Classical Music 828 Items

Newly remastered recordings pressed on 160gm black vinyl, heavy jacket with reproduction of the 1972 artwork, song notes by the artist. From beloved composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, a revelatory new album of piano pieces, unreleased or virtually inaccessible until now! Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original - an Ethiopian nun whose recordings have funded orphanages back home since the early '60s. Her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear.This is the first archival release of the great composer's recordings since the Éthiopiques series reintroduced her music to the world in 2006. Drawn from original master tapes and a nearly impossible-to-find vinyl release, Jerusalem unveils profound new facets of Emahoy Gebru's performance and compositions. The record picks up where the last two Mississippi releases left off, with tracks from her 1972 album Hymn of Jerusalem, of which only a handful of copies are known to exist. These include "Home of Beethoven," "Aurora," and a true masterpiece that stands amongst her greatest compositions, the moving "Jerusalem." "Quand La Mer Furieuse" is the first release featuring Emahoy's singing voice, forshadowing a vocalalbum planned for 2023. The B-Side brings us the artist'shome recordings - tracks like "Farewell Eve," "Woigaye Don't Cry Anymore," and "Famine Disaster 1974" mark a bridge from liturgical work to dark and intense classical material, a new mode. This album is released in celebration of Emahoy Gebru's 99th birthday on December 12, 2022. Mississippi is honored to work with the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Publisher to continue to introduce this visionary composer to the world.

For five decades, Harold Budd stood on the forefront of the West Coast avant-garde. Born in Los Angeles, he studied with Schoenberg-pupil Gerald Strang and began teaching at CalArts in 1970. While searching for his own voice, he was influenced as much by abstract expressionist painters as by John Cage and Morton Feldman. In his work, Budd brought delicate, slowing-moving melodies to the foreground – creating a new musical language based on “eternally pretty music” and smooth surfaces. In the early ’70s, Budd started an extended cycle of compositions that would comprise The Pavilion Of Dreams. For Budd, the album was a signpost for a new direction in thinking about music: “The Pavilion Of Dreams erased my past. I consider that to be the birth of myself as a serious artist. It was like my Magna Carta.” Produced by Brian Eno in 1978, The Pavilion Of Dreams stands toe-to-toe with another minimalist masterpiece also released that year, Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians. Budd’s gorgeous pieces reveal a lightness of touch that draws the listener in, while sublime voices float in and out as if in a recurring dream. Featuring saxophonist Marion Brown and multi-instrumentalists Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman, The Pavilion Of Dreams remains a master class in exquisite timbre and shimmering texture. The Pavilion Of Dreams was both the final release on Eno’s Obscure imprint and a transition point towards his seminal ambient series. This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell and Mark Hollis.

Compilation of our favorite Arvo Pärt pieces. All sparse and beautiful arrangements. Some solo piano pieces, some duets with piano, violin cello and viola and one string quartet. The pieces on this record are all unique to the style of Arvo Pärt - deceptively simple compositions that force you to live in the moment you are listening to them. A Pärt quote from the back of the record - "You can kill people with sound. And if you can kill, then maybe there is also the sound that is opposite of killing. And the distance between these two points is very big. And you are free -- you can choose. In art everything is possible, but everything is not necessary." This record comes in a beautiful "tip on" old school cover with metallic gold foil and features an incredible painting from the 16th century manuscript Kometenbuch.

Welsh harpist Amanda Whiting returns on Jazzman Records following on from her successful debut album ’After Dark’ (2021).

New explorations and global changing events have led Whiting to ‘Lost in Abstraction’. The Reynolds/ Thorne/ Whiting trio is joined again by the mesmerising lines of flautist Chip Wickham, resuming their conversation reminiscent of Dorothy Ashby and Frank Wess.

‘Lost in abstraction’ was written during a period of the unknown when Whiting, like most, explored her own sense of self. The world paused, with no timeframe, and the fragility of life was laid bare. A time when humanity was left searching for purpose. Freedom and the dependable structures of familiarity were dissolved in most aspects of life. But music stayed constant. Creativity kept weaving its thread, connecting music and its makers in an indissoluble bond.

The album explores the questions and realisations whilst confined. The spiritual findings, the playful curiousness and the reflective moments of loss. Whiting’s writing indulges the listener with the spiritual ethereal washes of sound demanded of the harp, whilst also embracing her influences across many genres. Classically trained, her roots are evident. But with an emotionally charged energy and spiritual questioning, a new soundscape of modernity has emerged.

So often associated with Ashby and Coltrane, the harp finds itself in the hands of a new voice which tells the story of a period of time where the world was unified in reflection.

So what is that feeling when you resonate? When your breath steadies and you let go Lines no longer restrict or choke Energies envelop, yet set you free Are you lost or found?

