DIE SCHACHTEL - Forced Exposure

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Furthering the passionate exploration of cinema that has guided her two previous LPs -- 2017's Fassbinder Wunderkammer and 2020's I Should Have Been a Gardener -- the Milanese guitarist/composer, Alessandra Novaga, returns to Die Schachtel with The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle, two sides of shimmering, tense compositions freely inspired by the life and work of the Russian director Andrej Tarkovsky and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Classically trained at the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland, over the last decade Alessandra Novaga has emerged as one of the leading figures within northern Italy's thriving new, experimental, and improvised music scene. Remarkably ambitious and forward thinking, her approach to the guitar embarks upon a relentless deconstruction and rethinking of her instrument's unique properties through distinct applications of structure, resonance, space, and tone, creating in a deeply personal and emotive music, seeking narrative and meaning within the abstractions of sound. The seeds of The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle can be traced to a conversation that Novaga had with Alan Licht relating to the connections between music and cinema, which led her to consider Andrej Tarkovsky's use of Bach's music within a symbiotic framework: how the music illuminates the imagism of the films, and the film illuminates new dimensions of the music. Slowly developing over the subsequent years, the resulting album comprises six individual works, some of which draw directly upon pieces of Bach's music that Tarkovsky used in his films -- specifically "Erbarme dich, Mein Gott," "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist," and "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" -- while others draw upon the sensibilities and moods evoked in the imagination by the director's films. Encountering Novaga moving into fairly uncharted waters, three of the album's pieces incorporate the human voice, including that of the poet Arsenij Tarkovsky, the director's father. Roughly alternating between solo excursions on guitar and bristling electroacoustic pieces, over the course of the album's two sides Novaga weaves one of her most abstract and ambitious bodies of recordings to date, shifting between the complex tonal mediations generated by the six strings of her instrument, and phycological densities activated by the expanded pallet of sonority made possible by the tactics and approaches of musique concrète. The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle is available on as a limited edition of 300 dark turquoise vinyl LPs. The LP, designed by Bruno Stucchi/dinamomilano, comes with an eight-page insert illuminated by Alessandra's text as well as the lovely and intense photographs of Matilde Piazzi.

$31.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 1/24/2025

LP, one-time edition of 250 copies, pressed to 180g black vinyl and housed in a pro-printed jacket contained in a silk-screened PVC sleeve. Die Schachtel Records presents Ifigenia/Oreste, a new vinyl LP by celebrated Italian composer Paolo Spaccamonti. This album marks the seventh installment in the label's renowned Decay Music series, which has become synonymous with deeply emotive, abstract, and electronic/ambient music, which has so far featured works of such names as Stefano Pilia, Giovanni di Domenico, Sandro Mussida, Vértice, Damavand, and Claudio Rocchetti. Aim of the series is composing a fascinating scenario of the most interesting names of experimental musicians -- mainly of Italian origins -- working at the intersection of sound and music, abstract and visual, storytelling and abstract composition. Paolo Spaccamonti has long been a significant figure in the contemporary music scene, known for his ability to bridge the worlds of instrumental, electronic, and experimental music. Composed by Spaccamonti, Ifigenia/Oreste is the original score for the theatrical production IFIGENIA/ORESTE, directed by Valerio Binasco and produced by Teatro Stabile di Torino. The music, both haunting and subtle, mirrors the play's minimalist and intense staging, immersing listeners in an evocative soundscape that blends ambient textures with guitar-driven melodies. The music was recorded and processed by Filippo Conti, with additional production and mixing by Stefano Pilia. The vinyl's design has been crafted by Bruno Stucchi of Dinamomilano, making this release a fusion of sound, visual, staging and cultural reference. In reflecting on his collaboration with director Valerio Binasco, Spaccamonti said: "From the first meeting with Valerio, it was clear that we aimed to create a production stripped of any unnecessary stylistic embellishments. 'Ifigenia' and 'Oreste' had to be severe, devoid of visual distractions, simple yet extreme in its own way. I sought to follow the same path with the music. The foundation is always the guitar, but I wanted to avoid overloading it, either harmonically or sonically. Sometimes, I treated it like a fragmented background noise; other times, I ventured into more aggressive, melancholic, or even melodic terrains, but always in a very human way."

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LP, one-time edition of 250 copies, pressed to 180g black vinyl and housed in a pro-printed jacket contained in a silk-screened PVC sleeve. I Hate All The Words by Luca Scarabelli and Michele Lombardelli's Untitled Noise, the eighth instalment in Die Schachtel's celebrated Decay Music series, is a concept album composed of three tracks designed to explore the remote and hidden depths of psyche: "Misery," the awareness; "The Time," the suspension of disbelief; and "Heaven," the existential atonement through detachment. The sounds and the voice proceed alternately, overlapping, where each, in its progression, asserts itself autonomously -- entities unto themselves, presences in dialogue at the edge of possibility. At times primitive and obsessive, they emerge as reminiscences of the unconscious and emotions, which coincide with unconscious, altered, and unexpected lowness. Sound and voice in unison are a burst of a great energy. Noise-glitch sound patterns, distortions, and objects set into vibration in the "soundscape" are mainly performed by Michele Lombardelli. The lyrics, interpreted by Erica Bazzeghini, were written by Luca Scarabelli, drawing inspiration from a personal experience as well as his art. In Luca's reflection, I Hate All The Words is a path to test the truth, the mystery and the meaning of words. "Self-reflection has been an intimate journey, often conducted in the seclusion, away from the chaos of external reality. In the lyrics it is mirrored in three distinct stages: self-awareness marked by 'Misery,' the suspension of disbelief symbolized by the passage of 'Time,' a moment of misgiving, and finally, recovery through detachment, in the track 'Heaven.' In my thoughts, I see the works of poets like T.S. Eliot, Georg Trakl, and Sylvia Plath, who explored personal pain and transformation." In I Hate All The Words all the "colors" have become dull. Fragments of thoughts and a sonic exploration change the perception of the present reality, evoking the ghosts of the past, in a shattered time, with the weight of whispered words.

