Important Records (IMPREC) has been curated since 2001 by John Brien who, if pressed for an explanation of the label, will simply state that it is like a great record shop, well-stocked in powerful music without focus or fuss over specific genre categorizations. Not overly conceptual, the label focuses on an extraordinarily diverse roster of artists who are neither ephemeral nor trendy and continue to make passionate and evocative music throughout their lives. The character conveyed most often in Important releases isn't style but substance, with a personal and emotional depth that makes the label easy to understand but difficult to explain. Artists including James Blackshaw, Eliane Radigue, Jozef Van Wissem, Catherine Christer Hennix, Duane Pitre, ELEH, Pauline Oliveros, The Thirteenth Assembly, David Rothenberg, Diane Cluck, Acid Mothers Temple, Christina Kubisch, Merzbow and Smegma continue to expand the scope of Important by consistently releasing some of their best work through the label.
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IMPREC 447CD
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$14.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/2/2020
Now available on CD for the first time. Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full-length from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Gorgeous high resolution analog textures and algorithmic melodies unfold under Barbieri's careful control, exploring the basic nature of sound and consciousness. These pieces are minimal in arrangement but maximal in presence asserting Barbieri as a unique voice in contemporary electronic music composition. Patterns Of Consciousness was originated by ideally infinite permutation of patterns through a disciplined and exclusive use of machinery (an indexed quad sequencer and a harmonic oscillator). By means of subtraction, addition, and jitter operations, Barbieri derives a myriad of interlocking patterns extracted from an original matrix of just few harmonic archetypes, gradually developing the potential of the reduced constellation of pitches and durations determined in advance. Pushing the limits of her monophonic instrument, Barbieri seeks out counterpoint from a single oscillator through the exclusive use of additive synthesis, fast progressions, extreme melodic jumps, and intricate delay lines. She develops an illusory counterpoint style influenced by her passion for baroque lute music, where fast arpeggios are employed to get effects of sustained chords and overcome the limits of fast decay timbres. But the highly formulaic and germinative style of these pieces is also influenced by Indian classical music's vision of sound as an agent of change and recreation. Patterns are understood as the cells of an organism or the units of a language: a limited set of signs that can be recombined to always generate new possibilities. In POC, repetition and permutation of patterns are explored as tools to reconfigure perceptions and bend emotions, approaching sound as a medium to develop and master our own perceptual art. Emerging machine intelligence, human desire of pattern detection and the understanding of music as a cognitive feedback between humans and technology are primary sources of inspiration for this work. All the compositions share a common fatalistic tension, an impossible running, a restless rush - somewhat nervous somewhat ecstatic - to grasp a meaning out of fragments. Every piece in POC is conceived as a generative entity, a dynamic and living being able to develop its own organic laws, whose inner potential of growth and change is embedded in the initial instructions of the sequencer. Music produced by Caterina Barbieri between September 2015 and January 2016. Mixed at EMS (Elektronmusikstudion) in Stockholm. RIYL: Alessandro Cortini, Eleh.
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IMPREC 491CD
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$14.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/2/2020
Now available on CD for the first time. Includes the bonus track "Bestie Infinite" from her 2018 split LP with Eleh. Born Again In The Voltage is an astonishing collection of electro-acoustic pieces for Buchla 200 system, cello, and voice composed and produced by Caterina Barbieri at Elektronmusikstudion (SE) between 2014 and 2015. Cello by Antonello Manzo. Images by Giovanni Brunetto; Photography by Angelo Jaroszuk Bogasz; Layout by Important Records. Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi.
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IMPREC 483LP
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Maja S. K. Ratkje is at the forefront of the musical avant-garde. Her music is bold, original and it is meant for sharing. At its heart lies Ratkje's own voice, an open door to her individual musicianship and a constant tool for realigning her work with natural expressions and human truths. On Mara, layers of vocals overlap and layer their way through the reverberant woodwork of an early baroque parish in Austria. At times slow and beautiful, other times frantic and sinister, this live recording is full of depth, passion and life. Live-recording at Pfarrkirche, Lockenhaus at Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus July 9, 2018. Recorded and mixed by Peter Laenger and Andreas Ruge from Tritonus Musikproduktion. Mastered by Maja S. K. Ratkje at Svartskog 2019. All music created and performed in real-time by Maja S. K. Ratkje, except sung parts from the Norwegian traditional Hanen sten på stabburshella and the American traditional Mining for Gold. Maja is using voice processing software created by Øyvind Brandtsegg. Picture disc; edition of 300.
