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 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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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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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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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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IMPREC 464LP
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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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IMPREC 466LP
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Lawrence English and Alessandro Cortini issue Immediate Horizon, a live recording, made at the premiere of the piece, held at Kraftwerk in Berlin. Having become mutual admirers of each other's work; English of Cortini's Sonno (HOS 412CD, 2014) and Cortini of English's Wilderness Of Mirrors (RM 460CD, 2014), the pair were very pleased to receive an invitation to collaborate together. Following a number of months exchanging compositional ideas and materials, Cortini and English met in Berlin several days ahead of the festival and commenced an intense period of rehearsal and arrangement. The resulting piece, Immediate Horizon, traces their shared interests in harmony and texture. It is a work that meditates on saturation and the ruptures that occur when harmonic elements are stacked. Immediate Horizon's six pieces swell and burst in a perpetual sense of pulse.
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IMPREC 456CS
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Weeed's debut for Important Records, titled This, has an expansive musical vision and an astonishingly mature sound from a young band. Despite their relatively young ages Weeed has been together for ten years -- a fact made apparent by the fluidity and unity of their sound. Labels such as stoner/psych/jam/alt/krautrock fall short as the band draws from a deeper pool of inspiration including gnawa, traditional folk, jazz, minimalist orchestras, overtone singing, and much more. This is the product of both a desire to make such influences more apparent as well as a desire to explore the boundaries of the members' abilities to connect with each other; to become, in essence, one mind. Though the skeleton of the album was written during practices, the dynamics and fullness of each song were often reconnoitered and spawned through the improvisations which occurred during live settings and tours. The idea was discovery through the act of being present, and This was the result. Sonically, This is an outgrowth of their last release, Meta (2017), which saw the band beginning to experiment with ambient and vocal looping, flutes, synthesizers. Those explorations are present here, as is the notable (and permanent) addition of a second drummer, which is defined through the mixtures of tight syncopations and pulsing polyrhythms present in these songs. Recorded and produced at Bear Creek studio in Woodinville, WA, This marks a shift in sound that will only lead to further exploration into new musical territory.
"These guys have a chemistry that allows them to oscillate between highly structured rock songs and psychedelic free-form jams without and inhibitions." --More Fuzz
"The search for Seattle's freakiest psych-rock band may be over." --Dave Segal, The Stranger
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IMPREC 460LP
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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. Edition of 500.
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IMPREC 461LP
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Highly synergistic split from Eleh and Caterina Barbieri featuring two sides of similar audio dimensions. These two electronic sound poems slowly unfurl rich timbre and harmonics with an austere stillness that is, somehow, ever-changing. It hardly matters whose side is whose.
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IMPREC 463LP
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Part One of Halleluja Mystic Garden contains two long sides of blissed-out, super tight Acid Mothers Temple jams that somehow stretch into the future while staying strongly rooted in the group's celebrated psychedelic history. Hallelujah! Another essential AMT classic including vocals from Cotton Casino! Recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, June 2016 to March 2017. Produced and mixed by Kawabata Makoto. Part Two will be released later in 2018 on Important Records. 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 & hugs; Satoshima Nani - drums, another dimension; S/T "Wolf" - bass, tapes, space & time. Packaged in a heavy duty single pocket sleeve with silver metallic inks. First pressing comes in an edition of 500.
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IMPREC 170LP
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2018 repress; Pressed on glow-in-the-dark vinyl. Big Bill's Blues Vinyl version of the A Place To Bury Strangers' break-out self-titled release, originally released on CD in 2007. A Place To Bury Strangers have often been called "the loudest band in New York." This may very well be the case, but unlike much so-called "loud" rock and roll that's out there, APTBS is not loud simply for the sake of it. The sonically overdriven sound they've accomplished is no clumsy accident, but a carefully-cultivated and well-maintained entity all its own, fostered by an unbridled passion that's clearly evident in every live show they play and each recording they make. A Place To Bury Strangers does not so much play songs as allow them to pour out. They are songs about longing, heartbreak and confusion played extremely well and at a passionately loud volume. While there are obvious reference points: Pornography-era Cure, early Ride, My Bloody Valentine, and pre-1990s Jesus And Mary Chain, the sound is all their own. On its original release, A Place to Bury Strangers was named "Best New Music" by Pitchfork, who awarded the album an 8.4 rating.
