Digital Download available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC. Alexander Hawkins / Hammond B3 John Edwards / Double Bass Steve Noble / Drums Joe McPhee / Pocket Trumpet, Alto Sax New 2CD version of Spontaneous Combustion - the second meeting of UK organ/bass/drums trio DECOY with sax legend Joe McPhee - Here with an extra 78 minutes of music added to the original LP material. The original LP (now out of print) was listed in The WIRE magazine's top Jazz & Improv releases of 2013! "a show that surpassed all expectations to become one of the very best things I’ve seen this year." The Liminal Disc One recorded 29 October 2011, Cafe OTO by Mick Ritchie. Mix by Ritchie/Noble. Mastered by Andreas [LUPO] Lubich @ Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Disc Two recorded 30 October 2011, Cafe OTO by Mick Ritchie. Mixed by Ritchie/Noble and mastered by Mick Ritchie. Sleeve design by Oliver Pitt.

This deluxe CD/DVD is packaged in a heavy duty tip-on style gatefold sleeve with a glued in 12 page accordion style booklet. Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture of Harry Bertoia is a deluxe CD/DVD package containing historic recordings made in Harry Bertoia's Sonambient barn.The DVD, a film titled Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture of Harry Bertoia, by Jeffrey & Miriam Eger, was shot in 1971 and follows Harry Bertoia in performance and interview throughout his Sonambient barn deep in the Pennsylvania woods. This film offers a rare opportunity to follow the artist in practice, listening carefully as he moves contemplatively through his sculptures and gongs. Interview footage offers rare insight into Bertoia's inspiration and process.A separate CD contains four exclusive, recently discovered audio recordings. Included are the two earliest known collaborative tapes from Harry and brother Oreste, morning and evening sessions dated October 12, 1969, as well as a collaboration between the Bertoia brothers and their sister Ave who sings in careful unison with the overtones being produced by the sculptures. With the passing of Oreste Bertoia in 1972, these recordings mark the last meeting of all three Bertoia siblings.A 16-page booklet includes many never before seen production stills shot by Jeffrey Eger. These iconic images capture the essence of the artist in practice. All of this is packaged in a heavy duty, tip-on style, gatefold sleeve printed with metallic inks at Stoughton Printing in California.

First Official Reissue of Conspiracy. NOT TO BE MISSED!! (due to a slight delay at the pressing plant, this release has been put back to the end of July) Jeanne Lee (1939-2000) was an African-American vocalist, poet, composer, improvisor, activist and educator. In her 40 year career she performed with Archie Shep, Marion Brown, Gunter Hampel, Frank Lowe, William Parker, Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Braxton, Ran Blake, Billy Bang, Cecil Taylor, John Cage, Rashsaan Roland Kirk, Pauline Oliveros, Reggie Workman, and many others. "jazz is a music that combines so many opposites...you have to fined that balance, then you have a guideline between freedom and discipline, between rhythm and melody, between body and spirit, between mind and instinct" (Jeanne Lee) This is the first official reissue of "Conspiracy" since its limited release in 1975, it was her first record under her own name as a solo artist. It is a true lost gem, with a unique and beautiful sound. Musician Elaine Mitchener describes "Conspiracy" as "one of greatest free-form albums of the1970s". "i feel the music like a dance, I think it's an important part of the music, it has to be felt like a dance" (Jeanne Lee) --- Jeanne Lee - vocal Gunter Hampel - flute, piano, vibraphone, alto clarinet, bass clarinet Sam Rivers - soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute Steve McCall - drums Alan Praskin - clarinet Perry Robinson - clarinet Jack Gregg - Bass Mark Whitecage - alto clarinet Marty Cook -trombone Recorded in New York, 1974 Originally released in 1975 on "Seeds records" and Jeanne Lee's own "Earth-forms records"

