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viewing 1 To 25 of 45 items
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R 064LP
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Recital label head Sean McCann on Towards A Total Poetry: "Culled from live performances in Los Angeles in 1980, Towards A Total Poetry holds radioplays and sound poems by Julien Blaine, Adriano Spatola, F. Tiziano, and Paul Vangelisti. Two concerts were organized by poet and professor Vangelisti and broadcast on his KPFK radio show. A rare gathering of extreme French and Italian sound poets in California, flown out on with an arts funding grant (my, how things have changed!). A jarred specimen on a golden platter of a time passed . . . Sadistically funny, dizzy with confusion: a map lies dissected on the table. Adriano Spatola (1941-1988) is the most beautiful Italian post-war poet, also publisher of Baobab, Tam Tam, Geiger editions. His stage presence is that of a drunken wolverine, thrashing his words and letters, madly chuckling and whispering secrets to himself. Spatola interprets a disfigured rendition of 'Buddenbrooks,' a traumatic and shocking radioplay, held alongside his infamous 'Aviation / Aviateur' and 'Al Capone Poem,' read with explosive tension. His younger brother, F. Tiziano, is a more mysterious figure. His radioplay, 'Los Angeles Bridge,' has four characters: North, South, East, and West. Quibbling through a fever dream over a card game. Professional voice actors were hired for all of the radioplays, translated from Italian by Vangelisti (as with all of Spatola's English publications). French artist and sound poet Julien Blaine (1942) composed the play 'Passe/Futur' -- utilizing his actors as verbal instruments: buzzing and howling as carefully as dots on sheet-music. His sound poems are hilarious, 'Amputation' mimics the sound of four severing surgeries, and 'Mots d'enfants' still confuses me as to what exactly is going on... Paul Vangelisti's works open and close Towards A Total Poetry. The Los Angeles poet and publisher of Red Hill Press organized the affair and was able to hold his own against such powerful artists. Paul's pieces are conceptual, opening with a fitting typewriter hymn, 'Radio,' and concluding with 'Auld Lang Syne,' the Ms of the phone book sung by chorus. These are some of the strangest radioplays in existence. A format I feel is underused. The infusion of drama and comedy and open air to fill... oh, the possibilities. Towards A Total Poetry is of my personal favorites on Recital... exemplifying the core of what I love to publish." Includes 12-page booklet with essays and poems by the artists; Edition of 250.
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R 068LP
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Recital label head Sean McCann on Stones : Dreams: "The first audio document ever published by Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks (1931-2018). There is a romanticism found in Geoffrey, that, in my mind, sets his work aside from his Fluxfriends. Known for his timeless sky paintings, applied to canvas, cars, clothes, and so on, the conceptual married the majestic. He was a master painter, whose work could have filled cathedral ceilings. Instead, he chartered his bow alongside George Maciunas, John Cage, Dick Higgins, etc. in the 1950s. Hendricks became a prominent member of Fluxus, shown in exhibitions around the world for over 60 years. In the 1970s, composer Charlie Morrow approached Hendricks about recording an album for the New Wilderness Audiographics cassette series. This became a 40-year dance of orbiting schedules and slipping dates. The sky aligned in 2014, and a recording session at Ear Up Studios in New York manifested. Geoffrey's connection to nature not only focused upwards at the sky, but always downwards to stones. 'Rock Music' consists of a box of rocks being cast across a room. Pounded on wood, soft and hard, the sonar-like snapping echo mapping the dimensions of the room. Small bells hover over the rubbing of stones humming to each other. You can tell that this was a therapeutic ritual he practiced for years, not merely an improvised recording concept. With the LP is a booklet that includes diaries of his stone collecting on Cape Breton island in 1973, beautifully infused with dream recollection. The cassette of 'Music for Sky Slate Wall' was discovered by chance earlier this year in the vast archive Hendricks left behind. It holds Geoff's close friend Philip Corner performing at an Emily Harvey Foundation exhibition in 1999. Corner responds to the Hendricks installation, interpreting the wall adorned with watercolors of day and night skies, grey slate, and a ladder hanging more paintings and golden ornaments. Philip Corner performs with prongs, Korean shaman cymbals, his voice, and a shoe. Their charming friendship can be heard in the interplay. This project was made possible by Geoff's widow, Sur Rodney (Sur), his children, Tyche and Bracken Hendricks, Philip Corner, and Charlie Morrow." Includes 16-page pamphlet with essays by Tyche Hendricks and Charlie Morrow, diaries and artworks by Geoffrey Hendricks. Edition of 220.
