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viewing 1 To 6 of 6 items
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LP
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PREECHO 025LP
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Blue Abstraction compiles a selection of Jessica Williams' lost prepared piano recordings. These recordings document the beginning of a vital, solitary phase in her career: a period of intense sonic experimentation that began with physically altering a 6'4" grand piano -- creating a new instrument, and from there, creating a new music. The results are breathtaking; from melancholic soundscapes with Satie-esque lyricism to forcefully controlled cacophony, always grounded by the distinct emotional voicing of her melodic lines. Jessica Williams (1948-2022) was a pioneering trans jazz pianist and composer from Baltimore, where she studied at the Peabody Conservatory. Among countless other greats, she gigged with Philly Joe Jones, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Tony Williams, Charlie Rouse, Jackie McLean, Roy Haynes, Charlie Haden, and Bobby Hutcherson, and recorded with Eddie Henderson, Eddie Harris, Leroy Vinnegar, Victor Lewis, and Ray Drummond. She received accolades from piano greats McCoy Tyner and Dave Brubeck. Williams could play anything and knew the standards deeply -- expanding from there through her composing and arranging. In 1985, with a head full of Thelonious Monk's dissonant harmonies, Williams began her prepared piano project. She altered the piano by placing vibrating and/or muting elements on top of and between the strings at varying distances across the harp -- some sounding like bells or gongs (screws, bolts), others like percussion instruments (clothespins, hairpins, washers, erasers). The effect radically expanded the instrument's possibilities, sometimes making it sound metallic or ghostly, other times muted, tactile, almost broken. The resulting beauty and listenability of these works are a testament to Williams' vision and mastery. The recordings on Blue Abstraction came out of three years of experimentation. She recorded at her own Quanta Studios and at Moon Studios (both in Sacramento), and two live performances at Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco, on January 11 and May 10, 1986, as part of the Noe Valley Music Series. For Williams, these recordings were a personal transformation through the musical process. Though known for her recordings and live performances -- especially of Monk tunes -- Williams made some of her most forward-thinking music privately. The music on this record disappeared for almost four decades.
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2LP
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PREECHO 006LP
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Piano: Hot Chip frontman Alexis Taylor pares everything back to just piano and voice for an intimate record of songs, reinterpretations of his own writing, and a selection of favorites, both well-known and unheard, by other artists. Recorded at Hackney Road Studios by Shuta Shinoda, Piano invites the listener to be privy to a very private recital, with Alexis's vocal and piano captured live and up-close, preserving each beautiful moment. Alexis on the release: "I had always wanted to make a loose and to some extent unplanned piano record -- partly inspired by an un-made but suggested Alex Chilton solo piano LP that a friend of mine told me about 15 years ago or so. . . . The idea with this record was to choose songs of my own and others that were personal to me, and to document live performances which were intimate and unadorned. I wanted to reduce everything to the barest elements, record a great piano well and do as little as possible to the recordings EQ or effects-wise."
Listen With(out) Piano: Alexis Taylor's Listen With(out) Piano is a companion album to his 2016 record piano, Piano. Listen With(out) Piano features new versions by artists including Papa M (David Pajo), Green Gartside (Scritti Politti), Spring Heel Jack, Beatrice Dillon, and Brian Degraw (Gang Gang Dance), which can be played on their own, or at the same time as the songs on Piano to create a brand new listening experience. The album features the work of eleven of Alexis's favorite musicians, handpicked to create new tracks and designed to work in response to the songs on Piano, the third solo album by the Hot Chip frontman. "My brief was both very wide open and very specific, and part of the pleasure for me, and now hopefully for the listeners, is to see how everyone responded so differently to the task," Alexis explains. "The results are truly amazing, and here you have a new album that works both as a kind of electro-acoustic ambient companion piece to Piano, and as a series of musical clothes to be put onto the deliberately bare record I released." Also features Lung Dart, Mammalien, Susumu Mukai , Betsy Taylor, Rupert Clervaux, and Jennifer Herrema.
Exclusive artwork by Oliver Payne; Designed by Joe Gilmore. Comes in a gatefold sleeve.
