Search:composer

Estonian composers Timo Steiner and Sander Molder team up to create music for a modern ballet inspired by Yukio Mishimas famous novel ''The Temple of The Golden Pavillion'' The album follows the emotional narrative and delves into the charm of both - beauty and repulsiveness of the ugly. The 16 tracks oscillate between serene meditative cello melodies, lush harmonies and oversaturated noise. The ballet choreographed by Teet Kask premiered in 2020 in Tallinn, Estonia. Cello by the Solo Cellist of Estonian National Symphony Orchestra Theodor Sink. Cover art by Mart Anderson

‘Spells’ is the ethereal and enchanting debut release by Los Angeles harpist and composer Nailah Hunter.

Each of the tracks offer tranquillity and a reflective setting. The release started off with Hunter wanting to reclaim the way she thought about creating and performing music.

Hunter says each of the eight tracks on the release represents a spell, allowing her to carry them out as steps of a ritual: “Each track is its own incantation, its own spell, its own world.” Ambient in nature, ‘Spells’ brings out Hunter’s intuitive skills as a composer.

All instrumentation on ‘Spells’ was composed, played, recorded and produced by Hunter, who is best known for creating ethereal music with the harp. She is part of Leaving Records supergroup Galdre Visions alongside Green-House, Ami Dang and Yialmelic Frequencies The project was recently featured in the New York Times.

Hunter recently contributed to 4AD’s Bing Ruth’s ‘Divergence: Species Remixes’ EP alongside Khotin Maria Somerville, Lucy Gooch and James Krivchenia.

For fans of Laraaji, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Enya, Pure Moods, Mary Lattimore and Alice Coltrane.

LP comes with an 8-page full-colour 12x12 booklet.

Angel Tears in Sunlight is Pauline Anna Strom's first album in over thirty years; an assemblage of music that refracts the expansiveness, and minutiae, of imagined realms while embracing the kaleidoscopic echoes of our distant epochs. The capacity to collapse time might elucidate the enigma of Pauline Anna Strom. A mystic force in music, emerging during the dawn of new age as the Trans-Millenia Consort, the pioneering synthesist channelled primordial energies into future-facing sound through a series of full-length releases between 1982 and 1988. Little was known about her, except by a constellation of devoted followers who saw a unique legacy forming amidst the (mostly male) synthesist canon of the time. Following the 2017 release of Trans-Millenia Music, an anthology revitalizing the most evocative parts of Strom's catalog, the Bay Area visionary sensed the universe telling her to return to music. As with her work in the 80s, Angel Tears in Sunlight was composed and recorded in the same San Francisco apartment where Strom has lived for almost four decades in synthesis with her machines and "dinosaurs." Populated by a compact array of modern instruments that streamline the sound of her analog past and her beloved iguanas, Little Soulstice and Ms Huff, the terrarium of her home forms an intimate yet limitless ecosystem that defies the constraints of the outside world. Within this sanctuary, Strom becomes lost in time, drawing on the ancient energies of her inner visions. Her hardware forms the crux of translating these ideas into sound. "It's the only way this stuff can be pulled out of myself, the universe, Little Soulstice, an ammonite_," Strom notes. "It couldn't be done without this machinery, because there's no other way to draw and capture these frequencies into sonic interpretation." Strom's process of recording transient live-takes enriches the mystery of her work. She renders the machinery a composer itself, a cohabitation with a living other. "Many musicians wouldn't go that far because of ego," Strom muses. "The equipment has to become part of you and your creativity. That's how I think it all comes together." Music-making becomes a harmonic language of intuition with an instrument, where Strom cultivates sound for a harvest that defies season. Shaped by circadian contours, Angel Tears in Sunlight is a celestial observatory of earthborn phonic mosaics. Strom uncovers a symbiosis between hardware frequencies and apparitions of nature in the record's arena of organic tones, emulating the melodic pulses of primeval terrain. The album transcends both shadow and light, falling to hushed stretches of sound as if not to awaken antediluvian animals, before soaring through the treetops where ancient skies peer over reptilian traffic and unsparing rains.

The 12" EP A Momentary Convergence of Differently Paced Trajectories is a heterogenous dj-oriented release, prelude and companion of Maurizio Ravalico's first solo percussion album Nobody's Husband, Nobody's Dad, released in November 2018 with the Funkiwala label. It comes in 180gms vinyl on a hand-numbered run of 300 individually screen-printed 320gsm brown card sleeves.

THE MUSIC

Side A opens with a full-size batucada version of Fear of Mapping, one of the tracks from No Fiction Now!, the 2013 debut album of Maurizio's trio Fiium Shaarrk.

It is followed by a personal take on one of Collocutor's second album tracks, Here to There to Everywhere, arranged here as a spacey 5/4 drum'n'bass epic.

Side B contains an old-school jungle remix of Just Bring Your Toys, one of the tracks from Maurizio's forthcoming album, by the Italian d'n'b veteran Enjoy (Omni Music, Bustle Beats). The EP closes with an edited version of the same track: a taste of the album.

Despite being both loosely presented as remixes, neither of the two arrangements on side A makes use of samples from the respective releases, and any material not progammed or played anew by Maurizio comes from either unreleased off-cuts or preliminary demos.

"One of the finest avant-garde percussionists in the world. Maurizio Ravalico is incredible to watch and hear. Catch him live somewhere soon!"- Jean-Claude Thompson, IfMusic uk

"Creative, deep and intriguing. Percussion avantgarde at its best." - Vince Vella, Dj, producer, Havana Cultura

Italian-born visionary cross-genres percussionist Maurizio Ravalico has been one notably eclectic presence in the London music scene since his arrival in the UK, in 1991.

Regularily seen on stage and on releases with the like of Jamiroquai and the James Taylor Quartet throughout the nineties, as well as with virtually every salsa and Cuban-oriented projects to originate from London in the same period, he has subsequently collaborated on many of the projects of the experimental music label Not applicable (Icarus, Isambard Khroustaliov, Alex Bonney, Tom Arthurs) since 2005, and is now an established name in both the London and Berlin improv and experimental scene, having played with John Edwards, Oren Marshall, Steve Beresford, Pat Thomas, Frank Paul Schubert and many others.

