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 501LP
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$27.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/19/2021
Duane Pitre returns to Important Records with Omniscient Voices, an articulate, intense and emotionally resonant set of five pieces for justly tuned piano and electronics. Omniscient Voices is a uniquely distinct work that follows Pitre's trilogy of releases which culminated with 2015's Bayou Electric (IMPREC 421CD/LP) and included the critically acclaimed Feel Free (2012) and Bridges (IMPREC 390CD/LP, 2013) albums. Where those albums were rooted in long form pieces, Omniscient Voices is a collection of shorter pieces, offering more harmonic variety than previous works, with a unique sound and feel that is still unmistakably the work of Duane Pitre. In 2019, after a five-year period where Pitre did not focus on outward facing music, but instead on his own personal practice, a small idea in the form of a question came to him: would the combination of his latest computer -- and electronic-based experiments, used in conjunction with justly tuned piano, produce interesting results; simply put, would it "work"? Concurrently, Pitre was studying a handful of Morton Feldman scores for their focus on tonal clusters, reading a book on Arvo Pärt's life and work, and contemplating the pulse-based rhythms of Steve Reich and Phillip Glass. In 2020, with no intention of making a new album, the composer tried to answer this question. The results would spawn five pieces that would become Omniscient Voices. On this new work, Pitre finds himself giving equal priority to both piano and electronics, utilizing his Max/MSP-based generative network to real-time convert precomposed piano motifs, into data, which is then used to communicate with two polyphonic, microtonal hardware synthesizers whose patches Pitre authored; this process generates the electronic component of the album. Pitre also utilizes controlled improvisation to interact with the piano-reactive electronics in a spontaneous and inspired manner, going back and forth between these two pianistic approaches. In all, this approach creates a "musical feedback loop" of sorts. Despite Omniscient Voices being the culmination of 15 years of hard work and inspiration, this beautiful album somehow materialized in a natural, intuitive and effortless way. Mastered and cut by Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.
Artist's statement: "When making the pieces that would become Omniscient Voices, I often viewed the piano as human action, a single note becoming a single gesture that has the potential to change the electronic environment, the electronics becoming the environment surrounding that human in the natural world, who then has the power to change their actions based on their surroundings. All actions have consequences. The interconnectedness of everything. Single actions making waves of change."
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2CD
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IMPREC 497CD
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Eliane Radigue's complete Opus 17 (1970), her finest and final work created using feedback, is contained on this double CD. With Opus 17, Radigue perfected her slow mixing technique with sublime results. Imperceptible transformations envelop the attentive listener who is confronted with an immensely physical experience. Time is suspended in powerfully poetic and artful ways as Radigue masterfully sculpts the physical matter of sound using feedback for the last time. Opus 17 is an absolutely essential masterpiece in the realm of early electro-acoustic/drone/minimalist composition.
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IMPREC 499CD
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Every new St. Abdullah record is an attempt to present new ideas and To Live A La West is no exception. To Live A La West is simply moving, a collection of profound and spiritual tracks miraculously existing at the impossible intersection of free jazz and electro where mystery and clarity exist together. Neither complicated or complex but profound, St. Abdullah's new work is partially inspired by their love for Jon Hassell's compositions. CD features guest appearances by John Butcher, Aquiles Navarro, and Kol; packaged in a heavy-duty digipack with metallic gold printing.
Saint Abdullah on the release: "This album, like all of our albums, are rooted in our human stories. Personal stories, family stories. This one happens to focus on the chapter that began when we moved to Canada as kids, and left Iran for good. To live in the West doesn't necessarily mean to be Western. That is a choice. As kids, it felt a necessity to be like the western kids. To imitate their culture, choices, way of life. That's what was acceptable, even desirable -- a life lived with less tension was the motto. We were already different enough. It was never our parents who asked this of us. More the environment. There was a moment, after grade 6 graduation that our mother has on film (she has everything on film), where we're begging her to let us go to the dance that took place after the ceremonies. Our father was strictly a no, our mother was on the fence. In the end she won out, and we got to go. It was such a wild feeling, having only been in the west 3 years at that time. So maybe that's what this album is about, an imitation? But who we are imitating, I'm not sure anymore. No one directly, certainly, but a cannon perhaps. Imitate better than they can infiltrate. Faster than they take over our cultures, our lands, our youth, we take over theirs. Still reflecting..."
