SHANE PARISH - 'AUTECHRE GUITAR'

Formats

• PAL095LP - 2xLPs

  840526501786

• PAL095CD - CD

  195269398583

Details

This record shouldn’t, strictly speaking, be possible at all. It’s not just that Autechre’s music is electronic and Shane Parish’s is acoustic. It’s not just that Autechre come from electro and techno, while Shane’s solo guitar music is rooted in jazz, folk, and the blues. Those borders, between mediums and genres, are as porous as you want them to be. But Autechre are synonymous with difficulty, opacity, inscrutability—known for unparseable rhythms, cryptic riffs, and shapeshifting timbres. Even on their early records, before they’d begun building out the mind-bending software systems that have defined the past quarter-century of their music, the duo of Sean Booth and Rob Brown were working at the very limits of their machines: eking melodies out of drum sounds, programming intricate polyrhythms of superhuman complexity, and writing sequences that defy attempts to decipher them. I’ve been listening to “Yulquen” for 31 years, and I still couldn’t tell you just what is happening between the melody and the beat; try as I might, I simply can’t count out the steps. Now take Shane: one guy, one guitar, two hands. Six strings. Ten fingers. (Throw in a tapping foot for when the timekeeping gets tricky.) That’s the sum total of what he’s working with. These are not the kinds of tools you’d think would be equipped for Autechre’s music. But if anyone could take on a project like this, it’s Shane. Informed by his years spent playing standards as a working musician in supper clubs and resorts around Asheville, North Carolina, he’s been arranging music for solo fingerstyle guitar for decades—much of it material originally written for and recorded on other instruments. On his astonishing 2024 album Repertoire, he tackled songs by Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Alice Coltrane, and even Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin, zeroing in on the essence of each and rendering it into his own sure-footed yet exploratory style. The origins of Autechre Guitar run deep. Last year, Shane posted a low-key nylon-string performance of “Slip,” recorded in his living room, on YouTube. But his first attempt at the song was actually way back in 2004, when he notated his first rudimentary transcription of its serpentine melody—a 29-beat phrase that seems to slip and slide over a 4/4 pulse, to subtly unsettling effect. He had returned to the song over the years, with a vague idea of eventually doing something more with it; finally, after Repertoire’s Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin covers—and with the urging of his wife, a die- hard Autechre fan—he decided to try his hand at an entire album of Autechre covers, and sat down to begin notating songs, one by one. Puzzling out the sequences. Arranging the counterpoints. Translating shades of pewter and graphite into something resembling a 12-tone scale. And, most importantly, finding ways to distill Autechre’s seemingly limitless details in ways that could be played by just 10 fingers without losing the soul of the song. It was, in essence, a kind of sleight of hand. The material on Autechre Guitar is drawn entirely from the 1990s—specifically, from the albums Incunabula (“Maetl,” “Eggshell,” “Bike,” “Lowride”), Amber (“Slip,” “Nine,” “Yulquen”), Tri Repetae (“Eutow,” “Clipper”), and LP5 (“Corc”). The reason is simple: That’s the melodic golden age of Autechre, when Booth and Brown were writing hooks that would go down as some of the most enduring, and emotionally satisfying, in the past three decades of electronic music. Shane has done a remarkable job of capturing those melodies and translating them for the steel strings of his Taylor 214E-G. Anyone who knows Autechre’s “Bike,” a dreamy highlight of their debut album, will instantly recognize the melody Shane has pulled out of it, high notes drizzling down like raindrops on the windshield while octaves in the bass swish back and forth, steady as wipers. But what I find even more fascinating are the examples where the connection isn’t so clear. Where the melody in the original song isn’t so obvious, say—like “Clipper,” with its droning pads and rigid bursts of arpeggio, or “Corc,” with its gamelan shimmer and open-ended riffs. “Eutow” is another one that stops me in my tracks every time: How on earth did Shane get from the original’s smear of supersaw pads, arcing glissando, and whipcrack electro beat to what he gives us here: a somber, Faheyesque report from the depths of solitude? Or just listen to “Nine,” whose portamento attacks he turns into pitch-bent blue notes straight out of the American South. (The album version of “Nine” is actually the original demo recording Shane made of the song; it’s the only take where he feels like he really captured the magic of that song.) Listening to Shane’s versions of these tracks, you intuit the way he’s had to reach deep inside each song, working by feel alone, to grasp its contours and come back with something that communicates its ideas, even if it sounds all but unrecognizably different. Ultimately, Autechre Guitar works on multiple levels. It’s a celebration of Autechre’s music, shining a spotlight on the durability and flexibility of their songwriting. At the same time, it’s an invitation to listen deep inside the music, to take part as active listeners in the process of translation and interpretation. And while it hardly needs to be said, it’s an invitation to simply get lost in Shane’s astonishingly fleet playing, which takes these songs of unfathomable difficulty and makes them seem practically effortless. –Philip Sherburne 

