| 4.5 superb |
| Aidan Baker The Sea Swells A Bit... |
| Air Moon Safari |
| Airiel Winks & Kisses: Frosted |
| Albert Ayler Spiritual Unity |
| Alessandro Bosetti Zwölfzungen |
| Alvin Lucier I Am Sitting in a Room |
| Anthony Braxton Dortmund (Quartet) 1976 |
| Antoine Beuger Un lieu pour etre deux |
| Antoine Beuger A Young Person's Guide to Antoine Beuger |
| Anton Webern Complete Webern |
| Aphex Twin ...I Care Because You Do |
| Aphex Twin On |
| Archive Londinium |
| Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Worn Copy |
| Autechre Confield |
| Autechre Chiastic Slide |
| Autechre Amber |
| Autechre Garbage |
| Autechre Peel Session |
| Autechre Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae |
| Basic Channel BCD |
| Biosphere Shenzhou |
| Bjork Vespertine |
| Bonobo Animal Magic |
| Can Ege Bamyasi |
| Chris Potter Gratitude |
| Cocteau Twins Blue Bell Knoll |
| Cocteau Twins Victorialand |
| Cocteau Twins Aikea-Guinea |
| Cocteau Twins Tiny Dynamine |
| Cornelius Fantasma |
| Crustation Bloom |
| Derek Bailey Music and Dance |
| Derek Bailey Solo Guitar |
| Don Cherry "mu" First Part |
| Earthling (UK) Radar |
| Ekkehard Ehlers, Joseph Suchy & Franz Hautzinger Soundchambers |
| Eric Dolphy Out to Lunch! |
| Ernesto Rodrigues, Emidio Buchinho & Ricardo Guerreiro Fall |
| Ernesto Rodrigues, Neil Davidson and Wade Matthews Erosions |
| Funki Porcini Fast Asleep |
| Graham Lambkin and Michael Pisaro Schwarze Riesenfalter |
| Halou We Only Love You |
| Harmonia Deluxe |
| Helmut Lachenmann Mouvement (-vor der Estarrung); ....zwei Gefühle. |
| Herbie Hancock Empyrean Isles |
| Herbie Hancock Head Hunters |
| Hooverphonic Blue Wonder Power Milk |
| Jeph Jerman and Tim Barnes Matterings |
| John Butcher Resonant Spaces |
| John Cage Music for Four |
| John Cage Complete Piano Music, Vol.1: "The Prepared Piano" |
| John Coltrane Olé Coltrane |
| John Coltrane Giant Steps |
| Kraftwerk Computer World |
| Kraftwerk Autobahn |
| Lamb Lamb |
| Lemon Jelly Lost Horizons |
| Lemon Jelly Lemonjelly.KY |
| Lone Galaxy Garden |
| Love Spirals Downwards Flux |
| Love Spirals Downwards Temporal |
| Lovesliescrushing Bloweyelashwish |
| Lovesliescrushing Chorus |
| Lovesliescrushing Glissceule |
| Manuel Gottsching E2-E4 |
| Massive Attack Protection |
| Massive Attack 100th Window |
| Matrix Metals Flamingo Breeze |
| Mats Gustafsson Impropositions |
| Mauricio Kagel Playback Play |
| Mauricio Kagel Zwei Akte; Rrrrrrr... 5 Jazzstücke; Blue's Blue |
| Michael Pisaro and Toshiya Tsunoda Crosshatches |
| Miles Davis Kind of Blue |
| Miles Davis Get Up with It |
| Monolake Hong Kong |
| Morton Feldman String Quartet No. 2 |
| Oren Ambarchi In The Pendulum's Embrace |
| Os Mutantes Os Mutantes |
| Peaking Lights 936 |
| Perfume Tree A Lifetime Away |
| Perfume Tree Feeler |
| Peter Brotzmann Machine Gun |
| Philip Glass Glassworks |
| Pizzicato Five Happy End of the World |
| Portishead Third |
| Portishead Portishead |
| Portishead Roseland NYC Live |
| Portishead Glory Times |
| R/R Coseboom Beneath Trembling Lanterns |
| Radu Malfatti Rain Speak Soft Tree Listens |
| Radu Malfatti L'effacage |
| Rangers Suburban Tours |
| Sachiko M + Ryuichi Sakamoto Snow, Silence, Partially Sunny |
Sakamoto is fucking literally playing the fucking piano over (actually under) Sachiko's sine
waves! Actually, Sakamoto is merely scratching the insides and perhaps the outside of the piano
for the first 1/3, while Sachiko never stays more than 2-3 minutes on the same frequency... and
the "bursts" are cuter than ever! So it's a decent compromise in the vein of Nakamura's
collaboration with Arve Henriksen on Egrets Crystal. Sadly, the last part changes too much the
atmosphere and they seem to give up on actually interacting, so you're left with something that