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"The Book of Numbers and Spells is multi-hatted composer and inventor Charlie Morrow's first book. Number and letter games bejewel the pages of this anthology (pulling pieces and writings from 1974 to 2019). These works are largely text scores. It wasn't until I saw Charlie perform 'Ten the Long Way' with a room full of participants that the performative power became clear to me. Chanting numbers: the meditative, transparent, and unifying joy that swept across the room was beautiful. Charlie, a born networker of people and ideas, has naturally included two close friends in the book. Jerome Rothenberg provides a poetic essay, 'A Gematria Sampler', along with a compelling article written by composer Tom Johnson. These supplements embolden the scope and richness of Morrow's transparent systems." --Sean McCann, June 2019
"The range of Charlie Morrow's work if laid out end to end would show him clearly -- though never completely -- as a protean and transformational composer and performer. He is, from where I see him, both the leading proponent of an active ethnopoetics in avant-garde musical performance and a master of new technologies as they come into contemporary practice. It's this dynamic of old and new that a gathering like this again makes plain. The effect, all in all, is cumulative, the power in the ensemble, the full range of his explorations: shamanic-inspired dream chants, animal language events, performance pieces based on modern signal codes and ancient numerologies, soundscapes derived from the new wilderness of urban spaces and the old wilderness of arctic tundras, recompositions of familiar repertory works and of long neglected or forgotten chants and hymns, works for multiple massed single instruments (ocarinas, tubas, cellos, harps), international radio events in celebration of winter and summer solstices, and an extraordinary range of massive public spectacles. Now after fifty years of active engagement, the work, as serious and deeply rooted as it gets, is conceived and played out with a boundless energy and good humor -- in a style as distinctive as his familiar and ever present bowler hat." Jerome Rothenberg, 2019
130 pages; 6x9" perfect bound. Limited edition of 100; hand numbered in red ink.
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R 066LP
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Recital label head Sean McCann on the record (June, 2019): "Father Fugue is Nour Mobarak's first full-length album. The Los Angeles-based artist spent years sculpting this LP, and the result is piercingly emotional. A foray into her being; a sound artist, a songstress, a sculptor. Nour's creativity orbits an ever-moving center. Thus, glimpses, reflections, and splinters of her oeuvre embody Father Fugue. The side-long titular piece on the LP is unlike anything I have ever heard. Nour describes the piece: 'the left channel of 'Father Fugue' is composed of conversations with my father, Jean Mobarak, a polyglot who has a 30-second memory and lives in the mountains of Lebanon. The right channel is composed of improvised song.' Nour and her father speak through four different languages (French, Italian, English, and Arabic), a full transcription and translation is included with the LP in a 24-page booklet. They speak of cars, of soccer, of Italy. They speak in games, in rhymes, and in song. The sonic division of voice and time across the stereo pattern is captivating. The second side of the album is comprised of eleven songs. The word 'song' must be taken widely and liberally in this instance. Elements were recorded in her car, in the shower, in the ruins of Oaxaca, Mexico: a rainbow of personal documentation. The vase holding the bouquet is of jubilation and abstract humor. A chanson written by Nour's great-great-grandmother, at the turn of the 20th century in Constantinople, is sung throughout the LP. The first side concludes with her and her father singing it in duet, as Nour's solo performance begins the second side. Bound by time, Father Fugue reveals Nour Mobarak's expression from and response to her father's place and memory. A flip of the record uncovers her expression and response to her own." 24-page libretto booklet (Arabic/French/Italian/English transcriptions and translations; credits/photo card; Edition of 250.
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"The Entertainer is Alex Twomey's first album since 2012. Many have been waiting and finally, here we are! During the silence, Twomey's keyboard work has germinated into a more framed compositional structure, beaming with orchestral strings, woodwinds, and brass; eleven cinematic settings and bouncing refrains mark this LP. Alex describes the album as, 'vignettes alluding to a vague narrative regarding one's idea as an artist.' A somber beauty is penned. Alex previously recorded as Mirror To Mirror, and operated the record label Jugular Forest from 2004-2012. I first met him in 2010 during a large concert in Santa Cruz, CA. Alongside Twomey, myself, Kyle Parker (Infinite Body), Matthew Sullivan (Earn), Pedestrian Deposit, Mike Pollard, and Peter Friel performed that night. Alex's performance was a thick ocean of chords, a penetrating grace that I can still recall. Everyone has since bloomed from the ambient roots of that time in their own way. Alex has held onto utilizing the keyboard, albeit as a tool to build a larger musical world, a legend to the map. On this album the melodies dance as twinkling bulbs along a retired parade float. A dark comedy, a tragic smile, love found in the rough of it all. Twomey is currently studying composition at Occidental College in Los Angeles" --Sean McCann, April 2019. Edition of 250, includes signed postcard.
