Michael Ranta • Mike Lewis • Conny Plank ~ Mu [1970, Metaphon, 2010]

003

1. Mu I - 24:10
2. Mu II - 14:11
3. Mu III - 36:39
4. Mu IV - 24:04

Michael Ranta - percussion, guitars, thundersheet
Mike Lewis - keyboards, wind instruments, percussion
Conny Plank - live electronics, sound control, recording supervisor

'These amazing recordings from 1970 feature unbelievable material from seminal engineer and Kraftwerk producer Conny Plank alongside noted percussionists Michael Ranta and Mike Lewis. 'Mu' was recorded at Conny Plank's studio only a few months after the legendary Wired session which ended up on Deutsche Grammofon's Free Improvisation boxset in 1974. Limited only by the length of the tapes available, the trio created the four sections of 'Mu' in one night and mixed the whole album down the following morning, showcasing a masterful handling of freeform sonic abstractions and sublimely minimal psychedelic improvisations.

Their music is suspended in a timeless, spiritually resonant space, connecting threads and fragments of purely esoteric sonics into an organic matrix of otherworldly shapes and aural apparations, Plank using the studio as an instrument restricted only by the very outer bounds of possibility, imagination, and his own unquestionable talent. The results are genuinely breathtaking, delivering one of the most visceral, abstract and engrossing Krautrock experiences imaginable'

'What a stunning surprise discovery of this obscure ensemble with Michael Ranta, Mike Lewis and krautrock master Conny Plank. As on the legendary Wired LP on the Free Improvisation box set [Deutsche Grammophon, 1974] they created an amazing free form abstraction, a floating resonant and timeless music, similar in many ways to the early experiments of Tangerine Dream but in a world of its own, in all their twisted exotic and melancholy beauty... To be filed under classic krautrock, a masterpiece!' ~ Steven Stapleton

yuppers, this set is mellow & heady. perfect fer a late nite glisten. 320 shambolic trances. +

Larry Young ~ Lawrence Of Newark [Perception, 1973] 320 / FLAC

PLP 034

A1. Saudia 4:28
A2. Alive 1:50
A3. Hello Your Quietness [Islands] 10:02

B1. Sunshine Fly Away 8:37
B2. Khalid Of Space Part Two [Welcome] 12:20



Bass - Don Pate , Juni Booth
Bongos - Abdoul Hakim
Cello - Diedre Johnson
Congas - Stacey Edwards , Umar Abdul Muizz
Drums - Abdul Shahid , Howard King , James Flores
Drums, Electric Piano - Art Gore
Electric Piano - Cedric Lawson
Guitar - James Blood Ulmer
Organ, Bongos, Vocals - Larry Young
Percussion - Armen Halburian , Jumma Santos , Poppy La Boy
Saxophone - Dennis Mourouse
Trumpet - Charles Magee

Produced by Larry Young. Recorded at Blue Rock Studio, NYC

'The album also credits 'Mystery Guest' for "saxophones and vocals". It is fairy common knowledge and evident from listening to the record that this guest is Pharoah Sanders, who presumably was unable to use his real name because he was under contract to Impulse! Records at the time...'

here goes a [completely?] improvised, incendiary beast of a sesh from lorenzo jung & co. a happy accident or adept alchemists at the peak of their powers? unsurprisingly, this one made the wire's list of 100 records that set the woods on fire whilst no one was listenin, along with this pair. kindly note, the upload is front-loaded with the goods [sides reversed]. further

Fille Qui Mousse ~ Trixie Stapelton 291 - Se Taire Pour Une Femme Trop Belle [1971, Mellow, 1994] 320 kbps

MMP 197

1. Cantate Disparate 5:44
2. Transcription Interrompue 0:55
3. Fraîcheur Et Amalgame 2:00
4. Esplanade 8:10
5. Résistance Instinctive 2:32
6. Quatriéme Épisode 1:02
7. Transplantation 3:05
8. Antinomique 3:04
9. L'eau Était Vitale 8:27



Conductor [Direction] - Henri-Jean Enu
Guitar - Daniel Hoffmann
Bass - Jean-Pierre Lentin
Performer [Le Temps] - Sylvie Peristeris
Guitar [Solo] - François Guildon
Percussion - Dominique Lentin
Violin - Léo Sab
Piano - Benjamin Legrand
Producer - Gérard

Recorded July 8th, 1971 and mixed December 7th, 1971 at Europa-Sonor studio

This album was originally planned for release as an LP on Futura Records in 1972. Test pressings were made [approximately 5 copies], but for financial reasons, the LP was never released. In 1994, Mellow Records issued the album on CD, in an edition of 200.

here's another blawgland upgrade that's been unjustly rotting in file hosting limbo since the early daze of der warbler, i believe because the fine folks at root blog [who we dearly love] thoughtfully upped it literally minutes before we intended to. as any cognizant blagger can readily attest, like-minded overlap is actually a fairly common occurrence & it's kinda trippy how seemingly synchronistic our collective subterranean sensibilities can be at thymes. i mean when i bought this disque some 15 years ago, youngsters really had to dig to hear more than a handful of artists on the then-mythical NWW list. happily, with the advent of the interwebs & generous individuals who regularly feed our heads by sharing obscure pearls on a daily basis, the landscape has changed dramatically, as has my concept of what 'underground' is. we never had it so good & i no longer think of any recording as being impossibly rare because you can find most everything if you dig deep enuff. still, i know what i like when i hear it & this one remains a holy grail of idiot savant garde off kilter free improv experimental spacerawk weirdness, like so many fabulous bands of the fertile 70's french underground scene. there's even a hurdy gurdy workout on here! i been turning my more adventurous frenz onto this sprawling masterpiece for many moons & certainly advise you wisely skore the recent vinyl re-ish if you got it like that. 320 kbps et skans en français + highly mf recommended

