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Two new LP releases on Metaphon and two new LP’s on La Scie Dorée, available through the webshop

TIMO VAN LUIJK – KRIS VANDERSTRAETEN – DANIEL DUCHAMP – LUIS FERIN: “Traces du Hasard” – LP
La Scie Dorée, SCIE 3824, Belgium 2024
Edition of 300 copies.
Recorded chez Kris, 1994
Collage by Timo van Luijk
Release date: september 21, 2024

Bandcamp
Avialable through the webshop

This album is a bit of an accumulation of coincidences. It is the first recording session I did with Kris Vanderstraeten, back in 1994, together with Daniel Duchamp and Luis Ferin.  The session recording had since disappeared from attention and 30 years later, while going through old DAT tape archives, I came across it by chance, initially even not knowing who/what it was… The tape started with a recording of cars, captured from my balcony in Brussels, where I lived at the time. I decided to integrate the cars as an intro to the music session that fitted in seamlessly. Both the recording quality and the musical performance were remarkably good. A lost and found little treasure. It was a refreshing time for me, playing with people from a jazz and free improvisation background. We became good friends.

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IN CAMERA: “Arrival” – LP
La Scie Dorée, SCIE 3624, Belgium 2024
Edition of 400 copies.
Cover image by M.K. Ciurlionis: Rex, tempera on canvas, 1909
Release date: september 21, 2024

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Four years after we got Lost in Spice we reached the point of Arrival. An altar on the surface of the water is burning with flames. Behind it you can see a half of the Earth’s globe, and on it there’s a bright throne. A pale, translucent ruler wearing a crown sits in the throne. The globe is surrounded by a ball of shadows on which sits a larger dark ruler on a dark throne. Behind the globe are mountain peaks, and all of it is reflected in the water. Above the mountains are clouds which merge into rivers and end in a curved horizon on which forests stand, and the sun rises between them. Above this horizon is another sky with lunar crescents and comets. Above this sky are rows of angels bent over, above which the stars shine. The sun shines in the top left corner and the crescent moon in the right.

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ROLF GEHLHAAR: “Wege / Ways” – LP
Metaphon 020 – 2024
Edition of 500 copies
With fold-out insert
Cover design by Vahakn Gehlhaar Matossian
Mastering by Stephan Mathieu
Release date, september 21, 2024

Available through the La Scie Dorée webshop
Listen on Bandcamp

Rolf Gehlhaar (1943-2019) was an instrumental and electronic music composer, and a pioneer in computer controlled interactive music. He grew up in the US where he studied philosophy and composition at Yale University. In 1967 he moved back to Germany to become Stockhausen’s personal assistant and member of his performing ensemble. In 1969 Gehlhaar co-founded, along with Johannes Fritsch (Metaphon 012) and David Johnson, the Feedback Studios in Cologne, a new-music performance center and publishing house. He later moved to England, where he became in 1979 a founding member of the Electro-Acoustic Music Association and later on senior lecturer in design and digital media. Gehlhaar’s compositions include symphonies, instrumental works, experimental and electronic music, interactive computer controlled music and everything in between.
The three previously unreleased tracks on this LP only show a glimpse of the versatility of his adventurous and innovative musical ideas.
The LP comes with a foldout insert including photos and extensive program notes.

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MICHAEL RANTA & TAKEHISA KOSUGI: “Multiple Musics” – LP

Metaphon 019 – 2024
Edition of 500 copies
Cover painting by Wayne Jacob
Mastering by Stephan Mathieu
Release date, september 21, 2024

Available through the webshop
Listen on Bandcamp

Previously unreleased live recording from the Ranta archives. The creative duo of Michael Ranta and Takehisa Kosugi performed many times in the 1970’s and 1980’s. On this outstanding performance, recorded at the Japanese Culture Institute in Cologne in 1987, the application of an advanced multi delay system, independently utilized by both players, plays a central role. The smartly treated cyclic tapestry of the delay system (modulated, transformed, harmonized) injects additional dimensions to the highly coordinated improvisation with voice, percussion, violin and electronics, creating interactive ‘composition-like’ textures being ‘Multiple Musics’.

