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 432CD
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$13.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 9/13/2019
Shasta Cults' Important Records debut is not to be missed. A self-titled Shasta Cults will be available later this year, also on Important Records. A ship sinks beneath the silver mirror of the sea-top, temple gongs ring through an empty valley, industrial machinery sputters, heaves, lurches forward, stops, falls apart... These sound events may be the most acute musical referents of Shasta Cults, the music project of Canadian synthesizer technician Richard Smith. Using obsolete electronics, Shasta Cults pursues the true sound of the instrument, freed from the tyranny of emulation, no strings/woodwinds/piano presets. Shasta Cults' compositions seek out unchartered territories where sustained drones may swell, build, or evaporate; where timbres collide, amplitudes fluctuate, sounds emerge, raw, primeval, new hybrids form from the collisions of electricity and frequency. There may be stretches of silence punctuated by bell-ish tones from futures unheard; a sequence of notes may verge upon melody before mutating into ugly moans, the sonic equivalent of funhouse mirrors. But the end result is far more than chance operation, sporadic sound fields, or indeterminate academic exercise. Instead, Shasta Cults brings you back to nature, back to the possibilities inherent in nature, to the truth of evolution, stitching both musical tones, and the sounds of 21st century living into a form which is as real, as imponderable, and as ungovernable as our own memories. Recorded in 2017, employing the processes of non-linear wave shaping, frequency modulation, and feedback, Configurations consists of eight programs captured live to multi-track using a rare, fully functional Buchla 700 digital-hybrid instrument designed in the late 1980s. Whereas previously released works made with the 700 almost always consist in simple manipulations of the single factory preset, this album delves deep into the instrument's rich sonic vocabulary to offer the listener a more elaborate demonstration of the system's capabilities. Presented here in limited quantities this release is intended as a high-fidelity audio archive of this obscure musical artifact. RIYL: Eleh, Sarah Davachi.
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IMPREC 452LP
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Important Records announces Vibe, the new LP from Extended Organ, the Los Angeles-based quintet associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS). Vibe, Extended Organ's first full-length studio LP since 2000's XOXO was recorded in April 2016 by members Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Paul McCarthy, Tom Recchion, and Alex Stevens. The album consists of two side-long tracks, "Hate" and "Vibe", recorded live at LACM Studio in Pasadena, California by acclaimed engineer André Knecht. On Vibe, the band employs prepared piano, junk percussion, Joe Potts' Chopped Optigan, electric guitar, voice, Rheem organ, various electronics, and homemade instruments. Each track is improvised, then assembled and edited without overdubbing in studio. The music moves with velocity and direction revealing surprises at every turn. The resulting sound is ominous, humorous, harmonious, chaotic, and at times quietly erotic. This is abstractly powerful music. The highly provocative cover image, created collaboratively by Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, and Tom Recchion, is shrouded inside a unique laser-cut outer sleeve. Like the music contained within, the cover reveal is a beguiling experience in and of itself. This intriguing package was art directed and designed by Tom Recchion.
Formed in 1994, Extended Organ produces a dynamic otherworldly ambience which can be simultaneously hilarious and frightening. Joe Potts lays down a carpet of sound using and his self-engineered drone instrument, the "Chopped Optigan", over which Paul McCarthy performs vocal and guitar improvisations channeled and processed by Alex Stevens. Alex also adds his own keyboard triggered synthesized sounds. Tom Recchion, renowned as an inventor of homemade instruments, a free improviser, and an accomplished composer of acoustic, electronic and tape music, performs an array of sounds folding lush beauty and horror sensibility into the matrix. Fredrik Nilsen plays an antique Rheem Mark 7 organ along with electronic sound and recordings created by Mike Kelley. Kelley was a member of the group from 2000 until his death in 2012 and continues to be a contributing member by virtue of sound recordings he provided before his death; "In case I can't make a gig, I can still play." The LAFMS formed in the early 1970s around a loosely knit group of like-minded musical improvising sound experimenters in eastern Los Angeles who discovered their mutual interest and banded together to design modes of self-production and distribution of recordings and publications, helping to develop and propel the DIY movement.
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IMPREC 475LP
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$34.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/2/2019
Three freely hanging black metal plates: 50x50x005cm, 75x75x005cm, and 100x100x005cm. Piezo sensor and contact speaker attached on rear side of plate, amplifying and mirroring its subtle and naturally occurring vibrations, evoking its characteristic resonant frequencies. Packaged in a black sleeve with a screen-printed sheet affixed to the cover. Edition of 100 (hand-numbered).
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IMPREC 472LP
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Pauline Oliveros's Tara's Room has long been a favorite at Important Records and here they release it on LP for the very first time. Tara's Room was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing. Originally released on cassette in 1987 following the 1986 release of Sounding / Way with Guy Klucevsek, also reissued by Important Records (IMPREC 471LP). This LP features two long sides of infinite depth and sensitivity. Oliveros performs these pieces using a just intonation accordion and her Expanded Instrument System in order to bend both time and pitch. "Both pieces are intended to aid the listener in times of spiritual change, but are just fine for 'everyday' use as well. Highly recommended." --Charles S. Russell, Ear Magazine
Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer, and humanitarian, was an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she explored sound -- forging new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it, and eludes many who try to write about it. Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros's commitment to interaction with the moment was unchanged. She could make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble. "On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." --John Rockwell "Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music." --John Cage
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IMPREC 471LP
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Pauline Oliveros and Guy Klucevsek's Sounding / Way was originally released on cassette in 1986 and has been out of print ever since. This LP was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing. The Sounding / Way concept was simple: Each artist would write a piece for two accordions and then they would perform them together. Thus, side A contains Guy Klucevsek's "Tremolo No. 6" performed by Guy Klucevsek and Pauline Oliveros. Side B contains Pauline's composition "The Tuning Meditation", also performed by both Pauline and Guy. This is the second release in an on-going effort between Important Records and the Pauline Oliveros Trust to maintain and promote the music, philosophy and legacy of Pauline Oliveros.
