Electronic


The album Liebestod from Polish composer Stefan Wesolowski consists of repetitive compositions written for piano, brass instruments, strings and electronics. Featuring a cameo by Michael Jacaszek.
 
The title itself is derived from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" which says a lot about Wesolowski's primary inspirations. Liebestod shows a tremendous amount of respect for classical music but Wesolowski is far from making literal references to it. Wesolowski shows his own unique musical language; rough and radical at some points, yet full of intense nostalgia and beauty. 

Recommended if you like: Arvo Part, Steve Reich, William Basinski, Jacaszek 

Recorded in Old Town Hall, Academy of Music in Gdansk & on the baltic coast and at home in Sopot, 2011/2012.

Realised with the financial support of The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Mayor of Gdansk, Marshal of Pomorskie Voivodeship and City Culture Institute.


Stefan Wesolowski "Ostinato" from the album Liebestod (IMPREC397) Release date: April 15, 2014

Zurich includes Tony Wilson (Knives ov Resistance), Neil Halstead (Slowdive/Mojave 3), 
& Sarah Peacock (Seefeel). All of the recordings were lost until very recently when Touch recording artist Mark Van Hoen found the two tracks on old CD-Rs and cassettes he was given by Wilson. This CD version of the original LP release includes bonus tracks.

Zurich began as a 1994 musical partnership between Neil Halstead then of Slowdive and  Tony F Wilson. The two recorded a handful of tracks together at a time when Wilson was  co-promoting and DJing at the club/live night Quirky in South London where he booked acts  including Pan Sonic, Hafler Trio and Autechre. Halstead was shortly to begin work on Slowdive’s  final and most experimental album Pygmalion. Recorded at a time when the popularity of ambient  techno was at its peak, these recordings are remarkably austere by comparison. Whilst A Harsh 
Truth displays the Oriental gracefulness of a Sakamoto/Sylvian collaboration, Tzarist’s gothic 
industrialism shares more in common with the early works of Coil. Following the release of  Pygmalion and Creation letting go of Slowdive, Halstead would disband Slowdive and abandon  sound experimentation to create more song-based material in Mojave 3.  Shortly thereafter,  Wilson began collaborating with drum & bass producer and engineer Joe Gray on more rhythm  based, yet still atmospheric productions. Too Scared to Breath features the voice of Seefeel’s  Sarah Peacock and sounds not unlike prime Autechre and Aphex. Militia (Dynamic Warfare) on 
the other hand mirrors the post-metal Dub of Techno Animal and Scorn.

ZURICH Too Scared To Breathe from ZURICH CD featuring members of Slowdive, Seefeel

Mix of three excerpts from our upcoming 3LP/2CD archive of Else Marie Pade's electronic work.

Else Marie Pade Electronic Works- Excerpt Mix

Pre-order Alessandro Cortini's Forse 3 and a deluxe Forse t-shirt box set here: 
http://importantrecords.com/imprec/imprec418

Alessandro Cortini "Scappa" from Forse 3  2xLP   Pre -Orders available now

"Issa is the debut release from Bristol based musician and composer Kit Wilmans Fegradoe. The magic in Issa comes from Fegradoe’s powerful exploration of emotion and sensitivity, which leads to a deeply personal and revealing listen. The work evokes the scale of Michael Stearns compositions for film, whilst eliciting a minimalist undercurrent throughout. The album is sculpted from guided improvisation sessions in the studio with fellow musicians, traversing around the narrative of Issa, a young transient Jesus Christ.”  
(RIYL: Arvo Part, Steve Reich, John Adams, Gavin Bryars, Phill Niblock, Duane Pitre, James Blackshaw ) 
    

Kit Wilmans Fegradoe - Shruti - From the album Issa - Available April 14

Pinkcourtesyphone sends you a Sentimental Something from the depths of its obsessed heart. A sonic love note of smudged ink. Joined by the otherwordly Evelina Domnitch, friend and former cover model/vocalist on Description of Problem LP. On the central core “Tears of Modernism” Miss Domnitch wields her dark magic on Theremin, weaving a mournful kiss on the envelope from beyond.

This records is pressed in an edition of 300 copies and packaged in a pink jacket on thick board stock with a lush matte finish.

