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The Entourage Music And Theatre Ensemble (1973)


The Entourage Music and Theater Ensemble was an ambient music group. The group was active from 1970 to 1983 and performed in theaters in combination with dance ensembles.

The primary members were founder and director Joe Clark on saxophones and keyboards; Rusti Clark (no relation) on viola and guitar; Michael S. Smith on drums and percussion; and Wall Matthews on guitars, keyboards, and percussion.

Entourage formed in Baltimore, Maryland in the early 70's, relocated to Millbrook, New York, then moved to New London, Connecticut in the mid-seventies and finally re-settled in the Baltimore, Maryland area. The group disbanded after the death of Joe Clark in 1983.

In the mid-seventies, Moe Asch of Folkways Records produced two recordings: Entourage (1973) and The Neptune Collection (1975). Both recordings were made available on custom CD and digital download in 2007 by Smithsonian Folkways.

In 1976, noted choreographer Murray Louis commissioned the group to create a two-hour original score based on the ballet Cleopatra for the Royal Danish Ballet.

The ensemble was commissioned by Nebraska Public Television to create a half-hour national television special, Ceremony of Dreams in 1978.

In 2003, a composition from The Neptune Collection, "Neptune Rising", was sampled and used as the basis for the single She Moves She by the electronic music artist Four Tet.

The ensemble received mostly positive reviews. In 1974, a brief write up of the group's first recording in Stereo Magazine praised Entrourage as one of the unique groups since The Paul Winter Consort... a beautiful album...

In his review of The Neptune Collection, Russell Shaw of Crawdaddy! magazine wrote, When Michael Smith of Entourage accentuates the eerie "Druid Dance" with a series of fists, knuckles, and finger pops, he becomes the device the pacing is voiced through. All this is part and parcel of the framework in which Entourage operates; an often sinister, but more often frighteningly intricate series of compositions adaptable for dance purposes. On their own, without visual aid, the recordings are awesomely imagistic; a maelstrom of impressions... (wikipedia)



Communication is the outer world's intersection with the inner world. It is a process in time through which hue , color, texture, and finally , shape (or form) are formulated. At some critical point, this dynamic procession of events produces conception-stored-in-memory, realization, dynamicism, experience.

One's surroundings and self-awareness are, in reality, an entity of relationship containing within itself a potential for communication. The enactment of this relationship by a group of such individual elements is performance . The manner or texture of this communcation is entirely the result of the hues and colors of its elements .

Our entourage (or theatre) and our collective self-awareness is the relationship within which performance is realized — its form (or ritual) is entirely contingent upon a common purpose. Then, the purpose is performance , spontaneous performance, adaptiveness, a most expedient realization.

Joh was born May 21, 1935 in Baltimore, Maryland. E-flat soprano saxophone, electric keyboard, acoustic piano, percussion.

Michael was born January 30, 1946 in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Drums, assorted percussion, thumb piano.

Rusti was born September 24, 1947 in Jacksonville, Florida. Viola, recorder, guitar, percussion.

In performance, our group is a multi-media ensemble. Our musical performers and theatrical complement provide a synthesis of ideas and inspirations derived from many sources.

We perform with as few as four people, or as many as fifteen. We also have a apprenticeship system (which is no more a system than friendship) — allowing people not directly involved in our group to rehearse and perform with us . This broadens the scope of our work.

We are portable and self-contained, with a format designed to give a great deal of flexibility to when and where we perform.
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Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers - Canaxis 1969 (1998)


Can member and bassman Holger Czukay teamed up with producer Rolf Dammers a few months after the forming of that influential group to record a solo album, focusing on a hybrid of ambient soundspaces, musicological sampling, and a sort of Steve Reich-like loop system. "Boat-Woman-Song" means to preserve the traditional singing of two Vietnamese peasants, and depending on your view of their singing, will either be beautiful or discordant; it certainly isn't ambient you can put on and ignore. The second half manipulates their voices using tape speed and various effects, while layering on some strings. "Canaxis" plays with the sounds of bells and bell-like sounds harking back to the sonic experiments of Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky, on top of which can be heard more ethnic singing. (allmusic)


A few months after the foundation of Can Holger Czukay recorded his first solo-album Canaxis. The music has its origins in different parts of the world. It was arranged with the intuition of exploring and preserving the genuine character and beauty in an ambient context. Here for the first time Czukay employed the idea of 'sampling'. For this release Boat-Woman Song and Canaxis were remixed from the original 1968-tapes. The additional Mellow Out was his first piece of music performed for an audience in 1960 on theGerman radio. Straight from the broadcast the piece was cut onto vinyl by a small recording studio. Four units for the bandmembers only!
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Kazma Kazma - Comedy of Anthone (1995)


Rzecz z gatunku pięknych i poważnych; postpunkowa formacja jako septet symfoniczny w muzyce inspirowanej średniowieczem i współczesną awangardą; z piętnem Nymana, Glassa i Mertensa. Muzyka do spektaklu, ale ze wszelkimi walorami autonomiczności, autorstwa stomatologa z Charkowa - Jewhena Chodosza, pasjonata muzyki dawnej i minimalu oraz eksperymentatora w łączeniu tychże z postpunkową ekspresją. W przypadku "Komedii..." postpunkowy rodowód przejawia się co najwyżej w nie zawsze strojących instrumentach. (serpent)