Absolutely mindblowing recording, live from Cafe OTO on 9th July 2019!! Rich in musical associations yet utterly singular in its voice, joyous with an inner tranquility, the music of Natural Information Society is unlike any other being made today. Their sixth album in eleven years for Eremite records, Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the first to be recorded live, featuring a set from Cafe OTO with veteran English free-improv great Evan Parker, & the first to feature just one extended composition. The 75-minute performance, inspired by the galvanizing presence of Parker, is a sustained bacchanalia of collective ecstasy. You could call it their party album. This was the second time Parker played with NIS. Joshua Abrams: “Both times we played compositions with Evan in mind. I don’t tell Evan anything. He’s a free agent.”  The music is focused & malleable, energized & even-keeled, drawing on concepts of ensemble playing common to musics from many locations & eras without any one specific aesthetic realization completely defining it. --- Joshua Abrams guimbriLisa Alvarado harmonium & effectsMikel Patrick Avery drums Evan Parker soprano saxophoneJason Stein bass clarinet --- recorded: London, Cafe OTO, 2019-07-09 producers: Abrams & Michael Ehlers engineer: Jimmy Dunn cover painting: Lisa Alvarado --- Aguirre, 2021

The second of two editions capturing Pat Thomas and XT's (Seymour Wright & Paul Abbot) enduring creative partnership, dedicated to renderings of Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary). This, the Double CD edition, encounters the trio at at Rote Fabrik in Zurich on June 10 + 11, 2022 (while the vinyl edition, listed separately, captures their second brilliant set at Cafe Oto on June 22, 2022)  Pianist Pat Thomas, saxophonist Seymour Wright (both of [ahmed]) and drummer Paul Abbott - the latter two working as XT - deliver a remarkable set of new music, each, re-imagining improvisation and synthetic ideas with acoustic and electronic tools. This monumental new suite Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* released by We Jazz Records on 30th January 2026 is spread across three release formats, the complete album includes more than 2 hours and 15 minutes of music recorded live in London and Zurich in summer 2022. Five tracks in total. complex, iterative whole that makes ideas live - back into tradition/s and out, on, into an infinite future. In 2018 the trio recorded a remarkable 80-minute tribute to the late Cecil Taylor "Akisakila" / Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees) vigorously re-visiting his 1973 Tokyo trio Akisakila recording. Re-convening five years later to celebrate that release they imagined a-new, expanding that attitude to history through connected lenses of the traditions of British electro-acoustic-mystery: from the live electronics of Tony Oxley’s February Papers or Howard Riley’s Synopsis, to Leviticus’ Burial and Splash’s Babylon, plus of course Derek Bailey’s Domestic Jungle, and now up to their overlapping global-temporal experiments with, between them, Mark Fell, Anne Gills and RPBoo. The subtitles of each disc reveal something essential about the three musicians’ shared histories and ways of thinking-through-synthesizing ideas, time, space and sound. The LP, titled Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* London draws from UK improvising pioneer, guitarist Derek Bailey (on playing with Cecil) in its subtitle: “*(it's quite different to the other stuff, the earlier stuff. Without going into all kinds of detail which usually undersells the music, can't describe it. But it was a fine experience, and very memorable.)” Captured at London’s Cafe OTO, the LP hears Thomas & XT expand their acoustic trio each with liquid (dry and wet) electronics, as real and imagined instrumentation. We hear sounds of keys, sticks, reeds, pedals, (i)pads, plug-ins, body and breath and their potentials. We also hear the unique energy, space and feel of OTO a sui generis ecology in which all three musicians have worked and learned since its doors opened in 2008. And as you will hear, this night was a particularly wild, multi-species reception. Released as a double CD, Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* Zurich takes its sub-title from the great drummer, and live electrician, Tony Oxley (also on playing with Cecil): “*(is so much more immense if you prepare yourself to go where the music will take you, and not try and make the music go where you want it perhaps, or think it might go)”. Here we hear the music grow across two nights (one per disc), synthetic, bionic expanding, evaporating, electric, charging through time in ways that renders “genre” indistinguishable, irrelevant and even impossible. Two additional digital tracks added, “London FIRST SET” and “Zurich THREE” round up the release and connect back, in redux-miniature, to Attitudes[...]. This set is a multi-format document of some of the most adventurous, rare (and radical) creative musicians working today. Electronic-and-acoustic, real and imaginary, sounds, times, scales and proportions that extends out of and collapses into musical space in dialogue with past and future.