Tracks

1) Maetl
2) Eggshell

3) Eutow
4) Slip
5) Bike
6) Nine

7) Y ulquen
8) Lowride

9) Corc
10) Clipper

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Audio & Video

JOHN CHOWNING - 'STRIA'

Formats

• IMPREC478 - LP

  93447547817

Details

Dr. John Chowning (b. 1934) is a pioneering computer musician,composer and professor who, in 1967,  discovered the original FM synthesis technique. This breakthrough in electronic music allowed for simple,yet rich timbres described as sounding "real." With this discovery,Chowning composed singular, dramatic electronic music and changed thetimbre of music forever.Chowning utilized the potential of computers to synthesize sounds according to programmed instructions. The composer's use of his own FM algorithms, digital synthesis with computers and the new compositional concepts offered by a programmable musical structure combine to create some of the most original and unique electronic music ever created.The compositions on this LP were realized between 1966 and 1981 and the music on this LP, with the exception of Stria, was originally released on CD in Germany (Wergo, 1988). The version of Stria included here contains a section not included on the Wergo CD. Thus, this version of Stria is complete. This is the first time these purelydigital recordings have been released on an analog medium. The original dynamics of these groundbreaking compositions have been preserved on this LP. As a result, listeners are advised to increase volume with caution.In 1975, John Chowning founded the CCRMA - Center For Computer Research In Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. Through Stanford, Chowning licensed his groundbreaking algorithms to Yamaha resulting in numerous new instruments including the iconic DX seriesof keyboards. In 1972, his composition Tureens which is included onthis LP, was the first to create the illusion of continuous 360-degreespace using four speakers.Technical NotesAll pieces on this LP are originally quadrophonic. The illusion ofmoving sound sources is thus projected from the surrounding environment given by four loud-speakers on the stereo-basis.STRIA was composed using Chowning’s own program to compile the musical structure into note-lists and MUSIC 10 (by D. Poole/Tovar) to generate the sounds in software-synthesis. The original quadrophonic version utilized 12 bits, two different sampling rates being used to accommodate the enormous amount of data on the magnetic disc-packs available at that time. The original sound-data was processed by sampling-rate conversion and digital mixes to achieve the stereoversion presented on this CD.SABELITH and TURENAS were synthesized originally using Smiths’ SCOREand MUSIC 10. However, their format was changed from direct sound-samples to a command stream for a special purpose computer, the SystemConcepts Digital Synthesizer, designed by Peter Samson, one of the first large-scale digital synthesizers for real-time sound processing- one was designed for CCRMA in the late seventies. For this recording the sounds were recorded directly from the synthesizer computing thesamples in real-time.PHONE was realized with the System Concepts Digital Synthesizer using again Chowning’s own program to create the note list.The master tape of this CD was made directly from the computer system at CCRMA which generated and stored the sound data in digital format.No analog recording was involved at any stage of the production andediting process.JOHN M. CHOWNING was born n Salem, New Jersey, in 1934. He studied composition in Paris for thee years with Nadia Boulanger. In 1966 hereceived the doctorate in composition from Stanford University, wherehe studied with Leland Smith. With the help of Max Mathews of BellTelephone Laboratories and David Poole of Stanford in 1964 he set up acomputer music program using the computer system of Stanford’sArtificial Intelligence Laboratory. This was the first implementation of an on-line computer music system ever.In 1967, John Chowning discovered the frequency modulation (FM)algorithm in which both carrier-frequency and the modulating-frequencyare within the audio band. This breakthrough in the synthesis oftimbres allowed a very simple yet elegant way of creating and controlling time-varying spectra.Over the next six years he worked toward turning this discovery into a system of musical importance. In 1973, he and Stanford University beana relationship with Yamaha (Nippon Gakki) in Japan, which led to the most successful synthesizer series in the history of electronicmusical instruments.John Chowning has received fellowship grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and was artist-in-residence with the Kunstlerprogramm des Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdiensts for the City of Berlin in 1974, and guest artist in IRCAM in 1978-79, in 1981and in 1985. John Chowning currently teaches computer-sound synthesis andcomposition at Stanford’s Department of Music and is director of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), one ofthe world’s leading centers for computer music and related research in the world