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R 062CD
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"Anne Tardos is an American poet, visual and vocal artist; she has developed a unique performance style that allows her to move fluidly within -- and between -- media. This is evident in Gatherings, which was originally published on cassette by New Wilderness Audiographics, and holds recordings from 1974-1981. It stands as one of Tardos's seminal audio documents; two forms of sound are examined here; the first is observational and static recordings of the artist's loft: percussive sounds from heat pipes expanding and contracting and the irregular pulse of her refrigerator defrosting. The reflection of chaos found in nature is encapsulated and tagged here in its simplest form. Tardos rolled those moments of found sounds onto tape, reexamining the meaning (and the ultimate absence) of stillness. The other form of this album is multichannel solo voice works; they are intimate, close-miked, and playful, morphing from harmonic swirls to whisperings. They capture a dynamic exploration of her extended vocal range -- the contrast between pieces is dramatic. The final piece, "Real Sleeper, Real Dreamer," integrates both forms. It is a self-portrait of the artist sleeping, bending inside breath and air, a study of the physical surface above dreams, the durational search within the expanse of the self, and the phenomenal depth of the shallows is splashed in our ears" --Sean McCann, April 2019. Edition of 200, includes eight-page booklet with notes by Tardos and Charlie Morrow.
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"The Claviorganum & The Violin is the first published recording of Michel Samson since his unparalleled work with Albert Ayler's quintet in the late 1960s. Samson's violin playing has changed me with his great exuberance and ecstasy, all sliding through an interlocking sadness. Since I first began Recital, I have dreamt of contacting Michel to publish an album that gives reverence to his violin playing; seven years later, it has come to be. The collection on this LP holds numerous 17th century works of the Italian Baroque, performed by Samson and his wife, Rebecca. It showcases some of the earliest music composed for the violin as a featured soloist. Rebecca accompanies on a replica -- believed to be the only extant replica in the United States -- of the claviorganum, a rare and curious instrument that traces back to the 15th century. Comprised of both an organ and a harpsichord integrated into a single case, the claviorganum harkens to a time of experimentation and artistry of design. Michel's violin was made by Francesco Gobetti in 1718; its sound carries beautifully throughout the room. Samson worked as a dealer of rare and antique violins for many years, and has an ear for majestic craftsmanship. The style adopted by Italian composers during the baroque was one of heightened lyricism, emotion, and ornamentation, especially when voiced through the violin; it is no accident that Michel's unique approach to articulation and intonation speaks both to the present and the past. In these recordings one can hear the same joy dripping across the strings, as in his days with Ayler; it shows what beauty can be instilled inside someone. Rebecca's playing is exquisite, too, complementing each movement as they fold on. Please enjoy this special album" --Sean McCann (with contributions by Sarah Davachi), April 2019. Edition of 250, includes eight page insert with program notes and paintings by Michel Samson.
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R 057LP
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"Matthew Sullivan's Matthew is nailed together with driftwood from around the world. The waters of Italy, the pubs of London, birds of Japan, a phone call in Los Angeles. Sullivan moved from California to London in 2016. Living in London was a pivotal time for Matt, as I see it. This record digests that time. Each sound on Matthew means something specific to the artist. Locales and memories focus to mind as passages rise and sink. Us listeners cannot know what transpires across the speakers, however. Our own narrative is quietly built. I like records that don't concern the audience, ones that make you invest yourself; this is one of those records. Fans of Sullivan's music know that he never gives an inch more or an inch less than he needs to. Bold and looming with few extraneous elements. Ekhein, Matt's former cassette label, and his new label, as of yet without name, also carry this motif. Two side-long pieces, expertly woven, constitute this album. I admire Matt's ability to play with proximity and depth of field: fading sirens, ripping waters, and digitized breath. Like a hallucinating Bill Fontana, the two works are sensory travels folding into themselves. Matt is once again living in Los Angeles, and thus the nostalgic mist that forms within Matthew is all the more meaningful." --Sean McCann, February 2019 Edition of 250, includes signed insert by Sullivan.