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IMPREC 332CD
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Function is an aesthetic exploration of digital audio at an elemental level: a sequence of quantized amplitude values. The entire sonic material in this series are generated through a custom-designed program that takes a mathematical function as input, and based on a set of pre-defined criteria, outputs the function as a digital waveform. Accordingly, each track in this series is named after one mathematical function, where the function itself is used as the only sound-generating engine. These raw sonic materials are then processed through a number of common audio effects, and organized and structured into a compositional form. Function builds on an ongoing investigation into realization of Brutalist aesthetics through sound and audiovisual media. Through a reductionist approach towards its distinctly digital sonic structures, the work embraces the crude limitations of its medium as the primary aesthetic construct. It uses mathematically constructed tonal and rhythmic structures to allow for a celebratory exposure of its "anti-beautiful" raw material. In doing so, it projects an uncompromising clarity of structure, a conscious negation of interpolation, and a steadfast refusal to hide the machine's footprint. Mo H. Zareei, aka mHz, is an Iranian electronic musician, sound artist, and researcher, based in Wellington, New Zealand. mHz is the acronym for millihertz. Using custom-built software and hardware, his experiments with sound cover a wide range from electronic compositions to kinetic sound-sculptures and audiovisual installations. Regardless of the medium, Zareei's work aims to highlight the beauty in the basics of sound and light production and reductionist audiovisual elements that draw inspiration from physical and architectural principles. Over the course of his PhD, he developed a portfolio of works focused on the intersections of sound art and Brutalism. His Brutalist Noise Ensemble has been featured on platforms such as Creative Applications, Streaming Museum, and Fast Co. Zareei has presented his work at international venues and festivals such as SETxCTM Festival (Tehran), New Zealand Festival (Wellington), the International Symposium on Electronic Art (Vancouver), and New Interfaces for Musical Expression (London), to name a few. His installation "Rasping Music" was the recipient of the 1st prize in Sound Art category of the international Sonic Arts Award 2015 (Italy).
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IMPREC 490CD
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David First likes to use the phrase "the virtuosity of slowness" to describe his musical philosophy. In The Consummation of Right and Wrong, he and his eight-piece ensemble, The Western Enisphere, practice this virtuosity to great effect in closely examining the universes that fall between the cracks of convention, reflecting a wide continuum of complex relationships, all the while creating music that is simply ravishing to listen to. This is "drone music" as dynamic organism, moving from compact and ruminative to spacious and serene and back. In this triple-CD, two-and-half-hours of sonic tessellation, First has alchemized his own personal opposites like never before, combining and transmuting his free-jazz experience with avant-legend Cecil Taylor, his influential noise-rock n' roll band Notekillers, his long-abiding love for minimalist, mathematical excavation on dozens of instruments, and a highly refined ear for pop-melodic architectures into a singular, epic set of vibrational possibilities that leaves very few stones unturned in his ongoing quest for the resolution of all extremes.
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IMPREC 484LP
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Eleh's Harmonic Twins is slow moving monophony tuned to the overtone vocalizations generated by a particularly beautiful sound sculpture made by Harry Bertoia. These two pieces are inspired by early music, choral masses, motets, the cathedral reverberations of sacred geometry and deep bass. Harmonic Twins was originally debuted by ELEH at Unsound, Krakow in 2017. An optimal listening environment is recommended in order to experience the low frequencies of Harmonic Twins. Audiophile vinyl; heavy duty sleeve printed with metallic inks; edition of 500.
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2LP
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IMPREC 457LP
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Tod Dockstader's Aerial series, an electronic/drone masterpiece, is cherished among fans of the artist's work. 15 years in the making, the Aerial series is sourced from his life-long passion for shortwave radio. Dockstader collected over 90 hours of recordings, made at night, and comprised of cross signals and fragments plucked from the atmosphere. Opening with airwave drones, Dockstader gradually allows elements to slowly come and go, summoning an ominous atmosphere of ethereal clouds. Malignant placidity continues, giving the feeling of eavesdropping upon late-night audio activity not unlike discovering number stations while sweeping the dials. Backward voices, deep echoing choruses of conversations flowing under the surface, ocean sounds, pulsing electro-rhythms, all seem to be created via the collaging of many hours of source recordings. A masterwork of collage and juxtaposition by an overlooked pioneer of American electronic music. Artwork by John Brien. Audiophile quality double-LP; edition of 500.
