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 399LP
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$80.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/15/2025
"Grayfolded is literally a hundred or so great nights rolled into one extraordinary extended high. Gorgeous sonic oragami." --Rolling Stone
"An extended time-warped psychedelic jam that is meticulously hallucinatory." --New York Times
This deluxe 2025 vinyl edition of The Grateful Dead's Grayfolded was pressed at Optimal in Germany, known for their high-end audiophile pressings. In 1993 Canadian composer John Oswald was invited by Phil Lesh to transform historical recordings of the Dead into something new, along the lines of what they had attempted in their Anthem of the Sun album. Oswald chose to focus on the Dead's Dark Star, which, over the course of a quarter century, they had expanded and transformed in myriad ways in live performances. Oswald was given access to the Vaults, where over the course of a month, with the guidance of the Dead's resident archivist Dick Latvala, he collected 105 performances, which through the following year he formed, folded, fondled, and finessed into a kaleidoscopic unstuck-in-time documentary of the Grateful Dead in some of their most psychedelic, symphonic, and rocking excursions -- a singular 110-minute fantasy performance. Here it is, Deadheads, the ultimate Dark Star. Deluxe audiophile pressing cut in Toronto under the watchful ears of John Oswald. Elaborately printed packaging in a heavy-duty triple gatefold jacket includes liner notes by musicologist Rob Bowman featuring interviews with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Robert Hunter plus six "time maps" which chart the source concerts of Dark Star. Music performed by The Grateful Dead (c) Grateful Dead Productions Inc. & Ice Nine Publishing Inc. Taken from over 100 performances of Dark Star recorded between 1968 and 1993. Built, layered and "folded" to produce one large, new re-composed Dark Star. Original recordings of the Grateful Dead in performance have been processed using Plunderphonic techniques. John Oswald is best known as the creator of the music genre Plunderphonics, an appropriative form of recording studio creation which he began to develop in the late sixties. This has got him in trouble with, and also generated invitations from major record labels and musical icons. Meanwhile, in the '90s he began, with several commissions from the Kronos Quartet, to compose scores for classical musicians and orchestras, the latest of which is an orchestral work, commissioned by the BBC, combining aspects of The Beatles, Gyrgy Ligeti, and Terry Riley. He also improvises on the saxophone in various settings, dances, and is a successful visual artist, best known for the chronophotic series Stillnessence.
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7CD
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IMPREC 538CD
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Restocked. Agartha: Personal Meditation Music is a 7 CD boxed set, originally released on cassette in 1986, at the height of New Age, as an aid for meditation and alignment. Bringing to mind 20th century composers like Eliane Radigue, La Monte Young, or even Brian Eno's Shutov Assembly, the time-stopping, enveloping, electronic music contained in this series sounds eerily modern, mysterious and moving. Characterized by deep analog drones, rising overtones, floating frequencies surfing on sine-waves and intervals with mystic modulation, this is truly moving, vibrational music. In Agartha, the individual notes of each Harmonic Triad proceed in a fashion that is neither improvisational nor chance-based, nor is it generative. Instead, the music flows outward as if being transmitted -- or channeled -- from a place outside human consciousness. There is a profound sense of cosmic depth expanding ever outward as the music fills the listener with waves of emotion, and a palpable somatic response is felt, although there are subtle differences with each unique Triad. Each disc is individually packaged in original replica sleeves and housed in a heavy-duty cardboard clamshell box. Digitized and remastered by Jessica Thompson. Liner notes include extensive instructions for use from the original text and an essay by library music scholar David Hollander. The original edition of Agartha: Personal Meditation Music, featured one-track, 30-minute track per tape repeated on both sides. Subsequent editions had unique Side B tracks on all but two of the seven volumes. Important Records have included all tracks in this boxed set. RIYL: Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, Eleh, Duane Pitre, La Monte Young, Eno, Larajji, Iasos.