$45.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 1/24/2025

3CD box with booklet, limited to 300 copies. A stunning journey in sound and a work of profound and intoxicating power, Roland Kayn's Simultan stands among the best of all avant-garde electronic works of its era. Die Schachtel, in collaboration with SZ Sugar, is finally able to make available in CD format -- after the legendary vinyl-only edition released in 2017 -- the first volume in a series of works named K - Kybernetische Musik, that documents the birth of Kayn's Cybernetic Music, remastered from the original analog master tapes. The re-emergence of Simultan has been long awaited by many, and should be celebrated by everyone with the faintest interest in electronic music. Totally essential and not to be missed. One of the great pioneers of electronic, computer, and instrumental avant-garde music, for most of his life, the German composer Roland Kayn (1933 - 2011) remained almost entirely unknown, a founding member of the legendary ensemble, Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, heralded as a singular genius by a small number of figures like Jim O'Rourke, who is currently curating the archive of the artist. While Kayn might be easily described as a composer of electronic, electro-acoustic, or computer music, the majority of his career was in fact largely dedicated to the revolutionary sculpting of an entirely new territory of sound: Cybernetic Music, a generative process of composition through programming. Simultan was among the first of the composer's works to emerge from this process. Cybernetic Music grew from Kayn's longstanding engagement and fascination with data processing theory, which far outweighed his interest in the work of other composers and the zeitgeists of the day -- a fact which contributed to his being declared persona non grata by the avant-garde establishment, and ultimately his lasting obscurity. Created during the period in which Kayn was living in the Netherlands, and recorded with the assistance of electronic music legends Jaap Vink and Leo Küpper, Simultan is a work of astounding beauty -- filled with a remarkable sense of humanity and touch -- a strange incongruity considering the system through which it was made, doubling as an indication of the inherent power of sound which Kayn spent his life fighting to reveal. For fans of avant-garde electronic music, particularly those drawn to the work coming out of Utrecht and Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), but who have not yet encountered Simultan, the work is likely to represent a towering revolution.

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Die Schachtel returns to their long-standing dedication to the historical, Italian avant-garde with Musica Elettronica 1969/1971 allo Studio di Fonologia della RAI di Milano, the first ever release dedicated to the visionary electronic and electroacoustic composer Angelo Paccagnini. Containing some of the most potent and emotive experimental music ever laid to tape -- imbued with the political tensions of the moment -- this collection takes great leaps toward illuminating the brilliant output of one of Italy's most remarkable and neglected avant-garde, electronic and electroacoustic composers of the 20th Century. The first ever release dedicated to this profoundly important figure in the history of European electronic music has been fully restored and mastered by Andrea Marutti from the original tapes, housed in a matt silver cover with silver foil design, specially created by Bruno Stucchi/dinamomilano. It contains some of the most singular and emotive electronic and electroacoustic music ever recorded, which is presented to wide audiences for the very first time. A student of Bruno Bettinelli at the Milan Conservatory, and a collaborator of Bruno Maderna and Luciano Berio, Angelo Paccagnini (1930-1999) remains one of the most unjustifiably obscure figures who emerged within Italy's early Electronic Music scene during the 1950s. While Paccagnini worked with a wide range of instrumentation and sound sources over the course of his career, among the most engrossing of all his works are a series of electronic and electroacoustic compositions created during his early years as director of the Studio di Fonologia Musicale, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, four of which are comprised for the first time across the length of this album. The LP comprises three works; "Flou II," composed in 1971 for tape, piano, improvised percussion, and orchestral groups; "Partner," composed in 1969 for female voice and electronic sounds; and "Underground," composed in 1971 for four synthesizers. Unquestionably drawing on the political ferment of the era during which they were created, each is astoundingly tense in their structural arrangement and tonal and dissonant relationships, culminating as some of the most emotive avant-garde music created anywhere during that period. Historically significant in countless ways, this release takes huge leaps to illuminating the brilliant output of one of Italy's most remarkable and neglected avant-garde, electronic and electroacoustic composers of the 20th Century. 200 copies featuring a deluxe cover with handmade silver foil printed on 450g paper. Includes a 30x30cm double-sided insert with detailed notes, pictures and more.

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The Italian early electronic music scene has been at the core of Die Schachtel's activity since their very beginnings in the early 2000s. The Milanese label now returns with a new chapter in their celebrated Silver Series, a long-due first-time reissue of Musica Elettronica/Computer Music 1966-1972 by SMET (Studio di Musica Elettronica di Torino). Augmented with three previously unreleased bonus tracks, this is early '70s Italian electronic avant-garde music at its best. The SMET was born in Turin in 1964, from an idea by Enore Zaffiri. In the beginning the Studio worked with rudimentary equipment, aiming to disseminate knowledge of this avant-garde musical sector through conferences and auditions and, at the same time, developing its own sound experiences. The year of this (nowadays super rare) vinyl's publication was a turning point in the evolution of electronic music in Italy. 1972 saw the publication of Introduction to Electronic Music by Armando Gentilucci, the first volume written by an Italian, in Italian, to examine technological advancements, by the renowned publishing house Feltrinelli. During this period, Pietro Grossi, Enore Zaffiri, and Teresa Rampazzi had the opportunity to develop their most significant compositional experiences. They engaged in a variety of activities, and this vinyl release marked a turning point in the evolution of electronic music in Italy, such as exchanging works, collaborating with each other, participating in itinerant exhibitions, traveling, writing, and organizing broadcasts. Zaffiri and SMET's shared ideology is clearly summed up on Musica Elettronica/Computer Music 1966-1972: electronic music, with its meticulous control over sound and form, is the only way to break free from the constraints of traditional compositional methods and instrumental mastery. It is an experimental endeavor that can only be achieved through a spirit of exploration and collaboration. Originally issued in 1972, and featuring the unmistakable sound of the iconic EMS VCS3 synthesizer along with tones generated on an IBM 360 computer, Musica Elettronica/Computer Music was privately pressed in a handful of copies at the Fonit Cetra studios. Carefully remastered, this collection now features three previously unreleased extra tracks. Pressed on black vinyl in an edition of 210 copies, the album comes packaged in a deluxe cover with handmade silver foil printed on 450g paper, and also includes a 30x30cm double-sided insert with detailed notes and a SMET/Enore Zaffiri exhaustive chronology.