Dockstader on the Aerial project (September 14, 2003): "I've written before of my interest in shortwave radio, in the notes to the Quatermass CD (SR 233CD). Also, in the notes to the Omniphony CD (which has my first 'Aerial' mix, 'Past Prelude,' in it), I mentioned 'The Aerial Etudes,' which was my working title for what became the three CDs you have. And, at the end of an interview with Chris Cutler (which can be found in the 'Unofficial TD Website'), the piece I mentioned I was starting to work on at the time became Aerial). When I was very young, people got most of their entertainment from radio. They called it 'playing the radio,' as if it were a musical instrument. That's what I've tried to do in this piece. About this time, a few people encouraged me to look into using a computer for this work. I'd never used one, but I saw it would allow me to keep my mixes digital -- no more transfer losses. So, at the end of 2001, I got a computer and an editing program for it, and spent what seemed a long time learning it. I began selecting mixes and loading them into the computer in late March, 2002. Out of the 580, I selected 90 'best' mixes -- eventually reduced to 59, the ones on the CDs. Finally, in assembling the CDs, I followed David Myers' suggestion to allow each piece to flow into the next -- making a continuous journey to the end."
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IMPREC 477LP
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Split release between ELEH and NYZ (David Burraston). Released alongside a full-length from NYZ via Important Records (IMPREC 453LP). ELEH: This side is possibly the artist's most complicated electronic composition. It navigates myriad timbral, tuning, and temporal processes while winding itself to completion. It was composed/constructed over a period of months in early 2019. NYZ: Two crunchy microtonal drone meditations in mono, using techniques of digital FM and hybrid analog/digital modular synthesis. "FM60P::fbk1#03" is from a number of sessions recorded on a battered SY99 recorded from 2013 to 2014. As the name suggests, this particular session revolved around using feedback in the FM algorithm. "EML DRNPi" was recorded as part of the 2015 Plum Island Sessions where Burraton had a host of synths on loan from John Brien at Important Records. For the recording, he used the EML ElectroComp 101 and a 4-voice digital microtonal oscillator running a Lambdoma Matrix to make a hybrid analog/digital system. Heavy-duty sleeve; First edition of 500.
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IMPREC 453LP
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Lose yourself in the circuitry of the original 1965 Buchla 100 with NYZ (Dave Burraston) as he utilizes Barbara Hero's Lambdoma tuning theories to create two slow, deeply layered, subconscious, organic and meditative compositions. NYZ's split 12" with ELEH (IMPREC 477LP) will be released at the same time as Millz Medz. David Burraston is an award-winning artist/scientist working in the areas of technology and electronic music, operating Noyzelab as an independent art/science music studio since 1981. His experimental arts practice encompasses field recordings, landscape-scale sound art, chaos/complexity, practice-based research, sound synthesis, and electronic music. He performs, lectures, conducts workshops, and creates art installations in Regional NSW and around the world. David also designs and builds sound synthesizers based on his theories of chaos/complexity science. David has worked with many diverse collaborators such as Aphex Twin, Chris Watson, Doug Quin, Russell Haswell, Robin Fox, Oren Ambarchi, Sarah Last, Cat Hope, Garry Bradbury, William Barton, Alan Lamb, MIT Media Lab, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2014m he independently published the legendary "SYROBONKERS!", the most technical and in-depth interview ever given by Aphex Twin. First pressing of 500.
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2LP
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IMPREC 473LP
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Sold out, repress is unclear... To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Deep Listening, Important Records offer a definitive double-LP combining the classic, complete original 1989 release with selected tracks from the Deep Listening Band's 1991 album, The Ready Made Boomerang. Recorded in a cistern, this double-LP reverberates with brilliant sonic clarity and masterfully improvised performances combining live electronics, vocals, trombone. and accordion. Deep Listening is a classic in the fields of improvisation, minimalism, ambient/drone, and modern classical. Listen with attentiveness, listen while lying down, listen with headphones -- as recording engineer Al Swanson entices the listener to become a virtual performer in selecting the many different ways to perceive these phenomenal tracks. Whatever you do, listen deeply. Packaged in a gatefold sleeve with original and updated recollections from the performers, the engineer, and a mesostic from John Cage, to whom these recordings are inextricably linked.
