“Heavily influenced by 80's ambient & New Age music from Japan & Spain, (fans of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Finis Africae, Suso Saiz or Fumio Miyashita will feel at ease here) Iker Munduate presents 12 compositions of highly serene & contemplative minimal ambient music. Wind blowing through the trees, raindrops rolling down the windows, the sounds presented on this album are meant to complete the environment you are in. Filled with subtle textures and soothing harmonic content, the music blends into the patterns of day to day life, accompanying us within an already existing familiar landscape. Therefore, it is recommended to listen to this record on speakers allowing it to mix with the sounds already present in our surroundings.” Iker Munduate Thusberg is a Basque multi-instrumentalist born and raised in San Sebastian and with strong ties to Mikkeli in Finland, where half of his family are from. A fine arts student at Bilbao’s UPV (Basque university), his interest in sound, art and design has led him to combine all these different disciplines and convey them into his music and his work (LP cover is designed by Iker himself). After self-releasing various tapes and EP’s experimenting with minimal approaches to production and composition, “Argi Zantzuak” is Iker’s first solo album, and is a long departure from his previous outlets. Prior, He’s been actively involved running “Azkar Zintak” (punk/emo/hardcore tape label), playing in bands like Tenpera & Comic Sans (both aligned with the same style as the label) as well as taking part in the local Free Jazz/Improv & Noise scene performing as a drummer. Together with being present in the underground scene of San Sebastian (Distopia Mutante, Kontenedora…), He has performed at the international festival of experimental art MEM in Bilbao, and at the conference of video creation and sound experimentation Nokodek, in Hendaye, France. Limited edition of 250. 

X-Ray Hex Tet = Seymour Wright / Crystabel Riley / Edward George / Pat Thomas / Paul Abbott / Billy Steiger Reading Group is proud to present the debut album of a new ensemble of some of the most adventurous artists in and around London’s contemporary music scene. X-Ray Hex Tet is the confluence of Seymour Wright (alto saxophone), Crystabel Riley (drums), Edward George (words and recordings), Pat Thomas (piano and electronics), Paul Abbott (real and imaginary drums), and Billy Steiger (celeste and violin). Wright and Abbott, elsewhere as XT, have developed a private language in their uncompromising explorations of the “histories and logics of the saxophone and drum kit.” Wright and Thomas make up half of the extraordinary research ensemble [Ahmed], named after legendary oudist and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik. ([Ahmed]’s Giant Beauty is undoubtedly one of the best releases of 2024). Here, the music is transformed through the quasi-narrative presence of Edward George, the seminal scholar of dub and founding member of the great Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998). Artist and multi-instrumentalist Billy Steiger provides subtle textural sway beneath the chaos on the violin, as well as eerily unaffected punctuation on celeste, shimmering in the corners as if in the postapocalyptic final moments of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony. The percussive core of the group is carried by Crystabel Riley, frequent collaborator with Wright and formerly of the power noise trio Maria and the Mirrors. Her drums move through the storm with geological heft, rolling like a small avalanche. From the sound of this album, recorded live at the Taktlos Festival in Zurich in 2023, the music of X-Ray Hex Tet appears well-nigh impossible to represent. After ascending to its vertiginous heights, though, what comes to mind is a small undercanon of music about history: not in any facile programmatic way, but in its very logic, on the level of form. (Think of Matana Roberts’s Coin Coin cycle, Iannis Xenakis’s Persepolis, Morton Feldman’s Coptic Light.) X-Ray Hex Tet intends towards totality, as a striving, as a gravitational pull. Our feet are swept up in Riley’s cascading drums and we reach out for some resolution to ground us but grasp only shards of alto saxophone, a cacophonous web of samples, gossamer string textures, and electronic whirrs. George’s voice emerges out of this thicket and hovers above it, intoning the names of—or reappearing as—those who have most recently represented the violent threshold of history. From this angle we are both under the avalanche and being blown away from it like a composite recording angel of history: there is no place outside the storm from which to reflect upon it. 

