Tag Archives: avant-garde

Lai/Lencastre/Reviriegov – Instante (Phonogram Unit)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

“Instante” is the debut recording by the trio formed by José Lencastre (saxophones), based in Lisbon, and Clara Lai (piano) and Àlex Reviriego (electronics), both based in Barcelona.

Their music transports us to new and unexpected sonic spaces. The more organic sounds of the piano and saxophone both contrast with and symbiotically merge with the artificiality of electronics. The electronics place the improvisational style of the piano and saxophone in new perspectives. As with the sound of these instruments, the breath, the spaces, the timbral landscapes, the harmonies, and the natural harmonics, among other elements, move the electronics away from more typical noise or electronic territories, inviting us to stylistically recontextualize each of them, individually and collectively.

Rooted in free improvisation and embedded in a continuously evolving contemporary language, the three instruments meet, diverge and explore, through attentive listening, how far this interaction can expand their respective instrumental possibilities, in the pursuit of a single and unique sound.

This album is dedicated to the ever-renewed experience of being present, in connection with each instant.


Àlex Reviriego – electronics
Clara Lai – piano
José Lencastre – alto and tenor saxophones


Clara Lai and José Lencastre recorded at Louva-a-Deus, Lisboa, by Afonso Cabral on May 31st 2024.
Àlex Reviriego recorded at Premià de Mar on June 26th 2024

Mixed by Jan Valls Miralles
Mastered by Ary at Toolate Studio

Graphic Design by Tània Gumbau
Cover photo by José Lencastre

All music by Àlex Reviriego, Clara Lai and José Lencastre

Antonio Gallucci – Hope for Nothingness as Something (Dinzu Artefacts)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

A two-chapter suite for modular & FM synth, wind & string instruments, electronics, sound objects and field recordings. The work is structured as a two-chapter descent from concrete score to analog & digital abstraction. It begins with the tangible written material and human presence of the performers, which are systematically subjected to a process of erosion. The initial components are reduced to “digital dust” — meaningless data fragments — then recombined algorithmically. This process entirely empties the material of its original structure and meaning. The work culminates in a final, unreal space, becoming a meditation on the transformation of human intention into pure, post-human data.

The notion of Hope for Nothingness as Something is a radical philosophical pivot, shifting the focus of human aspiration from tangible acquisition to ultimate negation. There’s a profound psychological shift: the very concept we often fear or dismiss as empty can be re-framed as an object of desire, value, or ultimate meaning. This concept draws its discursive power from its inherent paradox: desiring an absence and treating that absence as the most valuable presence.

“Is nothingness the same as nothing? Everything evolves around that. Absolute discardment, because there is hope only where nothing is retained. The fullness of nothingness. That is the reason for the insistence on the zero point.”

– T. Adorno

All tracks composed, played, mixed and mastered by Antonio Gallucci @ Mercurial Studio in Pistoia (Italy) between May and October 2025.

Antonio Gallucci is a musician, sound engineer, and digital technology expert born and raised in South Italy. He lives and works in Tuscany. His works reveal a poetic and conceptual dimension that leverages the use of new and old technologies, found objects and sounds, and the extreme
manipulation of sources, within a reflective and conscious aural experience. Over the past 25 years, he has collaborated with museums, theaters, artists, and international record labels.

Cover art by Aaron Owens

Anne Efternøler With Maria Laurette Friis And Johanna Borchert – We are. Profoundly. Predisposed. To drowning. (Relative Pitch Records)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

The music of this trio is an ongoing conversation between three women about life as it unfolds between artistic practice and daily routines. Compassioned conversations about being someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s partner, someone’s friend seamlessly float into the musical sphere, where words and emotions are transformed into pitches, harmonies, rhythms and artistic gestures.

Three strong artists from the creative music scene of northern Europe has formed a trio that feeds from the compassioned relationship between its members. Danish Anne Efternøler is a desired trumpet player on the Scandinavian scene, while German Johanna Borchert´s distinct approach to the prepared piano has given her a prominent place between the heaviest pianoplayers(sic) of her generation. For more than 25 years vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Maria Laurette Friis has been pushing the musical borders leaving a remarkable contribution to the field of abstract music.

Maria Laurette Friis – vocals
Johanna Borchert – prepared piano and vocals
Anne Efternøler – trumpet, flute and objects

Track 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 Recorded at Hobby Horse Studio, Copenhagen, January 10. 2022 By Simon Mariagaard.
Track 2, 4, 7, 8 Recorded live at KoncertKirken, Copenhagen, July 5 2023 By Mads Madsen.
All music By Anne Efternøler, Maria Laurette Friis, Johanna Borchert.

Future Children – A disorganized body (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

This is a soundtrack to the short film about the very strange case of a French woman in the 19th-century known only as Mme X…

“DR. JULES COTARD had to be surprised and confused by the female patient (known only as brought to his office at the Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital in Paris one afternoon in 1882. The 43-year-old described a peculiar set of symptoms: she claimed she had “no brain, no nerves, no chest, no stomach, no bowels — that there was nothing left of her but the skin and bones.
Also, she claimed she had no soul, that there was no God and no devil, and that overall she was nothing but ‘a disorganized body’ with no internal organs and because of that she claimed to not need to eat anymore. Further, she expressed her belief in her own immortality, noting that she could not die a natural death, but ‘will live forever unless she is burnt, fire being her only possible end.’ Sadly she starved herself to death…”

This soundtrack, beyond the story of Mme X is also influenced by other 19th-century eccentrics (and brilliant artists) of her time such as Marcel Proust and Erik Satie.
credits
released October 5, 2025

Future Children are C C Sheehan and Kevin Coral
Additional vocals by Darrian Dawnstar
Additional guitar by Malcolm X Abram
Additional Drums/Percussion by Ty Landrum

All tracks recorded and mixed at Strawberry MIDI, Kent, OH
Mastered by Adam Boose @Cauliflower Audio

Additional synthesizers recorded at Vintage Synthesizer Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Special Thanks to Josh, Jason, Ella, Bernard, Nicolas, Jessica, JED

Some of the synthesizers used on this album include: Moog Polymoog 203a
EMS Synthi AKS
Sequential Circuits Prophet 5
Oberheim 4-Voice
Roland Jupiter 8
Korg PS-3100
Korg Trident MkII
Gleeman Pentaphonic
Elka Synthex
Yamaha CS-70m
Yamaha CS-80
PPG Wave 2.2 Roland Juno 60 Korg MS-20
Jen Synthtone
SX-100…

Artwork by Nicolas Nade

Sir Richard Bishop – Hillbilly Ragas (Drag City)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Our favorite six-string shaman is waving that axe around again! Sir Richard Bishop wrenches forth fresh damnable truth and beauty from a musical kamikaze run through histories both known and unknown. Turning a gimlet eye to the American Primitive guitar style, Sir Rick applies his own bloodthirsty interpretive methods on a self-described “excursion into the dark woods,” to locate – and play along with – the Primitive’s moonshine-fed inner savage.