“Dec. 2015: I received an invitation from Old Heaven to participate with FaUSt to the 3rd edition of “Tomorrow Festival” at B10 Live, Shenzhen, China! A few months later, May 2016, we were on our way to the most exciting concert experience. A loooong flight-haul and then, such a warm welcome, such a perfect organization… the most charming, dedicated, competent crew around us… the largest cement mixer I ever used on stage, and an audience so vibrant, so focused. I was and still am in memory, overwhelmed by the endless energy of all the people I met: technicians, promoters, music fans, the so-creative Knitting Ladies, my old-time friend Keiji Haino, and my comrade Maxime. The music we created together had been accurately recorded. As Old Heaven proposed to release this concert, I immediately was enthused by the idea. Even more so when I heard the perfect mix of Liu Ying. Two tracks were beautifully post-produced, edited and mixed by Amaury Cambuzat. I loved the B10 Live performance and place it in my top ten FaUSt concerts ever and I love this album, I do. ” —— JHP / art-Errorist --- Recorded at the 3rd Tomorrow Festival on May 14, 2016. B10 Live, Shenzhen, China. Published by Old Heaven Books & B10 Live, Shenzhen 2022. Tomorrow Festival Series OH 036 录音 Recording：曾君 Zeng Jun；罗绿野 Luo Lvye混音 Mixing & 母带处理 Mastering：刘英 Liu Ying编辑 Editing & 混音 Mixing：Amaury Cambuzat（track 06/C2 & 08/D1）制作人 Producer：涂飞 Tu Fei统筹 Coordinators：李书琴 P.G，尹思卜 Yin Sibo设计 Design：Nino摄影 Photography：艾飞 Effy，大米，惠子@DAFA，肖蔚鸿 Xiao Weihong，子弹，左氏文化特别鸣谢 Special Thanks：黄可 Huang Ke，李秭林 Li Zilin，邹佳伟 Zou Jiawei Jean-Hervé Péron - 人声 Vocals / 贝斯 Bass / 原声吉他 Acoustic Guitars / 小号 Trumpet / 水泥搅拌机 Cement MixerWerner “Zappi” Diermaier - 鼓 Drums 特邀嘉宾 Very Special Guests：Maxime Manac’h - 键盘 Keyboards / 吉他 Guitar/ 煤气罐 Gas Cylinder / 手摇风琴 Hurdy-Gurdy灰野敬二 Keiji Haino - 人声 Vocals / 电吉他 Electric Guitars / 电子设备 Electronics魏籽 Wei Zi, Tina, 郦亭亭 Li Tingting - 针织行为表演 Knitting PerformanceB10 Live, Shenzhen, China!