Amanda Whiting - harp Chip Wickham - flute Aidan Thorne - bass Jon Reynolds - drums Baldo Verdú - percussion

About Amanda Whiting Following on from her sold out album ‘After Dark’ on Jazzman records, Amanda Whiting is making a name for herself on the British Jazz scene.

From Wales, the home of the harp, Amanda has taken her classical roots and forged them in the path of jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Her unique style resulted in her nomination for the Jazz FM “2021 Instrumentalist of the Year.”

She has toured extensively with Matthew Halsall and the Gondwana Orchestra performing at Jazz festivals around the world. More recent collaborations have included touring with Chip Wickham, Greg Foat and Rebecca Vasmant. She also performed at the We Jazz festival, Finland in November 2021.

2022 will see the release of her new album ‘Lost in Abstraction’ and performances in Helsinki and other festivals throughout the year. She will also be performing at XJazz Berlin and We Out Here with the Rebecca Vasmant Ensemble.

La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day. Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script. Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.

Limited Edition of 300 copies on translucient red vinyl only availble at hhv.de and inside Japan through the P-Vine webshop. Long anticipated First ever vinyl issue Susumu Yokota's neo-classical ambient masterpiece from 2004.

Rediscover the gratest classical themes performed by some of all time greatest international orchestras, the greatest conductorss and solists in a nice 5 vinyls boxset.

Maria Callas bleibt der Inbegriff der Operndiva und gilt als eine der legendärsten und beständigsten Ikonen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Sie war sowohl eine glamouröse Diva als auch ein globaler Superstar, der das Publikum auf der ganzen Welt mit ihren lebhaften und leidenschaftlichen Darbietungen in seinen Bann zog. Diese Record Store Day-Sonderedition zeigt Callas in einer glanzvollen Auswahl von Opern-Arien, die ihre einzigartige Stimme und ihre herzzerreißenden Darstellungen tragischer Heldinnen zur Geltung bringen. 1LP translucent red Vinyl

Composer and Golden Globe winning Jóhann Jóhannsson releases his first album for Deutsche Grammophon Recordings. It feels like a meditation over beauty and creativity Jóhannsson is a role model for the growing scene of contemporary composers who draw their inspiration from soundtracks, Minimalism, Ambient und electronic music. “Orphée describes the way out from the dark into the light inspired by mythical variations from Ovid to Cocteau. It’s the story of death and reincarnation as a metaphor for our society. Again Jóhannsson mixes acoustic elements combined with electronics, mysterious soundscapes paired with orchestral and a capella voices.

• 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
• HEAVYWEIGHT GATEFOLD SLEEVE WITH LEATHER LAMINATE FINISH
• INCLUDES 2 PRINTED INNERSLEEVES WITH LYRICS
• 2018 ADAPTION BY ROGER WATERS (PINK FLOYD) OF IGOR STRAVINSKY’S 1918 CLASSICAL THEATRE WORK
• LIMITED EDITION OF 1000 INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED COPIES ON CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL

The 2018 album Igor Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale is the adaptation by Roger Waters (co-founder of Pink Floyd) on the 1918 same-titled theatrical work. Waters recorded this version with members of the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church.

The original theatre work is one “to be read, played, and danced” by three actors (the soldier, the devil, and a narrator) and dancers, accompanied by a septet of instruments. The libretto relates the parable of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the devil in return for unlimited economic gain. The music is scored for a septet of violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet or trumpet), trombone, and percussion. The libretto is adapted by Roger Waters from the translation by Michael Flanders and Kitty Black, based on the original text by Charles-Ferdinand Ramus.

The Soldier's Tale is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on crystal clear vinyl. The vinyl package includes 2 printed innersleeves with lyrics and pictures.

There was some for John Cage, then came Christian Wolff, and finally Morton Feldman, from this school in New York. Only Julius Eastman remained outside the game, the last figure, the most solitary and enigmatic - undoubtedly also one of the most powerful. It is recognized today that these tutelary pieces for four pianos are among the most powerful in contemporary music, their impact is almost unparalleled. After the historical version recorded forty years ago, this one, featuring four of the greatest European performers, is now regaining its full power. High level recordings too.