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2CD
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IMPREC 535CD
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American percussionist and composer Michael Ranta is a legendary figure who has worked with some of the most significant names of 20th century music but despite this and impressive body of work of his own, he has remained an obscure figure. Important Records presents Transits Volume 1 the first in a series of releases by composer/percussionist Sarah Hennies documenting never-before-heard chamber works mostly composed in the 1970s while Ranta was living in Taiwan. Mastered by Tom Eaton at Sounds & Substance. Based overseas since the late '60s, Ranta is known primarily as a percussionist who worked closely with Harry Partch, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Helmut Lachenmann, Toru Takemitsu, and Jean-Claude Éloy but is also an accomplished artist himself with a vast body of work spanning improvisation, electronic music, and composition. The works in the Transits series comprise a dozen works of scored compositions for solo and chamber ensembles almost all of which are completely unknown with no known performances or recordings since their original premieres. Volume 1 includes "Mharuva," a 30-minute marathon tour-deforce for solo marimba, "Seven Pieces for Three Percussionists," and the 40-minute "Continuum II," a stunning display of virtuosity for two bass clarinets, percussion, and electronics. Transits, Volume 1 features performances by Sarah Hennies, NYC clarinetists Madison Greenstone and Katie Porter, and the Bard College Conservatory Percussion Ensemble.
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IMPREC 533LP
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Japan's long running masters of psych/kosmische jamming return to Important Records for a vinyl outing featuring beloved original member Cotton Casino. This first edition is pressed in an edition of 500 copies. Trust Masked Replicants finds AMT in fine form, creating experimental psych-rock improvised around skeletal compositions. The group's leader, Kawabata Makoto, holds the group together while they navigate chaos infused, drone-based jamming at the outer edges of human consciousness. Side B, featuring the 20-minute track "Asoko Ananda," is a classic side-long fast paced AMT burner combining sped up kosmische rhythms, filter sweeps, free-jazz piano, tabla drumming and vocal experiments. "Asoko Ananda" utilizes many of the group's skills, ascending to the height of their collective, mountainous ability. Channeling prog, krautrock, modern composition and noise, Kawabata Makoto formed the Acid Mothers Temple in the early '90s. The group has gone on to release countless albums while touring the globe.
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IMPREC 524LP
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"The general theme of the composition is the idea of sounds which travel. During a tram ride from the city up to the hills with an old tram I discovered not only stunning views of the surrounding landscape but as well a special soundscape. Wearing a custom-made induction headphones, I could hear the normally hidden electromagnetic fields of the tram, which were so impressive and musical to me that I immediately decided to base my piece for Trondheim Voices on this discovery. As a start, a series of pure vocal recordings were produced by Trondheim Voices while listening to a choice of electromagnetic tram sounds and following score instructions. This material was mixed in my Berlin studio and afterward was played back through a multi-loudspeaker setup into the room of the Elisabeth Church in Berlin and was instantaneously recorded. The emerged recording was played back and recorded again. The process of playing back the previous recording was repeated numerous times, generating numerous 're-recordings,' until the voices sounded aethereal and abstract. The last one of these recordings became the very beginning of the "Stromsänger" piece. Part A is based on the electromagnetic sounds of the waiting tram and previously recorded voices. The singers come on stage and start to sing together with their recorded part which slowly fades out while the live singing takes over: a kind of choral for electrical tram waves and voices. Part B is based on the actual tram ride with strong and intense electromagnetic sounds. The single recordings were treated electronically and were divided into six channels. Each singer has chosen one of these files and improvises with the magnetic sounds as a soloist or in duos or trios. Part C is based on the itinerary of the tram ride to Lian, where a pilgrim's path starts. The names of the single stops, which have very beautiful and poetic names, are performed together as a kind of "sound poetry." The singers walk around on stage and/or can choose special positions for their performance. The recording of the word "Lian," the final stop, was recorded beforehand and played back and re-recorded several times in the open Norwegian landscape near the final tram stop. The voices slowly disappear and fade out." --Christina Kubisch, 2024
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IMPREC 525CD
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Strange Times is a virtuosic realization of contemporary electroacoustic soundscapes composed and performed by Stephen Ruppenthal and Gary R. Weisberg. With masterful employment of electro-acoustic techniques and tools, including the original '70s Buchla Music Easel Ruppenthal used in the Electric Weasel Ensemble, these two artists create an essential, psychedelic, electro-acoustic experience. Strange Times is a hallucinatory journey into these epidemic-ridden times through a collection of startling sonic landscapes. From epic acoustic journeys into re-imagining myth to the phantasmal soundscape world of the Bardo, Strange Times is not for the innocent or delicate listener. Time turns elastic, and folds in on itself; you are approaching the event horizon of a black hole. The only way to make sense of any of it is to mentally rewind; speed up or slow down the voices in your head in random attempts to find your way through this electroacoustic aether. Strange Times explores the ability of sound to alter consciousness, creating sonic environments, mental and physical states where one can allow the experience of listening to become transformative. Stephen was a founding member, along with Don Buchla and Allen & Pat Strange, of the Electric Weasel Ensemble, and more recently, with Brian Belet and Pat Strange, of SoundProof, and is known internationally for his live electroacoustic performances, and writings on text-sound composition. Gary R. Weisberg, composer-sound designer-digital audio artist was born 1951 in Brooklyn, NY. Gary moved to San Francisco in 1976 and was involved in a loosely knit collective of jazz and experimental musicians and artists, operating a small performance space called The Blue Dolphin. He studied music, computer programming and electronics at San Francisco State University, graduating with a degree in Electronic Music Composition. He spent two years building a modular analog synthesizer, and began composing electronic music and text-sound compositions for art/photography gallery openings. From 1986-1994, Gary maintained a MIDI project studio for the production of his own music, as well as sound and music for TV/Film/Video productions. Since 1994, Gary has been composing PC-based experimental electronic music, as well as pieces for electronic and acoustic instruments, occasionally performing with other composers and collaborating with visual artists.