Maurizio Ravalico's peculiar approach to percussion is one of the distinctive traits of Tamar Osborn's modal jazz 5-piece band Collocutor (On the Corner records) and of the pan-European trio Fiium Shaarrk (on BBC3 Late Junction's 12 Best Albums of 2017). Maurizio Ravalico also collaborates with the string quartet Phaedra Ensemble, the composer Fred Thomas and the French contemporary dance company Silenda.

Born in Croydon, UK in 1960 and working in Switzerland for decades, Michal Turtle has led a storied career as a composer, arranger, technician and producer, consistently aligned with some
of the most exciting bands and projects within the realms of pop and experimental music. A figure as masterful in the realm of expansive ambient recordings as advertising jingles, it’s only in recent
years that Michal’s solo productions have gained acclaim and a cult following that continues to grow ever wider.
Turtle made a long-awaited return earlier in 2020 with the extended ‘On a Canvas Lived a Baby’, a one-sided twelve of new material released on Planisphere Editorial. Now, the Basel based label
invites a diverse and international cross-section of electronic musicians to reinterpret the artist’s back-catalogue, each delivering a thoughtful remix driven by the same sense of curiosity,
exploration and genre-blurring that Turtle himself helped pioneer. Each track on the remixes collection was originally recorded between 1980 and 1985, in between Turtle’s regular tours with established bands. Opening the collection, Laurel Halo adopts her LH alias for a textural and tripping revisit to ‘Phantoms of Dreamland’, transporting the haunting original to a hyper-detailed alternate dimension. Zoning back in, Neue Grafik finds typically eclectic form with ‘Men in Green’, turning the dials and blending ideas as if tuning between the emerging musical scenes that defined Turtle’s early-eighties life in Camden, London. In stark contrast, avant-garde polymath Felicia
Atkinson designs a ‘Fennel and Moon’ version, weaving between earthy field recordings and an aching piano line, conjuring an almost ritualistic atmosphere, far from the city. Radical musical turns continue to define the collection as son of Detroit, Jimmy Edgar takes
‘Rainwater Fijit’ down a dark, damp tunnel, expanding on the pitter patter of Turtle’s more outlandish studio experiments, blending vocal experiments with fresh funk. Colombian experimentalist Lucrecia Dalt pulls further bizarre shapes from a patchwork of samples, a heaving,
gasping industrial shuffle, before French producer D.K. returns a stronger rhythm, both building on Turtle’s lovingly naive tributes to the legacy of sample culture and his trusty ARP2600.

Ostgut Ton mainstay and Panorama Bar resident Nick Höppner proceeds to sensitively rewire ‘Maid Of The Mist’ into a blossoming, introspective celebration of melody and ambience, an
almost weightless experience that lends itself well as a breather before Luca Duran’s analogue, acid-tinged take on Spookie Boogie takes Turtle’s esoteric touches back into the direction of the
funk and italo records at the heart of his initial inspiration.
The Remixes final chapter continues to expand in distinct and wide-reaching sonic directions. London’s Object Blue seems to slow time itself across her sublime interpretation of ‘Ball Of Fire’.
Initially Turtle’s tribute to Howard Hawks 1941 film classic and the legacy of old Hollywood, worlds further collide into rolling, weightless bliss.

Fellow Swiss citizen Mehmet Aslan stirs an enchanting, percussive mystery that unfolds with great
pleasure on El Teb, while Parco Palaz conjures not one but two radically different remixes of ‘Are
You Psychic?’, demonstrating both their imaginative nous, as well as the depth of Turtle’s legacy.
Finally, an irresistible vocal contribution from Oso Leone adds even further colour and joy to ‘Maid
of The Mist’, sending off this ambitious collection on a transformative, dream-pop high.
With further details set to be revealed, there is an ongoing development focused around the
accompanying art and visuals. The Peruvian born and now Amsterdam based graphic designer
Jonathan Castro leads the art direction, along with visual artist Chris Harnan. Both artists look to
explore the intersection between sound, imagery and its reorientation, exhibited through the
musical contributors and visual translation.

“I am happy and honoured to have been the spark for this remarkable compilation.
The magnificent work done by this collection of very special people speaks for itself, so listen and
be transported. It has been half a lifetime since my original tracks were written, and I am gratified
to know that they are somehow still relevant enough to be reworked and reinvented.”

Tenet is the new sci-fi action spectacle from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh.

The Tenet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) features music from Academy- and Grammy Award-winning composer Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther, The Mandalorian), & features the new, original song “The Plan” by multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated recording artist Travis Scott, and produced by Göransson, Wondagurl and Scott.

The 3LP soundtrack features the 2 bonus tracks (which appeared on the 2CD), plus liner notes from both Christopher Nolan and Ludwig Göransson.

In the summer of 1978, an ambitious twelve-day experimental jazz project was undertaken at the ancient amphitheatre, Tasso della Quercia, on the slopes of Rome’s Gianicolo hill.

The idea was to assemble the leading players from Italy’s avante-garde jazz scene, revolving around members of Grande Elenco Musicisti (or GEM), such as saxophonists Tommaso Vittorini, Eugenio Colombo and Maurizio Giammarco, trumpeter Alberto Corvini and trombonist/composer Danilo Terenzi, together with visiting American players such as saxophonists Steve Lacy, Steve Potts and Evan Parker, trombonist Roswell Rudd, pianist Frederick Rzewski and drummer Noel McGhee, among others.

Different group configurations were enacted each day and the final gala concert formed the basis of this super rare and highly playful double album, which captures the delightfully messy proceedings. In keeping with the openness of the Roman jazz scene of the day, the project sought to push the boundaries, aiming to break big-band traditions whilst still emphasizing the collective nature of the experience.

Enrico Rava’s opening “Tromblues” emphasizes the disparate approaches of these trans-Atlantic teams and Terenzi’s “Dialogando” uses dual trombones to heighten musical discord; in mutated big-band mode, Giammarco’s thrillingly complex “Vortex Waltz” and Vittorini’s “La Legge E Uguale Per Tutti” both speak to the limitless
potential that the project was aiming for.