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos in 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ. Modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, Hall's Canto Ostinato expertly bridges a revered piece of meditative concert repertoire with a tactile and highly personal studio setting. Chicago-born and Michigan-based, Erik Hall is known as a multi-instrumental pillar for the groups Nomo, Wild Belle, and his own songwriting moniker In Tall Buildings. He has composed music for feature films, and as a producer/engineer he has shaped records for Natalie Bergman and Western Vinyl labelmates Lean Year. In a 2020 creative pivot, he chose to reinvent composer Steve Reich's monumental contemporary classical masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians as a solo undertaking, applying the piece's score to the familiar keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers in his studio. "At the time I think I was working through my identity as a musician and an artist," Hall explains, "and on a level there was some sort of exorcism of a long held pop spirit." The album was celebrated for being "freshly thrilling" and "legible in history but assertive of the moment" (Pitchfork) and "beguiling, meditational, and magical" (Electronic Sound). It won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and it quickly joined the canon of the piece's quintessential recordings. "There is a pseudo-meditational benefit to working on a longform piece that's built on repetition," Hall says. "Every stage- from internalizing the music, to executing the performance, to editing and mixing the record- requires deep and sustained presence of mind. I've always been drawn to a hallucinatory combination of harmony and repetition, and I found the entire process addictive." An apt second chapter, Canto Ostinato is inherently vast, and its score gives great creative license to the performer. Comprising 106 sections, complete freedom is given to repeat each one as many or as few times as desired. Additional leeway is given with regard to dynamics, articulation, and even instrumentation. On the heels of his previous, rather maximal arrangement, Hall chose to limit this album's palette to three foundational keyboards of his studio: a 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1978 Rhodes Mark I electric piano, and his family-heirloom 1910 Steinway grand piano. "This particular piece brought the added challenge of rekindling my dexterity as a pianist, something I haven't maintained in earnest since I was a teenager," he admits. The ensuing five-note rhythmic motif- the piece's primary building block- is steady and workmanlike, forgoing virtuosic flare for depth, texture, and resonance, and eventually giving way to the stunning gratification of a gorgeously lyrical left turn. As with Music for 18 Musicians, Hall employed no loops nor quantization nor any programmed or sequenced instruments of any kind. Every part was performed live in a room and captured with microphones, one at a time, each informed by, and reacting to the last. In this way the record breathes with interplay and an organic humanity, complete with flaws, noise, and the faint sound of turning pages. The recording quality is nonetheless toneful and saturated, characteristic of Hall's production style and straying from the usual transparency of classical albums by using gear with tubes, transformers, and various stages of compression in the signal path. Always there is unmistakable realism and the feeling of being present in the room, sitting among the keys, hammers, and tines. Ten Holt said: "Time, patience and discipline are the prerequisites for making a genetic code productive." His landmark composition provides Hall once again with a wondrous space in which to reverently embody this sentiment and deftly convey the elegant beauty of this music.

Volker Bertelmann and Hildur Guðnadóttir hardly need an introduction - their distinct styles have graced the speakers of pretty much anyone enamored with experimental music in the last decade, and between them the two have chalked up an enviable canon of successes. Bertelmann, under the Hauschka moniker has explored the extremities of prepared piano improvisation, and Guðnadóttir has taken cinematic, explorative cello music into a new era of depth and passion, so to hear them both together is a rare and unexpected treat. Rare is putting it lightly even - „Pan Tone“ is a recording of a single concert which the duo performed on the 26th of February 2010 as part of Arctic Circle - Bubbly Blue and Green festival at Kings Place in London, and documents an event that would truly never be repeated. Sure, they could attempt to re-create the event, but the spontaneity and glorious serendipity in this particular recording is a pleasure to behold.

Bertelmann and Guðnadóttir decided to create a set of compositions which based on the idea of the ocean, and took a book of Pantones to extract exact references to the specific colors of the sea. These watery tones form the backbone of the performance and inform the direction of the collaboration, guiding us through rich blues, glassy greens and frothy whites. In listening to the music it seems incredibly appropriate that the artists should choose blue as the middle ground in their work; the ineffable lightness that Bertelmann brings to the table is a stark contrast to Guðnadóttir´s sinking darkness, and as the two styles collide we witness a plethora of tones, shades and hues. It sounds as if the two artists have been playing together for decades, and their sound is so perfectly matched you might wonder why it´s taken them this long to collaborate. All that´s left for us to do is to soak in the tidal beauty of this very exclusive body of music, to listen to it sing, bubble and crash through its duration before settling in total silence. When the record reaches its conclusion there is an unsettling calm, a sense that you have witnessed something very special indeed, and that is a feeling to prize amongst all else.

Tofu Resistance returns with his new ep “Thorídur”, marking his 3rd release on Ynfnd after his full length debut “1//23“ in 2019.

This EP sits comfortably between both the world of beats and a more relaxed environment. Returning to his roots, Tofu Resistance aka Tobias Kleine remembers his early influences of sample based music and classy hip hop grooves.

The result is a sonorous sketch of deceleration, answering with bouncy rhythms to nod your head to. You can hear him playing the drums, guitars and various other instruments on this record. A beautiful blend of organic and electronic production, adding his unique Tofu flavor.

A suite of raga-inspired compositions and improvisations that grew from a fertile collaboration between Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison and John Also Bennett centered around a devotion to just intonation tuning, deep listening, and resonant spaces.

Michael Harrison is a composer and pianist who is a dedicated practitioner of just intonation and North Indian classical music. He was La Monte Young's protégé and piano tuner during The Well-Tuned Piano years and a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, and has since developed his own customized tuning systems. Guided by conversations with Christina Vantzou, who provided structural frameworks for each piece and directed the sessions, the compositions drew from Harrison's daily raga practice, using its ancient forms as starting points from which the compositions could blossom and morph. A resonant backdrop of modular synthesizers played by John Also Bennett, who also contributed piano improvisations played on Harrison’s custom tuned Steinway concert grand, expanded the sessions into true collective praxis.