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IMPREC 456LP
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Weeed's debut for Important Records, titled This, has an expansive musical vision and an astonishingly mature sound from a young band. Despite their relatively young ages Weeed has been together for ten years -- a fact made apparent by the fluidity and unity of their sound. Labels such as stoner/psych/jam/alt/krautrock fall short as the band draws from a deeper pool of inspiration including gnawa, traditional folk, jazz, minimalist orchestras, overtone singing, and much more. This is the product of both a desire to make such influences more apparent as well as a desire to explore the boundaries of the members' abilities to connect with each other; to become, in essence, one mind. Though the skeleton of the album was written during practices, the dynamics and fullness of each song were often reconnoitered and spawned through the improvisations which occurred during live settings and tours. The idea was discovery through the act of being present, and This was the result. Sonically, This is an outgrowth of their last release, Meta (2017), which saw the band beginning to experiment with ambient and vocal looping, flutes, synthesizers. Those explorations are present here, as is the notable (and permanent) addition of a second drummer, which is defined through the mixtures of tight syncopations and pulsing polyrhythms present in these songs. Recorded and produced at Bear Creek studio in Woodinville, WA, This marks a shift in sound that will only lead to further exploration into new musical territory.
"These guys have a chemistry that allows them to oscillate between highly structured rock songs and psychedelic free-form jams without and inhibitions." --More Fuzz
"The search for Seattle's freakiest psych-rock band may be over." --Dave Segal, The Stranger
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IMPREC 458LP
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Seattle experimentalists Newaxeyes play with tension and contradictions. Merging dark electronics, crystalline guitar melodies, pummeling beats, and samples to refract the volatility, paranoia, and catharsis of the post-Information Age, the band spins carefully orchestrated and recklessly warped instrumentals into something entirely their own. Their debut album, Black Fax, recorded live to tape over the course of two days and produced by Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Wolves In The Throne Room), is a testament to the band's genre-agnostic approach to music. A quartet of skilled multi-instrumentalists, Jordan Rundle (bass/synths/sampler), Bret Gardín (electronic drums/synths), Tyler Coray (guitar/sampler), and William Hayes (guitar/synths), draw inspiration from a wide variety of places and seamlessly merge them into songs that are as abrasive as they are cinematic. Opening song "False Flag" samples vocals from dozens of conspiracy theory videos, unrecognizable as they are seamlessly woven through soaring guitars and a glitchy drum machine. "Aleph Null" is an example of the way the band is adept at mixing textures, moods, and instruments to create something that nods at the band's eclectic list of references while being simultaneously unique. Parts of "Dennis" could easily be used as a thumping beat-driven background to a hip-hop song while others are downright ambient, blending post-rock sensibilities and a strumming guitar line. "At Blood's" serves as a slow meditation between the punching percussion that drives the rest of the album. With guest vocals from composer/vocalist Hanna Benn recorded in a cavernous gutted stairwell and distorted over a droning synthesizer, there's a hint at the dynamic abilities the band is able to pull from. Since forming in 2013, Newaxeyes has pursued a diverse range of projects within and beyond a traditional band structure. Versatile performers with backgrounds in modern composition, sound design, film, and visual art, their wide-angle vision has encompassed various multimedia projects, art collaborations, and large-scale works. Guitarist William Hayes recently played on Jóhann Jóhannson's score to Panos Cosmatos' ("Beyond the Black Rainbow"), Nicolas Cage-starring film Mandy (2018), the latest Myrkur album Mareridt (2017), toured as live keyboardist of Wolves In The Throne Room. Bret Gardín contributed electronic drums to post-punk pioneers Sort Sol's Stor Langsom Stjerne (2017). If Black Fax is anything to go by, Newaxeyes is sure to carve out something all their own in the coming years.
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IMPREC 412LP
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Important Records present a reissue of The Mask Of The Imperial Family, originally released in 1981. Replica LP; housed in a screen-printed jacket. All copies are pressed on turquoise vinyl to match the sleeve. Edition of 200.
Mutant Sounds on the album: "Both profound and profoundly jaw dropping, the esoteric moves of this massively rare and insanely obscure 300 copy Japanese marvel have until now remained the sole preserve of a handful of heavyweight collectors. It's time to let the cat out of the bag on this one. The dankly cavernous and unsettling acid maneuvers of Dome circa their first three LPs (though absent vocals) are the nearest antecedent I can summon for the principal thrust of the sound here. So too, there's a ritualistic dimension to this stuff that's also a bit suggestive of something like Vasilisk or The Hybryds, though the arcane initiatory atmosphere here is far more penetrating that anything I've heard either of those two muster. Combine that with a Johan Hedran-like overlay of wafting, heat-warped systemic electronics and you're at least in the general neighborhood, but these are only indicators pointing toward the occult sonic universe that The Mask Of The Imperial Family are enacting..."
