Classical Music 255 Items

Wavy grave rave for better tomorrow.

Mischa Blanos is part of the cult Romanian Formation Amorf (together with Christi Cons and Vlad Caia) which tours all over the world as a headliner of the “ro-minimal” scene. - The blend of electronic music and academic piano training is not new, but few artists have expertise on both musical fronts. The result is an album with a unique organic groove. - Technically Mischa is an outstanding pianist (with several piano prizes). His perfect knowledge of his piano, which he also uses as a rhythm box, allows him to improvise/jam, which gives “City Jungle” a certain “Jazz” dimension. - City Jungle is his first album (after two EPS for InFiné)

Ambivalence has the tendency to dance to its very own beat because of its implied ambiguity. It’s the antithesis to any kind of middle of the road business. And it’s something that rings particularly true for Joram Feitsma’s sophomore album “Flux“. Giving home to fifteen songs that were composed between 2017 and very late 2020, “Flux“ is the result of multiple years of experimenting with different styles, different tones, different feelings, exposing an emotional spectrum you thought you’ve lost in the fire for good. It’s sensual. it’s sensitive. It’s even a bit otherworldly. It’s a testament to the idea that we’re all capable of immense love regardless of its possible disillusionment and consequential losses. Hand numbered/limited to 200 copies.

Moby’s eclectic career has cast him in the roles of electronic dance music pioneer, singer and songwriter, producer, activist, and restaurateur, but for his latest venture he presents his music in a whole new light. Together with Deutsche Grammophon, he is releasing an album of some of his best known tracks in stunning new arrangements for classical instruments – featuring Moby himself and a stellar lineup of collaborators from across the musical spectrum.

Though it was as a creator of dance music that he found fame in the 1990s, Moby’s music has never been easy to pigeonhole – his 1999 smash hit album Play, for instance, drew heavily on samples from Alan Lomax’s archive of field recordings. On this newly announced album, to be released on 26 March 2021, classic Moby songs including “Porcelain”, “Why Does My Heart”, and “Extreme Ways” will be released in innovative new versions. The album concludes with a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes”.

Always a daring and imaginative thinker, Moby’s first classical collaboration came in October 2018, when he performed a selection of his songs alongside the LA Phil and conductor Gustavo Dudamel. This was the inspiration for the current project, which features not only full orchestral versions but new electronic arrangements, as well as sophisticated smaller-scale acoustic interpretations.

The 14-track album features some eye-catching collaborations including both Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and the acclaimed classical pianist Víkingur Ólafsson on “Porcelain”; Gregory Porter and Amythyst Kiah on “Natural Blues”; and Kris Kristofferson as well as original vocalist Mark Lanegan on “The Lonely Night”.

After An Almost 6 Year Hiatus, And The Break Up Of The Audio-Visual Trio It Had Evolved Into, Origamibiro Returns With Miscellany, A Body Of Work Amassed During The Years Since The Release Of 2014's Odham's Standard.Though The Group Never Officially Disbanded, A Number Of Life-Changing Events Meant It Simply Became Impossible To Continue Together. As Such, The Project Organically Reverted Back To The Solo Pursuits Of Composer Tom Hill. Fellow Multi-Instrumentalist Andy Tytherleigh, However, Remains A Strong Collaborator.Miscellany Comprises A Varied Mixture Of Work, Ranging From Electroacoustic To Orchestral Chamber Music. Drawing Upon Much Of The Found-Sound Style Fo...

Fantas is the epic opening track on Caterina Barbieri’s acclaimed 2019 release Ecstatic Computation. The original Fantas laid out a magical path of patterns leading the listener on a journey into the sound itself. Fantas Variations maps out eight new potentials sprung from this initial path as constructed by a diverse mix of artists lending to a wide spectrum of new works extrapolated from the original work. For this project Barbieri invited friends and long time collaborators from a variety of musical backgrounds to create a more sustainable and inclusive landscape in terms of stylistic, geographical, gender and generational balance. The results are a diverse array of approaches and instrumentation which blur the boundaries between the acoustic and electronic.

Fantas Variations embraces a platform for mutual exchange and support between like-minded artists, where active and collective re-imagination is prioritised over the traditional model of remixes, which is often strategic, functional and more passive.