As noted by Parul Gupta, a conceptual artist based in New Delhi who contributed the stunning artwork for the album, “the songs feel like an extension of silence.” The notes from the piano emerge, resonate, and dissolve in measured and meditative sonic fields, allowing for a concentrated listening experience where every sound lives, breathes, and ultimately returns to silence. Contained within these aural ecologies are potentialities that emerge from a collective listening and improvising experience, and a resonant rebuttal of the standard equal tempered tuning system that has dominated Western music for centuries.

This release collects the verdant recordings from the trio’s 2019 Berlin sessions on two 45rpm records, accompanied by a risograph printed insert featuring track credits and Harrison’s handwritten tuning charts used on the album.

Artist Statement

An observer, a pianist and a synthesist form a triangle. The observer (Christina) is both witness and guide, the pianist (Michael) is precise and intuitive, and the synthesist (John) provides a palate of drones which offer increased resonance and a supportive framework. The piano has been carefully prepared to become a resonant body. This enhancement was achieved by tuning it to two of Michael’s just intonation tunings, based on his work, “Revelation,” and North Indian classical music, or ragas. These tunings maintain mathematically precise intervals. In place of voice, sitar or tabla, is the piano, and in place of the tanpura, is the synthesizer. Playing ragas is an ancient practice of structured improvisation. Time, knowledge and memory interplay in the body and mind of the practitioner and this is a large part of the raga practice. The raga combines with muscle memory and personal aesthetics to individuate results. Through the formation of a trio, multiple perspectives and timelines collapse and the raga mutates again. These twists and turns seem to only fall back on themselves as the raga shows us that there are multiple compositions already stored in our collective memory. They blossom, morph and spring forth like nature.

Nothing was written down to execute these recordings. The simplest forms were explored in the least complicated way. The first reflection of this process is what happens in the mind and body of the listener. The observer is always observing. Regions of sound tap into memory and imagination and the sound of the raga itself becomes a prismatic event.

Moby’s eclectic career has cast him in the roles of electronic dance music pioneer, singer and songwriter, producer, activist, and restaurateur, but for his latest venture he presents his music in a whole new light. Together with Deutsche Grammophon, he is releasing an album of some of his best known tracks in stunning new arrangements for classical instruments – featuring Moby himself and a stellar lineup of collaborators from across the musical spectrum.

Though it was as a creator of dance music that he found fame in the 1990s, Moby’s music has never been easy to pigeonhole – his 1999 smash hit album Play, for instance, drew heavily on samples from Alan Lomax’s archive of field recordings. On this newly announced album, to be released on 26 March 2021, classic Moby songs including “Porcelain”, “Why Does My Heart”, and “Extreme Ways” will be released in innovative new versions. The album concludes with a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes”.

Always a daring and imaginative thinker, Moby’s first classical collaboration came in October 2018, when he performed a selection of his songs alongside the LA Phil and conductor Gustavo Dudamel. This was the inspiration for the current project, which features not only full orchestral versions but new electronic arrangements, as well as sophisticated smaller-scale acoustic interpretations.

The 14-track album features some eye-catching collaborations including both Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and the acclaimed classical pianist Víkingur Ólafsson on “Porcelain”; Gregory Porter and Amythyst Kiah on “Natural Blues”; and Kris Kristofferson as well as original vocalist Mark Lanegan on “The Lonely Night”.

This release comes on 180g vinyl with a download code.

This fast and furious orchestral work with piano, which begins with what must surely be the most famous clarinet glissando of modern times, was composed with the intention of presenting as many facets as possible of music from the New World in the short space of around 15 minutes. In his "Rhapsody In Blue" Gershwin wanted to »paint a musical kaleidoscope of America – our enormous melting pot, our typical national traits, our blues, our seething city life«. With this in mind, Leonard Bernstein made a number of recordings of the work and among the many excellent recordings that he made as a conductor or as a soloist, this present version with the Columbia Orchestra, from 1959, is especially of note. Bernstein takes on a double function as conductor and soloist and manoeuvres his way safely and surely through the highly diversified score to create a well-rounded picture filled with hefty orchestral dynamics and finely chiselled solo playing. In Gershwin’s freely composed work the soloist and orchestra do not resort to bombastic shock effects or egomaniac keyboard acrobatics, and so this the work can be described as rhapsodic in the very best sense of the word.
Most fittingly, on the B side there is another freely composed work – the autobiographical sketch entitled An American In Paris. The superb New York musicians paint the impressions of a visitor to the hectic French capital city – that too is the sound of America.