 

Metaphon article by Jon Dale on Bandcamp Daily:
Metaphon give forgotten composers a chance to shine

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Very pleased to take part with some of my photographs in this wonderful exhibition at the Argo factory in Tehran, from August 16 till October 18.

I Am Standing in the Middle of the Information Highway and Laughing

Curated by Raha Raissnia and Martin Germann

Taking its title from late artist Jonas Mekas’ Manifesto Anti-100 years of Cinema, a performative exhibition in Tehran will unfold over two different episodes. Its main aim is to celebrate the unbound energy of collaborative work and friendship on the one hand and moments of reflection and stillness on the other. Its point of departure is the Manichean binary between darkness and light, as sine qua non condition for the existence of technologically mediated images.

First presented on February 11th, 1996, at the American Center in Paris, and published in the French periodical Point d’Ironie in 1997, Mekas’ Manifesto was a response to the celebration of the centenary of cinema, which throughout much of its history has been dominated by marketing and capital. Mekas here celebrates the poetic forms of cinema, the cinema of the independents and the avant-garde.

By building up organically chapter by chapter over two months, this exhibition will be a celebration of nomadic images that have travelled as fast as sound to then become materials that embody both lightness and gravity — not forgetting the metaphor of sound as the phenomena with which everything began. The broad and diverse selection of artists, living and working in the Far East and the West, in the fields between moving image film, video, sound, installation, drawing, photography, and poetry embrace Tehran as Middle East and resonating soundboard of universal human experience.

For the first chapter of the exhibition, a number of artists have been carefully selected by Raha Raissnia to accompany two of her own works. In the spirit of Mekas’s Manifesto, they are all friends whom she has known personally from many years of living and working in New York City. Their work involves a vigorous engagement with music, philosophy, poetry, science, ecology and history. Besides their work, it is their persona, attitude and unabating embrace of the unknown and the accidental which have had a profound influence on her. They all pursue a lifestyle and an ethical stance that aims to protect their integrity and independence from the accepted norms. All of these works are connected in various ways to music, poetry and cinema. They possess rhythm, subtlety, atmosphere and an indistinct humor. Some of them are shrouded in melancholic darkness, an end-of-days monochrome which at the same time brings about a sense of freedom and detachment from the ordinary visible world. All of them compel reflection and speculation and exalt the imagination in ways unaffected and unbound.

In the second chapter of the exhibition, curator Martin Germann will introduce and insert new works that will expand on various attributes and notions in the first, engaging in dialogues that will be unpredictable and exuberant. As part of the exhibition, there will be upcoming evening programs that will include an Expanded Cinema performance by Raha Raissnia, series of film screenings followed by discussions and poetry readings.

Artists: Jonas Mekas, Raha Raissnia, Andrew Chalk, Pip Chodorov, Martha Colburn, Milton Cruz, Albert Herter, Andrew Lampert, Jeanne Liotta, Timo Van Luijk, Panagiotis Mavridis, Jordan Mintzer, Jason Babak Mohaghegh, Stom Sogo and Justina Zukauskaite

New Robert Fesler 4LP box on Metaphon available through the webshop + a very limited stock of rare original copies of an outstanding double LP with Dominique Lawalree, Robert Fesler, Baudouin Oosterlynck, Erik de Visscher released on Lawalree’s Walrus label back in 1984.

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ROBERT FESLER: ‘μP RPF78’

4LP box – Metaphon 017 – 2024

Hardboard linen LP box with silkscreened titles, 12 page booklet with photos and text by Robert Fesler and Baudouin Oosterlynck.
With an A5 reproduction of an oil on wood self-portrait by Robert Fesler.
Edition of 300 copies, with download code.
Release date: April 15, 2024

Available at the La Scie Dorée webshop
Listen on Bandcamp

So delighted with the outcome of this long due 4LP release on Metaphon.
An anthology of the intensely arresting work of Robert Fesler (1936-2023), revealing many of his compositions (1975 -1987) created with his self-built synthesizers, with as pinnacle the μP RPF78. Except one, all tracks are previously unreleased.