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IMPREC 531CD
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Colliding Bubbles (surface tension and release) is a composition for string quartet and harmonica quartet, meaning that Quatuor Bozzini is playing string instruments while playing harmonicas. "The title refers to different kinds of bubbly matter which are set to collide within the composition, leading to different ruptures and possible release of surface tension. The collision of bubbles unfolds partly in relation to sound, where small fluctuations appear in the encounters between harmonicas and string instruments and partly in relation to a more performative or conceptual bubble where instruments representing different systems, or bubbles, will collide; the very celebrated instruments within the classical string quartet and the perhaps more prosaic harmonica." --Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard
This release was made possible with generous support from Augustinus Fonden, The Danish Conductors Association, The Danish Composers' Society & Conseil des arts lettres du Québec. Cover photos by Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard (Bubble studies, 2023).
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IMPREC 526CS
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Therapy is a new experimental electronic music album by Alexandre Bazin that explores musical research on the edge of ambient music, with a reminder of classical music. His instrumental music revolves around sonic textures, saturations, and feedback, allowing new fragments to emerge to create melodies, timbres and tone colors. The saturated sounds recall the presence of the electric guitar, encompassing orchestral materials and acoustic instruments which are the basis of this album, with the exception of the first two tracks, which are solo synthesizer pieces. The first to open the album is a solo by Synthi A, and the second by Buchla Music Easel.
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IMPREC 527CS
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Earthwave is Zak Riles' (Grails/Watter) follow-up to his eponymous debut CD (IMPREC 213CD) released on Important Records in 2008, a cinematic ascent through dark space, volatile illumination, reflection and refraction. Recorded during the pandemic -- when Riles took refuge in his rural Kentucky studio, providing remote engineering work for groups like Sleep, Om, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Mono, and Joan Shelley -- it's a monumental exploration of his enduring interest in late '70s/early '80s instrumental electronic and new-age music. The humid atmosphere and ominous moods of Earthwave were accomplished using an Arp 2600 and multiple Yamaha and Farfisa keyboards. The recordings were then run through analog equipment -- MCI JH110 tape machine, Lexicon Prime Time, Roland Space Echo -- adding to the sense of a time out of time. Echoes of past Riles compositions float through Earthwave's chambers, the saz, oud and twelve-string acoustic recalling his memorable contributions to early Grails recordings. The only guest is the legendary Britt Walford (Slint), whose drumming appears on two tracks. Earthwave is a project of sonic world-building by a master of his craft. Let yourself be overcome by its tectonic movement.
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LP
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IMPREC 512LP
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Mirage is a cosmic collaboration between the Silver Apples and Makoto Kawabata of Japan's Acid Mothers Temple. Packaged in a deluxe jacket printed with metallic silver ink. This album is dedicated to the memory of Simeone Coxe who died September 8, 2020 while this project was being assembled. "Dragonfly's First Flight," taking up the full side A, features Simeon Coxe and Makoto jamming over familiar Silver Apples hypnotic rhythms. Fans of both groups will delight in the interplay between Simeon's keyboard and Makoto's drone guitar feedback soloing. Side B ranges from free-form freakouts to ambient poetry readings by Simeon with Japanese translation spoken by Makoto. "Future Reminiscence," which closes side B, sounds like a long-lost Silver Apples track.