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IMPREC 454LP
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Home Age is the first proper Eleh full-length since 2012's Homage To The Pointed Waveforms. These three new pieces seek to expose the inherent musicality of pure electrical currents via high resolution Serge STS synthesizers. Like early Eleh work, Home Age is inward looking, domestic, and deliberate, but also slowly emotional and revealing as if peering blurry-eyed through a window. Melody, harmony, and counterpoint are suggested but not revealed. Packaged in a deluxe gold-on-black, heavy-duty letterpress jacket made by Studio On Fire in Minneapolis; Edition of 500.
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FW 1034CD
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Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture Of Harry Bertoia is a deluxe CD/DVD package containing historic recordings made in Harry Bertoia's Sonambient barn. The DVD, a film titled Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture of Harry Bertoia, by Jeffrey and Miriam Eger, was shot in 1971 and follows Harry Bertoia in performance and interview throughout his Sonambient barn deep in the Pennsylvania woods. This film offers a rare opportunity to follow the artist in practice, listening carefully as he moves contemplatively through his sculptures and gongs. Interview footage offers rare insight into Bertoia's inspiration and process. A separate CD contains four exclusive, recently discovered audio recordings. Included are the two earliest known collaborative tapes from Harry and brother Oreste, morning and evening sessions dated October 12, 1969, as well as a collaboration between the Bertoia brothers and their sister Ave who sings in careful unison with the overtones being produced by the sculptures. With the passing of Oreste Bertoia in 1972, these recordings mark the last meeting of all three Bertoia siblings. A 16-page booklet includes many never before seen production stills shot by Jeffrey Eger. These iconic images capture the essence of the artist in practice. DVD is NTSC format, region free.
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IMPREC 447LP
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Descending is a composition consisting of two movements for room resonance, triangles, shakers, and horns. The recording was made in August 2015, performed by the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra. Descending is Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard's and Jacob Kirkegaard's first collaboration. The sound artists and composers Jacob Kirkegaard and Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard are both renowned for their ability to convert sound into a form with the character of an artwork and a bodily dimension that can be experienced by more than the ears alone. In his art, Jacob Kirkegaard uses acoustic phenomena that are usually either overheard or inaudible to the human ear. Using a range of sensors and recording methods, the material unfolds in compositions and spatial, visual, and sound works. Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard's art focuses on the multiplication of sound, extending it beyond its usual boundaries to re-emerge in new forms, as well as on the creation of imaginary musical works that the listener has to envisage before their inner ear. Composed, arranged and mixed by Kirkegaard and Løkkegaard, 2015 -2016. Performed by Aarhus Jazz Orchestra and recorded by John Fomsgaard live at Dokk1 in Aarhus, 2015; Front cover: Detail from Robert Fludd's Macrocosm Microcosm (1617-24). Supported by The Danish Arts Foundation & The Danish Conductors Association.
Jacob Kirkegaard (b. 1975) graduated from the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne in 2006. His sound works are published by Touch, Posh Isolation, Von Archives, and Important Records (USA). Kirkegaard's works have been presented at a wide range of renowned exhibition platforms, festivals and conferences worldwide, including MoMA and Issue Project Room and The Stone in NYC, KW and Transmediale in Berlin, Mori Art Museum and Aichi Triennale in Japan, as well as Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Denmark. Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard (b. 1979) studied at Denmark's Rhythmic Music Conservatory and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' School of Architecture. He has created a wide range of works operating at the intersection of experimental music and sound art, including the soundtrack for MoMA's René Magritte exhibition The Mystery of the Ordinary in 2013. More recently he has created the critically acclaimed series SOUND X SOUND. Lyhne Løkkegaard is also the founder of the curatorial non-event Curatorium -- a sound festival that never takes place.
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IMPREC 451LP
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Christina Kubisch contemplates Nicolai Tesla and his concept of electrical remoteness as it applies to the modern world. In this piece, Kubisch considers whether this is the future Tesla envisioned and what remoteness means in an age where remoteness hardly exists at all. "Tesla's Dream" includes electromagnetic field recordings from tramways, analog machines, light systems, power stations, airports, banks, security systems, advertising, and the sounds of discharges and activities of Tesla's own devices. Eleh's composition "Ohmage/Resistor" utilizes a new kind of spaciousness and was composed for piano and Serge STS modular synthesizers. Letterpress printed jacket; Edition of 500.
