Search "john+roberts" 148 Items

Vinyl close to NM

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.

CD comes in a soft case, instead of the original crystal case. All booklets included.

Cover with promo sticker, close to VG+

Cover as new with a dented corner.

Copy close to VG+

A suite of raga-inspired compositions and improvisations that grew from a fertile collaboration between Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison and John Also Bennett centered around a devotion to just intonation tuning, deep listening, and resonant spaces.

Michael Harrison is a composer and pianist who is a dedicated practitioner of just intonation and North Indian classical music. He was La Monte Young's protégé and piano tuner during The Well-Tuned Piano years and a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, and has since developed his own customized tuning systems. Guided by conversations with Christina Vantzou, who provided structural frameworks for each piece and directed the sessions, the compositions drew from Harrison's daily raga practice, using its ancient forms as starting points from which the compositions could blossom and morph. A resonant backdrop of modular synthesizers played by John Also Bennett, who also contributed piano improvisations played on Harrison’s custom tuned Steinway concert grand, expanded the sessions into true collective praxis.

As noted by Parul Gupta, a conceptual artist based in New Delhi who contributed the stunning artwork for the album, “the songs feel like an extension of silence.” The notes from the piano emerge, resonate, and dissolve in measured and meditative sonic fields, allowing for a concentrated listening experience where every sound lives, breathes, and ultimately returns to silence. Contained within these aural ecologies are potentialities that emerge from a collective listening and improvising experience, and a resonant rebuttal of the standard equal tempered tuning system that has dominated Western music for centuries.

This release collects the verdant recordings from the trio’s 2019 Berlin sessions on two 45rpm records, accompanied by a risograph printed insert featuring track credits and Harrison’s handwritten tuning charts used on the album.

Artist Statement

An observer, a pianist and a synthesist form a triangle. The observer (Christina) is both witness and guide, the pianist (Michael) is precise and intuitive, and the synthesist (John) provides a palate of drones which offer increased resonance and a supportive framework. The piano has been carefully prepared to become a resonant body. This enhancement was achieved by tuning it to two of Michael’s just intonation tunings, based on his work, “Revelation,” and North Indian classical music, or ragas. These tunings maintain mathematically precise intervals. In place of voice, sitar or tabla, is the piano, and in place of the tanpura, is the synthesizer. Playing ragas is an ancient practice of structured improvisation. Time, knowledge and memory interplay in the body and mind of the practitioner and this is a large part of the raga practice. The raga combines with muscle memory and personal aesthetics to individuate results. Through the formation of a trio, multiple perspectives and timelines collapse and the raga mutates again. These twists and turns seem to only fall back on themselves as the raga shows us that there are multiple compositions already stored in our collective memory. They blossom, morph and spring forth like nature.

Nothing was written down to execute these recordings. The simplest forms were explored in the least complicated way. The first reflection of this process is what happens in the mind and body of the listener. The observer is always observing. Regions of sound tap into memory and imagination and the sound of the raga itself becomes a prismatic event.

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).

Cover close to VG+

Gatefold sleeve, with OBI strip, pressed on 140g eco-vinyl: violet marbled.

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.

Rob Burger's keyboard work can be heard in everything from Guggenheim showcases to the blockbuster film Ocean's 8 -- in addition to albums by John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, and Iron & Wine -- but the moonlit compositions he spins up on his own may be his most compelling work. His newest solo venture, Marching With Feathers, departs from the controlled exotica and kosmische of 2019's The Grid towards a genreless seesaw of electrified apprehension and capacious piano rumination. Piano-based tracks like "Figurine" and "Still" draw the listener into a realm of quiet contemplation, while arid psyche vignettes like "Library Science" and "Hotel For Saints" imbue the collection with a vital groove, conjuring images of a searing, high desert plain. At the core of the album is a central dichotomy between strength and gentleness, power and vulnerability. By uniting these seemingly opposing concepts, Burger catches you off guard by carving trails that turn from mirage to starkreality at every bend. As the album draws to a close, the listener feels as though they're waking from a dream, pensive yet determined to rise, like a lost hikerreaching a vista - or a clenched fist full of feathers.