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R 059LP
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"Dreams of India & China is the first retrospective LP of artist and sailor, Rip Hayman. Recorded from 1975-1986, the two side-long works were collaged from a dozen hours of tape recordings (which had lain dormant for over 30 years). It ebbs as the tides; pulsing from one location to the next in a faint stupor, Dreams turns to be an autobiographical sound map. Audio capsules of Hayman's installation performances, private experiments, and every ethnographic voyage in between are charted. Outdoor recordings canopy over indoor recordings, thatching surreality. Tonal quilts lap over "Dreamwaves" on the first side: an all-night sleep concert hosted by Rip as the sandman. Whispers of recounted dreams, birds and trees, organ waves. The second side traverses more saturated memories: bicycle spokes ripping against half-speed piano, bleeding cymbal dances over saxophone gusts, the tumbling of Rip's body affixed with bells and metal. Hayman was a collaborator in New Wilderness Foundation, Ear Magazine, and The Land (a parcel in upstate New York to where John Cage, John Lennon, David Tudor, and more would escape the city in the 1970s). He is the owner of the oldest bar in NYC, The Ear Inn. Focusing on nautical inventions and intentions these days, Rip has veered away from composition; hopefully that will change. For now, let us enjoy the sea-faring sound journeys of his past. Dreams of India & China charters a beautiful confusion -- come aboard and push off into his waters." --Sean McCann, February 2019
"Captain Rip Hayman is a traveller: on the seas, across the lands, and in the realm of music. He has been around the world 51 times to date. Like the proverbial cat, Rip has lived many lives and beaten death more than most. Rip's playlist here is a mix of his compositions and music gathered in his travels. The sounds of the world are all music to the Captain's ears." --Charlie Morrow, December 2018
Edition of 500, includes 12-page color booklet with essays and photographs.
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R 056CD
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The fourth and final in the "saints series" by Eric Schmid and Sean McCann and friends, following St. Francis, St. Paul, and Joan Of Arc (R 037CD, 2017). Eight artists -- Burns-Coady, Friel, Gean, Grossinger, McCann, Pollard, Schmid, Walton, Weidmann -- responding closely or distantly or lazily to a proposed score by Jonathan Gean. Holds the following writings: Messianism by Eric Schmid, Gospel of Truth by Tim Weidmann, along with photography by Jonathan Gean and Sean McCann. 56-page pamphlet; Edition of 200.
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R 017CD
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Fourth edition of 200; Glass-mastered CD; Includes a 12-page booklet of program notes and photography. Includes additional track "And the Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn". Recital present the first album of American Gamelan composer Daniel Schmidt (b. 1942). Schmidt, who emerged in the Bay Area music scene in the 1970s, wove the threads of traditional Eastern Gamelan music together with American minimalism (repetitive music). Schmidt was (and is still) a prime figure in the development of American Gamelan music -- studying and collaborating with Lou Harrison, Jody Diamond, and Paul Dresher. He currently is a teacher at Mills College, teaching instrument building. The recordings on Flowers date from 1978-1982, selected directly from Schmidt's personal cassette archive. It holds two studio tracks, along with two live performances. The first track, "Dawn" (commissioned by composer John Adams), employs an early digital sampler provided by Pauline Oliveros. It holds the sound of a string quartet. The nature of this piece is breathtaking, an ocean of strings pulsing beneath the gliding bells of the gamelan -- such a lovely interplay. Furthermore, the title track, "Flowers", features the addition of a rebab, a traditional bowed instrument, which reels through the piece, netted and taught. The final two works are strictly gamelan compositions. "Ghosts" is a dynamic piece; rife with dexterous euphoria, it well displays the skillset of the percussionists heard on the LP. The closing work, "Faint Impressions", is a somber elegy. Demonstrating the fragility and grace possible with the gamelan; sounding almost as an evening piano sonata. In My Arms, Many Flowers is a unique document from an under-represented movement of American new music. An account of the curious beauty and woven emotions hidden within resonating pieces of metal.
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R 055LP
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Recital label head Sean McCann on Tom Phillips's Words And Music (January 2019): "Words And Music is a rare and sought-after album by artist Tom Phillips (b. 1937). Fueled by painting, opera, and concrete poetry, this LP was originally published by the king, HansjΓΆrg Mayer, in 1975 (this LP has never been repressed). Most are familiar with Tom Phillips' 'After Raphael' painting used on the cover of Brian Eno's Another Green World LP (1975), along with the television series he made with director Peter Greenaway, A TV Dante (1990). However, Tom's crowning achievement is his art-book A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel (1970). A reworked version of the obscure book, A Human Document, by W.H. Mallock, each page laboriously painted and collaged over. Spools of text are re-discovered from the original book, stitching together a new story surrounding the protagonist, Toge. Six editions have been published from between 1970 and 2017, each with different texts and paintings imagined. Phillips' work has the air of forlorn fantasy to it -- a designed romance. The first side of Words And Music contains four chamber works grown from impressionistic and graphic scores. A lovely flavor of British experimental composition Γ la Cornelius Cardew (with whom Phillips collaborated in the Scratch Orchestra). Tom's music incorporates touchstones of visual art: in his Irma opera, a band of voice colors wash over slides of chamber melodies; in 'Ornamentik,' (commissioned by Stuart Dempster) acoustic and electronic instruments are played as extended shapes along a piece of paper. The piano piece 'Lesbia Waltz' augments sheet music, cut-up measure by measure, placed and replaced. The second side of the LP holds readings from his famed book, A Humument. Recited by Tom, whose chestnut voice perfectly carries the stanzas of bizarre, romantic poetry. Dancing between meanings with gentle blood and ink soaking on each word." 7"x9" 12-page color pamphlet with scores and program notes; Includes CD; Edition of 215.