A beautiful and serious piece. This postpunk symphonic septet presents music inspired by middle-ages and modern avant-garde with strong mark of Nyman, Glass and Mertens. Although this music was created to a specific spectacle, it has all signs of autonomy and independence. It was written by a dentist from Charkov - Jewhen Chodos for whom the old and minimal music is a passion. The author is not afraid to experiment with combining certain elements from those two fields together with post-punk expression. In case of "Anthon's Comedy" the post-punk origin is sometimes heard in out of tune instruments. (serpent)
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Hilma af Klint (1862-1944)


Hilma Af Klint (1862-1944) należała do grupy artystycznej „Pięć” skupiającej artystki o filozoficznie i duchowo złożonym rozumieniu świata. Podobnie jak Wasilij Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian czy Kazimierz Malewicz, Klint inspirowała się spirytualizmem i teozofią oraz podkreślała duchowy wymiar poznania. Wierzyła, że w akcie tworzenia przemawia przez nią wyższa świadomość. Prace Hilmy łączą geometryczne kształty z bogatą ornamentacją. Rozbudowana symbolika  oferuje wgląd w różne wymiary egzystencji, makro- i mikrokosmos stanowią tu swoje odbicia.Po tym, jak autorka zwróciła się ku malarstwu abstrakcyjnemu, przestała wystawiać swoje prace, a w testamencie zastrzegła, że nie mogą być one publicznie pokazywane przez 20 lat po jej śmierci. Była przekonana, że dopiero wtedy  świat będzie przygotowany na odbiór jej twórczości. (artbiznes)








For Hilma af Klint as for other pioneers of Abstract Art - such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich - it was the works' spiritual dimension that mattered most. As with many artists and intellectuals of her generation, she was interested in theosophy and anthroposophy and gathered decisive impulses for her creative work as an artist from taking part in spiritualistic séances. Her oeuvre can be seen as an attempt to reach a deeper understanding of the world and human existence.

Hilma af Klint created more than one thousand paintings, sketches and water-colours. But throughout her lifetime she never exhibited her abstract pieces, in which she developed a predominantly organic, and later geometric, formal language. According to her will these works were not supposed to be made accessible to the public until twenty years after her death because she assumed that her contemporaries were not yet able to grasp their full meaning. Yet it was not until the mid-1980s that these works were finally exhibited and honoured for the first time. In view of her significant contribution to the history of abstraction, Hilma af Klint's oeuvre deserves to be rediscovered by a larger audience. (hamburgerbahnhof)
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The Space Spectrum - II (2013)




The Space Spectrum is a space/drone/psych/kraut collective from Rendsburg, Germany founded by Nico Seel. Line Up: Basti Ikels - Drums, Nils Seel - Bass, Nico Seel - Guitar + Cosmic Noise, Kevin Klein - Drums
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Sixto Rodriquez


Sixto Díaz Rodríguez znany również jako Rodríguez lub Jesús Rodríguez (ur. 10 lipca 1942 w Detroit w stanie Michigan w USA) – amerykański wokalista i gitarzysta z pogranicza rocka i folku, aktywista polityczny. Jego muzyka stała się wyjątkowo popularna w Republice Południowej Afryki, gdzie przez wiele lat myślano, że artysta nie żyje. Sam muzyk nic o swojej popularności nie wiedział i pracował jako budowlaniec. Historia jego popularności w RPA stała się kanwą filmu dokumentalnego Sugar Man, który w 2013 roku otrzymał Oscara.

Urodził się w biednej dzielnicy Detroit, w rodzinie robotniczej pochodzenia meksykańskiego. Jego rodzice przybyli do USA w 1920 r. Był szóstym dzieckiem w rodzinie.


W 1967 r. nagrał pierwszy singiel "I'll Slip Away" pod pseudonimem Rod Riguez, ale płyta przeszła bez jakiegokolwiek oddźwięku. Występował w klubach nocnych Detroit i to właśnie podczas jednego z występów został zauważony przez producentów, dzięki czemu podpisał kontrakt z wytwórnią Sussex Records. Nakładem tej wytwórni ukazały się dwa jego albumy Cold Fact w 1970 i Coming from Reality w 1971 r. Żadna z płyt nie spotkała się z jakimkolwiek zainteresowaniem i sprzedano ich bardzo niewiele, w związku z czym wytwórnia zerwała współpracę z artystą.

W związku z brakiem zainteresowania jego twórczością, Rodríguez przerwał działaność muzyczną i poświęcił się pracy zarobkowej, wykonując różnego rodzaju prace fizyczne np. przy remontach czy rozbiórkach domów, żyjąc przez wiele lat na granicy ubóstwa. W 1989 r. bez powodzenia kandydował do rady miejskiej Detroit.

Po bezprecedensowym sukcesie filmu dokumentalnego przedstawiającego jego osobę artysta rozpoczął trasę koncertową, którą jednak musiał przerwać z powodu złego stanu zdrowia. Odwołane zostały koncerty, które miały odbyć się 25 maja 2013 w Barcelonie oraz 31 maja 2013 w Póvoa de Varzim nieopodal Porto. Rodriguez cierpi na jaskrę.