Bayawan:The Call of the Wild and Free "Bayawan" is the common name for Muqam music used by the Dolan people. Bayawan, or Dolan Muqam, is a unique form of folk music and one of the most important cultural heritages of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China. Generally speaking, Muqam is a form of large-scale suites which include songs, dances, and instrumental sections, in which the development of music often features a significant degree of improvisation. The Muqam of the Uyghurs is characterized by its diversity of musical styles. Apart from the classical Twelve Muqam, there are also multiple folk Muqam traditions with distinct regional characteristics, including Kumul Maqam, Turpan Muqam, Dolan Muqam, and Ili Muqam. Among them, Dolan Muqam is often considered as the wildest, if not the uncanniest tradition that still exists. "Dolan" is the name of a people, typically considered as an ethnic sub-group of the Uyghurs, who historically inhabits the banks of the Yarkand and Tarim rivers on the northwest edge of the Tarim Basin. Dolan Muqam has been circulating by and large in the Dolan region—which now mainly includes Makit County and Maralbexi County in Kashgar Prefecture, and Awat County in Aksu Prefecture—and its influence has also reached places such as Kargilik, Poskam, Kuqa, Korla, Turpan, and Kumul. The Dolan people refers to the Muqam music they play as "Bayawan", which literally means "the desert and the wildland". Bayawan, in their common language, is not something to be sung, but rather to be "shouted out". It is said that there were originally twelve sets of Dolan Muqam, three of which have now been lost. Each set of Dolan Muqam is approximately six to nine minutes in length. The remaining nine sets last about one and a half hours in total. Dolan Muqam is marked by its simple, unadorned instrumentation, strong and intense grooves, and a distinctively hoarse, air-rending style of singing. The lyrics draw from folk songs and oral poetry, maintaining an overall sense of rugged raw beauty. A unique and rare cultural treasure worldwide. In May 2023, the Mekit Dolan Muqam Group performed at the 7th Tomorrow Festival in Shenzhen. Taking this chance, we invited the artists to a session at Liu Ying Studio, which gave birth to this one-of-a-kind record. This was our great good fortune. We wish these magnificent sounds and voices travel far and reach more ears.

Nyahh Records is delighted to present a collection of contemporary noise and experimental musicians from all across the island of Ireland. All crammed into this two disc set with wonderful artwork by Alan Doyle.This significant collection covers multiple generations of artists in the field of audio experimentation, including Danny McCarthy (turned 75 in 2025) and some new heads on the block like Francesca O and Enola Christ Metalizer. These 32 tracks cover noise, acoustic, electroacoustic, electronics, Musique Concrete, tape music, and drone. Some with academic backgrounds and some total bedroom studio weirdos who don’t get out much.We hope you enjoy this compilation and it brings you some kind of joy and/or discomfort.

Mohammad’s own brand of ecstatic music takes elements from Middle Eastern and North African music to create an atmosphere of joy, love and happiness.WHO IS MOHAMMAD SYFKHANMohammad Syfkhan is a Kurdish/Syrian Singer and Bouzouki player. He began playing music in 1980 while he was in college studying nursing. When he got his degree in 1983, Mohammad moved to the city of Raqqa, Syria where he began working as a professional singer and started his own band, The Al-Rabie Band which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria. The Al-Rabie Band were a much sought-after group. Their live sets included Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and some Western songs as well as Mohammad’s own original material.

The six works represented on these two compact discs might be heard as historical artefacts in the sense that they exist as documentation of performed events that are not repeatable in the same way that notated musical works generally are. However, while they involved improvisational elements, they are not to be regarded as improvisations since they were rigorously composed for the environmental circumstances in which they took place. They represent an attempt to articulate an aesthetic of environmental interactivity through sound-making, which occupied me over a fifteen year period. During that time I generated a diverse body of work from which these six examples have been chosen in order to illustrate the range of those activities. All of these works share the characteristic of having been outdoor performances. They also demonstrate a purposeful transition that my investigations pursued over those fifteen years: a progressive expansion of context, moving from my interactions with a single member of another species toward interactions with complex environments. Foremost in these experiments was a concern for sound as a means to explore the emergent intelligence of non-human living systems. My interest was in regarding the complex web of environmental sound-making as evidence of complex-minded systems – a way of experiencing what Gregory Bateson has called “the integrated fabric of mind that envelopes us.”These recordings were often made under less-than-ideal technical circumstances. The listener must tolerate a wide range of unusual acoustic spaces and an even greater range of technical quality. I recommend that listeners adjust their audio expectations to accommodate these eccentric demands through understanding that the non-studio production values were intentional and inseparable from the reality of the art.- David Dunn