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R 052CD
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"Reidemeister Move's Arcanum 17 is a sound novella recorded in 2012 in remote Eastern Quebec. Reidemeister Move is Christopher Williams, a composer and contrabass player who worked with Ben Patterson (amongst an army of other mentors) and Robin Hayward, a microtonal tubist and composer who has performed music written for him by Christian Wolff and Alvin Lucier. Arcanum 17, based on the AndrΓ© Breton novel (1945) of the same name, was co-written by Williams and Charlie Morrow (one may recall that Recital published Morrow's fabulous Toot! Too LP last year (R 041LP, 2017)). Charlie introduced me to Williams in late-2016 (introducing is one of Charlie's specialties). Once I discovered Christopher's association with Fluxus composers and Malcolm Goldstein, I figured our conversations would go late into the night. We did not talk, though. And our first meeting consisted of Christopher sitting me down to play a piece of his music. I was initially turned off by the situation: such a bold gesture from a relative stranger (a bottle of wine and banter would normally be on the menu for such an occasion). We turned the lights to a dim glow in my living room and he played the CD for me all the way through: 45 minutes of hyper-silent listening. I sank into the experience with comfort and ease with the first wash of water from the speakers. Arcanum 17 is paced perfectly: field recordings, whispered narration, and cloudy bass and tuba streams fall in and out of frame with cinematic grace. A transportive phenomenon of an album, it sonically echoes Williams' description of the Breton novel: 'A thick, existential little book, a reckoning of and with everything that brings him here: Canadian wildlife, the morning star, the myth of Melusina, feminism, the French education system, the ecstasy of newfound love. His alchemical blurring of prose and poetry, dream and waking states, natural and psychological landscapes, and past, present and future, brings these topics inimitably together. Always on the cusp of development but never quite.' I now am grateful for the serious listening lesson that Christopher sat me down for: both because the sound piece was beautiful, and as a reminder to treat your art with respect and to not slight the weight of your passions."--Sean McCann, October 2018.
Includes 9″ x 6″ 20-page color pamphlet with photos and program notes. Edition of 200.
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Recital presents a reissue of FranΓ§ois DufrΓͺne's Cri-Rythmes, originally issued in 1977. A remastered vinyl issue of the impossible-to-find cassette by French sound poet DufrΓͺne (1930-1982), this LP holds tracks not available since then. DufrΓͺne swallows the microphone, gargles the capsule, then vomits up the cables. Claustrophobic, verbal seizures, revealing once more that DufrΓͺne is king and all the pages of poetic history now have his spit on them. Includes memorial/tribute written by Bernard Heidsieck in 1983. Edition of 250.
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All Of The Time is the first comprehensive album of Jean Dupuy's sound works, collecting recordings from 1969-2017. Dupuy started his artistic career as a painter but shifted his practice when he moved from France to New York in 1967. Dupuy experimented with new technologies, and soon became a prominent figure in the Art and Technology movement. In 1968 he participated with an inventive sound, light and color installation, Heart Beats Dust, in the landmark exhibition The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the early 1970s Dupuy started performing collectively with other New York artists, and his loft at 405 East 13th Street turned into a center for these performances. Dupuy also arranged similar events at the Whitney Museum, the Kitchen and the Judson Church. During his time in New York, which lasted until the early 1980s, Dupuy collaborated with over 200 artists, as an organizer of events and as an artist. Charlie Morrow poses the question: "But what about his sound art? Jean has a particular affinity for sound and vocalizing. The songs of his childhood, the French church tradition and the charming puzzlement of letter games and graphics. He has created an amplified heartbeat machine with blood red puffs of pigment, and short jingles, such as 'I like bananas; ain't no bone inside.'" In aligning this collection, a new piece came to be recorded specially for this LP, Concert of Seconds, a recording of a symphony of painted clocks that live in Jean's gallery in Nice, France. This LP was organized with the assistance of Christian Xatric and Charlie Morrow. 20-page insert with scores and texts, introduction sheet by Charlie Morrow. Edition of 220.
