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Six Pianos is a minimalist piece for six pianos by the American composer Steve Reich. It was completed in March 1973. Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ – again – emerged in the same year. The piece is scored for glockenspiels, marimbas, metallophone (vibraphone without resonator fans), women's voices and organ. The piece is in four sections, played without a break, marked off by changes in key and meter.

Block Gifts is a collection of three works for organs composed by James Rushford between 2015 and 2018. Using harmonium, portative organ and electric organ, each piece is linked by Rushford’s idiosyncratic combination of strict intervallic systems in different tunings (Werckmeister, quarter-tone, equal temperament), and haptically-informed rhythmic and expressive freedom. Creaks, stutters and sweeping fingers on keys become instrumental sounds in their own right, creating a further logical layer in Rushford’s compositional world. An intimate, nocturnal, and slightly suffered dialogue between the instrument and the body building a shining and fragile monument to the ephemeral nature of the organ, one of the most intriguing and ancient families of musical instruments in history. Mixed by Joe Talia, mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, cut by Daniel Krieger at SST, Frankfurt am Main. Composed and recorded 2015-2018 at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), California Institute of the Arts (by Sam Dunscombe) and Chinatown Studios, Melbourne (by Joe Talia). Cover artwork and fold out poster by Graham Lambkin.

The story of six soulmate musicians meeting at the intersection of classical composition, pop, electronic and minimal music begins in 2016 with their celebrated performance at the Cologne Philharmonie. After follow-up performances at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn as well as the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Gregor Schwellenbach, Daniel Brandt, John Kameel Farah, Paul Frick, Erol Sarp and Kai Schuhmacher made a guest appearance at the invitation of Radio Berlin Brandenburg in the iconic Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin's Westend on February 2, 2019. "Live im Haus des Rundfunks" documents the first half of this evening, in which the individual composer-pianists introduced themselves to the audience in solos, duos and trios. This carefully choreographed set served as an electrifying prelude to the grand finale, the 20-minute collective mantra of Steve Reich's 1973 composition Six Pianos, a studio recording of which has already been released on the 2016 record Steve Reich "Six Pianos" – Terry Riley "Keyboard Study #1" (FILM LP/CD 002).

2022 repress

Steve Reich´s "Six Pianos" played by Gregor Schwellenbach, Hauschka, Daniel Brandt, Paul Frick, etc. The LP comes in a special printed sleeve and 180g Vinyl plus a WAV&MP3 Download code.

"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."

* In Katta's music, ancient and modern worlds come together, the sacred meets the profane, and technological chasms are crossed: you might hear her play on some of the world's most treasured pipe organs in churches and cathedrals, or on her state-of-the-art, custom-built electric touring organ - and whether the ambience is provided by the dreamy acoustics of vaulted sacred spaces, or electronic soundscapes weaving in and out of her organ lines, the spirit of her music is unmistakable: ethereal, experimental, arresting.

* Katta first came to international prominence as a classical organist and harpsichordist, performing with orchestras such as Anima Eterna (with Jos van Immerseel), Zurich Chamber Orchestra (with Sir Roger Norrington), the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra - but it was when she started writing and performing her own music that her artistic identity truly asserted itself. 2016's 'Veni Sancte Spiritus' album was the first to showcase her compositions – other-worldly, spiritual works featuring distinctive vocals and tinkling, percussive bells: by turns lyrical and jarring, they seemed to come from a distant and mysterious past, and yet to belong entirely to the present. Katta’s original vocal/instrumental project Vox Organi won a prize at 2018 Classic Prague Awards.

* Katta also finds inspiration in collaborating with other artists, from British violinist Daniel Hope to American organ sensation Cameron Carpenter. This year she performed at Olavsfest in Norway, taking the stage right after a set from Björk. Her new album 'Vox Organi' will be released soon on Berlin label Emika Records, and Katta has been performing material from the album on her recent tour of the same name.

* Unconfined by genre, yet always instantly recognisable as her own, Katta's music is living proof that the organ remains a vital instrument in the 21st century.

New age for the suburban city, spun from a poor planting in the suburbs or from an apartment room along the national highway. "Suiyu" is the first album by Hajime Orikawa, a musician living in Chiba. From side A, which is composed of home recordings and environmental sounds in a room at home, and contains a lo-fi yet theological resonance, to the title track "Suiyu" which exceeds 15 minutes and where various instruments such as autoharp, electronic piano, Moog synthesizer, organ, and tenor saxophone beautifully blend with a free-spirited singing voice like a wild rabbit running through the fields, the melancholy of the suburban city floats gently. The cassette version includes a DL code for “Ikkojiteki,” a collection of outtracks, along with a DL code for "Suiyu".