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...

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.

The first new album in over 40 years by composer, pianist, and digital audio pioneer Loren Rush (b. 1935). Active in the Bay Area new music scene since the late 1950s alongside composers such as Robert Erickson and Pauline Oliveros, he also co-founded the Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics in 1975. The title piece "Dans le Sable" (1967-68, 70) covers the first side of the record, the second piece on the album “Song and Dance” begins with the watery held tones of “Song.” Melancholy phrases are deconstructed and stretched in different retellings, invoking a harmonic fog. We are then thrust into “Dance,” one of the first orchestral pieces to employ computer-generated digital synthesis. A hypnotic and percussive march is propelled into a storm of early computer-processed cannonades.

Have you heard of the Nurse With Wound List? If you are a fan of creative-experimental-unlikely music, certainly. You would therefore be aware that amongst the recommendations that Steven Stapleton slipped into the first album of his group Nurse With Wound, were to be found a few restless frogs: Jef Gilson, Luc Ferrari, Jacques Thollot, Urban Sax, Horde Catalytique and last but not least Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé. Stapleton admired their album Défense de. The two Frenchmen just had to conceive of a fabulous precursor to the channel tunnel (check out the inside of the record, you’ll see) to enable Stapleton to come to France in 1980. The Englishman was looking for contributions to a compilation to be released on his United Dairies label that he had created with John Fothergill, and he naturally called on Birgé and Gorgé, who were then playing with Bernard Vitet in ‘Un drame musical instantané’.

It was a done deal and the compilation would be named In Fractured Silence. Alongside Nurse With Wound and Un drame musical instantané, could be heard Hélène Sage (whom Birgé introduced to Stapleton) and Sema, a project from the experimental British musician Robert Haigh who had participated in key records in the Nurse With Wound discography, such as Homotopy to Marie and Spiral Insana.

The curtain is raised and it is Un drame musical instantané who start the ball rolling. Mystery abounds; synthesisers lurk, percussion clatters and the sounds (creaks, whistles, vocal insertions...) fire in all directions. For the piano, it’s a debacle, the Drame won, Hélène Sage can take over. Heading up a quintette including Gorgé and Vitet, she creates a cushioned chamber music with strings and many silences.

On the B side, it’s the other side of the channel. Sema’s piano first off, which dares everything, even melody, before spilling out its darkest ideas in a raucous requiem. Finally, Stapleton appears, delving into his collection of female voices to devote himself to an iconoclastic transformation and concoct a song which collapses under the assault like Marianne at Agincourt. After having listened to In Fractured Silence, you will simply have to choose sides.

Have you heard of the Nurse With Wound List? If you are a fan of creative-experimental-unlikely music, certainly. You would therefore be aware that amongst the recommendations that Steven Stapleton slipped into the first album of his group Nurse With Wound, were to be found a few restless frogs: Jef Gilson, Luc Ferrari, Jacques Thollot, Urban Sax, Horde Catalytique and last but not least Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé. Stapleton admired their album Défense de. The two Frenchmen just had to conceive of a fabulous precursor to the channel tunnel (check out the inside of the record, you’ll see) to enable Stapleton to come to France in 1980. The Englishman was looking for contributions to a compilation to be released on his United Dairies label that he had created with John Fothergill, and he naturally called on Birgé and Gorgé, who were then playing with Bernard Vitet in ‘Un drame musical instantané’.

It was a done deal and the compilation would be named In Fractured Silence. Alongside Nurse With Wound and Un drame musical instantané, could be heard Hélène Sage (whom Birgé introduced to Stapleton) and Sema, a project from the experimental British musician Robert Haigh who had participated in key records in the Nurse With Wound discography, such as Homotopy to Marie and Spiral Insana.

The curtain is raised and it is Un drame musical instantané who start the ball rolling. Mystery abounds; synthesisers lurk, percussion clatters and the sounds (creaks, whistles, vocal insertions...) fire in all directions. For the piano, it’s a debacle, the Drame won, Hélène Sage can take over. Heading up a quintette including Gorgé and Vitet, she creates a cushioned chamber music with strings and many silences.

