Important Vinyl, CD & Tape 32 Items

Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels) composed the Forse series using a Buchla Music Easel. Forse, meaning "maybe" In Italian, is a series of 3 double LP releases Cortini recorded for Imprec to release in 2013.

"All pieces were written and performed live on a Buchla Music Easel, in the span of one month. I found that the limited array of modules that the instrument offers sparked my creativity. Most pieces consist of a repeating chord progression, where the real change happens at a spectral/dynamic level, as opposed to the harmonic/chordal one. I believe that the former are just as effective as the latter, in the sense that the sonic presentation (distortion , filtering, wave shaping, etc) are just as expressive as a chord change or chord type, and often reinforce said chord progressions.

Of all the years with Nine Inch Nails the period spent writing and recording the instrumental record Ghosts I-iv is probably the one which changed my approach to music making the most. After that record I started getting more into instrumental composition, although I tried to approach it in a different way. While we had a vast array of tools and instruments at our disposal then, I decided to approach my pieces limiting myself to one instrument only, as I found myself being more decisive when faced with a limited creative environment."

The Ape Of Naples is Coil's highly celebrated final album completed by Peter Christopherson following the tragic death of Jhonn Balance in 2004. Often noted for being a fan favorite, The Ape Of Naples uses Balance's final recordings and material recorded at Trent Reznor's studio in New Orleans to create a deep, heavy masterpiece.

This first printing of 2000 copies is packaged in a heavy duty case wrapped, tip-on style jacket with Ian Johnstone's original artwork coated in a custom spot gloss. Each LP is house in a printed inner sleeve and side D contains all three original etchings. Ape's lyrics are spread across the gatefold.

»Born Again In The Voltage« (released in 2018), is an astonishing collection of electro-acoustic pieces for Buchla 200 system, cello, and voice composed and produced by Caterina Barbieri at Elektronmusikstudion (se) between 2014 and 2015. Cello by Antonello Manzo. Images by Giovanni Brunetto; Photography by Angelo Jaroszuk Bogasz; Layout by Important Records. Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi.

After last year’s LP Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the second entry of their trilogy for Important Records, which is dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe. For this album the artists incorporated the sound of a dying organ, fatally wounded in a climate related event. »All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea« consists of electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe.

Originally released in 2013, this full length collaboration from Duane Pitre and Eleh is now available on cassette. Pitreleh use high resolution analog and digital tools to create music utilizing natural vibrations and harmonics as rhythm and melody. Inspiration is drawn directly from vibrational waves (sound, gravity, water). The electronics, of which both pieces are constructed, are tuned using pure intonation which utilizes the prime numbers: 1-3-5-7. The debut live performance of Pitreleh was recently presented at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn as well as the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Cleveland.

Christina Kubisch’s »Stromsänger« finds the sound artist at the top of her game mixing electromagnetic wave recordings with a score for six voices, creating powerful results. »Stromsänger« is based on a collaboration with the Norwegian vocal ensemble Trondheim Voices and on a special experience while researching and recording electromagnetic waves in the city of Trondheim.

»Colliding Bubbles« is a composition for string quartet and harmonica quartet, meaning that Quatuor Bozzini is playing string instruments while playing harmonicas. The title refers to different kinds of bubbly matter which are set to collide within the composition, leading to different ruptures and possible release of surface tension. The collision of bubbles unfolds partly in relation to sound, where small fluctuations appear in the encounters between harmonicas and string instruments and partly in relation to a more performative or conceptual bubble where instruments representing different systems, or bubbles, will collide; the very celebrated instruments within the classical string quartet and the perhaps more prosaic harmonica.

Razen's Postcards From Hereafter was recorded using a 17th century organ tuned at 398 Hz (meantone) in a Belgian cathedral erected in 1305. The ensemble explored, with rich results, the organ's strict and limiting tuning with an arrangement that included hurdy gurdy, recorders, chalumeau, violone and nyckelharpa.

The pieces on Postcards From Hereafter explore the crossover between this world and the next with improvised spiritual, religious music.

