The second and final of the 'second wave' line-up of 5uus (basically Dave Kerman, Bob Drake and Sanjay Kumar + guests). This is considered by many people to be their best period and I would probably agree.

"Second installment from monster band 5UU's, featuring rock complexity, extraordinary production (by bassist and singer Bob Drake) and high energy precision mixed with eccentric song-writing. People that work this hard are becoming an endangered species. Extraordinary."-Chris Cutler

"Based in Miami, this is a very interesting American band, ploughing its own furrow - whose accent is what they call 'prog' over there, but whose language is more complex by far. Pip Pyle adds a seasoned sophistication - in fact I think this is a great...

''Imagine a classical composer writing a gothic symphony for a multi-faceted electronic musician, who in concert was aided by Mayan musicians, a haunting, often operatic singer, & a psychic intermittently channeling the spirits of the dead - that pretty much sums up this fascinating album.''- Goldmine.

“Atmospheric, evolving, intricate and layered; a suite of fine compositions and carefully crafted sounds. Consistent creation of another place, another time.”

The first release on ReR by this quite amazing guitarist and how most of us first heard of him. Even with all his other releases, this one is still amazing and is recommended!
This is an album of solo guitar music performed on the 'Giant" Sardinian guitar, which is sized somewhere between a conventional guitar and a cello and is tuned lower than a standard guitar. Paolo has taken this folk instrument and has completely rebuilt it. There is a large mechanical claw stuck onto the side of the body which..

"Paolo’s latest is an extraordinary collection of pieces that explore the full range of his highly modified, extended and prepared Sardinian guitar; and although it’s just him and electricity, it seldom sounds like fewer than 3 people...

"Another extraordinary release by Sardinian virtuoso Paolo Angeli, this time featuring compositions by Fred Frith and Bjork – all played solo in real time (though when you hear it, it’s hard to believe it) on his highly customised and extended, electrified, giant Sardinian folk guitar. A tour de force of technique and at the same time highly musical; and there is so much going on here at any given time that it is difficult to relate what your ears tell you to just one Frankenstein instrument. Dense...

"This disc will play in stereo on a CD player and with film and 5.1 surround sound (or stereo) on a DVD player or computer. The music, as always, is prodigious, sounding like a small band, but played by one person in real time (as the film attests). In this format, you can also see the instrument close-to - a highly rebuilt and extended giant Sardinian guitar - with many sympathetic and extra strings, motor driven hurdy gurdy wheels, whirling strings, springs and other appendages, played, like a cello...

Takumi Fukushima – violin, voice
Paolo Angeli – prepared Sardinian guitar, voice
Excellent album of duos; some a bit wild, others, very intimate and - dare I say - beautiful? Remember, Monk wrote a song called "Ugly Beauty"... After the demise of Volapük, I was wondering when I would hear Takumi again and I am happy to hear her here with Paolo who makes an excellent musical partner for her.

"This is Paulo Angeli’s fifth release, this time with ex-After Dinner, ex Volupuk violinist and....

This the the double CD of remixes, etc that was previously only available in the Art Bears box set, but now can be bought on its own. "A double CD of re-mixes, re-workings and (mostly) new pieces made from the Art Bears multi-track masters by The Resid...

Dagmar Krause-vocals Chris Cutler-drums, electronics Fred Frith-guitars, keyboards, violin, etc.

This was the 3rd and final album by the successor band to Henry Cow. I'm not really sure why (short playing length? the press had gone onto other things to champion? it wasn't released stateside, unlike the first two?) but this one slipped under the radar of a lot of folks, compared to their 1st two.
It's a very bleak, but also a very solid work. And very clever and sly in its own way - who...

Dagmar Krause-vocals
Chris Cutler-drums, electronics
Fred Frith-guitars, keyboards, violin, etc.
This was the 2nd and possibly most successful of the three albums by this immediate offshoot of Henry Cow, as it was recorded AS an Art Bears album (their 1st had been recorded as a Henry Cow album, but half the band objected, so it came out as being by Art Bears).
It’s also their best known album as it was released in the States by The Residents' Ralph label, in the early 80's and at the

After many, many years of work, this is apparently the final Biota release and it's also probably their finest as well as their most accessible. The heavily treated sonic material remains, but as in their last few, it's applied to a very 'folky' under-carriage.
Think of the most twisted-yet-musical take possible on Sandy Denny/June Tabor/Judy Collins imaginable and you have a glimmer of what they are doing here. Really nice. REALLY NICE. And a gorgeous art portfolio is included. Highly recommended...

"Six years in the making, this is the sixth CD released by ReR from the visual/sonic art group Biota. Unique in their history and method, Biota painstakingly construct complex, organic structures that mix extensive studio processing and musique concréte techniques, with a highly eclectic orchestra of acoustic and electronic resources - from kit drums, through mediaeval winds, strings and barrel organs, to early experimental electronic instruments. Their works are always performance driven and interleaved...

