered "art" to begin with. But like most styles of music, what's on paper never aligns perfectly with the actual music, and Vektroid is a shining example of an artist whose talents extend beyond the regurgitated checklists of a now concretized genre. Two of her strongest albums, though, served as beautiful outliers that continue to resist easy categorization. Shader Complete is an exquisite, multi-faceted album that pivots effortlessly between widescreen electronic synthscapes, atmospheric drones, and claustrophobic appropriations. It's the latest permutation of a release that originally arrived in summer 2012 as Sacred Tapestry. That version, titled Shader, was written during the first couple months at her new home of Portland, marking a period of instability and existential confusion. Concerned at the time that this was her final release, the record was paired with a cryptic note about body transmigration from fictitious Hong Kong company PrismCorp, hinting at the possibility of the album being her "final transmission". It wasn't until 2016 when it was reworked to its current state as Shader Complete, which saw Xavier reinterpreting the album to include orphaned tracks from the Color Ocean Road (2012, as Vektroid) sessions. This makes Shader Complete something like a lost sequel to Color Ocean Road. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

$14.50 IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present Shader Complete, a definitive version of the Shader album by vaporwave pioneer Ramona Vektroid, here under the moniker Sacred Tapestry. Ramona is widely recognized as instigator of the vaporwave genre with her celebrated album Floral Shoppe (2011). Vektroid (Ramona Xavier) is an electronic musician and artist based in Portland, but her reputation has hinged almost entirely on her hypertextual virtual presence. While she's most often pigeonholed as being a primary artist behind vaporwave -- a net-based microgenre notorious for its wholesale appropriations and meme-like propagation -- she has been releasing music since 2006 in a variety of styles and under a dizzying array of nom de plumes, from Vektordrum and Macintosh Plus to Laserdisc Visions and 情報デスクVIRTUAL. Within the sprawling, obsessive vaporwave community, Vektroid's 2011 album Floral Shoppe (as Macintosh Plus) has become canonized as its most representative transmission, an unlikely feat for a style of music that challenged not only our taste profiles, but also what could be considered "art" to begin with. But like most styles of music, what's on paper never aligns perfectly with the actual music, and Vektroid is a shining example of an artist whose talents extend beyond the regurgitated checklists of a now concretized genre. Two of her strongest albums, though, served as beautiful outliers that continue to resist easy categorization. Shader Complete is an exquisite, multi-faceted album that pivots effortlessly between widescreen electronic synthscapes, atmospheric drones, and claustrophobic appropriations. It's the latest permutation of a release that originally arrived in summer 2012 as Sacred Tapestry. That version, titled Shader, was written during the first couple months at her new home of Portland, marking a period of instability and existential confusion. Concerned at the time that this was her final release, the record was paired with a cryptic note about body transmigration from fictitious Hong Kong company PrismCorp, hinting at the possibility of the album being her "final transmission". It wasn't until 2016 when it was reworked to its current state as Shader Complete, which saw Xavier reinterpreting the album to include orphaned tracks from the Color Ocean Road (2012, as Vektroid) sessions. This makes Shader Complete something like a lost sequel to Color Ocean Road. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

$26.50 NOT IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present a reissue of In Paris, Aries 1973 by the Black Artists Group. "This outstanding free jazz session was recorded in 1973 in Paris by Chicago outfit. It was Lester Bowie, trumpeter with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, who suggested that the Black Artists Group should head for Paris. In 1972, several members took his advice and flew to France for an extended stay. The following year, a concert featuring saxophonist Oliver Lake, trumpeters Baikida Carroll and Floyd LeFlore, drummer Charles Bobo Shaw and trombonist Joseph Bowie (Lester's younger brother) was recorded and subsequently issued as In Paris, Aries 1973, a limited LP on the group's own label. Since their formation in 1968, the home of the collective had been St Louis, the city where the Bowies had grown up. It was there that Lester started to play, before moving, to Chicago in 1966, where he joined the recently-established Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). His close friend Lake visited, attended AACM concerts and meetings and was inspired by their artistic vision, integrity, and organization. In June 1969, the Art Ensemble had taken their music to France, with its reputation for audiences that were open-minded and receptive to the music of innovators such as Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and others. In Paris, Aries 1973 offers a fascinating glimpse into that phase of BAG's existence. The album is dedicated to the memory of Kada Kayan, a bassist who had hoped to make the trip from St Louis but had grown ill and died. His absence adds special poignancy to the sound of the bass when it appears on this recording, played by Carroll. In Paris, Aries 1973 reveals BAG's musical affinities with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Both groups preserved an independently-minded approach to the notion of free jazz and a carefully filtered awareness of pan-African musical practices, while their creative interest in space, mobile structure, chance occurrences and simultaneity also suggests parallels with the concerns of leading experimental composers working at that time. These performances in Paris of Shaw's "Something to Play On" and Lake's "Re-Cre-A-Tion," plus two collective compositions/improvisations, display the dedication to structural fluency and sensitivity to coloration that accompanied BAG's unorthodox group dynamics and their unconventional instrumental combinations. This is not a showcase for solos, but a shape-shifting and multi-centered statement of togetherness and discovery."--Julian Cowley. Edition of 500.