Longtime friend and collaborator Kali Malone rearranged Fantas to a slowed-down, austere and eerie version for two Organs. Evelyn Saylor created a piece for a vocal ensemble consisting of her, Lyra Pramuk, Stine Janvin and Annie Garlid, joining forces to express the choral, psychedelic and vitalistic nature of the piece. Barbieri’s former guitar professor at the Conservatory in Bologna, Walter Zanetti, composes Fantas for electric guitar, by translating every single gesture of the original electronic piece into a personal, nuanced and detailed interpretation. Bendik Giske’s reinterpretation for Saxophone and Voice captures the atmospheric essence of Fantas and its psychic meteorology. Longtime collaborator and along with Barbieri the other half of the outfit Punctum, Carlo Maria, resynthesizes Fantas for Tr808 and Mc202, bringing a more club-oriented dimension of the piece to life whilst unveiling the sonic continuum between rhythm and pitch through a sensitive timbral approach. Jay Mitta’s Singeli reinterpretation of Fantas transpires with pitched-up percussion and turbo-fast polyrhythmic patterns unleashing the frenetic, shifting, transformative matter within the piece to a higher plain of euphoric dance. Baseck’s variation is a rave fantasia, where the prismatic trance of the original is channeled into fierce, uncompromising hardcore, whilst Kara-Lis Coverdale’s take is a phantasmagoria for piano that gently, yet inexorably, captures the relentlessness chimerical qualities of the original, unveiling its spectral backbone.

Conceived At The Heel Of Italy's Boot-Shaped Peninsula In Apulia, Patrick Belaga's Blutt Makes Music For The Unruly Imagination. The Title Is An Old German Word For 'Naked', 'Bare', But It Can Also Mean 'Blood' When Spelt Blut. Take Away Another Letter And It Makes 'Butt'. None Of These Definitions And Adaptations Were What Prompted The Classically-Trained Composer And Cellist To Name His Second Album With A Word Simulating The Sound Of A Punctured Artery. That Came Later. Blutt's Nine Woozy Compositions Are Inspired By A Contemplative Road Trip With A Friend, And The Mysterious Muffled Music Heard From An Unidentified Source. It Was A Combination Of Jazz And Classical Music That Haunted Belaga's Wanderings Through The Byzantine Town Gallipoli, And Soon Infected His Dreams Of Long-Gone Civilizations. This Record Is Its Outcome, Where Organic Instrumentals And Electronic Production Merge Into A Sound That's Both Contemporary And Ancient. Samples Of Mewing Incantations And Tape Hiss Sway Atop The Waltzing Thud Of Piano Chords On "Sigh". Composite Layers Of Belaga's Cello Play In Downcast Harmony On "Rust". There's A Wistful Sense For The Romantic, In The Eerie Rhythm Of A Piece Like "Momentum". The Quarter Tones Of An Eastern European And Middle Eastern Folk Scale Probe A Profound Melancholy Via Kai Knight's Violin. Its Notes Are Haunted By A Field Recording Of Running Water On "Unsoft", Echoes Of Panpipes And A Jew's Harp On Opener "Lilt". As A Consummate Composer And Performer Known For His Work With Artists Wu Tsang, Boychild, Josh Johnson And Asma Maroof, Belaga's Blutt Is Itself Marked By Flawless Collaborations. Vocalist And Instrumentalist Jazmin Romero Sings And Composes The Surreal Melodies Of "Grey Eye". Multidisciplinary Dance Artist And Producer Riley Watts Contributes To The Muted, Motorik Movement Of "The Tunnel Is A Tower". Together, The Record Plays As A Stunning Soundtrack To The Strangeness Of Sleeping, And The Heartbreaking Transience Of Time. Like An Intense Dream Half-Remembered, The...

Melody As Truth present “Melodies In The Sand”, a collection of works from Czech artists Irena and Vojtěch Havlovi. The husband-and-wife duo began working together in the mid 80’s as part of experimental ensemble Capella Antiqua e Moderna, a unique association of musicians whose repertoire spanned various styles of European classical music. With an inventive and unorthodox approach to both historical and modern compositional techniques and interpretive procedures, the Havel’s have steadfastly developed a unique and musically autonomous language which continues to expand to this day. Spanning their early work in Capella Antique e Moderna to recent pieces recorded for Viola De Gamba, ‘Melodies In The Sand’ is presented to the listener with the simple aim of shining a light on these incredible musicians. Their work has within it the ability to penetrate and enrich the innermost corners of a perceptive human soul, a gift which they share with sincerity and humbleness.