sounds you're listening to two different solo recordings in the same time. This maybe won't make
you get into Onkyo overnight, but it's an album that can be actually listened to with some
pleasure... not just ear-bleeding. ;) |
| Saltillo Ganglion |
| Sarah Hennies Gather & Release |
| Seefeel Succour |
| Seefeel More Like Space |
| Seefeel Starethrough EP |
| Sneaker Pimps Becoming X |
| Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus |
| Stereolab Sound-Dust |
| Stereolab Mars Audiac Quintet |
| Stereolab Aluminum Tunes |
| Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians |
| Sun Araw The Inner Treaty |
| Sun Ra Atlantis |
| Sunday Munich Pneuma |
| Supersilent 1-3 |
| Susumu Yokota Grinning Cat |
| Susumu Yokota Sound of Sky |
| Swandive Intuition |
| Taku Sugimoto Opposite |
| Tangerine Dream Zeit |
| Tangerine Dream Phaedra |
| Teen Daze Four More Years |
| The Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out |
| The Necks Aquatic |
| The Necks Aether |
| The Necks Sex |
| The Necks Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab |
| Tortoise Millions Now Living Will Never Die |
| Toshimaru Nakamura Egrets |
| Toshimaru Nakamura / Ken Ikeda / Tomoyoshi Date Green Heights |
| Walter Marchetti Per la sete dell'orecchio |
| Yusef Lateef Eastern Sounds |
| 4.0 excellent |
| Aidan Baker Black Flowers Blossom |
| Air 10,000 Hz Legends |
| Air Premiers Symptomes |
| Airiel Winks & Kisses: Melted |
| Airiel Winks & Kisses: Crackled |
| Alexander von Schlippenbach Pakistani Pomade |
| Alva Noto Transform |
| Alva Noto Xerrox Vol. 1 |
| Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto Vrioon |
| Alvin Lucier Music for Solo Performer |
| AMM AMMMusic |
| AMM Before Driving To The Chapel We Took Coffee... |
| Anne Guthrie Codiaeum variegatum |
| Anthony Braxton 3 Compositions of New Jazz |
| Anthony Braxton Quartet (Santa Cruz) 1993 |
| Antoine Beuger Keine fernen mehr |
| Antoine Beuger Two . Too (For Ewin-Josef Speckmann) |
| Antoine Beuger Cantor Quartets |
| Aphex Twin Cheetah EP |
| Archie Shepp Mama Too Tight |
| Arnold Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 |
| Autechre Exai |
| Autechre Oversteps |
| Autechre Anvil Vapre |
| Autechre Envane |
| Autechre Cichlisuite |
| Autechre EP7 |
| Autechre Peel Session 2 |
| Autechre Gantz Graf |
| Biosphere Substrata |
| Biosphere Cirque |
| Biosphere Dropsonde |
| Bjork Homogenic |
| Bjork Post |
| Blue Foundation Blue Foundation |
| Blue Foundation Sweep Of Days |
| Boards of Canada The Campfire Headphase |
| Boards of Canada Geogaddi |
| Boards of Canada Twoism |
| Boards of Canada Boc Maxima |
| Bonobo Dial 'M' For Monkey |
| Boredoms Vision Creation Newsun |
| Bowery Electric Bowery Electric |
| Broadcast Work and Non Work |
| Camel The Snow Goose |
| Cecil Taylor Unit Structures |
| Celer Continents |
| Celer Capri |
| Chris Potter Follow the Red Line - Live at the Village Vanguard |
| Cluster Zuckerzeit |
| Cluster Grosses Wasser |
| Cluster Sowiesoso |
| Cocteau Twins Heaven or Las Vegas |
| Cocteau Twins Echoes in a Shallow Bay |
| Cocteau Twins Twinlights |
| Cocteau Twins Sunburst and Snowblind |
| Colour Kane A Taste Of |
| Common Objects Whitewashed With Lines |
Are these accomplished musicians mimicking/mocking/inter/retextualizing sounds of what we like to
call "the real world"? They're just doing their thing - or rather these sounds had to be affirmed
in this way. Inevitably, with such improvisations you can't say anymore that they're mere
(abstract) expressionism - you have to firmly suggest their debt to the world and be prepared to
receive it as a sound world in itself. You can't tell that these improvisations were not recorded
in a short period of time.