From Christina Kubisch: "The figure of Nikola Tesla has fascinated me since a long time. He was the person who imagined wireless communication in an era when there was hardly electricity. . . . Tesla had invented and patented the first telephone amplifier in 1882 in Budapest and, without knowing about its origin I used a simple telephone amplifier with incorporated small coils to listen to the sounds in my installations. Later on my work with electromagnetic induction had developed into the series 'Electrical Walks', city walks with special headphones which make audible the usually hidden electromagnetic fields around us. In 2012, I visited the small museum of science in the city of Kosice in Slovakia. The museum had many Tesla devices in their showroom and I got a special permission to test tem. I listened with my special induction headphones to the Tesla machines and was fascinated: a thunderstorm of electromagnetic noise. It was the moment when I got inspired to make a piece about electrical remoteness. . . .'Tesla's Dream' opens with the magnetic fields recorded in an old Austrian train station followed by the electrical melodies of old Tatra tramways in Bratislava (now almost disappeared). The sounds of discharges and activities of Tesla's devices gradually come in. During the piece the electromagnetic signals change gradually from the sounds of analog machines to the more actual fields of light systems, security systems, power lines, banks, subways, airports, power stations etc. Various electrical signals of digital communication slowly merge in and change again the sound structure. . . . The glass armonica (an original instrument from the 19th century) was recorded at the Musikinstrumentenmuseum in Berlin. All other recordings were made with electromagnetic headphones and other custom made devices developed by Christina Kubisch."
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IMPREC 455CD
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On October 6th, sui generis Brooklyn-based band Barbez, in collaboration with singer Velina Brown, release a remarkable tribute to the International Brigades called For Those Who Came After: Songs Of Resistance From The Spanish Civil War. The album, consisting of inventive and moving new renderings of the indelible protest songs of the International Brigades, was recorded live at the Japan Society, in 2016, at the annual reunion of veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The highlight of the reunion has always been the singing of these songs, which were led on several occasions by Pete Seeger, a life-long friend of the Lincoln veterans, who recorded many of them for his iconic 1944 album, Songs Of The Lincoln Battalion. Barbez draws on avant-rock, contemporary classical, and folk music styles such as cumbia and flamenco to reinvent iconic songs for a new generation of listeners. The album features clarinetist Peter Hess (Philip Glass Ensemble), Theremin virtuoso Pamelia Stickney (David Byrne), marimba and vibraphone player Danny Tunick (The Clean), guitarist Dan Kaufman (Rebecca Moore), violinist Catherine McRae (The Quavers), bassist Peter Lettre (Shearwater), and drummer John Bollinger (Sway Machinery); with vocalist Velina Brown (San Francisco Mime Troupe) and special guests Dafna Naphtali on background vocals and Sebastiaan Faber on trumpet. It's the first Barbez record since 2013's acclaimed Bella Ciao. Dan Kaufman, the bandleader of Barbez, moonlights as a journalist. Over the course of reporting, he got to know many veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, including the last surviving one, Del Berg, who died at 100 in 2016. "A Las Barricadas" is a fragment of an interview Kaufman conducted with Berg the year before he died. "Viva La Quince Brigade", the Brigade's unofficial anthem, features a fragment of an interview with Abe Osheroff, a legendary Lincoln vet and life-long activist. In October 1938, the International Brigades were sent home. Five months later, Madrid, the Republic's last holdout, fell. Some half million Spanish Republican exiles fled by foot across the border, settling for a time in damp, primitive internment camps on the beaches of southern France. Their plight -- and defiance -- are captured in the image on this album's cover, taken by the renowned war photographer Robert Capa in 1939. Mixed by Martin Bisi (Swans, Sonic Youth, John Zorn); Live engineering performed by Damon Whittemore (Paul McCartney, Andrew Bird); Includes extensive liner notes by award-winning author Adam Hochschild.