Brussels-based ensemble Razen use the unique timbral and drone characteristics of their chosen string and wind instruments in improvised, instinctive music that mixes pre-industrial, spectral and ethnic dreamtones with trance and medieval mysticism. The group includes Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour as well as Pieter Lenaerts on 5-string double bass and sarangi, Paul Garriau on hurdy-gurdy, David Poltrock on ondes-Marthenot, Berlinde Deman on serpent and Jean-Philippe Poncin on chalumeau and bass clarinet.

“an intoxicating sauce of stark and tripped out ritual music... which conspires to keep listeners in a semi-permanent trance state” Julian Cope / Head Heritage

“a heady brew of deep listening music that is almost medieval in mood and wholly reverential in technique” Edwin Pouncey / Wire Magazine

“Razen push the drone potential of medieval instruments like hurdy gurdy as well as shawm and recorders... into realms of total sensory overload” David Keenan / Volcanic Tongue

Veils Of Transformation 1972 - 1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. This collection is available on CD and cassette with liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records.

“Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are.” Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Kramer developed a musical language focused on continuous transformation of timbre, yielding a continuity of attention. This musical language, formed of timbral change, is a compelling aesthetic in its own right and a source of meditative experience. The four works on this album share a deep sense of order derived not from organizing pitches or rhythms, but from the evolution of timbre itself.

Gregory Kramer (b. 1952) is a pioneering electronic composer, inventor, researcher, teacher and author. In 1975 he co-founded Electronic Musicmobile, a synthesizer ensemble later renamed Electronic Musicmobile, a series of synthesizer concerts in New York from which he formed the Electronic Art Ensemble, a highly regarded all electronic quartet. His work extended to developing synthesizers and related equipment. Kramer also co-founded the not-for-profit arts organization Harvestworks in New York City. He is recognized as the founding figure of the intensely cross-disciplinary field of data sonification. Since 1980, Kramer teaches Buddhist meditation.

The four compositions collected here each represent Kramer’s unique approaches:

The structure of Meditations on 32 Parts of the Body (1978) is derived from the means of its production. Recording 5 people chanting an ancient meditation text, then layering to gradually achieve more than one million voices. The layering was all done using analogue tape recorders. The decomposition of the sound reflects the anomalies of tape machines out of sync, and the build up of artifacts from the audio tape itself, such as uneven response curves and tape hiss, are all engaged as musical materials.

Role (1972) was generated using one complex patch on a large hybrid Buchla 200/100 system. Emerging from a zeitgeist that valued pure synthesis as a combined artistic and technological research. At the time this piece was realized its as exceedingly difficult to produce electronic sounds that were internally complex.

Blue Wave (1980) is built on Kramer’s timbral development technique Veils Of Transformation which allows for disparate timbres to be woven into a continuously developing sound.

Monologue (1977) is a virtuosic performance of a massive patch on a Buchla/Electron Farm hybrid electronic instrument. Built into the patch is a pathway for continuous transformation of voice and voltage-controlled synthesizer. The blunt, raw and sometimes harsh sounds of this piece reflect an attitude prominent among composers that music can, or even should, be difficult, contrary to what’s already been done and, by all means, new.

The Well & The Gentle, two of the major works of Pauline Oliveros, are presented here in a first time reissue on double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with extensive liner notes.

If Oliveros had followed a more conventional path she may have, all social obstacles aside, been considered among the major composers of her time. However, Oliveros approached composition in a more egalitarian manner. She wrote music for musicians to interact with or, in the composers words, she wished to create "an inclusive and interdependent and unfolding world of relationships."

Oliveros' propensity towards inclusion is part of what makes this work so remarkably distinctive. The Well & The Gentle is carefully crafted, allowing performers to participate in the creation of the work. Players are asked to collaborate, focus, react and make imaginative choices. Only then can the performers "pass through stages of awakening to the possibilities inherent in making music, working together, leading to the essence of what can shape musical impulses and individual freedom simultaneously."

Unlike most major composers of the era, Oliveros' work focuses on collaboration and improvisation. For Oliveros, the processes involved in making music are as fundamental as the music itself. Oliveros creates, as Arthur Sabatini put it so eloquently in the liner notes, "A world in which sound and the practices entailed in making music merge; become, at once, source and atmosphere, energy and essence, presence and dynamic."