- The Premiere Vinyl Release of the Soundtrack - 180 Gram Black and White Swirled Colored Vinyl - Old Style Tip-On Gatefold Jackets with Satin Coating - Artwork by Phantom City Creative - 12"x12" Booklet - Scoring Session Photography - Liner Notes // Waxwork Records is proud to announce THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN Original Motion Picture Soundtrack with music by Franz Waxman. In celebration of the film's 85th Anniversary, we are thrilled to present the premiere vinyl release of the film's music as a deluxe album featuring re-mastered audio, new artwork, and likeness approvals from famed actress Elsa Lanchester's estate. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is a 1935 horror movie directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff & Elsa Lanchester. It is the first sequel to the 1931 film FRANKENSTEIN and widely regarded as one of the greatest sequels in cinematic history. The film has been praised as Whale's masterpiece. In 1998, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Sourced from the original master acetates housed in the composer's archives at Syracuse University and original masters from Universal, the album has been meticulously restored and re-mastered. Working closely with Universal Pictures, this historic release marks the very first time the original film music has been made available on vinyl. The album features new artwork by Phantom City Creative, a 12"x12" booklet including artwork and original scoring session photography, and liner notes by album producer and restoration engineer Mike Matessino.

Tala Vala combine experimental recording methods bridging marginalised genres, synths, brass and strings, jagged guitars and primal percussion.

John Roffe-Ridgard is a producer and former touring musician and Ben Locket is a composer for TV and Film.

The pair began making music in 2017 and self-released their first EP on a limited vinyl run. Mixed by Jake Jackson at Masterchord studios, the records were sold exclusively through Sounds of the Universe and Bandcamp.
Enthused by the interest in the record and selling out the run, the pair set about recording a full-length album expanding on the ideas of the fist ep. The album was again performed and produced by Ben and John using mainly analogue processes, where possible utilising 24 track tape and mixed by Jake. The self-titled record was self-released on vinyl and made it into the Stranger Than Paradise top 10 albums of the year.
Album number two began as a soundtrack project in early 2019, it was abandoned as they became disillusioned with the boundaries the film was imposing. The only remaining music from the soundtrack session is the opening cue which can be heard as the last track of what became Modern Hysteric, album two.
The new album was worked on throughout 2019 and mixed in early 2020 again sticking to mainly analogue processes, avoiding any audio plugins and computer editing. Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White) guest drums on two of the tracks ( Reoccurring Weather & Haxen ) bringing his instantly recognisable style to the Tala Vala sound. In addition to the string quartet and brass sections, a kora player and the manipulated voice of soprano singer, Grace Davidson can also be heard throughout the album.

Modern Hysteric will be released in early 2021 on the bands’ newly set up Number Witch Records distributed via Forte music.

House of Flying Daggers is a multiple Satellite, LA Film Critcs & Boston Film Critics award winning 2004 wuxia romance film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Unlike other wuxia films, it is more of a love story than purely a martial arts film. The film features the theme of a beautiful woman who brings woe to two men. The soundtrack is produced and created by legendary Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi and features vocals by Zhang Ziyi and Kathleen Battle. Shigeru Umebayashi is perhaps best known for “Yumeji’s Theme” (originally from Seijun Suzuki’s Yumeji), included in director Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love. In celebration of Umebayashi’s 70th birthday on February 19, 2021, the House of Flying Daggers soundtrack is released on vinyl for the first time. It is pressed on green marbled vinyl as a limited edition of 2000 copies. The packages comes with an exclusive replica of the movie poster and a 4-page booklet.

‘I envisioned the record as a journey through human expression over the course of one day,’ says Chicago composer and ONO member Jordan Reyes.
When planning the album, Reyes wanted to consider the trajectory of American music, drawing a throughline from the oral traditions enmeshed in blues, country, folk to contemporary underground music, splicing together acoustic instrumentation with an experimental, electronic sensibility. The album begins with human-constructed wind on opening song ‘The Pre-Dawn Light.’.
From there, Reyes adds acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lap-steel guitar, trombone, keyboards, and an electronic drum to the compositional mix.’I wanted to push myself compositionally,’ he says. ‘My first album Close was all eurorack synthesizer, a lot of which was automated by control voltage, but Sand Like Stardust has no modular synthesizers, seeking to channel the warmth, immediacy, and vulnerability of hand-played instruments and voice.’

One of the most striking documents of Italy’s Minimalist movement, Giusto Pio’s "Motore Immobile" is a work with few equivalents. Produced by Franco Battiato in 1979, at the outset of a long and fruitful period of collaboration between the two composers, and issued by the legendary Cramps Records, its triumphs were met by silence, before falling from view.

"Motore Immobile" now sits within a reappraisal of a large neglected body of efforts made by the Italian avant-garde during the second half of the 1970’s and early 80’s. It is singular, but not alone. It resonates within a collective world of shimmering sound, one familiar to fans of Battiato, Lino Capra Vaccina, Luciano Cilio, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Francesco Messina and Raul Lovisoni.

An exercise in elegant restraint - note and resonance held to the most implicit need. Where everything between root and embellishment has been stripped away. A sublime organ drone, against interventions of deceptively simple structural complexity - executed by Piano, Violin, and Voice. A sonic sculpture reaching heights which few have touched. A thing of beauty and an album as perfect as they come.

Jupiter, the gas giant in our Solar System, with thunderstorms a thousand times more powerful than on Earth, rainfalls of diamonds in the atmosphere, temperatures below -100°C, plenty of hydrogen, 79 moons and a South pole that looks like an abstract painting, has just the kind of environment this music seems to emanate from.

Jupiter and Beyond, the second collaborative effort of composer/performer Rafael Toral and percussionist João Pais Filipe as a duo (after Saturn in 2016), is definitely not quite a record of Earth music. On the contrary, Jupiter and Beyond, is indeed gas music, unfolding over two long movements without solid body or any tangible outline, between ambient and noise. A music of sheer volume and beauty, icy, massive, in which the elements of Toral's signature, in particular his use of jazz-inspired electronics and feedback, dissolve to become a labile, nebulous, expansive material, occasionally struck by abyssal depressions and masterful densities, magnified by the return, after 17 years of silence, of the electric guitar in Rafael Toral's instrumentarium.

Towards the end of Beyond, the second piece on the record, lurking behind the volutes of feedback, a bell and a bass drum, one can detect from the distance... a barking dog, as a surreptitious and prosaic reminder of where we are here and now, a calling back to Earth. Between sadness and joy, anger and peace, movement and stillness, Jupiter and Beyond is indeed a mirror held out to us, music reflecting our times and that emotionally speaks first of all about us.