Sixto Rodriguez, Secret Rock Star Behind Searching for Sugar Man

Who were the most important American songwriters after Woodstock? Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Rodriguez. Everyone knew that where I was growing up, among the malcontent teenagers of white suburbia in apartheid South Africa in the 1970s. What’s that you say? Who’s Rodriguez? Don’t be stupid. Rodriguez. You know, the Mexican guy with the hat and the sunglasses — “I Wonder,” “Sugarman,” “Crucify Your Mind”…

It was only upon arriving in the United States in the early ’90s that I realized that nobody here had ever heard of Sixto Rodriguez, whose debut album Cold Fact we’d considered one of the most important of all time, owned on vinyl or cassette copy by every white South African who’d ever smoked a joint or entertained a dissident thought about the horrors of the apartheid system — or simply wondered what the hell was the point of charging around the bush in an army uniform, fighting Namibian liberation fighters on the border with Angola.


In the years before Al Gore invented his space-shrinking, time-accelerating Internet, things took a while to reach South Africa. Movies — those that could get past the puritanical censors — opened six months after they’d been taken off screens in the U.S. Rolling Stone magazine came by boat, usually about nine months late. There was no such things as television until 1975, the Calvinist apartheid elders having convinced themselves that the immoral medium would prove to be their undoing. But Rodriguez, somehow, made it through.

What we didn’t know, of course, was that his career had been stillborn in America, neither of his two albums selling in any significant number, before he was dropped by his label. “I stopped chasing the music dream back in ’74,” he says with a wry smile, sitting in a Manhattan hotel, hours after an appearance on Imus in the Morning — and two days after making his network TV musical debut on Letterman. ”I left the music scene, and started working on construction sites. Doing demolition, renovation, filling up bags, some roofing.”

But if he’s suddenly in heavy demand by the entertainment industry, it’s not for his facility with a sledgehammer or a roofing hatchet. His life has become an improbable urban fairytale thanks to Searching for Sugar Man, Malik Bendjelloul’s extraordinary documentary that earned rave reviews at Sundance for capturing the parallel lives of Sixto Rodriguez.


“A man who lives his whole life as a construction worker, doing really hard work, in Detroit, unaware that in another part of the world, he’s more famous than Elvis Presley,” Bendjelloul told CNN. “It was the most beautiful story I ever heard in my life.”David Letterman agrees, as he gushed about the movie on his show last week. So, too, have Roger Ebert, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Jonah Hill — even Lance Armstrong. Having made a splash at Sundance, the movie is currently in art house showings around the U.S. after being picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, igniting talk of an Oscar nomination. It’s not hard to see why Rodriguez’ tale captures the imagination: A man whose haunting voice and poetic musings might have made him the new, new thing in the early ’70s instead literally disappears for decades, just another could’a-been-a-contender musician scraping by on the margins of the working class, while in faraway South Africa — unbeknownst to him — his albums are selling like hotcakes, and he’s bigger than Elvis, although he’s not getting a penny in royalties.

It’s the collision of those two worlds — when his most dedicated South African fans discovered that Rodriguez, in fact, had not committed suicide on stage as local rock legend had it, but was alive and well and living in Detroit — that triggers the magic of the movie, and leads to the quiet, unassuming troubadour showing up on Letterman to sing the hauntingly beautiful dystopic ballads he first performed in the dive bars of Detroit four decades ago.


A Rip Van Winkle tale for the music industry?

“Yes, I suppose it does have a magical twist to it,” he laughs. “But I was never asleep.”

No, he was working, doing back-breaking physical labor, mostly demolition, and raising his daughters to transcend the shackles that a life on the cusp of poverty might have imposed. And fighting the good fight for people like himself.

In his enthusiasm to share ideas — he still uses Woodstock-era phrases like “Now dig this” — Rodriguez doesn’t want to dwell too much on the past; he has plenty to say about the present and future.

“I’m a musical political,” he says repeatedly. “I sing about social issues, not the boy-girl stuff.” His sense of the pervasive injustice around him shaped the lyrics he penned and performed in the early ’70s, and when the music thing didn’t work out, he shrugged, and walked away — legend has it that he walks everywhere in that most automotive of cities in which he has always lived — but also took up the fight of the working poor in politics, running twice for mayor of Detroit, and also for city council and state representative.

Bendjelloul’s film finds Rodriguez, at 70, shambling along the streets of today’s Detroit — a blighted post-industrial urban landscape where the American dream has long-since turned into a nightmare. But, he notes, it’s not that different from the Detroit in which he began performing his poetic tunes in the early ’70s. “The issues are as urgent today as when I first wrote these songs,” he says.


It’s tempting to think of Rodriguez as a kind of street preacher, speaking up for the hungry and the homeless, prophesying doom for a society that ignores their plight. But he’s far too soft-spoken and polite for that. More like a street theologian, in fact, quietly dispensing wisdom laced with nuggets from all of humanity’s book learning and from his own hard-bitten experience. He’s not going to shout to get your attention; he’ll speak quietly — but you’ll know you’re missing something if you’re not paying attention.

In a conversation that covers everything from Syria and the citizen journalism of Zapruder to Plato and Lenny Bruce, Emile Durkheim and Nietzsche, religion and revolution, Rodriguez offers this recurring nugget of dissident wisdom: “Beware of current truths.” His own life certainly testifies to their fluidity.