Pauline Oliveros was an electronic music pioneer, accordionist, composer and educator who resided in Kingston, New York. Her instrument was tuned in Just Intonation and she often included it in her meditative improvisational music. Her music is not meditative in the sense that it is intended for listening to while meditating, rather each piece is a form of meditation, such as her aptly titled Sonic Meditations.

A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. West coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvised with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed, in her performances and recordings.

Original old stock. "On break from Rough Trade and her band The Moldy Peaches, our friend Kimya finds herself at home on Important Records releasing two full length albums at once. Both albums are full of moving original folk songs about Atari 2600's, love, growing up, growing old, overcoming hardships and Matlock . Kimya is one of the most genuine voices in modern music and the superstar of NYC's Anti-Folk scene. Both solo albums were recorded after her Rough Trade solo debut . Knock Knock Who? and My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess find Kimya stronger and more confident than before, creating more powerful records every time."

Tod Dockstader's electronic/drone »Aerial« series is cherished among fans of the artist's work and this second volume is now available in an audiophile quality double LP edition. The series is sourced from Dockstader's life long passion for shortwave radio. He collected over 90 hours of recordings, made at night, and comprised of cross signals and fragments plucked from the atmosphere.

This dense 11 disc retrospective of Pauline Oliveros’ early and unreleased electronic work includes her very first piece made for tape in 1959. Organized chronologically, this set not only documents Pauline's earliest electronic music but it also functions as an early history of electronic music itself. Follow as she participates in the establishment of the legendary San Francisco Tape Music Center and then moves to University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio, Mills Tape Music Center and University of California San Diego Electronic Music Center.

This 10th anniversary edition is packaged in a clamshell-style box containing all the tracks from the 2012 edition spread out over 11 CDs each housed in single pocket sleeves. A 36 page booklet includes extensive liner notes and essays from Pauline Oliveros, Alex Chechile, Ramon Sender, David Bernstein, Corey Arcangel.

Pauline Oliveros was a composer, performer, humanitarian and an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, she forged new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, sonic philosophy, teaching and meditation she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly affects those who experience it and eludes many who try to write about it.

"On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." John Rockwell

Pauline Oliveros built a loyal following through her concerts, recordings, publications and musical compositions written for soloists and ensembles in music, dance, theater and inter-arts companies. She provided leadership within the music community from her early years as the first Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (formerly the Tape Music Center at Mills), director of the Center for Music Experiment during her 14 year tenure as professor of music at the University of California at San Diego to acting in an advisory capacity for organizations such as The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and many private foundations. She served as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College. Oliveros was vocal about representing the needs of individual artists, about the need for diversity and experimentation in the arts, and promoting cooperation and good will among people.

She was honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros' commitment to interaction with the moment went unchanged.

Oliveros passed away peacefully on November 24, 2016 but her sonic legacy and philosophy continues to grow and inspire.

Tony Rolando's debut »Breakin' Is A Memory« could be your soundtrack. This worldbuilding album of electronic music leaves room for the listener to make big personal connections through subtly complex music resembling a sonic mobile which, as it spins, reveals new forms and colors. This is a collection of very human music with a deceptive simplicity and relaxed intensity. Riyl early OPN, Alessandro Cortini, Caterina Barbieri, Tangerine Dream.

First time on CD for this classic Merzbow duo album from 1983.

Material Action is a favorite among early Merzbow free-music, junk-noise workouts. Psychedelic improvised instrumental energy abounds on this essential early recording that is Pure Merz.

Masami Akita plays tapes, percussion, electro-acoustic noise, organ Kiyoshi Mizutani overdubs tapes, synthesizer, violin, machine noise

Japan's leading noise luminary Merzbow meets American electro-feedback artist Arcane Device as they mix and manipulate each other's work. The result are droning, bubbling sonic textures that are as serene as they are extreme pushing the boundaries and meeting in the middle. Both artists contribute long-form manipulations that inspire contemplation as much as highly caffeinated charges of sonic skullduggery. Sonic textures take center stage on Merzbow & Arcane Device.

David Lee Meyers aka Arcane Device has been building electronics and creating feedback based electronic music since the late 70's. He has collaborated with Tod Dockstader, Kim Cascone, Asmus Tietchens among others.