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IMPREC 514CD
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"One Arm Bandits is an hour-long piece in four parts, scored for four cellists. The cellists play only open strings, thus using only their right arms, never fingering the strings with the left hand. Recorded in Alvin Lucier's dining room, this work features cellists Tyler J. Borden, Laura Cetilia, Charles Curtis and Judith Hamann. Lucier oversaw and produced the recording, and approved the final takes. One Arm Bandits was an important project for Alvin Lucier. The idea for the piece goes back to conversations we first had in 2007 about the relationship between bow direction changes and shifts in phase. In the summer of 2015 we worked these ideas out in long sessions with Judith Hamann and T. J. Borden in New York, and the resulting piece received its first performances in Graz and Zürich in 2016. Alvin thought of One Arm Bandits as a radical statement, I think primarily in view of the severe reduction in material -- even in the context of his music -- and the physical restraint required in performance. The unusually long duration attests to Alvin's recognition that an expansion of scale was required in order to magnify acoustical details of such subtlety. In November 2021 Alvin saw proofs for the CD artwork. He passed away at the age of 90 on December 1, before he could see the album in its final form. Work with Alvin was always joyful, stimulating, and surprising. We dedicate this recording to the continuing spirit of this remarkable musician and friend." --Charles Curtis
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2LP
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IMPREC 485LP
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"This is where you have been forever and will always be forever." Stuart Dempster, speaking about what it feels like to be in a cistern where time seems to stop. Stuart Dempster created Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel in the same cistern where the legendary Deep Listening album was recorded. Reverberating with powerful, deep tones, this double LP is intended as a companion to the acclaimed Oliveros/Dempster/Panaiotis album Deep Listening. Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel is one of the deepest drone albums ever recorded. Nine trombones, didjeridu and Tibetan bells fill the massive two-million-gallon cistern with dense sonic reverberations that are both haunting and healing. Packaged in a heavy-duty paper sleeve printed with metallic gold ink to match the Deep Listening design.
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IMPREC 522CS
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Weather Music features music controlled by the weather and performed on instruments built by Quintron and NYZ. Side A features the Weather Warlock, designed by New Orleans artist and instrument builder Quintron. "Weather Warlock is an environmentally responsive analog synthesizer which uses moisture, temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and UV radiation to massage a major chordal drone. The resulting music was designed for self-hypnosis and healing. I wanted something with movement and changes, but completely devoid of human organization -- like a fire, or a lake reflecting moonlight. Constantly vibrating with change but also very still." Side B features David Burraston's rain wire, a long string instrument stretched across a valley in Australia where it's mic'd like a guitar with a single string being played by the rain. Like Quintron's Weather Warlock, this piece is devoid of human organization but has a natural form we can easily recognize rhythmically as the steady randomness of rainfall mixed with the deep-space reverberations of this long wire instrument. "Rainwire encompasses the investigation of rainfall using suspended cables (long wire instruments) and its application as a medium for artistic, cultural and scientific exchange. The concept developed from using contact mic recordings of rainfall 'playing' the long wire instruments for music compositions suggesting environmental signification has great potential to measure rainfall accurately." --David Burraston
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CD
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IMPREC 509CD
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Alina Kalancea is a sonic alchemist who can warp and weave electronic signals into complex tapestries of synthesized analog timbre. These transportive environments were recorded using the artist's personal collection of historic Buchla electronic music instruments including Allen Strange's expanded Music Easel. Letters Never Sent, Alina Kalancea's second full-length for Important Records follows 2021's double-album titled Impedance (IMPREC 491CD/LP), is being released at the same time as a new cassette titled Alchemy (IMPREC 504CS). Kalancea's music has the ability to evoke both emotion and image; feeling and landscape; passion and place. She described recording Letters Never Sent as being like collecting images that are born in your mind. Shades of sound, tone, color, and feeling shape the experience of listening to Kalancea's work. Kalancea's work is made of malleable sonic material that never looks or sounds the same way twice. Part of the magic of the music, and her work is similar to ELEH in this way, is that her work leaves room for the conscious and unconscious emotions of the listener. How you react is partially a result of how you feel at the time. Alchemy, Alina Kalancea's subsequent cassette being released simultaneously, is a limited-edition appendix to the album Letters Never Sent. Highly recommended to fans of Alessandro Cortini, Caterina Barbieri, Shasta Cults. "A slow building beauty of electronic soundscapes." --The Vinyl District
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IMPREC 504CS
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Alchemy is a limited-edition cassette appendix to the album Letters Never Sent which is being released simultaneously (IMPREC 509CD). Alchemy is even more mysterious than Letters Never Sent with Alina Kalancea extending her work into exotic electronic realms. Like Letters Never Sent, this is music that invites you in and responds to your current emotional state. This is music that not only changes you but also changes itself with each subsequent listen. Open your ears and your heart and mind will follow.