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3LP
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IMPREC 500LP
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A collection of long-form works in just intonation by Kali Malone, Duane Pitre, Catherine Lamb, Tashi Wada, Byron Westbrook, and Caterina Barbieri. Each artist occupies an entire side of the collection's three LPs. Curated by Duane Pitre, Important Records returns with its second volume of compiled works in just intonation. The Harmonic Series Volume 2, issued as a triple-LP collection, features a series of long-form compositions by six of the most important emerging voices of contemporary experimental music. Unlike equal temperament, which equally divides an octave into 12 fixed notes, just intonation utilizes intervals of whole number ratios to determine tonal positions. It results in a highly individualized tonal language and holds the potential for more nuanced relationships and striking, sympathetic resonances. Rooted in ideas that trace their way across the last 2500 years, just intonation lays at the foundation for numerous Indian, Persian, and East Asian musical traditions. It was reintroduced into western music during the 20th century by composers like Harry Partch, Ben Johnston, Lou Harrison, James Tenney, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young. An interest in just intonation has continued to swell following the appearance of The Harmonic Series in 2009 inspiring Pitre to curate a second compilation. Kali Malone's "Pipe Inversions" -- played by Malone on a small pipe organ, joined by Isak Hedtjärn on bass clarinet -- belongs to a larger body of microtonal organ works that have increasingly placed the composer at the forefront of contemporary minimalism and drone music. Across the length of Duane Pitre's "Three for Rhodes" -- a chamber piece for "unknown instrumentation" - deconstructed rhythms and melodic fragments swell in a dance of harmonic interplay, rising and falling within the work's engrossing architectural complexity. Catherine Lamb's "inter sum" -- one of a tiny number of available works to encounter the composer and renowned violist working on synthesizer -- endeavors to break the visualization of harmony as a vertical reality, rendering it multidimensionally in space. A canon for eight-violins played by Marc Sabat, Tashi Wada's "Midheaven (Alignment Mix)" -- guided by the internal logic of its tuning system -- shape-shifts into an elegantly poetic form of musical conceptualism. Byron Westbrook's "Memory Phasings" -- composed and recorded on a combination of computer controlled modular synthesizers and a Yamaha TX802 -- employs the ratios of just intonation as harmonic building blocks for texture. Deploying just intonation as a means for psycho-physiological exploration, Caterina Barbieri's "Firmamento" -- composed for synthesizer -- deftly intervenes with the expectations of minimalism, durational music, and drone. Cut at Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.
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Cassette
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IMPREC 471CS
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Replica tape. 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 472CS
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"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
Important Records present Pauline Oliveros' Tara's Room on cassette for the first time since 1987. This replica tape is available at the same time as Oliveros' collaboration with Guy Klucevsek titled Sounding / Way (IMPREC 471CS), also on tape for the first time since its original release. This tape 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.
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 473CS
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Cassette version. "Deep Listening still sounds revolutionary. While drone, minimalism and ambient music have proliferated in the intervening decades, few albums in those fields are as rich texturally and harmonically or have such a clarity of vision. The salience of Deep Listening resides in its contrast to mainstream culture's riptide trajectory towards distraction and saturation, towards soloed media and political environments." --Pitchfork (9.2 Best New Reissue/#8 on "Top 50 ambient albums of all time")
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Deep Listening, Important Records offer you a definitive edition of the album combining the classic, complete original 1989 release with selected tracks from the Deep Listening Band's 1991 album The Readymade Boomerang. Recorded in a cistern, Deep Listening 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.
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CD
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IMPREC 473CD
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"Deep Listening still sounds revolutionary. While drone, minimalism and ambient music have proliferated in the intervening decades, few albums in those fields are as rich texturally and harmonically or have such a clarity of vision. The salience of Deep Listening resides in its contrast to mainstream culture's riptide trajectory towards distraction and saturation, towards soloed media and political environments." --Pitchfork (9.2 Best New Reissue/#8 on "Top 50 ambient albums of all time")
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Deep Listening, Important Records offer you a definitive edition of the album combining the classic, complete original 1989 release with selected tracks from the Deep Listening Band's 1991 album The Readymade Boomerang. Recorded in a cistern, Deep Listening 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.