For the kind of artistic pursuit I were to associate with a musician like John Butcher, I'd say
this double-set album works pretty well as a short definition. Not something for everyone, but not
something to be done by everyone. Be proud, modernism. |
| Conrad Schnitzler Blau |
| Cornelius Sensuous |
| Cornelius Point |
| Deathprod Deathprod |
| Derek Bailey Aida |
| Don Cherry Orient |
| Don Cherry "mu" Second Part |
| Don Cherry Eternal Rhythm |
| Don Cherry Brown Rice |
| Edgar Froese Epsilon in Malaysian Pale |
| Ernesto Rodrigues, Christine Sehnaoui & Axel Dorner Nie |
| Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues & Carlos Santos Cyclic Symmetry |
| An unusually minimalist suite from the Rodrigues string duo, coupled with field recordings by Carlos Santos that seem sometimes tacked on and easy in a way (including cicada and seagull sounds that are among the clearest in the whole Creative Sources catalogue). But the results are alluring to say the least, not without a certain broody mood that also characterizes the more sparse music one can hear on, say, Another Timbre in general or even Wandelweiser records in particular (except Cyclic Symmetry isn't so "isolationist" and lowercase, aside the silences between parts and the breaks in which the two instruments don't dominate the soundscape). |
| Eva-Maria Houben Air - Works for Flutes and Organ |
| Eva-Maria Houben Works for Tromba Marina |
| Eva-Maria Houben Works for Double Bass |
| Evan Parker Monoceros |
| Evan Parker The Snake Decides |
| Faust Faust IV |
| Ferran Fages and Ernesto Rodrigues Cru |
| Funki Porcini Hed Phone Sex |
| Giacinto Scelsi Piano Suite No. 2 |
| Graham Lambkin Community |
| Grischa Lichtenberger And IV (Inertia) |
| Guionnet /E. Rodrigues/G. Rodrigues/Murayama Noite |
| Gunter Muller Eight Landscapes |
| Gunter Muller and Taku Sugimoto I Am Happy If You Are Happy |
| Halou Wholeness and Separation |
| Halou Wiser |
| Helmut Lachenmann Schwankungen am Rand |
| Herbie Hancock Sextant |
| Hong Chulki, Jin Sangtae and Kevin Parks 音影 |
| Hooverphonic A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular |
| Hooverphonic The Magnificent Tree |
| Iannis Xenakis La Légende d'Eer |
| Jakob Ullmann Fremde Zeit Addendum 4 |
| Jan Garbarek Dis |
| Jan Garbarek Afric Pepperbird |
| Jan Garbarek - Bobo Stenson Quartet Witchi-Tai-To |
| Johannes Nastesjo & Vasco Trilla Gingko |
| Jurg Frey and Radu Malfatti II |
| Karlheinz Stockhausen Hymnen |
| Keith Rowe and Toshimaru Nakamura weather sky |
| Kraftwerk Tour De France Soundtracks |
| Kraftwerk Trans-Europe Express |
| Kraftwerk Radio-Activity |
| Kraftwerk Minimum-Maximum |
| Laika Silver Apples Of The Moon |
| Lamb What Sound |
| Leaf Made Into Itself |
| Lemon Jelly '64-'95 |
| Lone Ecstasy & Friends |
| Love Spirals Downwards Ardor |
| Love Spirals Downwards Ever |
| Love Spirals Downwards Idylls |
| Lovesliescrushing Tiny Shiny Stars |
| Luc Ferrari Presque rien |
| Luciano Berio Sequenzas |
| Lucio Capece, Julia Eckhardt, Christian Kesten.... Wedding Ceremony |
CD composed of two live performances in May 2007, Belgium (Gent and Brussels), in which the sextet
plays four composed pieces by four of the members (Kesten, track 1; Malfatti, track 3; Sugimoto,
track 4; Capece; track 5) and an improvised piece (relatively louder and busier than the other
ones). The second half of Capece's piece includes extracts of Guy Debord's text "The Society of
Spectacle" handed out by Capece or Kesten (not sure) to be read by the members of the public.