Ben Glas (b. 1992) is an experiential composer based in Berlin. Through ephemeral compositions Glas' work questions preconceived notions between the acts of passive hearing and active listening. In seeking to discover open ended forms of music and pragmatic listening perspectives, Glas' compositions focus on the realms of subjective perception and cognition, via the use of acoustics, psychoacoustics and space as tools for sonic composition. His work has been exhibited and performed internationally, including the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (pica), Glasgow's Radiophrenia Festival, the Soundwave Biennial (sf) and the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (cica). He is currently receiving his M.A. in Sonic Studies at the UdK.
Ben Glas writes… "Anonymous Sextet for Perverted Piano is a conceptual performance piece that combines a traditional grand piano, six long-distance remote controlled vaginal/anal vibrators and the prolonged use of the piano's sustainer pedal.
The six vibrators were strategically (and preparedly) placed atop of the strings of a various grand pianos (and one harpsichord), while random strangers around the globe connected to and operated the sex toys remotely. After the random and unwitting performers had befriended and synced-up with a catfishing account linked to the six individual vibrators and controlled by three different smartphones, they then sent vibrational patterns and pulses to stimulate their assumed target. The then-kinetic vibrators bounced, slid and bopped aleatorically through the tonal possibilities that the piano and piano's soundboard itself permits. The piano's sustain pedal was held down throughout the performance, elongating the triggered notes and the good vibrations.
All tracks on side A are performed by those unwitting performers, while side B's single track was performed with (more than) a little help from my friends (Anonymous (1), Genesis Victoria, Harry Hudson-Taylor and Hayden Dean)." – Ben Glas, Berlin, 16 February 2023.

"Absence of the loved one is a theme running through both films, but during the creative process we never discuss with the Havels the themes, symptoms or attributes of the characters. We do not specify any meanings. Our collaboration is intuitive, based on interconnectedness. We neither explain things to each other nor analyse. From the outset we have a common goal: to quieten the viewers’ perception, to attune them to certain vibrations by visual, musical and acoustic repetitions, thus enabling them to focus on every tiny detail, every subtle aesthetic quality, so that by the end of the film they have a sense of reconciliation. In fact it is a state similar to meditation or prayer. The aim is being shown Mercy. Each time, the linking of the filmed images with Irena and Vojtech’s music has uncovered a new quality that we have named: a commentary on eternity. Characters cease to be determined by their senses, psychological motivations, or the times they live in. They find liberation in the stream of eternal time." /Václav Kadrnka

"We would like to thank all our friends, sound engineers and musicians. The main thanks go to director Václav Kadrnka, his family and all his collaborators for the precious opportunity to assist them in creating both films. We have worked on our music for the film Saving One Who Was Dead for three years. We met with Václav, discussed the screenplay while it was being born and many other things. We have gradually prepared several working versions that included compositions for piano, Indonesian gamelan, gongs, Tibetan bowls, bells and mini-bells. Yet, step by step, we made it simpler and simpler and eventually only kept violas da gamba, organ and chanting. Everything else was redundant. We made most of the recordings of the compositions for viola da gamba in a church in Prague. The composition for organ was recorded in Milan where we performed a concert shortly before the pandemic arrived in December 2019. We tried to record it in various churches in Bohemia but it was not until the church in Milan that we found the best sounding organ.

As for Little Crusader, we recorded the music for the film after it was completed. We had several versions and used the piano version for this album. Together with Václav, we searched for instruments that would work the best for this Medieval story. Eventually, we opted for harmonium with simple chanting which accompanies the character little boy Jenik. Violas da gamba intertwine, move close and then apart from each other the same way as paths of little boy Jenik and his father who is searching for him. Simple chanting and Tibetan bowl accompany scenes with little boy Jenik’s mother who awaits them at home. Trombone and saxophone are like metal swords and the knights’ armor. Violoncello and viola da gamba walk in the rhythm of horse’s hooves, in the rhythm of heartbeat of both the horse and his rider – a father searching for his lost son." / Irena and Vojtěch Havlovi

Björk presents a strings version of her highly-acclaimed eighth studio studio album Vulnicura, officially titled Vulnicura Strings. The original version of Vulnicura layered the boom and crack of electronic beats with an intense vocal melody and incredible string arrangements by Björk which have been performed live with a fifteen chair orchestra. The new version is musically wholly comprised of strings, with new violin solos by Una Sveinbjarnardóttir and strings recorded by a Viola Organista. Björk used the only Viola Organista in the world to perform some of the arrangements; an instrument which was designed originally by Leonardo Da Vinci but not built until after his lifetime. The instrument uses a friction belt to vibrate individual strings (similar to a violin), with the strings selected by pressing keys on the keyboard (similar to an organ). The instrument was recorded in Krakow, Poland by it's constructor Slawomir Zubrzycki and here is where the album reached completion.