With profound simplicity and devotion, Fesler paints a hermetic inner world with strong emotions of confronting solitude, sensual alienation and traumatic angst. His music was as much a therapeutic treatment as an artistic expression. Fesler quotes, “Building my synthesizers and working with them enabled me to sublimate my anxieties”. Most tracks were played and recorded real time, often with two synthesizers (the Synthese 756 and the μP RPF78), capturing the heat of the moment in one take, without multitracking. The austere and reductionist approach reinforces the overall spirit of his work, resulting in an engaging, mysterious solitary journey. It’s quite incredible how one person can put so much technical and cerebral content in the development of a machine and use it in such an emotional way.

The music of Robert Fesler might be considered as very Belgian.
To situate it within a close entourage, one can say it has:
The endurance of Oosterlynck
The purity of Lawalree
The mysticism of Souffriau

Anthology produced by Timo van Luijk
Tape transfers by Timo van Luijk
Mastering by EARLabs
Text by Robert Fesler and Baudouin Oosterlynck
Booklet edited by Vincent de Roguin
Design by Meeuw

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DOMINIQUE LAWALREE, BAUDOUIN OOSTERLYNCK, ROBERT FESLER, ERIK DE VISSCHER – 2LP (Walrus 1984)

Superb double LP split album with one side for each artist. Copies are unplayed and in excellent condition but might have occasional light clicks, nothing serious though. As with most of the Walrus releases, they don’t come any better. Cover is offset printed and has hand painted touches by Dominique Vermeesch and Godelieve Fesler, all original and unique. One of the two Fesler tracks is not on the recent Metaphon LP box. Note that this is a rare vintage 2LP from 1984 and only a handful of copies are available through the webshop.

Three new releases available at the La Scie Dorée webshop + Mark Glynne & Bart Zwier “Home Comfort” LP reprint + a few old original pressings in the webshop.

ANNE GILLIS/JAC BERROCAL/VINCENT EPPLAY/TIMO VAN LUIJK: “Si()six” – LP
La Scie Dorée, SCIE 3323, Belgium 2024
Edition of 500 copies with insert

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Available through the webshop

Several years of mutual appreciation and encounters on- and off-stage have been the root of this chance meeting, resulting in an unplanned mysterious collaboration album where the aura of each individual is augmented by the magic osmosis of united forces. The 12-tracks display a collage of dreamy musique concrète with desolate instrumental and vocal interventions, masterfully balanced out by Vincent Epplay.
Anne Gillis: words, voice, noises
Jac Berrocal: words, voice, trumpet
Vincent Epplay: field recording, percussion, Synthi AKS
Timo van Luijk: sounds, strings

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ANNE GILLIS: “Aha” – LP
La Scie Dorée, Scie 3423, Belgium 2024 – LP
Special edition of 50 copies with signed photograph and download code
Regular edition of 450 copies

Listen on Bandcamp
Webshop – regular edition

 

Since more than 40 years, Anne Gillis has discreetly unfolded her proper singular universe without any compromise. She playfully moves with determined restrictions, excavating contrasting forces; sensual and visceral, mechanical and organical, black and white, … She extends this personal expression in her visuals using self-portrait photos, handwritten text and her theatrical performances are equally aligned with this spirit. Her music can be considered as musique concrète using the tape machine as compositional tool, manipulating her recorded sources, mainly consisting of extended voice and different (instrumental) sounds with addition of electronics and treatments. In both her photography and her music, Anne Gillis works fully analog. So pleased to make this album (originally released in 1984) available again.

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ANIMA MUSICA & R. CARLOS NAKAI: “Atlantic Crossing” – LP
La Scie Dorée, Scie 3523, Belgium 2024 – LP
Edition of 500 copies

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The strange thing about the music of Anima is that it’s often considered as strange, while it’s actually very natural. It has a free spirit, analog to nature. For this release the natural spirit is strengthened by the participation of indigenous American flute player and composer R. Carlos Nakai who did a series of concerts in the US and Europe with Paul and Limpe Fuchs in the 1980’s. As with almost all Anima work, the natural feel manifests itself not only by the musical approach but also through sounds generated by natural materials as metal, wood, stone and air, and of course the absence of electronic devices. This LP is a reissue of a rare privately released cassette from 1988 and was recorded by the Bayerischer Rundfunk. May this slice of timeless free spirit be a trigger to more awareness concerning our decaying freedom.