On the B side, it’s the other side of the channel. Sema’s piano first off, which dares everything, even melody, before spilling out its darkest ideas in a raucous requiem. Finally, Stapleton appears, delving into his collection of female voices to devote himself to an iconoclastic transformation and concoct a song which collapses under the assault like Marianne at Agincourt. After having listened to In Fractured Silence, you will simply have to choose sides.

The Art of Surrender marks a return to life, sown from primalimpulses and hard-won emotional truths. Unrestrained melodicrapture soars above a relentless kick drum, speaking a needto move, to dance, to love. The music is as ambitious as itsorigins are personal. Tignor plays with scale, craftingmulti-movement epics along side one-miniute minita...

Galaxy Heart is Moss' fourth record for Constellation and the companion album to 2021's Phosphenes. Galaxy Heart features guest appearances by Jim White (Xylouris White, Springtime, Dirty Three) and Thierry Amar (Godspeed You! Black Emperor).

Jessica Moss is a violinist and composer based in Montréal. She uses amplified and processed violin and voice to create intricate works of expressive electronic, drone, experimental and post-classical Minimalism; her distinctive melodic sensibility often channels Klezmer, Balkan and Middle Eastern tropes, combined with an ear for the textural grit and timbral noise of post-punk, industrial and ambient metal. Moss played in cult agit-prop post-punk band Thee Silver Mt. Zion (2000-2015), has contributed to countless albums by the likes of Carla Bozulich, Vic Chesnutt and Matana Roberts, and most recently has guested on albums by Sarah Davachi and Big|Brave. She has released three solo albums on Constellation since 2017.

Human Remains follows Creatures of the Deep and Black Sarabande as the final installment of a trilogy of piano based recordings by Robert Haigh for Unseen Worlds. The trilogy marks the end of the late era of solo albums by Haigh before he steps away from music production.The title, Human Remains, was initially based on a painting of the same name by Haigh that is suggestive of an ancient structure resolute in the wake of overwhelming forces. As a metaphor for our current times, it could be interpreted as human frailty in the face of nature's unyielding dominion. Conversely, it could represent the persistence of human spirit and resourcefulness in the midst of catastrophe and upheaval.The album opens with 'Beginner's Mind' - a semi-improvised motif develops into an impressionistic refrain. This is followed by "Twilight Flowers" and "Waltz On Treated Wire" - intimate, monochrome piano portraits. Later tracks such as "Lost Albion" and "Signs Of Life" build on skeletal piano motifs with subtle electronic washes, textures and field sounds. The album ends with the elegiac "On Terminus Hill" where a stately piano refrain explores a series of sparse harmonic variations evoking a sense of closure.

As featured cellist on the Cirque du Solei’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal tour, Tina Guo’s unique playing style on both electric and acoustic cello was heard by over two million audience members worldwide. She has worked with some of the biggest names in music including Stevie Wonder, John Legend and Hans Zimmer, released ten albums in her own right, and is featured on multiple games and film soundtracks. Born in China to musical parents, Guo moved to the US when she was five years old. She has had a notable classical career as a soloist for various orchestras including The San Diego Symphony, alongside her more mainstream work. Game On! is her eighth studio album, originally released in 2017 and is themed around her extensive work on games soundtracks. She brings her own dynamic style to a selection of popular themes from The Legend of Zelda to Pokémon. This release brings these powerful recordings to vinyl for the first time.