The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are some of the most frequently performed and recognizable solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the period 1717–23, when he served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso (Suites for cello solo without bass).

Due to the works’ technical demands, étude-like nature, and difficulty in interpretation because of the non-annotated nature of the surviving copies, the cello suites were little known and rarely publicly performed until they were revived and recorded by Pablo Casals in the early 20th century. They have since been performed and recorded by many renowned cellists and have been transcribed for numerous other instruments; they are considered some of Bach’s greatest musical achievements.

Yo-Yo Ma performed the Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suites in its entirety – nearly three hours! – in London at The Proms concert to more than 5,000 people. And the reviews were fantastic: “Without doubt, we were in the presence of a great musician, and a great man. One to file in the concerts of a lifetime.”– BBC Music Magazine“
The cellist’s grand interpretation at Prom 68 would have left the composer astonished and incredulous.”– The Guardian

Yo-Yo Ma won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance for his performance of The six Cello Suites in 1985.

Mica Levi returns to Slip with six piano pieces played by Eliza McCarthy in ‘Slow Dark Green Murky Waterfall’ - a crepuscular suite riddled with Mica’s inquisitive, conversational phrasing and smartly expanding upon their 7” track, ‘Riding Through Drinking Harpo Dine’ [Foom, 2017], a new recording of which also appears in this set. The culmination of three years work between Mica and Eliza - winner of the 2013 British Contemporary Piano Competition - ‘Slow Dark Green Murky Waterfall’ follows up their collaboration on the Oscar-nominated score for Pablo Larrain’s ‘Jackie’ score with a finer-shaded, patient space for low-lit, smoky expression that’s so intimate and personal it almost feels like eavesdropping a private recording.

Luka Aron is a German musician and composer of electroacoustic and minimalist music based between Stockholm and Berlin. 'XV Xxvii III XXI IX: Variations & Coda' is his debut vinyl release. Apart from his solo work, he is also a member of the trio Minua (signed to Nils Frahm's Leiter label) and the dream gaze band Roomer. His work was previously described as "thick, impasto layers of slow-moving sound that completely command your attention" in The Guardian.
'XV Xxvii III XXI IX: Variations & Coda' is a four-part suite for an acoustic ensemble (bass clarinet, contrabass, euphonium, foghorn organ, harpsichord, serpent, shō, and trumpet) and analog as well digital synthesis. The result is an album of spiralling compositions which navigate labyrinthine structures of multiple closely related overtones and layers of heavy distortion based on Aron's research and observations of the physiology of hearing through minute listening tests. On the album, the composer collaborates with a number of notable musicians: Mattias Hållsten and Santos Silva (both members of the late CC Hennix' Kamigaku ensemble), just intonation contrabassist Vilhelm Bromander, or Amina Hocine, among others. The release was mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering.

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.

Eight years after its original release in 2015, and sold out upon release, Umor Rex finally presents a vinyl repress of Sirens, by Kara-Lis Coverdale and LXV. This new edition is limited to 500 copies and comes with revised artwork.

Inspired by the link between seduction and violence, Sirens comprises a series of timbrally vast anamorphic pieces that poise the voice as a newly imagined tool of multiplicity. Processes of sample manipulation, signal processing, routing, and source design inform instrumental writing and performance in feedback until intertwined, flickering between states of conflict and consonance. Apparitions of the schizophrenic voice are at one moment fractured and cold and at the next full of warmth and vivaciousness, embodying velvet rituals of romanticism in the digital age.

Ultimately, Sirens is music for ambitious dreamers: surreal sound portraits sound like the warmth of the world laid over an ice cold virtual altar. LXV’s vocal truncations and fleshy sound palettes depict the archivation of the breath and aural fantasies of the flesh which Coverdale sets amongst a vast and unconfined landscape of deeper and unknown force. Harmonically active and dynamic orchestrations underpin post-sacred tonalities while brooding pipe organs, sphinx flutes, and hailstorms of metallic percussion characterize uniquely disjointed discussions between disparate compositional ontologies. At times violent and at others serenely peaceful and seductive, these pieces, at their most powerful moments illuminate a felt space between cybernetic energy and the body.

