• Music

    Milan Knížák – Broken Music

    May 4, 2023 - By 

    Milan Knížák is a hidden treasure from the Czech Republic.  He has been a performance artist, sculptor, musician, installation artist, dissident, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art according to his biography, but what sets him apart is that he is the true father of turntablism.  All modern practicioners, such as Christian Marclay, the late Philip Jeck, Boyd Rice (NON) and Otomo Yoshihide owe him a great debt.  The recordings are made of broken, scratched and damaged records repurposed for new compositions, and the sounds would have fit perfectly had he had the opportunity to work with fellow Czech…

  • Music

    Hadi Bastani and Maryam Sirvan – trans​.​placed

    March 28, 2023 - By 

    It’s wonderful to hear one of my favorite sound designers, Maryam Sirvan come up with new material.  She is paired with fellow expatriate Hadi Bastani in this 20-minute mini-LP of electroacoustics and field recordings.  From the release’s Bandcamp site: “Stretching from Berlin to Tbilisi, trans.placed starts with the simple act of opening a door. This everyday gesture forms the fabric of this dense, meticulous and profound work which obsesses over the dramatic sonic transitions which occur when we move from outside to indoors. What sounds come with us as we make this transition? What new soundscapes do we encounter? And…

  • Music

    Extremophiles – First Batch

    February 21, 2023 - By 

    Extremophiles are a duo made up of Jeff Gburek on synthesizer, percussion, effects, devices and John Palumbo on electro-acoustic drums, percussion, and more electronics.  I have to say this release blew me away, as it reminded be of a cross between the crunchy post-punk/Rock-In-Opposition vibe of This Heat’s early work and the more Industrial, less dance-oriented sound of Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF).  The music is fresh, but it will bring back a lot of memories for those of us who remember such sounds.

  • Music

    Methuzelah (Jeff Gburek & Pete Swinton) – First Album

    December 1, 2022 - By 

    Today is an auspicious day, as I’m proud to say that this is the 700th consecutive post this blog has produced since January 1, 2021.  The release is one I held onto for such an occasion, as Jeff Gburek, heavily featured on my site for the astounding quality of his work, pairs with Pete Swinton, a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Java, Indonesia.  The music has a hazy, lo-fi psychedelic rock quality to it, and the pieces on this album feel alive.  You get the sense that you’re not only listening to the album, but it’s crawling inside of you. …

  • Music

    Jeff Gburek – Five Broke Downe Homesick for the Open Road Medley Blues

    November 7, 2022 - By 

    Fresh recordings have been delivered by Jeff Gburek, and there are a few more in the pipeline, apparently, so 2022 will be a busy year for one of the blog’s favorites.  From Jeff’s Bandcamp site: “Five Broke Downe Homesick for the Open Road Medley Blues came to me as the title for tracks I recorded in October bounced off of various field recordings from the Summer 2022 . They are all recorded spontaneously at various locations. One can hear domestic and wilderness noises in the backgrounds (1), campfires, foxes or wolves, crickets (3). The tracks are mostly raw juxtapositions of…

  • Music

    EYRYX – Psychological Projective

    October 19, 2022 - By 

    There aren’t too many releases that seamlessly blend electroacoustic music, post-Industrial and noise-rock, but to their credit, EYRYX seem to have straddled this very thin line perfectly.  The release features friend of our blog, Philippe Gerber, who not only performs on the album, but who released it on his Alreon Musique.

  • Music

    Jeff Gburek – Pharoah’s Tarot

    October 10, 2022 - By 

    Pharoah Sanders left this mortal coil on September 24, 2022, after leaving a stellar body of work and his influence on countless musicians including Jeff Gburek.  The influence was profound, and you can hear it on this album, where the guitar glides into something free, not as in noisy free-jazz, but something free-floating, gentle, relaxing, almost heavenly.  It certainly bears the stamp of his own work, and that of Sanders, but I hear also a touch of Sonny Sharrock in this mix as well. This is experimental music that is gentle on the ear and on the mind.

  • Music

    John Wall – [Computer​]​-​[​Piano] Part II

    August 14, 2022 - By 

    John Wall is Australia’s foremost experimental music composer.  I had lost track of him many years ago, but it’s good to see that he is still composing bold music.  From his Bandcamp site: “As with the previous Computer-Piano release these three compositions consist of piano recordings (that are not subject to any computer manipulations) and computer manufactured sounds that were built around the (analogue) piano of [Computer]-[Piano] part II and [Computer]-[Piano] part II Variation 1. The objective (as before with Computer-Piano ) was to create a work that combined the analogue and digital into an aesthetically convincing structured work. The…

  • Music

    Ilir Lluka – Twelve Years of Nihilism

    July 25, 2022 - By 

    Ilir Lluka, a composer out of Tirana, Albania, is one of the best active experimental musicians in the Balkans.  He works in the mediums of electroacoustic music, electronic, drone and sound art.  From his Bandcamp site: The title of Ilir Lluka’s new digital album “Twelve Years of Nihilism” refers to his period of creativity and musical productivity of Ilir Lluka. The artist considers himself a realist but agrees that his feeling of pessimism about mankind can somehow come close to the semantic concept of the nihilist when regarding it from the object of inspiration point of view. The four tracks…

  • Music

    Savvas Metaxas – Music for Dance Performance

    July 10, 2022 - By 

    Greek experimental composer Savvas Metaxas has scored music for a choreography project that sounds more like a very relaxed version of electroacoustic music.  It’s sumptuous headphone listening, I have to say.  From his record label Noise Below’s Bandcamp site: “Savvas Metaxas’s music for the choreography/action ‘who knows where time goes – potential destination #1’, slightly modified for this release without losing the sense of experiencing its first steps and its ongoing development, making the listener feel like they are participating in the action. With a cover photo from Sofia Tolika’s amazing ‘mundus’ photobook, that toys with stasis/motion, and artwork by…