Masami Akita's legendary Merzbow project has established him as an international electronic phenomenon and this collaboration with Arcane Device is being released at the same time as a 20th anniversary reissue of his Merzbeat album and a CD reissue of his 1983 album Material Action, all on Important Records.

“Out of Our Hands” brings together Alvin Lucier and Jordan Dykstra who, through the hands of Ordinary Affects, have created debut recordings of two new compositions.

These companion pieces have similar orbits as they were not only both composed in Middletown, CT (where Alvin and Jordan lived for a number of years), but are about Middletown, at least from a starting point. Alvin’s piece — a homage to the location of the house in which he recorded “I am sitting in a room” back in 1969 — continues his study into slow-moving glissandi and carefully crafted beating patters by interweaving three string players within a minor third (voiced by two vibraphonists). The result is entrancing, almost psychedelic, and opens space where one didn’t expect. Like much of his previous work, it is conceptual and process-based; once the wheels get turning they go on and on, giving the listener time to approach the piece, sit with it, and then move back inward.

On the other hand, Dykstra’s piece “32 Middle Tones” (a pun on his Middletown street address and the harmonic microtonality utilized in the composition) is a very textural work. His piece asks the cellist to sustain pitches for extended durations — at times quietly singing in close proximity to the stopped pitch coming from the cello — while the rest of the ensemble (violin, viola, and 2 percussion) voice a sequence of chords separated by notated silences. The cello voice is sometimes alone, but never for too long as it finds itself supported from both the top and bottom in a harmonic embrace. This supportive structure involves a percussion section which colors the seemingly simple chords (major 6th, inverted minor 7th, inverted minor 2nd, etc.) with a non-traditional toolkit of bowed singing bowls, stone sheets, harmonicas, and even leaves.

This is music that gently gives the listener a sense of predictability but always in an unexpected (and subtly indeterminate) shade. Speaking of shade, the album’s cover photo was taken in 2019 in Alvin’s backyard in Middletown. Alvin and Jordan sit with similar demeanors in front of his favorite tree — a crooked aspen which early on looked to be doomed — but which he would often saunter over to spend time with, giving it whispers of blessings and encouraging words.The world was blessed with Alvin’s presence and hopefully this album will whisper to you and yours.

Duane Pitre returns with Omniscient Voices, an articulate, intense and emotionally resonant set of five pieces for justly tuned piano and electronics. Omniscient Voices is a uniquely distinct work that follows Pitre's trilogy of releases which culminated with 2015’s Bayou Electric and included the critically acclaimed Feel Free (2012) and Bridges (2013) albums. Where those albums were rooted in long form pieces, Omniscient Voices is a collection of shorter pieces, offering more harmonic variety than previous works, with a unique sound and feel that is still unmistakably the work of Duane Pitre.

Alessandro Cortini's acclaimed 'Forse' series is available for the first time on CD including an exclusive disc of 'Forse' performed live. Packaged in matte coated digipacks housed in a heavy duty tip-on style outer box. 2021 digital master by Stephan Mathieu.

Composed using only an original Buchla Music Easel, an incredibly rare electronic music instrument designed by Don Buchla, the Forse series features long, romantic compositions full of voluminous, bombastic tones and dripping with thick timbre.

A composition by Danish multidisciplinary artist Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard, that features a clarinet choir consisting of 19(!) clarinet players. The multiplication brings out bodily timbral phenomena, interference of sound waves and vibrations, and brings out what Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard calls the sound’s potential of transformation. He describes this as the quality in a musical piece, when you no longer hear recognizable instruments, but instead the individual sound, as well as the individual musician, is dissolved into the collective sound.

Alina Kalancea's Impedance is an entirely instrumental album spanning four sides, contains powerful rhythmic sequences, heart-beating frequencies and hypnotic loops that are paradoxically encapsulated in carefully crafted compositions which are full of secret passages and hidden doors. Kalancea's work creates ungraspable sonic experiences, which overtakes you, immersing its listeners in powerful and mind-altering soundscapes. There's no quick payoff on Impedance. This is the sound of new, patient electronic music, full of depth and substance.