$26.50 NOT IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present a reissue of Infinite Sound's Contemporary African-Amerikan Music. This is conscious free jazz featuring Roland P. Young, originally released in 1975 on the eclectic 1750 Arch records. "'1750 Arch was a beautiful Spanish-style hacienda,'recalls Young. 'It had a recording studio in the basement and the salon was a performance.' Young played solo gigs there and also in duo with cellist Chris Chaffe. He remembers it as a particularly 'transcendent' setting for concerts by this trio, with singer Aisha Kahlil and bassist Glenn Howell. 'What appeared to be 'experimental' was reaching for sounds and emotions that were unfamiliar. We performed at rallies in support of various causes; our ultimate goal was a blending of cultures.' In 1968, Young was working as a DJ at KSAN, an underground rock station in San Francisco. 'Glenn used to call me when I was on air to comment about the music I was playing; he was a musician and I invited him to come talk about music, then decided to play. The pair met Kahlil at one of their concerts. 'A mutual friend introduced her and told us she was a good vocalist, loved our music and wanted to sing with us. We invited her to a rehearsal and soon after invited her to join the group. Infinite Sound came together easily; we had a shared intuition, and created a lot of music. Each of us would bring ideas to rehearsals and we would work on them. We talked about how to present our material and how compositions would flow; we were also conscious of how we dressed for performances, how we moved on stage, how we interacted with each other and the audience. On occasion we would invite dancers to perform with us, friends of Aisha.' Contemporary African-Amerikan Music preserves a fascinating glimpse of the trio in action. Their compositions embrace mobile forms, with Howell's buoyant bass taking a role around which Young's horns and Kahlil's voice move. Rhythms dissolve into textures, and melodic shapes soften or flare into exuberant bursts of tonal color. The music's mood swings unpredictably from flamboyance to introspection. Moments of musical allusiveness mutate into passages of wild inventiveness. Tantalizingly, this was this trio's only release. Times have changed, yet increasingly in recent years creative artists have come to accept the need to erase musical boundaries and erode the constraints of aesthetic categorization." --Julian Cowley. Edition of 500.

$25.50 IN STOCK

An Island In The Moon is the perfectly-conceived minimal ambient project from Italian composers Pier Luigi Andreoni (Doubling Riders, ATROX) and Silvio Linardi. They take their name, Andreolina as a portmanteau of their names; both were deeply involved with the label Auf Dem Nil on which the album was originally released in 1990. The duo stick to a disciplined and simple palette, using only two synthesizers and a Roland S50 sampler. They are joined by fellow electronic journeyman Riccardo Sinigaglia, who contributes piano and samples on two tracks. Taking influences from Italian minimalism while adding some jazz hints, Andreolina sprawls over weightless instrumentals that never stay soporific for too long on this singularly rare album. Auf Dem Nil or ADN was one of the most adventurous Italian record labels of the '80s and early '90s with releases by De Fabriek, Sinigaglia and Pierre Bastien, leaving its mark on the experimental music scene back than and influencing musicians worldwide up until today. Edition of 500.