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IMPREC 508CD
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Ten years ago, Parish Bracha anonymously released his Disconscious album Hologram Plaza (2013), significantly influencing the still nascent vaporwave scene. He continued producing a number of disparate anonymous projects until "Cascade II" was released in 2020 on Arca's Mutant Mixtape. Cascades of Refinement, which includes the single "Cascade II", is Parish's debut album released under his own name and his focus on the dialogue between the digital and the organic continues. The techniques that defined his influential early sound have been refined into a flawless hybrid of analog and digital textures which give his post-minimalist compositions an unmistakably personal expressivity. Classical instruments are mutilated and transmuted into razor-sharp shards of glass suspended on piano wire above warped opalescent metal while never losing sight of their tonal integrity. Much like the impartial juxtaposition Parish employs in his timbral exploration, each composition explores the concepts of beauty and gentleness through and with extremity, violence, and chaos as equal counterparts, with each successive piece refining and relieving the artificial tension between these states. Employing use of the Una Corda, prepared piano, bowed piano, plucked piano, harpsichord, church organ, untuned violin, voice, synthesizers, and resampled field recordings, Cascades of Refinement lies somewhere in the indefinite space between acoustic and electronic and is beholden to neither. Parish's initial electroacoustic experiments with piano and strings were interrupted by the pandemic lockdown when he was limited to sampled instrumentation and digital processing available on a computer. Out of this necessity evolved an appreciation for the incidental nature of digitally sampled acoustic instrumentation and the unpredictability of its interaction with digital signal processing. As work on Cascades of Refinement continued and acoustic recording was reintroduced, the focus turned to the tension between recorded and sampled instrumentation, with the goal of integrating the two into a singular indistinguishable material to be warped and shaped together. Each of the four pieces of the Cascade series explore this tension, successively integrating and collapsing their distinction with each piece. The subtle artifacts of digital processing and incidental mechanical sounds of the acoustic are amplified and given presence alongside the tonal elements of each piece until a point of indivisibility is reached. The sound of a bow scraping along a string or a granular buffer freezing are neither discarded nor hidden, but selected as the ripest material to accompany and structure each composition. Cascades of Refinement is a dialogue between organic and digital, between the mercurial and infinitely reproducible, not as opposites, but as mereologically cohabiting counterparts with equal expressivity.
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IMPREC 508CS
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Cassette version. Ten years ago, Parish Bracha anonymously released his Disconscious album Hologram Plaza (2013), significantly influencing the still nascent vaporwave scene. He continued producing a number of disparate anonymous projects until "Cascade II" was released in 2020 on Arca's Mutant Mixtape. Cascades of Refinement, which includes the single "Cascade II", is Parish's debut album released under his own name and his focus on the dialogue between the digital and the organic continues. The techniques that defined his influential early sound have been refined into a flawless hybrid of analog and digital textures which give his post-minimalist compositions an unmistakably personal expressivity. Classical instruments are mutilated and transmuted into razor-sharp shards of glass suspended on piano wire above warped opalescent metal while never losing sight of their tonal integrity. Much like the impartial juxtaposition Parish employs in his timbral exploration, each composition explores the concepts of beauty and gentleness through and with extremity, violence, and chaos as equal counterparts, with each successive piece refining and relieving the artificial tension between these states. Employing use of the Una Corda, prepared piano, bowed piano, plucked piano, harpsichord, church organ, untuned violin, voice, synthesizers, and resampled field recordings, Cascades of Refinement lies somewhere in the indefinite space between acoustic and electronic and is beholden to neither. Parish's initial electroacoustic experiments with piano and strings were interrupted by the pandemic lockdown when he was limited to sampled instrumentation and digital processing available on a computer. Out of this necessity evolved an appreciation for the incidental nature of digitally sampled acoustic instrumentation and the unpredictability of its interaction with digital signal processing. As work on Cascades of Refinement continued and acoustic recording was reintroduced, the focus turned to the tension between recorded and sampled instrumentation, with the goal of integrating the two into a singular indistinguishable material to be warped and shaped together. Each of the four pieces of the Cascade series explore this tension, successively integrating and collapsing their distinction with each piece. The subtle artifacts of digital processing and incidental mechanical sounds of the acoustic are amplified and given presence alongside the tonal elements of each piece until a point of indivisibility is reached. The sound of a bow scraping along a string or a granular buffer freezing are neither discarded nor hidden, but selected as the ripest material to accompany and structure each composition. Cascades of Refinement is a dialogue between organic and digital, between the mercurial and infinitely reproducible, not as opposites, but as mereologically cohabiting counterparts with equal expressiveness.
