Classical Music 295 Items

Volker Bertelmann and Hildur Guðnadóttir hardly need an introduction - their distinct styles have graced the speakers of pretty much anyone enamored with experimental music in the last decade, and between them the two have chalked up an enviable canon of successes. Bertelmann, under the Hauschka moniker has explored the extremities of prepared piano improvisation, and Guðnadóttir has taken cinematic, explorative cello music into a new era of depth and passion, so to hear them both together is a rare and unexpected treat. Rare is putting it lightly even - „Pan Tone“ is a recording of a single concert which the duo performed on the 26th of February 2010 as part of Arctic Circle - Bubbly Blue and Green festival at Kings Place in London, and documents an event that would truly never be repeated. Sure, they could attempt to re-create the event, but the spontaneity and glorious serendipity in this particular recording is a pleasure to behold.

Bertelmann and Guðnadóttir decided to create a set of compositions which based on the idea of the ocean, and took a book of Pantones to extract exact references to the specific colors of the sea. These watery tones form the backbone of the performance and inform the direction of the collaboration, guiding us through rich blues, glassy greens and frothy whites. In listening to the music it seems incredibly appropriate that the artists should choose blue as the middle ground in their work; the ineffable lightness that Bertelmann brings to the table is a stark contrast to Guðnadóttir´s sinking darkness, and as the two styles collide we witness a plethora of tones, shades and hues. It sounds as if the two artists have been playing together for decades, and their sound is so perfectly matched you might wonder why it´s taken them this long to collaborate. All that´s left for us to do is to soak in the tidal beauty of this very exclusive body of music, to listen to it sing, bubble and crash through its duration before settling in total silence. When the record reaches its conclusion there is an unsettling calm, a sense that you have witnessed something very special indeed, and that is a feeling to prize amongst all else.

Rediscover the world of Verdi, one of the most influential Opera composers of the 19th century.The vinyl includs some of the most popular songs composed by the Italian Maesto like "La donna è mobile" from "Rigoletto" or "Va, pensiero" from "Nabucco" and parts of the famous "La Traviata"

Akuphone is proud to present Fuji-Yuki’s last masterpiece, One Butoh. A musical immersion into the most exciting avant-garde dance style of the past century. Created in Japan in the 1960s by Tatsumi Hijikata, butō is the "dance of the obscure body". It broke with the traditions of classical Noh and Kabuki Theater, which, at the time, seemed outdated in the national context. Nourished by a European artistic avant-garde, butō stands out as a mirror of the socio-political turmoil of a post-World War II Japan. One Butoh resonates as a perfect acoustic introduction to this subversive art and propels the listener deep into his own soul.

Fuji-Yuki is a Japanese vocalist who uses her voice like an instrument. With special vocal techniques, glossolalia and electronic pedals, she creates a wide variety of sounds. Inspired by the spirits of Buddhism and Shintoism, she creatively transforms her vocals into an ambient drone or prayers resonating in a church-like space. Her live performances are always different, depending on the place and space they take place in. She is also known as the vocalist of the experimental band Sarry.

Tryghed is the debut album from Franciska, the alias of the now Copenhagen-based artist Jonas Torstensson. As one of the key figures in the young, vivid scene around the Forlaget Kornmod imprint, Jonas has released a good deal of music under different names during the last few years, often in very limited cassette editions with barely no distribution. In many ways, Franciska pretty much captures the very essence of the sound world their label now is associated with: melancholic and rather loose tape compositions made with a hands-on approach, usually performed on organ, piano, synthesizers and acoustic instruments and often room recorded with environmental sounds leaking in. Truly DIY ambient music, closely connected in spirit with some of the more melodic Förlag För Fri Musik moments, Astrid Øster Mortensen etc. With crude stop/rec editing, sizzling magnetism and tape scuffs left intact, the A-side consists mainly of piano recordings made while on break from classical music rehearsals in school, while the B-side incorporates more electronics and field recordings though still having the piano as the focal point. Wintery minimalism at its very best. Mastered by Joakim Karlsson. Edition of 750 copies. Discreet Music 12.

"This album is written and recorded on a reed organ with two manuals and pedals. The instrument was built by Alfred Cedergren who was a reed organ builder 1870–1925 in Vänge on the island Gotland, Sweden. During this period of time Hulda Veström lived in the same village. When Hulda was 14 years old she left her mother and sisters to travel to her father in Los Angeles. In spring 1912 she boarded the Titanic together with her aunt, who was also named Hulda. There is a picture of the two Huldas in the wooden chapel in Vänge where the Cedergren instruments today are gathered. In 2019 Felicia Sjögren moved to Vänge and the chapel with reed organs became her closest neighbor. Over time she got to know the instruments and stories of the village. When she decided to write music on one of the organs she knew she was going to dedicate it to Hulda, a teenage girl 100 years into space and time of this very place. Hulda is also the name of one of the few women prophets in the Bible, appearing in the Old Testament with warnings of the doomsday. The album is written and recorded in the chapel by Felicia Sjögren."

The Classical Collections focusses on the rich work of French composer Erik Satie. He is the first of the minimalists and stands as a huge influence for artists like John Cage and Brian EnoIncluding the famous Gymnopédies, Gnosienne Nd3, Nocturnes...

