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viewing 1 To 16 of 16 items
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4LP
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METAPHON 022LP
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$76.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 3/21/2025
4LP set in 1cm slipcase sleeve with 16-page booklet with biography, interview, track info and photos. Metaphon presents this collection of 14 phenomenal electronic and electro-acoustic works by French composer Fernand Vandenbogaerde, realized between 1967 and 1984. After his science studies Fernand Vandenbogaerde (1946) studied at the Conservatoire de Roubaix and did various classes and courses with a.o. Jean-Etienne Marie, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer, György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Bruno Maderna. He wrote analytical essays on mathematic music, in particular the work of Iannis Xenakis. Vandenbogaerde taught electro-acoustic music at various institutions and was director at the National School of Music and Dance in Blanc-Mesnil, near Paris. As a composer he wrote works for orchestra, instrumental and chamber ensembles, sometimes in hybrid form including tape and electro-acoustic configurations. He also recorded numerous tape compositions in Bourges, Paris, Ghent and at his home studio. His works have been presented worldwide on various leading festivals and events. The compositions included in this edition are primarily tape works, meticulously recorded and produced, radical and most of all timbre oriented which makes his compositions focus mainly on sound while other parameters hardly change. In Vandenbogaerde's own words: "What determines my pieces, at least all the ones in this collection, is that it's the material that dictates me, that will predetermine the form." This particular approach distinguishes him quite a bit from many of his contemporaries within the field of electro-acoustic music. Another interesting aspect in Vandenbogaerde's work is the integration of micro tonal scales (conceived by Mexican composer Julian Carrillo), on the compositions "Modifications III" and the intriguing trilogy "Drei Nachdenken über Hymnen an die Nacht." All tracks are previously unreleased except the proto power electronics piece "Anschlag" which was self-released in 1971 on his own Point Radiant label, as a compilation LP which also included a track by Tristan Murail. Production by Timo van Luijk. Mastering by EARLabs. Graphic design by Meeuw.
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LP
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METAPHON 021LP
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$31.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 3/21/2025
First LP in the Signature Series, a small new series in the Metaphon catalog, documenting previously unreleased archive works of less known composers. Metaphon presents their "signature" in the most personal and elementary way. Raoul De Smet (1936), mainly known for his numerous instrumental and chamber music works, started composing in the early 1960s. Between 1974 and 1989 he also recorded several electro-acoustic compositions at the IPEM in Ghent, one of the more approachable crossroads for experimental music creation at the time. His work carries different moods and contrasts, a sort of expressive eclecticism where straight forward evolution often prevails over far-fetched intemperance. However, his work is far from obvious. The four distinctive tracks on this album portray a fresh and unpretentious enthusiasm of a composer discovering new electronic tools. Four previously unreleased electro-acoustic compositions recorded at the IPEM.
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4LP
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METAPHON 017XLP
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$76.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 3/21/2025
4LP set in 1cm slipcase sleeve with 12-page booklet with photos and text by Robert Fesler and Baudouin Oosterlynck. Edition of 200 copies. An anthology of the intensely arresting work of Robert Fesler (1936-2023), revealing many of his compositions (1975-1987) created with his self-built synthesizers, with as pinnacle the "μP RPF78." All music composed and recorded by Robert Fesler at his home on rue Cour Boisacq in Bierges, Belgium. Except one, all tracks are previously unreleased. With profound simplicity and devotion, Fesler paints a hermetic inner world with strong emotions of confronting solitude, sensual alienation and traumatic angst. His music was as much a therapeutic treatment as an artistic expression. Fesler quotes, "Building my synthesizers and working with them enabled me to sublimate my anxieties." Most tracks were played and recorded real time, often with two synthesizers (the Synthese 756 and the μP RPF78), capturing the heat of the moment in one take, without multitracking. The austere and reductionist approach reinforces the overall spirit of his work, resulting in an engaging, mysterious solitary journey. It's quite incredible how one person can put so much technical cerebral content in the development of a machine and use it in such an emotional way. The music of Robert Fesler might be considered as very Belgian. To situate it within a close entourage, one can say it has: The endurance of Baudouin Oosterlynck; the purity of Dominique Lawalree; the mysticism of Arsène Souffriau. Anthology produced by Timo van Luijk. Tape transfers by Timo van Luijk. Mastering by EARLabs.
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LP
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METAPHON 019LP
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Previously unreleased live recording from the Ranta archives. The creative duo of Michael Ranta and Takehisa Kosugi performed many times in the 1970s and 1980s. In this outstanding performance, recorded at the Japanese Culture Institute in Cologne in 1987, the application of an advanced multi delay system, independently utilized by both players, plays a central role. The smartly treated cyclic tapestry of the delay system (modulated, transformed, harmonized) injects additional dimensions to the highly coordinated improvisation with voice, percussion, violin and electronics, creating interactive "composition-like" textures being Multiple Musics.