Niklas Paschburg"s third album Panta Rhei arrives via 7K! on March 17th, 2023. The title and the music are inspired by Heraclitus"s Greek philosophy that "everything flows" and finds the Hamburg-born artist exploring an unrestricted world of post-classical music drawn from deep within himself. Across two previous albums, the now Berlin-based Paschburg has been captivated by the movement of the Baltic Sea (2018"s Oceanic) and the darkness of a Northern European winter (2020"s Svalbard). As a result of being unable to travel during the pandemic, this latest album finds him looking inside his own heart and mind. Niklas"s personal journey becomes a captivating and colourful musical journey that combines his melancholic and delicate pianism with synths and electronic beats, suggestive ambient and the evocative voices of German singer Lúisa, Spaniard Bianca Steck and the Icelandic Kaktus Einarsson, frontman of post-punk band Fufanu. It is a move towards ambient-pop that is intimate and meditative but with positive and uplifting vibes.

The original album "12" released on January 17, 2011, is now available in analog form! Encore Limited pressing of the standard version is now available!

On January 17, 2023, we released our first original album "12" in 6 years since the release of "async" in 2017. This is a collection of 12 songs selected from the musical sketches he created as if he were writing a diary while he was still fighting an ongoing illness, and compiled them into a single album. The jacket was drawn by Lee Ufan, an international artist representing the "Mono-ha" school. The first limited edition analog version sold out immediately and became a mirage! This is an encore pressing in the standard specification. (The "Self Sketch | Music Score Print" from the limited first pressing will not be included, and the vinyl will be black instead of color vinyl.)

Tracks are same as Rzjm-77655-6

Now over a decade old, this 2012 album is the soundtrack to acclaimed filmmaker Grant Gee's documentary about German writer WG Sebald. It’s been out of print since 2013 and remains a lesser known gem in The Caretaker catalogue.

'Patience (After Sebald)' is a multi-layered film essay on landscape, art, history, life and loss - an exploration of the work and influence of German writer WG Sebald (1944-2001), told via a long walk through coastal East Anglia tracking his most famous book 'The Rings Of Saturn'. Much like The Caretaker's oeuvre, Sebald's works are particularly focused on themes of memory, both personal and collective, making Kirby the ideal candidate for the score.

Rather than thrift shop shellac, the source material for 'Patience' was sourced from Franz Schubert's 1827 piece 'Winterreise' and subjected to The Car perplexing processes, smudging and rubbing isolated fragments into a dust-caked haze of plangent keys, strangely resolved loops and de-pitched vocals which recede from view as eerily as they appear.

When Laila Sakini's debut album ‘Vivienne’ arrived in 2020, it felt like the record we were waiting for to map out our tangled reactions to an uninvited reality. Never self-consciously strange, it revealed itself slowly and cautiously, like a shadow in the corner of the eye, or an alchemical symbol in a bowl of alphabet spaghetti. This time around Sakini has worked her unique world-building to an even finer point, forming six tracks around a theme that's so close to our heart it's almost beating in time. Initially inspired by Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1991 arthouse classic "The Double Life of Veronique", the cult Polish director's enduring modern fairytale that serves as a cosmic rumination on identity and choice. Detailing two identical women - both singers, both in love - the film lets one live as the other dies, forcing us to consider the implications of art and endurance in the face of life's myriad challenges.

Sakini takes Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner's influential score for the film and uses it as a jumping-off point for ‘Paloma’, bending the more grandiose moments into baroque awkwardness on opening track 'Fluer D'Oranger' and evoking the mood of scene-setting cues 'Weronika' and 'Véronique' on the recorder-led 'The Light That Flickers In The Mirror'. And while Preisner's score zeroed in on the musical virtuosity of the film's lead characters, Sakini reinterprets that as a metaphor for self-discovery. Playing piano, violin, glockenspiel, timbale, recorder, and occasionally singing, Sakini captures a mood of innocence that immediately transports the listener back to simpler times. Her music isn't self-consciously simplistic, but forcing herself to interface with instruments impulsively rather than studiously, her sounds are all heart, no filigree.

In spirit, it reminds us of cult Canadian album "The Langley Schools Music Project", a collection of 1970s recordings of school kids singing rudimentary renditions of pop songs in a school gymnasium. That album's genius was in the bottling of hope and innocence: the feeling of joy from hearing and wholesomely interacting with music that's known and loved without a sense of hierarchy or desire for cultural clout. Sakini subtly subverts this by evoking the amateur spirit in the most bewitching way; instead of sourcing her ideas from Bowie, Fleetwood Mac and the Beach Boys, her stock is the established art canon, and by reforming those sounds she makes an insightful comment on intellectualism and access. European classical music is all too often trapped behind the frosted glass of respectability and assumed skill - craft replaces spirit, and technique replaces soul. By approaching these gestures from a different angle, Sakini softens the edges sonically and intellectually, finding music that bubbles with emotion, and most strikingly - hope.