Alexander I. Zhikharev ~ Singing Bronze [Volkov Studio, 2003]

Александр Иванович Жихарев ~ Поющая бронза

liberally adapted from gussian [google russian]:
Alexander Zhikharev was born in 1951 in the village Khoroshevo, which is now the Moscow region Khoroshevo-Mnevniki. after he got out of the army, he started working at the factory VILS [All-Union Institute of Light Alloys] & there poured his first bell. down the road, Alexander served as a bell ringer in the Kremlin & the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, researching manyyears to realize a way to replicate the bells dreamy resonances. In 1988, he found a form that is comparable in sound to the traditional bells and decided to call it 'Hammer Icon' or bila. They were flat, bronze & brass plaques, varying in size & weight, which emitted a surprisingly beautiful tone, quite unlike anything that sounds.

Alexander is an exceptional man & extremely talented. He created this instrument, the musique on the flat bells or bilah, & refers to them as a sacred tool. In the early centuries of Christianity in the Roman Empire, alarm clappers fashioned from a wooden or metal boards & struck with hammers, were utilized to convene the people to prayer. This tradition is entrenched in Eastern Orthodoxy. The beauty of this musique is extraordinary & the emotional impact overwhelmingly breathtaking. This is not a simple bell-ringing, which we also love, but the sounds are stretched for a very long duration, sad & poignantly penetrating the soul. The flat bells are now cast in Italy, and they sound in many European countries. They can be heard in the theater Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Mariinsky & more than 150 other churches. In Moscow alone the Zhiharevskie bell are in 30 churches. But Alexander loves the sound of his bells in the small rural churches, where the singing bronze tones carry far into the countryside.

In 1991, he patented his invention in Russia but did not have enough money for an international patent, so many use his invention for free, ignorant of who created this unique musical instrument. Zhikharev works on naked enthusiasm alone & has not received any formal recognition, though many consider his art to be a national treasure. He now plays with his ensemble every sunday at 3pm at the Kolomna national park in Moscow. check him out if you're over there.

these 12 tracks were recorded without rehearsal, second takes or overdubs of any kind. owl the melodies were spontaneously improvised musical forms & occurred directly during the recording of 12 October 2002 at the church of the Assumption museum/reserve in Kolomna. if you love this, don't miss his second album. 320 sonorous salutations to brother Janas fer learnin me

Frédéric Nogray ~ Nelki: Musique for Crystal Singing Bowls

'Frédéric Nogray diverts his rock crystal crucibles from their usual function in the silicon industry to generate an ample and tactile music, a music that succeeds as much in making the listener's intellect wander as it does in moving the material itself. Although entirely acoustic, this music is powerful, the different-sized bowls being generators of distinct waves operating in the range of frequencies from infra- to ultrasonic. Because of their superimposition and the acoustics of the space they are in, chimeras or interferences are born. A musical event partaking simultaneously in the creation of perception and corporal experience.' prêle

'When it comes to the humble singing bowl, it is now so widely used in improvised music that it’s almost a cliché, especially in clumsy hands [isn’t everything ?]. However Frédéric Nogray’s album features only the sound of the large crystal bowls. They are big white glass bowls that emit [forgive the pun] crystal clear tones of varying intensity depending on the rate at which said bowl is sounded by means of the player rubbing a special mallet like object around the rim of the bowl. Now, to create music made only with these instruments without it ending up sounding anything like those god awful new age / music for massage cd’s is damn hard. It takes a keen sense of composition and timing. Frédéric has both & has created a 51 minute listening experience that offers the listener both a sense of calm and of musical depth. I dare say the difference between this kind of music & the dull new age singing bowl approach is actually a thin knife edge for the performer – something so small & yet a million miles apart in the result. It is this difference which is the reason you should get hold of this release if you appreciate contemporary improvisation or composition. If you’re more into incense & wheat grass enemas then look elsewhere.' ~ jez riley

seems our love affair with france has bloomed considerably in recent moons, as it becomes apparent they've got it locked down in regard to amazing record labels & mind expanding composers. we dig the architecture too :P hears yet another reason why we pay attention to what's crackin across the pond. initially heard the first piece on continuo's radical glass musique # 2 compilation, a superlative series. transcendental seems like an appropriate adjective. 320 remerciements à espilos. please support the artist

Catalogue ~ Pénétration LP [1982]

01 - Stop Stress - Ultim Arlène
02 - Khomeiny Twist
03 - Dérisoire
04 - Pénétration
05 - Absolution
06 - Demnächst Mon Amour
07 - Orphelinat
08 - Khomeiny Twist #2
09 - The End



Gilbert Artman : drums, organ, piano
Jean-Francois Pauvros : bass, guitar, harmonica, piano, vocal
Jacques Berrocal : cornet, gong, flutes, vocal, words

rec. live April 16 & 17, 1982
at Brasserie Birseckerhof, Basel



amazing otherness from this way out improvisational supergroup of sonik experimenters. wicked fuggin good. at times kinda reminiscent of a more ramshackle [& french] Debris. seems our forefathers at mutant sounds upped this one previously at 192, but that link est mort. here it goes again at a robust (((320))) remerciements à espilos. +