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CD
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IMPREC 486CD
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Recorded during two days of extreme weather, ELEH's Snoweight conveys the mesmerizing force of a winter storm with sonic realism and romanticism. These two new compositions evoke both warm security and wild, blanketing intensity in ways that are both emotionally arresting and time stopping.
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IMPREC 486CS
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Cassette version. Recorded during two days of extreme weather, ELEH's Snoweight conveys the mesmerizing force of a winter storm with sonic realism and romanticism. These two new compositions evoke both warm security and wild, blanketing intensity in ways that are both emotionally arresting and time stopping.
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LP
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IMPREC 486LP
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LP version. Recorded during two days of extreme weather, ELEH's Snoweight conveys the mesmerizing force of a winter storm with sonic realism and romanticism. These two new compositions evoke both warm security and wild, blanketing intensity in ways that are both emotionally arresting and time stopping. LP version is packaged in a heavy-duty jacket screen printed by Neil Burke at Monoroid; edition of 305 (hand numbered).
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LP
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IMPREC 487LP
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Saturations is a composition by Danish multidisciplinary artist Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard, and features a clarinet choir consisting of 19 clarinet players. Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard (b. 1979) considers his work to be a basic research in realities working within the domains of imaginary and physical sound as well as other non-sonic media, and since 2012 Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard has experimented with creating music that lets the instruments transcend their inherent sonic norms and reappear in another form by way of multiplication of sound. His work with multiplication of sound has led to numerous compositions in which one instrument is multiplied a number of times: One piece is written for nine pianos, another for ten hi-hats and yet another for countless triangles and so on. The multiplication brings out bodily timbral phenomena, interference of sound waves and vibrations, and brings out what Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard calls the sound's potential of transformation. He describes this as the quality in a musical piece, when you no longer hear recognizable instruments, but instead the individual sound, as well as the individual musician, is dissolved into the collective sound. A sonic as well as human synthesis. He explains the concept of this sound as follows: "Imagine you enter a room with vibrant acoustics, such as a cafe full of people having conversations, and when you're close to those conversations you hear the language and understand the words. If you step away from the tables, however, and stand in the doorway, you begin to lose the ability to distinguish the words from one another. Now instead of hearing the individual conversations, melts all the conversations together, and transform into a one new sound. A sound of people without words and language. Just as when you hear a group of geese squawk, or the wind in tree tops, a kind of nature given sound of people. Once the language is dissolved and the words stop making sense, what is left, is the sound."
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IMPREC 489CD
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Tim Catlin formed the Overtone Ensemble in 2012 in order to perform works using his self-made "Vibrissa" instruments. The Vibrissa includes twelve vertically mounted aluminum rods that are longitudinally stroked with gloved hands to produce ethereal "singing" tones. The long sustaining nature of the rods sound and microtonal tunings allow players a sonic palette of complex textures and harmonic complexity. Expanding from the instrumentation on their first album, these new recordings utilize Vibrissa instruments, plus a range of extended techniques on old instruments including timpani, bowed piano, bowed glockenspiel, bowed guitar, as well as some new instruments, like doppler rods and whirled tubes. The majority of the recordings were done in the Old Chapel building in Melbourne, Australia. The chapel, formerly attached to the Old Melbourne Gaol boasts ten-meter-high ceilings which added an enveloping acoustic ambience. At times it felt as though the spectral presences of former inmates were hovering benevolently in the rafters watching on.
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2LP
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IMPREC 491LP
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Double LP version. Alina Kalancea's Impedance is an entirely instrumental album spanning four sides, contains powerful rhythmic sequences, heart-beating frequencies and hypnotic loops that are paradoxically encapsulated in carefully crafted compositions which are full of secret passages and hidden doors. Kalancea's work creates ungraspable sonic experiences, which overtakes you, immersing its listeners in powerful and mind-altering soundscapes. There's no quick payoff on Impedance. This is the sound of new, patient electronic music, full of depth and substance. Alina Kalancea is a Romanian sound artist and composer based in Modena, Italy. She has studied sound design and synthesis with Enrico Cosimi and collaborated with producer Alex Gamez, and artists Julia Kent and Raven Bush. Highly recommended to fans of Eleh, Caterina Barbieri, Shasta Cults, Jessica Ekomane, Eliane Radigue, and Alessandro Cortini. Packaged in a deluxe, heavy duty tip-on gatefold sleeves printed by Stoughton; cut by Golden Mastering and pressed at RTI.