Composed and recorded by Kara-Lis Coverdale and David Sutton. Mastered by John Tejada. Cover photograph by Cody Cobb. Layout by Daniel Castrejón.

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.

CD Release: Limited edition of 100.

Since the age of six, multi-instrumentalist Aya Suzuki has been developing a musical universe informed by classical training and emboldened by a prodigious, almost innate feel for sound.

Her precocious leanings into percussive instrumentation led her to study at the pioneering Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo under the mentorship of world-renowned marimba player Keiko Abe, after which she left her native Japan to pursue a Master’s in percussion at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent.

Winged Seeds, her debut album recorded during a summer residency at Stuk in Leuven, presents the work of a musician whose ingenuity is in full flight. Clay pots, vibraphone, aluphone, bowls, and, of all things, rice, are her tools for conjuring arresting atmospheres through intricate fantasias and serene abstractions.

Aya’s mastery of percussive techniques goes hand in hand with her gift for poetic improvisation, as sound and silence have an equal and deliberate weight that charge each moment, suspending time and place into a magical stasis.

The surprising spoken word intermezzo “To The Earth” anchors these floating tones to the temporal spaces of our humanity, instilling a sense of humility which, despite her acumen, Aya deploys in all her artistry.

Winged Seeds is an unspoiled ode to the elements, honoring the earth we dwell in through the music that lifts us every higher.

Quirine Viersen returns to the cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach.
She decided she wants to share with you the development she has gone
through after deep inner work. Just as the cello suites were a new journey
for Bach, they signify now the same for her. “Bach gave me, time and again,
life energy. Through his purity he brought me back to my own purity and
closer to the answer on my questions.” Due to the enormous development
in length and size of the structure, Viersen suspects that they have been
an experiment for Bach himself, possibly even study material. “The further
you get into the suites, the larger the intervals and bigger the technical
challenges. It demonstrates that Bach was becoming more and more aware
of the enormous possibilities.
Being awarded the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award, Quirine performed
with the Vienna Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta at the Lucerne Festival
in 2000. Since then, Quirine has played the cello concerto repertoire
with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Herbert Blomstedt, Ingo
Metzmacher and Bernard Haitink, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra/
Valery Gergiev, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Jean Fournet and
many others. After working and recording extensively with Silke Avenhaus
for almost twenty years, Quirine has sought out new duo collaborations.
Recitals with pianist Enrico Pace kicked off with great success at the
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam in 2017.
Bach Cello Suites is available as a limited edition of 500 individually
numbered copies on black vinyl.

Roberto Cacciapaglia is an Italian composer and pianist who started out in the fertile Milan avant-garde scene of the 1970s, which included Franco Battiato, Giusto Pio, Lino Capra Vaccina, Francesco Messina, among others. After studying at the conservatory, he worked at RAI's Studio of Musical Phonology – an electronic music laboratory similar to Ndr/wdr in Germany, Grm/ircam in France or BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Originally released in 1979, Sei Note In Logica (Six Notes In Logic) is Cacciapaglia's second album. While his debut, Sonanze, offers a series of ambient mini-soundtracks, Sei Note presents a singular, sinuous piece. The composition is based on a finite set of musical notes, yet this limitation is the point of departure for a grand tour of possible combinations and enthralling timbres (marimbas, strings, reeds and human voice).

Like Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, the joyous experiment of Sei Note is grounded in constant variation. Often doubled by multiple instruments, non-repeating patterns are exquisitely layered, while electro-acoustic signals transform and further refract through visceral effects. Within this conceptual framework, Cacciapaglia does not so much juxtapose rigid dichotomies – acoustic vs. electronic, melodic vs. dissonant, simple vs. complex – as fuse them into an expansive whole.

What started as an inspired study in Minimalism becomes a bold feat of 20th century music. Sei Note In Logica is deeply sincere and, at the same time, quite playful. With one foot firmly planted in the past and the other steeped in technology, Cacciapaglia's influence can be heard in the work of Jim O'Rourke, Fennesz and Ben Vida.

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.

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.