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MARK GLYNNE & BART ZWIER: ‘Home Comfort’ – LP
La Scie Dorée, SCIE 3123, Belgium 2023
2nd edition of 200 copies, with insert

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Very pleased and grateful to announce this ‘Home Comfort’ reissue by Mark Glynne and Bart Zwier, originally self-released in 1980.
Maybe a bit of an unexpected title to appear in the LSD catalog but my love for this album goes back to my late teenage years and has had an addictive effect since, like a spleen infused magnet.
With this album Glynne and Zwier, based in the Netherlands and connected to the Ultra scene, drew an insular blend of intimate post-punk and chamber (bedroom) songs with surreal scenic reflections. Probably its naked singularity defying categorization has left it so unnoticed, even 43 years after the making.
It also features a reciting Marlène Dumas still quite unknown at the time. With biggest gratitude to Mark Glynne who instantly felt confident with my proposal to reissue this silent witness of lasting beauty.

My long time Japanese friend You Ishihara (White Heaven, The Stars) who bought the LP when it came out in 1980 still considers it as one of his all-time favourites. This is what he writes about ‘Home Comfort’:
“Resignation and fear in a desolate mental landscape. This album, which exists like a shelter for those who have quietly escaped through the backdoor of the world, vividly reflects the inner depths of the devastated Amsterdam of the early 80’s. A beautiful and sad, unmistakable masterpiece.”

 

Three new releases available at the La Scie Dorée webshop:

MARK GLYNNE & BART ZWIER: ‘Home Comfort’ – LP/CD
La Scie Dorée, SCIE 3123, Belgium 2023

Listen on Bandcamp
Available through the webshop

Very pleased and grateful to announce this ‘Home Comfort’ reissue by Mark Glynne and Bart Zwier, originally self-released in 1980.
Maybe a bit of an unexpected title to appear in the LSD catalog but my love for this album goes back to my late teenage years and has had an addictive effect since, like a spleen infused magnet.
With this album Glynne and Zwier, based in the Netherlands and connected to the Ultra scene, drew an insular blend of intimate post-punk and chamber (bedroom) songs with surreal scenic reflections. Probably its naked singularity defying categorization has left it so unnoticed, even 43 years after the making.
It also features a reciting Marlène Dumas still quite unknown at the time. With biggest gratitude to Mark Glynne who instantly felt confident with my proposal to reissue this silent witness of lasting beauty.

My long time Japanese friend You Ishihara (White Heaven, The Stars) who bought the LP when it came out in 1980 still considers it as one of his all-time favourites. This is what he writes about ‘Home Comfort’:
“Resignation and fear in a desolate mental landscape. This album, which exists like a shelter for those who have quietly escaped through the backdoor of the world, vividly reflects the inner depths of the devastated Amsterdam of the early 80’s. A beautiful and sad, unmistakable masterpiece.”

LP
300 copies, with insert

CD
300 copies, gatefold card sleeve with 20-page booklet
Bonus track Pale Blue Eyes, recorded live in 1979 and previously unreleased.

Sleeve reproduction by Jeroen Wille

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NICOLE LACHARTRE: ‘Mundus’ – 3LP
Metaphon 012, Belgium 2023

3LP set in 7,5mm sealed slipcase sleeve + 12 page booklet with text and track info by Vincent de Roguin and Mark Harwood, archive notes by Lachartre and a rare portrait from 1969.
2nd edition of 300 copies.

Listen on Bandcamp
Available through the webshop

NICOLE LACHARTRE

“Let’s try to find sound as a primordial act, both a place of convergence of beings and a vector of self-discovery”

First ever release of French composer, musicologist and writer Nicole Lachartre (1934-1991). This 3LP set comprises most of her electronic music and musique concrète compositions recorded in the 60’s and 70’s, all previously unreleased. Lachartre had a classical formation, studied with a.o. Darius Milhaud, Iannis Xenakis and Michel Philippot. Her broad formation and interest as well as her profound commitment and singular vision created a solitary voice even within the field of electronic music and musique concrète, strangely enough unheard till this day. Her first tape composition from 1968 was recorded in Pierre Henry’s Apsome studio and most of her other electronic and electro-acoustic compositions included in this box set were recorded at the IPEM in Ghent.

