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cd -- selection DECEMBER 2005 |
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| Artist: |
CONGOTRNONICS
2 |
| Title: |
RUMBLE
IN THE JUNGLE |
| Label: |
CRAMMED |
| Format: |
1CD + DVD |
| Price: |
19,5€ |
| Catalog #: |
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The Konono N°1 album ('Congotronics 1') has given worldwide
exposure to the strange and spectacular electro-traditional
mixtures which are being concocted in the suburbs of Kinshasa,
Congo. World music, electronica and avant-rock aficionados
have been equally amazed by this otherworldly music, which
has driven the international press to come up with extremely
surprising comparisons (from Can and Krautrock to Jimi Hendrix,
Lee Perry and proto-techno!) Hot on the heels of Konono Nº
1, here comes a fresh selection of even more amazing sounds,
courtesy of no less than seven electro-traditional bands from
Kinshasa, which have all been especially recorded and produced
by Crammed’s Vincent Kenis: Sobanza Mimanisa, Kasai
Allstars, Kisanzi Congo, Masanka Sankayi, Bolia We Ndenge,
Basokin, Konono N°1 and Tulu (only on the DVD)
These bands all draw on traditional trance
music, to which they’ve incorporated heavily-distorted
sounds generated by DIY amplification of their instruments...
just like Konono N°1, except that, as the musicians
come from various geographical and cultural backgrounds
(Kasai, Lake Mai Ndombe, Bacongo province), they use very
diverse rhythms, timbres and instrumentation: the trademark
electrified thumb pianos and megaphones are joined by an
array of buzzing drums, swirling guitars and hypnotic balafons.
The 'Congotronics
2' album also includes a 41-minute DVD based on material
filmed by Vincent Kenis while he recorded these bands in
Kinshasa, and edited by Elsa Dahmani.
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| Artist: |
DOMINIQUE A |
| Title: |
L’horizon |
| Label: |
OLYMPIK DISK |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
TBC |
| Catalog #: |
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Le fin ciseleur de mots trace un «Horizon» chaleureux et ouvert à tous les possibles.Un 7e album studio qui est la somme des autres, à la fois léger et lyrique, dans lequel il s'est pleinement investi.
Voyage en émotions subtiles du Groenland à Madagascar.
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| Artist: |
SHALABI EFFECT |
| Title: |
Unfortunately |
| Label: |
ALIEN8 RECORDINGS (CANADA)
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| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
16,5E
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| Catalog #: |
ALIEN 061CD
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"Shalabi Effect is the most difficult band to characterize in Montreal's vibrant music scene. Since their inception in the late '90s, the band, consisting of Sam Shalabi, Alexandre St. Onge, Anthony Seck and Will Eizlini, has managed to keep their sound fresh and exciting. They rarely play previously released material and they never repeat themselves live, giving each performance an unpredictable edge. This fourth and latest offering was recorded over three consecutive evenings during the band's recent residency at the Montreal Arts Interculturels institute in Montreal, Quebec. The band practiced throughout the day and recorded each evening's performance in front of a live audience. They then harvested a selection of the best material to create an album of unbelievable improv. The result is a record that truly represents the band's appetite for experimentation and their desire to keep things interesting for their loyal following as well as for themselves." |
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| Artist: |
NINE HORSES |
| Title: |
Snow Borne Sorrow |
| Label: |
SAMADHI SOUND |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
20,5E |
| Catalog #: |
SAMAD 006CD |
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"Nine Horses' Snow Borne Sorrow is a collaboration between David Sylvian, his brother and frequent collaborator / drummer Steve Jansen (also formerly of Japan) and electronic composer / remixer Burnt Friedman. Lyrically and vocally, Snow Borne Sorrow continues the maturing darkness of Sylvian's last solo release Blemish -- songs of struggle, doubt and resolve, Bergman-like glimpses of the realities and difficulties of intimate relationship, flashes of light and humility and caustic words about the excuses our leaders manage to find not to 'love thy neighbor.' Snow Borne Sorrow was made with a cast of contributors, including Norwegian trumpeter and Supersilent member Arve Henriksen, Swedish vocalist Stina Nordenstam, who adds marvellously elliptical responses to Sylvian's vocal on the opening 'Wonderful World,' and Ryuichi Sakamoto on piano. On the title for the album Sylvian says: 'Winter provokes introspection. Even more so the long hard winters surrounded by that cushioning, muted, numbing whiteness. It can also be a time of enormous creativity, of resolutions, resoluteness, clarity and conviction.'" |
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| Artist: |
BORIS |
| Title: |
Soundtrack from film Mabuta No Ura |
| Label: |
ESSENCE MUSIC |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
23 E |
| Catalog #: |
ESS005 |
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The Japanese masters of drone and analog feedback never cease to amaze us. Fans actually never know what to expect from a new album. Sludgy guitar riffs, super distorted psych rock or mighty minimal drones? Just be prepared for a new masterpiece, the way only they seem to do it.