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File under: Early computer music / Electronic / Avant garde

Audio & Video

NZY - 'N2_M15t'

Formats

• SAUNA77 - MC

  69791984936

Details

NYZ (David Burraston) presents this collection of generative music pieces carefully extracted from a PreenFM2 gifted to him by Aphex Twin. PRN2_M15t is being released at the same time as an LP titled Stria from Dr. John Chowning who invented the original FM synthesis algorithms which were sold to Yamaha and used in the creation of the DX series of keyboards. An interview with Chowning, conducted by David Burraston, will be published at the same time.David Burraston is an award winning artist/scientist working in theareas of technology and electronic music, operating Noyzelab as anindependent art/science music studio since 1981. Numerous research publications include a 2006 PhD thesis Generative Music & Cellular Automata, which developed and applied fundamental new concepts from generative music practice to a key problem in complex systems theory.His experimental arts practice encompasses field recording, landscape-scale sound art, chaos/complexity, practice-based research, sound synthesis and electronic music. He performs, lectures, conducts workshops and creates art installations in Regional NSW and around theworld. David also designs and builds sound synthesizers based on his theories of chaos/complexity science. He was recently interviewed by Bandcamp Daily and The Wire Magazine.David has worked with many diverse collaborators such as Aphex Twin,Chris Watson, Doug Quin, Russell Haswell, Robin Fox, Oren Ambarchi,Sarah Last, Cat Hope, Garry Bradbury, William Barton, Alan Lamb, MITMedia Lab and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2014 he independently published the legendary "SYROBONKERS!", the most technical and in-depth interview ever given by Aphex Twin

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Audio & Video

LUCIANO CILIO - 'DIALOGHI DEL PRESENTE'

Formats

• SV203 - LP

  857661008506

Details

Lone album by Italian composer and multiinstrumentalist Originally released in 1977 on EMI Original copies go for high collector prices Luciano Cilio was born in Naples, Italy, in 1950. He studied music and architecture and, in the late ’60s, collaborated with local artist Alan Sorrenti, American expat Shawn Phillips and various avant-garde theater groups. A virtuoso guitarist and self-taught composer, Cilio released only one LP before his untimely death at the age of 33. Dialoghi Del Presente (1977) is a work like no other, one that sounds both ancient and ahead of its time. Produced by Renato Marengo, it features a series of muted tableaux for strings, woodwinds, guitar, chorus, piano and percussion. Cilio carves out a space where subtle, repetitive phrases yield—almost imperceptibly—to breathtaking silence. As Jim O’Rourke writes, “These recordings sound as if they were to please no one but himself; they feel selfcontained, introspective, and determined ... You can feel in the music a sort of necessity that can be rarely found, like in This Heat’s debut or Nick Drake’s Pink Moon.” While each subsequent “quadro” grows more abstract, Cilio draws the listener into an expansive, pastoral soundscape. The closing piece, “Interludio,” begins with a plaintive guitar, which is joined by haunting strings and woodwinds before concluding, poignantly, as the album began, with Cilio and his guitar, alone once more. Superior Viaduct’s edition reproduces the original sleeve design. Recommended for fans of Johann Johannsson, Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, Arvo Part and Popol Vuh.

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Lone album by Italian composer and multiinstrumentalist

Originally released in 1977 on EMI

Original copies go for high collector
prices

Audio & Video

JULIUS HEMPHILL - 'DOGON A.D.'