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LP
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PREECHO 007LP
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Pre-Echo Press present Beast, a new project and moniker from acclaimed sound/visual artist, Koen Holtkamp (Mountains). A somewhat radical departure from Holtkamp's previous working modes -- where sound has typically been treated as an edifice to be sculpted -- the works here are far more concerned with the generative possibilities of rhythm. The pieces on Beast developed out of Holtkamp's creation in 2016 of an audio-visual performance that centers on the physical properties of light via 3D laser projections. Rather than simply make a visual element for a piece of music (or vice-versa), Holtkamp created a system that intricately links every aspect of the performance, from the modular synth and virtual instruments to the constantly shifting projections of his "Color Phase" light installations. As form follows function, the sounds created here are by necessity more immediate, more off the cuff, more pattern oriented, and explore a much further range of dynamics than the somewhat amorphous (yet still gorgeous) work. The work harkens back to "Process Music" of the 1970s, being simultaneously minimal and maximal (think Jon Gibson), as well as the lush pop-minimalism of early 1980s (think Soft Verdict), all the while remaining thrillingly contemporary. Beast Vol. 1 was recorded in real time and is presented with minimal edits to divide it into three pieces. It is the slightly rawer and more abandoned of the two volumes. Beast Vol. 2 (PREECHO 008LP) is a more "in studio" version, and as such, retains a more palpable air of elegance while still remaining a side of the same coin.
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LP
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PREECHO 008LP
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Pre-Echo Press present Beast, a new project and moniker from acclaimed sound/visual artist, Koen Holtkamp (Mountains). A somewhat radical departure from Holtkamp's previous working modes -- where sound has typically been treated as an edifice to be sculpted -- the works here are far more concerned with the generative possibilities of rhythm. The pieces on Beast developed out of Holtkamp's creation in 2016 of an audio-visual performance that centers on the physical properties of light via 3D laser projections. Rather than simply make a visual element for a piece of music (or vice-versa), Holtkamp created a system that intricately links every aspect of the performance, from the modular synth and virtual instruments to the constantly shifting projections of his "Color Phase" light installations. As form follows function, the sounds created here are by necessity more immediate, more off the cuff, more pattern oriented, and explore a much further range of dynamics than the somewhat amorphous (yet still gorgeous) work. The work harkens back to "Process Music" of the 1970s, being simultaneously minimal and maximal (think Jon Gibson), as well as the lush pop-minimalism of early 1980s (think Soft Verdict), all the while remaining thrillingly contemporary. Beast Vol. 1 (PREECHO 007LP) was recorded in real time and is presented with minimal edits to divide it into three pieces. It is the slightly rawer and more abandoned of the two volumes. Beast Vol. 2 is a more "in studio" version, and as such, retains a more palpable air of elegance while still remaining a side of the same coin.
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LP
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PREECHO 001LP
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Originally released in the summer of 2014 as a cassette by Baro Recordings, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Songs Of Forgiveness is now available for the first time on vinyl. Edition of 500 copies via the New York imprint Pre-Echo. Composed by Cantu-Ledesma during his first winter after relocating to Brooklyn, NY, this suite of six discrete tracks are formed by colliding micro orbits of guitar, drum machine and synth, all purposefully phasing in-and-out of sync, and painted with chords of ecstatic melancholia and tape hiss that typifies much of Cantu-Ledesma's work. Pre-Echo Press was started in 2016 by New York based visual artist Matt Connors as a platform for disseminating a diverse and idiosyncratic array of recorded and printed matter.
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LP
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PREECHO 002LP
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Originally released in the summer of 2014 as a cassette by Psychic Troubles, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Songs Of Remembrance is now available for the first time on vinyl. Edition of 500 copies via the New York imprint Pre-Echo. Compiled from recordings spanning two years and various locations, the 21 tracks on Songs Of Remembrance act as snapshots of various times and places, cover a wide range of sonic ground and call to mind any number of imagined spaces via drum machine, guitar, synth and tape explorations. Pre-Echo Press was started in 2016 by New York based visual artist Matt Connors as a platform for disseminating a diverse and idiosyncratic array of recorded and printed matter.
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