PINKCOURTESYPHONE (Richard Chartier) Tearsofmodernism from Sentimental Something LP - Aug 2015

Divertissement is the third collaborative full length from minimalist composer William Basinski and sound artist Richard Chartier.

The duo utilize electronics, piano, tape-loops and short wave radio to evoke a dense atmosphere suggesting hundreds of years of history rising up from the depths of a reverberating cathedral. Subtle, buried and intense murmurs of melody morph through this deeply consuming and slowly evolving composition in two parts.

Pressed in an edition of 500 with beautiful cover drawings by artist James Elaine. 100 copies are on color vinyl for mailorder customers.

William Basinski + Richard Chartier - Divertissement - LP edit Aug 2015

This is the third collaborative release by Steven Wilson (Bass Communion) and Frans de Waard (Freiband), following two well-received 3"CD releases, both on De Waard's My Own Little Label.  Early in 2014 Frans extended an invitation to Steven to take part in his Brombron project, where one artist works in residence with another musician for one week, on music to be performed in concert at the end of that week.  That other musician turned out to be Thomas Köner, the date December 2014, the location Extrapool, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In the middle of this residency there happened to be a day off when Thomas needed to be out of town. Rather than waste the day, Steven and Frans decided on an impromptu concert performance, and spent the day preparing the music. The concert took place that evening in the relaxed environment of Extrapool for a small audience of invited friends. This record contains a slightly reworked recording of the performance on a 12” vinyl with a total playing time of 26 minutes. No additional overdubs were made, but parts of the music on the second side were subsequently layered and recycled in the studio.  On side 1 'Courage’ is in the tradition of ambient musique concrete, and continues the style and approach of the previous Bass Communion / Freiband releases.  But on side 2  'Cowardice’ shatters expectations with a slab of psychedelic noise assault, complete with exploding rhythm machines and gnarled electric guitar.

Strictly limited to 500 copies on vinyl in a beautiful Carl Glover designed sleeve.

Bass Communion / Freiband - collaborative LP - Aug 2015

produced by David Rothenberg
artwork and visualization by Michael Deal

What record album was so important that ten million copies of it needed to be pressed at once? You guessed it. Songs of the Humpback Whale. In 1979 National Geographic Magazine inserted a flexible "sound page" inside the back cover of all of its editions in twenty-five languages, and that is supposedly how many they printed. No human pop star has ever received such magnanimous treatment, so what is it that is so special about the songs of the humpback whale?

Well, for one, humans knew nothing of this fabulous sound until the US Navy released its classified recordings at the end of the 1960s, at the very moment the world was most poised to listen to the unknown, the psychedelic, and the trippiest of sounds. Humpback whale song fit the bill perfectly. From high wails to deep growls to rhythmic scratches to tearful moans, it encompasses the full range of emotions in the longest song performed by any animal, a tune that can go on for nearly twenty-four hours at a time. People are often moved to tears when they hear such intensity for the first time. Some cannot believe it could ever come from a place as silent as the sea. This song inspired the global movement to Save the Whales which continues unto this day.

People tend to assume humpback whale song just a "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooh" and leave it at that. But if you sit down and listen to a complete humpback performance you will find that the long moan is only one note in a complex composition, with distinct phrases, repetition, structure, organization, shape and form akin to many kinds of human music. This is no random outburst of cries and whispers, but a song with power, verve, identity, and design.

It is a desire to go beyond memory and into the sounds of reality that has led us to release New Songs of the Humpback Whale, which aims to gather the best recent recordings of scientists and whale listeners the globe over to give all of us a chance to assess what has happened to whale song over the past few decades. One can hear gradual changes in humpback song from year to year, with some phrases lengthening, others shortening, others disappearing altogether as new variations appear. The change can be heard month to month, and even week to week within a single season. Today's whale songs should sound quite different from what he fondly remembers from the sixties. But is their musical culture going downhill? Or is it on the rise? Or just changing? Can we humans even tell the difference?

To tell the difference Michael Deal, designer of the Pinterest logo and a veteran of Google and Splice, has created a new way to visualize humpback whale song, based on sonograms familiar to sound scientist but simplified into colorful glyphs making the structure of this grand underwater music easier to understand than ever before.

Though humpback whale song did not evolve for humans to appreciate, it may be no accident that we do. Upon hearing the great song for the first time, whale scientist Roger Payne said he heard the size of the ocean, "as if I had walked into a dark cave to hear wave after wave of echoes cascading back from the darkness beyond.... That's what whales do, give the ocean its voice."


