Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 314 Items

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Stamped white label.

very close to NM

Vinyl slightly warped. Still in shrink, but opened

Vinyl with scuffs and hairlines, closer to VG+. Still in shrink, but opened. Cover with slightly bumped corner

(Japanese pressing, Official reissue) Brilliant synth prog weirdness from the late 1970s Tokyo. Recorded by the guitarist Akio Niitsu who was compared, not without reason, to Manuel Göttsching. Niitsu has a fairly small discography of only three full-length albums, but his second one - “Pet Step” - was on Tomita’s label and supposedly with the involvement of Haruomi Hosono (this is according to Chee Shimizu who lists it in his “Obscure Music”).

Akio Niitsu's first album, "i/o(i･o)" released in 1978, was produced in a homemade studio that had been converted from a storeroom in his home, and he spent three years doing everything from composition to engineering by himself, using overdubbed guitar recordings. 's first analog re-release has been decided.As a guitar multi-recording album, the idea was realized six years earlier than the album "e2-e4" released in 1984 by Manuel Göttsching, the central figure of "Ash La Tempel", but it was too early. A hidden experimental/ambient gem!The paradoxical sound that makes you feel as if you are lost deep in a labyrinthine forest, combined with Tadanori Yokoo's artwork, is a piece that allows you to enjoy Akio Niitsu's worldview with your ears and eyes.

Recorded in 1994 in Berlin, 'Stone' has been remastered by Lawrence English and sounds better than ever. The perfect introduction to veteran Japanese sound artist's raft of material, it's an exploration of sound, space and time using found objects and flute.

Suzuki's work is fiendishly difficult to describe - it's far better to experience. He became interested in sound after studying architecture, and quickly developed a fascination with spaces - specifically the echoes that existed within them. 'Stone' was a further development of his "throwing and following" technique, where he would cast sounds and gestures into space and catch whatever returned.

So, stationed in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, he used the vast studio to create unique atmospheres, alternating between flute and clattering rhythms from found objects. It's beguiling stuff, that on the CD version thankfully comes with photo documentation and notes from David Toop that should make Suzuki's process a little clearer.

Label cover.

Albert Alan Owen was born in Wales in 1948 to parents of Welsh and Latvian heritage. His family later moved to Zimbabwe, where his father took up a teaching position. There, Owen was deeply influenced by local music and culture, while also exploring American RnB and jazz. It was during this period that he became acutely aware of the harsh inequalities under British colonial rule, which instilled in him a lifelong aversion to discrimination and racism.

In 1967, Owen returned to Europe to pursue his studies and enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He went on to spend time in Paris, studying composition with the eminent Nadia Boulanger and piano under Jacques Février, a favorite pianist of Ravel’s and Poulenc’s. Owen's focus shifted almost entirely to composition, and the acquisition of a Fender Rhodes electric piano marked the beginning of a divorce from his classical Western training. This transition allowed him to merge his passion for African and African-American music with the impressionistic styles of Ravel and Debussy while exploring the innovative realm of electroacoustic composition. These formative experiences framed Owen’s career as a composer and educator at the Royal Academy of Music and London’s Working Men’s College. He eventually returned to Wales, where he continues to reside. In 1979, 29-year-old Albert Alan Owen released “Keyboards & Strings”, a light magical chamber music masterpiece. Transcending the formal conventions of its era, “Keyboard & Strings” is an acoustic and electric piano piece, where the violin is met by synths and electronics.

As is often the case in Albert Alan Owen’s most intimate works, there is a sense of ethereal beauty that emerges from the music, akin to the emotional state one might experience while contemplating a Félix Vallotton landscape or the unfathomable mystery of dawn’s first light. Quiet, profound, and immersive, “Keyboard & Strings” stands out as an electronic-age tone poem, a rare gem that transcends time and place.

Alwanzatar is a one-man musical project (Krizla from Norwegian cult heroes Tusmørke) creating extraterrestrial world music, with flute, incantations, synthesizers and electronics. This is Alwanzatar’s sixth album, performed on synthesizers and flute. Engsyre is dance music for the faery folk feasting in the woods, where the murmur of the city falls silent, and the booming bass of dreams takes over. It is the slow pulse of the blood in the ground, life sliding through roots of hungry trees, the scurrying movements of living creatures that do no wish to be seen. Hidden, until they show themselves in awesome splendour and sound reverberates in the hills.

Records are close to NM.