Ned Lagin's Seastones is a pioneering electronic composition interweaving metaphors from nature, science, art and music and the origins of music. Reflecting the technology, science, modern art, new ecological awareness and optimism of the times and culture, Seastones embodies the history of electronic music by taking full advantage of tape music, analog synthesizers, and computer technology to create pieces that are dynamic, rich, and deep.

Originally released by the Grateful Dead's Round Records in 1975, Seastones' reputation as a gem of electronic music was further enhanced by the celebrity of the musicians who contributed to the source material. Seastones musicians include Ned Lagin (processed piano, clavichord, organ, prepared piano, electric piano, synthesizers), Jerry Garcia (processed electric guitar, pedal steel guitar, voice), Phil Lesh (processed electric bass), David Crosby (processed electric guitar and vocals), Grace Slick and David Freiberg (processed vocals), and Mickey Hart and Spencer Dryden (percussion).

This new LP presents two crafted Seastones sets (Sets 4 and 5, 18 tracks) drawn from the entire Seastones composition and contains gorgeous extended processed vocals by Garcia, Crosby, Slick, and Freiberg, and beautiful abstract instrumental passages by Lagin and all.

Lagin is considered a pioneer in the development and use of minicomputers and personal computers in real-time stage and studio music composition and performance. He had classical music training in piano, counterpoint, harmony, orchestration, composition, and the history of music. Growing up in 1960s New York he was deeply influenced by modal and free jazz, and by modern art. Lagin studied jazz improvisation, arrangement, and piano and played in small jazz groups and a big band. Seastones was influenced not only by modern jazz and forms for improvisation, but also by Lagin's studies of early, Renaissance, and 20th century music. He was a touring, studio, and guest keyboard player with the Grateful Dead from 1970 to 1976.

Seastones composition began in 1970, while Lagin was attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit). In 1974, with a minicomputer and an E-mu modular analog synthesizer, Lagin was able to play a polyphonic keyboard and hybrid computer-controlled instrument, as well as create simple generative musical processes. The normal controls found on the analog synthesizer were customized to accept computer control and the system was large enough to input audio and control voltages from the other musicians' instruments. This means that the synthesizer controls which were processing the incoming audio from the musicians could be controlled by what the artists were playing. These control voltages and timing signals derived from the amplitude envelope shapes of what the musicians played, as Lagin puts it:

"... became the sources of modulation that are the imprints, the musical touch and articulation, personality and presence of each musician. Interweaving multiple musical identities within an interconnected group. Ensemble interaction and improvisation through instrument and compositional interconnection."

Each track on Seastones is what Lagin refers to as a "moment form". Each track is self-contained, like a sea stone on the beach, a moment in time full of feelings and meaning, an entire world unto itself. Again, Lagin:

"Each stone on a fragment from another place and time. Some are just one mineral, some made of many; some are crystalline; some magnetic; some meteorites from the birth of this solar system or the universe; some contain fossils of ancient lives and little life form's, their stories are imprinted. Ephemeral existence."

"Like real sea stones, the Seastones moment forms are each a placetime, a time island, a droplet of time. They are composed and synthesized and skeletal improvisational forms. Some moment forms are ideogrammatic; the communicate their own self-contained structure, each a sensuous object in and of itself. Some of the moment form compositions are individual, some are related."

"Some are metaphoric abstracted forms derived from geology, and natural history and paleontology, electronics and electricity, organic and biochemical synthesis, physical processes, mathematics, physics and quantum mechanics, language and linguistic structure, and different forms and perspectives from pictorial (and abstract) visual art (paintings - cubism, pointillism, impressionism, expressionism and color field). And some from the sea with tonalities that are complex ocean surface and deep wave forms and currents, with the superposition of many waveforms from many sources. Some moment forms are just one waveform cycle."

Seastones: Sets 4 and 5 is available in this audiophile edition of 2000 copies. This audiophile quality LP was cut by Golden Mastering and pressed at RTI to insure excellence in reproducing Seastone's rich analog sound.

ELEH's Harmonic Twins is slow moving monophony tuned to the overtone vocalizations generated by a particularly beautiful sound sculpture made by Harry Bertoia. These two pieces are inspired by early music, choral masses, motets, the cathedral reverberations of sacred geometry and deep bass.