Humpback Whale in Madagascar from New Sounds of the Humpback Whale CD

Mark Lyken is an Artist, Composer and Filmmaker based in rural Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland.
He creates musical and sound pieces, film, paintings and installations.


The Cromarty Firth is an inlet of the North Sea in the Highlands of Scotland. 
It is an important and protected natural habitat of seabirds and marine mammals, yet it is also an essential berth of the Oil and Tourism industries. Based in a field station ideally located at the Cromarty Lighthouse, Ecologists from the University of Aberdeen study how natural and man-made environmental changes influence the behaviour and populations of the Firth’s protected species.

In 2012 Lyken was Artist in residence at the Lighthouse Field Station where he worked alongside the Ecologists and recorded 
The Terrestrial Sea album. He returned to Cromarty in 2014 to collaborate on a companion film with award-winning Filmmaker Emma Dove.

The Terrestrial Sea is the culmination of that work, highlighting the diverse and ever-changing environments that the Ecologists are studying through music and film.

A link to watch the film is contained within the CD packaging.

The Terrestrial Sea is deeply imbued with a sense of place. Whilst sonically evoking the drama and beauty of the land and seascapes of the Cromarty Firth it also explores the tensions that exist surrounding the natural and industrial world. 
The music combines real world, electronic and processed sounds, creating a sometimes incongruous soundworld of corroded melodies, percussive clangs, drilling platform drones, pile driving booms, intensifying boat noise, local voices, the simulated sounds of weather and the ever-present sea itself. 


* Featuring the voices of ecologists: Professor Paul Thompson, 
Barbara Cheney, Line Cordes, Daniel Johnston and Tessa Van Heumen reading “BRIGHT BOOM” by Mark Lyken

Recorded on the Black Isle, Scotland 2012
Mastered by Jos Smolders at EARLabs Studio


Mark Lyken - Dry Sea (excerpt)- imprec437 - April 29

Eleh's influential Radiant Intervals I, originally released on CD/LP in 2010, is a meticulously nuanced, restrained exploration of the rhythmic and harmonic relationships inherent in pure analog frequencies using a blend of intuitive and mathematically based tunings. Dense patterns of sound slowly unravel and are woven together again in new ways while harmonics hover and shift overhead. Radiant Intervals is a purely analog recording, made with a Serge Modular system, Mini Moog, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 and a Pro-One.

Radiant Intervals

ELEH Night Of Pure Energy from Radiant Intervals LP - Available Nov. 2016

The Ape Of Naples is Coil's highly celebrated final album completed by Peter Christopherson following the tragic death of Jhonn Balance in 2004. Often noted for being a fan favorite, The Ape Of Naples uses Balance's final recordings and material recorded at Trent Reznor's studio in New Orleans to create a deep, heavy masterpiece.

Ape Of Naples

Coil - Fire Of The Mind - from The Ape Of Naples CD/2LP - 2018 REPRESS AVAILABLE

Vergers is Davachi's third full-length release following Barons Court (2015, Students of Decay) and Dominions (2016, JAZ Records), and her second appearance with Important Records following 2014's August Harp cassette on the Cassauna imprint. 

In this work, she meditates on a single electronic instrument, the EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer, while also weaving sparse acoustic elements – her own voice and violin – into a series of three long-form, muted gestures.

Elements of distance and alienation are certainly at play in the textural quality of these compositions, a feeling that is further defined by track titles that reference the spirit world and an album title that calls to mind the solitary tasks of the church orderly.

The record opens with the aptly titled, Gentle So Gentle, a side-long movement that harkens the glacial character of Davachi's previous efforts. Ghosts And All and In Staying suggest a more disjointed path, with the latter culminating in a subtly dissonant dirge that leaves little absolve between the organic, the artificial, and the impermanent.

Vergers

Sarah Davachi - Ghosts And All - from Vergers LP - IMPREC442

"One of electronic music's most interesting new voices." FACT

"Born Again In The Voltage" is an astonishing collection of electro-acoustic pieces for Buchla 200 system, cello and voice composed and produced by Caterina Barbieri at Elektronmusikstudion (SE) between 2014 and 2015.