Biota is a unique project consisting of both musicians and artists. Their work is complex, subtle, vast, exquisite and powerful. Layers and layers of processed sound, all originating in played, mostly acoustic sources. All CD's come with books of prints by their visual art component.

"Stunning work that breaks new ground; an extraordinary achievement that was 3 years in the making and rewrote lot of rules in passing. With texts and singing by the inimitable Susanne Lewis, the CD also features...

I was at this show! It was very, very disorienting, and the visuals gave me severe motion sickness! Not kidding. This was the only live performance they have undertaken since 1981!

"Biota was founded in 1979 in Fort Collins, Colorado, as the Mnemonist Orchestra. Over the years, the Mnemonist Orchestra developed into Biota (the musical contingent) and Mnemonists (the visual contingent). Both Biota and Mnemonists work as one on productions of musical and visual components. Heard on this CD is...

"This is the second release (editor's note: no, it isn't, it's their sixth release; it's their second on ReR after three on Cuneiform and a first that was self-released) after a long wait, from this unique ensemble. Equally at home with the discipline of composition and the tightrope of improvisation Blast have evolved a fluid, pointillistic, unfathomable but transparent musical language that seamlessly integrates - over very short durations - highly complex writing and very free ranging improvisation...

Peter Blegvad-guitar, vocals
Chris Cutler-drums, percussion
Bob Drake-guitar, vocals, percussion
John Greaves-bass, piano
Karen Mantler-organ, vocals, glockenspiel, harmonica

Adding the organ of Karen and the 'personalities' of Bob and Karen was an inspired move!

"After 19 years, the return of the Peter Blegvad Trio, in supernal form and now a quintet with Karen Mantler and Bob Drake. Recorded over 10 days at studio Midi-Pyrenees the old way: sitting in a room, working

An early 90's solos, featuring ace contributions from John Greaves, Chris Cutler & Kristoffer Blegvad, Tim Hodgkinson. Always intelligent, funny songs & lyrics.

The Camberwell Now were led by Charles Hayward, the drumming/vocalist mastermind behind This Heat, and was the band that he formed immediately after This Heat broke up.
They were released an album and 2 EPs in their lifetime, and this includes all of them in complete, chronological form, plus a track from a sampler.
Their sound was very informed by the This Heat esthetic, with more creative usages of drones than before and some incredible basswork.
While they didn't always quite...

A restocking of this title, the fourth and final by Cassiber, Chris Cutler's great post Henry Cow band that he founded with Heiner Goebbels, Afred Harth and Christoph Anders (although Harth was out by this time). "A Face" breaks new ground altogether. ...

I believe that this was the second Charming Hostess album, which has been waiting for a release for a few years now and it is very great to have it finally available. Familar names here include most of Sleepytime Gorilla Museam: Carla Kihlstedt, Nils Frydahl and Dan Rathburn, plus Jewlia Eisenberg (the band's leader) and Wesley Anderson.

"A few of you will already have heard either the Hostesss first wild American release or founder Jewlia Eisenbergs ear-opening Tzadik CD of last year...

This has been out of print for some years and completely unavailable on these shores. Well worth getting if you don't already have it.
A repressing of bassoonist/oboeist/saxist/composer Lindsay's first two solo albums. Lindsay first made her name in Henry Cow and was also greatly featured in News From Babel. Both of these were film scores.

"Consists of the whole of the LP previously issued as Re/arc and most of "The Golddiggers".
Featuring Lindsay Cooper, Sally Potter, Phil Minton...

Peter had known for some time about the extraordinary Lake Baikal, a 600 kilometre long lake in Siberia. It is thought to be the worlds oldest and deepest lake and holds one fifth of the earths fresh water. It was only recently, however, that he came a...

“To make public a mass of unreleased material I decided to wrap this musical collection into a box. These 10 CDs (and a audio DVD) include over five hours of unreleased materials, my three previously released solo CDs (‘solo’, ‘twice around the earth’ and ‘there and back again’), plus a double CD collection of tracks spanning 50 years of official recordings (It Makes Sense to Me), as well as the 22-hour radio programme I made for Radio Art Zone last year (that’s on the DVD).
36 hours of audio...

"Like its companion ‘Twice around the Earth', ‘There and Back Again’ is derived from a selection of the 365 location recordings made for Cutler’s daily Resonance FM radio programme ‘Out of the Blue Radio’ (2004-2005). It takes extracts from 44 of these environmental recordings to explore - amongst other things - the way memory works, and how the experience of passing time is constructed. That’s subtext. More important, it should make enjoyably complex listening: surprising, serendipitous, mundane but...