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R 051CD
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Poetry & Music is a tremendous collection of recordings from famed Fluxus poet and artist Jackson Mac Low (1922-2004). Originally published on New Wilderness Audiographics as a cassette in 1977, these recordings have been cleaned up and remastered by Sean McCann in 2018. Jackson's beautiful text formulas are supplemented by stereo multi-tracking, creating a spatial jungle of wordplay. One gem of this CD is the live foray into tape manipulation from 1966 featuring the assistance of James Tenney and Max Neuhaus. It is fabled that they took Jackson's voice and slowed it down to a guttural thunderstorm during playback, resulting in a manic blend of words darting through a black cloud of reverberation. Only a small amount of Jackson's sound poetry is currently available, making this collection a delight to swallow and digest. Co-produced with Charlie Morrow, Recital re-presents this history to the ears of both young and old. Edition of 250 with 8-page insert with scores and introduction by Charlie Morrow.
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The Still Life is Karla Borecky's long-awaited second album following 2011's Still In Your Pocket. In between her work with Idea Fire Company, Karla has been slowly building a new repertoire of solo pieces. She threads together simple, whirling piano numbers. Lines of blue sadness, red memories, and green dreams, stitched with charm and care, The Still Life is an approachable album in the best way possible. Whatever your hobby may be, The Still Life will set the mood. This album also features two solo-piano versions of Idea Fire Company bangers: "The Life of the Party" from Music From The Impossible Salon (KYE 010LP, 2011) and "The Island of Taste," from The Island of Taste (2008). Borecky's music carries such a layered emotional identity while balancing a lack of pretension. A fine tightrope to dance on, but she does it gracefully. Please do enjoy. Edition of 300, comes with color bookmark with illustrations by Borecky.
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R 050CD
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Saccharine Scores is an album/art book documenting Sean McCann's recent chamber compositions. Ranging from the 10-person ensemble performance of "Portraits of Friars" at Fylkingen, Stockholm in February 2018, to his first quartet piece "Victorian Wind", performed in Toronto in 2014. McCann's scores leak pastoral and bizarre passages, dancing in the banal beauty of sound poetry. The performances feature guest musicians Sarah Davachi, Zachary Paul, Geneva Skeen, Celia Eydeland, Maxwell August Croy, and more. The book holds in-depth scores, program notes, and photography by McCann, a lovely complement to finger through while you lay down to listen to the disc. The notes for "Pistons" follow here: "I assembled this piece while wanting to make my life of leisure and gluttony in London somehow artistic. I was in London for a week or ten days in October 2017 for a business trip. I love London. I love doing two things at a time or more. So it worked out. I find I have a hard time enjoying anything unless I am multitasking. For example, right now as I type this description I am also drinking old coffee with ice-cubes in it, exporting a master from Pro-Tools downstairs, and watching Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) on the television set. So in this British multitasking, I decided to work on a piece of music while indulging in food and drink roaming around London. I was also reading Baudelaire's Les Fleurs Du Mal (1857) during these outings (talk about sentimental). Some elements of those poems crept their way, drawn out of order, into Celia's singing text. As with all my compositions to this point, they are left open to interpretation: no real meaning, just flickers of settings and emotions. The taste of everything below (the score) spawned thoughts of colors and elements and people and emotions, though with the text I decided to keep it simply about the food and the beverages. The romantic music and singing is the rendering of the emotions I felt, while my banal reading was the actual act of consumption. I recorded the text while lying down in my childhood bedroom in Goleta, California, half asleep just trying to get it over with. It was a fitting situation for the piece: forced beauty." Edition of 200, signed and numbered with 132-page 6″ x 9″ book.
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Simple Affections: "I corralled a dream LP that I would want to listen to. Too smelly, too sweet." Album features contributions from: Peter Friel, Jackson Graham, Mark Harwood, Graham Lambkin, Lia Mazzari, Sean McCann, Madalyn Merkey, Michael Pollard, Eric Schmid, Zach Schwartz, Tom James Scott, Patrick Shiroishi, Christina Stanley, Matthew Sullivan, Dennis Tyfus, and Will Gottsegen. One time pressing. Includes six 5x7″ postcards in printed envelope, program notes insert by Sean McCann, Scented with Oyster Grove Eau de Recital perfume.
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2LP
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R 008LP
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Recital present a deluxe edition of Ian William Craig's landmark debut album A Turn Of Breath, originally released in 2014. The first Recital album to get exceptional notoriety, here it is in its final form, with an additional LP of unpublished material. Here is the original description Sean McCann wrote four years ago for it's original release: "Recital here presents the premiere LP by vocalist Ian William Craig (b. 1980, Edmonton). Ian, a trained opera singer, delivers an elegant balance between theatrical and ambient sentiments. A Turn Of Breath combines the essence of a choral LP from Angel Records or Deutsche Grammophon with the spontaneity of experimental home-recording. This collection holds twelve works for voice and ΒΌ" tape, recorded from 2011-2013. Voice appears as the sun's light through a vast storm; still obscured by tape malfunctions and manipulations. A system of reel-to-reels is employed, which yields a lovely sort of morphing repetition. Each iteration crumbles as more harmony is placed on top, residual tones spilling off the sides into nothingness. Craig's innate ability to sing beautiful, sorrowful melodies carries each track. The pieces on A Turn Of Breath vary from grand choral meditations to quiet interludes, and even a few impressionistic 'songs' accompanied by faint acoustic guitar. An overarching warmth resonates through each side, making this a very pleasant listen. A suitable compliment to a pot of coffee in the morning or a glass of armagnac in the evening."