Soundtrack from film Mabuta No Ura (translated as Backside Of The Eyelids) presents BORIS at their most abstract personality. A stunning guitar-driven psychedelic voyage to an imaginary land where Pink Floyd's "More" meditates with Sunn 0))) drenched in ambience and feedback!
Being a flowing and brooding soundtrack to an imaginary film conceived by the three band members, the album manages to present the listener to a number of moods and soundscapes without actually breaking out of its shell. From mellow, dreamy Syd Barret-inspired acoustic incursions, hazy vocals, slow post-rock tones and rhythms to occasional bursts of dynamics passing through avant-noise experiments and mammoth deep drones of blasting energy (like on the 12 minutes long "Space Behind Me (part 1)"). A contemplative masterwork!
Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be? The evocative sounds here give us freedom to conjure up appropriate images and quoting Atsuo's own words: "This is a soundtrack for images that appear on the mabuta no ura of the listeners, by reading the stories contained on the album and listening to the music. It's dew made from unconsciousness of Boris members. The dewdrops are spun into thread and the thread forms a whole story. The way we refer to images of the daily lives."
We are glad to present this extended Brazilian/world CD version of Soundtrack from film Mabuta No Ura, containing different artwork and exclusive extra music not available on the Japanese CD/LP, housed in a slipcase that holds our luxurious custom heavy mini-replica of the gatefold vinyl including a set of cards unveiling mabuta no ura stories and photos of the band members taken in their most recent European trip.
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| Artist: |
BASINSKI, WILLIAM |
| Title: |
The Garden of Brokenness |
| Label: |
2062 |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
17 E |
| Catalog #: |
2062 0501 |
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"A new composition featuring a recently discovered tape loop melody from the earliest piano and tape experiments, c. 1979. 'The main loop in this piece is one of the original piano and tape experiments from my early days as a composer. A few of the derivative piano variations have been released: 'A Red Score in Tile,' 'Chrome Primitive,' some of the 'Melancholia' pieces. Some are still to come in the archival series. This theme, a melody made up of one of the most common chord changes in western music, to me, is one that evokes the Japanese concept of 'mono no aware' which translates roughly to 'the sadness of things'." -- William Basinski |
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| Artist: |
VA |
| Title: |
New York Noise Vol. 2 |
| Label: |
SOUL JAZZ RECORDS (UK) |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
21 E |
| Catalog #: |
SJR 126CD |
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...Music From The New York Underground 1977-1984. "The new wave of New York art/rock groups such as DFA, the Rapture, Juan McLean, James Murphy, The Strokes, The Liars and Radio 4 all have their roots in the early 1980s New York No Wave music scene. This is the second volume of Soul Jazz Records' New York Noise and delves further into the post-punk/dance world of New York in the 1980s. The music ranges from the guitar-driven experimentation of Sonic Youth, Red Transistor and minimalism of Rhys Chatham to the dubbed-out disco of Arthur Russell and Nicky Siano and Pulsallama. All alongside a healthy dose of punk-funk from the likes of Y Pants, Vortex and more. Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham (minimalist classical composer), Jim Jarmusch (film-maker and founding member of Del Byzantines), Arthur Russell, Ned Sublette (writer), Thurston Moore -- all included here -- played key roles in bringing the New York music and art scene together in the early 1980s alongside the artist Jean Michel Basquiat, actor Vincent Gallo, poet Lydia Lunch and a host of other characters. This album features text, original photos and interviews documenting this amazing period." |
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| Artist: |
FURSAXA |
| Title: |
Lepidoptera |
| Label: |
ATP RECORDINGS (UK) |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
18 euro |
| Catalog #: |
ATPR 013CD |