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As Long as You Come To My Garden, the sixth release in the cherished Die Schachtel's series Decay Music as well as the debut of the duo Damāvand (Gianluca Ceccarini and Alessandro Ciccarelli) on the prestigious Italian label, is a tribute to the Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova, through his lyrics and freely inspired by the cult movie about his life The Color of the Pomegranates (Nřan guynə, 1968, USSR) directed by Sergei Parajanov. The feature film tells the life of the poet, who lived in the 17th Century, from childhood in the royal court, to retirement until his death in the monastery of Haghpat, through a series of episodes, static like paintings that do not tell but show, evoke, they suggest through metaphors, analogies, surrealist flair, dreamlike landscapes, liturgical pauses. The six tracks are inspired by the dreamlike imagery contained in the movie, weaving sound textures ranging from ambient to noise, to references to the musical tradition of the Middle East. Gianluca Ceccarini and Alessandro Ciccarelli alternate, without fixed roles, with analog synths, drones, amplified common objects, generative music, audio samples from the film and acoustic instruments such as the tar -- a stringed instrument of Persian origin, the trombone and the cornet. In addition, two of the songs on the album contain Sayat Nova's poems recited in Persian by Nahid Rezashateri. The sound materials are revealed gradually like episodes, evoking the visual suggestions staged by Parajanov in the movie. As long as you come to my garden is intended as an imaginative journey to distant spaces and indefinite archaic times. Edition of 300.

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The latest work, after six years of silence, from Italian berlin-based composer, performer and publisher (Black Letter Press) Claudio Rocchetti, and a welcomed return on the Die Schachtel imprint after the brilliant Another Piece of Teenage Wildlife (2008), Labirinto Verticale (Vertical Maze) takes its origin from the four years long collaboration of Rocchetti with the Parma-based Fondazione Lenz, a contemporary theater research collective/organization. Immersed in their very fertile milieu, inspired by the writings of Hölderlin and Calderon de la Barca, and orbiting around the concepts of memory, sedimentation, presence/absence, Rocchetti produced several hours of music, a selection of which is collected in this album, that marks the n.5 in the internationally acclaimed Die Schachtel's series Decay Music, perfectly fitting its mission, which is to explore the more "intangible", "decomposing" (in a re-generative sense of the term) borders between experimental sound and "proper" music with a special focus on the more interesting experiences of the contemporary Italian scene. For sure the series of delicate, eerie pieces that composes Rocchetti's Vertical Maze are of an intangible, almost "phantasmic" quality (in Rocchetti's words), a sort of alchemic "opera al nero" characterized by a ghostly use of fragments of the human voice, that surfaces in a subtle maelstrom of otherworldly sounds, created, manipulated and decomposed with the use of cassette tapes, re-recording sessions reminiscent of Alvin Lucier's "I am Sitting in a Room" masterpiece of sonic refractions, feedbacks, sounds either found or collected during the rehearsals or the theatrical workshops and shows, and -- as a finishing touch -- Rocchetti's own voice used to imitate artificial sounds or instruments and further re-mixed in a game of sonic mirrors that transports the listener in a completely new concept of melancholia, hauntology and at times on the verge of discomfort, managing anyway to remain in the space of a gratifying and accessible listening experience. Silver-silkscreened deep black cardboard with a crux-shaped maze; silkscreened clear plastic sleeve with "alchemic" custom lettering designed by Bruno Stucchi; edition of 300.

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First emerging during the early 2000s, over the past two decades -- via solo releases and numerous collaborations with artists like Oren Ambarchi, Valerio Tricoli, Alessandra Novaga, and numerous others -- Stefano Pilia has presented a singular voice within Italian experimental music. Spiralis Aurea, his third solo release with Die Schachtel, encounters the composer venturing into unchartered waters, exploring notions of spirituality via a body of twelve compositions, recorded in various combinations with a cast of all-star instrumentalists; Alessandra Novaga, iosonouncane, Silvia Tarozzi, Mattia Cipolli, Ensemble Concordanze, Elisa Bognetti, Enrico Gabrielli, Valeria Sturba, Giuseppe Franchellucci, Adrian Utley, and Cecilia Stacchiotti. The roots of Spiralis Aurea rest within Pilia's longstanding, personal engagement with the spiritual and an epiphany had during a visit to the Futa Pass cemetery, the resting place for German soldiers killed in Italy during the Second World War. Stepping back from the intuitive immediacy that guided his work for decades, and inspired by the concepts of "divine geometry", he set out to translate a series of numerical relationships and geometric figures into "sacred" musical forms. Drawing its title from the Golden Spiral, a mathematical formula and geometric form that has maintained both mystical and creative significance for millennia, each of the 12 works that comprise Spiralis Aurea began with a figure or process that is both geometric and symbolic, drawn by Pilia, that slowly translated into tangible organizations of sound. In some cases, such as the three movements of the "CodeXIII" series and "Crux", this process transformed numerical relationships derived from the Fibonacci sequence -- the underpinning of the "Golden Spiral" -- into harmonic progressions, while others take on more iconic and culturally familiar forms. "Ouroboros" alludes to an ancient symbol of a serpent consuming its own tail, deploying a contrapuntal process within which the beginning and end coincide. "Hannah", on the other hand -- deriving from the Hebrew word for "grace" -- is slightly more abstract, doubling its literal meaning against the palindromic qualities of the word, both aspects being reflected within the structural symmetry of the score. Pilia's Spiralis Aurea culminates as a series of sonic meditations, leaving room within their spacious forms to encourage active listening. Calling up echoes of ancient musics within their optimistic, forward-thinking tones, across various arrangements of instrumentation, Pilia sculpts a striking intersection between acoustic and electroacoustic process, drone, and chamber music. 180 gram vinyl; six-panel gatefold cover; includes booklet; edition of 190.