It took more than two years to realize this project with some complications along the way but it was all worth it and glad the music is finally available.

Production: Timo van Luijk
Mastering: EARLabs
Graphic Design: Meeuw

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TIMO VAN LUIJK & FREDERIK CROENE: ‘Ipnopedion’ – LP
La Scie Dorée, Scie 2519

Numbered edition of 45 copies on ‘smoke vinyl’ with silkscreened sleeve, insert and download code.

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Available through the webshop

Side 1 : Ipnopedion
Premiere live performance of commissioned composition for the ‘In Dreams’ Event, at Kunstencentrum nona in Mechelen, June 1, 2018.
Curated by Philippe Cortens.
Frederik Croene: piano
Timo van Luijk: synthesizer, sound projection

Side 2 : Taetonia
Recorded and mixed at Kulta Saha 2019
Frederik Croene: piano, organ
Timo van Luijk: synthesizer, organ, atmospherics

 

Ilta Hämärä: Origo – LP
Bergpolder 09, Netherlands 2023 + insert
Regular edition of 250 copies
Special edition of 50 copies with hand coloured sleeve, signed and numbered

A1: Ilma
A2: Vesi
B1: Tuli
B2: Eetteri

Recorded and mixed at Kulta Saha by Timo van Luijk and Bart De Paepe, 2015-2016
Originally released on cassette in 2016
The track ‘Maa’ has been replaced by ‘Eetteri’ (previously unreleased).

LIMPE FUCHS & TIMO VAN LUIJK
Open air live performance as inauguration of the installation “Between Heaven and Earth” designed by Limpe Fuchs. This permanent installation consists of 4 Pendulum Strings custom made by Bernward Munz and will be played by Limpe and Timo.
Thursday June 29, 15h00!
at Porta Vida, Welzijnscampus 11, 3600 Genk (Belgium)

Two new releases soon available at the La Scie Dorée webshop:

NICOLE LACHARTRE: ‘Mundus’ – 3LP box

Metaphon 012, Belgium 2023
Hardboard linen LP box with silkscreened titles, 12 page booklet with text and track info by Vincent de Roguin and Mark Harwood, archive notes by Lachartre and a rare portrait from 1969.
Edition of 200 copies

Listen on Bandcamp
Available through the webshop

NICOLE LACHARTRE

“Let’s try to find sound as a primordial act, both a place of convergence of beings and a vector of self-discovery”

First ever release of French composer, musicologist and writer Nicole Lachartre (1934-1991). This 3LP set comprises most of her electronic music and musique concrète compositions recorded in the 60’s and 70’s, all previously unreleased. Lachartre had a classical formation, studied with a.o. Darius Milhaud, Iannis Xenakis and Michel Philippot. Her broad formation and interest as well as her profound commitment and singular vision created a solitary voice even within the field of electronic music and musique concrète, strangely enough unheard till this day. Her first tape composition from 1968 was recorded in Pierre Henry’s Apsome studio and most of her other electronic and electro-acoustic compositions included in this box set were recorded at the IPEM in Ghent.

It took more than two years to realize this project with some complications along the way but it was all worth it and glad the music is finally available.