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METAPHON 020LP
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Rolf Gehlhaar (1943-2019) was an instrumental and electronic music composer, and a pioneer in computer controlled interactive music. He grew up in the US where he studied philosophy and composition at Yale University. In 1967 he moved back to Germany to become Stockhausen's personal assistant and member of his performing ensemble. In 1969 Gehlhaar co-founded, along with Johannes Fritsch and David Johnson, the Feedback Studios in Cologne, a new-music performance center and publishing house. He later moved to England, where he became in 1979 a founding member of the Electro-Acoustic Music Association and also senior lecturer in design and digital media. Gehlhaar's compositions include symphonies, instrumental works, experimental and electronic music, interactive computer-controlled music and everything in between. The three previously unreleased tracks on this LP only show a glimpse of the versatility of his adventurous and innovative musical ideas. The LP comes with a foldout insert including photos and extensive program notes.
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LP
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METAPHON 016LP
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Arthur Petronio's one and only LP, now reissued by Metaphon, was originally published by the Belgian Igloo label in 1979. An extravagant DIY montage of musique concrète and sound poetry. In addition to Petronio's voice several female readers/performers contribute to this theatre of voices as guest vocalists. An album as unusual as his lifecycle. Born Switzerland 1897, Petronio was a French-Italian musician, poet and painter. He was a young violin virtuoso studying with Belgian master violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, and played solo violin for Belgian King Leopold II at the age of 9. He was attracted to the avant-garde and visionary ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk and developed and presented his "Verbophonie" in 1919, integrating sound poetry into regular music scores. He was a friend to Kandinsky, Mondrian, Cocteau and Picasso, and published several avant-garde journals and poetry books with participation of like-minded artists. He wrote many scores for solo instruments, small ensembles, orchestral works, and operas and extended his musical ideas with new possibilities of tape composition.
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3LP
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METAPHON 012LP
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First ever release of female French composer, musicologist and writer Nicole Lachartre (1934-1991). This ten-track triple LP set comprises most of her electronic and musique concrète compositions recorded in the 1960's and 1970's, all previously unreleased. It includes her first tape composition from 1968, recorded in Pierre Henry's Apsome studio, electronic and electro-acoustic compositions realized at the IPEM in Ghent, The Institute of Sonology in Utrecht and the Radio Belgrade Electronic Music Studio, and a première concert recording from 1978 with the legendary Jeanne Loriod playing the Ondes Martenot. Lachartre studied with Darius Milhaud, Iannis Xenakis and Michel Philippot. Her broad formation and interest as well as her profound commitment and singular vision created a solitary voice, even within the field of electronic and concrete music, strangely enough unheard till this day.
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METAPHON 014LP
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What was supposed to be a soundcheck for this session became the session itself: a haunting 50-minute séance of intense avantgarde improvisation using a large instrumentation and live processing (tape echo, ring modulation, phasing). A trident travelogue of the momentum masterfully controlled by the ensemble spirit, transcending the boundaries of psychedelic underground. Official reissue of this underground classic from 1975, originally released in a tiny edition on the small Japanese Iskra label. As the original master tapes of these recordings seem to be lost, the master had to be taken from an unplayed original LP copy. Carefully restored and mastered by Jos Smolders. Includes text sheet.
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CD
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METAPHON 008CD
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2019 release. 11 track album of previously unreleased music for a ballet choreographed by Philippe Talard. Composed, performed, and recorded by Michael Ranta in 1988-1989. Mixed by Michael Ranta and Stefan Deistler. Mastered by Earlabs. Program notes for the ballet by Karla Nieraad. Translation by Christoph Heemann. Production and artwork by Timo van Luijk. Design by Meeuw. Triple gatefold card sleeve.
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CD
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METAPHON 009CD
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2021 release. More than any other of Michael Ranta's releases, this album shows his multiple roots and ideas as a composer, percussionist, and concrete/electronic musician, building a seamless bridge between Eastern and Western avant-garde. Ranta is one of those rare composers able to organically melt his wide artistic span into a singular but yet diverse universe morphing his rich vocabulary as a percussionist with the Oriental esoteric tradition, the psychedelic underground, and the realm of electronic minimalism. Michael Ranta: performance and mixing; Recording engineers: Shigeru Sato, Tsutomu Kojima; Mastered by EARLabs; Painting: Wayne Jacob Production: Timo van Luijk; Design: Meeuw. 12-page booklet in gatefold cardboard sleeve.
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METAPHON 006CD
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2015 release. 16 track composition for pre-recorded sounds and live percussion performed by Michael Ranta. Entirely different work from the Yüen Shan CD released in 2005 on Ms Classic. All material previously unreleased. Yuen Shan ("Round Mountain" in Chinese) was conceived in 1972 and finalized in 2014. A musical cosmogony in four movements expressing different stages and cycles in life, The Ritual of Life. A major work in Ranta's oeuvre. Includes 12-page booklet in gatefold cardboard sleeve.
