Three rare recordings by this pioneer of early Danish electronic music — compelling, often dazzling, but focussed and without bombast.
‘Electronic Music was originally released in 1987 as a retrospective album, collecting three of Bent Lorentzen’s electronic works from the 70s. These clearly demonstrate Lorentzen’s close familiarity with his equipment and his great technical proficiency regarding the creation and manipulation of all sorts of electronic and recorded acoustic sounds — typically in the form of speed changes, reversed sounds, and reverb and filter effects. The music is often quite dramatic with distinct narratives and multiple dynamic layers of sound, but still with a clear sense of disposition and restraint, possibly stemming from Lorentzen’s experience with classical instrumentation and orchestration.’
Fastidiously prepared and stylishly presented by IDL, as per.

‘Deep and haunting; a dense tapestry of layered percussion, time-warped tape loops, and spiralling drumgita figures, all underpinned by hypnotic improvisations from Brazilian pianist Rafael Dos Santos. Privately pressed in 1982, it is both ecstatic and unsettling, a landmark recording in black British experimental music.’

A reissue of Vambe’s privately pressed album from 1982.

‘Occasionally, you find music outside the commercial mainstream, outside of everything – the music of visionaries, eccentrics, inventors, loners. Moondog, Daphne Oram, Harry Partch are from this mould. And so too is Lori Vambe.
‘A self-taught drummer, inventor, and sonic experimentalist, who moved from Harare to London in 1959, Vambe is a unique figure in British music. The creator of his own instrument, the drumgita (pronounced ‘drum-guitar’) or string-drum, Vambe intended to create a kind of music that had never been made in order to pursue access to the fourth dimension. The album plays with time, mixing hypnotic, trance-like drumgita pieces with the same segments played backwards. You can hear echoes of African drumming traditions, minimalist repetition, and tape-manipulated musique concrète— but ultimately, the album defies genre. It is a solitary voyage, spiritual and futuristic.’

‘An extraordinarily lush, poignant collaboration… Bombscare bleeds mood, space, and texture as sounds ring out and echo into the distance. Hand So Small works like a literate lullaby as musical flourishes appear from thin air, a piano haunts the outskirts of the song, and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker take turns singing about life “getting smaller.” So Easy (So Far) is perhaps the most traditional Low song, but Spring Heel Jack manages to make the band sound like they’re singing modern day Brothers Grimm tales. Way Behind is a stunning closer. It’s a truly exhilarating song that sounds like it was recorded in heaven, as Parker and Sparhawk again take turns singing angelically that they’ve left someone “way behind” over a jazzy electronic stew full of subtle found-sounds…
‘It’s too bad the collaborators didn’t compile an entire album’s worth of material, as these sixteen minutes seem magically fleeting. Bombscare couldn’t be a more superb collaboration between these innovative artists’ (AllMusic).
First reissue of the original release in 2000.

“In the beginning of the pandemic we decided to take a turn and move to a small beach close to São Paulo, right in the middle of the rain forest… water definitely took a major role in our lives. We were living right in between the ocean and a waterfall, it´d rain for days on a roll sometimes and it was an open house where we had the sound of rain 360 degrees around us… I kinda think our music has a little of those different dynamics of water in its different states. Also, it might seem strange but São Paulo is a city in the water too, and it has a very chaotic relationship with it.”

‘The music itself is difficult to pin down: always kinetic and driven by fluid, nimble percussion, with a freeness to the sound overall, but also discipline, as the pair harness and channel the elemental force from which they’ve drawn their inspiration. At times the lines between Takara’s skittish percussion and Boregas’ idiosyncratic synth work and sound manipulation blur into flowing rivers or torrents of sound — here, both water and sound have the ability to awaken in us different memories, and emotional or physical states.
‘We could say say their sound contains clear influences from jazz, classic dub, krautrock, and the outer limits of post-punk. Contemporary allies include Holy Tongue, Shackleton, Oren Ambarchi…’

‘The forerunner of Maajun. Five musicians — Jean-Pierre Arnoux, Cyril and Jean-Louis Lefebvre, Alain Roux and Roger Scaglia — and three times as many instruments at the service of electric-poetic, guerrilla folk and blues, which evokes the fantasy coming-together of Frank Zappa and Jacques Higelin, Sonny Sharrock and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago.’

‘Flits between eerie ambience, environment, and hermetic logic. The music’s timing and sequencing feel distant, the elegant constructions conjured and organised semi-consciously, drawing the listener deeper into the dream… Each neatly tuned conversation and clockwork assemblage harmonises, spinning tantalisingly just out of range and understanding.’

The Vannier collaborator births this Finders Keepers’ imprint with a late-sixties knockabout conceptual-pop riposte to musique concrete: found sound, industrial noise, piano jazz, avant orchestration, signature cimbalom.

Their classic, influential, second Saravah, from 1974, joined by the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos. Leftist folk prog turned outernational psychedelic fusion. Try fourteen-minutes-long La Ville Pue.

Atmospheric, swinging Algerian soundtrack music from the 1970s, swirling together jazz, psych, funk and muzak, with tasty North African, Arab flavours. An eight-page full-size booklet contains rare photos, an interview with the artist from 1978, and a brief introduction to Algerian cinema.

The 35th Anniversary Edition of the Ash Ra guitarist’s early-eighties guitars-and-electronics breakthrough, with the original embossing to the cover.
A real game-changer: a momentous influence on Basic Channel, Carl Craig and so many others.
Perfect for zoning out.
It’s a must.