Maurizio Bianchi/M.B. - "Blut und Nebel"

This CD is a 'de-compilation' of Maurizio Bianchi's first 10 LPs from the early 1980s.
It is an excellent demonstration of Bianchi's skills at dadaistic collage, free-form improvisation and abstract soundsculpting, as accrued over twenty years of electronic manipulation.
Noise is employed like an electric guitar to produce solos of manic intensity.

Tracklist
1 Genocide - Symphonic Holocaust
2 Womenses - Instrumental Secretion
3 Neuro Moerder - Concrete Anamnesis
4 Regole - Physiologic Musicality
5 Mecptyo - Acoustic Contamination
6 Testamento - Electrophonic Ultimatum
7 Endometrium - Haematic Cacophony
8 Carcynosi - Minimal Metastasis
9 Truth - Mutant Sonorities
10 Har-Maghedon - Apocalyptic Dissonance

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Squadra Omega - "S/t"

Squadra Omega is a psych/avant/kraut rock collective with former and present members of the Mojomatics, With Love and Be Maledetto Now! devoted to free improvisation, psychedelic jams and mind blow ups.

It is said that all empires are built upon the ruins of previous empires. It is said that destruction breeds construction. In times of deadlocked aesthetics and stylistic stagnation the time is nigh for a destruction of the old and the construction of the new. From the rubble of a post-post modern world, Apollo is rising and he is accompanied by a tribe of psychedelic wasteland fellaheen – the Squadra Omega. The winds are shifting, the fog is lifting and a new age is a-coming. Spaceage Cubist-Free-Jazz clashes with Pygmy-Percussion-No Wave-Kraut Rock causing a sonic fusion leading to a complete derangement of the senses, an assault on the frontal lobe and permanent hallucination. This is music from the Third Eye.

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William Basinski - "The Garden of Brokenness"

'The Garden of Brokenness' takes a recently discovered tape loop from his piano and tape experiments (c.1979) then transforms it into a hauntingly hypnotic compisition that clocks in at 50 minutes and more than stands comprison with his 'Disintergration Loops' series. Trying to pin down what it is that makes Basinksi so special is nigh on impossible, but like all true innovators his vision and sound come together to produce something beyond the reach of a whole warehouse of adjectives, and in doing so subtly alter the way you view those things around you. Fervent bollocks you may think, but having submerged yourself in Basinki's beguiling fusion of bellicose aural clouds and distant piano, it's all to easy to become starry-eyed in admiration. Utterly essential.

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Carl Michael Von Hausswolff - "Rays of Beauty"

This record includes four rare compositions by CM von Hausswolff, published in the early '80s on limited- edition vinyls (originally released on vinyl by Radium between 1983 and 1986). They are in fact some of the first traces of ambient or dark ambient on records. Noted by Andrew McKenzie of The Hafler Trio as an early source of inspiration. McKenzie wrote a long moving piece of fiction text entitled "But Man is Stuffed with Gods" especially for this release (included in the booklet). These recordings are now, for the first time, fully avalaible on CD.

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quintetAvant - "En Concert À La Salle Des Fêtes"

Don't you just love super-groups? Whatever musical category you pick, they've always existed and for as long as record companies are willing to look at ways of increasing their cash flow, they always will. Though Quintet Avant is a French music concrete-improv ensemble, I somehow doubt their grand raison d'être is to make money. Lionel Marchetti, Jérôme Noetinger, Jean Pallandre, Marc Pichelin and Laurent Sassi all play a variety of musical objects — from analogue synths, to microphones and reel-to-reels.

Recorded back in 2002, the audio represents what was happening at that time musically, though to be fair, this is still fresh stuff. Sensory overload is what the ensemble does best. Through the squeaks, the furiously paced glitches, the abrasive scratching sounds, through to the turntable sounds of records being manipulated to death, they do it all. Make no mistake; this isn't easy listening by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, if anything, it requires that you absorb yourself in the world they've created — fully and completely. On the other hand, there's much humour in their presentation. How else would you enjoy sounds that mimic wind-up toys, shutting doors or sounds of crazy birds chirping up a storm? Even the calm moments sound plausible. Nothing is impossible in the world this quintet has dreamed up. In the name of good fun and under the heading of serious music served up to entertain, anything is possible.

Tom Sekowski- music live report

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Ekkehard Ehlers - "plays"

In 2001, Ekkehard Ehlers released a compositional cycle of abstract tributes to artistic personalities. Released as a string of five EPs and singles on Staubgold and Bottrop-Boy throughout 2001 and early 2002, they were later culled and issued by Staubgold as Ekkehard Ehlers Plays in May of that year. The album comprises ten tracks, two per artist. Ehlers' music never references the works of its namesakes. Instead it draws inspiration from a certain state that the music of Cornelius Cardew, Albert Ayler, and Robert Johnson, the films of John Cassavetes, and the writings of Hubert Fichte create in Ehlers' mind. Although each set has its own character, associating it with the corresponding artist simply doesn't work -- and to add to the intentional confusion, the order in which the EPs' titles are listed on the front cover and the actual track list given in the booklet differ. Ehlers' music draws on German experimental ambient and minimal techno, but also post-rock melancholy and drone-based improvisation. The best pieces are the two "Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Albert Ayler" tracks, featuring slow cello notes (almost drones) by Anka Hirsch. They sound like funeral marches. The two "Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Hubert Fichte" tracks, with delicate guitar work by Joseph Suchy, also captivate. On the other hand, the dancefloor-friendly beat in the concluding "Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Robert Johnson" brings things to an awkward end. This album generates its own universe of cultural references but, beyond its conceptual side, it draws the listener into a highly introspective sound world, slow-changing and mesmerizing. It eschews the clichés of clicks + cuts, microsound, or any other trend rooted in experimental electronica at the time, making it definitely one of the strongest, most personal artistic statements of 2002.

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K11 - "Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D."

Continuing with his interest in cathedrals, with the new K11 release “Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D.”, Riparbelli entered Assisi Cathedral in the Umbria region of Italy, not far from Riparelli’s hometown of Tuscany; the 1230 A.D. in the album’s title referring to the date of completion of the original cathedral. Audio was recorded in the cathedral’s lower basilica, the oldest area where the actual relics of St. Francis Of Assisi are kept.

Again utilizing short-wave radios as his primary “instrument” Riparbelli has captured a haunting array of cavernous sounds, displaced signals and found ambience. With the addition of some voice and organ elements, Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D. sounds not unlike the recordings of experimentalists Philip Jeck and William Basinski under the influenced of Crowleyean Magick and Sacred Geometry. A psychedelic meditation from some medieval crypt captured out of time in the present.

The numbers used in the songtitles are chosen with purpose, all related to the Gematria, the ancient system that assigns numbers to words and how they relate to each other. A video shot inside the cathedral by Riparbelli is included on the disc to give the listener a visual picture of the aging structure. As in all K11’s work, the themes of magick, religion, numerology and esotericism are present throughout this reverent document of aural mysticism.

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