Her choice of instruments and the way she interacts with them allows us to feel as if we're not only listening but contributing. It's a bottom-up way of absorbing art that's traditionally been top-down, and a reminder that we're all part of the experience, whether we're humming along to the remnants of a theme as it dribbles out of an ear in the shower, or dreaming of spotlights in a parallel life that may or may not be real. Sakini's music is nostalgic in a sense, but nowhere near the buttered popcorn and high-fructose candy migraine of the Netflix/Spotify algorithm generation of regurgitated churn. She makes sounds that remind us of what time and experience may have stolen from us, and how we might recover it. We're gagged.

Philip Glass is an American composer. His music is considered to be minimal music, although he himself uses the term theatre music. Glassworks was originally released in 1982. The album is a six-part chamber music work by Philip Glass. After his larger-scale concert and stage works, Glassworks was Philip Glass’s successful attempt to create a more pop-oriented “Walkman-appropriate” work, with significantly shorter and more accessible pieces written for the recording studio. In fact, the cover of the cassette release stated that it was “mixed especially for your personal cassette player”. Glassworks is available as a 40th anniversary edition on crystal clear coloured vinyl.

Mit diesem Album bin ich nach meiner jahrelangen hauptsächlich elektronischen Produktionsweise noch einen Schritt weiter gegangen. Es ist diesmal rein akustisch, Klavier und Kontrabass. Daher auch der Name des Albums: "Off", alle Schalter stehen auf aus. Im Mittelpunkt steht mein Klavier, ein dänisches Kleinklavier der Firma Brødr. Jørgensen aus dem Jahre 1964. Ich habe es restauriert und teilweise prepariert, immer mit Filz, nah und intim aufgenommen. Ich habe versucht, alles so natürlich wie möglch einzufangen, um den Charakter dieses einzigartes Klaviers zu unterstreichen. Durch seinen organischen Klang und sein Eigenleben, sind ein paar unverwechselbare Stücke entstanden. Einige davon sind improvisiert, andere über die Zeit gewachsen.

Wrwtfww Records is proud to announce the worldwide reissue of Midori Takada’s solo album from 1999, Tree of Life, available on vinyl for the first time ever in a new audiophile mix by the Japanese percussionist herself, and in full half-speed-mastered glory. The 180g LP comes in a heavy sleeve with a beautiful design by Kohei Sugiura. Tree of Life is also available in CD (digipack) and digital formats.

Originally recorded in September 1998 at legendary Ginza (Tokyo) studio Onkio Haus (founded in 1974 and where Ryuichi Sakamoto’s "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and many more were recorded) and released on CD only for the Japan market in 1999, Tree of Life is Midori Takada’s best kept secret, a lost gem of minimalism and percussive ambient. The album is separated in two parts, the first one finds Takada exploring her trademark environmental soundscapes with precise mastery of marimba, drums, and bells, notably on the magnificent fan-favorite "Love Song Of Urfa". The second half is a collaboration with Chinese virtuoso Erhu player Jiang Jian Hua, allowing Midori Takada to unveil new layers of her artistic mind with a slightly more theatrical approach and a beautiful crystallization of complex simplicity.

The entire album was given a fresh new audiophile mix by Midori Takada herself and was mastered at Emil Berliner Studios, with half speed cutting for the vinyl version, to ensure an audio presentation aligned with the Japanese pioneer’s vision.

This Tree of Life reissue follows two newly recorded Midori Takada albums, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter and You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, both available on Wrwtfww Records, along with her 1983 masterpiece, Through The Looking Glass.

The Layers are a collection of compilations by 7K! Records to support a range of contemporary classical music. Duet Layers pays tribute to the first edition of Piano Layers, String Layers, Ambient Layers and Wind Layers. In this new compilation, each track is made up of two musicians merging their musical expressions together. The result is a collaborative record between twelve of the most interesting artists from around the world, sharing their sonic landscapes. Featuring: Hania Rani, Colin Stetson, Niklas Paschburg, Bryan Senti, Simon Goff, Dobrawa Czocher to name a few.