Rodriguez had taken in his stride the disappointments of his treatment at the hands of a music industry which, back in the ’70s, had little enthusiasm for a politically strident working-class Latino musician whose music sounded more like Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” than like Santana or Tito Puente. Having lost his mother at age 3 and spent a number of years living in an orphanage and seeing his father only on Sundays, he wasn’t expecting an easy life. “I was one of the lucky ones,” he says of his days in the orphanage. “I had my father, a lot of the kids there didn’t have any parents.”

And rather than bitterness over being snubbed and then cheated out of his royalties, he is grateful for his changing fate. “I’m a lucky man,” he smiles, recounting the 2008 re-release of Cold Fact by Light in the Attic Records, and the phone call that had come a few years earlier, like a bolt from the blue, telling him that in South Africa, he was a rock star and inviting him to tour — a fact that left his workmates on the construction sites of Detroit a little gobsmacked.

Although his music was giving voice to those living at the margins and his politics are unashamedly those of social justice for the working poor, it was the embrace of his work by the children of white privilege in apartheid South Africa that gave Rodriguez a second chance. “Thanks for keeping me alive,” the film shows him shouting to a rapturous crowd of thousands of mostly white people, many of them no longer youths, on his debut concert in South Africa in 1998. It was to young white suburbanites, many of them Afrikaans, for whom he represented an improbable icon of transgressive anti-establishment thinking with frank songs about drugs, sex and the hypocrisy of the men in power. Those songs had an electric effect on many of them, prompting a dissident doubt about the regime that kept a country in chains. What the Velvet Underground were to Vaclav Havel and his generation of Czech dissidents, Rodriguez was to many young Afrikaners who by the early ’80s began to break with the regime that ruled in their name.

The South Africa he visits today — his daughter Eva lives there, now, having married a man she met on her father’s first tour — is hardly free of the poverty and despair described in his songs, despite the ANC having been in power for 18 years. On the morning we meet, South African police have shot dead 34 striking mineworkers in an incident horrifically reminiscent of the apartheid era. “People there are still demonstrating for the basics, like water, electricity, a decent wage…”

And he sees a connection: “When I was writing those songs, it seemed like a revolution was coming in America. Young men were burning their draft cards, the cities were ablaze with anger.” Now, he thinks, ”there won’t be a revolution, the system will simply collapse under the weight of its own greed, corruption and bigotry.”

He’s working on new material, he allows, driven by the same concerns. ”This time, of course, I’ll be protected over the royalties,” he notes, wryly. Record labels no longer decide the fate of artists, and the crevasse in the global pop-culture into which he fell back in the ’70s has been eliminated by the Internet — the same vehicle that could turn a Cape Town art-school act like Die Antwoord into an international phenomenon, thanks largely to YouTube.

Rodriguez is enjoying the recognition created by a film that has captured the imagination of the entertainment industry, and he’s playing a few gigs in support of it. But don’t expect a new album any time soon, he cautions. If his own life has taught him anything at all through his story, it’s that there’s no need to rush.
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Huseyin Ertunc Trio - Musiki (1974)


Monster free jazz private press lp entitled Musiki by The Huseyin Ertunc Trio.It is an original pressing on Intex Records out of Bayside New York.This is a Classic Cosmic free jazz improv lp from the mid 70s and has never been legitimately reissued in any format! Truly Killer Out There jams!Has at times an arabic trance vibe. The trio was:
  • Michael Cosmic - alto/soprano sax, clarinets, flute, piccolo, organ, percussion 
  • Phil Usra - tenor/soprano sax, flute, zurna, clarinet,percussion
  • Huseyin Ertunc - drums
To give you an idea as to where these guys where coming from;here's a taste of the liner notes: 'In now listening shant's moving those whom hear lights outside too's numerous willing towards all spirits roundm's form above thy one's insides space carry animal't surface in reflect placement...". This one lives up to the hype! Think late Coltrane and Ornette/Cherry but spacier! Great Organ sounds! Very cool and very rare find!

Recorded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1970
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The Carla Bley Band - Naked Hamlet (Live in Hamburg 1972)


Fantastyczny bootleg z koncertu w Hamburgu z roku 1972. Proszę zresztą zobaczyć skład.

Look out for this amazing bootleg and the personel:
  • Mike Mantler - tp
  • John Tchicai - as, cl, fl. voc
  • Irene Schweizer - p, voc
  • Ole Thilo - p
  • Carla Bley - p, voc, arr
  • Pete Warren - b
  • Pierre Favre - perc
  • Karin Krog - voc
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Agon Orchestra & Ivan M. Jirous - Magorova Summa (2009)


A celebration of the Plastic People’s mentor and poet Ivan Jirous (Magor) for large contemporary music ensemble, samples and demotic voice. Richly orchestrated and stylistically polymorphic, this is an ambitious work, beginning with a Rene Lussier style orchestration of Jirous’s voice, moving through orchestra/chaotic rock chords, Bittovaesque singing, rich noise-scapes, atmospheric suspensions, complexity, simplicity, musical elements from all the major genre groups, tangled together, plus the kitchen sink. There are 5 sections, two composed by Martin Acher, and one each by Michal Netjeck, Marko Ivanovic, and Petr Kofron; though there’s a general unity. (rermegacorp)