"While João Pais Filipe was drummer in the Space Quartet, we played a live duo set. During soundcheck we were jamming for a while on bowed gongs and feedback and lost track of time, it just flowed so well. I joked "we could make a whole record with this!". But later we took the idea seriously and set to record an improvised session at his cymbalsmith workshop (he made the gong on the cover and it was used in the recording). When we listened to the first take the mass of sound was amazing. At some point it reminded me of the complex clusters of sound in Ligeti's music as it appears on Kubrick's 2001 scene "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite". In the end the title felt like an apt choice for Saturn's successor. Back at my studio I felt the need for some more layers of density in some sections. I thought of using trombones, but ended up picking up the electric guitar, which I hadn't used since 2003.” Rafael Toral

L’istruttoria E’Chiusa Dimentichi (internationally released as The Case Is Closed, Forget It) is a 1971 Italian crime drama film directed by Damiano Damiani. It is based on the novel Tante Sbarre (Many Bars), written by Leros Pitton and was awarded at the Tehran Film Festival. The film centres around the architect Vanzi, whom ends up in prison and ends up involved in a plot against an inconvenient witness to organised crime, passed off as a suicide, with the complicity of the security guards. Renowned composer Ennio Morricone created an obscure, yet globally beloved, score to the thriller. Tracks B2 and B3 (“Disordini (Titoli Versione Film)” and “Ordini (Versione Alternativa)” were part of the original recordings but not used for the movie final cut. Available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on orange marbled vinyl.

In the 2000’s Chee Shimizu helmed an untouchable Tokyo DJ collective called Discossession alongside Dr Nishimura (House music buyer for Cisco Records at the time). Balancing out this unit were a young Scotsman-abroad named Jonny Nash (who’d later form Sombrero Galaxy ESP001 and Gaussian Curve as well as the Melody As Truth imprint), and the late guitar virtuoso and tattoo artist Zecky. Formidable DJs and multi-talents on the Tokyo scene, Discossession released two EPs on Kenji Takimi’s Crue-L imprint and various mixes individually on lovefingers, all holding well-deserved eternal cult status. Chee’s Denshi Meisou 2006 and Follow My Dream 2007 for Lovefingers as well as his legendary “listening sessions” at HiFi lounge SHeLTeR in the Tokyo suburb of Hachioji, laid foundation for what would become known to his followers as “Organic Music” or “Obscure Sound”, the former extending as the name of his record shop and the latter as the title of his 2013 book.

Obscure Sound chronicled his tastes in detail and has since become a sort of diggers bible for peers and younger generations. At the ESP Institute’s inception in 2009, Shimizu contributed two tracks to Lovefingers’ Concentration Vol 1 compilation as apéritifs to a later release. “Later” eventually became “forever” and the mythical piano track (appearing only as a demo on Golden Age and Dekmantel 061) is still, to this day, not ready for formal release. Skip a dozen years, musical interests and major life changes, and Chee has now unveiled something quite special in accordance with his Obscure Sound—rather than making new out of old rope, he presents a collaboration with Tokyo guitarist miku-mari a.k.a. Takahiro Matsumura. The artists frequently collaborate at the experimental audio/visual event, Sacrifice, held irregularly at Tokyo’s ForestLimit, and in 2018 when Chee was invited to DJ at Japan’s only Ambient festival Camp Off-Tone, he and miku-mari endeavored to expand these works into a 2-hour improvised performance. Chee collaged various percussion samples and personal field recordings utilizing four CDJs, supplementing with live windchimes and Andean chajchas, while miku-mari coupled a guitar-controlled synthesizer, Sound Tube software (developed by Japanese Ambient composer Hiroshi Yoshimura) and more live elements such as Tibetan bells and pyramid crystals. Rehearsals for this performance were held prior to the festival at ForestLimit, recorded as multi-tracks and edited into these two cerebral Reconstructions.

Ilan Eshkeri and Shigeru Umebayashi score the music to the highly anticipated actionadventure game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Ilan Eshkeri is a critically acclaimed film, television and video game composer. Eshkeri has been nominated for a BAFTA, an Ivor Novello Award and a International Film Music Critics Association Award. Shigeru Umebayashi is an internationally acclaimed composer who has won numerous awards. He has scored the music for many notable films including ‘True Legend’, ‘Rise of the Legend’ and ‘The Wasted Times’. Triple black vinyl set with tri-gatefold sleeve and printed inner sleeves. Specialist marketing activity.

A western film noir mixed with softcore sex scenes and a Reefer Madness-style warning about the perils of marijuana…it’s all there in Cherry…& Harry & Raquel, one of Russ Meyer’s wackiest romps. And composer Bill Loose is up to the task of bridging some yawning gaps in style and plot, with a little help from fellow soundtrack composer Stu Phillips, whose fantastic garage pop tune “Toys of Our Time” (performed by “The Jacks & Balls”) appears twice, once in mono, once in stereo.

Much has changed in the musical life of renowned composer and director John Carpenter since 2016's Lost Themes II. Following the release of that album, he went on his first-ever concert tour, performing material from the Lost Themes albums, as well as music from his classic film scores. He re-recorded many of those classic movie themes for 2017's Anthology album, working alongside son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies. The following year, he was asked to executive produce and compose the music for the new Halloween movie directed by David Gordon Green, which promptly became the highest-grossing installment in the series. Now, he returns with his first album of non-soundtrack music in nearly five years, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Underpinning Carpenter's renaissance as a musician has been his collaboration with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. They've composed and performed as a trio throughout this entire run, on studio albums, on soundtracks, and onstage. Here, the trio reaches a new level of creative mind meld. Richly rendered worlds are built in the interplay between Davies's guitar and the dueling synthesizers played by the Carpenters. "We begin with a theme, a bass line, a pad, something that sounds good and will lead us to the next layer," John says of the trio's process. "We then just keep adding on from there. We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning. We've matured." Whereas the original Lost Themes album came as a pleasant surprise after years of relative silence from Carpenter, the third installment sees him in the midst of a resurgent moment as a cultural force. The 2018 Halloween score gave his music its biggest audience in decades, and the world he releases his new album into is one that has, at long last, given him the credit he deserves as a founding father of modern electronic music.