Home is a powerful concept with an abstract definition. This solo album takes those subjective ideas and unifies them under one roof. Evolving from Jerve’s #dailypiano posts in 2019, ‘The Soundtrack of My Home’ relays thoughts and improvisations that trace his journey from childhood home to adult and now, father. Nurturing a mood or feeling, each song begets a sonorous story of someone close to him, expressed through the language of piano playing.

Jerve makes use of his hands as a human step sequencer, often programming two or more motifs of varying lengths in a polymetric fashion. These melodic patterns and arpeggios evolve at varying rates but grow around clear progressions with standard 8-bar forms.

The first track - ‘Kjetil’ enters with an earnest, gentle and endearing character - like a young river near its source. As with such a river, it will grow to varied sizes throughout the album but must begin as a humble expression from the source. The following titles sketch his interpretations of the people that have made up his home.

There is a theme across the album that unites the songs, so much so that differentiating tracks can at times be difficult. Though, Jerve punctuates this overarching mood with a few distinct structures, as found in tracks ‘Karoline’ (wife), ‘Espen’ (brother) and ‘Sven’ (father). ‘Turid’ (daughter) and ‘Jon Eirik’ (brother) seem less directive and welcome more intrigue, reminiscent of a curious child wandering through the dappled light of a forest.

‘Iben’ (daughter) and ‘Eivor’ (daughter) have a hypnotic, three-pointed melodic structure that leaves the listener suspended; transfixed - while ‘Sussi’ (cat) carries unique momentum and suitably feline autonomy. ‘Mette’ (mother) has a mood of ascending, like that of a child's upward gaze at their maternal carer. Utterly nuanced in structure, Jerve leaves ample space for subjective interpretation and allows the listener to weave their own life into the tones.

As expected from the founder of Dugnad rec - this album signifies a deeply personal sentiment. Sometimes we are forced to confront the music and other times, we are left to wonder. Here, we find a balance and unity that allows little thoughts and worries to drift away, bringing us warmly to rest in the present. The LP edition's bonus track features producer/performer extraordinaire Stian Balducci, drawing a line to the next chapter of piano-based music from Dugnad rec: Tokyo Tapes: Piano Recycle.

Hogan’s involvement with new wave, new romanticism, post punk and all-things-avant makes her a uniquely placed character through the last four decades on the scene - her recording/performing biography intersects with everyone from Soft Cell, The The and The Human League through to Simon Fisher Turner, Barry Adamson, The Style Council and more recently with Karl O’Connor aka Regis’ Downwards universe. For ‘Without the Moon’ (a title borrowed from Cathi Unsworth’s book of the same name), Hogan pulls out some of the most satisfying collaborations from her archive, featuring a couple of tracks originally released in 1985 on Cabaret Voltaire’s Doublevision label, as well as recordings that are here issued for the very first time. It’s properly all-over-the-place brilliance, ranging from Nick Cave’s incredible 1983 piano blues slo-mo grind ‘Vixo’ all the way thru to the Paul Kendall (Nitzer Ebb/Depeche Mode) engineered ‘Come Take My Hand’ produced and featuring Barry Adamson and sounding like some vintage Les Disques du Crépuscule poolside obscurity. Opening with ideas mapped out while staying at Lydia Lunch’s gaff in summer ’83, the record lassos 30 years of Hogan’s personal highlights, harking to a time circa 1984 when she regularly caught The Birthday Party playing Leeds or London, often crossing paths with Cave, and right thru to 1989’s ‘Come Take My Hand’. While ‘Delirious Eyes’ is a gorgeous slow dervish of swaying middle eastern scales featuring Gini Ball’s elusive smoke trail vocals, it’s best heard in context of the sequencing, which soon erupts with Marc Almond’s vocals on the arsonist thrill of ‘Burning Boats’ and JG Thirlwell’s signature clangour, while ’Scattered Carelessly’ was written in 2008 and gives the sweetest canvas for Hogan’s keys complemented by a whispering Jarboe ov Swans, and ‘Black Nocturne’ stars a perfectly tempered guitar shimmer by Kid Congo Powers, a longtime accomplice, whom Hogan first heard playing guitar on The Cramps’ records that she played in DJ sets at the time. Illuminated by Hogan’s favoured solo piano, ranging from flickering candlelight to hammering theatrics, and even including a rare appearance of her vocals on the could-have-been-a-popsong closer, the six songs on ‘Without The Moon’ speak to an incredibly rich artistic life spent immured at the core of her practice. Song to song, she outlines an extraordinary oeuvre that ties together and leaps between eras, drawing on decades of experience as a performer, composer, collaborator and ardent listener to portray a full spectra of styles she’s been involved in shaping for decades. Stunning.

