experimental

Modern Cosmology | What Will You Grow Now? (2023)

experimental, rock, world
May 6, 2023May 6, 2023

The second collaborative album from Laetitia Sadier and Brazil’s Mombojó.
Modern Cosmology is a musical ensemble composed of six individuals of the human race, none of which are cosmologists or astronomers, although Felipe S. – who sings and plays the guitar – knows quite a bit about reading astrological charts. He shares his frontperson duties with one Laetitia Sadier who, by virtue of her singer-songwriter career both as a solo artist and as part of the Stereolab ‘groop’, happens to be one of the key figures of her bandmates’ musical formation. “What will you grow now?” started in late 2016 on a recording session Mombojó did on a motorboat up the Capibaribe river in their Recife hometown. The title track was recorded there and then during this fluvial jam session, and the other backing tracks were recorded about a year later at a recording studio at the local University, after which Laetitia had a bunch of new material to add words and melodies to, from her Brazilian friends and bandmates with love.

electronic, experimental
March 25, 2023March 30, 2023

Dismantling the acoustic to feed the electronic, Editions Mego presents Telepath, the new album by Material Object.
Born out of a single improvised recording session with a lone Violinist, Telepath is a startling album of future electronic music, resulting in an LP of unique and timeless tracks that reimagine a classic sound for an endless future.
Boldly departing from his previous canon of largely ‘Ambient’ work, Material Object’s Telepath renders itself out as something much stranger, something more spacious, more subtle and gradual. Moments of bouncing minimalism meet moirés of delayed pure tones phasing in and out of resolution, giving way to a series of strobing foreground gestures arranged and offset in disorienting landscapes which scatter themselves asymmetrically amongst crystal pools of reverb.
Revelling in the creative dismemberment of the original source material, Material Object slowly and patiently induces the violin to undergo every category of torsion, pressure and rupture. Its vivid acoustic qualities pass over and across the event horizon of the digital domain. Material + Object

Mats Gustafsson / Joachim Nordwall | Their Power Reached Across Space and Time – To Defy Them Was Death or Worse (2023)

experimental, ambient, electronic
March 25, 2023April 8, 2023

Mats Gustafsson is a world-renowned horn player who has pushed the evolution of improvised music with his own unique voice. Joachim Nordwall is a cornerstone of the Swedish musical underground, exploring the extremities of guitar music with The Skull Defekts and solo recordings as The Idealist that access the spiritual and political dimensions of electronic music and dub. Nordwall also runs the esteemed and boundary pushing iDEAL Recordings. Gustafsson and Nordwall’s THEIR POWER REACHED ACROSS SPACE AND TIME-TO DEFY THEM WAS DEATH-OR WORSE finds both musicians pushing their instruments to the limit in order to create a sound experience that is adventurous and fresh. This is an album that celebrates the ecstasy of low dynamic experimental music executed with skilled precision. The power of this inventive duo is that each musician drives the other to unexpected places creating sonic expanse that demands repeat exploration. Thrill Jockey

Rob Mazurek – Exploding Star Orchestra | Lightning Dreamers (2023)

experimental, jazz
March 22, 2023April 1, 2023

Lightning Dreamers is new work by composer, trumpeter, interdisciplinary abstractivist, and modern music mogul Rob Mazurek, who wrote the music for a compacted version of his long-running Exploding Star Orchestra. A follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 Mazurek/ESO release Dimensional Stardust, the album features guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Damon Locks, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn, among others. It was recorded mostly at the remote Sonic Ranch Studios in West Texas, not far from Mazurek’s current home in Marfa, in the days leading up to a debut of the music at Trans Pecos Festival in September 2021. Mixing and post-production was headed by Dave Vettraino from IARC studios in Chicago a cross 2022. International Anthem Recording

Various Artists | Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants – Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992–1995 (2023)

compilation, art pop, experimental
March 6, 2023March 11, 2023

Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants – Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992–1995 is a compilation combining original recordings and select DJ tracks from the vaults of Blacklips Performance Cult, a collective of underground performers, artists and drag queens who took to NYC’s… Anthology Recordings
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Contemporary Noise Ensemble | An Excellent Spiritual Serviceman (2023)

jazz, experimental
March 3, 2023March 13, 2023

After a creative break of more than 10 years the Contemporary Noise Ensemble returns with the brand new album called „An Excellent Spiritual Serviceman”. With the band’s line-up reduced and the sound of the brass section replaced with programmable synthesizers comes an entirely new sound of the band’s music. Leaning towards composition instead of improvisation the music is now less jazzy sounding – with electric bass being used instead of double bass and drums actually being the only strictly acoustical instrument. But then again… Denovali Records
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Erik Hall – Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt)

classical, ambient, experimental
February 26, 2023March 8, 2023

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos from 1976 to 1979 by the late 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. The second album in a trilogy of reinterpretations, Hall’s Canto Ostinato is modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, and it 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… Western Vinyl
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3Phaz – Ends Meet

electronic, experimental
February 26, 2023March 8, 2023

Souk is delighted to present the sophomore album from a true fixture in Cairo seething electronic scene who should, by now at least, remain anonymously famous behind the 3Phaz moniker. Both as a way to make focus on the music itself regardless of identity and to sever ties with past projects, 3Phaz acts like an entity in itself, a most suitable conjuration of sounds past and future gravitating on their own dimension. Though connections are inevitable and welcoming with home turf artists such as ZULI or Rozzma, the Souk catalogue or percussion obsessed travellers like DJ Plead or errorsmith, 3Phaz’s dalliance with the traditional sounds of Shaabi and Mahraganat and possible intersections with Grime, Techno and Bass-heavy subcultures feel very much their own. Bandcamp
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Jim O’Rourke, Giovanni Di Domenico – Immanent in Nervous Activity

electronic, experimental
February 23, 2023March 5, 2023

Visionary composer/improvisor/engineer O’Rourke and estimable pianist Di Domenico reprise a brand of high minimalist electro-acoustic enchantment on a beautiful 2nd venture with Die Schachtel – RIYL Charlemagne Palestine, Éliane Radigue, The Necks. Taking flight in pursuit of the heady ideas first outlined on 2015’s ‘Arco’, the duo are joined by Eiko Ishibashi and Tatsuhiro Yamamoto on their searching, day-into-night follow-up. Each player brings an enormous wealth of experience and fine-honed intuition to their part, with O’Rourke… Boomkat
Delivering the long overdue follow up to their brilliant 2015 outing, Arco, the duo of Giovanni Di Domenico and Jim O’Rourke return to Die Schachtel with Immanent in Nervous Activity. Understated and elegant – enlisting the contributions of Eiko Ishibashi and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto – across the album’s two sides Di Domenico and O’Rourke slow time, deftly weaving… Bandcamp
Read More »Jim O’Rourke, Giovanni Di Domenico – Immanent in Nervous Activity