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This is the fourth full-length release from West Philly-based solo artist Tara Burke aka Fursaxa. Boasting a fan base with the likes of Bardo Pond, Acid Mothers Temple and Thurston Moore who released a record by her on his Ecstatic Peace! imprint two years ago, Fursaxa is a new signing to ATP Recordings. A previous member of the band UN, Burke is now one of the epicentres and key collaborators of the North American free-folk movement, along with such luminaries as Jack Rose, Charalambides, Ben Chasny and the Jewelled Antler Collective. With her hypnotic, echo-y churchbell chanting, Burke possesses a power-filled vocal sound that harkens back not only to those other polar queens of disaffected freakout psychedelia Nico and Barbara Manning, but she is also akin to and inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century Benedictine mystical abbess. With the low drone of chord organ and Farfisa, detuned ringing guitar, and endlessly looped, multiply-tracked vocals applied with heaps of delay, Fursaxa sounds like a tripped-out medievalist perched upon a poppy petal. Burke has an alchemical knack for turning folk into lo-fi, and then into sheer psych and back again, but more importantly, her music is pure humming narcosis.
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| Artist: |
XIU-XIU |
| Title: |
La forêt |
| Label: |
ACUARELA |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
20 euros |
| Catalog #: |
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The utter intensity and seemingly insatiable thirst for bruisngly personal content of Jamie Stewart in his Xiu Xiu guise has led many to accuse the project (and particularly 'La Foret') of nothing more than an elaborate singer-songwriter parody. Is it bollocks. Intimate in a similar spirit to Antony and the Johnsons and with an inflection that is oddly reminiscent of Leonard Cohen, Stewart casts fragile webs of predominantly acoustic instrumentation (guitars, vibraphones, bass clarinets, celli, autoharps etc.) around digital beats that embrace his petulant tourettes style bursts of vocals with assurdity and grace. Opening song 'Clover' is a case in point, with false endings ahoy as the composition lurches to keep pace with Stewart's hand-wringing vocals, lamenting his kamikaze destructive inclinations towards relationships. With Stewart himself describing songs like 'Saturn' as being about "wanting to rape the president to death and eat his body", it's obvious that 'La Foret' is pretty hard-going stuff in places. However give it all a chance and the thrilling combination of post rock sensibilities and tortured soul grandstanding makes for an utterly compelling aural document. |
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| Artist: |
BLIR |
| Title: |
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| Label: |
RASTER MUSIC (GERMANY) |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
15 euros |
| Catalog #: |
RASTER 064CD |
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"Most people know Mark Fell and Mat Steel under the name SND. Like no other project before Scape they stand for the propagandised clicks and cut sound. Quite recently Mark and Mat were successfully on tour with Autechre. Less well-known is the fact that both already released two 12" records in 1999 -- Blir. The no-design covers and the anonymous layout reveal that Blir as well as SND are rather names of projects than names of a band. Blir has always been meant to be an open platform. Mat and Mark had been working in the surrounding field of Sheffield University where they first met Autechre in the early nineties. Together with Jeremy Porter and Robert Baker (Premium Leisure) they set up a collective of artists in order to do recording sessions, start radio projects (Non Axiomatic) and exchange synthesizer patches with Raster-Noton's Frank Bretschneider. Blir was part of the notion of an anonymous collective -- of techno. In 2005 the project continues. Probably not as anonymous as they would like, Mat and Mark return to their roots when relocating old session material, cutting and re-editing it in a new way. By recording new tracks Blir pursues a more radical approach than SND does. There is no format of a song, the arrangement is minimalist. Music structures are cut into short loops, are analysed and kept -- efficiently and energetically."