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Riding the razor's edge between bristling electroacoustic wizardry and the constrained structures and harmonic interplay of musical minimalism, Die Schachtel announce Immanent in Nervous Activity, a brand-new release from the creative partnership of Jim O'Rourke and Giovanni Di Domenico. Comprising a single long-form work, divided into two movements that culminate as a second chapter to the duo's 2015 LP, Arco (ZEITC 016LP) -- an album which endeavored, on visionary terms, after the potential of waiting and patience as means toward musical form. Delivering the long overdue follow-up to their brilliant 2015 outing, Arco, the duo of Giovanni Di Domenico and Jim O'Rourke return to Die Schachtel with Immanent in Nervous Activity. Their latest adventure -- recorded in Japan with further contributions by Eiko Ishibashi on flute and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto on snare -- rolls at a glacial pace, deftly weaving tension into restrained sheets of tonality, texture, and harmonic dissonance that ripple with microscopic detail and a stunning sense of structure. A bristling intervention the terms and possibilities of electronic music by one of the most exciting partnerships in the contemporary landscape of adventurous sound. Another defining statement by one of the most exciting partnerships in the contemporary landscape of adventurous sound. Printed in deep black and metallic silver on extra matte white heavy cardboard; includes black/silver limited "Zepelin" poster cm 30x90; original design by Bruno Stucchi/dinamomilano; edition of 400.

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Diving into the archives of Alter Ego -‐ the experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, Fulvia Ricevuto, and Eugenio Vatta -‐ Die Schachtel present Pranam ‐ A(Round) Giacinto Scelsi, a never before released body of recordings interpreting the works of the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, made with Matmos (Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant‐garde chamber and electronic music -‐ moving at a glacial pace of tightly wound energy -‐ Pranam's two sides radically rethink the terms electroacoustic music in ways that still feel radically ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape. A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly antiacademic approach to music, over the course of its activities -‐ running roughly between 1990 and 2010 -‐ Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward thinking voices in experimental music, all the while collaborating widely with artists spanning a vast range of practices and disciplines, including Robin Rimbaud, Philip Jeck, Pan Sonic, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Hooker, William Basinski, David Moss, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and near countless number of others. Alter Ego's diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer's work. In 2005, this process led them to invite Matmos to collaborate on a series of interpretations of works by the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi. Realized in collaboration with The Fondazione Isabella Scelsi, which holds Giacinto Scelsi's archives, and performed at the Festival Roma Europa and the Festival Aeterforum during May of 2005, the album's four works ‐- "Estratti dal Quartetto per archi n.3" (1963), "Ko‐Lho" (1966), "Riti: I Funerali di Carlo Magno A.D. 814" (1976), "Aitsi" (1974) -‐ shift the boundaries of 20th Century chamber music toward markedly new and contemporary terms, incorporating everything from the sounds of the Revox tape machine that Scelsi used to record his own improvisations and processed electronics, to the plastic trumpets used by fans during football matches. From intertwining, shifting lone‐tones that render startling resonances and dissonances, to passages guided by a vast pallet of electronics and flurries of acoustic sounds, joined as a single ensemble, across the two sides of Pranam, Alter Ego and Matmos infuse these four works by Scelsi with humor and playfulness, while retaining all the urgency and rigor with which they were initially composed. Edition of 350.

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Diving into the archives of Alter Ego -‐ the Italian experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta -‐ Die Schachtel present Microwaves, a never before released body of recordings of works composed by Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova, made with Pan Sonic (Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant‐garde chamber and electronic music, the LP's blistering structures, tones, and textures ‐- plowing forward with frenetic energy ‐- remain radical and ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape. A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly antiacademic approach to music, over the course of its activities -‐ running roughly between 1990 and 2010 -‐ Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward-thinking voices in experimental music. Alter Ego's diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer's work. In 2004, this process led them to instigate a collaboration Pan Sonic, the Finnish duo of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen, pioneers of a remarkably distinct form of rhythmic, experimental electronic music, and regarded by many as one of the most visionary and irreverent projects working in the field during the '90s and 2000s. Initially conceived with Fausto Romitelli in 2004 before being sidelined by the composer's untimely passing the following year, Microwaves acts, in part, a remembrance in sound, featuring four works by some of his closest friends, the composers Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova. Each composition, Ingólfsson's "Snap", Verrando's "Harmonic Domains #3", Maresz's "Link", and Nova's "Thirteen13x8@Terror Generating Deity", have roots in a pallet of samples and fragments drawn by each composer from existing works by Pan Sonic. Upon completion, these compositions then entered into a collaborative process between Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (Pan Sonic) and Alter Ego (Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta), and were performed collectively by both groups during an extensive tour that year. Distinct and free‐standing, while operating as a seamless whole, the four works encountered across the album's two sides ‐- built from the sounds of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, electronics, and further treatments -‐ present an engrossing intersection between electronic and acoustic sound that diverges from most standing conceptions of electroacoustic music. Edition of 350.