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IMPREC 480LP
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Shasta Cults is the musical project of Canadian electronics technician Richard Smith. For almost two decades, Smith was the official Buchla & Associates go-to repair person for studios, collectors, and musicians around the world, having worked with artists such as Aphex Twin, Suzanne Ciani, Mort Subotnick, and institutions such as The Library of Congress and Mills College, Smith has had the unique experience of restoring and interacting with nearly every model of Buchla instrument constructed over the past 50 years. "Recording demonstrations of the rare equipment that found its way on to my work bench," is how Smith describes the origins of Shasta Cults. Although sounds have been trickling out for decades, it wasn't until 2017 that Smith recorded his first album using one of these rare instruments: the Buchla 700. Configurations, released in September 2019 by Important Records (IMPREC 432CD) and the catalyst for this latest release, features eight tracks of heavily-modulated, wave-shaped explorations drenched in effects. Recorded over the span of three months in the fall of 2018, this album was programmed using the only fully-functional Buchla Touché. Developed in the early 1980s with hardware by Don Buchla and software programmed by musician David Rosenboom, the Touché features waveforms generated internally by twenty-four digital oscillators and uses frequency modulation along with sophisticated digital and analog signal processing to produce complex timbres. This LP is a continuation of themes first heard on Configurations, with more consideration given to the generation and recording of the pieces. The album's six tracks -- a collection of sonic experiments and hypnotic drones -- span almost forty minutes, showcasing not only the incredible fidelity of the Touché but also Smith's evolution as an audio engineer. Put on some headphones, find a comfortable chair, and let this LP transport you to the mystifying southern cascades of Siskiyou County. Manufactured at RTI and cut by John Golden.
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LP
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IMPREC 476LP
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Jessica Ekomane's debut LP, Multivocal, is brilliantly original, and will appeal to fans of Caterina Barbieri, Alessandro Cortini, Shasta Cults, ELEH, and the strand of minimal electronic music that runs through the Important catalog. Multivocal is a polyphonic maze that unfolds to both the body and the mind. A generative take on rhythm and spatial perception, it presents the same events in different configurations. The two pieces of the album, "Solid of Revolution" and "Never Odd or Even", mirror each other with the same principle in different musical scales: steady pulses with one millisecond difference in tempo start beating together, then slowly phase organically and progress into ever-changing rhythmic patterns until they finally return to unison. Multivocal emphasizes shifts of attention in the listener's experience and plays with the expectations that frame it. Originally conceived for quadraphonic sound, the pieces reveal the many different aspects and modes of perception that can arise within the same sequence of notes. In this way Multivocal is influenced by concepts of gestalt psychology such as multi-stable perception -- a term describing ambiguous patterns that offer multiple interpretations at once. The minimalism and repetitive quality of the music also refers to trance-inducing and collective music practices, driven by the strong bodily affects induced through the use of rhythms. Those two compositions were recorded live during Ars Electronica 2018 at the occasion of the sleeping event "Sonatas for Sleep/less", curated by multimedia artist Shu Lea Cheang and cultural theorist Matthew Fuller. First pressing in an edition of 500.
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2LP
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IMPREC 467LP
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Eliane Radigue's Chry-Ptus is her very first piece for the modular synthesizer. It was composed in 1971 using a Buchla 100 which had recently been installed at NYU by Morton Subotnick. This double-LP was mastered by Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.