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos in 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ. Modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, Hall's Canto Ostinato expertly bridges a revered piece of meditative concert repertoire with a tactile and highly personal studio setting. Chicago-born and Michigan-based, Erik Hall is known as a multi-instrumental pillar for the groups Nomo, Wild Belle, and his own songwriting moniker In Tall Buildings. He has composed music for feature films, and as a producer/engineer he has shaped records for Natalie Bergman and Western Vinyl labelmates Lean Year. In a 2020 creative pivot, he chose to reinvent composer Steve Reich's monumental contemporary classical masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians as a solo undertaking, applying the piece's score to the familiar keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers in his studio. "At the time I think I was working through my identity as a musician and an artist," Hall explains, "and on a level there was some sort of exorcism of a long held pop spirit." The album was celebrated for being "freshly thrilling" and "legible in history but assertive of the moment" (Pitchfork) and "beguiling, meditational, and magical" (Electronic Sound). It won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and it quickly joined the canon of the piece's quintessential recordings. "There is a pseudo-meditational benefit to working on a longform piece that's built on repetition," Hall says. "Every stage- from internalizing the music, to executing the performance, to editing and mixing the record- requires deep and sustained presence of mind. I've always been drawn to a hallucinatory combination of harmony and repetition, and I found the entire process addictive." An apt second chapter, Canto Ostinato is inherently vast, and its score gives great creative license to the performer. Comprising 106 sections, complete freedom is given to repeat each one as many or as few times as desired. Additional leeway is given with regard to dynamics, articulation, and even instrumentation. On the heels of his previous, rather maximal arrangement, Hall chose to limit this album's palette to three foundational keyboards of his studio: a 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1978 Rhodes Mark I electric piano, and his family-heirloom 1910 Steinway grand piano. "This particular piece brought the added challenge of rekindling my dexterity as a pianist, something I haven't maintained in earnest since I was a teenager," he admits. The ensuing five-note rhythmic motif- the piece's primary building block- is steady and workmanlike, forgoing virtuosic flare for depth, texture, and resonance, and eventually giving way to the stunning gratification of a gorgeously lyrical left turn. As with Music for 18 Musicians, Hall employed no loops nor quantization nor any programmed or sequenced instruments of any kind. Every part was performed live in a room and captured with microphones, one at a time, each informed by, and reacting to the last. In this way the record breathes with interplay and an organic humanity, complete with flaws, noise, and the faint sound of turning pages. The recording quality is nonetheless toneful and saturated, characteristic of Hall's production style and straying from the usual transparency of classical albums by using gear with tubes, transformers, and various stages of compression in the signal path. Always there is unmistakable realism and the feeling of being present in the room, sitting among the keys, hammers, and tines. Ten Holt said: "Time, patience and discipline are the prerequisites for making a genetic code productive." His landmark composition provides Hall once again with a wondrous space in which to reverently embody this sentiment and deftly convey the elegant beauty of this music.

Following on from the hugely popular ‘Klavirni’ (Emika’s first solo piano album in 2015) her second installment of piano solos are a magical cluster of melodies, dreamy effects, obscure production mistakes with tape echo’s and other old analog gear.

Record Store Day 2020 Release.
Limitation: 500 copies.

Edith Sitwell’s series of her most famous poems re- released on the 100th anniversary of the original transcripts. Includes the original ultra rare Jim Flora artwork, this beautiful package includes 26 page lyric booklet. Idolised by Smiths frontman Morrissey, Sitwell was like the Warhol of her day, publishing a mountain of essays and poems covering every aspect of the arts. The Scarborough-born poet-eccentric extraordinaire who had once publicly declared that her immense wisdom had been born of a long, unrequited love affair with the Russian painter, Pavel Ychelitchew (unrequited on the account of his homosexuality). Morrissey heavily featured Edith as his tour mascot on his Kill Uncle tour and used her image as his stage backdrop and on his T-shirts.

Composer David Julyan has until now existed just beyond the image — soundtracking celluloid stories on film and television. Best known for his work with cinema auteur Christopher Nolan, his atmospheric and achingly beautiful scores have time again perfectly melded subtle orchestra with electronics — conjuring music in the post-classical genre.

More recently, away from the deadlines and drama of others, it was time to reflect and reconnect with his own musical voice. The result of this introspection is the album Hireth.

In film, the music is defined before you even find a note or melody. As David puts it: “I realised that film music is written back to front. When scoring a scene I know the length of the cue to the exact second; I know the emotions and journey of the piece. All this before I've played a single note.” With Hireth the approach is different: allowing the music to lead and evolve into a journey across this album landscape to somewhere new or unknown.

A swirl of drones, pulses and piano greets us with ‘Wires’ — setting the tone and framework for what is to follow. ‘Labyrinth of the Night’ continues with a palette of synthesisers before blending into the string quartet which features throughout the album — an unexpected but welcome transformation. When beginning the project, David decided to start with two recently-bought vintage analogue synthesisers: Roland Sh-2000 and Roland Vp-330. Like Brian Eno’s idea of working with limitations, the rule he gave himself was to only write using these two keyboards. Of course, as it was his own rule, he was free to stretch and bend it, and the project evolved into what you now hear: those synthesisers, plus a few others, along with piano and a string quartet.

‘Hireth’ is a Cornish word that has no direct translation, yet could describe a feeling of homesickness, of nostalgia, of longing. Or, perhaps, a beautiful melancholy — which perfectly describes David’s music. With this title track you hear the piano being woven into the fragile strings, resulting in his trademark tapestry of emotive melancholia.\

As the album continues, we ponder questions of science, physics and quantum mechanics in ‘An Uncertainty’; while ‘Forever Beyond Our Reach’ references the limits of our knowledge about the nature of the universe — the title coming from a line in the short film which accompanies the piece by writer and director Barbara Stapansky.

This album will not be confined to its studio origins and David will be performing it live accompanied by a string ensemble. As well as the album, performances will feature a new version of David’s score to Nolan's Memento: taking the original electronic score and reworking it with the quartet — a work that has already been performed at London's Union Chapel as part of the Daylight Music series.

The word Hireth has no direct translation, and the language or voice of the composer, likewise, can’t be placed in a box: it has its own timbre, depth - its own emotional weight - which is why this extraordinary album further reveals itself with repeated listens.