Following the compass of an entrancing debut, Flore Laurentienne's Volume II presents another palette of rich orchestral sound, where changing forces of water inspire metaphorical markers that navigate passages of life and loss. Mathieu David Gagnon resumes his voyage into environment and emotion with Volume II, drawing inspiration from the rivers and rugged wilderness of the composer's native Quebec. In his return as Flore Laurentienne - the namesake of an inventory documenting St. Lawrence Valley flora - Gagnon assembles vivid melodic motifs and delicate modulation with a vast string ensemble to emulate the tides of human experience. Listeners of Volume I will recognise Gagnon's signature approach towards reworking and reframing an emblematic melody or concept across a series of works in Volume II, a process he likens to that of a painter creating multiple sketches of the same view. Continued from the first album, the enigmatic "Fleuve" series is conjured to evoke the multiple personalities of the great St. Lawrence River, and the "Navigation" works ("iii" and "iv") wade through dappled progressions and expansive streams of string, the latter of which harbors the gentle meanderings of improvised clarinet. In the world of Flore Laurentienne, complexity emerges from simplicity as the composer roams familiar environments in constant flux. Gagnon extracts beauty through repetition and constraint, utilizing the writing style of counterpoint for which one of his greatest musical inspirations, Johann Sebastian Bach, is renowned. The lilting waves of "Canon" possess the eponymous formation of melodic 'leader and follower' motif, and magnify the softness of the album's eighteen string musicians into a force of full euphoric resonance. In Volume II, Gagnon continues his expansion of classical composition archetypes to meet a new realm of sonic romanticism. Thematic conventions of wandering the pastoral sublime become altered into glimmering refractions, relaying the emotional and kinetic power of natural energies. Volume II forms an estuary where streams of auditory microcosm reach a horizon of dynamic contrast, and reflect the parallel tenors of nature and humankind.

Fantas is the epic opening track on Caterina Barbieri’s acclaimed 2019 release Ecstatic Computation. The original Fantas laid out a magical path of patterns leading the listener on a journey into the sound itself. Fantas Variations maps out eight new potentials sprung from this initial path as constructed by a diverse mix of artists lending to a wide spectrum of new works extrapolated from the original work. For this project Barbieri invited friends and long time collaborators from a variety of musical backgrounds to create a more sustainable and inclusive landscape in terms of stylistic, geographical, gender and generational balance. The results are a diverse array of approaches and instrumentation which blur the boundaries between the acoustic and electronic.

Fantas Variations embraces a platform for mutual exchange and support between like-minded artists, where active and collective re-imagination is prioritised over the traditional model of remixes, which is often strategic, functional and more passive.

Longtime friend and collaborator Kali Malone rearranged Fantas to a slowed-down, austere and eerie version for two Organs. Evelyn Saylor created a piece for a vocal ensemble consisting of her, Lyra Pramuk, Stine Janvin and Annie Garlid, joining forces to express the choral, psychedelic and vitalistic nature of the piece. Barbieri’s former guitar professor at the Conservatory in Bologna, Walter Zanetti, composes Fantas for electric guitar, by translating every single gesture of the original electronic piece into a personal, nuanced and detailed interpretation. Bendik Giske’s reinterpretation for Saxophone and Voice captures the atmospheric essence of Fantas and its psychic meteorology. Longtime collaborator and along with Barbieri the other half of the outfit Punctum, Carlo Maria, resynthesizes Fantas for Tr808 and Mc202, bringing a more club-oriented dimension of the piece to life whilst unveiling the sonic continuum between rhythm and pitch through a sensitive timbral approach. Jay Mitta’s Singeli reinterpretation of Fantas transpires with pitched-up percussion and turbo-fast polyrhythmic patterns unleashing the frenetic, shifting, transformative matter within the piece to a higher plain of euphoric dance. Baseck’s variation is a rave fantasia, where the prismatic trance of the original is channeled into fierce, uncompromising hardcore, whilst Kara-Lis Coverdale’s take is a phantasmagoria for piano that gently, yet inexorably, captures the relentlessness chimerical qualities of the original, unveiling its spectral backbone.

Limited to 100 copies for the German market, 2000 worldwide. Only at HHV. Only one per customer. 2LP Colored Vinyl in Gatefold Sleeve with unique artwork for this edition (audio same as standard). Exclusive 60x90cm poster (170gsm) plus a 7” white label single (Ennio in

One of those essential pieces of music for both classical music listeners, sound track aficionados and more spiritual techno heads! According to astrology, every planet in our solar system represents a certain mood. Inspired by this idea, Gustav Holst (1874-1934) composed his seven-part orchestral work The Planets, in which the planetary moods are convincingly turned into sound, from the aggressive Mars to the mystical Neptune and the tender Venus. The Planets has had much influence on the later genre of film music. With John Williams's Imperial March from Star Wars films as the most clear example, but also Techno producers such as Jeff Mills took inspiration from this work, and even did record his own rendition as the most recent example. The London Philharmonic Orchestra's performance recorded in 1978, led by ninety year old Sir Adrian Boult, is considered one of the very best recordings of The Planets and presented in this premium package pressed on high quality 180 grams 2lp in a limited edition run of 300 copies!

Beving has been one with the piano from an early age. He was forced to end his musical studies at the conservatory and instead continued at university to get a degree in social sciences. However, his love for his instrument never perished.

Where once his goal was to hit as many notes per minute as physically possible, his style of playing has changed over the years, searching for a particular aesthetic essence. His path was illuminated by a piano that Beving inherited from his grandmother when she passed away in 2009. This German instrument insisted on a more gentle touch and a gracious pace, which eventually led Beving to adapt to a more classical vocabulary to tell his story.

