Music > experimental / contemporary / electronic / electroacoustic / improvised music

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

Released in Sub Rosa's Early Electronic series, this LP reveals the extraordinary diversity of research—almost all hidden—by Spanish musicians in the '50s and '60s.

New compositions (by Phill Niblock, Klaus Lang, Bernhard Lang, Milan Guštar, Judith Berkson, Idin Samimi Mofakham and Ian Mikyska) for the sixth-tone harmonium conceived by Czech composer and pioneer of microtonal music Alois Hába in the 1920s and '30s, performed by Miroslav Beinhauerr, currently the only player of this unique instrument in the world, who has single-handedly revived it after decades of slumber.

Baudouin de Jaer pursues his exploration of the geomungo, a traditional six-string Korean bass zither, with a wordless opera in three acts.

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).

The complete texts and photographs published in the fanzine dedicated to free jazz.

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

Unreleased tapes from the 70s and 80s.

Centered around the Villa Aurora Organ, an intriguing and mostly unknown instrument built in 1928/29 by the Artcraft Organ Company in Santa Monica, California, "Outerlands" presents a deeply personal approach to the instrument's particular properties, very much in line with Discrepant's ethos.

On their first album since 2017, the Berlin-based trio Denseland (Hanno Leichtmann, David Moss and Hannes Strobl) instead ventures slowly but steadily into unknown territory.

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.

An overview of the use of textile in contemporary visual arts around the world.

A vast selection of theoretical, philosophical and literary writings by Pierre Schaeffer, accompanied by testimonies of various personalities, providing a privileged entry into the multidimensional universe of the composer, engineer, theorist and radio man, whose tutelary shadow is constantly cast on the landscape of sound creation.

Anniversary issue: 30 artists celebrate 30 years of Neural + 20 of Crónica; interviews with Olga Goriunova, Siegfried Zielinski, Luciana Parisi, Hito Steyerl, Jussi Parikka; The Neural Archive; reports: xcoax 23, Renaissance 3.0 ZKM; books/DVDs & music reviews...

The twelfth album by DAAU is the soundtrack to a series of short, abstract animation films by Rudy Trouvé, who also acted as a creative director during the recording process.

This second project released on Sub Rosa by the Japanese artist Kaoru Tashiro, manages to create a subtle dialogue between four composers, and four musical pieces, mixing a delicate blend of Japanese and European sensibilities. Those different approaches convergence thanks to the highly recognisable sensibility of Kaoru Tashiro's way to play.

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.

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 debut, self-titled album from German trio Schatterau: 15 elegant miniature pieces made with an old 4-track cassette recorder, offering a lo-fi walk through a patchwork of warm, nostalgic, dreamlike and strangely familiar soundscapes.

François Bayle's luxurious, monumental retrospective box set: 15 CDs covering half a century (1963-2012) of acousmatic creation, accompanied by a 160-page book with various texts, a 2012 interview with Thomas Baumgartner, presentation and annotated catalog of works by Régis Renouard Larivière, and photographs.

Back in stock! (reprint). The first book dedicated exclusively to the female protagonists of Latin American electronic music.

A music drama performed in the Hebbel Theatre Berlin in 1994—a key work from Sven-Åke Johansson & Alexander von Schlippenbach.

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

A unique 90s Berlin underground artefact by Kunstkopf.

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