Philippe Vandal (Excerpt)

Network Glass ( Excerpt)

Heejin Jang (Excerpt)

Tom Borax is a founding member of the High Zero Festival of Improvised Music and 
a true OG-Baltimore-head who has been keeping this city weird for over 20 years. He is a prolific artist who has performed hundreds of shows in basements, warehouses, churches, yurts, backyards and caves. 

His debut solo UVL offering features instrumentation on harpsichord, pipe organ, modular synthesizer, percussion, trombone and vibraphone. The album draws from a rich and varied sonic palette including ‘60s and ‘70s Italian Film Soundtracks, composers such as Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Egisto Macchi, Franco Battiato, Vintage Tape and Synthesizer music, Sun Ra, Arabic and Indian music, and Harsh Noise. 

“My hope for my recorded music is that it conveys what I love about listening to music, the eclectic, playful, dreamy, spiritual, mysterious.” - Tom Borax, Baltimore 2021 

Four color Risograph edition of 100.

Tom Borax - The Breatharian

Tom Borax - Why Did I Leave Things On Earth?

n May of 2020 I began a daily practice of exploring extended just intonation harmonies on the alto saxophone. For nearly a year I recorded every night, layering multiple tracks of saxophone or playing against an electronic drone. I worked with strict overtone relationships, integer multiples on a fundamental tone, as well as scales with so-called "undertone" relationships, derived from divisions of a fundamental tone. The recordings on Studies for Just Intonation Saxophone are drawn from these sessions. Some are rough sketches simply demonstrating a static harmony. Others are melodic improvisations on modal scales. Study III is a collage of different studies that was composed for the 2020 High Zero Festival and originally accompanied a video by Tim Nohe. - Andrew Bernstein, 2022

ANDREW BERNSTEIN - STUDIES FOR JUST INTONATION SAXOPHONE

"Spectral is a collection of tracks using either the Buchla 296 or 296e
Spectral Processor. It was fun taking it into different sonic universes to see 
what it would reveal. Enjoy!" - Todd Barton, 2022

TODD BARTON - SPECTRAL ( excerpt)

“In the first year of the pandemic, I started creating with and occasionally recording my modular synth at the end of the day between nine and ten at night. It was my way of decompressing and tuning out the stress of that period. Most of these tracks came out of that ritual of exploring my instrument. I usually only record something if the sound produces the same level of joy and excitement that I received from the process of discovering it, and I usually only release something if I feel that months later the recording is still interesting once the memory of and tactile imprint of the creative act is gone.” - JJR 

Hand-numbered edition of 100 vinyl records. 4-color risograph print with additional silver silkscreen.

JIMMY JOE ROCHE - FLICKER FILM IN THE SUMMER BREEZE

Ultraviolet Light is proud to announce a split vinyl LP featuring three new tracks of exploratory music apiece by innovative electronic musicians Todd Barton and Hainbach. 
 
Four decades into making music in conversation with modern classical, jazz, poetry, ancient music, new age, and the avant-garde, Todd Barton continues to craft sounds that know no boundaries. Berlin-based Hainbach’s side conjures a pulsing and immersive electronic landscape very much in conversation with Barton’s spacious and unfettered compositions. Taken as a whole, the album relocates us into a cerebral yet viscerally affecting cinema of orchestrated chaos and near-future noise. 

This release continues Ultraviolet Light’s unique relationship with both artists. Todd Barton curated the artists featured on the label’s sold-old Buchla Now cassette; Barton and Hainbach’s first pairing was on a 2019 Ultraviolet Light split cassette.

The Hainbach and Todd Barton split vinyl LP will be released on January 13, 2023, and limited to 300 copies.

TODD BARTON - Openings

HAINBACH - Aus Zwei Welten

"Collages of algorithmic compositions, saxophone / voice / prepared piano improvisations and AI human-machine interactions. Realized and processed with MaxMSP, various other DSP, ASC tape recorders and chemical tape treatment. " - Matthias Urban, 2023

Two Color Risograph Edition of 100. Digital Download Card Included.
Drums on "We Are Not Your Ears" by Elia Moretti.