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Binding a deep social and political conscious with rigorous musical experimentation, the Brussels based, Italian pianist, performer, composer, Giovanni Di Domenico, delivers Downtown Ethnic Music, the fourth instalment of Die Schachtel's Decay Music series, focused on inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract music. Over the last decade or so, Giovanni Di Domenico has carved a deep path through a diverse number of discrete fields within experimental music, working in various ensembles -- Abschattungen, AufHeben, Bonjintan, Cement Shoes, Delivery Health, Going, etc. -- as well as producing a discography of critically heralded solo efforts, and intimate collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Akira Sakata, Arve Henriksen, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Alexandra Grimal, Nate Wooley, Chris Corsano, and others. Downtown Ethnic Music encounters Di Domenico reimagining the future of urban music, pluming the mysterious and emotive depths of self, to arrive at vision of sonorous utopia, radically divergent from those of the past. Hybridizing numerous forms of musical practice, while making a conceptual nod to Jon Hassell's notion of the "fourth world", as well as the cross-temporal transnationalism of Roberto Musci, Aktuala, Futuro Antico, and the Third Ear Band, Di Domenico's vision of democracy -- rendered through the creative metaphors of sound -- is a true to life, bristling conflict, as open-ended as it is ordered, and as dramatic and tense as it is beautiful, playful, and refined. A colorful tapestry of ideas, experiences, histories, and reference points, woven from a pallet of electronics, synthesis, and various acoustic sources -- the intervening rhythms of drummer João Lobo, vocals by Pak Yan Lau and Patshiva CIE women choir, the horns of Ananta Roosens and Jordi Grognard etc. -- across the length of Downtown Ethnic Music, the boundaries between idiom, expressive concept, collective, and individual blur, giving way to a visionary, forward-thinking rendering of electroacoustic music, that subtly reminds us of the social and political potential of art. Seamlessly incorporating bubbling electronic abstraction, sprawling ambience and long tones, throbbing kosmische, acoustic free improvisation, and the human voice, Giovanni Di Domenico's Downtown Ethnic Music represents a high-water mark in an already astounding career. 180 gram marble vinyl; one-time edition of 250.

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Riding the razor's edge between rigorous experimentation, innovation, and tradition, London based, Italian composer, cellist, and electronic performer, Sandro Mussida, joins the Die Schachtel family with Rueben, his third solo LP. Active since the early 2000s, Sandro Mussida worked extensively with Mark Fell, Curl Collective, Lorenzo Senni, Oren Ambarchi, and Alessandra Novaga, among others, as well as a founding member of the interdisciplinary artists' group TQS Collective, before releasing his solo debut, Ventuno Costellazioni Invisibili, on Metrica in 2017 (MTR 001LP), followed by Eeeooosss, released by Soave in 2019 (GRA 005LP). Rueben, like its predecessor, deploys a microtonal vocabulary within a three-instrument sound palette and builds upon Mussida's long-standing investigations of active listening, augmented by a developing practice that challenges aural perceptions of historical, non-equal-tempered tuning systems. The third instalment of Die Schachtel's Decay Music series -- launched to highlight inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract music -- Rueben was recorded during 2018 in the church of St.Giusto in Volterra, Italy. Deeply inspired by Italian Renaissance paintings encountered by Mussida during the work's composition, and conceived at the intersection of acoustic and electronic aural fields, in careful response to the space itself, the sounds of electric guitar, bass clarinet, and cello -- treated as minuscule sound atoms, rapidly projected to form structures of evolving densities -- harmoniously enter into dialogue, forming a multi-layered, contemplative sonic landscape, within the interwoven complexity of their own reflections. Across the length of Rueben, bound to the work's inspiration in the visual realm, the interplay between the senses blur, presenting the act of listening as a mirror for the experience and legacies of seeing. In Mussida's hands, sound emerges as a trace or memory suspended in a non-linear conception of time, where imprint, movement, and event, as they relate to place and happening, are perceived by the ear, recalling the Russian theologian Pavel Florenskij's idea of "reverse time", that likens temporal condition activated by experiences with art as similar to that of dreams. Vast in scope and intricate detail, the nine discrete compositions that form Rueben unfold in a series of interconnected, shimmering landscapes of tone and texture, each, through the interplay of their elements, configuring a radically dense rendering of minimalist, ambient music that challenge the perceived boundaries of those historical definitions. An inspired and radically forward-thinking realization of electro-acoustic music. Cover features an original Sumi-e painting by Japanese artist and avant rock drummer Akihide Monna (Bo Ningen). 180 gram marble vinyl; one-time edition of 250.

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Offering a visionary approach to the solo guitar, Milanese experimentalist Alessandra Novaga, delivers an expansive meditation on the late filmmaker, Derek Jarman, with I Should Have Been a Gardener, presented by Die Schachtel. Alessandra Novaga is among the leading figures within Italy's thriving new, experimental, and improvised music scene, consistently rendering striking solo efforts, as well as equally noteworthy collaborating with Stefano Pilia, Paula Matthusen, Elliott Sharp, Sandro Mussida, Travis Just, and others. Remarkably ambitious and forward-thinking, her approach to the guitar veers from the trajectories of visceral emotiveness and textural extended techniques that have held sway over the instrument's applications within avant-garde contexts over the last half century, encountering her relentlessly deconstructing and rethinking its unique properties through applications of structure, resonance, space, and tone. I Should Have Been a Gardener -- building on from the territory explored within 2017's Fassbinder Wunderkammer (2017) -- is Novaga's second LP to draw conceptually on her love for film. Rather than focusing on a fixed point of inspiration, the album takes form as a distillation, pulling from across the unique life, death, work, political commitment, and diaries of Derek Jarman. Emerging as an ethereal aural portrait of the man, sound -- interventions of tonality with non-instrumental sources -- and silence join in a single, unified body that seeks redemption and purification at the boundaries of life; an imprint that, like Jarman's garden at Prospect Cottage, is magical -- flowers blooming between the stones -- hovering in the stark space between an endless sea and post-modern shadow of a nuclear power plant. As remarkably listenable as it is challenging and pregnant with ideas, Novaga's I Should Have Been a Gardener represents a strikingly at ease step forward in the potentialities of experimental music. Bravely taking on the ubiquitous expectations of the guitar, Novaga refused to relinquish the clarity of source and sound, forcing the ear to rethink what is accepted and known at every turn. An immersive journey from one of Italy's most important contemporary voices. 180 gram, yellow vinyl; accompanied by an extensive, exploratory booklet; Edition of 200.