Formats

• SV205 - LP

  857661008537

Details

Julius Hemphill's debut record, 1972's Dogon A.D., was self-produced for his Mbari imprint, and it was issued with a beautiful black-and-white cover. Very DIY. The label's name writ large along the bottom edge, like it was the band's name. It's a quartet record featuring Hemphill on alto and flute, with Baikida Carroll on trumpet, Abdul Wadud on cello, and Phillip Wilson on drums – a classic jazz front line/rhythm section format, but nothing conventional about the way the music sounds. "The long track – from where the LP takes its title – is one of the key epic statements of new jazz in the era. Among its remarkable distinctions, it manages to draw on Wilson's schizoid experience having been a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the first drummer for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in making an 11/8 rhythm into a staggeringly funky thing of joy. Over the course of fourteen and a half minutes, Hemphill builds a nearly continuous solo, his spiritual blood brother Wadud sawing the cello with a deep blues soulfulness that is raw and mantra-like in its repetitive incantation. It feels right and wrong in equal measure, the theme carrying its own piquancy with honked barnyard dissonances and some contrary motion between the horns and string. Most of all, it takes its own sweet time, in no hurry to get anywhere in particular, but out for a righteous stroll." – John Corbett (excerpt from the liner notes)

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Julius Hemphill's debut record reissued with original artwork via Superior Viaduct

Featuring Hemphill, Baikida Carroll, Abdul Wadud and Phillip Wilson ? a classic jazz front line/rhythm section format, but nothing conventional about the way the music sounds

Audio & Video

TAKAAT - 'IS NOISE VOL: 3'

Formats

• PR017 - 10"

  769152436074

Details

"With bass drones cranked way past 11, frantic guitar shredding passages, and blown out drum machines, TAKAAT’s ‘Is Noise Vol. 3’ poses the question, ‘what if the Tuareg songwriting legends Tinariwen started a band with drone-lords Sunn O)))? Well, that might be what ‘Is Noise Vol. 3’ kinda sounds like. Drawing from sonic inspiration of blown out Takamba recordings of the Sahel, slinky drum machines of Hausa pop mp3s, and manipulated field recordings collected in Agadez, Niger, ‘Is Noise Vol. 3’ is yet another exciting musical departure from its prior volume. TAKAAT was birthed from the idea of always evolving concepts and taking risks, seeing each volume as an opportunity to explore noisy futures steeped in a shared language of DIY. Through chronological limited 10” EPs you too can take the noise home. Play it loud." -Mikey Coltun

Tracks

1. Ijit N?elwan 1 2. Ijit N?elwan 2 3. Ijit N?elwan 3 4. Ijit N?elwan 4

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Audio & Video

NOAH HOWARD - 'THE BLACK ARK'

Formats

• SV206 - LP

  857661008544

Details

In the pantheon of classic free jazz, Noah Howard’s The Black Ark looms large. Recorded at Bell Sound Studios in New York City in 1969—just prior to the alto saxophonist’s relocation to Europe—the album was eventually released in 1972. The Black Ark exhibits not only the power and imagination of Howard’s playing, but also his breadth as a composer and bandleader. Listeners expecting unrelenting blasts of “energy music” might be surprised to find a cohesion atypical of free jazz; amidst the wild, impassioned solos, Howard weaves in Latin rhythms and fat-bottomed grooves. The first side, consisting of “Domiabra” and “Ole Negro,” sets the album’s tone. Both tracks sound as if they could have appeared on some of Blue Note’s proto-spiritual jazz, groove-heavy releases—evoking the likes of Horace Silver or Bobby Hutcherson—before ceding the floor to the horn players’ anarchic firepower. As John Corbett writes in the liner notes, “Two players stand out. Bassist Norris Jones—who would soon consolidate his name into a one-word reversed amalgamation/permutation of the two, Sirone—is given ample room, largely unaccompanied; his corporal approach foreshadows later work with the Revolutionary Ensemble. But the secret weapon on The Black Ark is Arthur Doyle. Straight from basement rehearsal sessions with Milford Graves, whose ensemble he had joined and who remained a favorite of the drummer for decades, Doyle is a human flamethrower.” Trumpeter Earl Cross’ guttural, vocal effects complement Doyle’s take-no-prisoners approach, while the estimable combination of Muhammad Ali (Rashied’s brother) on drums and Juma Sultan on congas adds an ever-shifting propulsion. The septet is rounded out by the enigmatic pianist Leslie Waldron, who anchors the group with imaginative accompaniment and occasional boppish flourishes. Every bit worthy of its reputation as an “out-jazz” holy grail, The Black Ark only sounds better with age. It remains the ideal record to convert the remaining free-jazz skeptics.

Tracks

1. Domiabra 2. Ole Negro 3. Mount Fuji 4. Queen Anne

Press

Every bit worthy of its reputation as an ?out-jazz? holy grail, The Black Ark only sounds better with age. It remains the ideal record to convert the remaining free-jazz skeptics.

Audio & Video