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Romano, Sclavis, Texier & Le Querrec - Carnet de routes (1995)




This recording from the West African tours of the Romano/Sclavis/Texier trio in the early '90s is one in a series of three. That this band played in Africa and was documented by photographer Guy LeQuerrec (who suggested the tour to the various African arts councils in the first place, and is credited here with playing "Leica") was remarkable in and of itself. There were many better-known trios and quartets at the time, but the music Romano/Sclavis/Texier made as a result of Africa's inspiration is nothing less than mindbending (and the packaging that comes along with this disk and its partners too). This trio, with Sclavis' soprano saxophone and clarinet on the front line, Texier's lower-than-low contrabasse, and Romano's drumming, which is reminiscent of an even more sophisticated Ginger Baker (Romano plays with the power of a rock drummer with all the sophistication of Max Roach or Elvin Jones), is an almost overwhelming entity on this recording. Elements of not only jazz in all its configurations but funk, French folk music, West African griots, and the melodic influence of the late Johnny Dyani from South Africa all boil down into one intense pot of musical empathy and innovation. These cats are all composers who know the strengths of each their band members. When melody lines come off Sclavis' horn and are tied in separate octaves to Texier's bass playing, creating a new chromatic color to the proceedings, such as on "Bororo Dance" and "Flash Memoire," listeners get to hear music in the process of being created from nothing but the abilities of its makers. This is a trio that owes nothing to Sonny Rollins but perhaps something to Steve Lacy's trio and Pierre Doerge's New Jungle Orchestra. This band swings like a vine and jams like they are on a bandstand in a small club in front of a full audience of other musicians. (allmusic)
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Irinel Anghel & Sorin Romanescu - Guitar Hands on a Singing Body (2012)


Duet Irinel Anghel (kompozytorka, wokalistka, pianistka i improwizatorka) i Sorina Romanescu (kompozytor, gitarzysta, sound-designer) reprezentuje eksperymentalny nurt rumuńskiej muzyki współczesnej i eksploruje muzyczne ziemie niczyje przemierzając ścieżki i idee określane przez nich malowniczo jako „innerworld music”, „sound food”, „elektronades”, „SONeerie”, sound theatre, darkroom music czy „RenaiScienceFiction Electro music”. Elementy improwizacji, spontaniczności oraz iskry twórczej chemii nadają ich koncertom i performensom świeżości i odkrywczości właściwej obcowaniu z czystą magią artystycznej kreacji. Ich występy są pełne niespodzianek, ponieważ w każdym projekcie starają się od nowa odkrywać i definiować siebie jako artystów; każdy koncert lub sesja nagraniowa to kolejny przystanek w ich figlarnej i pełnej przygód wspólnej podróży. Nie ma nalepki ni szufladki dla wielostronnej ewolucji tych dwojga muzyków, którzy zaryzykowali... bycie sobą. W swym dwuosobowym kolektywie Irinel Anghel i Sorin Romanescu wykraczają poza swe indywidualne doświadczenie tworząc coś będącego tworem ich obu jednocześnie - wyrastającym ze wspólnego zainteresowania poszukiwaniem nowych dźwięków i nowych receptur.

Album „Guitar Hands on a Singing Body” jest artystycznym „podpisem” duetu Anghel/Romanescu złożonym latem 2011 roku. Jest to album muzyki intymnej, nagranej w półmroku, w dość niecodziennej kombinacji przetwarzanego elektronicznie głosu i akustycznej gitary. Sorin Romanescu gra na gitarze akustycznej i barytonowej Moffa, rześbiąc muzyczną formę wokół „fruwającego głosu” Irinel Anghel; końcowy efekt zawdzięcza niemało osobliwym iskierkom wrażliwości na dświękowy trip w znane-nieznane - lot wyobraźni dwóch muzyków-podróżników. (boltrecords)



The Romanian Duo of Irinel Anghel (composer, singer, pianist and improviser) and Sorin Romanescu (composer, guitar player, sound designer) represents the experimental side of Romanian contemporary music, exploring uncharted territories, crossing paths and concepts such as “innerworld music”, “sound food”, “electronades”, “SONeerie”, “sound theatre”, “darkroom music”, “RenaiScienceFiction Electro music”. Improvisation, spontaneity and instant chemistry give to their concerts and performances a freshness borne of the pure mystery of creation. Their appereances are full of surprises as they reinvent themselves with every new project; each concert or recording session is a new stop on their playful and adventurous journey together. There is no label for such a versatile evolution of these two musicians, who take the bold risk of being themselves. In this duo-team, Irinel Anghel and Sorin Romanescu go beyond their individual paths by creating something that is a product of both musicians, arising out of a common interest in discovering new sounds and sound mixtures.