From the original press release: "Chry-Ptus (1971). Originally two tapes which were to be played simultaneously, with or without synchronisation, which does not affect the structure of the work, but creates changes in the game of sub-harmonics and overtones. Three variations on this piece were performed at the New York Cultural Center in 1971, with variations of amplitude and location modulation as well as synchronisation. Realized on the Buchla Synthesizer at the New York University. The booklet contains a text by painter Paul Jenkins, who also realised the watercolor on the front cover, written on occasion of Radigue's first concert in New York, April 6th, 1971. "It's with the Buchla that I constructed Chry-ptus, a piece made up of two tapes with an analogue duration, 22 or 23 minutes, which could be played either simultaneously or with a slight time difference, so as to establish slight variations every time the piece was played. I spent the first months eliminating everything I did not want; I even used a notebook in which I tried to determine a writing system resembling chemical formulae." --Eliane Radigue
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IMPREC 432CD
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Shasta Cults' Important Records debut is not to be missed. A self-titled Shasta Cults will be available later this year, also on Important Records. A ship sinks beneath the silver mirror of the sea-top, temple gongs ring through an empty valley, industrial machinery sputters, heaves, lurches forward, stops, falls apart... These sound events may be the most acute musical referents of Shasta Cults, the music project of Canadian synthesizer technician Richard Smith. Using obsolete electronics, Shasta Cults pursues the true sound of the instrument, freed from the tyranny of emulation, no strings/woodwinds/piano presets. Shasta Cults' compositions seek out unchartered territories where sustained drones may swell, build, or evaporate; where timbres collide, amplitudes fluctuate, sounds emerge, raw, primeval, new hybrids form from the collisions of electricity and frequency. There may be stretches of silence punctuated by bell-ish tones from futures unheard; a sequence of notes may verge upon melody before mutating into ugly moans, the sonic equivalent of funhouse mirrors. But the end result is far more than chance operation, sporadic sound fields, or indeterminate academic exercise. Instead, Shasta Cults brings you back to nature, back to the possibilities inherent in nature, to the truth of evolution, stitching both musical tones, and the sounds of 21st century living into a form which is as real, as imponderable, and as ungovernable as our own memories. Recorded in 2017, employing the processes of non-linear wave shaping, frequency modulation, and feedback, Configurations consists of eight programs captured live to multi-track using a rare, fully functional Buchla 700 digital-hybrid instrument designed in the late 1980s. Whereas previously released works made with the 700 almost always consist in simple manipulations of the single factory preset, this album delves deep into the instrument's rich sonic vocabulary to offer the listener a more elaborate demonstration of the system's capabilities. Presented here in limited quantities this release is intended as a high-fidelity audio archive of this obscure musical artifact. RIYL: Eleh, Sarah Davachi.
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IMPREC 452LP
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Important Records announces Vibe, the new LP from Extended Organ, the Los Angeles-based quintet associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS). Vibe, Extended Organ's first full-length studio LP since 2000's XOXO was recorded in April 2016 by members Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Paul McCarthy, Tom Recchion, and Alex Stevens. The album consists of two side-long tracks, "Hate" and "Vibe", recorded live at LACM Studio in Pasadena, California by acclaimed engineer André Knecht. On Vibe, the band employs prepared piano, junk percussion, Joe Potts' Chopped Optigan, electric guitar, voice, Rheem organ, various electronics, and homemade instruments. Each track is improvised, then assembled and edited without overdubbing in studio. The music moves with velocity and direction revealing surprises at every turn. The resulting sound is ominous, humorous, harmonious, chaotic, and at times quietly erotic. This is abstractly powerful music. The highly provocative cover image, created collaboratively by Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, and Tom Recchion, is shrouded inside a unique laser-cut outer sleeve. Like the music contained within, the cover reveal is a beguiling experience in and of itself. This intriguing package was art directed and designed by Tom Recchion.
Formed in 1994, Extended Organ produces a dynamic otherworldly ambience which can be simultaneously hilarious and frightening. Joe Potts lays down a carpet of sound using and his self-engineered drone instrument, the "Chopped Optigan", over which Paul McCarthy performs vocal and guitar improvisations channeled and processed by Alex Stevens. Alex also adds his own keyboard triggered synthesized sounds. Tom Recchion, renowned as an inventor of homemade instruments, a free improviser, and an accomplished composer of acoustic, electronic and tape music, performs an array of sounds folding lush beauty and horror sensibility into the matrix. Fredrik Nilsen plays an antique Rheem Mark 7 organ along with electronic sound and recordings created by Mike Kelley. Kelley was a member of the group from 2000 until his death in 2012 and continues to be a contributing member by virtue of sound recordings he provided before his death; "In case I can't make a gig, I can still play." The LAFMS formed in the early 1970s around a loosely knit group of like-minded musical improvising sound experimenters in eastern Los Angeles who discovered their mutual interest and banded together to design modes of self-production and distribution of recordings and publications, helping to develop and propel the DIY movement.