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IMPREC 455LP
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LP version. On October 6th, sui generis Brooklyn-based band Barbez, in collaboration with singer Velina Brown, release a remarkable tribute to the International Brigades called For Those Who Came After: Songs Of Resistance From The Spanish Civil War. The album, consisting of inventive and moving new renderings of the indelible protest songs of the International Brigades, was recorded live at the Japan Society, in 2016, at the annual reunion of veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The highlight of the reunion has always been the singing of these songs, which were led on several occasions by Pete Seeger, a life-long friend of the Lincoln veterans, who recorded many of them for his iconic 1944 album, Songs Of The Lincoln Battalion. Barbez draws on avant-rock, contemporary classical, and folk music styles such as cumbia and flamenco to reinvent iconic songs for a new generation of listeners. The album features clarinetist Peter Hess (Philip Glass Ensemble), Theremin virtuoso Pamelia Stickney (David Byrne), marimba and vibraphone player Danny Tunick (The Clean), guitarist Dan Kaufman (Rebecca Moore), violinist Catherine McRae (The Quavers), bassist Peter Lettre (Shearwater), and drummer John Bollinger (Sway Machinery); with vocalist Velina Brown (San Francisco Mime Troupe) and special guests Dafna Naphtali on background vocals and Sebastiaan Faber on trumpet. It's the first Barbez record since 2013's acclaimed Bella Ciao. Dan Kaufman, the bandleader of Barbez, moonlights as a journalist. Over the course of reporting, he got to know many veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, including the last surviving one, Del Berg, who died at 100 in 2016. "A Las Barricadas" is a fragment of an interview Kaufman conducted with Berg the year before he died. "Viva La Quince Brigade", the Brigade's unofficial anthem, features a fragment of an interview with Abe Osheroff, a legendary Lincoln vet and life-long activist. In October 1938, the International Brigades were sent home. Five months later, Madrid, the Republic's last holdout, fell. Some half million Spanish Republican exiles fled by foot across the border, settling for a time in damp, primitive internment camps on the beaches of southern France. Their plight -- and defiance -- are captured in the image on this album's cover, taken by the renowned war photographer Robert Capa in 1939. Mixed by Martin Bisi (Swans, Sonic Youth, John Zorn); Live engineering performed by Damon Whittemore (Paul McCartney, Andrew Bird); Includes extensive liner notes by award-winning author Adam Hochschild.
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IMPREC 448LP
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Important Records present Omminggg and Schlomminggg, the second release by continuous music pioneer Charlemagne Palestine and Grumbling Fur, consisting of London based multi-disciplinary artists Daniel O'Sullivan and Alexander Tucker; the Time Machine Orchestra being the extended drone arm of Tucker and O'Sullivan's experimental avant-pop conception. This double LP captures a performance of the trio at Copenhagen's illustrious Jazzhouse on November 28th, 2016. The pin-drop acoustic clarity of the venue providing an ideal setting for this mesmeric recital of eternal music. A Grumbling Fur redux/remodel constitutes side four. The signature strumming of Palestine's piano augmented by Tucker and O'Sullivan's earthware electronics and processed strings create seamless sonic ripples in a constant state of unfolding. This is perhaps the most demonstrative document of Palestine's powerful vocal delivery - an alien hybrid of sacred music drawing deep from the well of the cantorial synagogue and Hindustani classical styles in a bid to channel inter-dimensional beings from ancient cultures. In some respects, this could be thought of as Charlemagne in dub as Grumbling Fur carefully twist and mangle their palette of electrified harp, viola, bowed mandolin, percussion, tapes, and voice transformers through chains of loopers, resulting in a slowly dilating vapor. A unique document of portal opening music that defies time and space. Gatefold sleeve art by Alexander Tucker; Inside art by Daniel O'Sullivan. Assembled and mixed by Grumbling Fur; Mixed at O'Sullivan's Dream Lion Studio; Cut by Matt Colton, Alchemy Mastering.
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IMPREC 431LP
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Repressed, new lower price. Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) and Japanese noise legend Masami Akita (Merzbow) share a mutual love for the EMS Synthi, a British synthesizer from the early '70s notorious for its patch matrix, portability, and distinct tone. Astonishingly, these two disparate artists meld into a single sound as they flex the analog circuitry of the EMS Synthi in new ways; giving this classic synth a modern workout and proving that, in capable hands, a 40-year-old analog synthesizer is a tool for the ages. Metallic shimmer print on heavy duty jackets; 180 gram vinyl.
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IMPREC 449LP
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2018 repress. 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.
Caterina Barbieri on Patterns Of Consciousness: "A pattern creates a certain state of consciousness. Once it is created, the pattern stands as an object exactly like the sound waves which generate it. We are at the same time inside and outside of the object. While being it, we observe it. Over time we become familiar with the inner structure of the pattern. We decode its gravitational centres, where our psychomotor attention is attracted, where everything seems to be drawn. When a change in the pattern occurs it causes a perturbation of the previously established field of forces. This causes consciousness to fracture, potentially unfolding layers of perceptions we weren't aware of or simply suggesting that we access only a fraction of our psychic potential. The layered nature of consciousness and the relativity of perception are some of the biggest secrets we can experience through sound."
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