Ireland based American songsmith Peter Broderick announces the release of Piano Works Vol. 1 (Floating in Tucker"s Basement) - a new comprehensive album of solo piano recordings out November 25. Shining a light on the artist"s ongoing piano-based compositions, this release offers an opportunity to celebrate his more intimate work. A comprehensive collection of Peter Broderick"s piano work to date, these recordings were originally captured in Berlin to accompany the 2017 sheet music book Piano Works Vol. 1. The book contains 20 pieces for solo piano and a download code to access new recordings of all 20 pieces. Up until now, the only way to hear these recordings was to purchase the sheet music book. This release sees the original recordings receiving further treatment and processing by Tucker Martine in the customised echo chamber of his studio in Portland, Oregon-the region where Broderick grew up. The clean and unaffected original recordings were intended for educational purposes, so for this release Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths suggested to "throw the recordings into the well", for a more dynamic and conscious listening experience. "We gave these recordings a bit of a makeover. We sent all the tracks over to legendary engineer/producer Tucker Martine, who processed all 20 of them with unique tape and reverb treatments, utilising the echo chamber of his Portland studio, Flora Recording & Playback," explains Broderick.

Ireland based American songsmith Peter Broderick announces the release of Piano Works Vol. 1 (Floating in Tucker"s Basement) - a new comprehensive album of solo piano recordings out November 25. Shining a light on the artist"s ongoing piano-based compositions, this release offers an opportunity to celebrate his more intimate work. A comprehensive collection of Peter Broderick"s piano work to date, these recordings were originally captured in Berlin to accompany the 2017 sheet music book Piano Works Vol. 1. The book contains 20 pieces for solo piano and a download code to access new recordings of all 20 pieces. Up until now, the only way to hear these recordings was to purchase the sheet music book. This release sees the original recordings receiving further treatment and processing by Tucker Martine in the customised echo chamber of his studio in Portland, Oregon-the region where Broderick grew up. The clean and unaffected original recordings were intended for educational purposes, so for this release Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths suggested to "throw the recordings into the well", for a more dynamic and conscious listening experience. "We gave these recordings a bit of a makeover. We sent all the tracks over to legendary engineer/producer Tucker Martine, who processed all 20 of them with unique tape and reverb treatments, utilising the echo chamber of his Portland studio, Flora Recording & Playback," explains Broderick.

The Duo met on a rainy day in Tilburg (nl) while working for a dance project — they came down from very different roads. Fhunyue, a stage director–performer–musician chameleon, works alone or collaborate with Annalena Fröhlich (Robinrobin, Just Another Woman In Space), Thom Luz, Unplush, Peeping Tom, Dorit Chrysler, Ko Murobushi, Damien Jalet, The Scottish Dance Theatre, Bern Ballett, for a most colourful variety of venues in Europe. She is a member of the music association Bongo Joe (Switzerland). Sven, an established musician living between Hamburg and Nairobi, who released several records on Honest Jons and Bureau B and collaborated with several artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ogoya Nengo, Marc Ribot, John McEntire, Sofia Jernberg, Nils Frahm, Hauschka, F.S. Blumm and Stefan Schneider.

Their encounter quickly revealed that both their musical sensitivity and their instruments (Marimbas, Drums, Percussions, Electronics, Theremin, Buchla Synthesizer, Piano) matched stunningly, and that they had to play together. After a short while of rocky life adventures and theatre projects in which they collaborated, their off rehearsal sessions would become a lively necessity. The wish to give birth to a project entirely their own, grew so strong that they locked themselves in Sven’s studio at Jaffestrasse in Hamburg, and started working on the debut of their duet. They are happy to present and share with you their labour of love, in hope that it will be good to your heart.

Composer and Golden Globe winning Jóhann Jóhannsson releases his first album for Deutsche Grammophon Recordings. It feels like a meditation over beauty and creativity Jóhannsson is a role model for the growing scene of contemporary composers who draw their inspiration from soundtracks, Minimalism, Ambient und electronic music. “Orphée describes the way out from the dark into the light inspired by mythical variations from Ovid to Cocteau. It’s the story of death and reincarnation as a metaphor for our society. Again Jóhannsson mixes acoustic elements combined with electronics, mysterious soundscapes paired with orchestral and a capella voices.

Jenny Conlee, the multi-instrumentalist best known for her 23-year tenure as a member of indie icons The Decemberists, is stepping once more to center stage this year with the release of Tides: Pieces for Accordion and Piano. The humble yet deeply emotional album of instrumentals finds Conlee pulling from her vast well of influences and knowledge to work in a more neo-classical mode.