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Double-LP version. Clear vinyl; six-panel, gatefold sleeve. Ending the decade of silence which followed more than ten years of remarkable, critically-acclaimed activity by the partnership of veteran experimentalists, Luigi Archetti and Bo Wiget, the duo returns with what may be their most ambitious effort to date, Weltformat, issued by Die Schachtel. Switzerland-based Luigi Archetti and Bo Wiget began collaborating in 1998, the fruits of which initially emerged as the critically heralded, three-part Low Tide Digitals series, released by Rune Grammofon between 2001 and 2009. Weltformat, like its predecessors, builds on decades of solo and collaborative efforts by its creators -- Archetti with famed Krautrock pioneers, Guru Guru, among many others, and Wiget with Werner Lüdi, Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, and others. Sculpted from the intricate tonal interventions and responses of Archetti on guitar, mandolin, and electronics, and Wiget on cello, electronics, and vocals, across the album the duo constructs a remarkably diverse landscape in sound, folding touchstones of modern classical, free improvisation, minimalism, harsh noise, and ambient music, into a seamless, singular expanse. Clusters of tone and dissonance merge, collide, and abrade against drones, textures, and pulsing electronics, each element a representative voice of its creator, caught in an imagistic conversation beyond words, which feels as immediate and intuitive, as it does perfectly balanced and thoughtful. Weltformat, encountering Archetti and Wiget just past the 20 year mark of their collaborative partnership, bears the fruit of rigorous experiments in sound - an immersive, effortless form of sonic realism, built from the optimism and hope which lays at the root of the avant-garde. As beautiful, inviting, immersive, and slow moving, as it is challenging, destabilizing, and thought provoking.

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Ending the decade of silence which followed more than ten years of remarkable, critically-acclaimed activity by the partnership of veteran experimentalists, Luigi Archetti and Bo Wiget, the duo returns with what may be their most ambitious effort to date, Weltformat, issued by Die Schachtel. Switzerland-based Luigi Archetti and Bo Wiget began collaborating in 1998, the fruits of which initially emerged as the critically heralded, three-part Low Tide Digitals series, released by Rune Grammofon between 2001 and 2009. Weltformat, like its predecessors, builds on decades of solo and collaborative efforts by its creators -- Archetti with famed Krautrock pioneers, Guru Guru, among many others, and Wiget with Werner Lüdi, Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, and others. Sculpted from the intricate tonal interventions and responses of Archetti on guitar, mandolin, and electronics, and Wiget on cello, electronics, and vocals, across the album the duo constructs a remarkably diverse landscape in sound, folding touchstones of modern classical, free improvisation, minimalism, harsh noise, and ambient music, into a seamless, singular expanse. Clusters of tone and dissonance merge, collide, and abrade against drones, textures, and pulsing electronics, each element a representative voice of its creator, caught in an imagistic conversation beyond words, which feels as immediate and intuitive, as it does perfectly balanced and thoughtful. Weltformat, encountering Archetti and Wiget just past the 20 year mark of their collaborative partnership, bears the fruit of rigorous experiments in sound - an immersive, effortless form of sonic realism, built from the optimism and hope which lays at the root of the avant-garde. As beautiful, inviting, immersive, and slow moving, as it is challenging, destabilizing, and thought provoking.

$25.50 NOT IN STOCK

Milan based Die Schachtel presents In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni (We Turn Round In The Night And, Behold, We Are Consumed By Fire), a work for solo guitar by the Italian composer Stefano Pilia. This marks the second release on a new series on Die Schachtel's imprint, Decay Music. Born in Genoa and based in Bologna, Pilia is a guitar player and electro-acoustic composer concerned with the sculptural properties of sound, offering particular focus to its relationship to space, memory, and the suspension of time -- the conceptual undercurrent of In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni. Comprised of corresponding compositional triptychs on each of its two sides, the final act of both featuring contributions from experimental music heavyweights, Rodrigo D'Erasmo on violin and David Grubbs on piano, the album builds vast, inhabitable expanses of ambience from long tones and shattered cuts and collisions, punctuated by clusters, sweeps, and careful interventions of texture and note. In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni -- as this eerie palindrome and endecasillabo (a syntactic form in classical Italian verse) from Virgil suggests -- moves through a path of alchemical symbolic narratives and poetic abstraction humbly reminiscent and allegorically inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy and by the Nekyia ("evocation of the dead") parts found in Book IX of Homer's Odyssey. Based on symmetrical harmonic, melodic and narrative properties and filled with intangible narrative, haunting abstraction, fleeting visions of eerie space, and slow-motion melody, Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni pushes electroacoustic music toward symphonic dimensions -- dramatic arcs with echoes of high minimalism, historic ambient music, and the radicalism indeterminate forms. Through a wise, peculiar and abstracted use of guitar instrumentation, the sound surface of the compositions reaches deeper electroacoustic-symphonic dimensions, echoing minimalist works, ambient music and indeterminate contemporary forms. Pro-printed inner sleeve and jacket, containing a silkscreened PVC sleeve. 180 gram marble vinyl; Edition of 250, one-time pressing.