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IMPREC 506CD
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Razen's Postcards From Hereafter was recorded using a 17th century organ tuned at 398 Hz (meantone) in a Belgian cathedral erected in 1305. The ensemble explored, with rich results, the organ's strict and limiting tuning with an arrangement that included hurdy gurdy, recorders, chalumeau, violone and nyckelharpa. The pieces on Postcards From Hereafter explore the crossover between this world and the next with improvised spiritual, religious music. Brussels-based ensemble Razen use the unique timbral and drone characteristics of their chosen string and wind instruments in improvised, instinctive music that mixes pre-industrial, spectral and ethnic dreamtones with trance and medieval mysticism. The group includes Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour as well as Pieter Lenaerts on five-string double bass and sarangi, Paul Garriau on hurdy-gurdy, David Poltrock on Ondes Martenot, Berlinde Deman on serpent, and Jean-Philippe Poncin on chalumeau and bass clarinet. RIYL: Olivier Messiaen, Sun Ra, Popol Vuh.
Over the past twelve years, the Brussels-based ensemble Razen has been forging a singular path that rethinks the idiom of minimalism and pushes it toward a higher plane; tapping the primal root, while pushing toward the future. Founded in 2010 as duo of Brecht Ameel (organ and string instruments) and Kim Delcour (wind instruments), growing and contracting as an ensemble over the years, the band deploys improvisation and the unique timbral and drone characteristics of string and wind instruments to sculpt landscapes of intuitive long tones, combining the trance-inducing roots of music with a progressive vanguardism that seeks the intangible and the unknown. The band's releases are emblematic of the hybrid between psychedelic music, Early Music and contemporary spectral approaches. Razen has performed all over Europe on numerous occasions, on international festivals and well-known venues, from Fylkingen in Stockholm to Berghain in Berlin to the small church of Dranouter (Belgium).
"... an intoxicating sauce of stark and tripped out ritual music... which conspires to keep listeners in a semi-permanent trance state" --Julian Cope (Head Heritage).
"... a heady brew of deep listening music that is almost medieval in mood and wholly reverential in technique" --Edwin Pouncey (Wire Magazine).
"Razen push the drone potential of medieval instruments like hurdy gurdy as well as shawm and recorders... into realms of total sensory overload" --David Keenan (Volcanic Tongue).
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IMPREC 493CD
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"Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are." --Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
Veils Of Transformation 1972-1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. Liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records. Kramer developed a musical language focused on continuous transformation of timbre, yielding a continuity of attention. This musical language, formed of timbral change, is a compelling aesthetic in its own right and a source of meditative experience. The four works on this album share a deep sense of order derived not from organizing pitches or rhythms, but from the evolution of timbre itself. Gregory Kramer (b. 1952) is a pioneering electronic composer, inventor, researcher, teacher and author. In 1975 he founded Electronic Musicmobile, a synthesizer ensemble later renamed Electronic Musicmobile, a series of synthesizer concerts in New York from which he formed the Electronic Art Ensemble. His work extended to developing synthesizers and related equipment. Kramer also co-founded the not-for-profit arts organization Harvestworks in New York City. He is recognized as the founding figure of the intensely cross-disciplinary field of data sonification. Since 1980, Kramer teaches Buddhist meditation. The four compositions collected here each represent Kramer's unique approaches: The structure of "Meditations on 32 Parts of the Body" is derived from the means of its production. Recording five people chanting an ancient meditation text, then layering to gradually achieve more than one million voices. The layering was all done using analog tape recorders. The decomposition of the sound reflects the anomalies of tape machines out of sync, and the build-up of artifacts from the audio tape itself, such as uneven response curves and tape hiss, are all engaged as musical materials. "Role" was generated using one complex patch on a large hybrid Buchla 200/100 system. Emerging from a zeitgeist that valued pure synthesis as a combined artistic and technological research. At the time this piece was realized it's as exceedingly difficult to produce electronic sounds that were internally complex. "Blue Wave" is built on Kramer's timbral development technique "Veils Of Transformation" which allows for disparate timbres to be woven into a continuously developing sound. "Monologue" is a virtuosic performance of a massive patch on a Buchla/Electron Farm hybrid electronic instrument. Built into the patch is a pathway for continuous transformation of voice and voltage-controlled synthesizer.