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CD
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R 047CD
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Recital label head Sean McCann on the release: "I have been a fan of Derek Baron's music for only a small amount of time. But I appreciate how he and his cohorts blend technical talent and technical knowledge with abstract ideas and abstract approaches. Cop Tears is made up of Derek Baron, Cameron Kapoor, and Andrew Wilhite. This album is a four-track recording of the group playing one of my favorite John Cage pieces, Thirteen Harmonies. It was originally published in a tiny edition of 40 CDrs by Derek's own Reading Group label. I thought it was beautiful enough to see the light of day again. I even got the John Cage Trust to sign off on the release! As regal as bored as humble as confused."
Here is what the group wrote on the album: "Thirteen Harmonies is a selection from John Cage's 44 Harmonies From Apartment House 1776, written for the American bicentennial, which itself is a selection of pieces in the colonial and early American choral canon. Arranged for double bass, electric guitar, and flute, from the arrangement for keyboard and violin, from the original four-part chorale, Thirteen Harmonies is an arrangement of a reduction of an arrangement of a reduction. The choral composers whose works were the material for Cage's Apartment House were considered the avant-garde of choral music of the 18th century, and their music became the seed of Sacred Harp music, a radical lay tradition of the rural American south. John Cage composed the harmonies by way of erasure of the Protestant chorales and set them in an 'apartment house' among other American voices: Native American ritual music, slave spirituals, and Sephardic incantations. What binds the lay experimentalism of William Billings and his contemporaries (all white American men) to the 'multiplicity of centers' of the Apartment House of John Cage (a white American man) is the destruction of a privileged musical space, the making-permeable of the division between the music of the piece and the sound of the people coming together to make the music of the piece. A positive destabilizing from within. Thirteen Harmonies was recorded live on two consecutive mornings in 2016 to a faulty four-track on bled-through tape in Cameron's apartment house in Queens, New York."
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CD
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R 048CD
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Here, Asha Sheshadri and Christian Mirande record together as Open Corner. Vocal accounts of mundane suburbia and human despondency by Asha, under a woven forest of pops and cracks and creaks courtesy of Christian. In a way the texts are reminiscent of Robert Ashley's "Au Pair" pieces -- from the second Atalanta CD (LCD 3303CD) -- overrun by the swamp of a broken dishwasher and a leaking wine fridge. Emotionally and sonically claustrophobic. A unique take on voice and sound: in-between an audiobook and a sound-map. Exhausted and hungover, the frequencies and intense proximity really fit the digital CD format. Here is your chance to revitalize the ? Records weapon of choice... First edition of 200.
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CD
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R 045CD
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Recital present the newest record by Canadian composer Sarah Davachi. This CD version includes an extended/complete version of "Hours In The Evening". Currently working on her PhD in Musicology at UCLA, her trajectory has been unorthodox. Hailing from Calgary, Alberta, which, if you've never been there, doesn't really scream "avant-garde" (Calgary is the rodeo capital of the world). It is important and interesting that she chose to study esoteric music; as Sarah could have easily been a cowgirl or a concert pianist had her ingrained love of synthesis and sonic phenomenology not taken the wheel. There are few people that have the diligence and resolve to take their time with music... especially in a live context. Recital label head Sean McCann: "The first time I saw Sarah perform, I presumptuously told her that her music reminded me of my favorite Mirror albums (the exceptional project of Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann). Sarah was not familiar with Mirror, so the compliment was initially lost on her. Years back I was in the same situation when a review compared my music to Andrew Chalk, who was unknown to me at the time. So I felt a kinship in our magnetic drift towards unspoken and clustered beauty." Let Night Come On Bells End The Day follows the release of her "sound-wheel" LP All My Circles Run, which examines the isolation of different instruments. Let Night Come On, recorded mainly with a Mellotron and electronic organ, feels like a return to the nest. Burrowed in the studio, Davachi was the only performer on this album. She both splays her compositional architecture and re-contextualizes the essence of her early output. She chiseled careful and shadowed hymns; anchors of emotion. Two pillars of this album are "Mordents", which may hints of her love for progressive rock music -- and "Buhrstone", comparable to a somber funeral march of piano and flutes. These two examine punctuations of early music, gently plucking melodies and movements. The three other compositions are tonal works, blowing slow jets of lapping harmonics.