Matthias Urban - We Are Not Your Ears

"A while back I found a Casio keyboard on the sidewalk. I took it home and pulled it apart. After discarding the keys and exposing the IC and circuit boards, I began to soldier connections between the IC and various copper nodes on the Keyboard. In some places, I installed switches and pots between the wires. Some of the wires I allowed to float above the board so that I could use alligator clips, or my fingers, to make temporary connections. This tape documents the sounds the new instrument produced. The album cover is a photo of the instrument as it looked during the recording process" - JJR 2023 
Risograph CMYK edition of 120. Digital download included.

JIMMY JOE ROCHE - HAPPY CASIO

"The works that appear on this cassette are all live, improvised takes that were produced by using software that is listed on the blog Missing Music. The website serves as a repository of 200+ rare and obscure music packages that were available during the 90s onwards for Macintosh computer systems. Almost every corner of the Internet was inspected for traces of software that was once known but now forgotten; old forum posts, forgotten mailing lists, dormant FTP sites, P2P filesharing hosts, the Wayback Machine. The Missing Music blog acts as a hub for music historians and software enthusiasts to discover Mac music software that once populated the digital landscape two decades ago and influenced the sonic aesthetic of what electronic music is today. This record is a contemporary reimagining of what can be achieved using this now obsolete software using nothing but iBook and PowerBook G4 computers." - SS 2023

Suren Seneviratne is a prolific artist having his name attached to numerous high-profile projects both in front and behind the scenes since 2011. From playing drums in spoken word outfit Benin City to DJing with eco-activists Extinction Rebellion to appearances on Rinse FM, NTS, Resonance FM and multiple prestigious art institutions, he has actively sought to reinvent his sonic skillset with each new milestone. He most recently scored a feature documentary 'The Taste of Mango' which is touring US film festivals and having its UK premiere at London Film Festival later this year.

SUREN SENEVIRATNE - EXCERPT

Daniel Higgs, former frontman of Lungfish, is a living legend. A wandering mystic transporting his audience into altered states of consciousness, Higgs has released over ten solo albums and been creating music for over 30 years. For his first release on UVL Higgs reads from his epic poem the Fools Sermon with accompaniment on farfisa organ by Baltimore artist Stephen Strohmeier.

Daniel Higgs - The Fools Sermon Part II (excerpt)

Electronic musician and buchla extraordinaire, Todd Barton has returned for his second release with Ultraviolet. On this tape, he focuses solely on compositions for the Hordijk analog synth designed by the legendary synthesis guru Rob Hordijk.

3 color fluorescent silkscreen cassette cover.
Edition of 150.

Todd Barton - Concatenations - Side A (Excerpt)

Guitarist and free improviser Tashi Dorji grew up in Bhutan and has developed a playing style unbound by tradition, yet with a direct line to intuitive artistry. His recordings feature improvisations that spasmodically grow along tangential, surprising paths. For this Ultraviolet Light release Dorji improvises on electric guitar. Tracks 1, 2, 3 Recorded Live at the Dreamland, Louisville KY by Connor Bell, May 30th 2014. Track 4 recorded by Patrick Kukucka at The Mission for Temporal Art, Marshall NC November 20th, 2014. Edition of 100.

Tashi Dorji - Live at the Dreamland + 1 (Excerpt)

This release contains dripping swamp mirages, psychic messages trapped in atmospheric cloud formations and bad elevator music.  Improvisations on Cocoquantus, Double Knot and Modular Synthesizer.  Mixed and mastered by Jeff Carey. Laser cut insert. Edition of 150.

Piss Kills Mold - Sentient Fungus - Side A (Excerpt)

id m theft able is a prolific sound collagist, vocal improviser and noise musician. He runs the label Mangdisc out of Portland, Mang. Crank Sturgeon, is mainstay of Northeastern noise who's known for crafting massive dadaist costumes and attaching contact mics to all kinds of half-broken devices. This split cassette features new material from both artists. Edition of 100.

id m theft able - Watch Me Piss My Day Away (Side A) (Excerpt)

Violin Forms; The name of the album reflects its making: the main sound source is the violin I inherited from my grandfather. The track names are metaphors for the compositional process: I played a few parallel notes into bottomless sea that is the Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoquantus and set them adrift from each other, while also freezing each in time. The thawing movement induced by control voltage turns what lasted only a few seconds in our acoustic reality into a seemingly endless moment. A handful of organ tones contrast the flickering motions of the violins, giving a process that might appear too technical else wise a human touch. - Hainbach, Berlin 2017
Risograph printed edition of 100.