In the early 1970s San Diego was a sleepy Southern California Navy town on the Mexican border and a seemingly unlikely gathering point for some of the most innovative, unclassifiable American artists of their era. Yet the presence of Harry Partch - hobo composer, iconoclast and inventor of instruments such as the Harmonic Canon and Quadrangularis Reversum - and a newly established and highly experimental music department at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) ushered in a revolution that was as much social as it was musical. Drawing from the occult, self-realization and radical political movements of 70s Southern California, these artists sought to dismantle the established control systems of American life, looking to the future even as they sometimes referenced a distant, idyllically imagined past. In their pursuit of “Irrelevant Music” - Kenneth Gaburo’s term for an untainted music free of constraint and compromise - these disparate artists constitute a shadow history of American experimental music far removed from the European and East Coast models of the time. Sonic Meditations, compositional linguistics, microtonality, invented instruments, cutting edge electronics, underwater synthesizers, Tibetan throat singing, environmental sound and pure noise were their tools. My 2023 book, Alien Territory: Radical, Experimental and Irrelevant Music in 1970s San Diego, presents the story. In this collection are the sounds.

For a performance at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in spring of 1966, percussionist Milford Graves invited pianist Don Pullen to play duets. The two musicians had worked together in a band fronted by saxophonist and clarinetist Giusseppi Logan, with whom they had recorded two LPs in 1965 for ESP Disk. Graves was already a daunting presence in free music. One step at a time, he was busy transforming the role of drumming in jazz, introducing a new way of dealing with unmetered time and accomplishing this task with technique that was almost inconceivable. His experience playing timbales in Latin bands had been formative, suggesting that the snare could be used as accent rather than beat-keeper, but by the mid '60s he'd worked up a holistic approach to sound and energy that was the most radical of his improvising percussion contemporaries. And with a simpatico accomplice like Pullen, who would go on to have an illustrious career with Charles Mingus, co-fronting a band with George Adams, and as a soloist and bandleader. This early setting finds Pullen is at his most hard- hitting, and his piano concept as heard here lays to rest dubious claims of Cecil Taylorism. Inspired by their performance, Graves and Pullen issued an LP, In Concert at Yale University, Vol. 1 on their own Self-Reliance Program imprint. The vinyl is impossibly rare, especially its first copies, which sported hand-painted covers by the musicians. A second volume titled Nommo was subsequently issued, and it too is a highly prized platter. None of this music has ever been available digitally. The tapes were lost, so in putting this production together – in the works for 10 years – virgin copies of the LPs were used. One CD includes the two complete LPs together with original cover designs, a gallery of hand-painted LPs, and a photo of Graves and Pullen selling them at a Nation of Islam convention. An insert modeled after the original one presents an interview with Graves about the production of the records. This is beyond the holy grail of free music. It is as vital and challenging today as it was more than five decades ago. CvsD is honored to have collaborated with Milford Graves on this historic reissue.

here is no argument; Merzbow stands as the most important artist in noise music. The moniker of Japanese artist Masami Akita has appeared on over four hundred albums since 1979. The name comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' famous work Merzbau, in which he transformed the interior of his house with found objects. This is reflected in Akita's junk art / collage aesthetic. Other influences on the Merzbow philosophy range from ritualised eroticism (fetishism & bondage), surrealism to extreme metal & animal rights. Since the early 2000s Akita has been a vegan & dedicated animal rights activist. Many of his releases are dedicated to or about particular animals. Kookaburra documents a rare live appearance of Merzbow down-under, capturing his solo performance in Sydney, Australia, May 2012. Following a slew of archival boxset releases & a relative scarcity in new recordings, Kookaburra comes at an opportune time to showcase the current solo Merzbow live sound. Leaving aside the more melodic & ambient touches heard on recent studio albums, Kookaburra cuts straight to the chase with 60 minutes of blissfully dense noise, brimming with endless detail. Differing from previous Merzbow live albums, the trademark loops are now buried deep within a monolithic torrent of black noise, characterised by both analog & digital flavours. The world of Kookaburra is built upon impenetrably thick walls of low-end oomph & filled with relentlessly caustic textures from which distorted howls, wild oscillations & inexorable pulsations rear their monstrous heads. This monolithic single track is remarkable for its incredibly hypnotic journey along an enormous arc of sonic strata that is both glacial in its pacing & molten in its unyielding force. This is Merzbow at his most elemental & Kookaburra boldly displays the King of Noise’s most focused exploration of stunningly powerful noise in recent years. - Alex Pozniak

