Sound arts

A philosophical reflection on the place of sound, from musical aesthetics to sound habitat, at the crossroads of sound, music and technology studies, and phenomenology.

An iconographic artist's book—at the crossroads of sound studies, media archaeology and visual anthropology—resulting from Lauren Tortil's research into the impact of sound technologies for individual use on our perception of the environment, through previously unpublished archives on the Walkman, Sony and the 1980s.

Book-object: a collection of fifty drawings made on a train, within the meanders of a straight line.

An album recorded in different parts of the world, in which the Canadian composer and sound artist explores how quantum mechanics profoundly influences the perception of sound.

An exploration of sound, space and time using found objects and flute. (new remastered version by Lawrence English of the piece recorded by Akio Suzuki in Berlin in 1994).

Christina Kubisch's Stromsänger finds this legendary sound artist at the top of her game mixing electromagnetic wave recordings with a score for six voices, creating powerful results. Stromsänger is based on a collaboration with the Norwegian vocal ensemble Trondheim Voices and on a special experience while researching and recording electromagnetic waves in the city of Trondheim.

Two monumental pieces for flutes and additional voices.

A large survey of Marc Hurtado's cinematographic, musical, poetic and plastic work, with texts by some thirty authors, artists, critics, poets and musicians from all over the world (Lydia Lunch, Pascal Comelade, Nicolas Ballet, F.J. Ossang, Kris Needs, Nick Soulsby, Nicole Brenez, Vincent Deville, Romain Perrot, Alexandre Breton, Marie Möör...).

An exploration of the ecologies of music and sound, from an ecosophical and emancipatory perspective.

Sound artist and composer Alessandro Bosetti paints a series of portraits from a collection of conversations recorded in Italy over the course of a Summer.

Interplay is performed by five singers, from tenor clef to treble clef, recorded in different places at different times. Each singer had not listened to what the others had recorded before.

La Belle Brute's fourth release dedicated to "Art Brut" French artist Jean-Marie Massou, which delves his "novels", a series of sound fictions, created over the last two decades of his life, intertwining striking narratives via spoken text accompanied by collages of sound effects, music, and ambient sounds.

Midsummer, London by one of the world's leading voices in field recording explores the different accents, musics, and other sonic phenomenon of London at locations tracing the river Thames, moving from the outskirts in the west to the outskirts in the east.

Anne Mathuri, Amal Khlif, Fanny Chiarello, Delphine Dora, Félicie Bazelaire, Dominique Grimaud, Kevin Orliange, the Fougère label, John Butcher...

A continuation of Jean-Guy Coulange's radio projects and his attempt to "show sound".

A major work by the American sound artist and composer, the culmination of three years' work inspired by nature and the animal world, introducing her voice, but also drums, into her sound palette.

Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux.

Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux.

Some of the earliest works by American composer Phill Niblock, including three never before released pieces: "Index" (1969), "Tenor," and "Boston III" (both from 1972). Until now, it's been impossible to encounter Niblock's compositions from earlier than the 1960s, a reality thankfully rectified by the long overdue publication of this LP on Alga Marghen.

An "ABC of the arts in transition" examining the ecological turn of the arts, the outcome of long-term collective research into the fundamental elements running through the art world and, more generally, the aesthetic and social universe in the current ecological crisis.

An overview of the career of Amerindian composer and artist Raven Chacon.

This critical biography guides readers through artist Magda Stawarska's practice via a series of journeys—from the streets of Istanbul to the canals of Venice and across the waters of Zanzibar.

Bundle (special offer for the purchase of eight issues of OpticalSound).

Interviews with Michel Dector et Jean-Baptiste Farkas, Alice Dourlen, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jim O'Rourke, Steven Stapleton, Andrea Laszlo De Simone; Johanna Went and Dame Darcy by Nicolas Ballet; Mickael Vis; Yûichi Yokoyama; SMITH; Marcel Broodthaers; Current 93; IKHÉA©SERVICES; Alan Dunn; Oskar Schlemmer; Blaine L. Reininger; Martin Le Chevallier; Ludovic Chemarin©...

Eight pieces of free vocal improvisation by the duo of Jason Kahn and Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, who have been working together since 2015.

Three pieces spanning free improvisation, noise and extended saxophone technique with Ulrich Krieger, one of the masters of contemporary experimental music.

Berlin-based, Italian-born sound artist Andrea Taeggi introduces his debut release on Hands in the Dark records, an album showcasing six mesmerizing and rhythmically intricate electronic compositions.

Pakito Bolino; Basman Aldiwari; Phill Niblock by Kasper T. Toeplitz; Dominique Grimaud; Félix Blume; Leandro Barzabal; Dror Feiler...

A split album as part of the GRM Portraits series bringing together two pieces by Jessica Ekomane (explores the multiple possibilities of polyphonic writing) and Laurel Halo (for piano and electronics).

First vinyl edition of Giuseppe Ielasi's archipelago of animated sound sculptures.

Unreleased tapes from the 70s and 80s.

This monograph presents the visual language inseparable from the higly influential sound project of Sam McKinlay, pioneer of the "harsh noise wall" with the multidisciplinary entity The Rita.

Where sounding is understood as an exhibition of activity, vitality, and power, Nina Dragičević proposes that we analyse sonic phenomena in econo-political terms.

The album includes Milan Knížák's 1973 private recording BROKEN MUSIC, released as a multiple of forty copies by Armin Hundertmark in 1983 on Edition Hundertmark, and a live version of BROKEN REBROKEN, performed in January 2020 at the Museum of Czech Music in Prague by Milan Knížák, Petr Ferenc (aka Phaerentz) and Opening Performance Orchestra.

The glass as a listening device.

In the long interview that forms the body of this publication, Éliane Radigue talks about her work, her reflections and underlying research, as well as her historical context. The publication also contains a commented list of works and Radigue's programmatic text on The Mysterious Power of the Infinitesimal (new expanded edition).

Solo for Tamburium captures Catherine Christer Hennix's most recent major work. Hennix plays an instrument of her own creation, a keyboard interface controlling a suite of eighty-eight recordings of precision-tuned tambura, creating a sweeping and continuous flow of rich harmonic interplay.

Solo for Tamburium captures Catherine Christer Hennix's most recent major work. Hennix plays an instrument of her own creation, a keyboard interface controlling a suite of eighty-eight recordings of precision-tuned tambura, creating a sweeping and continuous flow of rich harmonic interplay.

Two mesmerizing works for carillon, the keyboard-controlled bell tower derived in the 16th century.

A record of outsider music (sound objects and voices) made by patients at Le Havre psychiatric hospital, accompanied by Aude Romary on cello and Nosfell.

The first book dedicated exclusively to the female protagonists of Latin American electronic music.

An archive of sounds for interspecies communication, stemming from Renato Leotta's research on Posidonia Oceanica, an underwater plant endemic to the Mediterranean Sea.

New electromagnetic recordings by Christina Kubisch: a suite of pieces focusing on the electromagnetic sound qualities of trams, buses and related infrastructure.

Two works recorded 14 years apart, registering the behaviour and characteristics of environmental and instrumental sound resounding within multiple parking garages.