p*dis distribution sampler for December 2016.

p*dis sampler 2016.12

Release date: 27.05.2022

Martin Taxt – microtonal tuba, hand bells, composition
Rolf Erik Nystrøm – alto saxophone, hand bells
Laura Marie Rueslåtten – organ, hand bells
Inga Margrete Aas – double bass, hand bells
Peder Simonsen – microtonal tuba, hand bells, modular synthesizer

Second Room is Taxt’s second album in a series of works investigating possible relations between music and architecture. In this work written for alto saxophone, two microtonal tubas, double bass, church organ, hand bells and modular synthesizers he is inspired by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, and his ideas on different concepts of living. 

In a lecture at the Harvard University in 2011, Fujimoto sets up a comparison between the nest and the cave, as two fundamentally different ways of living concepts. Whereas the nest represents safety, conformity and predictability, a space designed for people, the cave on the other side represents the unknown, a naturally shaped space, not designed for the purpose of living. It can be uncomfortable to enter the dark cave but spending time inside one can gradually start to adapt to the space. By rethinking our concept of space and the relation between space and human body we will eventually discover different functionalities within the cave and innovate new functions in the already designed space. 

(…)A grid system with 36 pitches was the starting point of the composing process. Imagining the grid as a cave, I made 3 different paths through the grid as if I was exploring the cave. These three melodies became the outline for this composition. On ‘Disruption, disjunction, deconstruction’ the musicians are exploring the 36 pitches independently, as if, quoting Fujimoto; finding their own small favourite comfortable places inside the natural cave(…)

Martin Taxt: disruption, disjunction, deconstruction from Second Room

Release date: 27.05.2022 (CD/DD) 05.08.2022 (LP)

In their new composition, Swagger, Oslo-based vocal duo Propan augment their customary sound palate with the aid of an eight-strong ensemble of strings, winds, percussion, voices, and electronics - an ensemble by the name Propanions. Combining pre-scored and improvised content, Swagger moves between the soft sound of tuning forks, odd beats, curious text, playful melodies and textural noise, resulting in an eccentric piece of definite character - an eclectic manifestation of the duo’s electroacoustic universe.

SWAGGER was commissioned in 2016 by Femme Brutal, a feminist booking and DJ collective. It received its world premiere at Oslo’s Parkteater, as part of the 2016 Femme Brutal Festival. The original score included choreographic movements performed live by musicians and a detailed lighting design.

Propan was founded in 2011 by vocalists Ina Sagstuen and Natali Abrahamsen Garner. They have toured widely throughout the world, including Japan, Australia, USA, Europe. Swagger is their fourth release, following Baby (Va Fongool 2016), Trending (SOFA 2019) and Loom (GLARC 2022).

Propan: B2 from Swagger

In this episode of Talking Experiments, host Jennifer Torrence and artist Espen Sommer Eide go deep into Espen’s new work The Waves, which will premiere at Borealis 2022. He discusses how The Waves explores some of the key ideas returning again and again in his work: language and music, building instruments, the form of the album, improvisation, collaboration, and presence and absence.

Espen Sommer Eide’s The Waves, runs from 16-20 March 2022 at Christinegaard Hovedgaard in Bergen, Norway.

Talking Experiments is hosted by Jennifer Torrence and produced by Borealis – a festival for experimental music

Talking Experiments with Espen Sommer Eide

Title: mind is moving (IV)
Artist: Michael Francis Duch
SOFA 591 (2LP/DD)
Release date: 27.05.2022

mind is moving (IV)

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: "The flag is moving."
The other said: "The wind is moving."
The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."

mind is moving (IV) is part of a series of pieces composed by Michael Pisaro-Liu. It is a collection of 60 sounds for the contrabass, and any performance may include anywhere from 30 to all 60 sounds in the score, that may be played in any order. There is one sound per minute and all are played pizzicato and generally soft. After playing the sound the performer should hold her/his position for as long as possible before playing the next sound, allowing the sound to ring as long as possible. 

The Koan that inspired the title of this series gives us an idea how to approach this piece, both as a listener as well as well as a performer. What are we listening to: The bass, the decay of the sounds played or the background noise?  Sound is moving and we are observing the process of the birth and death (decay) of each sound and, of course, the empty space between each sound event. In Zen this is referred to as Ma.