Via tape loops and synth motifs sent from LA to NY, sound artist Christopher Royal King has teamed with violinist and composer Christopher Tignor toward richly timbral, emotionally gripping works of spontaneity that unfurl immense details with each replay while marrying west coast outboard-ambient to studied east coast modern classical. The resulting debut album, A Wave From A Shore, exhibits both artists' sonic identifiers falling in and out of cooperation before binding into a new entity distinct from either's solitary palettes. A visual artist whose work includes album covers for Thrice and Deftones in addition to video bumps for Adult Swim, Christopher Royal King spent his teenage years cutting his teeth on heavy metal and punk before gravitating, quickly and perhaps unexpectedly, toward experimental composers like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. This unlikely seesaw of influences led directly to King forming the post-rock pillar This Will Destroy You with fellow San Antonio native Jeremy Galindo. Similar to his former band's output, King's solo meanderings impart a mood of buoyancy and contemplation while hinting at darker, more shadowy hues beneath the glimmer, making his music stand apart from the glut of New Age droners and modular-synth influencers. Where the genre at large is sometimes guilty of being the spiritual equivalent of a topical balm, King's aesthetic is more like a rigorous therapy session that's as healing as it is confronting. Christopher Tignor first crossed paths with King in the mid 2000s, lending string arrangements to This Will Destroy You releases, and sometimes touring as a live member of the group. Over the years, Tignor has mounted an impressive discography under his own name and with his groups Slow Six, and Wires Under Tension, all while completing Princeton's PhD program for music composition, and NYU's Masters of computer science program. He put the full power of his dual studies to use, arriving at the illusionist-like meld of sound design and physical performance that his current-day solo efforts portray. In his own words "I banned backing tracks, click tracks, and even live looping - anything that would enforce a strict grid. All sounds originate from me kicking a drum, playing the violin, or various natural percussion sources. I built software that lets me do all this. This offers an unprecedented amount of control over this music's elastic sense of time." King's own music follows parallel rivulets of happenstance, but in desktop form, his array of analog gadgets in perpetual dialogue with one another as he omnipotently guides and documents the chatter. Tignor's lucid string work frames King's impressionism, sharpening the focus while being softened by the textural overgrowth. Their debut A Wave From A Shore does its part to rescue ambient music from its purely anesthetic functionality, offering instead a profound, often ravaging emotional experience for listeners who wish to be moved and not just lulled.

Cologne - based composer and multi - instrumentalist Ozan Tekin’s second studio album “Anarya” will be released via Gülbaba Records on May 27 th . Tekin winds his musical journey back from Cologne to Adana with a long layover in Istanbul in “Anarya”. A triangle of migration drawn by musical notation and performance. The album is composed of 14 tracks and each one of them is a sound story that echoes Tekin’s distinct memories from these three cities. “Anarya” is the end product of a process in which Tekin and his upright piano co - tuned each other. It is an artistic representation of the idiosyncratic phenomenon called stimmung in German; a spectrum of tones, moods and atmospheres expressed in personal and instrumental terms. Tekin concludes the piano conversations from his previously released EPs in 2021 (“Anarya I” and “Anarya Ii”). The remarkably catchy melodies and immersive melancholic arpeggios fl ow throughout. The transposed narrative of “Anarya” sprung up from its roots when Tekin came across with a 66 - years old worn out piano in Cologne. Mesmerized by its unique sound, he felt the urge to make recordings with this piano before it fell apart. Aft er spending months learning its mechanics, Tekin recorded his second album with the old upright piano he repaired and brought back to life. The uneasy changes in time signatures and ambient ornamentations with gloomy synths of 80’s, lush strings and room tones set up the atmospheric stage of “Anarya I” in the first five tracks. Following six tracks of the album attempts to revisit Tekin’s emotional and episodic memories in Istanbul. His unaffected absorption into piano music in the first two parts of “Anar ya” are followed by his coyishly joyful tracks later in the album: an idle “ode”, a lost “lament” and a colorful “jam”. These three tracks blend the neoclassical, jazz and ambient sounds of Cologne and Istanbul with sentiments of childhood and rascality in Adana. The piano conversations of Tekin throughout “Anarya” are accompanied by his analogue synthesizers, vocals, bass guitar, Hanitra Wagner’s violin and Berke Can Özcan’s drums , percussions and vibraphone, and Emre Malikler’s mix and mastering. The sou nds of collaboration go deeper and louder as the album’s tracks move forward and Tekin’s memories go backwards simultaneously. Anarya gitmek (“to go back”) is a vernacular saying from Tekin’s hometown Adana and Tekin makes a figurative attempt to migrate b ackwards via the compositions that came into being in his most recent home, Cologne. Having been born out of an upright piano, Tekin’s compositions have instrumental origins, however, due to his constantly mutating sense of belonging, his melodies can’t be pinpointed to any specific heimat . Tekin’s continuously transforming music is an invitation to his listeners to explore and experience his music in their own terms. Tekin’s personal memories that shape “Anarya” is open to new forms of sonic exploration and rearrangement. This openness lies in Tekin’s determined faith in not to be entrenched in any single genre. The immersive intimacy radiating from the collaborative piano conversations in “Anarya” is an invitation signature to his music’s current and fut ure followers. Text by Mehmet Ekinci