The ending didn't felt tacked on - it comes out almost as a necessary deconstruction as a
ritualistic quality, as Brian Olewnick points out, does strike me in most of the album. I guess
the title, "Wedding Ceremony", did influence my reading, but doesn't that happen a lot with these
abstract improv albums with figurative titles?
Anyway, the performers avoid being harsh, monotonous or too quiet (I don't get the lowercase jokes
in this case). There's always something going on and the end results stand on their own. This is
the first time I'm hearing an album with Kesten on it, so I hardly realized when (if) does he
"sing". But I'll probably come back to this one, it's worth the effort. |
| Luigi Nono La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura (w) |
| Manfred Werder Stück 1998 Seiten 624-626 |
| Massive Attack Blue Lines |
| Mauricio Kagel Pan; String Quartets I, II, III |
| Mauricio Kagel Serenade / Chamber Works |
| Mauricio Kagel Exotica |
| Mauricio Kagel Ludwig Van |
| Michael Pisaro Continuum Unbound |
| Michael Pisaro Fields Have Ears |
| Michael Pisaro Mind Is Moving I |
| Miles Davis On the Corner |
| Miles Davis Porgy and Bess |
| Monster Rally Coral |
| Morton Feldman Patterns in a Chromatic Field |
| Morton Feldman Rothko Chapel |
| Neu! Neu! |
| Oren Ambarchi Quixotism |
| Oren Ambarchi Suspension |
| Oren Ambarchi Grapes from the Estate |
| Ornette Coleman The Shape of Jazz to Come |
| Otomo, Rowe, Sugimoto Ajar |
| Pan Sonic Kulma |
| Pan Sonic Vakio |
| Peaking Lights Lucifer |
| Penguin Cafe Orchestra Penguin Cafe Orchestra |
| Penguin Cafe Orchestra Union Cafe |
| Perfume Tree Dust |
| Philip Glass Music in Twelve Parts |
| Pierre Boulez Anton Webern: Complete Works Opp 1-31 |
| Pierre Schaeffer L'oeuvre musicale |
| Pizzicato Five Pizzicatomania! |
| Pizzicato Five The Sound of Music |
| Pram The Museum of Imaginary Animals |
| Pram Dark Island |
| Sam Kidel Disruptive Muzak |
| Sam Rivers Contours |
| Sankt Otten Wir koennen ja Freunde bleiben |
| Skip Spence Oar |
| Sneaker Pimps Splinter |
| Sofia Gubaidulina Repentance |
| Sofia Gubaidulina Chamber Music With Double Bass |
| Stars of the Lid And Their Refinement Of The Decline |
| Stereolab Chemical Chords |
| Stereolab Margerine Eclipse |
| Stereolab Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements |
| Stereolab Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center |
| Stereolab Fluorescences |
| Stereolab Miss Modular |
| Stereolab The First Of The Microbe Hunters |
| Stereolab Instant 0 In The Universe |
| Stereolab Fab Four Suture |
| Steve Lacy The Door |
| Steve Lacy Scraps |
| Steve Reich Early Works |
| Steve Roach Structures from Silence |
| Sun Araw Belomancie |
| Sun Araw Beach Head |
| Sunday Munich Vinculum |
| Supersilent 8 |
| Supersilent 6 |
| Susumu Yokota The Boy and the Tree |
| Susumu Yokota Symbol |
| Swandive Anyone on the Air? |
| Taku Unami and Takahiro Kawaguchi Teatro Assente |
| Talk Talk Laughing Stock |
| Tangerine Dream Ricochet |
| Tangerine Dream Atem |
| Tangerine Dream Tangram |
| Tangerine Dream Logos Live |
| The Necks Open |
| The Necks Mosquito / See Through |
| Tom Ze Todos os Olhos |
| Tortoise Tortoise |
| Tortoise Its All Around You |
| Tortoise Gamera |
| Toshimaru Nakamura No Input Mixing Board |
| Toshimaru Nakamura and Tetuzi Akiyama Semi-Impressionism |
| Vanessa Rossetto Exotic Exit |
| Walter Wanderley Rain Forest |
| William Parker Painter's Spring |
| Windy and Carl Consciousness |
| 3.5 great |
| 4G Cloud |
