An experiment in listening. These compositions are an offshoot of the daily soundscape programme I ran for Resonance FM radio between July 2001-2002, which consisted of commissioned real-time recordings made all around the world between 23.30 and midni...

First album of duets by these old sparring partners. Two recordings from 1979 (Prague and Washington) and one from 1989 (Moscow).

“72 minutes consisting of the whole of a 1978 Prague concert, a cause celebre at the time, (audibly) dividing the 3500 public and provoking controversy for some years after; a snippet from Washington, and the whole of a Moscow concert 10 years later (May '89). This is improvised music that refuses to fit into the usual categories of improvisation, as well as being...

“There must have been something special going on in Verona last April; neither of these old sparring partners from Henry Cow and Art Bears can remember anything about this concert! By far the most aggressive of their duo albums, it leads us via howling fuzz guitar and machine gun percussion into walls of post-rock improvisation, obsessive industrial rhythms, and levels of excitement rarely generated by two people on a stage. The album is remarkable for Chris and Fred's rediscovery of melody and time...

This improvised live session features Chris' work with electronics - a long time interest of his - in addition to his drums, aided by the digital electronic manipulations of Tom. Definitely a success! [ReR]

"The two teamed up in 99 for a series of concerts and an album, Quake, where they laid down the fundamentals of their partnership; subterranean groans, vast drones and tectonic clashes. Dust follows in wake of this seismi...

"A collection of 5 songs and 4 instrumental pieces that explore equally - and simultaneously - spontaneous performance values, close compositional detail and extensive processing. Made out on the rocky coast of Maine with just a TV eye keeping tabs on...

Experimental electronic musician Thomas Dimuzio has produced animpressive body of solo and collaborative work over the course of his15-year career. From his renowned recordings for RRRecords, such asSonicism and Markoff Process, to the classic Headlock...

"A subtle, moody, rich and wide-ranging work, in which atmosphere, emotion and dramaturgy lead the ear far beyond music into a world of hints, evocations, anticipation and association and, in passing, reveal a complex metonymic language that, at a deep level, invokes that mostly unconscious lexicon of sound we have all absorbed collectively and subliminally in the course of a century of movie-going, television viewing, documentary recording and electroacoustic experimentation. Once sounds have been...

"Tod Dockstader and David Lee Myers are two pioneers of electronic music, but from very different epochs. Dockstader started working with optical sound in the 1950s, later working with vast Telefunken tape recorders that became so hot they had to be left overnight to cool down. His electronic soundscapes (Lunar Park and Apocalypse among them) are now being rediscovered and given the respect they deserve. Pond is his first new album-length piece since 1967.
David Lee Myers, on the other hand, made...

"The finest composer who ever worked in the medium of sounds assembled on tape"-OP

"The legendary collaboration between a leading American Musique Concrete composer and an instrumental ensemble directed by James Reichert where, for I think the first and to date only time, there was full integration of the written, played and manipulated sounds. The instrumental parts were derived from 'cells' of concrete sound and in turn were electronically transformed (in Robert Moog's then state of the art...

Bob's fifth album is another of his completely uncategorizable works. Bob performs on vocals, strings (guitars, bass, violin, etc.) keyboards & real drums, making these sound like a band effort.

"The latest collection of twisting, turning instrumentals and songs, and another instant classic. If you didn't venture down this way yet, now is a good time to start. In a category of one, Bob undermines musical, technical and production norms with a breathtaking amalgam of broken rules and unimaginable..

"So remarkable it's hard to begin. Those who liked the idea-rich, sonically breathtaking & compositionally daring pop music of the '60s, will recognise a similar mixture of pop-sensibility & radical innovation, now recast in contemporary terms. Unassuming virtuosity & state of the art studio merely as means to greater ends. I know we've all heard everything these days, but you haven't heard this" –Chris Cutler

"As always, Bob Drake is an enigma, a revered cult figure with a unique & bizarre...

