S 489

Suzanne Ciani
Buchla Concerts 1975
FKR082LP
Finders Keepers Records

Finders Keepers invite you to witness the incredible first ever Buchla synthesiser concerts/demonstrations providing a distinctive feminine alternative to The Silver Apples Of The Moon if they had ever been presented in phonographic form. This is history in the remaking.

This spring Finders Keepers Records are proud to release an archival project that not only redefines musical history but boasts genuine claim to the overused buzzwords such as pioneering, maverick, experimental, groundbreaking and esoteric, while questioning social politics and the evolution of music technology as we’ve come to understand it. To describe this records as a game-changer is an understatement. This record represents a musical revolution, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counter culture creativity. This record is a triumphant yardstick in the synthesiser space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial moon. While pondering the early accolades of this record it’s daunting to learn that this record was in fact not a record at all… It was a manifesto and a gateway to a new world, that somehow never quite opened. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic, pulses, tones and harmonics found on this 1975 live presentation/grant application/educational demonstration had been placed in a phonographic context alongside the promoted work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos or Tomita then the name Suzanne Ciani and her influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound and gender of our record collections. Hopefully there is still chance.

In short, Suzanne was a self-imposed twenty-year-old employee of the Buchla modular synthesiser company, San Francisco’s neck and neck contender to New York’s Moog. Buchla was run by a community of festival freaks and academic acid eaters whose roots in new age lifestyles and the reinvention of art and music replaced the business acumen enjoyed by its likeminded East Coasters. In the eyes of the consumer the creative refusal to adopt rudimentary facets like a piano keyboard controller rendered the Buchla synthesiser the more obscure stubborn sister of the synth marathon, steering these incredible units away from the mainstream into the homes and studios of free music aficionados, art house composers and die-hard revolutionaries. Championed and semi-showcased by composer Morton Subotnick on his albums The Bull and Silver Apples Of The Moon, Buchla’s versatility began to open the minds of a new generation, but the high-end design features and no-compromise modus operandi was often confused with incompatibility and, in the pulsating shadow of Moog’s marketing, the revolution would not be televised nor patronised. Suzanne Ciani, as one of the very few female composers on the frontline (and also providing the back line) did not lose faith.

These “concerts” are the epitome of rare music technology historic documents, performed by a real musician whose skills and academic education in classical composition already outweighed her male synthesiser contemporaries of twice her age. At the very start of her fragile career these recordings are nothing short of sacrificial ode to her mentor and machine, sonic pickets of the revolution and love letters to an absolutely genuine vision of and ‘alternative’ musical future. In denouncing her own precocious polymathmatic past in a bid to persuade the world to sing from a new hymn sheet, Suzanne Ciani created a bi-product of never before heard music that would render the pigeon holes “ambient” and “futuristic” utterly inadequate. Providing nothing short of an entirely different feminine take on the experimental “records” of Morton Subotnick and proving to a small, judgmental audience and jury the true versatility of one of the most radical and idiosyncratic musical instruments of the 20th century. These recordings have not been heard since then.

Suzanne Ciani - Buchla Concerts 1975 (Excerpts)

From the very first Empty Editions release, Eli Keszler's Last Signs of Speed. Releasing November 17nth!

Eli Keszler - Last Signs of Speed
Format: 2xLP / DIGITAL
Cat.No: EE001
Cut & Mastered by Rashad Becker
Release Date: 17 November 2016

Purchase:
Vinyl: http://bit.ly/2kvaxBM
Bandcamp: http://bit.ly/2jTI75w

Empty Editions is proud to present Eli Keszler’s Last Signs of Speed as our inaugural release. This release, our first vinyl record, has represented a labor of love for both Eli and ourselves.
 
Last Signs is Eli’s first solo release since 2012’s Catching Net (PAN Records) and explores a very different side of his unique acoustic universe. One in which the macrocosmic percussive collisions of his earlier work give way to a gradual unfolding of dub-influenced rhythmic constellations. Eli has described Last Signs as his response to playing in club environments over the last few years; an attempt to negotiate a delicate balance between the materiality of his acoustic instrument and the hyper-mediated sonic ecosystem of the club sound system. Coming off like an inspired synthesis between Scientist and Xenakis, Last Signs of Speed is a truly unique work by an artist at the height of his powers.

Last Signs Of Speed

The Immense Endless Belt of Faces

PREMIERE > inverted-audio.com/premiere-raymonde-la-forte-cinq

We're glad to share with you the first extract off Zèbres Records' debut EP 'J'aime Bien Le Tonnerre', courtesy of unheard French talent Raymonde. From these four cuts of tribal, leftfield-leaning oddities tinged with musique concrète and industrial complexions, 'La Forte Cinq' projects hallucinated visions of a safari-like ride across shape-shifting bushes and delirious rituals. An outstanding debut delivery.

Raymonde - La Forte Cinq [Zèbres Records]

ulla - table

Title track from the new LP, 'Insignia', out in Japan-only on cassette for Ryo Murakami's Depth Of Decay label.

https://depthofdecay.bandcamp.com/album/insignia

Insignia

Serge 606

Andrea Taeggi—Zimní Král (12" vinyl LP)

The music on this record was made using a vast array of rare analog machines Andrea had the chance to work on at the Willem-Twee synthesis studio in Holland (built with the iconic Studio di Fonologia RAI as a blueprint). Most of the percussive sounds come from an Analog Computer, which has been rarely used only as a music instrument (its main purpose was flight simulation). In fact, during the Cold War times it was also used as measurement tool by civil engineers and even by the army. 
To my knowledge, very few artists have given a new context to the such device, which I have found absolutely unique-sounding and gave me enough inspiration to compose a whole new album focused on it. 

At present, no one has ever officially released music recorded at the Willem-Twee synthesis studio.

The music on this record further explores cyclical, minimal and hypnotic concoctions – a particular  investigation focused on unusual rhythms that Andrea had already started on his well-received ‘Mama Matrix Most Mysterious’, released on Type in 2015. Think walls of subfrequencies, snappy rollercoasters of the mind, labyrinths in hyperspace & snakes eating their own tails.

Zimní Král means “Winter King” in Czech and was the epithet given to Frederick V Elector Palatine (king of Bohemia), the last of a legacy to actively support alchemy as a means of studying reality, the self and their inter-reflections.

All music by Andrea Taeggi
https://andreataeggi.wordpress.com

Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin

Forthcoming on SM-LL Sept 1st, 2018
http://www.sm-ll.com

Dinergy (SM-LL, Sept 1st)

Bendik Giske - Up

Artist: JAB (John Also Bennett)
Title: Erg Herbe 
Label: Shelter Press
Cat#: SP105
Format: LP / Digital
Out: March 7th, 2019

Info / Order: shelter-press.org/jab-erg-herbe/
Digital: shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/erg-herbe

Distribution: 
Boomkat (UK/EU)
Forced Exposure (USA)

JAB 'A LITTLE BREEZE' (SP105)

track from Miaux's 'Black Space, White Cloud' LP

Miaux : Lunar Surface

Empty Editions is a Berlin-based publishing platform initiated by the Empty Gallery, Hong Kong. Empty Editions releases vinyl records, artist books, multiples, and other ephemera with a special focus on the intersection between visual and sonic arts. We are restless explorers of the fertile territory where the vernacular meets the avant-garde. Forthcoming releases from Empty Editions include music by Jean-Luc Guionnet, Daichi Yoshikawa and a documentary on Karou Abe by Modern Music's founder, Hideo Ikeezumi.

The Immense Endless Belt of Faces

Empty Editions

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