| Air Talkie Walkie |
| Airiel Winks & Kisses: Dizzy |
| Alvin Curran Canti e vedute del giardino magnetico |
| Alvin Curran Fiori chiari, fiori oscuri |
| AMM Newfoundland |
| Anthony Braxton For Alto |
| Antoine Beuger Calme etendue (spinoza) |
| Antoine Beuger Sixteen Stanzas on Stillness and Music Unheard |
| Aphex Twin Syro |
| Aphex Twin Drukqs |
| Aphex Twin Richard D. James Album |
| Archive Controlling Crowds |
| Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti The Doldrums |
| Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Lover Boy |
| Arve Henriksen Chiaroscuro |
| Arve Henriksen Strjon |
| Autechre Quaristice |
| Autechre Untilted |
| Autechre Draft 7.30 |
| Autechre Tri Repetae |
| Autechre Anti |
| Autechre We R Are Why |
| Autechre Basscad |
| Autechre Digital Exclusive EP |
| Axel Dorner Trumpet |
| Biosphere Autour De La Lune |
| Bjork Debut |
| Bjork Volta |
| Bjork Medulla |
| Bjork Biophilia |
| Boards of Canada Tomorrow's Harvest |
| Bonobo Days To Come |
| Bowery Electric Untitled |
| Choi Joonyong, Hong Chulki, Sachiko M and Otomo Yoshihide Sweet Cuts, Distant Curves |
| In a post-Good Morning Good Night world, this seems unbelievably warm and dynamic in its tendency towards less sparse improvisation (improvisation with a capital I). Still, the warm-up minutes of this album were preparing me for an actually pretty sound garden with characteristic Japanese robot birdsong - turned out it was just a warm-up, although when sustained tones eventually step in the frame, it's all arguably more bearable. Still, not quite "sweet" enough for my liking and the "distant curves" turned out to be obnoxious "tactile" obstacles. I guess you may retain it for the interplay (Brian Olewnick claims that the pitches used resemble those of the instruments of a traditional quarter or something like that). Nevermind the curves, here's the cuts. |
| Cocteau Twins Milk and Kisses |
| Cocteau Twins Head Over Heels |
| Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd The Moon and the Melodies |
| Conrad Schnitzler Rot |
| Devin DiSanto and Nick Hoffman Three Exercises |
| Edgar Froese Aqua |
| Ernesto Rodrigues Musique de chambre |
| Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues & Jassem Hindi Ur |
| ASMR-friendly improvisation?... Dunno what else to say, but there are lots of awesome textures to be found on Ur II-IV. And Guilherme is quite rocking the radio yet... but otherwise not exactly a stand-out among the latest offerings from the Rodrigues crew. I am looking forward to hear more from Jassem Hindi, a player of Saudi origin who seems to have done a duo with another prolific improviser, Axel Dörner and not much else yet. |
| Eva-Maria Houben Works for Piano |
| Eva-Maria Houben Druids and Questions |
| Eva-Maria Houben Von da nach da |
| Friedrich Cerha Spiegel; Monumentum; Momente |
| Greg Kelley and Jason Lescalleet Forlorn Green |
| Hooverphonic Presents Jackie Cane |
| Hooverphonic The President Of The LSD Golf Club |
| Hooverphonic No More Sweet Music |
| Jan Garbarek Madar |
| Jurg Frey Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit: Raume 1-8 |
| Karlheinz Stockhausen Kontakte |
| Keith Rowe The Room |
| Keith Rowe and Graham Lambkin Making A |
| Koboku Senju Selektiv hogst |
| Kraftwerk Electric Cafe |
| Kraftwerk Ralf und Florian |
| Kraftwerk Kraftwerk 2 |
| Kraftwerk Kraftwerk |
| Laika Good Looking Blues |
| Lamb Between Darkness And Wonder |
| Lamb Fear of Fours |
| Lovesliescrushing Girl. Echo. Suns. Veils. |