“Bob’s 10th solo album sees Bob playing all the usual instruments (and a few more this time) in another collection of close-up songs with impossible structures, extraordinary harmonies, informative lyrics (though a little outré in their subject matter), virtuoso playing (in a casual sort of way), great production and impressive musical economy (Bob has enough ideas, so he doesn’t need to stretch them out).
It comes with remarkable artwork by Joe Mruk (redbuffalo.org), including a fold-out map which...

“Bob takes a professional detour to explore an intriguing byway with this atmospheric, uncharacteristic, stripped down, highly intriguing (and I think highly successful) experiment in minimal exposition. There are thirteen chapters - for voices, organ, piano and cathedral - on texts drawn directly from the 1893 edition of The legendary lore of the holy wells of England: including rivers, lakes, fountains and springs, by the English antiquary and inventor of the folding umpire’s chair, Robert Charles Hope...

''A rollercoaster of a record - intensely musical and highly attentive to the quality of sound - only not in the usual directions. This is whathappens when a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and engineer gets to do what he wants his own way, free of the ...

“A one-off release of extraordinary instrumental compositions, through-composed and performed by a massed orchestra of Bob on piano, 5-string resonator banjo, Farfisa organ, Korg MS20 synthesizer, electric and acoustic guitars, recorders, drums, bass, chromatic hand-bells, trombone, trumpet and violin. 22 exquisite, enigmatic and compressed vignettes that defy comparison.
It's a new departure for Bob, though the mixture of complexity, simplicity, virtuosity and dramaturgy remain the same. It's a...

52 songs of strange events, places and things. Includes 20 original paintings by Ray O'Bannon-Bob. The songs are brief, amusingly creepy or creepily amusing (takes your pick!) with really nice creepy/cool paintings to accompany the mood. "Perhaps the s...

"Bob Drake was one half of Indie rock group Hail, and still plays bass with ruthless avant rockers The 5UUS. His previous solos Little Black Train introduced us to his version of Death-Country, and Medallion Animal Carpet followed up with what sounded like a collaboration between Bonnie Prince Billy and Captain Beefhart. And now theres Skull Mailbox. With this CD Drake has lost it altogether. Strange little picked guitar pieces are the basis for grotesque songs; a seance goes horribly wrong, headless...

What Day Is It is Bob Drake’s first-ever solo album and was self-released by Bob in a hand-made package in 1993. He performed all the music with some assistance from Dave Kerman on drums. Odd songs with an almost folk or Cajun feel to them; folk music from another planet, perhaps. This is a great one for me if only simply because it was the first time that anyone heard Bob’s instantly recognizable solo sound! Recommended.

"Bob is already celebrated for his many ReR solo CDs, as well as for his...

"Our third collection featuring the ondes Martenot and the most experimental, in part because the Spectralist composer Tristan Murail, to whom this CD is dedicated, was himself a student of - and performer on - the ondes and, in these pieces, he...

Faust are a rightly legendary experimental German ensemble from the early 1970's. This is almost all of their two posthumous albums which feature the unreleased "Faust V" album and their recordings before they dissolved in the 70's.

"At last, a well made film that captures the intensity, caprice, craziness and visionary beauty of Faust’s late ’90s performances, when, for a moment the core members of the original band were temporarily reconciled. Professionally filmed at the...

Faust are a rightly legendary experimental German ensemble from the early 1970's. This was their 3rd release, & was assembled from private tapes of the band, & shows them at their most spontaneous, & least rehearsed. One of the great ones, & is...

No one until now has proposed an amalgamation of the music of Bert Jansch, Leo Kottke, John Fahey, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix and Karlheinz Stockhausen. By attatching beads, rings & other objects to her acoustic guitar strings, Janet has managed just ...

Andr Duchesne's fantastic post-Conventum band released these two lps in the early 90's. All instrumental, slightly folk-tinged, R.I.O. style progressive compositions performed by four guitarists & drums. Highly recommended! [ReR]