White Boy Scream is the experimental classical project from opera singer and composer Micaela Tobin. On her latest release, 'bakunawa', she dissects her voice through the use of electronics as a means of exploring identity and ancestral trauma. “bakunawa” is an homage to the pre-colonial mythology of her motherland, the Philippines. Part sonic ritual, part diasporic storytelling. Micaela Tobin is currently on Faculty as a Voice Instructor at the California Institute for the Arts. She most recently performed a principal role in the critically acclaimed experimental opera, Sweet Land (comp.Raven Chacon & Du Yun), which made it’s U.S. premiere in March 2020. Her previous album, 'Remains' was listed as one of the top 10 Noise/ Industrial Albums of 2018 by The Wire Magazine.

Limited Edition Cloudy Clear Vinyl.Combining Processed Recordings Of Wind And Water With Analog Synthesizers And Chamber Orchestra, Elori Kramer's The Blue Of Distance Is An Audio Dissertation On The Role Technology Plays In Our Relationships To Geography And Nature, Unspoolinginto An Examination Of Memory And Longing Across Seven Sections That Layer Filmic Minimalism Over Churning Electronic Soundbeds. Half Of The Suite Was Written In The Adirondack Mountains During Summer Amid Lakes, Rivers, And Moss-Ladenforest Floors, While The Other Half Was Conceived On A Frozen Lake Superior Island In Deep Winter, Creating A Subtextual Dialogue Between The Two Extreme Settings. Kramer, Who Was Born In 1990 And Grew Up Alongside The Internet, Uses Her Musicto Explore Nature In The Actual And The Virtual World, Through Direct Experience And Facsimile Alike, Focussing And Blurring The Line Between The Two. "Looking Back At My Videos Of That Summer-- Which Is Where The Processed Audio Came From-- I Triedto Remember What It Had Felt Like To Be There," She Recalls, "Thinking About Questions Of Reality Versus Imagination; Physical Versus Digital; And The Ways In Which Memory Shifts Through Our Minds And Technology." The Title The Blue Ofdistance Was Derived From Rebecca Solnit's Book A Field Guide To Getting Lost, Referring To The Phenomenon Of Faraway Mountains Appearing Blue Due To Light Particles Getting Lost Over Distance. "If We Were To Go Up To The Mountains Thatappear Blue From Far Away, We Would See That They Weren't Actually That Color." She Says. "This Beauty Is Made Possible Because Of Their Distance," Much In The Same Way That The Splendor Of A Lush Season Is Only Fully Realized In The Throes Of A Bleak One, And The Joy Of An Event Can Only Be Felt When It Has Long Since Been Consigned To Remembrance.R.I.Y.L Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Josiah Steinbrick, Emily Sprague

Meet the intoxicating, meditative sounds of Claude Debussy (1862-1918), one of the greatest innovators of Western music. The impressionist composer was inspired by the classical myth of the sirens, female sea-demons with such unearthly beautiful voices that they managed to lure all passing sailors into their deadly arms. In a similar way, Debussy wanted to enchant his listeners with his esoteric composition Trois nocturnes, inspired by the atmosphere of the night. In the first part, Nuages, one can hear silvery-lit clouds slide slowly past the moon. The second part, Fetes, depicts nocturnal festivities and blazing torches, and the third part is devoted to the mysteriously singing Sirens. Unlike his contemporaries, Debussy did not compose elaborate, bombastic symphonies, but rather dreamy, self-contained music that is still topical today, and breaths the free spirit of nature. It 'would resound through the open spaces and float joyfully over the tops of the trees.' The lucid performance of the Orchestre National De Lyon comes close to Debussy's ideal, and seduces the listener to lose himself in otherworldly dreams and mind-expanding fantasies. This beautiful recording of Nocturnes never been on vinyl before!! *Pre-order price*

To celebrate the 90th anniversary of Luc Ferrari's birth Transversales Disques is very glad to announce the release of Photophonie, unpublished archives, spanning 1973-1992, revelatory collection of commercial, commission and secret music by electroacoustic music pioneer Luc Ferrari.
« Photophonie » (1989) / Music for the photographic exhibition of Alain Willaume.
« Il était une fois » (1973) / Commissioned by the G.M.E.B.
« Trans-Voices » (1992) / Curated by the American Center, Paris.
« Leica » - (1977) / Advertising for the Leica camera.
Affiliated with French Radio’s Groupe de Musique Concrète, co-founder of the GRM with Pierre Schaeffer in 1958, Luc Ferrari (1929-2005), major figure of musique concrète and electroacoustic music, broke away to pave his own path of individualistic expressions of minimalist music, musical theater, field recordings, orchestral music and soundtracks…

Another first-time-on-vinyl release from Koko, Ballads For Bass Clarinet (previously a Japan-only CD) comprises a couple of waltzes, a blues, a Monk-ish suite-like piece, a free-ish drums and clarinet interlude, and finally an elegy to civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.