| Lovesliescrushing Avianium (Microphona Magnetica) |
| Luigi Nono Como una ola de fuerza y luz |
| Lunascape Reflecting Seyelence |
| Lunascape Mindstalking |
| Mandalay Instinct |
| Mandalay Empathy |
| Mauricio Kagel Der Schall, für Fünf Spieler |
| Mauricio Kagel Acustica |
| Monocle Outer Sunset |
| Nite Jewel Am I Real? |
| Nmperign and Jason Lescalleet Love Me Two Times |
| Penguin Cafe Orchestra Music from the Penguin Cafe |
| Pierre Boulez Sur Incises |
| Polwechsel Polwechsel 2 |
| Radu Malfatti Düsseldorf Oktett |
| Roananax / Obliq The Berlin Series, N. 3: Roananax 1999. Obliq 2014 |
Roananax was composed of Axel Dorner (trumpet), Robin Hayward (tuba), Annette Krebs
(electroacoustic guitar) and Andrea Neumann (inside piano & mixing board) and this archival
recording is billed by the label as a pioneering effort of the so-called "Berlin reductionism",
"though the music isn't necessarily what you'd expect". Actually, if you've heard almost any of
these improvisers in other settings, you can predict vaguely what should be going on. It's (still
quite nervous) textural improvisation not without soon to become tropes of the cutting-edge stuff
under the "EAI" rubric, but there's clearly some excitement of the newly (re-)found here.
Nevertheless, the Roananax side feels stellar in comparison to the let-down (for me) that is the B
side of the split album. Enter 2014, meet the new OBLIQ ensemble, composed of saxophonist Pierre
Borel, percussionist Hannes Lingens and Derek Shirley on electronics. The same ridiculously vague
"reductionist" tag is slapped on them even as they engage into pretty much the same vocabulary as
many Onkyo or Wandelweiser efforts from the past decade or so. Of course, advanced reviewers may
well find (as I see on the label's page) captivating details beyond the traditionally ear-piercing
sine waves or an evolution from the still fairly old-schooled improvisation on the A-side to the
egoless sounds of the newer ensemble. Do as you (dis)please... The coupling is still quite
strange. |
| Sam Rivers Fuchsia Swing Song |
| Seefeel (Ch-Vox) |
| Slowdive Souvlaki |
| Sneaker Pimps Bloodsport |
| Stereolab Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night |
| Stereolab The Groop Played "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music" |
| Stereolab Oscillons From The Anti-Sun |
| Sun Araw On Patrol |
| Susumu Yokota Laputa |
| Susumu Yokota Baroque |
| Susumu Yokota Wonder Waltz |
| Tangerine Dream Force Majeure |
| Tangerine Dream White Eagle |
| Tetuzi Akiyama / Taku Sugimoto / Toshimaru Nakamura The Improvisation Meeting At Bar Aoyama |
| While maybe not astonishing (at least not anymore), The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama documents (with - as far as I can hear - imperfect fidelity and some of the recordings seem cut-off before the actual ending of those performances) an early phase of the Japanese improv scene. These are baby steps compared to what was to come, but that also means it's more accessible and easier to get into. There are also bits of jazz-related free improvisation in here - the "onkyo" purity isn't there yet, but there are quite a few moments in which it is clear they are looking for something else. |
| Tetuzi Akiyama and Anla Courtis Naranja Songs |
| The Orb Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld |
| The Orb Pomme Fritz |
| Tortoise Standards |
| UNKLE Never, Never, Land |
| Windy and Carl Depths |
| Windy and Carl Drawing of Sound |
| Windy and Carl Antarctica (The Bliss Out, Vol. 2) |