$23.50 IN STOCK

Many years in the works, Ōgon Batto finally unleashes his album Hedoro. A journey into Japanese soundtracks and '90s adventure-gaming. Ōgon Batto is Bent Von Bent from Antwerp, Belgium. Besides working as a visual artist around archiving systems and collections, he is also the co-runner of the Hare Akedod label, together with David Edren, aka DSR Lines. Following his debut release (2014), Ōgon Batto secretly started working on a second album Hedoro, meaning "slime" or "chemical ooze". Bent is immensely fascinated by Japanese traditional and contemporary culture ever since he first visited the country. Mixing his European background with these Japanese influences, he shifts easily between abstract electronic tracks and pieces with a more classical Japanese tool kit. Think Oneohtrix Point Never or Mica Levi composing a soundtrack to a fantasy game. With an amazing sense for detail Hedoro's musical story -- entirely composed with synthesizers -- is reduced to a collection of situations and drama, with space for suggestion and imagination. Every track, how short it may be, is essential to the whole, maximizing the general dramatic effect. The album was mixed in Sapporo, Japan with the typical sounds of cicadas on the background (not on the album though) and some glasses of sake. The ceramic sculpture on the front cover is a reinterpretation of Rolls Royce's "Spirit of Ecstasy" and is created by Benny Van den Meulengracht-Vrancx. Remastered by Kris Delacourt. High-glossy sleeve; Edition of 300.

$36.50 IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present a reissue of Taj Mahal Travellers' August 1974, originally released in 1975. A monumental work by the Japanese experimental music ensemble. In April 1972 a group of Japanese musicians set off from Rotterdam in a Volkswagen van. As they crossed Europe and then made their way through Asia they made music in a wide range of locations. They also paid close attention to the changing scene and to differing ways of life. Midway through May they reached their destination, the iconic Taj Mahal on the bank of the Yamuna river in Agra, India. The Taj Mahal Travellers had fulfilled physically the promise of the name they adopted when they formed in 1969. The double album August 1974 was their second official release. The first July 15, 1972 is a live concert recording, but on August 19th, 1974 the Taj Mahal Travellers entered the Tokyo studios of Nippon Columbia and produced what is arguably their definitive statement. The electronic dimension of their collective improvising was coordinated, as usual, by Kinji Hayashi. Guest percussionist Hirokazu Sato joined long-term group members Ryo Koike, Seiji Nagai, Yukio Tsuchiya, Michihiro Kimura, Tokio Hasegawa, and Takehisa Kosugi. The enigmatic Takehisa Kosugi, whose soaring electric violin was such a vital element in their music, had been a pioneer of free improvisation and intermedia performance art with Group Ongaku at the start of the '60s. Later in that decade, before launching the Taj Mahal Travellers, he had become known internationally through his association with the fluxus art movement. During the mid-70s the Travellers disbanded and while his colleagues more or less stopped performing as musicians Kosugi continued to reach new audiences across the course of several decades as a composer, regular performer, and musical director for the acclaimed Merce Cunningham Dance Company. August 1974 captures vividly the characteristic sound of the Taj Mahal Travellers, haunting tones from an unusual combination of instruments, filtered through multiple layers of reverb and delay. Their music has strong stylistic affinities with the trippy ambience of cosmic and psychedelic rock, but the Taj Mahal Travellers were tuning in to other vibrations, drawing inspiration from the energies and rhythms of the world around them rather than projecting some alternative reality. Films of rolling ocean waves often provided a highly appropriate backdrop for their lengthy improvised concerts. Licensed from Columbia Japan. Remastered and lacquer cut by Rashad Becker.

$31.00 IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present a reissue of Distant Voices, Steve Lacy's rare Japanese collaboration album, originally released in 1976. Renowned for remarkable solo concerts that confirmed his mastery of the soprano horn and that carried its instrumental language into previously unexplored regions, Lacy also loved to collaborate with musicians who could inspire him to stretch the boundaries of his own artistry. During the summer of 1975 Lacy toured Japan, and on June 24th he entered a Nippon Columbia studio in Tokyo with Yuji Takahashi and Takehisa Kosugi, two adventurous kindred spirits, guaranteed to fire Lacy's creative imagination. The fascinating outcome of that dynamic session is Distant Voices, an album without parallel in Lacy's extensive discography. Composer Iannis Xenakis was so impressed when he heard Yuji Takahashi playing piano in 1961 that he later wrote music especially for him. His repertoire extends back to Bach and Purcell yet for Takahashi, music has remained an open quest and a process of discovery. Takehisa Kosugi on the other hand has been a legendary figure in the international avant-garde since the mid-1960s when his work was endorsed by the fluxus movement. In Japan he was by then already well established as leading practitioner of experimental music and intermedia performance art. At the time Distant Voices was recorded Kosugi had also developed a following for his electric violin playing with the Taj Mahal Travellers, a group whose sound had strong stylistic affinities with psychedelic rock and space music. Subsequently other audiences worldwide came to know Kosugi through his long association as a composer, performer, and musical director with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. On 24th June 1975 Takahashi sat at a grand piano, with celeste and vibraphone alongside him and small bells attached to his hands. Kosugi was equipped with violin, flute, mouth organ, an electronic modulator, porcelain bowls and at times he used his voice. Lacy played soprano saxophone, of course. Now and then he pressed the mouth of the instrument against the skin of a kettle drum. He occasionally fiddled with a transistor radio, and also found uses for a stepladder, a toothbrush, and a spinning wheel. This was in no sense a routine musical session. Distant Voices preserves a unique occasion when three singular musicians joined together to embrace the unknown. Licensed from Columbia Japan. Remastered and lacquer cut by Rashad Becker. 180 gram vinyl.