Much has changed in the musical life of renowned composer and director John Carpenter since 2016's Lost Themes II. Following the release of that album, he went on his first-ever concert tour, performing material from the Lost Themes albums, as well as music from his classic film scores. He re-recorded many of those classic movie themes for 2017's Anthology album, working alongside son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies. The following year, he was asked to executive produce and compose the music for the new Halloween movie directed by David Gordon Green, which promptly became the highest-grossing installment in the series. Now, he returns with his first album of non-soundtrack music in nearly five years, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Underpinning Carpenter's renaissance as a musician has been his collaboration with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. They've composed and performed as a trio throughout this entire run, on studio albums, on soundtracks, and onstage. Here, the trio reaches a new level of creative mind meld. Richly rendered worlds are built in the interplay between Davies's guitar and the dueling synthesizers played by the Carpenters. "We begin with a theme, a bass line, a pad, something that sounds good and will lead us to the next layer," John says of the trio's process. "We then just keep adding on from there. We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning. We've matured." Whereas the original Lost Themes album came as a pleasant surprise after years of relative silence from Carpenter, the third installment sees him in the midst of a resurgent moment as a cultural force. The 2018 Halloween score gave his music its biggest audience in decades, and the world he releases his new album into is one that has, at long last, given him the credit he deserves as a founding father of modern electronic music.

Melbourne-based violist/violinist and orchestral composer, Tamil Rogeon, returns to his jazz roots on his soaring and celestial new album, Son Of Nyx coming soon on Greg Boramans' new imprint Soul Bank Music (part of the !K7 Music Group). From conducting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the 2500-seated Hamer Hall to writing and co-producing his first full-length album in three years and one of the very few viola-led jazz LPs of our time, Rogeon joins forces with several stars of Melbourne's thriving and acclaimed jazz scene (Allysha Joy, Sam Anning et al.), channeling the cosmic energy of Yussef Lateef, Herbie Hancock and the like. Whilst often not an instrument typically associated with jazz, violin greats from Jean-Luc Ponty, Stéphane Grappelli to Billy Bang, have gone on to become iconic figures in the jazz canon, yet little can be said for the viola. Often considered the older sibling to the violin, the viola is larger in size and the tone is a lot deeper, something Rogeon was keen to make use of on Son Of Nyx. "I didn't want to make a bebop record. I wanted to make a modal jazz record and there just aren't that many on viola. I wanted to speak with a heavier voice, more akin to a tenor saxophone. The viola is darker and thicker. It speaks slower".

Grace Ferguson is a Pianist, Composer and Sound Designer based at Eastmint Studios, Melbourne, whose works seek to position the audience in a space conducive to subjective inflections, inarticulate knowledge and felt encounters.

Her debut LP release 'Voler' (out on Music Company) was met critical acclaim and reached number #4 on the Australian Independent Record (AIR) charts. The album now gets a limited vinyl pressing in a custom die cut sleeve.

Harry Bertoia's Glowing Sounds LP contains three versions of the same composition, each transferred at different tape speeds in accordance with the artist's instructions. This is the third LP to be released from Bertoia's extensive tape archive and it's the first, of many, to be released using instructions left behind by the artist himself.

Bertoia wrote the concept for this Glowing Sounds LP on a note in 1975 and slipped it into the master tape case where it sat unread for 45 years. The idea was simple, transfer the original recording at its original speed and two slower speeds. Bertoia noticed that the results, however, were profound.

Recorded on January 20, 1975 using two large gongs, Glowing Sounds is one of the most powerfully minimal recordings yet discovered in Bertoia's collection. The artist's note left with the tape indicated that it was recorded at a speed of 15 IPS (inches per second) but slowing it down to speeds of 7.5 IPS and 3.25 IPS were quite effective for enhanced playback. Side A features the original 15 IPS recording and the 50% slower 7.5 IPS recording. Side B features a 20 minute, ultra-slow version at 3.25 IPS.

Long, deep drones and powerful overtones define the sound of this recording. Comparison of the three speeds provides a revealing magnification of Bertoia's gongs, overtones and the artist's inventive approach to performance, composition and recording.

Bio:
Harry Bertoia first gained some artistic visibility in the early 1940s, then came into prominence with his sculptural, ergonomic chairs, produced by Knoll Furniture beginning in 1952, which quickly became classics of modernist furniture. Inspired by the resonant sounds emanating from metals as he worked them and encouraged by his brother Oreste, whose passion was music, Harry restored a fieldstone "Pennsylvania Dutch" barn as the home for this experiment in sounding sculptures which he had begun in the late 1950s. Bertoia was an obsessive composer and relentless experimenter, often working late into the night and accumulating hundreds of tapes of his best performances; Oreste, too, would explore and record the sculptures' sounds during his annual visits to his brother's home in rural Pennsylvania.

Harry Bertoia's recently dismantled Sonambient barn collection was an attentive listener's paradise full of warm, expressive instruments that were gorgeous visually and audibly. Nothing could prepare you, even on return visits, for the overwhelming experience of entering the spacious wood and plaster interior where gongs, some of them giant, hung among the ranks of standing sculptures of various metals. Over nearly twenty years of adding, culling and rearranging, Bertoia carefully selected nearly 100 harmonious pieces ranging in height from under a foot to more than fifteen feet. He considered this barn a full experience, sights and sounds comprising not a collection of works, but one piece unto itself. It was here, deep in the woods, that his Sonambient recording work took place.

Learning by experimentation was common for Bertoia and he mastered the art of tape recording, turning the Sonambient barn into a sound studio with four overhead microphones hanging from the rafters in a square formation. He would experiment with overdubbing by performing along to previous recordings, sometimes backwards, constantly improving his methods while also honing his performance skills. Bertoia was a careful editor of his own work and only chosen recordings remained, each with a date and carefully considered observations written on a note included with each tape. Through these pieces of paper a the artist's logic can be uncovered, a careful approach to composition, ideas, feelings and forms. The story of Sonambient barn collection will slowly be told through the release of recordings from the archive as well as installations and performances built from Bertoia's own recordings, lectures and a book.