Hainbach - Ice As The Sun (Excerpt)

"The music on "Fleas" was made entirely from objects found at thrift stores and flea markets including a dozen small bells and a bass drum someone had converted into a lamp with Lou Reed’s face painted on it before throwing it out. Not exactly music made from trash, but music made from objects of little monetary value that someone decided they didn’t want anymore. Objects usually tell you how to play them if you’ll allow it." - Sarah Hennies, New York 2017. Risograph printed edition of 100 with download card.

Sarah Hennies -Fleas (Excerpt)

Fahmi Mursyid - Lautan

"Both pieces are composed/improvised in real time using a Buchla Music Easel
and a TC Electronic Ditto x4 looper.  Angya is a journey that follows sounds as they
unfold into various sonic universes.  Texture III explores creating an ever-changing
timbral drone."- Todd Barton 

"Its a clichè that every composer travelling to Bali must be influenced by the Gamelan orchestra. I am not the exception. There is a magic to the Gamelan that conforms with what electronic music is to me, both in sound and composition. Using Adam Morford's cut down version of the Gamelan, the rough but beautiful Gamelan Strips, I composed the first piece of this collaborative album. The second uses modular synthesizers to mimic the layering techniques of the Gamelan. The final track, Antics, explores a different but similarly influential idiophone, the African mbira. Together, these three tell a story of immersion and disintegration, folding percussive sounds into ambient timbres." - Hainbach 

3 color Risograph. Hand labeled edition of 150 tapes.  Download cards included.

Todd Barton (Excerpt)

Hainbach (Excerpt)

"D.P. Elements is a collection of tracks originally conceived of as the follow up record to my LP Esstends-Esstends-Esstends. At the time I was producing this work I was completely obsessed with sound synthesis and was reveling in the materiality of sound as sound. I was spending hours listening to how different sounds reacted to one another as they rubbed up against each other.

I was living in a sort of shack on an artists colony in upstate NY. My little studio had no sound proofing and so everything I was working on would drift up to the main road that ran through the colony. Donald Fagen lived up that road and he would take walks past the shack. I'd see him walking by and think "hmm - I wonder what Donald thinks of this?"

Although these tracks are only now seeing the light of day as a whole (that is, as they were intended to be heard), over the years small fragments of this material has found its way into other projects of mine, including the Damaged Particulates LP released on Shelter Press in 2016 and Feel Anything, the duo record I made with Marina Rosenfeld that was released on iDEAL in 2018. " - Ben Vida, New York 2019. 2 Color Risograph edition of 150. Download codes included.

Ben Vida - DPElements (Excerpt)

Network Glass - Joker Culture (Excerpt)

"D.P. Elements is a collection of tracks originally conceived of as the follow up record to my LP Esstends-Esstends-Esstends. At the time I was producing this work I was completely obsessed with sound synthesis and was reveling in the materiality of sound as sound. I was spending hours  listening to how different sounds reacted to one another as they rubbed up against each other.  

I was living in a sort of shack on an artists colony in upstate NY.  My little studio had no sound proofing and so everything I was working on would drift up to the main road that ran through the colony.  Donald Fagen lived up that road and he would take walks past the shack.  I'd see him walking by and think "hmm - I wonder what Donald thinks of this?"  

Although these tracks are only now seeing the light of day as a whole (that is, as they were intended to be heard), over the years small fragments of this material has found its way into other projects of mine, including the Damaged Particulates LP released on Shelter Press in 2016 and Feel Anything, the duo record I made with Marina Rosenfeld that was released on iDEAL in 2018. " - Ben Vida, New York 2019. 2 Color Risograph edition of 150. Download codes included.