Although being an early piece by Pisaro-Liu (1996), it is seldom performed and has yet been recorded. This recording took place in the Nidaros cathedral in Trondheim in August 2019. As mentioned, the piece itself has no narrative as such, as the sounds can be played in any order and half of them may be omitted. Yet, the performer creates a narrative when interpreting and playing it. 
There is also another possible narrative here to be listened to. The piece was recorded in one take around midnight, and by default an hour of sound was documented from inside the cathedral, telling a parallel story of its own.

Michael F. Duch / Michael Pisaro: mind is moving (iv) excerpt

“Gifting Senselessly In Endless Lavishness” is the second single out from Kim Myhr’s upcoming album “Sympathetic Magic”, an ecstatic, delirious, and deeply touching piece of music; a towering new work in Kim Myhr’s increasingly substantial output as an artist and composer. 

“Gifting Senselessly In Endless Lavishness” is a title taken from a book by Bojana Kunst. The music is very generous, almost indulgent. The first thing I wrote on the piece was the organ intro, I wanted to make something ecstatic and soulful, and the rest of the song flowed naturally into different sections. Working with an RnB drum beat like that was a first for me. It’s a very grounded quality that gives a good contrast to the undulating waves of 12-string guitar harmonics.” - Kim Myhr

Gifting Senselessly In Endless Lavishness

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Kim Myhr: "Gifting Senselessly In Endless Lavishness" from upcoming "Sympathetic Magic"

SOFA is proud to mark its 100th release with the stunningly beautiful double album Hereafter, a new major work from guitarist/composer Kim Myhr, written for the 15-piece Stavanger-based ensemble Kitchen Orchestra. 

“Hereafter can be seen as a meditation on mortality and transience”, Myhr explains. “It was written at a time where the prime minister of Norway told the country’s population that ‘you have to be prepared to lose someone dear to you’.  It was like taken out of Tarkovsky’s “Sacrifice”. This atmosphere set the tone for Hereafter, which was written in 2020. For me, this piece is about the acknowledging and acceptance of disaster”. 

During the months of composing the music, Myhr kept humming the song sung by Salamat Ali Khan in Satyajit Ray’s classic film “Jalsaghar”, in the scene where the son and wife of the main character dies in a storm. For Myhr, the song resonated with the mood of the moment and acted like an undercurrent for the making of Hereafter. “There is a haunting sadness to that song, but there’s also something very grounded about it. The way the singer looks straight at the protagonist. There is no escaping this. That was the feeling.”

Kim Myhr’s previous release “Sympathetic Magic” which was written the following year, was utopian and deliriously optimistic in character. In Hereafter, there is a strong gravitas, and the state of mind is centered.  “I think it’s one of my more eloquent and varied pieces. Even if the framework is grave, it goes through many different shades. And if the piece takes flight into more ecstatic territory, the music quickly retires back to more pensive ground”. The piece consists of two main parts, a bit like a morning and evening raga, where the first part is darker and second part is of a more uplifting character (the two sections are divided into smaller sections for listener’s convenience). 

Thus, sunrise and sunset, the sea and the shore, life and death, permeate the often-elegiac music on Hereafter, a stunning piece of music that ranks among Myhr’s best works yet. It is released as a gatefold double-LP, CD and DL, with a beautiful cover photo by Eleonore Huisse and art direction by Stephen O’Malley.

Kitchen Orchestra is a heterogenous ensemble based in Stavanger with musicians coming from different musical scenes, a perfect match for Kim Myhr’s music. The line-up includes drummers Ståle Birkeland and Dag Magnus Narvesen, Marius Munthe-Kaas on vibraphone, Øyvind Dale on organ and synthesizer, Johan Egdetveit on accordion, Signe Irene Time on vocals and cassette player, Dag Egil Njaa on laptop processing, two bass players John Lilja and Thomas Bang doubling on guitar as well as electric and double basses, string players Nils Erga and Jenni Witick, and horn players Arild Hoem, Petter Frost Fadnes, Gunhild Seim and Gaute Vikdal focusing primarily on the darker timbres with two baritone saxes, bass trombone and trumpet. Kim Myhr himself plays both 12- and 6-string electric guitars.