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LP
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METAPHON 015LP
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Originally released in 1981 on the Belgian Igloo label this reissue comes with the same sleeve as originally designed by Alain Géronnez. "A Late Lunch" is the soundtrack to Akiko Iimura's eponymous movie realized in 1978. It is based on acoustic instruments and field recordings, brilliantly reconfigured and mixed by Bekaert to create a surreal, immersive soundscape. The technique used includes superposition and speed change of recordings, radical sound effects, and juxtaposition of sounds. The players were prominent musicians of the 1970s, including Maggi Payne, George Lewis, David Rosenboom, and Blue Gene Tyranny. "A Summer Day at Stony Point" was composed in 1969, with participation of David Behrman, Shigeko Kubota, and Charlotte Warren. The piece was commissioned by English composer Hugh Davies who presented it at the Harrogate festival the same year. Stony Point is a small village in New York State where John Cage co-owned a small pseudo-commune art resort where like-minded artists gathered. "A Summer Day at Stony Point" is nothing more than a page of a journal, a fragment of a notebook that utilizes a series of sound sources recorded at Stony Point on one beautiful day in the summer of 1968. Other electronic sound sources were recorded at the Brandeis University where Alvin Lucier was professor. The final realization of the piece was done at Henri Pousseur's APELAC Studio in Brussels, 1969. The soundtrack for Akiko Iimura's Mon Petit Album was composed on the basis of a simple description of the technique of the film and its time span. It includes David Behrman on alto, from an outdoor recording at Stony Point, plus excerpts from a Transition concert in London, the band Bekaert formed in 1971 with Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi, and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers. The atmosphere is quiet and pastoral throughout with a very dreamlike flavor. Edition of 500.
"... Gentle threads of instrumental and electronic sounds are mixed with outdoor rural field recordings and occasional voices of his friends speaking, whistling or singing. Bekaert creates a warm environment within which we can hear subtle individual voices of good musicians who are relating to his loosely-notated scores and verbal instructions..." --David Behrman
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CD
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METAPHON 013CD
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Even though only being fully terminated 50 years after its conception, Azabu can be regarded as the starting point of Michael Ranta's creative self-discovery. The recordings that form the base of Azabu were mostly made in the Tokyo district with the same name (Azabu-Juban). Next to abstracted field recordings, Azabu is also pervaded by a rich variety of percussion, string, and wind instruments, all played by Ranta himself. Subsequently Ranta edited, layered, and processed the recordings at the NHK electronic music studio in Tokyo. Both pieces display a vast array of acoustic, electronic, and concrete sound events meticulously sequenced to a complex fusion symbolizing the entire spectrum of earthly and heavenly sounds. Dynamic extremes evoke a restless flight through space, or through the depths of human subconsciousness, between dream and reality. Ultimately the music disappears, like a dot in the sky gradually fading into nothingness -- an "ascension" that closes the loop in a ritual of life that can begin anew again at any time. Michael Ranta: composition, performance, mixing (1971). Stefan Deistler: final mixing and mastering (2021). Painting: Wayne Jacob. Production: Timo van Luijk. Design: Meeuw. Gatefold cardboard sleeve; eight-page booklet.
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LP
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METAPHON 010LP
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First ever release of concrete and electronic collage works by Belgian underground sound explorer, Jan Bruyndonckx. Rails and Other Tracks contains autonomous compositions, music for film and documentary, all independently recorded in his private studio between 1958 and 1965. A small collection of adventurous and mysterious sound evocations with text/poetry (Paul De Vree) recited by Julien Schoenaerts.
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LP
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METAPHON 011LP
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First LP release of Johannes Fritsch, long-time member of the Stockhausen Ensemble. Composed 1974, recorded 1975 at Feedback Studio Cologne "Kyo Mu" and "Hochtöner" both reveal a mesmerizing symbiosis of innovative sound exploration and visionary interior music, a sublime compound of fine-drawn intricate arrangements skillfully projected in space and time, or perhaps beyond space and time. "Kyo Mu" features: Johannes Fritsch - tape (viola, electronic and concrete sounds); Hitomi Endo- Shakuhachi; Weltmusik-Kongress, Vlotho 11.10.82 - première recording. "Hochtöner" features: Johannes Fritsch - viola, tape; Rolf Gehlhaar - percussion; David Johnson - flute, synthesizer. Gatefold sleeve; edition of 500.
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4LP BOX
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METAPHON 001LP
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Hardboard linen LP box contains 4 LPs with separate covers and a 34-page booklet with notes and photos from B.O. Signed and numbered edition of 300 copies. Incredible package!
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