Guitar Hands on a Singing Body is the Anghel/Romanescu signature for the Summer of 2011. It presents itself as an intimate music album, recorded in a half-dark atmosphere, through the somewhat unusual combination of electronically treated voice and acoustic guitar. Sorin Romanescu plays Moffa acoustic guitar and Moffa baritone guitar, sculpting forms around the voice’s “flying-singing” presence, the result lending some bizarre sparks of sensitivity to the known-unknown sound trip imagined by these two musician-travellers. (boltrecords)
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VA - Formation 60: Modern Jazz From Eastern Germany Amiga 1957-69


What you now hold in your hands is a collection of jazz music from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), compiled by Jazzanova. This mixture is an attractive blend of Latin-influenced swingers, tricky waltzes, bossa flavoured bop and big band monsters. Recorded in the 60's, these locked away treasures document the pure and individual sound of the little-known East German jazz scene. All the tunes were originally released by the state-owned Amiga label, the only record company available to East German jazz musicians. The unique and refreshing vibes of these rare recordings from behind the Iron Curtain are always in our DJ boxes, as they merge smoothly into the club sound of the 90's jazz movement.

Toby Fischelscher

The opener is Zwielicht by the Manfred-Ludwig-Sextet, with its straight to the hip bossa rythms and lifting hom sections. The sextet was founded by the saxophonists Ernst-Ludwig Petrowski, who became widely known across the East and West border, and Manfred "the Catcher" Schulze. Schulze acquired his nickname for his habit of using his fists during discussions about music.

Zwielicht and also the beautiful waltz Gral were recorded in 1964 during a tour by US singer Dorothy Allison through the GDR.

Uli Turkowski, Horst Kruger - Modern Jazz Big Band 65

Another warm and pulsating waltz by the Manfred-Ludwig-Sextet is Scandinavia, dating from 1963. We think the group must have made their trip to the North during the Spring. With its creamy floating solos by Heinz Becker (tp), Ernst-Ludwig Petrowski (as) and Siegfried GroB (p), this song has become one of our favourites.

On Chano's Track by Toby Fichelscher is a dedication to the legendary Chano Pozo, Dizzy Gillespie's percussion player. This is real drum & voice - big bongo business. The drummer and singer Fichelscher was a central figure in the flourishing Berlin jazz scene until 1961, when the Berlin Wall cut the musicians off from each other, preventing him from ever again recording in East Germany.

Theo Schumann Combo

From "Modem Jazz Studio 3", released in 1969, we took Episode, an electrifying theme by Volkmar Schmidt and Rien, a further exploration in jazz waltzes by Michael Fritzen. A planned contribution on that record by the piano wizard Joachim Kiihn was replaced with the recordings of Fritzen, after Joachim and his brother Rolf defected from the GDR shortly before record release. The state-controlled Amiga would not release any more of the dissident's work. We move on to the Werner Pfuller Quintet, which was influential in the jazz environment of the GDR during the 50s. It is represented here with a catchy version of Basie's tune Good Bait. Recorded in 1961, this standard is the only non-original composition in this compilation.

Klaus Lenz, the "Spiritus Rektor" of the East German jazz scene, echoes the big band sound of Clarke/Boland. Lenz, a trumpet player and arranger, formed the "Modem Jazz Big Band", which later became the "Modem Soul Big Band". These big bands were formed for a few weeks every year and were not only a set-up of all-star bands, but gave a foundation to new talents, many of whom became bandleaders, such as G. Fischer or Ulrich Gumpert. We found that the lovely Zottos and bossa-based Kleines Lied fiir Eric give a worthy impression of the work of Lenz. Kleines Lied fiir Eric, recorded live in East Berlin, was dedicated to Eric Dolphy, who died half a year earlier in West Berlin.

Manfred-Ludwig-Sextet

Another sensation for us while digging in the crates, was the discovery of an EP by the Theo Schumann Combo, which included this finger-snapping high-speed tune Karawane. If you are a treasure hunter, you will remember that special sensation when you salvage a record rarely seen or heard before. This precious gem - from which we also took our cover - is simply called "Jazz" and presents Theo Schumann in his first period of works. He became better known for his beat-influenced releases during the late 60s and also for his work as a bandleader.

Moving outside the collector circles, European jazz has become much more sought-after in recent years, as rumours of its quality spread. In our opinion, this compilation includes some of the finest examples of European jazz. Although created aside from the Western European jazz metropoles and without personal assistance by international stars, the ambitious circle of East German and East European musicians have founded an individual, deep and lyrical language in jazz. Sit back and listen, we will carry on digging for the nuggets...
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Amon Guru - Die Krautrock Explosion (2007)


To record their single album some prolific musicians, wellknown from other krautrock bands, formed a supergroup including Jean-Hervé Peron, Werner Diermaier (Faust), Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru), Dieter Moebius (Cluster), Jürgen Engler (Die Krupps) und Chris Karrer (Amon Düül 2). The songs are dominated by Neumeier's and Diermaier's repetitive mechanical percussion rhythms and a lot of electronic synthy contributions.


Spacey yes but not space rock as usual - avantgarde industrial kraut with a dark atmosphere, sometimes atonal and even suitable for horror movie sound tracks. For a summary an interesting unique mix in any case.

First released in 1998 with two different editions there is also existing a 2007 version by Cleopatra Records reissued under the moniker Amon Guru and containing a new enlarged track-listing. (progarchives)
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George Coleman - Bongo Joe (1969)


George Coleman [Bongo Joe] (1923–1999). Street performer, percussionist, and singer George Coleman, known as Bongo Joe, was born in Haines City, Florida, on November 28, 1923. Coleman's father died before he was born and his mother died when he was seven. After he graduated from high school he moved to Detroit to live with his older sister. There he was exposed to the local jazz scene and began his interest in musical performance with the piano. He played with many local musicians, and even with Sammy Davis Jr.