$25.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Aguirre Records present the first vinyl reissue of Randall McCellan's The Healing Music Of Rana Vol. 2, originally released on cassette in 1983. Exceptional recordings by this new age maestro, only recently re-discovered by his friend JD Emmanuel and the band Sun Araw. Randall McClellan was a founding member of the electronic music studio at the Eastman School of Music in 1967 where he later received a Ph.D. in Composition, Theory and Musicology. A growing interest in North Indian music and vocal technique prompted him to develop his personal compositional practice into an active platform for inducing altered states of mind. He constructed his concerts to be spaces for harmonization of mind and body through a musical practice informed by his esoteric studies of ancient mystery schools and sacred geometry, believing these to be primarily teachings on intentional resonance. These performances were given between 1977 and 1983 in semi-darkened spaces that allowed listeners to relax on carpeting while being enveloped by sound. Each improvisation lasts from 25 to 45 minutes. An entire performance is up to three hours and is designed to provide an environment of meditative sound. His final live performance took place at New York City's Alternative Museum in October, 1983. The Music Of Rana Enviromental Series uses synthesizers, drone box, tamboura, voice, and tape delay to create an environment of continuously evolving multi-layered melody. Described as subtle, graceful, and of other worlds. The name Rana ("Sunbreath") has its origin in ancient philosophical concepts that recognized vibration as the fundamental creative force and central principle of the many esoteric mystery schools of the ancient world. In the broadest sense, the practice of music for its healing ability may well stand as our oldest continuous musical tradition. This album is the second volume in the series, and part of the cassette box set published by Sun Ark in 2013. This music is based on principles outlined in Randall's book, The Healing Forces of Music: History, Theory and Practice (1988). These compositions are selected for their meditational and healing abilities. EQ settings of treble and bass levels determine the music's effect upon you. Please explore until the most comfortable settings are found. Instrumentation includes the Moog Prodigy and MicroMoog synthesizer. RIYL: Joanna Brouk, JD Emmanuel, Iasos. 180 gram vinyl; Edition of 500.

$28.50 NOT IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present the first official vinyl reissue of Fifty Foot Hose's Cauldron, originally released on Limelight in 1967. Cauldron is the legendary psychedelic jazzy rock and electronic album by Californian band Fifty Foot Hose. Fifty Foot Hose formed in San Francisco in 1967. Like few other acts of their time, they consciously tried to combine the contemporary sounds of rock with electronic instruments and avant-garde compositional ideas. They were one of the most radical groups of the psychedelic era, and their experimentalism still has the power to shock and surprise even now. What set them apart were the pioneering experiments in electronic music, like the band they are often compared to, The United States of America. Incorporating Theremin, siren, audio generators, and other various electronic effects, as Cork Marcheschi, the band's original bass player, had developed an acute interest in the dadaist/futurist experiments of composers like John Cage and Edgar Varese. David and Nancy Blossom brought both psychedelic and jazz influences to the band. Cauldron, their only album, was released in December 1967, including "Fantasy", "Red The Sign Post", and "God Bless The Child", a Billie Holiday cover. Their sound experiments differentiated them from their contemporaries and most audiences didn't quite know what to make of them. Fifty Foot Hose's music leans more towards White Noise, Silver Apples, and especially United States of America, rather than to flower power movement. After only one album, the proto-cyber psych outfit passed as quickly as they came. Their only mention would be a name-check in Ralph J. Gleason's 1969 book, The Jefferson Airplane And The San Francisco Sound, published over a year after their demise. Ralph J. Gleason wrote: "I don't know if they're immature or premature." History has proven them to be the latter. Today, the original album is very collectable and considered a touchstone of avant-garde rock music. Cork Marcheschi on the record: "The concept was to expand what contemporary popular music was. I thought the avant-garde could have had a home with this new group of listeners but they turned out to be pretty conservative -- intellectually. Drugs were fine -- sex was fine -- stop the wars was good but when challenged with abstract art., they reacted like conservative people look at a Jackson Pollock painting." Cover reconstruction by Jeroen Wille. Remastered by Equus. Includes replica of the original insert. 180 gram vinyl; Edition of 1000.