Cat's Squirrel is a live recording of Masami Akita & Oren Ambarchi's performance in Sydney, Australia in May 2012. Although Akita & Ambarchi have known one another since 1993 & performed together as part of larger ensembles, this was their first performance as a duo. Together they create a massive wall of sound that moves from the cavernous to the blisteringly psychedelic, laying down shifting low-end structures over which pointillist details ricochet across the stereo field. Akita & Ambarchi's voices blend together into a sonic morass. Moving through a number of episodes, from deluges of reverberated metal screeches to rapid-fire iterations of visceral electronic tones, the record reaches a high point midway through the second side, where Akita's electronics gradually thin out into a stream of skipping chirps & screeches while around him Ambarchi builds up a dense mass of phasing low-end guitar tones; the duo patiently developing an impenetrable wall of ecstatic, psychedelic noise. - Francis Plagne

2023 repress of the OTOROKU re-issue of the legendary English free improvisation LP 'The Topography of The Lungs' by Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and Han Bennink. This was Evan Parker’s first recording as a "leader" and was the first release on Incus, the label Parker founded with guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. This re-issue has been produced from an original vinyl pressing from Evan's archives - carefully transcribed and restored by Andreas [LUPO] Lubich at Calyx in Berlin and features the original liner notes from Parker along with updated notes penned in 2014. "To talk further of the music we play is difficult. It’s criteria for success exist, but are elusive and indefinable beyond the intuitive level. We operate without rules (pre-composed material) or well-defined code of behaviour (fixed tempi, tonalities, serial structures etc.), and yet are able to distinguish success from failure." - From Evan Parker’s original liner notes (1970) This pressing of The Topography of The Lungs comes in a limited edition of 500 copies.

This very special and wonderful solo performance by Oxford based Pat Thomas was recorded in Dublin during the first ever Reception Weekend event at the Complex. The piano Pat was playing had been very unique as it had copper plating on the interior giving the piano and strange and magical resonance. Nyahh Records is very grateful and excited to be able to share this performance with the world and to have Pat Thomas added to our list of artists.