David Murray leads on bass clarinet, managing to go both deep and soaringly high; it sometimes sounds like two different instruments are being played. Backed by John Hicks (piano), Ray Drummond (bass) and Idris Muhammad (drums), Murray’s quartet is tight and the recording superb, with a warm and intimate sound.

Highly recommended.

Limited Edition.
Still shrink wrapped but opened.
Cover with a beginning seam split at the upper edge.
Records are slightly warped but still enjoyable.

Charlemagne Palestine's majestic 1976 work The Golden Mean, originally performed by Palestine on two pianos, is revisited here as The Goldennn Meeenn + Sheeenn, a new collaboration between Palestine and enigmatic musician Rrose.
March 2018: the Festival Variations in Nantes commissions Charlemagne Palestine to reinvent The Golden Mean for two pianists. Palestine chose Rrose to join him in this new rendition of the work. Together, they performed The Goldennn Meeenn + Sheeenn onstage at the main opera house in Nantes -- the sumptuous Théâtre Graslin – with extraordinary results.
The concept of the 'golden mean' goes back to the roots of mathematics, and ancient Greek philosophy. It is an important work in the Palestine mythos, embodying his total immersion in the power of the interval. "It's probably his most systematic work . . . a step-by-step journey through the intervals of the octave," says Rrose. "When we rehearsed it, we were noticing how each interval is like a universe of its own -- with its own history, emotions, and sonic qualities all mixed up together. Every time you move from one interval to the next, it feels like moving into another world.
I love the interval," Palestine told me in a recent interview. "I love when it plays with itself. That's what I learned from organ musics too. You can just do an interval, and if they're just slightly out of tune with each other, then they shimmer . . . they play themselves. And it sounds like somebody's playing lots of notes. In your ear, it's like an aural phenomenon . . . that's my whole concept. I make something that then does itself somehow. It continues by itself. So I don't have to always be there. And that makes my music a little less egocentric. So there's more space. Also for the listener — the ear plays with these things, and you're not always being given orders. Your ear isn't given orders all the time of what to listen for."
Beautifully recorded, with mastering by Rashad Becker of Dubplates and Mastering, The Golden Mean + Sheeenn feels expansive, radiant and hypnotic, opening new ears to its enduring mystery.
Rrose adds this note to listeners: "Do not focus your attention on the notes being played, but on the ocean of overtones swimming, suspended, overhead, brushing against one another, kissing one another, melting into one another.

Matthew Herbert releases a new big band album - The State Between Us. The double album is released on the day the U.K. is scheduled to leave the European Union. Made in collaboration with over a thousand musicians and singers from across the EU, The State Between Us began as a project responding to the triggering of Article 50 and the dramatic shift in the national story that began in June 2016. Over the course of the next two years - against the backdrop of a relentlessly challenging news cycle and via large-scale recording sessions abroad - something unexpected emerged.

The State Between Us is an album that contemplates what it means to be British in 2019. Its sixteen tracks reflect a journey on foot across Great Britain (and beyond) imagined in beautifully elegiac melodies carefully woven with site-specific recordings. World War II planes in flight rub against a Ford Fiesta being broken down into its component parts; the loneliness of a cross-channel swimmer follows a single cyclist riding around Chequers. Here, the evocative sounds of empty harbours, and factories being demolished, of ancient trees and the calls of soon to be extinct animals ebb and flow through music that poses one hugely significant question - Where’s Home? - and leaves the listener with one resoundingly hopeful answer: You’re Welcome Here.

Whilst the record is a giant collaboration, there are a number of notable special guests including singers Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne, Arto Lindsay, Merz, Patrick Clarke and highly respected solo instrumentalists Enrico Rava, Byron Wallen, Sheila Maurice Gray and Nathaniel Cross. Lyrics include words by Britain’s greatest living playwright Caryl Churchill, Percy Shelley, John Donne and various abusive members of the public and the secretary general of UKIP. Artwork by longtime collaborator Sarah Hopper for The State Between Us is based on an image taken by renowned photographer Eva Vermandel.