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IMPREC 493CS
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Cassette version. "Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are." --Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
Veils Of Transformation 1972-1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. Liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records. Kramer developed a musical language focused on continuous transformation of timbre, yielding a continuity of attention. This musical language, formed of timbral change, is a compelling aesthetic in its own right and a source of meditative experience. The four works on this album share a deep sense of order derived not from organizing pitches or rhythms, but from the evolution of timbre itself. Gregory Kramer (b. 1952) is a pioneering electronic composer, inventor, researcher, teacher and author. In 1975 he founded Electronic Musicmobile, a synthesizer ensemble later renamed Electronic Musicmobile, a series of synthesizer concerts in New York from which he formed the Electronic Art Ensemble. His work extended to developing synthesizers and related equipment. Kramer also co-founded the not-for-profit arts organization Harvestworks in New York City. He is recognized as the founding figure of the intensely cross-disciplinary field of data sonification. Since 1980, Kramer teaches Buddhist meditation. The four compositions collected here each represent Kramer's unique approaches: The structure of "Meditations on 32 Parts of the Body" is derived from the means of its production. Recording five people chanting an ancient meditation text, then layering to gradually achieve more than one million voices. The layering was all done using analog tape recorders. The decomposition of the sound reflects the anomalies of tape machines out of sync, and the build-up of artifacts from the audio tape itself, such as uneven response curves and tape hiss, are all engaged as musical materials. "Role" was generated using one complex patch on a large hybrid Buchla 200/100 system. Emerging from a zeitgeist that valued pure synthesis as a combined artistic and technological research. At the time this piece was realized it's as exceedingly difficult to produce electronic sounds that were internally complex. "Blue Wave" is built on Kramer's timbral development technique "Veils Of Transformation" which allows for disparate timbres to be woven into a continuously developing sound. "Monologue" is a virtuosic performance of a massive patch on a Buchla/Electron Farm hybrid electronic instrument. Built into the patch is a pathway for continuous transformation of voice and voltage-controlled synthesizer.
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IMPREC 459LP
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The Well & The Gentle, featuring two of the major works by Pauline Oliveros, are presented here in a first-time reissue on double vinyl, originally released in 1985. If Oliveros had followed a more conventional path she may have, all social obstacles aside, been considered among the major composers of her time. However, Oliveros approached composition in a more egalitarian manner. She wrote music for musicians to interact with or, in the composer's words, she wished to create "an inclusive and interdependent and unfolding world of relationships." Oliveros'd propensity towards inclusion is part of what makes this work so remarkably distinctive. The Well & The Gentle is carefully crafted, allowing performers to participate in the creation of the work. Players are asked to collaborate, focus, react and make imaginative choices. Only then can the performers "pass through stages of awakening to the possibilities inherent in making music, working together, leading to the essence of what can shape musical impulses and individual freedom simultaneously." Unlike most major composers of the era, Oliveros's work focuses on collaboration and improvisation. For Oliveros, the processes involved in making music are as fundamental as the music itself. Oliveros creates, as Arthur Sabatini put it so eloquently in the liner notes, "A world in which sound and the practices entailed in making music merge; become, at once, source and atmosphere, energy and essence, presence and dynamic." Gatefold sleeve with extensive liner notes.
Pauline Oliveros was an electronic music pioneer, accordionist, composer and educator who resided in Kingston, New York. Her instrument was tuned in Just Intonation and she often included it in her meditative improvisational music. Her music is not meditative in the sense that it is intended for listening to while meditating, rather each piece is a form of meditation, such as her aptly titled Sonic Meditations. A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. West coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvised with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed, in her performances and recording.