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| Artist: |
Coil |
| Title: |
...and the ambulance died in his arms |
| Label: |
Threshold house |
| Format: |
Limited CD |
| Price: |
22,5 euros |
| Catalog #: |
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The first Coil release post the death of founder Jhonn Balance is a limited edition release of the band's All Tomorrow's Parties performance in April 2003. 5 tracks spanning an hour from Balance, Sleazy, Thighpaulsandra and Tom Edwards of the Coil's extraordinary enveloping, psychedelic electronics, all pieces previously unreleased save the closing version of 'The Dreamer Is Still Asleep'. A first monument to an amazing talent |
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| Artist: |
Arden |
| Title: |
Conceal |
| Label: |
Stilll |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
17 euros |
| Catalog #: |
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Arden, the band, unites forward-thinking micro-forces: Mitchell Akiyama, amute, sogar, Jeuc Dietrich, Chris Bailleau, and Sebastien Roux. Their debut, Conceal, was conceived across a three day production bender at an old house nestled in beautiful Belgian country. The album's style marries a minimal-electronic approach with post-rock sensibilities from each artist's sonic palette to birth an entirely unique improvisational sound. Conceal is a delightful production piece with unlimited moments of candid melodic beauty that spring into dynamically intense yet masterfully contained emotive exaltations. |
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| Artist: |
Boris |
| Title: |
Boris At Last - Feedbacker |
| Label: |
Conspiracy |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
16,5 euros |
| Catalog #: |
CORE024 |
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A single 43 minute composition / symphony (broken into five tracks) from Japan's drone druids that goes from etheral to crushingly heavy and everything between. Stark in contrasts and attention to texture.
Feedbacker begins at the core, with ambient waves of Earth-like drones rippling across an otherwise silent nine minute expanse before Atsuo spills into his cymbals, commencing a funereal march. Bassist / vocalist Takeshi drawls up and down his double-necked bass while Wata (guitarist) curls out little tongues of blue flame.
Boris are loosely thrown into the "stoner rock" category, but they are also hailed under the noise-rock genre for their collaborative efforts with noise groups such as Merzbow and Keiji Haino. Their songs range from long (up to 30 minutes) progressive-style songs, with heavy guitars but many slow beats.
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| Artist: |
Alva Noto / Ryuichi Sakamoto |
| Title: |
Isen |
| Label: |
Raster Norton |
| Format: |
CD |
| Price: |
15 euros |
| Catalog #: |
SP658 |
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"With "insen", alva noto (aka carsten nicolai) and ryuichi sakamoto continue their collaboration which started with "vrioon". The debut album released on raster-noton in 2003 was voted record of the year 2004 in the electronica category by british magazine "the wire". particular interest was shown in nicolai’s creation towards a new synergy of acoustic piano and digital post production that had not witnessed before, in his approach and interpretation of sakamoto’s piano clusters...
On "vrioon", nicolai’s typical sinus sounds counterbalanced sakamoto’s piano accords. now, on "insen" nicolai works directly with the piano sounds. he dismantles sakamoto’s recordings with a "surgeon-like precision" into micro loops, into its atomic elements. starting with these atoms of sound, he creates a new basis for form, compressing floating rotating rhythm with harmonic sequences, with melodic counterpoints, and laying it underneath the piano tracks. this makes "insen" appear more of a complex experience, although the time-stretched flow, or even the clear lines of the piano stay untouched..."
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