'Nocturnes' is William Basinski's first new solo recording release in four years. It comprises two typically sanguine, extended compositions; 'Nocturnes' written between 1979-80 during his post-grad period in San Francisco, and 'The Trail Of Tears' recorded in 2009 for the Robert Wilson opera, 'The Life and Death of Marina Abramovich'. If there's any one way to measure the efficacy of his music, it's by how drowsy one feels after consumption. We could either do with a snooze or a strong coffee after initial listens, and we mean that with the utmost respect. The first piece revolves recording… Read more

'Tombstones' is the spellbinding first studio album by Cal Arts co-chair and acclaimed composer, Michael Pisaro. As mentor and collaborator to Julia Holter and John Maus and with a career at CalArts Composition and Experimental Sound Practices department intersecting those of Ariel Pink and Human Ear Music boss, Jason Grier, Pisaro's influence on the current avant-pop vanguard is duly noted. For 'Tombstones' he's assembled an eight-piece ensemble counting Tashi Wada, Julia Holter, and Jason Grier, among others, in a spectral dismantling of pop music, from The Beatles to DJ S… Read more

Each of the French artist's precious LP offerings have represented a further deepening and refining of her craft, getting closer to some kind of spiritual essence. On a so-so day, she makes music that you feel privileged to hear, and on a good day she makes music that cleaves your heart in two. It's been a long wait for new material - her last album, Les Ondes Silencieuses, is now six years old - but 'The Weighing Of The Heart' doesn't disappoint, despite a considerable burden of expectation. The oneiric shimmer of her music has its contemporary analogs in the likes of Grouper and Jul… Read more

**Includes download code for 24bit version** Human Ear Music present a necessary reissue of Ekkehard Ehlers's debut album, the glitch classic, 'Betrieb' (2000), originally released on Mille Plateaux. "Before lo-fi tape hiss and filter murk became the preferred ways of fucking up your music, all we had to rely on was the glitch. The early 2000's were the swingin' glitch years, when clicking, skipping, beat-repeat and buffer-delay seeped into every ontological stratum of music-making. But it wasn't just flashy winks teased into indie pop-dance, facile quasiclassical crossover, and bookish sound a… Read more

**Mario Bertoncini performs John Cage renowned masterworks: Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48) for prepared piano** "In this composition, Cage expresses his interpretation of the permanent emotions of Indian tradition: the Heroic, the Erotic, the Wondrous, the Comic (the four light moods), Sorrow, Fear, Anger, the Odious (the four dark moods), and their common tendency toward (central) Tranquility. This was Cage's first composition using Hindu philosophy as a basis, and he composed the Sonatas and Interludes in a period of time during which he was reading extensively the wo… Read more

Review to follow shortly…

**Glossy gatefold jacket includes Edition RZ label catalogue and extensive liner notes in German and English** Important collection of Giancinto Scelsi compositions penned between 1959-1972, performed by various ensembles between 1972-1990. A visionary musical thinker and composer, Giacinto Scelsi (1905 - 1988) was a pioneer of microtonal composition with a rarely paralleled ear for timbre and dynamic. He coined many avant-garde ideas which were later explored by many others in the avant-garde, but, in the classic sense, he was hardly acknowledged until after his twilight years, and onl… Read more

"The Book of Abbeyozzud ("ah-BYE-ah-ZOOD", a word invented by Riley, without meaning) is a planned series of 26 pieces for guitar, multiple guitars and guitar in ensemble. So far, thirteen pieces are completed. Riley writes "All of the pieces have Spanish titles and take a different letter of the alphabet to begin their names. They are also indebted to great Spanish music traditions and to those traditions upon which Spanish music owes its heritage." David Tanenbaum had been asking Terry Riley for a guitar piece for some time, and found success finally after Terry's young son, Gyan, … Read more

**Terry Riley's 1987 composition for the Rova Saxophone Quartet. Full of complex, unusual tunings and time signatures** "The Tain Bo Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) is a central part of the eighth-century Ulster cycle of heroic tales and is Ireland's nearest approach to a great epic. It tells the story of a giant cattle-raid, the invasion of Ulster by the armies of Medb and Ailill, queen and king of Connacht, and their allies, seeking to carry off the great Brown Bull of Cuailnge. Following an abandoned collaboration with the playwright Lee Brewer that was centered on t… Read more

The highly influential composer and improviser recorded live in Lisbon at the Festival Dos Capuchos, 16th July 1995. "This gorgeous set of piano improvisations reflects minimalist composer Terry Riley's lifelong study of Indian music. It is an outstanding recording which captures Terry Riley at an inspired peak. Performances of such spontaneous and beautiful music are scarce and even less-frequently performed by the composer himself at such a late stage in an extraordinary career. To sound so inspired and inventive some 40 years after defining minimalist music is quite a feat. Coming from such a consistently brilliant composer, who would expect less?' (Skip Jansen)."

Epic visions of cosmic North Americana from cellist Rebecca Foon, founder of Esmerine and former member of A Silver Mt Zion and Set Fire To Flames. Constellation bill her debut as Saltland as existing at the intersection of drone, no-wave, improv, dream-pop and minimalism, and point out that it was cut at her home-studio in Montreal, but don't be fooled into thinking that this is a washed-out, lo-fidelity set; it's quite the opposite, a bold, widescreen work, engineered by Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire), that feels like the work of a composer and musician at the height of h… Read more

Mark Nelson's cherished Pan American quietly slip back into our consciousness as a band proper, now adding the estimable talents of Steven Hess (Cleared/Haptic) and Nelson's former Labradford bandmate, Robert Donne to the project. While Nelson assuredly handles all production, the live feel is definitely more prominent, folding in the patter of Hess's percussion and Bobby Donne's languid bass at the centre of seven beautifully diffuse soundscapes bordering on the frontier lands of post-rock, dub techno and ambient electronica, yet never clearly falling within any one sector. Every el… Read more

*'Four Piano Studies' is the first release on Ryan Teague's own 'King Tree' label* "Following the success of last years full length album Field Drawings, composer and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Teague offers up this contrasting EP of beautiful and poetic solo piano pieces. Combining Minimalist, Impressionist and Romantic influences, Four Piano Studies conveys a modern take on an age-old format whilst still conveying a sense of real originality. Short and concise, these compositions performed by Semra Kurutaç (Piano Circus) strike an immediately haunting tone in the listener and provide another insight into the range and breadth of Ryan's output."