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CD
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IMPREC 491CD
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Alina Kalancea's Impedance is an entirely instrumental album spanning four sides, contains powerful rhythmic sequences, heart-beating frequencies and hypnotic loops that are paradoxically encapsulated in carefully crafted compositions which are full of secret passages and hidden doors. Kalancea's work creates ungraspable sonic experiences, which overtakes you, immersing its listeners in powerful and mind-altering soundscapes. There's no quick payoff on Impedance. This is the sound of new, patient electronic music, full of depth and substance. Alina Kalancea is a Romanian sound artist and composer based in Modena, Italy. She has studied sound design and synthesis with Enrico Cosimi and collaborated with producer Alex Gamez, and artists Julia Kent and Raven Bush. Highly recommended to fans of Eleh, Caterina Barbieri, Shasta Cults, Jessica Ekomane, Eliane Radigue, and Alessandro Cortini. Packaged in a deluxe, heavy duty tip-on gatefold sleeves printed by Stoughton; cut by Golden Mastering and pressed at RTI.
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LP
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IMPREC 479LP
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First copies on transparent blue vinyl. Important Records announce the release on vinyl LP of Ned Lagin's Seastones Sets 4 and 5. Ned Lagin's Seastones is a pioneering electronic composition interweaving metaphors from nature, science, art and music and the origins of music. Reflecting the technology, science, modern art, new ecological awareness and optimism of the times and culture, Seastones embodies the history of electronic music by taking full advantage of tape music, analog synthesizers, and computer technology. Originally released by the Grateful Dead's Round Records in 1975, Seastones' reputation as a gem of electronic music was further enhanced by the celebrity of the musicians who contributed to the source material. Seastones musicians include Ned Lagin (processed piano, clavichord, organ, prepared piano, electric piano, synthesizers), Jerry Garcia (processed electric guitar, pedal steel guitar, voice), Phil Lesh (processed electric bass), David Crosby (processed electric guitar and vocals), Grace Slick and David Freiberg (processed vocals), and Mickey Hart and Spencer Dryden (percussion). This new LP presents two crafted Seastones sets (Sets 4 and 5, 18 tracks) drawn from the entire Seastones composition and contains gorgeous extended processed vocals by Garcia, Crosby, Slick, and Freiberg, and beautiful abstract instrumental passages by Lagin and all. Lagin is considered a pioneer in the development and use of minicomputers and personal computers in real-time stage and studio music composition and performance. Seastones was influenced not only by modern jazz and forms for improvisation, but also by Lagin's studies of early, Renaissance, and 20th century music. He was a touring, studio, and guest keyboard player with the Grateful Dead from 1970 to 1976. Seastones composition began in 1970, while Lagin was attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1974, with a minicomputer and an E-mu modular analog synthesizer, Lagin was able to play a polyphonic keyboard and hybrid computer-controlled instrument, as well as create simple generative musical processes. The normal controls found on the analog synthesizer were customized to accept computer control and the system was large enough to input audio and control voltages from the other musicians' instruments. This means that the synthesizer controls which were processing the incoming audio from the musicians could be controlled by what the artists were playing. These control voltages and timing signals derived from the amplitude envelope shapes of what the musicians played. Each track on Seastones is what Lagin refers to as a "moment form". Each track is self-contained, like a sea stone on the beach. Lagin: "... Like real sea stones, the Seastones moment forms are each a placetime, a time island, a droplet of time. They are composed and synthesized and skeletal improvisational forms..." Seastones: Sets 4 and 5 is available in this audiophile edition of 2000 copies. This audiophile quality LP was cut by Golden Mastering and pressed at RTI to insure excellence in reproducing Seastone's rich analog sound.
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CD
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IMPREC 447CD
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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 460CD
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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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PIC. DISC
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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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CD
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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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3CD
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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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LP
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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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LP
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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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LP
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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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