“Ideas about exploratory behavior, Neuro Music and Transcultural Music have been the basis for many of my works over the last 20 years. Exploratorium is an album of some of those works and a space of exploration. Indeed, all the works on this album are examples of Neuro Music, which is the fundamental connection point across these compositions.” 
— Gene Coleman, from the CD bookletGene Coleman is a composer, musician and video director, who has created over 70 works for various instrumentation and media. Central to his work is the inventive use of sound, image and time, and the desire to create experiences that expand our understanding of the world. Since 2001 he has explored the global transformation of culture and music's relationship with video, science and architecture.Gene has been developing a series of works around concepts of Neuro Music and Transcultural Music, some of which are collected for the first time on Exploratorium, which is also the first album exclusively dedicated to Gene’s compositions.Gene defines Neuro Music as “an area of research and creation based on the study and application of models and concepts from Auditory Neuroscience, as a form of musical composition. … The Neuro compositional methods I have developed are modeled on the auditory pathway of the brain … including the three mechanical stages of hearing (outer, middle and inner ear functions), the auditory nerves and the various stages of auditory information processing, ending in the neocortex and so-called frontal networks.”Neuro Music concepts are explored across various works on the album, including string quartet, and pieces which combine voice, electronics, shamisen and/or ensemble.Gene defines Transcultural Music as “an area of research and composition based on the integration of music from different cultures and traditions”, and has been exploring how musical styles and traditions might meet and combine in new ways for over 20 years. Models of Neuro and Transcultural Musics have been combined in the longest piece on the album, Across Time (Transonic Symphony #1), which explores new possibilities for what a symphony can be in the 21st century and features musicians from many different places and traditions. The musicians featured on the album:-- RITORNO: The Hemmi Quartet.-- Kokhlos I: Nicholas Isherwood, Adam Vidiksis.-- Kokhlos IV: CumTempora Ensemble (coordinated by Virginia Guidi), Adam Vidiksis.-- Vidrone: Sansuzu Tsuruzawa, Toshimaru Nakamura.-- Across Time (Transonic Symphony #1): Transonic Orchestra, Directed by Gene Coleman: Shinjoo Cho, Ko Ishikawa, Sansuzu Tsuruzawa, Thomas Kraines, Naoko Kikuchi, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M., Jonah Rosenberg, Yasutaka Hemmi, Marino Nagira, Yuta Tsubonouchi, Yasunori Onishi, Marcus Weiss, Jean-Michel Goury, Pierre-Stephane Meuge, Serge Bertocchi, Aya Motohashi, Sasamoto Takeshi.The album also foregrounds Gene’s integration of material from the writer Lance Olsen’s novel Dreamlives of Debris.This is Gene’s second album on the False Walls label: Storobo Imp., a set of improvisations with Uchihashi Kazuhisa, was released in 2004. --- Mastering by Stephan MathieuProduced by CJ Mitchell and Gene ColemanDesign by David Caines 6-panel gatefold sleeve, with 24 page booklet and CD sleeveBooklet includes sleeve notes by Gene ColemanAll Compositions, 2023 Gene Coleman / Lontano Music (ASCAP)

Founded in 1997 by Cyril Secq and Yvan Ros as a guitar/drums duo, Astrïd subsequently expanded and settled around the violin player Vanina Andreani (1998), followed by the clarinet player Guillaume Wickel (2005). The core of the group is based in Nantes, France.Astrïd’s instrumental and expansive music has been inspired by improvised music, folk, post-rock and jazz, as well as by classical and contemporary composers, from Ravel to Arvo Pärt. Their work has been released across a number of albums on various labels, including Gizeh Records, Monotype Records and Rune Grammofon. Collaboration with other musicians informed Astrïd’s joint release with Rachel Grimes, Through the Sparkle (2017), and Cyril Secq has released duo albums with Sylvain Chauveau and Orla Wren.Astrïd’s album Always Digging The Same Hole includes five pieces, each of which patiently and delicately charts its course through different dynamics and moods. The album foregrounds the group’s live performance, close listening and interplay, resulting in atmospheres which are hauntingly suspended and poetically suggestive.The CD packaging was conceived by visual artist Peter Liversidge across a 6-panel gatefold sleeve, 16 page CD booklet and CD sleeve. Peter’s work was developed in response to the album, and is centred around a series of photographs, some including the band. In addition to his work for galleries and publications, Peter has also worked with a number of musicians, including album cover designs and stage projections for Low.Band member Guillaume Wickel sadly died in 2022, and Always Digging The Same Hole is dedicated to him.

Wildly exhilarating solo drum kit performance from Crystabel Efemena Riley. Recorded on the first night of Incapacitants residency at OTO in September, Riley presents an absolutely no-holds-barred set that delves deep into the textural and timbral qualities of the instrument. Though recorded on a single drum kit, multiple mic placements take the sound and reshape it in unexpected ways. This multi-strand approach to amplification becomes an integral part of the kit, with Riley using pedals to control the volume and balance of the various channels. Distorted toms roll and shudder, snare hits peak with such an intensity that at times it sounds as if the drum could be filled with gravel, and densely overlapping rhythms whirl and contort with an unflagging propulsive momentum. Through it all, deep, resonant bass synths surge and swell; at times the percussive battery subsides to be leave an enveloping wash of bass tones in isolation, and you can almost imagine that you are nestled deep inside the drum kit itself, looking (and listening) out. This is a fully committed performance that, as a listener you cannot help but to be fully within - as disorientating as it is all-encompassing. No matter, let yourself be swept away in its eddies and flows and you will find yourself in a profoundly different place than where you started. --  Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

This catalogue presents the first career encompassing, in-depth analysis of her work. Featuring never-before-pub lished archival material, musical notations, drawings, and photographs, as well as an insightful conversation with the artist, the essays underscore Monk’s lasting influence and affirm the relevance of her work for the present. “I WORK BETWEEN THE CRACKS, WHERE THE VOICE STARTS DANCING”To say that Meredith Monk is an outstanding singer, com poser, choreographer and filmmaker says a lot and yet too little. Monk works seamlessly across disciplines―pushing the boundaries of music, theater, dance, video, and installation, and is considered a pioneer of site-specific perfor mance. At the center of her oeuvre is the suggestive power of the human voice: the body becomes a resonating space for a universal language for which there are no words. Monk was the first artist to create a performance for the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, she performed in public car parks and on opera stages.