Bio 
Norwegian guitarist and composer Kim Myhr has been touring internationally since the early 2000s and has released several records under his own name. His album You | me (2017) was nominated to Nordic Music Prize, and received wide acclaim internationally. As a composer he has made music for Australian Art Orchestra, Canadian string quartet Quatuor Bozzini, Kitchen Orchestra and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra of Norway, and has collaborated with Jenny Hval (on the 2012 collaborative album “In The End His Voice Will Be The Sound Of Paper”, Tony Buck of The Necks (on the album “You | me”), Lasse Marhaug, Christian Wallumrød, poet Caroline Bergvall and many others. His last record Vesper with Australian Art Orchestra was nominated for a Norwegian Grammy in 2020 in the contemporary category. Hereafter is the ninth album under his own name.
“Kim Myhr is a master of slow-morphing rhythms and sun-dappled textures that seem to glow from the inside”. -       The Guardian

Kim Myhr & Kitchen Orchestra Hereafter VI

Kim Myhr & Lasse Marhaug - 31.5.17 [excerpt]

Kim Myhr & Kitchen Orchestra: Hereafter VII

Ingar Zach: Il battito del vichingo

Machloop EP+ Digest Ver

Dear Boats fans,

For a few years we have received messages asking if we would reissue our back catalogue. Over ten years of archival material has been stored between Craig’s shed and Andrew’s studio. It has been discussed but always put on hold due to timing, touring, and other project releases; as well as a wedding (Craig and Annabel’s!)

This summer, we sat down together to discuss the possibility of a deluxe reissue. It had to include all the things that we love (beautiful handcrafted design, limited copies, screen-prints and personal touches) ... things we know that you, our fans, appreciate too. One of the main questions we had was, “how do we keep the artistic independence for a special project and not get restrained by label requirements?”

Simple, really! We reissue it ourselves, for our fans, directly to our fans. 

And so, WE MADE IT FOR YOU. 

We have created a strictly limited number of 98 deluxe box archival reissue sets. 
Why only 98?
We have pulled apart the original pianos used to record We Made It For You and Tomorrow Time.
Each deluxe set will include a unique signed piano key.
Minus our personal copies (two each, and one for the boss) it leaves just under 100 to sell.

We will press after pre-sale. That means, we can only press the records after we have sold the 98 sets. If we don’t sell the full amount, you will receive a full refund.

We are however, optimistic that you can support us, and the project can go ahead!

Here are the gifts you will receive:

These newly re-mastered recordings: 
• Songs By The Sea (Double Vinyl)
• We Made It For You (Vinyl)
• Tomorrow Time (Vinyl)
• Static Clings (Vinyl)
• Lost Ideas Expanded (CD)
• The Boats Live Europe 2006 Bootleg (Cassette)

• A limited, numbered, screen-print with each release, made by our own (fair) hands.
• A designed booklet with each vinyl release.
• A unique piano key from the We Made It For You / Tomorrow Time pianos.
• A piece of the original blueprint artwork from Songs By The Sea.
• Each vinyl will be hand numbered and signed.
• And... your name will be printed in the Lost Ideas booklet as a Boats Patron, to mark your support to the archive reissues.



This is the first time these albums have been released on archival black vinyl with new masters by our friend Miles Whittaker (DEMDIKE STARE). 

THIS IS A ONE-TIME, LIMITED OPPORTUNITY. 

With such a small release number, they are likely to sell out quickly. The £200 is only a one-time payment for the full archival set and the additional extras. Copies are limited to two per person (for those who like to play/archive). This ensures the deluxe editions only end up with our true fans and not for resale on discogs for £££.

Any questions? You may have them answered here (FAQ). Anything else? Send us a message here. 

LASTLY...

So many of our fans have become our friends. By supporting our project you support us, to keep on delivering music and merchandise independently. From all ‘the family’ of The Boats, THANK YOU!