Transamorem - Transmortem was premiered on March 9, 1974 at The Kitchen in NYC, where the music programmer at the time was Rhys Chatham - this was right before his guitar phase. During this period, Transamorem - Transmortem was presented along with other compositions by Eliane Radigue in a linear mode of listening, although the piece had originally been conceived, during its composition, as a sound installation. Of course, both modes of listening are possible, and each works marvelously in its own way. In their original form, Eliane Radigue's works are magnetic tapes. After being played a few times in public, the tape disappears to its case until a release proposal makes it available again through a disc.During this period Eliane Radigue's compositions became fairly long, some lasting over an hour. Because the tracks could not be edited for some obvious reasons, a vinyl release was unthinkable. It was only in the 90s, with the advent of the CD format, that the long compositions of Eliane Radigue were made available (with the exception of the Song of Milarepa LP on Lovely Music, a work already divided into multiple movements and thus able to be fit onto two sides of an LP).  For these reasons, the work of Eliane Radigue remained virtually unknown for twenty years - from the 70s to the 90s.It was in 2004, when she accepted my aid in digitizing her archives, along with Lionel Marchetti, that I discovered Transamoren - Transmortem.  Immediately, I was awed by the majestic grace of this very long tangle of frequencies, this set of seemingly unchanging tones, whose variations are of a delicate subtlety.  Transamoren - Transmorten is recognizable as one of the most radical of Radigue's compositions, comparable to the first Adnos, the work that follows Transamoren - Transmortem chronologically.  Very few transformations, an apparent formal aridity that is then contradicted by the physical play of the frequencies as the listener turns her head gently from right to left, or better yet as the listener moves slowly throughout the music space.  Moving through zones of specific frequencies, the listener's body experiences localized zones of low, medium and treble frequencies which vary according to the acoustic properties of the space.  As Radigue wrote of Adnos: "to displace stones in the bed of a river does not affect the course of water, but rather modifies the way the water flows."  Here, we find the same meditative tension proposing a peaceful movement through the spaces created by the different frequencies that compose Transamoren - Transmortem.Very well-organized, Eliane Radigue's archives are a pleasure to explore, and Transamorem - Transmortem's case contained a mine of information. What excited me most was the short text entitled Inner Space, which described the ideal conditions under which Transamorem - Transmortem should be presented. That is to say, as a sound installation."Inner Space -This monophonic tape should be played on 4 speakers placed in the four corners of an empty room.  Carpet on the floor. The impression of different points of origin of the sound is produced by the localization of the various zones of frequencies, and by the displacements produced by simple movements of the head within the acoustic space of the room.  A low point of light on the ceiling, in the center of the room, produced by indirect lighting.  Several white light projectors of very weak intensity whose rays, coming from different angles, meet at a single point." ~ Eliane Radigue, 1973 I immediately felt that it was necessary to make Transamoren-Transmorten available once again, and this time in its ideal form, in trying to follow Radigue's recommendations word for word. It was with this idea in mind that the Cumulus collective (also responsible for the contemporary music festival Why Note) organized the Continuum festival in Dijon along with the art space Le Consortium (one of the founders of which had persuaded the group Circle X to record their first, mythic EP in Dijon in 1979 - but that's another story!). The goal was to correctly present some of Eliane Radigue's sound installations, an aspect of her work now completely forgotten.  And yet, between 1967 and 1971 her work was often exhibited in galleries of contemporary art, mostly in Paris (Lara Vincy, Yvon Lambert, etc.), a reflection of the fact that French people have had a harder time than Americans placing the work of Radigue.  She herself hesitated for quite a while to use the word "music" to describe her work, a complex that is familiar to this generation of musicians, and which is now no longer really a problem.  Who would claim that the work of Eliane Radigue is not musical?  That would be strange .... The 2006 Continuum festival in Dijon saved four sound installations from the dust (an expression that Radigue uses to describe her archives): S=a=b=a+b (1969), Omnht (1970), Labyrinthe Sonore (1970) and Transamorem - Transmortem (1973).  The first two installations are composed with feedback, the two others with the sounds of the ARP 2500 synthesizer.  Each one is based on a strategy of specific spatial presentation, but that's also another story ....

Back to music after three years of silence.... On the suggestion of Robert Ashley, Douglas Dunn commissioned this piece from Eliane Radigue for choreography. Only the first part of Triptych was staged at the premiere at the Dancehall/Theatre of Nancy on February 27, 1978. "Recorded in the composer's studio in Paris. "After the premiere of Adnos I in San Francisco in 1974, a group of French students introduced Eliane Radigue to Tibetan Buddhism. When she returned to Paris, she began to explore this spirituality in depth, which slowed her musical production up until 1978. Triptych marks her return to composition, and draws its inspiration from 'the spirit of the fundamental elements,' water, air, fire, earth.... Eliane Radigue likes to add that this has often been useful to her in her moments of research and transitions. "This three-part composition, with its great humility and contemplative simplicity, heralded a new period of work and was the first in a series of masterpieces inspired by Tibetan Buddhism: Adnos II (1980), Adnos III (1981), Songs of Milarepa (1983) - with the voices of Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Robert Ashley -, Jetsun Mila (1986), as well as the Trilogy of Death: Kyema (1988), Kailasha (1991) and Koume (1993)." ~ Manu Holterbach (translated by Maxime Guitton) Archival images included in the accompanying booklet.