Jane Gregory's infamous 'Do Not Go' is a beautiful operatic drama, one seeped in a level of expression and passion rarely found across other genres. Rare too are the original pressings, with as few as 90 copies released by Crass Records in 1985 it's now one of the hardest on their back catalogue to find. One Little Independent have announced it as part of a new vinyl single reissue series. The origins of this record lay a long way from classical music. The band Crass put anarchy to use in a positive way in the post-punk era from 1978 with a mixture of brilliant records and a willingness to educate and engage with their followers through their collective-living mentality, concerts and concerns over a range of issues from animal rights to anti-nuclear campaigning. To be honest, such a summary does not do justice to the powerful effect of Crass, who offered up a sense of empowerment to themselves and their followers, and the influence then extended to the music business. As for Gregory's identity, she was (according to Rimbaud, who produced the single at Southern Studios) an "operatic and classical singer who acted as Sarah Brightman's understudy, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem". Requiem was actually a classical piece of music rather than a musical that came together in 1984 (with three soloists, Brightman, Placido Domingo and Paul Miles-Kingston and was premiered early in 1985. According to Rimbaud: "Crass wanted to do a crossover single and the idea was to make a popular, classical record, which it isn't - but it is nevertheless very beautiful." By the time Rimbaud had produced the single, Crass had split (1984) and their label - the Crass Records arm - was winding down as a viable concern. This probably accounts for the Jane Gregory single Do Not Go/ After A Dream being issued on the D Sharp imprint in late 1984 or early 1985. It would be fair to say that the record limped out rather than being released and there is web speculation that as few as 90 copies were pressed, so you were very lucky to pick one up. Like the Our Wedding single (which sells for up to a300), the Jane Gregory record is now one of the most sought-after and collectable records in the Crass and Crass Records catalogue. It is in the Rare Record Price Guide at a150 although copies have sold for up to a300 in competitive online auctions. The A-side of this single also appeared on the 1992 Crass Records compilation A Sides Part 2 1982-84.

Currently based in Berlin, Munich and New Haven (us) Sophia Jani is a composer of contemporary classical and electronic music. She is part of a new generation of artists who were influenced early on by the boundlessness of the 21st century. On February 25th, 2022, her debut album with chamber music works will be released on Berlin-based label Neue Meister.

Sealed copy.
Cover corners slightly dented.

2015 reissue. With insert

For five decades, Harold Budd stood on the forefront of the West Coast avant-garde. Born in Los Angeles, he studied with Schoenberg-pupil Gerald Strang and began teaching at CalArts in 1970. While searching for his own voice, he was influenced as much by abstract expressionist painters as by John Cage and Morton Feldman. In his work, Budd brought delicate, slowing-moving melodies to the foreground – creating a new musical language based on “eternally pretty music” and smooth surfaces. In the early ’70s, Budd started an extended cycle of compositions that would comprise The Pavilion Of Dreams. For Budd, the album was a signpost for a new direction in thinking about music: “The Pavilion Of Dreams erased my past. I consider that to be the birth of myself as a serious artist. It was like my Magna Carta.” Produced by Brian Eno in 1978, The Pavilion Of Dreams stands toe-to-toe with another minimalist masterpiece also released that year, Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians. Budd’s gorgeous pieces reveal a lightness of touch that draws the listener in, while sublime voices float in and out as if in a recurring dream. Featuring saxophonist Marion Brown and multi-instrumentalists Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman, The Pavilion Of Dreams remains a master class in exquisite timbre and shimmering texture. The Pavilion Of Dreams was both the final release on Eno’s Obscure imprint and a transition point towards his seminal ambient series. This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell and Mark Hollis.

The gala evening at the Paris Opera on December 19, 1958 was announced in the press as ''the greatest show in the world'. Maria Callas, at the height of her glory, performed for the first time in front of a Parisian audience. The diva delivered all the facets of her art through the Italian classics that she loved, with the theatrical genius that is proper to her. Paris gave her a triumphant evening!

