KUBISCH, CHRISTINA: Invisible/Inaudible: Five Electrical Walks CD (IMPREC 167CD) 13.00
"Christina Kubisch is a first generation sound artist of the highest order. She may now be most famously known for her 'Electrical Walks' which she started in 1981 where listeners wear specially-built headphones that reveal electro-magnetic radiation emanating from the technological world around us. Invisible/Inaudible: Five Electrical Walks is her first collection of compositions utilizing material recorded during 'Electrical Walks.'"
KUBISCH, CHRISTINA: Night Flights CD (IMPREC 168CD) 13.00
Reissue of this 1987 album, originally issued on Auf Dem Nil. "Night Flights is a groundbreaking work from one of the most influential of the first generation sound artists. For some reason, this staggering work has been left out of print for over 20 years. Night Flights has been remastered and includes updated liner notes from Christina Kubisch. Night Flights is being released in conjunction with Kubisch's release of new work for Important Records titled Invisible/Inaudible: Five Electrical Walks."
Kubisch is a maker of interesting sound-art derived albums and it's good to see Night Flights in particular back in print.
STONE, CARL: Al-Noor CD (ITO 010CD) 12.50
"Carl Stone is one of the pioneers of live computer music, and has been hailed by the Village Voice as 'the king of sampling' and 'one of the best composers living in [the USA] today.' He has used computers in live performance since 1986. Stone was born in Los Angeles and now divides his time between California and Japan. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic music almost exclusively since 1972. Al-Noor contains Carl Stone's newest explorations into the dismantling and re-composition of global song and melody, and their relationships to other resonant rhythmic and harmonic phonemes. Stone's computer technology brings forth the transformation of beats, measures and sonic landscape into phase-shifted liquid journeys and sonic monuments. From solitude to shred, sounds gradually shift forth creating new scenes of distant mystery. Movement births stillness. Order becoming anarchy becomes paradise. Other-dimensional voices beat within a new world of texture and space. This is that. Here is there. Those become these. This CD of four new compositions represents Stone at one of the most creative periods of his career."
Can't wait to hear this. Unseen Worlds is reissuing his first record, Woo Lae Oak, early 2008.
MONKS: Black Time LP (INT 2499000LP) 11.00
Grey area LP reissue, contains the classic Black Monk Time LP, plus their second and third singles, all three originally released on Polydor Germany in 1966-'67. This LP sleeve uses the photo from the cover of their second single for the front, and cover art of their first single for the back. Primitive demented '60s punk at its best. "The Monks' only album is packed with angst anthems on the order of 'Shut Up,' 'I Hate You,' 'Complication,' and 'Drunken Maria.' One of the strangest recordings of all time." –Richie Unterberger.
The Monks R CRZY. Never really heard them at LP length though.
CRANDELL, RICHARD: Spring Steel CD (TZ 8041) 14.50
"Another remarkable recording by the quirky Oregon composer/performer Richard Crandell, whose first delightful CD For Tzadik Mbira Magic hit several best ten lists for 2004. Adapting and retuning traditional shona instruments, Crandell draws upon the work of Steve Reich, Terry Riley and John Fahey to create a hypnotic minimalist world through the use of repetition, variation and phasing. Charming and original, this is beautiful and subtle music from a recently rediscovered maverick composer out of the early days of West Coast minimalism."
Hopefully an improvement over Mbira Magic, which was good, but needed a little something more. Maybe a more concision. It's good that Crandell's early guitar works have recently been reissued. More on that later.