When Laila Sakini's debut album ‘Vivienne’ arrived in 2020, it felt like the record we were waiting for to map out our tangled reactions to an uninvited reality. Never self-consciously strange, it revealed itself slowly and cautiously, like a shadow in the corner of the eye, or an alchemical symbol in a bowl of alphabet spaghetti. This time around Sakini has worked her unique world-building to an even finer point, forming six tracks around a theme that's so close to our heart it's almost beating in time. Initially inspired by Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1991 arthouse classic "The Double Life of Veronique", the cult Polish director's enduring modern fairytale that serves as a cosmic rumination on identity and choice. Detailing two identical women - both singers, both in love - the film lets one live as the other dies, forcing us to consider the implications of art and endurance in the face of life's myriad challenges.

Sakini takes Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner's influential score for the film and uses it as a jumping-off point for ‘Paloma’, bending the more grandiose moments into baroque awkwardness on opening track 'Fluer D'Oranger' and evoking the mood of scene-setting cues 'Weronika' and 'Véronique' on the recorder-led 'The Light That Flickers In The Mirror'. And while Preisner's score zeroed in on the musical virtuosity of the film's lead characters, Sakini reinterprets that as a metaphor for self-discovery. Playing piano, violin, glockenspiel, timbale, recorder, and occasionally singing, Sakini captures a mood of innocence that immediately transports the listener back to simpler times. Her music isn't self-consciously simplistic, but forcing herself to interface with instruments impulsively rather than studiously, her sounds are all heart, no filigree.

In spirit, it reminds us of cult Canadian album "The Langley Schools Music Project", a collection of 1970s recordings of school kids singing rudimentary renditions of pop songs in a school gymnasium. That album's genius was in the bottling of hope and innocence: the feeling of joy from hearing and wholesomely interacting with music that's known and loved without a sense of hierarchy or desire for cultural clout. Sakini subtly subverts this by evoking the amateur spirit in the most bewitching way; instead of sourcing her ideas from Bowie, Fleetwood Mac and the Beach Boys, her stock is the established art canon, and by reforming those sounds she makes an insightful comment on intellectualism and access. European classical music is all too often trapped behind the frosted glass of respectability and assumed skill - craft replaces spirit, and technique replaces soul. By approaching these gestures from a different angle, Sakini softens the edges sonically and intellectually, finding music that bubbles with emotion, and most strikingly - hope.

Her choice of instruments and the way she interacts with them allows us to feel as if we're not only listening but contributing. It's a bottom-up way of absorbing art that's traditionally been top-down, and a reminder that we're all part of the experience, whether we're humming along to the remnants of a theme as it dribbles out of an ear in the shower, or dreaming of spotlights in a parallel life that may or may not be real. Sakini's music is nostalgic in a sense, but nowhere near the buttered popcorn and high-fructose candy migraine of the Netflix/Spotify algorithm generation of regurgitated churn. She makes sounds that remind us of what time and experience may have stolen from us, and how we might recover it. We're gagged.

The forty-disc box set features recordings spanning more than four decades of the composer’s career with the label. The release includes two extensive booklets containing new essays and notes by Timo Andres, Julia Bullock, Robert Hurwitz, Nico Muhly, and Jake Wilder-Smith. This will be released on the 24th of June via Nonesuch. Nonesuch Records releases the forty-disc John Adams Collected Works, a box set featuring recordings spanning more than four decades of the composer’s career with the label. The release includes two extensive booklets containing new essays and notes by Timo Andres, Julia Bullock, Robert Hurwitz, Nico Muhly, and Jake Wilder-Smith.