The original recording of this evening, broadcast in Eurovision throughout Europe, has been newly restored with the greatest care.

Presentation by Benoît Duteurtre, novelist, essayist and music critic.

Excerpts from Norma by Bellini Excerpts from Il Trovatore by Verdi Excerpts from Il barbiere di Seviglia by Rossini Complete second act of Tosca by Puccini'

Des Spheres is inspired by the movement of the planets closest to the earth. the Sun,which begins the piece, is positioned in the central axis. Each planet is represented bytwo sounds: one from a natural recording (Water-Air-Earth-Fire), the other from atiny analog synthesizer. This involves a cross synthesis, in which natural soundsremain inaudible, but modulate synthetic sounds by varying their amplitudes andfrequencies over time in order to obtain an evolving, and partly random timbre.The relative orbits of each planet around the solar axis have been reproduced instereo space. To make them audible, I have had to greatly accelerate thesemovements. The 51 minutes of the piece represent over 100,000 years. Likewise, theambits of the stereo pans for each planet/track correspond to the relative distances ofthe planets in the solar system from the Sun. Saturn therefore undergoes a left/rightmovement over several minutes, while it takes Mercury only a fraction of a second forthe same movement.Each planet corresponds to a pair of different sounds (natural/synthetic), composedfrom distinct pitches, textures, and timbral colors. It is these differences which, bycoming together in the same listening space, express an auditory vision of the solarsystem.Most of the time, I worked in a daze, feeling that the mixer was becoming anextension of myself. I composed daily according to the star which corresponded tothe day of the week (Monday: the Moon - Tuesday: Mars - Wednesday: Mercury etc.).Des Spheres is therefore a piece recorded over 8 days, but involving more than a yearof preliminary research.Far from being music for relaxation, Spheres has a quasi-hypnotic effect, due to thefact that the piece consists of a single large chord of 8 notes, but whose timbres varyin tone and duration. It is not uncommon for listeners to fall asleep on this trip,which is fine with me...Refusing to reproduce an existing astronomical model in which models of reality aretaken for reality itself, the piece refers instead to an organic vision, which in oldentimes was called “the spheres”, the idea that the forces expressed in humans arelinked to the movements of celestial objects.

La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day. Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script. Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.

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.

Since his debut with the "Darling Darling Darling"track, immediately spotted by the media as well as by electronic music lovers, Louis Warynski has continued to evolve a world that belongs to him alone, over the last ten years and eight albums.Like Lewis Caroll's universe, Chapelier Fou's music is multiple, simple and complex, serious and light, classic and modern. Louis Warynski's work is woven on a classical basis, but it is constantly disrupted by subtle electronic arrangements and rhythms, thus taking the tracks outside of all convention.We find in Chapelier Fou the facetiousness of French composers such as Erik Satie, François de Roubaix or Robert Cohen Solal, not hesitating to blend pop and concrete music, but also this formidable capacity to make serious what is not serious, and vice versa of course. His music, very much at home on screen as well as on stage, has everything that makes up the trait of genius composers: accessible in appearance and adaptable in all forms.This is how Chapelier Fou has performed on stage as a soloist, juggling between violin, guitar, keyboards and pedals, in trio, quartet and even in orchestral formation with the Orchestre National of Metz. Often described as "electronic chamber music", it was expected that one day Chapelier Fou would offer us a version of his music without a single electronic or electrified part. It is now done with this Ensemb7e who performed on the stage of L'Arsenal de Metz, broadcasted by Arte Concert. Chapelier Fou Ensemb7e has received direct support from a wide audience, but also from venues programmers where the septet has been performing since June 2021. Ensemb7e stands for a mainly wooden septet: violin, viola, cello, piano, clarinet and drums accompany the multi-instrumentalist composer. It's hard to resist such musical enthusiasm! The magic happens immediately because the re-reading of these little jewels in pop format gives a touching and fulfilling dimension to Chapelier Fou's work: even more dreamy versions, sometimes more mis...

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.