$23.00 NOT IN STOCK

Aguirre Records present the first vinyl edition of France's Occitanie, originally released in 2009. Savage pulsating drone-rock from France, the trio of Jeremie Sauvage on electric bass, Mathieu Tilly on drums, and Yann Gourdon on amplified hurdy-gurdy. They play one note/one rhythm, producing energetic performances reminiscent of the early collaborations between Faust and Tony Conrad. Creatively recycled influences result in intense shows with pounding overtones and repetitive pulsing rhythms. Loud, straight, and trance-inducing. On Occitanie, in the mass of sound, the rhythmic repetition and the elongated drones. The hurdy-gurdy forces you deeper, highlighting points of microtonal flux, cracking open the single note, the nodding rhythm, to imply the presence of every note, every sound, inside it. The insensible evolution lurks in a corner of noise and finally imposes itself slowly on careful listening. The band members of France perform in various other projects: Tanz Mein Herz, Toad and Jérico, all are member of the collective La Novià, an organization based in Haute-Loire which brings together professional musicians and acts as a place for reflection and experimentation around traditional and or experimental music. In 2009, France was invited to play in Pau, a city far south-west of France, next to Spain, by the people running Pagans Musica, a like-minded traditional-oriented group of people, also bent on educational issues concerning the local music and dialect: Occitan and on fusing traditional musics and rock related sounds and instruments. They had set up a show for France and their band Artus and originally wanted to have Acid Mothers Temple join the bill. The Japanese band had done versions of songs coming from their village, but weren't touring near France so instead they invited Duo Ancelin-Rouzier as the third act, a band both Artus and France were also very fond of. Pagans had everything set-up for the concert to be recorded and as France had plenty of time for sound-check, they went on to record the Pau album (2011) in the afternoon, taking a thirty seconds pause in the middle of the session so as to mark both sides of the vinyl. Occitanie is a recording of the live set later that night, with no cut and a longer, more savage performance. Artwork by Standard In-Fi Visuals. Recorded live by Tòmas Baudoin and Yannick Prévost; Mastering by Kris Delacourt. High-glossy sleeve; Edition of 500.

$25.50 IN STOCK

With hard-to-define instruments, Varkenshond creates ritual and tribal madness in the vein of early Silvester Afang and Zero Kama. Varkenshond was founded in 2006 in Antwerp, Belgium while the to-be members were studying Maggergergorian spiritual philosophy with Wim Vanaeghe, Thomas "Gergeti" Kreuzfeld, and Koera Mönggüm Sorgan. They released a CD in 2007, the result of a series of therapeutic music sessions led by G. Karkaronga, and a cassette in 2013, a selection of songs and meditations recorded with local musicians in Brazil, Belarus, China, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, and Russia. Hargawaan Por Shail is a collaboration with animal communicator, flute player, and percussionist Yori Yoki. It consists of Támoldut and Maggergorian vocal and instrumental traditional music from Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe. The album includes the first recording ever of the instrument "Life Hooter" and an atmospheric electric version of "Qéfelni". Mastered by Kris Delacourt. Standard edition: Hand-assembled glossy sleeves; A4-insert; Edition of 150.

$26.50 NOT IN STOCK

Sold out, repress possible in 2018... Aguirre Records present a reissue of Maggi Payne's challenging electronic album Crystal, originally released in 1986. Maggi Payne is an American composer, flutist, video artist, and co-director of the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College where she teaches recording engineering, composition, and electronic music. Her work involves electroacoustic, instrumental, and vocal works along with works involving visuals, including dancers outfitted with electroluminescent wire and videos she creates using images ranging from nature to the abstract. She has composed music for dance, theatre, and video. Crystal was first released in 1986 on the Lovely Music label. Home to experimental musicians such as Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Pauline Oliveros, and Alvin Lucier. On Crystal, flute, spoken voice, sonifications, and synthesizers are processed to create dense and massive structures. Maggi Payne's musical imagination is vivid: she is interested in the surreal, the inward, the micro, and the accumulation of physical and psychological tension. Periods of silence gently evolve into flowing drones of complex resonances. Oozing drones evolve into dense and powerful peaks of short duration. The compositions and sounds on Crystal have incredible depth, a profound logic and, though not "pretty", an irresistible beauty. 180 gram vinyl; Remastered and cut at 45rpm by Rashad Becker; Gatefold sleeve with liner notes by the artist; Artwork by Atelier Brenda.