He moved to Houston by his late twenties and started his career as a percussionist with a local band. Rather than appearing onstage with a full drumset, which he did not own, he fabricated a makeshift kit out of empty fifty-five-gallon oil drums. This led to a unique percussive sound that he developed over the course of his career through specialized drumming techniques, tuning, and hand-made instruments. He also augmented his sound with his humorous and insightful lyrics.

Coleman started performing more on streets than on stages, hauling his oil drums around the cities of Texas, mounting them with a pick-up microphone and playing through a small amplifier. For fifteen years or so, he played at popular Houston-area tourist spots such as Seawall Boulevard in Galveston, and later moved to more prominent tourist attractions such as HemisFair '68 in San Antonio. He traveled through Mexico playing for tips, but settled in San Antonio. As he continued to travel the state of Texas and its immediate environs, taking his oil drums with him and playing on streetcorners, he acquired the affectionate nickname "Bongo Joe."


Bongo Joe was invited to participate in the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival nine times. There he played piano once with Dizzy Gillespie. In 1976 he played on a ten-city tour as part of Gerald Ford's presidential campaign. In 1991 he appeared on three television programs called "Almost Live from the Liberty Bar" that aired on the San Antonio PBS affiliate KLRN. His performances stopped in the early 1990s, when he was diagnosed with diabetes and kidney disease. He died in San Antonio on December 19, 1999. 

Bongo Joe has been alternately viewed as inspired and as a novelty act. Whichever way he is interpreted, he was certainly a cult classic. He was recorded in San Antonio by Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records in 1968. These recordings led to an LP that, in combination with a few later sessions, turned into a CD re-release by Arhoolie entitled George Coleman--Bongo Joe. One selection from these original recordings, "Innocent Little Doggie ," was an underground classic on independent radio in Texas as well as in England. Associates of Coleman knew him to be an extremely talented musician who performed on the streets by choice, often turning down opportunities to play more respectable, and more lucrative, engagements in order to play for the general public. (tshaonline)
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Thonghuad Faited - Diew Sor Isan: The North East Thai Violin Of Thonghuad Faited (2012)



EM back in Thai territory! This time back to 1970s Isan, the heartland of Thailand!! TIP! For EM Records' latest foray into unchartered musical territory, we are concentrating on the ‘sor’ from Thailand, the traditional two-stringed violin that is a mainstay of Isan musical culture.

'Diew Sor Isan : The North East Thai Violin of Thonghuad Faited' focuses on the talents of one of the instrument’s greatest proponents and brings his key releases together onto one anthology for the first time.

Thonghuad comes from the ‘molam’ tradition, the dominant rural music that hails from Isan, the north east Thai province that borders with Laos and Cambodia. Underpinned by woozy basslines, drones and clattering percussion, his music is characterised by sprightly melodies through to haunting dirges that could come from as far a field as eastern China, or even the Celtic traditions of Ireland.

Detailed notes trace his history from humble beginnings to playing up to five gigs a night in Bangkok at the peak of his fame. Whether it’s playing beautifully crafted solo pieces, or providing a counterpoint for raw vocal work, Thonghuad Faited is a nationally recognised master of his craft who has additionally cut sides with dozens of established singers over the years, such as Waipod Petchsupan and Angkanang Kunchai.

Percussive, otherworldly and universal, EM Records is proud to present this unique music to the world, much of it released outside of Thailand for the first time. (phonicarecords)
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VA-Psychedelic Phinland: Finnish Hippie & Underground Music 1967-1974