Production: Timo van Luijk
Mastering: EARLabs
Graphic Design: Meeuw

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ARTHUR PETRONIO: ‘Arthur Petronio’ – LP

Metaphon 016, Belgium 2023
With fold-out poster and original sleeve design by Alain Geronnez
Edition of 500 copies

Listen on Bandcamp
Available through the webshop

Arthur Petronio:
Born Switzerland 1897.
French-Italian musician, poet and painter.
Lived in Belgium and The Netherlands between 1910 and 1924 and since then in France.
Young violin virtuoso studying with Belgian master violinist Eugène Ysaÿe.
Played solo violin for Belgian King Leopold II, at the age of 9.
Attracted to the avant-garde and visionary ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk.
Develops and presents his “Verbophonie” in 1919, integrating sound poetry into regular music scores.
Friend with Kandinsky, Mondrian, Cocteau and Picasso.
Published several avant-garde journals and poetry books with participation of like minded artists.
Wrote many scores for solo instruments, small ensembles, orchestral works, opera,…
Met Henri Chopin in 1950 and extended his musical ideas with new possibilities of tape composition.
His first and only LP, now reissued by Metaphon, was originally published by the Belgian Igloo label in 1979.
An extravagant DIY montage of musique concrète and sound poetry.
In addition to Petronio’s voice several female readers/performers contribute to this theatre of voices as guest vocalists.
An album as unusual as his lifecycle.

Three new releases available at the La Scie Dorée webshop:

NIKOLAUS UTERMÖHLEN: ‘Karlsbad’ – LP

La Scie Dorée, Scie 3022, Belgium 2023
Edition of 500 copies with 8 page booklet

Thrilled to announce the reissue of Nikolaus Utermöhlen’s ‘Karlsbad’ album, originally released in 1989. Utermöhlen was a founding member of Die Tödliche Doris and this is his sole solo release. A collection of 23 witty oddball compositions for clarinet, accordion, percussion, recorder, violin, guitar, organ. It definitely has a Doris dose but even more so it shines for its totally singular mélange of tribal dada chamber folk, dilettante dissonant poetry, hard to compare with anything else. A slice of flamboyant wellness.  The recordings of this album were made for the ‘Georgette Meunier’ film by Tania Stöcklin and Cyrille Rey-Coquais.
Issued from the original master tapes and includes the 8 page booklet with engravings from the Karlsbad spa era.

Listen on Bandcamp

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ELODIE: ‘Clarté Déserte’ – LP

La Scie Dorée, Scie 2922, Belgium 2023
Regular edition of 300 copies on black vinyl with offset printed sleeve.
Special edition of 100 copies on transparent vinyl with handmade Faraway Press sleeve + signed and numbered litho insert with original stamp.

New 10 track studio album by Andrew Chalk and Timo van Luijk, recorded 2020-2021 at Impression Lointaine and Kulta Saha.

Forth unobserved I went
In darkness and security,
By the secret ladder, in disguise,
In secret, seen of none,
Oh night more lovely than the dawn!
Lost to all things and myself,
And, amid the lillies forgotten,
Threw all my cares away.

Listen on Bandcamp

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TIMO VAN LUIJK & KRIS VANDERSTRAETEN: ‘Autour du Lac d’Asselt’ – LP

La Scie Dorée, Scie 2822, Belgium 2023
Edition of 300 copies

Playing with Kris always reminds me of doing expeditions in a lake. Some kind of under water sound fiction observing sonic creatures. This album is a live recording (28-01-2012, Kunstencentrum Belgie, Hasselt, Belgium) which to me always felt like one of the best concerts we did. As with our previous album Arrêt au Lac Chimère Vincent de Roguin put his heart in editing and mixing the recordings, extending the dimensions of exploration to the deep bottom of the lake.

Listen on Bandcamp

 

Two new releases available at the La Scie Dorée webshop:

MICHAEL RANTA: ‘Azabu’ – CD

Metaphon 013 – 2022
CD with 8 page booklet in gatefold cardboard sleeve
Edition of 500 copies

1-Azabu I (1971/2021) 43:46
2-Azabu II (1971/2021) 32:07

Even though only being fully terminated 50 years after its conception, ‘Azabu’ can be regarded as the starting point of Michael Ranta’s creative self-discovery. The recordings that form the base of ‘Azabu’ were mostly made in the Tokyo district with the same name (Azabu-Juban). Next to abstracted field recordings ‘Azabu’ is also pervaded by a rich variety of percussion, string and wind instruments, all played by Ranta himself. Subsequently Ranta edited, layered and processed the recordings at the NHK electronic music studio in Tokyo. Both pieces display a vast array of acoustic, electronic and concrete sound events meticulously sequenced to a complex fusion symbolizing the entire spectrum of earthly and heavenly sounds. Dynamic extremes evoke a restless flight through space, or through the depths of human subconsciousness, between dream and reality. Ultimately the music disappears, like a dot in the sky gradually fading into nothingness – an “ascension” that closes the loop in a ritual of life that can begin anew again at any time.