Nonesuch made its first record with John Adams in 1985. He was signed exclusively to the label that year, and since then the company has released forty-two first recordings and thirty-one all-Adams albums, of which six are full-length operas, oratorios, or staged theatrical presentations. Four of Adams’ Nonesuch records have won Grammy Awards, among other honours.



“John Adams coming to the label was one of the central events in our company’s history,” says Robert Hurwitz, Nonesuch’s longtime President and current Chairman Emeritus. “The idea of a label recording all of the works of its most cherished composers had been long established in the classical record business, most notably the efforts of Columbia with Stravinsky, Decca with Britten, and Deutsche Grammophon with Stockhausen.



“While most of Columbia’s Stravinsky recordings were made decades after the works’ premieres, and many of the admirable Decca Britten recordings came after his death, this Nonesuch collection is unique in the sense that the recordings were done in real time, mostly within a few months of a piece’s first performance. Every recording was either conducted by John, or made under close supervision of the composer, who was in the control booth for every album – when he wasn’t on the podium.”



Hurwitz continues: “As the record business changed, we realised the urgency of preserving this amazing accomplishment in a physical form; the music’s importance to our culture cannot be underestimated and the idea of much of it only being available digitally in the future was difficult to imagine.



“In making the box we left a little extra space, since Nonesuch plans to continue recording John’s work.”



John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of music. Long embraced by the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, instrumental soloists and singers, choreographers and opera directors, his works are among the most performed of all contemporary classical music. Early in his career, Adams was composer-in-residence of the San Francisco Symphony (1982-85), and creator of the orchestra’s highly successful and controversial New and Unusual Music series. Many of his landmark orchestral works were written for and premiered by the San Francisco Symphony, including Harmonium (1981), Grand Pianola Music (1982), Harmonielehre (1985), and Absolute Jest (2012).



In 1985, Adams began a collaboration with stage director Peter Sellars that has resulted in more than three decades of groundbreaking operas and oratorios: Nixon in China (1987) and The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), both to libretti by Alice Goodman; El Niño (2000), Doctor Atomic (2005); A Flowering Tree (2006); The Gospel According to the Other Mary (2012); and Girls of the Golden West (2017).



Since 2009 Adams has held the position of Creative Chair with the Los Angeles Philharmonic where he has been instrumental in the success of that orchestra’s highly creative Green Umbrella new music series.



Adams also has become a significant mentor of the younger generation of American composers. In his liner note, Adams’ label mate, composer and pianist Timo Andres, says: “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that when Road Movies was dropped into my lap as a college freshman, it triggered a chain reaction that led me where I am now… John’s music has been such a constant in my life that it’s reached a base level of my consciousness – it’s part of the way I hear all music now.”



This year launched with a major focus on Adams’ music in Zürich with the Tonhalle Orchestra, from January to March. Orchestras around the world will likewise present major performances of his works including Cincinnati Symphony, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra. This spring, Adams’ piano concerto Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? tours to orchestras around the world: Seattle, St. Louis, Cleveland, Zürich, Iceland, Gothenburg, and San Francisco; Adams conducted a performance of it by the Cleveland Orchestra and Jeremy Denk earlier this year. In September 2022, Adams’s new opera Antony & Cleopatra will open the San Francisco Opera’s centennial season.



Nonesuch Records has historically had close relationships with modern composers. During the years of Tracey Sterne, the label made multiple recordings of Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Charles Wuorinen, and William Bolcom. Since 1985, Nonesuch has made multiple recordings of works by Philip Glass, Stephen Sondheim, Laurie Anderson, Caroline Shaw, Louis Andriessen, John Zorn, Adam Guettel, Henryk Górecki, Timo Andres, Nico Muhly, and Donnacha Dennehy. For Steve Reich, like John Adams, Nonesuch has recorded every new piece of his music since 1985 and will also release a collection of his complete works – in 2023.



While Nonesuch recordings comprise thirty-five of the forty discs in Collected Works, the set also includes recordings from other labels, including: the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recordings of The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, with Yuja Wang, on Deutsche Grammophon; a recording by Christina and Michelle Naughton of Roll Over Beethoven on Warner Classics; and the San Francisco Symphony’s recordings of Absolute Jest and Grand Pianola Music. The Berlin Philharmonic’s recording of Harmonielehre, conducted by Adams, is the final CD in the set, serving as the bookend to the piece’s first recording, by the San Francisco Symphony led by Edo de Waart on Nonesuch that is the first disc of the set.