Bye for now,

Craig and Andrew
theboats.band

WE MADE IT FOR YOU

Sarah Alice

Jumble

Order 'Iris' on (Ltd. Clear) Vinyl, CD and digitally here: http://phonofile.link/iris-bonus

A Winged Victory For The Sullen, the otherworldly collaboration between Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran, commence the New Year with their third full-length titled Iris – available worldwide via Erased Tapes on January 13th 2017.

Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O'Halloran first met the director Jalil Lespert after he had discovered A Winged Victory For The Sullen on a music search online. After listening to their music, he immediately knew: "it was the sound of my new film". With an excellent cast of France’s finest actors Romain Duris, Charlotte Le Bon, and the director himself, plus a script filled with tension, sexuality and darkness, they knew there was a lot of musical territory to mine. It was agreed that they wanted to explore more analogue electronique experiments as well as working with a large string ensemble, to create something that felt very modern and still cinematic.

“Despite A Winged Victory For The Sullen being associated with film score type music, trying to survive the process of creating the modern film score is not for people with fragile egos. It requires those who are the most responsive to change. The director and the film presented a new set of challenges, so we decided to stop thinking about cinema as an object, and moved closer to using the film’s images as triggers for experiences. The more we were able to let go, and see the music as something that happens, like a process – not a quality, the more we were able to reach a place that sounded like us. It was as if we were making our first record all over again, except being filtered through another language littered with dead metaphors”, the duo elaborate.

The recording sessions began with their long time sound collaborator Francesco Donadello in the form of some modular synth sessions in Berlin. Dustin and Adam began working from the script in their own studios, and after filming commenced they continued to create music that could be used for first edits of the film – each day getting new scenes that triggered ideas that would become the base of the film score. Over the course of the next few months the two slowly crafted the music with weekly discussion from their studio to the editing room. The final sessions to what is now the score of Iris were recorded with a 40-piece string orchestra at Magyar Radio in Budapest.

Upon label founder Robert Raths' request the over sixty minutes of material were then edited down to a concise album listen at forty-one minutes with a physical release set for January 13, 2017. The digital bonus track edition includes two solo pieces by Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie entitled The Endless Battle Of The Maudlin Ballade Part 2 and The Endless Battle Of The Maudlin Ballade Part 3, as well as tracks by Petite Noir, dOP, DJ Pone and The Shoes which feature in the film. The artwork was created by Berlin based illustrator Stephanie F. Scholz who also created the iconic cover for Nils Frahm's Music for The Motion Picture Victoria.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prologue Iris  
2. Retour Au Champs De Mars 
3. Fantasme  
4. Gare Du Nord Part One  
5. L’embauche  
6. Le Retour En Foret  
7. Metro Part Three  
8. Flashback Antoine  
9. Galerie  
10. Le Renversement  
11. Normandie  
12. Comme On A Dit

A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Galerie

'Iris' is out now worldwide on all digital services. You can pre-order the album on (Ltd. Clear) Vinyl, CD here: phonofile.link/iris-bonus

A Winged Victory For The Sullen, the otherworldly collaboration between Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran, commence the New Year with their third full-length titled Iris – available worldwide via Erased Tapes on January 13th 2017.

Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O'Halloran first met the director Jalil Lespert after he had discovered A Winged Victory For The Sullen on a music search online. After listening to their music, he immediately knew: "it was the sound of my new film". With an excellent cast of France’s finest actors Romain Duris, Charlotte Le Bon, and the director himself, plus a script filled with tension, sexuality and darkness, they knew there was a lot of musical territory to mine. It was agreed that they wanted to explore more analogue electronique experiments as well as working with a large string ensemble, to create something that felt very modern and still cinematic.

“Despite A Winged Victory For The Sullen being associated with film score type music, trying to survive the process of creating the modern film score is not for people with fragile egos. It requires those who are the most responsive to change. The director and the film presented a new set of challenges, so we decided to stop thinking about cinema as an object, and moved closer to using the film’s images as triggers for experiences. The more we were able to let go, and see the music as something that happens, like a process – not a quality, the more we were able to reach a place that sounded like us. It was as if we were making our first record all over again, except being filtered through another language littered with dead metaphors”, the duo elaborate.