Michael Ranta: composition, performance, mixing (1971)
Stefan Deistler: final mixing and mastering (2021)
Painting: Wayne Jacob
Text: Egbert Hiller
Production: Timo van Luijk
Design: Meeuw
Thanks to Vincent de Roguin

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JACQUES BEKAERT: ‘Jacques Bekaert’ – LP

Metaphon 015 – 2022
Edition of 500 copies
Originally released in 1981 on the Belgian Igloo label this reissue comes with the same sleeve as originally designed by Alain Géronnez.

…Gentle threads of instrumental and electronic sounds are mixed with outdoor rural field recordings and occasional voices of his friends speaking, whistling or singing. Bekaert creates a warm environment within which we can hear subtle individual voices of good musicians who are relating to his loosely-notated scores and verbal instructions… (David Behrman)

A- A Late Lunch (28:10)
B1- A Summer Day at Stony Point (11:36)
B2- Mon Petit Album (11:06)

‘A Late Lunch’ is the soundtrack to Akiko Iimura’s eponymous movie realized in 1978. It is based on acoustic instruments and field recordings, brilliantly reconfigured and mixed by Bekaert to create a surreal, immersive soundscape. The technique used includes superposition and speed change of recordings, radical sound effects and juxtapositions of sounds. The players were prominent musicians of the 1970’s, including Maggi Payne, George Lewis, David Rosenboom and Blue Gene Tyranny.

 ‘A Summer Day at Stony Point’ was composed in 1969, with participation of David Behrman, Shigeko Kubota and Charlotte Warren. The piece was commissioned by English composer Hugh Davies who presented it at the Harrogate festival the same year. Stony Point is a small village in New York State where John Cage co-owned a small pseudo-commune art resort where like-minded artists gathered. ‘A Summer Day at Stony Point’ is nothing more than a page of a journal, a fragment of a notebook that utilizes a series of sound sources recorded at Stony Point on one beautiful day in the summer of 1968. Other electronic sound sources were recorded at the Brandeis University where Alvin Lucier was professor. The final realization of the piece was done at Henri Pousseur’s APELAC Studio in Brussels, 1969.

The soundtrack for Akiko Iimura’s ‘Mon Petit Album’was composed on the basis of a simple description of the technique of the film and its time span. It includes David Behrman on alto, from an outdoor recording at Stony Point, plus excerpts from a Transition concert in London, the band Bekaert formed in 1971 with Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers. The atmosphere is quiet and pastoral throughout with a very dreamlike flavour.

Jacques Bekaert (1940-2020) was a man of many gifts: author, journalist, composer, photographer, visual artist, wine connoisseur, radio talk show host, diplomat and expert in Southeast Asian affairs. His whole life Bekaert has been actively involved in music but not much of his work got recorded or published. In the early 60’s Bekaert studied with Pousseur and through his frequent visits to the US he became friends with artists like John Cage, David Tudor, Charlotte Moorman and most of all David Behrman with whom he had a close friendship ever since. Bekaert helped organize the first European tour of The Sonic Arts Union (David Behrman, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier) and in the early 70’s he formed the group Transition (with Belgian jazz pianist Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers). His meeting with Japanese experimental film-maker Akiko Iimura resulted in two film soundtracks featured on this one of a kind discreet avant garde album.

When asked in a 1979 interview about his double life as a musician and a journalist, Bekaert replied, “I suppose they’re both unsafe, unstable, questioning jobs—composing and reporting. Journalism takes me to places, shows me the world as it is. My music is my wish for the kind of world I’d want to live in. The little peaceful state I dream for everyone, where you can be yourself, and happy, and as collective as possible without giving up total privacy.”