Ben Vida - DPElements (Excerpt #2)

"A ringing that approaches from the distance. An accumulation of harmonics, of a fullness, a density, craning ever upward. The examination of states of solitude, the vast expanse of singularity, the violence of realization. Minor percussion mingles with gasps of tape manipulation. The mangled fidelity, a blown-out tonality: are we in the red?"
- Lea Bertucci, 2019 

"These tracks are based on excerpts from electronic improvisations investigating the cycle, as opposed to the loop, in arrangements. Sounds portray various irreversible emergencies, such as an attack from a psychic vampire or a spilled glass of water." - Kyle Eyre Clyde, 2019  

3 color risograph edition of 100.  Digital download included.

Lea Bertucci - Leaden Hours

Kyle Eyre Clyd - Dramatization

My name is Jimmy Joe Roche and I run a label called Ultraviolet Light. Since I launched UVL in 2015 I’ve been lucky enough to put out 3 cassettes with Todd Barton and we’ve kept something “in the fire” pretty consistently for the last five years. For 2020 I asked Todd if he’d be willing to curate a compilation of Buchela players. So here we are ! 

I think the work I’ve released on UVL has kinship with the sonic richness and experimentation that I associate with instruments designed by Don Buchla. The Buchla sound, and the thought process that people bring to the instrument ( or perhaps that the instruments brings forth in them) is undeniably unique and should be celebrated and preserved. When I wrote the mission statement for UVL I included this line : UVL is “ dedicated to releasing work by artists who push sonic boundaries, emphasize experimentation, conceptualize sound as invisible sculpture and radiate mysterious energies.” I feel like you fit this description and I sincerely hope you’ll be willing to allow us to include a track of yours on this compilation.

My plan is to do a first edition of 200 and mail each participating artist 5 copies as compensation. If the first run of the tape sells out within the year I may do a second edition of 200, again mailing each artist 5 copies. So a maximum of 400 copies total. I don't do online digital sales and I don't do open editions, so the artists always know exactly what and how much I’m selling. You all, of course, maintain all rights to your work and are free to re-release the tracks at a later date but I’d ask that you please wait for the first 200 to sell out ( or about 18 months). The tapes will include digital download cards. 

Say yes !
Sincerely , 
jjr

Buchla Now - Kaytlin Arella Smith (Excerpt)

UVL is proud to release two new side-long compositions from Max Eilbacher. Edition of 150 three color risograph print.

Digital Sketch For Strings
One morning I had an idea for a string composition. The tonal colors of the strings would be constantly morphing between shifting intonations. A rising and falling spectrum of many different sonorities would construct a throbbing, living whole. The gestural and perceptive qualities of the stringed accumulation would exist somewhere between glacial and in constant motion. I ended up using saw waves instead of string samples or acoustic instruments, as I found the harmonics of a saw wave helped achieve what I was hearing in my head that morning.

Spectral Masking Room Construction
A work exploring onset partials on audio perception and spectral masking. I started with a woodblock sample. For me, the woodblock's harsh yet beautiful striking sound is complex. The short burst acts as an extremely salient and trepidatious sonic cue. After listening for hours to a single strike and performing in-depth spectral analysis, I began to hear and comprehend the strike’s intricate material composite as extending beyond its short temporal life. The burst started to exist as an impulse response. With each strike, information about the space in which the woodblock’s material existed for the recording was communicated. The room in which the wood was struck was just as much a part of the sonic material being heard as the wooden material colliding with one another. Synthesizing the woodblock sound from scratch turned into a minute study of individual partial’s attack and decay times. I used the results of spectral analysis and composed around the initial short strike. The pitches comprising the fundamentals and overtones in the sample were extracted in various clusters and used to create a few different digital synths. The timing structure of the sampled and synthesized strikes are controlled by a simple counting transform. By doing so I set conceptual throughlines for the variants of struck sounds. The many variations of partials being highlighted or sent to the audio background serve to imitate “fake” spaces in which these sounds exist and convey subtle architectural information to the listener.

- Max Elibacher, 2020

Max Eilbacher (excerpt)

Ultraviolet Light is a cassette label established in 2015 in Baltimore Md . The label is founded, operated and curated by Jimmy Joe Roche.  UVL is dedicated to releasing work by artists who push sonic boundaries, emphasize experimentation, conceptualize sound as invisible sculpture and radiate mysterious energies. 

Ultraviolet Light

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