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IMPREC 472LP
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Pauline Oliveros's Tara's Room has long been a favorite at Important Records and here they release it on LP for the very first time. Tara's Room was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing. Originally released on cassette in 1987 following the 1986 release of Sounding / Way with Guy Klucevsek, also reissued by Important Records (IMPREC 471LP). This LP features two long sides of infinite depth and sensitivity. Oliveros performs these pieces using a just intonation accordion and her Expanded Instrument System in order to bend both time and pitch. "Both pieces are intended to aid the listener in times of spiritual change, but are just fine for 'everyday' use as well. Highly recommended." --Charles S. Russell, Ear Magazine
Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer, and humanitarian, was an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she explored sound -- forging new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it, and eludes many who try to write about it. Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros's commitment to interaction with the moment was unchanged. She could make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble. "On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." --John Rockwell "Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music." --John Cage
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IMPREC 471LP
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Pauline Oliveros and Guy Klucevsek's Sounding / Way was originally released on cassette in 1986 and has been out of print ever since. This LP was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing. The Sounding / Way concept was simple: Each artist would write a piece for two accordions and then they would perform them together. Thus, side A contains Guy Klucevsek's "Tremolo No. 6" performed by Guy Klucevsek and Pauline Oliveros. Side B contains Pauline's composition "The Tuning Meditation", also performed by both Pauline and Guy. This is the second release in an on-going effort between Important Records and the Pauline Oliveros Trust to maintain and promote the music, philosophy and legacy of Pauline Oliveros.
Guy Klucevsek is one of the world's most versatile and highly-respected accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.
Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer, and humanitarian, was an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she explored sound -- forging new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it, and eludes many who try to write about it. Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros's commitment to interaction with the moment was unchanged. She could make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble. "On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." --John Rockwell "Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music." --John Cage
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IMPREC 462CD
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The sound art of Jacob Kirkegaard explores ways to reflect on immediate complex, unnoticed or unapproachable aspects of the human condition or civilization. His works have treated themes such as radioactivity in Chernobyl and Fukushima, melting ice in the Arctic, border walls in Palestine, and tones -- otoacoustic emissions -- generated from the actual human ear. Currently, Jacob Kirkegaard works on two projects, one is on the sound of global waste and waste management. The other on sound environments related to the immediate human post mortem. With his peculiar alchemist approach and extensive research, complex phenomena and current conditions are portrayed through composition, installation, video. and photography. Rather than providing answers, his portrayals create spaces for reflection. Kirkegaard has presented his works at galleries, museums, biennales and concert spaces throughout the world. Edition of 300.
"One of contemporary sound art's most subtle, intriguing figures. More artistically minded than field recordings, more naturally hewn than noise tapes, Kirkegaard amplifies hidden worlds into evocative drifts." --Rolling Stone, December 2015
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IMPREC 474LP
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Hallelujah Mystic Garden Part Two contains a new deep-pocket groove disco version of fan favorite "Pink Lady Lemonade". Side two is a slick kosmiche-electro-disco number that unfurls over a period of 20 minutes and is periodically punctuated by Makoto Kawabata's unruly soloing. Recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, June 2016-March 2017; produced and mixed by Kawabata Makoto. Personnel: Cotton Casino - voice, astral mama; Kawabata Makoto - guitar, fretless bass, bouzouki, organ, rhythm machine, electronics, tapes, speed guru; Higashi Hiroshi - synthesizer, noodle king;
Mitsuko☆Tabata - guitar, guitar-synthesizer, voice, kisses and hugs; Satoshima Nani -drums, another dimension; S/T "Wolf" - bass, tapes, space and time.
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IMPREC 469CD
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Orpheus Variations is a new composition by Alvin Lucier for solo cello and seven wind instruments. It is based on a particular sonority from the first movement of Igor Stravinsky's ballet score, Orpheus; a sonority that has haunted Lucier for decades. Orpheus Variations is one of eight large-scale compositions made expressly for Charles Curtis by Alvin Lucier in the last 15 years. This performance was conducted by Petr Kotik, with Charles Curtis playing solo cello alongside members of the SEM Ensemble.
"Lucier speaks first of a sonority, and only then of a chord. He discusses the chord, its notes and their disposition, but what haunts him is a 'particular sonority.' A sonority is the product of physical action on physical materials: the instruments, the registers in which they are activated, the breath of the musicians, the waveforms thus produced, their merging and interfering, and finally the moment and place of these actions. An energy field, certain to vanish completely once the musicians put down their instruments. However concrete and real the actions and materials, the sonority they produce is a phantom."