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LP
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IMPREC 503LP
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After Black Clouds Above The Bows (IMPREC 507CD), Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the second entry of their trilogy for Important Records, which is dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe. For this album the artists incorporated the sound of a dying organ, fatally wounded in a climate related event. All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea consists of electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe. Wailing odes tell the story of the catastrophic activity of eroding waves and winds shaping the land that are enhanced by the climate crisis. Firsthand experiences and meetings with local maritime experts on the subject of these receding coastlines inspired Wanderwelle to compose these albums. During their travels, the artists stumbled upon a small church in a town on the east coast of Scotland. The building was quite damaged, the roof was being stabilized and the ancient walls showed great tears running vertically down the structure. The damage had been caused by a nearby cliff that collapsed in the sea, an event increasingly common in the region. The church organ was ruined in such a way that it was deemed unplayable, as most of the pipes were gravely damaged and in dire need of restoration. Despite the damage, the artists were allowed to record a few tones of the instrument with their equipment, which was actually meant to be used for field recordings later that day. In Black Clouds Above The Bows, antique cavalry trumpets were recorded and manipulated. Similar processing was used on the recordings of the dying organ, resulting in spectral, deconstructed tones beyond recognition. In addition to the damaged organ, the artists recorded piano, cello, and synthesizers in later stages of the composition process, manipulating these sounds to mimic the sea shaping the land. Furthermore, a great deal of inspiration was found in maritime superstition, lore, and mythology. As told in the legend of Aspidochelone, a legendary sea creature of enormous size, was once mistaken for an island. After sailors docked and lit a fire, the beast submerged resembling a land mass sliding into the sea. The album's title is derived from the saying "All Hands Bury The Dead", a maritime burial phrase, as the duo likes to think "All Hands" refers to all of mankind since we are all responsible for these impending catastrophes.
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IMPREC 498CD
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11 Dec 80 is a two-CD set containing Eliane Radigue's live performance of Chry-Ptus (1971), her first work for modular synthesizer, and the world premiere of parts one and three of Triptych (1978). Triptych part 2 is also performed. Upon hearing these performances for the first time in many years, Radigue declared them to be the best versions she'd ever heard. Radigue's sublime renderings of these major pieces are full of illusory stasis, slow change, and dense, slow-motion drone that has characterized her pioneering electronic work. These pieces move like a river with currents shifting beneath the surface. While you can't quite distinguish the individual components you get a clear feeling of motion and change.
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IMPREC 523CD
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Golden Leaf is the 19th album by the Italian experimental band Larsen here exploring free form sounds and spatial dynamics by real time composing and creating a sonic and social environment. It also confirms the love and interest the band has for collaborations as ongoing dialogues and portals to new paths. This album documents a four-hour, site-specific performance by Larsen and Alessandro Sciaraffa featuring interactive sound totems designed by Alessandro Sciaraffa and exclusive food creations by chef Gabriele Gatti. The performance took place at a secret location in Torino (Italy) in 2021 and was meant as an alchemical rite with the audience being an integral part of it. It was recorded and then edited and assembled into two pieces by long-time collaborator, sound engineer, solo musician, Paul Beauchamp. Mastered by James Plotkin. First edition pressing of 300; digipak printed with metallic gold ink.
Since 1995 Larsen, from Torino Italy, has released 18 full-length albums and 4 EPs to critical acclaim. Collaborations with such artists as Johann Johannsson, Michael Gira, Martin Bisi, Lustmord, Deathprod, Nurse With Wound, Z'EV, Baby Dee, Julia Kent, sci-fi icon Christine Schell, plus the project -- a band in itself -- XXL (aka Xiu Xiu + Larsen) also stand out on their record. In 2008, legendary dub-diva Little Annie (aka Annie Anxiety Bandez) joined the band as lead singer and lyricist appearing on "La Fever Lit" and "Cool Cruel Mouth" and live on stage on the related tours.
Alessandro Sciaraffa (Torino, 1976) studied architecture, electronic music, and sound design, and specialized at the Karlheinz Stockhausen Foundation For Music in Kurten. He won the ninth edition of Italian Council and is the founder of the experimental music collective WHYOFF. Focusing on sound and its multiple relationships between material, space and time his artistic research expresses itself through performances and the elaboration of installations and sound sculptures.
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IMPREC 521CS
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Duane Pitre's Varolii Patterns was made with an eight-voice synthesizer, tuned in Just Intonation. These consonant pieces explore shifting polyrhythms that slip in-and-out of rhythmic focus and "Common Rhythmic Pulses" carry over as the pattern evolves within a piece.
Artist statement: "While experimenting with microtonal electronics for a piece I was writing for Zinc & Copper, which would eventually be titled Pons, I came across a process-based technique that I was quite keen on. Although I wouldn't use this technique on the Zinc & Copper piece, I would later implement said process to make up some of the electronics on Omniscient Voices (IMPREC 501LP, 2021). During this time, I carried out dozens and dozens of instances of this process and recorded them all. Varolii Patterns is composed of a small collection of these recorded takes, ones I felt were standalone pieces on their own and that worked well together as a whole."
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