Guy Klucevsek is one of the world's most versatile and highly-respected accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.
Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer, and humanitarian, was an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she explored sound -- forging new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it, and eludes many who try to write about it. Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros's commitment to interaction with the moment was unchanged. She could make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble. "On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." --John Rockwell "Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music." --John Cage
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IMPREC 462CD
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The sound art of Jacob Kirkegaard explores ways to reflect on immediate complex, unnoticed or unapproachable aspects of the human condition or civilization. His works have treated themes such as radioactivity in Chernobyl and Fukushima, melting ice in the Arctic, border walls in Palestine, and tones -- otoacoustic emissions -- generated from the actual human ear. Currently, Jacob Kirkegaard works on two projects, one is on the sound of global waste and waste management. The other on sound environments related to the immediate human post mortem. With his peculiar alchemist approach and extensive research, complex phenomena and current conditions are portrayed through composition, installation, video. and photography. Rather than providing answers, his portrayals create spaces for reflection. Kirkegaard has presented his works at galleries, museums, biennales and concert spaces throughout the world. Edition of 300.
"One of contemporary sound art's most subtle, intriguing figures. More artistically minded than field recordings, more naturally hewn than noise tapes, Kirkegaard amplifies hidden worlds into evocative drifts." --Rolling Stone, December 2015
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IMPREC 474LP
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Hallelujah Mystic Garden Part Two contains a new deep-pocket groove disco version of fan favorite "Pink Lady Lemonade". Side two is a slick kosmiche-electro-disco number that unfurls over a period of 20 minutes and is periodically punctuated by Makoto Kawabata's unruly soloing. Recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, June 2016-March 2017; produced and mixed by Kawabata Makoto. Personnel: Cotton Casino - voice, astral mama; Kawabata Makoto - guitar, fretless bass, bouzouki, organ, rhythm machine, electronics, tapes, speed guru; Higashi Hiroshi - synthesizer, noodle king;
Mitsuko☆Tabata - guitar, guitar-synthesizer, voice, kisses and hugs; Satoshima Nani -drums, another dimension; S/T "Wolf" - bass, tapes, space and time.
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IMPREC 469CD
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Orpheus Variations is a new composition by Alvin Lucier for solo cello and seven wind instruments. It is based on a particular sonority from the first movement of Igor Stravinsky's ballet score, Orpheus; a sonority that has haunted Lucier for decades. Orpheus Variations is one of eight large-scale compositions made expressly for Charles Curtis by Alvin Lucier in the last 15 years. This performance was conducted by Petr Kotik, with Charles Curtis playing solo cello alongside members of the SEM Ensemble.
"Lucier speaks first of a sonority, and only then of a chord. He discusses the chord, its notes and their disposition, but what haunts him is a 'particular sonority.' A sonority is the product of physical action on physical materials: the instruments, the registers in which they are activated, the breath of the musicians, the waveforms thus produced, their merging and interfering, and finally the moment and place of these actions. An energy field, certain to vanish completely once the musicians put down their instruments. However concrete and real the actions and materials, the sonority they produce is a phantom."
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IMPREC 468CD
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Anthony Burr and Charles Curtis present a collection of curated compositions from Alvin Lucier and Morton Feldman. Two Lucier pieces, "August Moon" and "Trio For Clarinet, Cello & Tuba" are presented here for the first time. Liner notes are excerpted from a lecture on Morton Feldman given by Alvin Lucier. A selection from Alvin Lucier's liner notes: "For Feldman, dynamics serve an acoustical function. When he mitigates a piano attack he reduces that spike of noise that's at the onset of every piano sound leaving only the sinusoidal pure after-sound. It's as if he invented electronic music with the piano."
"Lucier manages to hear a layer of acoustical physics in Feldman's music that perhaps no one else would hear. He's hearing something in Feldman that is actually coming from his own musical world; in a way, hearing his own music in Feldman's, and drawing inspiration from that."
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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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Restocked. Eliane Radigue's Geelriandre / Arthesis is named for the pieces that fill its two sides. Geelriandre, realized on an ARP 2500 synthesizer in 1972, features Gérard Fremy on prepared piano. Arthesis, realized using the University of Iowa's Moog in 1973, comprises the full duration of side B. Eliane Radigue has received much deserved praise for her transcendent composiitions for tape, synthesizers, and acoustic instruments. Her work is deep, slowly changing, and timelessly resonant with slowly shifting timbres so dense that they seem infinite. Acute physicality, overtones, and psychoacoustic activity fills your space, follows you, grounds you, pulls you in or lets you go. It's all here/hear. Pressed at RTI; first edition of 1000.
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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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2019 repress forthcoming... Born Again In The Voltage is an astonishing collection of electro-acoustic pieces for Buchla 200 system, cello, and voice composed and produced by Caterina Barbieri at Elektronmusikstudion (SE) between 2014 and 2015. Cello by Antonello Manzo. Images by Giovanni Brunetto; Photography by Angelo Jaroszuk Bogasz; Layout by Important Records. Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi.
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IMPREC 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 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 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 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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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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CD/DVD
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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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