In 2019, the power-acoustic musician Francisco Meirino presented A New Instability a commission for the venerable Ina-GRM in paris. Of course, this institution is the pre-eminent center for the research and study of electro-acoustic music dating back to founding of Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1958 by Pierre Schaeffer. To this day, Ina-GRM continues to be at the vangarde of the electro-acoustic composition, and it is quite an accomplishment and very appropriate for Meirino to receive such a commission.

This recording for A New Instability condenses the 32-channel original piece down to a still very active stereo version. here, Meirino continues to amplify and refine his compositions that walk a fine tightrope between raw expressivity of brutalist noise and conceptual rigor of more academic pursuits. Such a work ranks him in with the likes of Zbigniew Karkowski, Dave Phillips, Puce Mary, and Illusion Of Safety.

Field recordings from a kendo dojo in his hometown of Lausanne, Switzerland cast a pugilistic, combative arch to these recordings which snap, burst, explode, and erupt with utterances of men and women engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Searing frequencies build, swarm, and amass out of these episodes rise to psychologically tense crescendo that rupture at their heights, quickly turning attention towards a violence that originates from within. It is as if the objective observations of those martial arts recordings are sublimated within a subjective experience of psychic unease, disquiet, and imbalance.

A New Instability is another magnificent chapter in the ongoing body of work for this accomplished composer of electro-acoustic noise.

Eyolf Dale is a Jazz pianist and composer of exceptional beauty and poise. Rooted in Jazz he employs a classical approach yet has never studied classical. If Chopin was a Jazz pianist he would sound like Eyolf Dale. Hisphrasing is nuanced, his touch is precise and his music is deeply emotive. Being, his first album in a piano trio format, is profound, beautiful, and lyrical, bound together with a subtle groove.

Mondo, in partnership with Sony Masterworks, is proud to present the premiere physical release of Gustavo Santaolalla and Mac Quayle’s soundtrack to the highly anticipated 2020 sequel, THE LAST OF US PART II.

The music for THE LAST OF US is striking and emotionally powerful. In the original, the plucky guitar performance by Gustavo Santaolalla almost singlehandedly took the post-apocalyptic horror narrative of the game and grounded it firmly in the western genre. For PART II, with dual revenge narratives and opposing perspectives, the games team brought on an additional composer to bring another sonic soundscape into the mix: Mac Quayle. His synth contributions to the soundtrack to PART II might be the most terrifying, underlining the true physical and psychological horror that players face.

This vinyl release features stunning new artwork and double-sided cover by Tula Lotay, liner notes by Co-Writer / Director Neil Druckmann.

Music by Gustavo Santaolalla. Additional Music by Mac Quayle

Mondo, in collaboration with Walt Disney Records, is proud to present the premiere vinyl release of John Powell's brilliant score to SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY.

The origin story of science fiction’s greatest rogue is a Star Wars story through and through: a rollicking adventure, full of humor and suspense - and in the grand tradition of the franchise, features an epic sweeping score worthy of the biggest screen (or, in this case, speakers) imaginable.

John Williams' new "The Adventures of Han Theme" kicks things off in a spectacular fashion, setting the tone for John Powell's fantastic original score to enter the Star Wars canon (only the third composer to ever tackle the film series in its 40+ year legacy).

Han Solo Theme and original Star Wars music by John Williams
Score composed and adapted by John Powell
Pressed on 180 Gram Black Vinyl with artwork by César Moreno

Recorded in Chicago, Manhattan and Toronto, After Dark by Forest
Management is a collection of re-contextualized turntable audio sourced from an old vinyl copy of Claude Debussy’s La Mer.
The album shows composer John Daniel continuing to explore the territory he gestured at in 2018’s 21st Century Man, and is his biggest statement yet, clocking in at over an hour. Endlessly remixed in a software environment, the music of La Mer is transformed into new color. After Dark was inspired by events twenty years ago near the time Daniel first encountered Debussy

Paranoia is a 2013 American thriller film directed by Robert Luketic. Its score was created by Tom Holkenborg, better known as Junkie XL, a Grammy nominated multi-platinum producer, musician, composer and educator. His other scoring credits include Mad Max: Fury Road, Deadpool, Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises. This special edition of the Paranoia soundtrack includes 4 extra songs from the movie: “The Hurry and the Harm” by City and Colour, “Alive (Zedd Remix)” by Empire of the Sun, “1, 2” by Lissie and “Demon Dance” by Surfer Blood. This release comes out as a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on translucent blue vinyl and includes an insert with images from the film.

Vinyl version of the latest album (CD was released November 13th) from US singer/songwriter/composer. This is a 10 track LP featuring songs from the hit Apple TV series of the same name. Marketing activity across all media outlets.

“The Vale” is in immersive electronic album of dark soundtrack work. It’s the first of several Everyday Dust releases scheduled for Castles in Space in 2021.

Everyday Dust is RJ McConnell. Based in Scotland, RJ ditched piano lessons when he realised I had no interest in being an instrumentalist. Instead he wanted to create his own musical works from the ground up. He goes on, “I was much happier working my way through music theory books on my own and applying my learning to my own music. We had a little home studio when I was a child. My Dad was also a musician and was involved in local amateur theatre where he prepared and operated all the sound cues on reel to reel tape. So from an early age I was messing around with tape machines, making tape loops and recording music. For years I tried to make the most interesting tones I could from a Yamaha home keyboard by passing it through my Dad’s guitar pedals, or recording to tape and playing it back at different speeds etc. My first proper synth was the Roland SH101.” He went on to study music and sound for theatre and worked for many years as a theatre composer before branching into larger events and eventually film and documentary work.

The Vale story starts in 2018. RJ again, “I was brought in as composer for an independent horror short that was being filmed in Istanbul. The film was a vampire movie, very atmospheric and beautifully shot. I was aware of being a Scottish composer on a Turkish film and therefore didn’t want to attempt in any way to make anything that sounded traditionally Turkish. I wanted to represent the idea of these ancient beings who had existed in one of the oldest cities in the world for centuries. I wondered how I could imply this “ancient” world with the instruments I had to hand. I recorded various old metal whistles, which were slowed right down to become eerie arcane horn blasts that sounded like they had come from another time. I also recorded lots of melodica, which was again slowed down to sound like wheezing old harmonium drones. I spent another day recording inside an old piano, plucking individual strings and also hammering them percussively with wooden beaters. Using synthesizers and effects as the “glue” to bring these sounds together I started to work on the cues for the film. I had scored most of the film by the time I heard it was being cancelled. The concept and story had been taken over by a streaming site who wanted to make it into a series - with a drastically different tone and style.