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IMPREC 468CD
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Anthony Burr and Charles Curtis present a collection of curated compositions from Alvin Lucier and Morton Feldman. Two Lucier pieces, "August Moon" and "Trio For Clarinet, Cello & Tuba" are presented here for the first time. Liner notes are excerpted from a lecture on Morton Feldman given by Alvin Lucier. A selection from Alvin Lucier's liner notes: "For Feldman, dynamics serve an acoustical function. When he mitigates a piano attack he reduces that spike of noise that's at the onset of every piano sound leaving only the sinusoidal pure after-sound. It's as if he invented electronic music with the piano."
"Lucier manages to hear a layer of acoustical physics in Feldman's music that perhaps no one else would hear. He's hearing something in Feldman that is actually coming from his own musical world; in a way, hearing his own music in Feldman's, and drawing inspiration from that."
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CD
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IMPREC 445CD
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Eleh's Home Age series was composed and recorded over a period of five years and it reflects a search for color, form, connection, and growth. The handmade artwork contained in each package was created during the same period of time the music was composed and is an integral part of the meaning of Home Age. For this release, Eleh plays modular and analog synthesizers, piano, organ, bass, and symphonic chimes. Although Home Age is a two-part set, Eleh's upcoming Living Space release for Touch is very much the conclusion of this era of Eleh. Packaged in a thick, letterpress printed Arigato Pak by Stumptown Printers in Portland, Oregon; each package contains an individual piece of art (linocut/screen print/watercolor) from the artist; one-time edition of 480.
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CD
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IMPREC 443CD
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Phill Niblock's Music For Cello collects three pieces from the '70s and early '80s, performed by cellist David Gibson. This CD includes a 16-page unpublished interview with Niblock. Since the late sixties Phill Niblock has been composing long-form acoustic drones with a focus on the rhythms and overtones that rise from closely tuned instruments. His highly original and influential music is an exploration of timbre, microtonality, stability, duration and psychoacoustic phenomenon.
"3 To 7 - 196' is very direct, aggressive, and gritty. The overtone patterns that are produced by the proximal pitches become more prominent with louder volume. So please, play this piece very loud. This was the first piece of mine in which the musician was precisely tuned, in which I chose exact pitches in hertz. We used a sine wave oscillator and frequency counter for the tuning. 'Descent Plus' has four cello tones descending one octave over twenty-two minutes, from 300 hertz to 150 hertz. David Gibson played these tones without lifting his bow from the strings, constantly retuning. I made four different scores, manually changing an oscillator to which he was tuning, for each track's recording. For the revision, we added six more tracks, with David playing long tones which were not descending. The second part of the recording was made nearly twenty years later. 'Summing II' (one of four parts) is mellow and sonorous. David plays two strings simultaneously, one of which is retuned for each successive recording of that pair of tones. This is a mix of an eight-track tape. It's better played loud also." --Phill Niblock, from the liner notes.
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2LP
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IMPREC 470LP
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In 2012 Important Records released Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 (IMPREC 352CD), a historic 12-CD box set compiling much of Pauline Oliveros' early and unreleased electronic work. Reverberations 1 is the first release in an ongoing series dedicated to releasing the entire 12-CD box set on vinyl. Organized chronologically by studio, the complete Reverberations not only documents Pauline's earliest electronic music but it also functions as an early history of electronic music itself. Pauline Oliveros -- composer, performer and humanitarian -- was an important pioneer in American music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she explored found, forging new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she has created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it and it eludes many who try to write about it. In partnership with the Pauline Oliveros Trust, Imprec will be releasing essential titles from Pauline Oliveros' catalog on vinyl including the complete Reverberations box set, Tara's Room, Sounding/Way (with Guy Klucevsek), and many more.
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LP
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IMPREC 464LP
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Restocked. Eliane Radigue's Geelriandre / Arthesis is named for the pieces that fill its two sides. Geelriandre, realized on an ARP 2500 synthesizer in 1972, features Gérard Fremy on prepared piano. Arthesis, realized using the University of Iowa's Moog in 1973, comprises the full duration of side B. Eliane Radigue has received much deserved praise for her transcendent composiitions for tape, synthesizers, and acoustic instruments. Her work is deep, slowly changing, and timelessly resonant with slowly shifting timbres so dense that they seem infinite. Acute physicality, overtones, and psychoacoustic activity fills your space, follows you, grounds you, pulls you in or lets you go. It's all here/hear. Pressed at RTI; first edition of 1000.
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