Sean McCann: "I find it hard to separate 'At Hand' from filmmaker Paul Clipson, who made a melancholic film for this piece of Sarah's. A fitting title for Sarah and Paul's relationship -- frequently working in orbit of each other, meticulous and tactile. I cherish this track as a memory of Paul."
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LP
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R 046LP
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The Ivytree, as some may know, is the project of San Franciscan musician Glenn Donaldson. In the early 2000s Glenn was a founder of the Jewelled Antler Collective, forming such projects as The Blithe Sons, Thuja, and The Skygreen Leopards, among many others. The range of projects he is associated with all beautifully web together. Between 2001 and 2005 Donaldson published a handful of discs under the names The Ivytree and The Birdtree. These boiled down and tanned the patient, outdoor ambiences of the long-form instrumental recordings. These were slow and pastoral and pensive songs, carried by Glenn's haunting voice. Glenn recorded outside with field-recorders and mini-discs: in forests, headlands, and tunnels of the Bay area. Recital label head Sean McCann on the recordings: "I grew up listening to his recordings -- throughout high school and college in Goleta, CA. They spark many memories: driving around beach parking lots, dragging boomboxes into creeks, camping in the mountain valleys etc. I remember once driving five hours up to San Francisco with a group of friends to try and get into a Giant Skyflower Band concert (another Donaldson project). It was at a bar and we were under 21 -- so we couldn't get in, even after trying to bribe the doorman. As you can tell, very special places in my mind and memory. My fondness for The Ivytree never dissipated, and I always dreamed of hearing more material from that time, as I know how prolific the Jewelled Antler association can be. On a whim in 2017 I reached out to Glenn and asked him if he wanted to publish a 'best-of' The Ivytree as a limited LP. This idea blossomed and provoked Glenn to dig through his vast mini-disc archive, where he unearthed some forgotten jewels. The recordings were trickling in to my email -- one by one, each better than the last. Ranging from the Robert Wyatt-esque piano ballad 'Evil Is Circular' to the gentle melancholy of 'All The White Plumes' that could belong on Richard Youngs' Sapphie (1998). 'Unburdened Light' carries on the warm breeze and innocence of the early 2000s CDr culture. So our project then turned into publishing a new album of unreleased Ivytree recordings. A full circle youthful wish now ripens in my adulthood. I am honored to have stirred up the bees-nest to deliver you these tragically honeyed songs." Unreleased recordings: 2001-2004. Includes eight-page 9x9″ booklet of Glenn's collages. Edition of 300.
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LP+CD
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R 045LP
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2019 repress forthcoming... Recital present the newest record by Canadian composer Sarah Davachi. Currently working on her PhD in Musicology at UCLA, her trajectory has been unorthodox. Hailing from Calgary, Alberta, which, if you've never been there, doesn't really scream "avant-garde" (Calgary is the rodeo capital of the world). It is important and interesting that she chose to study esoteric music; as Sarah could have easily been a cowgirl or a concert pianist had her ingrained love of synthesis and sonic phenomenology not taken the wheel. There are few people that have the diligence and resolve to take their time with music... especially in a live context. Recital label head Sean McCann: "The first time I saw Sarah perform, I presumptuously told her that her music reminded me of my favorite Mirror albums (the exceptional project of Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann). Sarah was not familiar with Mirror, so the compliment was initially lost on her. Years back I was in the same situation when a review compared my music to Andrew Chalk, who was unknown to me at the time. So I felt a kinship in our magnetic drift towards unspoken and clustered beauty." Let Night Come On Bells End The Day follows the release of her "sound-wheel" LP All My Circles Run, which examines the isolation of different instruments. Let Night Come On, recorded mainly with a Mellotron and electronic organ, feels like a return to the nest. Burrowed in the studio, Davachi was the only performer on this album. She both splays her compositional architecture and re-contextualizes the essence of her early output. She chiseled careful and shadowed hymns; anchors of emotion. Two pillars of this album are "Mordents", which may hints of her love for progressive rock music -- and "Buhrstone", comparable to a somber funeral march of piano and flutes. These two examine punctuations of early music, gently plucking melodies and movements. The three other compositions are tonal works, blowing slow jets of lapping harmonics. Includes three 9"x9"photo-prints by Davachi; Includes CD; First edition of 600.
Sean McCann: "I find it hard to separate 'At Hand' from filmmaker Paul Clipson, who made a melancholic film for this piece of Sarah's. A fitting title for Sarah and Paul's relationship -- frequently working in orbit of each other, meticulous and tactile. I cherish this track as a memory of Paul."
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