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Almost all great music is bridge -- spanning geography and time, defying easy definition. It is the product of collaboration and mutual respect -- individual voice, fused within a collective force. These are the roots for the trio Vértice, an unlikely formation by experimental luminaries, Maurizio Bianchi, Saverio Evangelista, and Juan Manuel Cidrón -- each hailing from their own discrete musical geography in Italy and Spain. Besoch Trauma, a remarkable project's first recorded outing, years in the making, is released by Milan-based Die Schachtel on their new imprint, Decay Music. Decay Music highlights inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract. Each member of Vértice comes from a luminous and historic musical pedigree. Maurizio Bianchi is one of Italy's earliest and most important figures in Industrial music, beginning to issue a wild series of visionary releases during the late 1970s. Saverio Evangelista is well known for his decades longs efforts within the seminal outfits, Esplendor Geométrico and M.S.B., while Juan Manuel Cidrón is one of the great cult figures of Spanish electronic music. Together they shed skin, reforming as one, diving into uncharted waters, while remaining unrecognizable within. Slow, sophisticated, and a deeply meditative, minimalist wonder, Besoch Trauma progresses like a melancholic dream -- the slow wilting of sounds, pondering their own rebirth. Repetitive and restrained piano lines rise among drifting synthesizer tones and textural ambiances, fall away and return, fracture, break, stagger, and distort across the entirety of the albums first side, while murky, implacable sounds breed with flirting electronics and piano, sculpting the vast expanse of abstraction which emerges across the entirety of the second -- clattering and droning, filled with air, fading melodies, and rippling tones. Two slow burning sides, unfolding with greater depth at every turn. Bianchi, Evangelista, and Cidrón build a rich tapestry of creatively challenging sound, a hypothetical imagining of historic minimalism and ambient music, bred with industrial and punk. Pro-printed inner sleeve and jacket, containing a silkscreened PVC sleeve. 180 gram marble vinyl; Edition of 250, one-time pressing.

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Die Schachtel present a reissue of Luigi Nono's Musica Manifesto N. 1, originally released in 1969. Long considered, with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, to be one point in the trinity of the post-war avant-garde, Luigi Nono was one of the most important and singular composers to emerge in the years following the Second World War. Nono's music infused the avant-garde with a sense of emotion and moral consciousness which had been previously unheard, seeking to join advanced forms of music in the social struggles of everyday life. Originally issued in 1969, none of Nono's works illuminate this radical consciousness and concern better than his seminal Musica-Manifesto N.1. Now reissued by Die Schachtel in collaboration with Archivo Storico Ricordi, it is a revolution led by one man, a window into the creative and political potential of sound. Nono's work was vocally political from its earliest days -- first as explicitly anti-fascist, pointedly embracing Marxism (he officially joined the Communist Party in 1952), before, as '60s and '70s unfolded, becoming a voice in the international worker and student struggles and the fight against the Vietnam War. It's hardly coincidental that a work as important and powerful as Musica-Manifesto N.1 emerged at the time it did. It is among the greatest sonic culminations of 1960s, composed and released just before the decade's end. Musica-Manifesto N.1, original intended to be the first part in a suite which never appeared, was commissioned by the communist administrated town of Chatillon-sous-Bagneux, in France, during the Spring of 1969. The work, manifesting in two parts, can be understood as snapshot of its moment -- incorporating texts taken from the walls of Paris in May, 1968, read by Edmonda Aldini against the voices of Communist leaders like Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao, as well as recordings of the riots and protests which occurred at the Venice Biennale in June, '68. Both sides of Musica-Mainifesto N.1, "Un Volto, Del Mare" and "Non Consumiamo Marx", are works for magnetic tape, the first archived through careful editing to achieve a singular polyphonic complexity, while the second utilizes manipulation of its source material through filters and modulators, played against electronically generated sounds. The cumulative result remains a legendary culmination of avant-garde practice and political struggle. Features a tabloid/poster with texts by Veniero Rizzardi and unpublished photos of the 1968 Venice Biennale riots.

$27.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Edition of 300. Die Schachtel present a reissue of Luigi Nono's Musica Manifesto N. 1, originally released in 1969. Long considered, with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, to be one point in the trinity of the post-war avant-garde, Luigi Nono was one of the most important and singular composers to emerge in the years following the Second World War. Nono's music infused the avant-garde with a sense of emotion and moral consciousness which had been previously unheard, seeking to join advanced forms of music in the social struggles of everyday life. Originally issued in 1969, none of Nono's works illuminate this radical consciousness and concern better than his seminal Musica-Manifesto N.1. Now reissued by Die Schachtel in collaboration with Archivo Storico Ricordi, it is a revolution led by one man, a window into the creative and political potential of sound. Nono's work was vocally political from its earliest days -- first as explicitly anti-fascist, pointedly embracing Marxism (he officially joined the Communist Party in 1952), before, as '60s and '70s unfolded, becoming a voice in the international worker and student struggles and the fight against the Vietnam War. It's hardly coincidental that a work as important and powerful as Musica-Manifesto N.1 emerged at the time it did. It is among the greatest sonic culminations of 1960s, composed and released just before the decade's end. Musica-Manifesto N.1, original intended to be the first part in a suite which never appeared, was commissioned by the communist administrated town of Chatillon-sous-Bagneux, in France, during the Spring of 1969. The work, manifesting in two parts, can be understood as snapshot of its moment -- incorporating texts taken from the walls of Paris in May, 1968, read by Edmonda Aldini against the voices of Communist leaders like Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao, as well as recordings of the riots and protests which occurred at the Venice Biennale in June, '68. Both sides of Musica-Mainifesto N.1, "Un Volto, Del Mare" and "Non Consumiamo Marx", are works for magnetic tape, the first archived through careful editing to achieve a singular polyphonic complexity, while the second utilizes manipulation of its source material through filters and modulators, played against electronically generated sounds. The cumulative result remains a legendary culmination of avant-garde practice and political struggle. Features a tabloid/poster with texts by Veniero Rizzardi and unpublished photos of the 1968 Venice Biennale riots.