The recording sessions began with their long time sound collaborator Francesco Donadello in the form of some modular synth sessions in Berlin. Dustin and Adam began working from the script in their own studios, and after filming commenced they continued to create music that could be used for first edits of the film – each day getting new scenes that triggered ideas that would become the base of the film score. Over the course of the next few months the two slowly crafted the music with weekly discussion from their studio to the editing room. The final sessions to what is now the score of Iris were recorded with a 40-piece string orchestra at Magyar Radio in Budapest.

Upon label founder Robert Raths' request the over sixty minutes of material were then edited down to a concise album listen at forty-one minutes with a physical release set for January 13, 2017. The digital bonus track edition includes two solo pieces by Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie entitled The Endless Battle Of The Maudlin Ballade Part 2 and The Endless Battle Of The Maudlin Ballade Part 3, as well as tracks by Petite Noir, dOP, DJ Pone and The Shoes which feature in the film. The artwork was created by Berlin based illustrator Stephanie F. Scholz who also created the iconic cover for Nils Frahm's Music for The Motion Picture Victoria.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prologue Iris 
2. Retour Au Champs De Mars 
3. Fantasme 
4. Gare Du Nord Part One 
5. L’embauche 
6. Le Retour En Foret 
7. Metro Part Three 
8. Flashback Antoine 
9. Galerie 
10. Le Renversement 
11. Normandie 
12. Comme On A Dit

A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Retour Au Champs De Mars

Sofa Music is proud to present the solo debut album of Norwegian composer and sound artist Tine Surel Lange. 

Works for Listening 1-10 is a series of spatial electro-acoustic works developed at Notam (NO), MISC (LT), and EMS (SE). All the works are made in 5th order ambisonics but have been presented in many different formats- as in this stereo decoding of the works.

In Works for Listening, there is a strong focus on listening-aesthetics and our psychological categorization of sound. Surrounding sound environments are created with material taken from everyday life: organic sound sources reconstructed to varying degrees by tone, rhythm, timbre, and layers. The sonic material in Works for Listening appears physical and tactile, and often abstracted from their original state. 
As Tine Surel Lange expresses herself: With Works for Listening, I hope to create inspiration for increased listening experiences in life.

Tine Surel Lange: Muorjegarggu

Release date: 9. April 2021

Sofa Music continues to release Microtub’s unique research into the microtonal tuba. The music on Sonic Drift achieves an even greater depth and leaves the listener sucked in to the trio’s extraordinary complex band sound. 

Sonic Drift is Microtub’s fifth album since their debut in 2011. Whereas the first four albums were recorded shortly after the music was composed, the music for Sonic Drift evolved considerably through the process of playing live concerts throughout Europe. Initially developed in 2017 and 2018, the music was recorded in Studio Paradiso in Oslo shortly before the European-wide lockdown started in March 2020. 

The first track, Sonic Drift, was originally composed by Robin Hayward for the Bohemian Drips festival at the large water tower in Berlin in June 2018. Inspired by the exceptionally long reverb within the circular tower, the piece drifts and rotates through ‘neutral’ harmonies based on the 11th, 13th and 29th harmonics and subharmonics contained within the microtonal tuba tunings. 

The Pederson Concerto is the second track of the album and is a collective composition by Microtub. It uses multiples of the 7th and 11th partials to create detuned perfect fifths and fourths, along with the unusual flattened minor third ‘169:144’. The piece features Peder Simonsen oscillating through the various intervals and triggering the other two players. The backing track was also made by Peder, using the analog electronic sounds of a Moog synthesizer.

Microtub: The Pederson Concerto (extract)

Independent label and distributor in Tokyo, Japan specializing in indie / underground music from Indie Rock / Electronica / Alternative, Ambient / Drone / Experimental,   Jazz / Crossover / Avant-grade, Techno / House / Disco, Beat / Downtempo / Dubstep.

We are here to seek new talent and inspire your music life. You can put your music in our dropBox or make contact with us via soundcloud. Any music and style is welcome and appreciated.

All music on this account is fully authorized by labels and artists. However, if you find contents infringing your copyright and the information is incorrect, please give us a notice. We'll act on your requests immediately. 



SOFA is a Norwegian record label for experimental music run by musicians Martin Taxt, Ingar Zach and Kim Myhr.

Ingar Zach: Il battito del vichingo

SOFA

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