“Later that same year I had worked on a project that incorporated the folklore of a celtic water sprite who kept the waterfalls and streams running smoothly so they could turn the mills of the local village. In return the villagers would bring the water sprite bannocks (Scottish flatbreads) each day. I started to daydream about a darker, Lovecraftian twist on this story. Some Ancient One dwelling in the forests and controlling the water - the very life essence of the village - in return for offerings of the soul. The concept was filed away in the back of my mind for some months.

“The following year I was on a flight to visit my friend in Bodrum. He had been the producer and editor on the original disbanded Vampire film, and I found myself thinking about the project again. I wondered if the sound cue files were still on my laptop, which they were. It had been a year since I’d even heard them. Hearing the eldritch folk-tinged sounds of the whistles and plucked strings my mind instantly returned to the idea of the Lovecraftian folk horror story. I started jotting down notes and musical ideas and by the time I landed in Bodrum I already had the album title - The Vale. Having the album concept and prototype ideas to work with was a huge head start in making the album. Although all of the original cues were so dramatically developed and transformed that they really just served as the initial clay on the wheel.

“I used a Doepfer A100 modular synth to create the animalistic yelps, conches and horns that were improvised over the original cues as a response to the arcane “folk” world of the acoustic instruments. This half-acoustic half-modular landscape was the sonic scene-setter I needed to move onto the composition and musical journey of the album. I composed and developed most of the musical parts on an Oberheim Matrix 6 synthesizer. However all the percussion, rhythmic sequences and ornamental synth sounds were created from improvised modular sessions multitrack recorded. A lot of editing later, the soundtrack to the movie in my mind was finally there.

Trace the arc of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's evolution and it shows an accomplished musician and composer sounding ever more confident, constantly refining and broadening his sound and indulging an ever wider set of influences. Few have been as consistently brilliant, eclectic, and intimate; fewer still have done so while being defiantly, 100% independent, refusing to sign deals that compromise artistic vision. New Fragility is a continuation of this, yet it also stands apart as one his strongest collection of songs yet. Personal yet universal, New Fragility confronts numerous modern ills. 'Where They Perform Miracles', a song concerning spirituality and alternative methods of healing, harks back to Ounsworth's time as an anthropology student doing fieldwork in Mexico, while 'Dee, Forgiven' is an intimate look at what harm anxiety, and the over-prescription of certain medication, has on the vitality of youth. The song contains one of Ounsworth's strongest vocals yet - a quivering beacon that shifts from a wail to a low grumble in the blink of an eye, a remarkable expressive instrument that sits perfectly amid the understanded orchestration. For 15 years, it's been one of music's most distinctive voices, and it's never sounded as rich or poised.

LTD. BONE OPAQUE VINYL

Trace the arc of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's evolution and it shows an accomplished musician and composer sounding ever more confident, constantly refining and broadening his sound and indulging an ever wider set of influences. Few have been as consistently brilliant, eclectic, and intimate; fewer still have done so while being defiantly, 100% independent, refusing to sign deals that compromise artistic vision. New Fragility is a continuation of this, yet it also stands apart as one his strongest collection of songs yet. Personal yet universal, New Fragility confronts numerous modern ills. 'Where They Perform Miracles', a song concerning spirituality and alternative methods of healing, harks back to Ounsworth's time as an anthropology student doing fieldwork in Mexico, while 'Dee, Forgiven' is an intimate look at what harm anxiety, and the over-prescription of certain medication, has on the vitality of youth. The song contains one of Ounsworth's strongest vocals yet - a quivering beacon that shifts from a wail to a low grumble in the blink of an eye, a remarkable expressive instrument that sits perfectly amid the understanded orchestration. For 15 years, it's been one of music's most distinctive voices, and it's never sounded as rich or poised.

incl. 12 pages booklet

Along with the publishing of the complete soundtrack of Grandia, Wayô Records is trilled to announced this official tribute album celebrating 30 years of music by Japanese video game composer legend Noriyuki Iwadare. From Grandia, Lunar to Langrisser and beyond, get ready to embark on a journey of sounds, filled with nostalgia and discovery!

Wayô Records presents you a brand new album featuring some of his most memorable and iconic melodies, beautifully arranged for violin and piano. Performed by multi-award-winning superstar pianist Benyamin Nuss, international concert violinist Shauno Isomura, and arranged by renowned composers including Michiru Oshima (ICO, Fullmetal Alchemist), Eric Roth (A New World: intimate music from FINAL FANTASY, Distant World: music from FINAL FANTASY) and many more. Also included in the album, a world premiere track Overcome composed especially for this album by Noriyuki Iwadare himself.

Unique composer duo Rebekka Karijord & Jon Ekstrand create compelling, hybrid score to intimate portrait of teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg `I Am Greta', the intimate Hulu documentary by Swedish director Nathan Gross-man, tells the story of teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg through compel-ling, never-before-seen-footage. Starting with her one-person school strike for cli-mate action outside the Swedish Parliament, Grossman follows Greta in her rise to prominence. The film culminates with the extraordinary wind-powered voyage across the Atlantic to speak at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York. To musically accompany Greta and the children of the Fridays for Future movement on their journey, composers Rebekka Karijord and Jon Ekstrand spent time searching for the right balance when it comes to how much emotional triggers the music should of-fer: "With the music for `I Am Greta' we aimed to find a sonic counterpoint to the friction between the shy, contemplative inner world of Greta, and the unbounded ener-gy of the natural world and climate change movement. From the start we found it useful to separate the score into three distinct voices: Greta's Voice, the voice of the natural world, and the voice of the climate change movement." "We choose to work with repetition and persistent musical patterns, often illustrated through energetic string arpeggios. This we felt helped underline the remarkable persistence and focus of Greta has on the climate issue, as well as that of the re-lentlessness of nature. Then we found a few places throughout the score, where more melodic aspects could be introduced and carry the story through its dramaturgical journey. It allowed the melodic aspects to shine through when they are introduced." "The score consists of a string octet, modular synthesisers and a voice instrument built by Rebekka of 25 unique singers sampled in their full range. Our soloist on the soundtrack is the cellist Linnea Olsson, whom has a very specific airy and organ-ic tone." "Rebekka and Jon's dynamic score to `I Am Greta' is huge and intimate, uplifting and melancholic, and manages to carry the emotional nuance of Greta's story. The score forms a musical parallel to Greta's journey and narrative voice throughout the film. It's energy, urgency and emotional depth reminds us that the time for climate action is now." - Nathan Grossman, director of `I Am Greta'

In a Word, the sixteenth installment of the intergenerational collaboration series FRKWYS, brings together postminimalist composer Daniel Lentz with vocalist and sound artist Ian William Craig for an album that embraces erosion and the fertility of the loam left behind. A document of shared transformation, Lentz's elegant piano figures and Craig's trembling tenor are wilted, warbled, and looped through manipulated tape machines in a real time composition that evokes a strange warmth and layered beauty.