Virtual Fundament

Caterina Barbieri - How To Decode An Illusion - LP Available Aug 10, 2018

First 8 minutes features an edit from Caterina Barbieri's piece and the second 8 minutes features an edit from ELEH's side. 

Highly synergistic split from ELEH/Caterina Barbieri featuring two sides of similar audio dimensions. These two electronic sound poems slowly unfurl rich timbre and harmonics with an austere stillness that is, somehow, ever-changing. It hardly matters whose side is whose. 

200 copies are available on clear vinyl for Imprec mailorder.

Caterina Barbieri/ELEH Split LP MIX - Available Aug 10, 2018 - Pre-order now available

*** Please do not purchase the new Pauline Oliveros Electronic Music double LP from Sub Rosa. This record was released without the permission of Pauline's estate and contains tracks that overlap with this official release ***

Important Records and the Pauline Oliveros Trust are pleased to announce the beginning of a series of releases aimed at keeping Pauline Oliveros' music and philosophy alive. 

Reverberations 1 is the first vinyl release from the Reverberations box set which was released in conjunction with Pauline Oliveros' 80th birthday celebrations. This historic box set contains 11 CDs of Pauline's unreleased electronic work recorded between 1959 and 1970.

Pauline Oliveros - Mnemonics Mix - From Reverberations I - 2LP -  pre-orders available now

Pre-order available now. Color copies exclusively available for Important Records mailorder customers. 

Multivocal is a polyphonic maze that unfolds to both the body and the mind. A generative take on rhythm and spacial perception, it presents the same events in different configurations. 

The two pieces of the album, "Solid of Revolution" and "Never Odd or Even", mirror each other with the same principle in different musical scales: steady pulses with one millisecond difference in tempo start beating together, then slowly phase organically and progress into ever-changing rhythmic patterns until they finally return to unison. 

Multivocal emphasizes shifts of attention in the listener’s experience and plays with the expectations that frame it. Originally conceived for quadraphonic sound, the pieces reveal the many different aspects and modes of perception that can arise within the same sequence of notes. In this way Multivocal is influenced by concepts of gestalt psychology such as multistable perception - a term describing ambiguous patterns that offer multiple interpretations at once. The minimalism and repetitive quality of the music also refers to trance-inducing and collective music practices, driven by the strong bodily affects induced through the use of rhythms.

Those two compositions were recorded live during Ars Electronica 2018 at the occasion of the sleeping event « Sonatas for Sleep/less », curated by multimedia artist Shu Lea Cheang and cultural theorist Matthew Fuller.

Jessica Ekomane - Multivocal - LP - PRE-ORDER

The final Shasta Cults release of the season comes your way this November on Important Records vinyl and digital.  This audiophile release was manufactured at RTI and cut by John Golden. The package looks as good as it sounds with artwork by IMPREC and is presented in limited edition clear and standard black vinyl editions.

Shasta Cults is the musical project of Canadian electronics technician Richard Smith.  For almost two decades, Smith was the official Buchla & Associates go-to repair person for studios, collectors, and musicians around the world, having worked with artists like Aphex Twin, Suzanne Ciani, Mort Subotnick and institutions like NYU, The Library of Congress and Mills College in Oakland, Ca.

Shasta Cults - Incline - from self titled LP

LAWRENCE ENGLISH
LONELY WOMENS CLUB LP

IMPREC367

Beautiful new work from Lawrence English. Pressed in an edition of 500 copies. First 100 copies are on violet vinyl.

New minimalist composition from Lawrence English composed and recorded over the month of July in 2011 - whilst nursing his newly arrived daughter between the hours of 11pm and 4am. Recorded entirely with an elka 30 organ and given a gentle toasting through LPE's analog mastering set up.

http://importantrecords.com/imprec/imprec367

"Cigarette Burn (excerpt)" by Lawrence English IMPREC367

August 2015 update - 2nd pressing now shipping
http://importantrecords.com/imprec/imprec373

"Gloria" from the upcoming 2XLP 'Forse 1' by Alessandro Cortini. Catalog# IMPREC373

Deluxe double LP pressed in an edition of 500 copies. First 100 copies pressed are on red vinyl.

Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels) composed the Forse series using a Buchla Music Easel. Forse, meaning "maybe" In Italian, is a series of 3 double LP releases Cortini recorded for Important to release in 2013.