$75.00 NOT IN STOCK

First in the series of LP boxsets documenting the birth of Roland Kayn's cybernetic music. One of the great pioneers of electronic, computer, and instrumental avant-garde music, for the majority of his life, the German composer Roland Kayn remained almost entirely unknown, a founding member of the legendary ensemble, Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, heralded as a singular genius by a small number of figures like Jim O'Rourke. Though the composer was included within Deutsche Grammophon's seminal Avant-Garde series during the early 1970s, it wasn't until 2017, six years after his death, that the ranks of his fans began to noticeably swell, following the release of his monumental work, A Little Electronic Milky Way Of Sound by Frozen Reeds (FR 007-022CD, 2017). Die Schachtel present a reissue here of Simultan, an overwhelmingly important work in his canon, from 1977, stretching across three LPs. While Roland Kayn might be easily described as a composer of electronic, electro-acoustic, or computer music, the majority of his career was in fact largely dedicated to the revolutionary sculpting of an entirely new territory of sound: cybernetic music, a generative process of composition through programming. Simultan was among the first of the composer's works to emerge from this process. Cybernetic music grew from Kayn's longstanding engagement and fascination with data processing theory. This territory of creativity was the composer's attempt to allow sound to be self-sufficient, stripping away notions of harmony, melody, and rhythm, deploying complex networks of electronic devices. Created during the period in which Kayn was living in the Netherlands and recorded with the assistance of electronic music legends Jaap Vink and Leo Küpper, Simultan is filled with a remarkable sense of humanity and touch. The sounds on Simultan range from seductive ambiences, grinding swells of atonally and pure texture, to buried tone clusters. "The mystery, the grace, the boundless invention -- Kayn's machine music is a vast catalogue of very human wonder." --The Guardian Remastered from the original analog master tapes. Includes booklet with new liner notes. Includes printed inner sleeves. Standard edition comes in an edition of 400.

$27.50 IN STOCK

Parete 67 is a great work has been totally forgotten since today -- this record is in fact a world premiere, and the final act of justice towards a man that contributed so much to the birth and development of electronic music. In 1967 the painter Emilio Vedova was appointed by the Italian government to create an installation for the Italian Pavilion of the Montreal Expo. Vedova came up with this great idea of using small glass slides, especially created to reproduce his abstract painting, and projecting them on the asymmetrical walls of the Pavilion. He then asked Luigi Nono to compose some electronic music, but Nono had no time, and suggested to ask Marino [Zuccheri]. He replied: "I could do something, but keep in mind that I am no composer." The result is "Parete (Wall) 67", a spectacular and intense 30-minute loop of pure and intense electronics, a magmatic cascade of harsh sounds and deep drones, and a fantastic counterpart to the harsh and expressionistic painting of Vedova. Marino Zuccheri was the sound engineer of the famous Milan RAI (Italian Broadcasting Company) Electronic Music Studio, and he helped Berio, Nono, Maderna, Cage, Pousseur, among the others, to give birth to some of the great masterpieces of early electronica. He was the man who actually knew and operated the machines (oscillators, tapes etc). That's why Umberto Eco wrote this about Zuccheri: "Who is one of the most performed contemporary electronic composer in the world? Marino Zuccheri, the sound engineer of the RAI Studio of Fonologia in Milan. Illustrious figures in the history of contemporary music arrived there with State grants; but after many months, they still couldn't figure out how to handle the machines. Then Marino (who, working with Berio and Maderna, had become a wizard), started mixing tapes and producing electronic sounds: that is why some of the compositions now being performed all over the world are by Marino Zuccheri." Deluxe silver cover with foil embossing; Custom inner sleeve; Includes insert; Edition of 300.

$36.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Milan Rai Studio Di Fonologia Musicale 1955-83 presents the proceedings of the homage organized at Milan's Museo del Novecento from June 21, 2016 to January 14, 2017. This exposition (consisting of an exhibition, seminars, concerts, and listening and film sessions) was dedicated to the sound engineer Marino Zuccheri, the main collaborator of Milan's famous electronic music studio, the Rai Studio di Fonologia Musicale. Marino's friends included almost all the major composers of the second half of the 20th century: Berio, Maderna, Nono, Castiglioni, Donatoni, Manzoni, Negri, Gaslini, Gentilucci, Paccagnini, Togni, Cage, Stockhausen, and Pousseur, among others.

The enclosed CD features Zuccheri's first piece, "Plastico" (1961), composed in collaboration with Lorenzo Dall'Oglio, published here for the first time ever. The book includes a large selection of Zuccheri's graphic designs, as a testimony to his multifaceted artistic personality, as well as concert diagrams, building schemes of the electronic machineries, in-edit documents, and photos, and much more. Standard edition comes with a 160-page book; silver cover with flaps -- English-only edition.

$27.50 IN STOCK

For the last hundred years, the line dividing music from visual art has grown increasingly obscure. Music has provided inspiration for countless artists, while art has offered the conceptual terms for music to break its own rules. Particularly within the contexts of punk, and experimental music, art schools have fed the ranks -- gifting countless rebellious and visionary minds. These are open worlds, between which positions and ideas freely meet and speak. Within it all, there lies an often unmentioned realm, far less easily defined, skirting beyond tangible grasp -- sound and music made by visual artists, which might not be music at all. Joining Die Schachtel's already singular catalog of ambitious sonic adventures from Italy, this is the strange, incongruous territory of Untitled Noise, Michele Lombardelli and Luca Scarabelli's debut release. Michele Lombardelli and Luca Scarabelli are two respected visual artists who have been active in the Italian contemporary art scene for many years. While joint their project, Untitled Noise, is positioned outside of sonic manifestations of visual, artistic, conceptual terms, it cannot be entirely dislocated from this spectrum of thought. While it is not art in the visual sense, it equally makes no claims toward music, something which only the intellectual frameworks of the art-world tend to allow. Untitled Noise is a gathering a phenomena -- challenges, organizations, and interventions through sound -- an occupancy of those territories which exists just beyond our ability to define. Evolving over four sides of this double LP -- each dedicated to a single work, one sliding seamlessly into the next, the album is an aggressive, textural gesture in noise. Built from electronic sources and tradition instrumentation, shifting between pure abstraction, sublime drone, rhythmic pulse, and broken flirtations with jazz, it rises as a melting pillar in sound. Drawn from recordings in both studio and live contexts, Untitled Noise marks the return of the Die Schachtel's sub-imprint Zeit, dedicated to ambitious contemporary gestures in sound. Where music meets the realms of art, and what is known falls away; A joining of worlds, which not to be missed. Edition of 300.