Lose yourself in the circuitry of the original 1965 Buchla 100 with NYZ (Dave Burraston) as he utilizes Barbara Hero's Lambdoma tuning theories to create two slow, deeply layered, subconscious, organic and meditative compositions.

David Burraston is an award winning artist/scientist working in the areas of technology and electronic music, operating Noyzelab as an independant art/science music studio since 1981. 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 the world. 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, MIT Media 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.

Recorded at Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, Oakland, CA, USA on 5th April 2015
Mixed and arranged at Noyzelab, NSW, Australia between July 2015 & Febuary 2016
Sound Source: Noyzelab 4 Voice Digital Microtonal Oscillator
Processing: Buchla 100 Modular Synthesizer

NYZ's split 12" with ELEH will be released at the same time as Millz Medz and both records are available in a first pressing of 500 copies.

2018 Repress limited to 500 copies in gatefold sleeve.

Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full length from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Highly recommended to fans of Alessandro Cortini and Eleh; Barbieri can be seen/heard/felt live at major electronic music events across Europe and beyond.

Eleh's influential Radiant Intervals I, originally released on CD/LP in 2010, is a meticulously nuanced, restrained exploration of the rhythmic and harmonic relationships inherent in pure analog frequencies using a blend of intuitive and mathematically based tunings. Dense patterns of sound slowly unravel and are woven together again in new ways while harmonics hover and shift overhead. Radiant Intervals is a purely analog recording, made with a Serge Modular system, Mini Moog, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 and a Pro-One.

Full length collaboration from Duane Pitre & ELEH. Pitreleh use high resolution analog and digital tools to create music utilizing natural vibrations and harmonics as rhythm and melody. Inspiration is drawn directly from vibrational waves (sound, gravity, water). The electronics, of which both pieces are constructed, are tuned using pure intonation which utilizes the prime numbers: 1-3-5-7.

»Strange Times« is a virtuosic realization of contemporary electroacoustic soundscapes composed and performed by Stephen Ruppenthal and Gary R. Weisberg. With masterful employment of electro-acoustic techniques and tools, including the original 70's Buchla Music Easel Ruppenthal used in the Electric Weasel Ensemble, these two artist create an essential, psychedelic, electro-acoustic experience. »Strange Times« explores the ability of sound to alter consciousness, creating sonic environments, mental and physical states where one can allow the experience of listening to become transformative.

»Therapy« is a new experimental electronic music album by Alexandre Bazin that explores musical reasearch on the edge of ambient music, with a reminder of classical music. His instrumental music revolves around sonic textures, saturations, feedback, allowing new fragments to emerge to create melodies, timbres and tone colors. The saturated sounds recall the presence of the electric guitar, encompassing orchestral materials and acoustic instruments which are the basis of this album, with the exception of the first two tracks, which are solo synthesizer pieces, the first one that opens the album is a solo by Synthi A, and the second by Buchla Music easel.

One Arm Bandits is an hour-long piece in four parts, scored for four cellists. The cellists play only open strings, thus using only their right arms, never fingering the strings with the left hand. Recorded in Alvin Lucier's dining room, this work features cellists Tyler J. Borden, Laura Cetilia, Charles Curtis and Judith Hamann. Lucier oversaw and produced the recording, and approved the final takes.

One Arm Bandits was an important project for Alvin Lucier. The idea for the piece goes back to conversations we first had in 2007 about the relationship between bow direction changes and shifts in phase. In the summer of 2015 we worked these ideas out in long sessions with Judith Hamann and T. J. Borden in New York, and the resulting piece received its first performances in Graz and Zürich in 2016. Alvin thought of One Arm Bandits as a radical statement, I think primarily in view of the severe reduction in material – even in the context of his music – and the physical restraint required in performance. The unusually long duration attests to Alvin's recognition that an expansion of scale was required in order to magnify acoustical details of such subtlety.

In November 2021 Alvin saw proofs for the CD artwork. He passed away at the age of 90 on December 1, before he could see the album in its final form. Work with Alvin was always joyful, stimulating, and surprising. We dedicate this recording to the continuing spirit of this remarkable musician and friend.

[Charles Curtis]