Maggi Payne on Crystal: "I create immersive environments, inviting listeners/participants to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile, visible, tangible. A narrative of the imagination exists, allowing each person experiencing the work to thread their own paths through their mind's imagination and their body's physical engagement. Each sound slowly unfolds, revealing intricacies and complexity. Each grows and evolves like crystals forming under the microscope. . . . I visualize the sound as originating from, for instance, a point source below where one is standing, then it swirls outward and upward in an ever-expanding spiral until it disappears high over the listener's head, morphing as it travels. Spatialization is not imposed when mixing, but is instead created in the original recording by increasing the amplitude of the sound on one track then decreasing its amplitude as the identical frequency is matched on the next track while it is increasing its amplitude, dovetailing the tracks across the space. Using extensive multi-tracking, the spatialization is retained, architecting and sculpting the aural space so that multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist."

$36.00 IN STOCK

Limited restock. The classic minimal music album is now available again on vinyl for the first time since the '70s. During the 1970s, Californian composer Terry Riley concentrated on solo keyboard performances, continuing to make music yet writing down almost nothing. Riley selected a mode, chose a few motifs or basic patterns and then, seated on the floor in front of his audience, improvised on electronic keyboard. The electric organ, superseded at later concerts by a synthesizer, was portable and consistent. By the early '70s, Riley had come to feel that scores were a distraction. Faithful interpretation of an already written piece was a deviation from the true purpose of making music, which was spiritual quest. Fortunately, some of those live performances were captured on tape. Persian Surgery Dervishes, issued initially on the French label Shandar in 1972, features two such concerts for electric organ and reel-to-reel delay, one recorded in Los Angeles on April 18th, 1971, the other in Paris on May 24th, 1972. At the start of that decade, Riley became a dedicated student of the great Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Looking into North Indian classical tradition, he found correspondences to modal and cyclic ideas that he was already working on. In 1971, Riley started teaching Indian music at Mills College, in Oakland. That experience fed directly into his solo keyboard performances, but other influences were also shaping his music. Personal research into ancient Persian culture and the poetry of Rumi lit up his imagination, while the repetitive swirling of Sufi devotional music from North Africa and jazz, an enduring source of inspiration, reverberate through these performances. The Californian version of Persian Surgery Dervishes starts with low dark tones, dense and brooding like a huddled human figure, deep in introspection. But as the improvisation unfolds Riley's buoyant spirit asserts itself, spiraling out in ecstatic coils. The Parisian concert conveys a different mood, brighter and more open in texture, more relaxed from the outset and breathing with greater freedom as it takes flight. Persian Surgery Dervishes is a mesmerizing record of a vital stage in Riley's ongoing quest for connection with the universal mind and sublime music. "Music is my spiritual path. It's my way of finding out who I am." --Terry Riley, 1976 Includes insert with liner notes by Julian Cowley; Lacquer cut by Rashad Becker; Layout by Jeroen Wille; Remastered by Equusl; Licensed from FGL Productions.