Joep Beving is a composer and musician, but to the international advertising community he is mostly known as the face of music agency MassiveMusic.

The Classical Collections focusses on the rich work of French composer Erik Satie. He is the first of the minimalists and stands as a huge influence for artists like John Cage and Brian EnoIncluding the famous Gymnopédies, Gnosienne Nd3, Nocturnes...

Akuphone is proud to present Fuji-Yuki’s last masterpiece, One Butoh. A musical immersion into the most exciting avant-garde dance style of the past century. Created in Japan in the 1960s by Tatsumi Hijikata, butō is the "dance of the obscure body". It broke with the traditions of classical Noh and Kabuki Theater, which, at the time, seemed outdated in the national context. Nourished by a European artistic avant-garde, butō stands out as a mirror of the socio-political turmoil of a post-World War II Japan. One Butoh resonates as a perfect acoustic introduction to this subversive art and propels the listener deep into his own soul.

Fuji-Yuki is a Japanese vocalist who uses her voice like an instrument. With special vocal techniques, glossolalia and electronic pedals, she creates a wide variety of sounds. Inspired by the spirits of Buddhism and Shintoism, she creatively transforms her vocals into an ambient drone or prayers resonating in a church-like space. Her live performances are always different, depending on the place and space they take place in. She is also known as the vocalist of the experimental band Sarry.

A deeply confounding trip into the sublime from master of contextual dream-weaving Nozomu Matsumoto on perhaps his most heart-piercingly beautiful work to date, including a 13 minute choral section that might just be the most stunning piece of pseudo-classical/liturgical alchemy we’ve heard all year. Huge recommendation for followers/lovers of Kara-Lis Coverdale, Ryan Trecartin or Mica Levi’s ‘Zola’ score

Leading on from his ’Remain Calm’ album to accompany visual components by regular collaborator Nile Koetting, ‘Immunotherapy’ offers therapeutic solace through a personalised form of Japanese environmental music. A conceptual continuation of themes explored on 2018’s ‘Climatotherapy’ and 2020’s ‘Sustainable Hours’; Nozomu’s 3rd solo vinyl release reprises his uncanny ability to evoke a reflective headspace with a blend of classical ambient tropes, text-to-speech synthesis, and a contemporary cinematic vernacular that’s both nuanced and moving.

In 2022, against the backdrop of global warfare, a pandemic, and ecological collapse, Nozomu’s work grasps the nettle with a sober lucidity to make time and space for his, and your, wellbeing. ‘Immunotherapy’ carefully evokes its own temporality and atmospheric conditions via a grandiose but intimate palette of strings, keys, blissed chorales, and electronic webbing which provide the bed for narration by Amazon’s vocaloid, Polly. The results create an unusual duality - a human/inhuman intimacy rooted in some uncertain semi-robotic near-future that references the original ‘80s era of classic Japanese ambient music, which itself emerged as a soothing response to the headlong rush of a technologically enhanced/enchanted society.

Across six parts in 22 minutes, ‘Immunotherapy’ resolves from the initial inset of a panic attack in public, via passages reflecting on “diseases of affluence” thru to spine freezing synth pads and an extraordinary denouement of emotive Koto and shearing synthesis on ‘Vertigo’ before entering a final state of blissed stasis on that closing 13 minute ‘Filippo Pacini’ section - a haunting ode to the c.19th Italian anatomist that uncannily reminds us of Kara-Lis Coverdale’s collaboration with Yasuaki Shimizu - a sound that feels all-too-human despite it’s synthetic contours.

A whirlwind of emotion, right on the cusp of bliss and melancholia.

Five years ago, back in September 2016, Stefano Gentile published a photographic book entitled IL Silenzio DEI Tuoi Passi (The Silence of Your Steps), which collected a series of 56 pictures, both in b/w and colour, dedicated to the nights in Venice. The book was a journey through the most remote "calli" and "campi" (streets, alleys and squares, as they're called in Venice) in search of the true 'breath' of the city, far away from the hordes of tourists who 'attack' it every day during daylight hours.

On such occasion, renowned musician Gigi Masin composed a 30 minutes epic ambient track entitled Venezia 2016 which was the perfectsoundtrack to the images included in the book. The track was published on CD and released bounded with the book itself in a limited edition of 480 copies only, and has been unavailable for years now.In 2021 Gigi Masin returned to that great piece of music and to its timeless sounds. Finally, Silentes can now offer Plays Venezia, Masin's latest work contanining a re-edited version of that 'pearl', accompanied by two unreleased tracks composed and recorded in the same period.

Once again inspired by the city, Masin created an enduring and wonderful ambient masterpiece, a sort of return to the origins, to his home. Adding to the intrinsic quality of the originals, the tracks were beautifully mastered by Brandenburg Mastering in Amsterdam. Plays Venezia is simply an unmissable release and one of Masin's greatest accomplishment in a long carrier that never ceases to amaze us.