‘Instant Opaque Evening’ is an epic offering from The Underflow, the new trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs and Rob Mazurek. It makes vast strides on the heels of their self-titled 2019 debut (Corbett vs. Dempsey/Underflow Records) with nearly 90 minutes of intensely focused live performances from January 2020 shows in France, Belgium, Italy and Poland. That tour was a revelation for all three members, experienced as they are, with this still-new group’s freedom to walk onstage each night determined to surprise one another, moving from long instrumental improvisations into and out of songs and covering a terrific amount of ground at each of these concerts.
‘Instant Opaque Evening’ conveys this broad sweep, from the full-tilt electronics of ‘Self-Portrait As Interference Pattern’ and the climax of the seventeen-minute ‘Instant Opaque Evening’ to the inspired, alternate universe chamber music of ‘Planks’ and ‘A Thin Eternity’ and the group’s spontaneous arrangements of three previously recorded songs by Grubbs, ‘Gethsemani Night’, ‘An Optimist Declines’ and ‘Cooler Side Of The Pillow’.
The short version of the long tale of intersecting paths bringing together these three musicians begins in Chicago in the 1990s, with all three active participants in numerous convergences among jazz, free improvisation, experimental rock and more. Both Gustafsson and Mazurek appear as guests on Gastr del Sol albums (‘Upgrade & Afterlife’ and ‘Camoufleur’ respectively; that’s Rob’s cornet taking ‘The Seasons Reverse’ to new heights) and shortly thereafter Grubbs and Gustafsson recorded two duo albums, including the deep minimalism of ‘Apertura’, a talismanic favourite of both musicians.
David Grubbs has played in Gastr del Sol, the Red Krayola and Squirrel Bait and performed with Tony Conrad, Susan Howe, Pauline Oliveros, Will Oldham and many others. He’s the author of the books The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled and Records Ruin the Landscape.
Saxophone player, improviser and composer Mats Gustafsson is known as a solo artist and for international tours and projects with, among many others, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Peter Brötzmann, Neneh Cherry, Christian Marclay, Albert Oehlen, Ken Vandermark and the working groups FIRE!, THE END, LUFT, ANGUISH and Gush, as well as collaborations with contemporary dance, theatre, art, poetry and projects with noise.
Rob Mazurek is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on electro-acoustic composition, improvisation, performance, painting, sculpture, video, film and installation, who spent much of his creative life in Chicago and then Brazil. He currently lives and works in Marfa, Texas. He leads/co-leads many ensembles of various sizes and shapes including his flagship large ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra, Chicago Underground and São Paulo Underground. He has
collaborated with Bill Dixon, Pharoah Sanders, Roscoe Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Chad Taylor, Jim O’Rourke, Naná Vasconcelos and many others.

Sonor Music Editions presents the first commercial release on vinyl (shortly followed by a CD edition) of Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to the film "I DUE EVASI DI SING SING" from 1964, directed by the legendary Lucio Fulci and starring the famed Italian comedy characters Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. A bit away from what would have been his 92° birthday, the label presents a pseudo unreleased gem by the greatest all-time composer at the beginning of his career. This stunning recovery was possible thanks to the work of the producer Lorenzo Fabrizi (head of Sonor Music Editions) and the collaboration of Claudio Fuiano and Daniel Winkler, two significant connoisseurs in the field and maestro Morricone's discography. The album was originally released on an impossible-to-find promo-only library release in the late '60s with different titles, due to that the score remained concealed until now. With the recoup of the original MONO tapes Sonor was able to work with the original soundtrack sequence adding two bonus tracks from the original sessions. The music enhances the stories of two sloppy thiefs (Franchi and Ingrassia) in the styles of orchestral Jazz and Bossa Nova, with more sweet and cheerful themes built around the bewitching character of Gloria Paul.

Passion is the fifth and final part of a series of five double vinyl releases that bring together some of Ennio Morricone’s greatest soundtrack music. Each collection centres on a different movie genre, together they allow the listener to rediscover the unmatched genius of the greatest movie composer of all time. Passion once again reminds us that everything in Italian life is approached with gusto, energy and passion.

Passion is available as a limited edition of 3000 individually numbered copies on pink and purple marbled vinyl. The package includes a 4-page insert with liner notes written by Claudio Fuiano. The gatefold sleeve contains a diamond glitter foil spot varnish on the outside and images of iconic movie posters on the inside.

"New York, N.Y. is a high point in the work of leading jazz composer and arranger George Russell. Russell was an early advocate for Modal Jazz and the conceptualizer of the influential Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. For this 1959 Decca classic, Russell assembled an all-star orchestra, including John Coltrane, Bill Evans (a frequent Russell collaborator), Art Farmer, Bob Brookmeyer and Milt Hinton, among others. Singer Jon Hendricks provided beatnik-style, stream-of-consciousness narrations that opened and closed this landmark album.
Verve’s Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging."

First Base is an album by British rock music group Babe Ruth. It was released in September 1972 and went gold in Canada, and sold very well in the US. It was their biggest success, both in terms of popular and critical acclaim. This LP defines an interesting junction between hard rock and progressive rock. The album contains “The Mexican”, the band’s classic song which includes a theme by western soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone. “The Mexican” has been covered and remixed many times. Other highlights include the powerful rock number “Wells Fargo”, “King Kong”, and “Black Dog”. The album cover was painted by Roger Dean, who also illustrated many Yes albums.