$25.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Aguirre Records present a reissue of the 1981 debut album by new age pioneer JD Emmanuel, Rain Forest Music. Texan musician JD Emmanuel's career story is, in a way, a story about how the passion of fans can make a difference and about a gifted musician whose music may have been lost to the ages. The tale begins in 2005 when Douglas Mcgowan stumbled on several dusty boxes of two JD Emmanuel vinyl albums -- several hundred of them, all still sealed -- at a discount book and record store in North Dallas, Texas. Mcgowan purchased 50 copies and took them back to the west coast. This discovery set in motion a chain of events that led to a series of reissues and Emmanuel's return to recording and performing in 2010. The majority of JD Emmanuel's studio recordings date from the 1980s, when new age music in America was still an indie scene. Whether you call his albums new age or not, the meditative vibe, spiritual underpinnings and self-releasing are all hallmarks of the genre. Yet his cyclic, organ-based music is different from most of his contemporaries of that era. Back in 1970, he was deeply impressed by his first taste of classical minimalism when he heard American minimalist composers Terry Riley and Steve Reich. He was also attracted to the improvisations of modern jazz and long-form rock jams. Minimalism and improvisation, then, became the foundations of his art, and the evocation of trance-like states his goal. In 1980, with his newly acquired Crumar Traveler-1 organ, analog synths, guitar, and various effects, he began building a body of warm, melodic, usually stripped-back ambient trance with a unique mystical vibe. On Rain Forest Music he builds gentle, short cycles of notes into floating clouds of sound, mostly improvising around single chords. The "minimalism" in his music lies not in repetitive patterns that barely change -- the extreme end of classical minimalism -- but more in the spare arrangements. There's also an open, loving optimism to the melodies that has obvious appeal to new age listeners. The album cover is from an original water color created for the LP in 1981 by Houston artist, Molly Khan. 180 gram vinyl; Printed inner sleeve; Remastered by Rashad Becker; Lacquer cut by Rashad Becker; Cover reconstruction by Jeroen Wille; Edition of 1000.

$25.50 NOT IN STOCK

Folk unit originated in the Swedish underground Enhet för Fri Musik - featuring members of Sewer Election, Ättestupa, Neutral, Makthaverskan, and Blod - continually re-invent what music is about through free improvisation and lengthy folk meanderings. Embedded in the ever exciting Swedish underground scene, Enhet För Fri Musik continue the quest for innovation numerous legendary Swedish bands started during the '70s - such as, Pärson Sound, Trad Gras Och Stenar, and Arbete Och Fritid. Taking the ideas of communal music craft and experimentation, on Inom Dig, Inom Mig, the group comes to a unique combination of Jandek-like atonal guitar, organ, tape effects, field recordings, and saxophone, with Sofie Herner's amazing loner voice running over it. Adding another inspiring document to the world of open-minded music. Inom Dig, Inom Mig was originally release on cassette in 2015 on Forever United. Silkscreened sleeves by Marijke Loozen; Music by Dan Johansson, Gustaf Dicksson, Hugo Randulv, Sofie Herner; Mastered by Kris Delacourt; Artwork by Dan Johansson; Edition of 150.

$25.50 IN STOCK

Repressed. The classic minimal music album, available again on vinyl for the first time since the '70s. Primed with a glass of cognac, Charlemagne Palestine sits at the keyboard of a Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano. One foot firmly holds down the sustain pedal while both hands perform an insistent strum-like alternation on the keys. Soon Palestine and his Bösendorfer are enveloped in sound and bathed in a shimmering haze of multi-colored overtones. For 45 minutes, this rich pulsating music swells and intensifies, filling the air. When Strumming Music first appeared on the adventurous French label Shandar during the mid-1970s, it seemed a straightforward matter to place Charlemagne Palestine in the so-called minimalist company of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, whose work also featured in the Shandar catalog. Palestine too used a deliberately restricted range of materials and a repetitive technique, but as he has often pointed out in more recent times, the opulent fullness of his music would more accurately be described as maximalist. Strumming Music, recorded in Palestine's own loft in Manhattan, has no written score. In an age of recorded sound he still feels no need for traditional notation. The surging energy of this particular recording stands comparison with the improvising of jazz visionaries who impressed and inspired him while living in New York as a young man. But, as Palestine himself has made clear, primarily he brings to music-making the sensibility of an artist rather than a musician. Although the technique of the piece has roots in Palestine's daily practice, when a teenager, of playing the carillon at a church, hammering sonorous chimes from a rack of tuned bells, it also draws on his later work as a body artist, staging vigorously muscular, physically demanding and often reckless performances. In addition, Strumming Music can be heard as a sculptural tour de force, while its textures connect with the color moods, plastic rhythms, and tactile space of Mark Rothko's abstract expressionist canvases. Strumming Music remains the essential index of Palestine's singular creative vision. Fundamentally this fascinating piece is a collaboration between an artist and an instrument. Palestine had first encountered the Bösendorfer Imperial back in 1969. "The Bösendorfer at its best is a very noisy, thick molasses piano," he has remarked. Charlemagne Palestine embraced its clinging sonorousness, its clangorous resonance and out of that embrace came the voluptuous sonic fabric of Strumming Music.