Three new releases available at the La Scie Dorée webshop:

JOHANNES FRITSCH: ‘Kyo Mu / Hochtöner’ – LP

Metaphon 011 – 2022
Edition of 500 copies, gatefold sleeve

First LP release of Johannes Fritsch, long-time member of the Stockhausen Ensemble.

Kyo Mu (1982) – 30:20
For Shakuhachi and Tape
Johannes Fritsch: electronic and concrete sounds
Hitomi Endo: Shakuhachi
Weltmusik-Kongress, Vlotho 11.10.1982 – première recording

Hochtöner (1974) – 18:19
For Flute, Viola, Percussion, Synthesizer and Tape
Johannes Fritsch: Viola
Rolf Gehlhaar: Percussion
David Johnson: Flute, Synthesizer
Composed 1974, recorded 1975 at Feedback Studio Cologne

‘Kyo Mu’ and ‘Hochtöner’ both reveal a mesmerizing symbiosis of innovative sound exploration and visionary interior music, a sublime compound of fine-drawn intricate arrangements skillfully projected in space and time, or perhaps beyond space and time.

…Listening to Kyo Mu for the first time had quite a physical impact.
It interrupted my breathing as this would disrupt the full listening experience and excitement. My heartbeat from the other hand was accelerating and seemingly getting in sync with the heartbeat sound throughout Kyo Mu. A staggering sensation…

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TOSHI ICHIYANAGI, MICHAEL RANTA, TAKEHISA KOSUGI:
‘Improvisation Sep. 1975′ – LP

Regular edition of 500 copies with offset printed sleeve and insert (English text sheet).
Special mailorder edition of 125 copies with mounted text on front and back (as the original 1975 LP), silkscreened by Alan Sherry. This edition includes two inserts, a Japanese text sheet and the English text, translated by Alan Cummings.

Toshi Ichiyanagi, Michael Ranta and Takehisa Kosugi originally got together in the summer of 1975 for an open-air concert in Sapporo. The concert felt like a great success but was unfortunately not recorded. As the desire arose to record together, they managed to arrange a studio session in the NHK Studio in Tokyo, with presence of sound engineers.
What was supposed to be a soundcheck for this session became the session itself: a haunting 50-minute séance of intense avant garde improvisation using a large instrumentation and live processing (tape echo, ring modulation, phasing). A trident travelogue of the momentum masterfully controlled by the ensemble spirit, transcending the boundaries of psychedelic underground.

Official reissue of this underground classic from 1975, originally released in a tiny edition on the small Japanese Iskra label.
As the original master tapes of these recordings seem to be lost, the master had to be taken from an unplayed original LP copy. It was carefully restored and mastered by Jos Smolders with amazing result.

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ELODIE: ‘Enteha’ – LP

A Colourful Storm, ACS039, Australia 2022
With insert and postcard.

Enteha is one of the duo’s more subdued and melancholic pieces and can be seen as a human response to seasonal transition, foretold by the concluding passages of 2020’s Le Nid d’Ivoire. It’s one of their uniquely longform explorations of mood and atmosphere as an air of romance drifts deftly into mystery and despair. The delicate hues of autumnal haze. The deceptive optimism of morning light. A work of supremely understated beauty, Enteha develops at an hypnagogic, if not unconscious, level and will appeal to anyone who finds solace in Harmonia, Gas, Joanna Brouk, Roberto Musci, Zoviet France and other investigators of pastoral arcana. (ACS)

JAN BRUYNDONCKX: ‘Rails and Other Tracks’ – LP
Pleased to offer this first ever release of concrete and electronic collage works by Belgian underground sound explorer Jan Bruyndonckx. ‘Rails and Other Tracks’ contains autonomous compositions, music for film and documentary, all independently recorded in his private studio between 1958 and 1965.
A small collection of adventurous and mysterious sound evocations with text/poetry (Paul De Vree) recited by Julien Schoenaerts.

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AF URSIN: ‘Trois Mémoires Discrètes’ – LP
Reissue of long deleted LP from 2012, remastered at Kulta Saha 2021.
Three introspective instrumental compositions for English horn, flute, percussion, double bass, Hammond organ. Performed, recorded and mixed by Timo van Luijk during 2010-2012.