Mostly very, very interesting and good compilation of rare 45s, unreleased material, live material, etc. from the heyday of hippiedom freak-out. The fact that it's a sampler meant that I didn't think that this quite reached the heights of Baby Grandmothers, but if you are interested in this sound, then this still has a lot to offer. Excellent booklet with an overview of the scene and information and photos of the various groups.'TOPMOST: One the first Finnish rock bands to add a psychedelic light show to their stage act. They completed their English-language debut album with this improvised collage of song bits, tape manipulation, and a mysterious mantra by British producer Stuart Collins, all inspired by the fade out section of the Beatles' 'All You Need Is Love.' HECTOR & OSCAR: The first Finns to sing about marijuana on a pop record. JUKKA KUOPPAMÄKI: Another ex-folkie attracted by Flower Power. He performed this hippie apology by request in the popular Jatkoaika talk show, clad in appropriate attire. Although Kuoppamäki himself objected to drug use, the song attempts to cool down the public panic over cannabis, reminding us that also coffee and tobacco were once prohibited. JORMA IKÄVALKO: Mocking youth styles was a favourite pastime of the 1960s comic songsters. According to this hippie parody, the longhairs' sins include: noisy guitar music, dance pavilion sex, miniskirts, gender-bending, smoking 'fodder' and the ruin of polka. BLUES SECTION: An experimental rock group with a free jazz flavor, also utilizing electronic music's trick bag. On this single release the melodic pop of Jim Pembroke once again shakes hands with psychedelic oddity. WIGWAM: Like Blues Section, Wigwam also kept in close contact with the small Underground scene in Helsinki. Their debut single, produced by Hasse Walli and Eero Ojanen, toys with an assortment of psychedelic effects. BABY GRANDMOTHERS: A cannabis-seasoned progrock jam, named after an essay by Meister Eckhart. Although the group is Swedish, their Finnish 7' single is the only recording they ever made. The musicians later played with the Mecki Mark Men, Kebnekajse, a.o. EERO KOIVISTOINEN: On the album Valtakunta ('Kingdom'), Blues Section saxophonist Eero Koivistoinen combined modern Finnish poetry with psychedelic sounds, like processed human voices, atonality and guitar effects. Put out by a major Finnish publishing house, the LP was a missing link between political cabaret song, avant-jazz, prog rock and the experimental underground. CHARLIES: The blues rock group Charlies was assigned to play music for the anarchist movie Julisteiden Liimaajat ('Poster Pasters'), often classified as the all-time worst Finnish picture. In addition to more psychedelic rock tracks, the band was asked to deliver this hot-headed Maoist treatise on bourgeois and proletarian art, picked out from the Chinese bossman's Little Red Book. APOLLO: Early heavy metal combined with anarchist bravado. Apollo, musically inspired by Led Zeppelin and Steppenwolf, threatens to overthrow the parliament, rejects money, and criticizes the hypocrite Church. SUOMEN TALVISOTA: The late poet Jarkko Laine (using the pseudonym Lauri Kenttä, Finnish for Clark Kent) sets into motion an avalanche of surreal images: Sirhan Sirhan painting a picture of Kennedy, the Lone Rider arguing about Lenin, Faceless Death longing for fairy boys, a thousand cock-heads escaping from closets... At the recording sessions, some of Suomen Talvisota's musicians were replaced by professionals. SUOMEN TALVISOTA: A central figure in Finnish avant-pop, M. A. Numminen wrote this absurdly fast labor song about doormen who poison their boss, thereafter staging a wild party flowing with booze, eau de cologne, pot and LSD. Suomen Talvisota was convinced that simple 12-bar rock & roll was the best way to get across their message of smashing the Paralyzed Society and replacing it with a never-ending ecstatic ball. They also have a song where anarchists urinate on the emblems of authority, while pot-headed snow guerrillas elect a pig for president: 'Smell, smell, smell the toilet wall... Hash, hash, hash in the head!' TYLYMPI KOHTALO: The short-lived Tylympi Kohtalo, fronted by the Suomen Talvisota's guitarist, the late Pole Ojanen, attempted to combine prog rock with the Underground poetry of Jarkko Laine. PEKKA STRENG: The late Pekka Streng's mystical LP Magneettimiehen Kuolema ('Death of the Magnet Man') began the actual blooming period of Finnish hippie troubadourism. Here, Indian influences are exceptionally strong. JUICE LESKINEN & COITUS INT: One of those who kept the provocatory or taboo-breaking spirit of the Underground alive in the '70s. In this aviation song, erotic imagery and drug/psychedelic references blend subtly. HECTOR: A late flowering of Narnian hippie spirit at the dawn of indigenous Finnish rock. JUKKA KUOPPAMÄKI: This candidate for the Finnish Eurovision trials is an interesting example of New Age esoteria disguised as mainstream pop. Singer and songwriter Jukka Kuoppamäki progressed from ufos, fairies and yoga in the 1960s to antroposophy in the 1970s. He became one of the most beloved songwriters in Finland. MARKKU INTO: In addition to improvised blues singing, his speciality on stage and in radio were long counter-cultural 'lectures.' THOSE LOVELY HULA HANDS: The TLH, three of them only 14 years old, were an acoustic quintet playing a sort of hippie chamber music on recorders, pipes, violins and guitars. This little summary of E. R. Burroughs' ape tales is followed by a motto piece. TLH's pieces were often based on the repetition of a short, simple theme. PEKKA AIRAKSINEN: The musical director of the notorious Underground group, Sperm, prepared this stage music piece for Mattijuhani Koponen's psycho-drama Sisyfos in 1968. The track is characteristic of Airaksinen's home-baked avant-garde: using two tape recorders, he plays guitar over his own feedback rumble, possibly spicing it up with some guitar effects, spring reverb, etc. THE SPERM: This brilliant epoch-making guitar concerto from The Sperm's only 12' album was once again accomplished by an uninhibited attitude towards entertainment electronics. The source of the threatening, gradually changing chirp is the incorrectly set bias switch of an Akai tape recorder. Later Airaksinen realized the sound was a recollection of a childhood nightmare. SÄHKÖKVARTETTI: An alternate version of the only piece ever performed by the Electric Quartet, Erkki Kurenniemi's unique four-man electronic instrument. This is the end part of a 24-minute live recording from the Elektrotapahtuma ('Electro Happening') at the Old Student House in Helsinki, November 1970. KRUUNUNHAAN DYNAMO: The Dynamo began as a blues rock group, but transformed into an acoustic 'hippie band' inspired by the music of pygmies and the Amazon Indians. A steady tabla beat and wordless humming were central elements in their music, which somewhat resembled the ethnic jazz of the British Third Ear Band. A cassette recording from a rehearsal session is the only audio document of their 'tribal music from the asphalt jungle.' SIKIÖT: Sikiöt ('Fetuses') were an indefinitely sized collection of artists and potheads, many of whom had no musical skills -- at least in the traditional manner. This track, recorded at the Ateneum Art Museum, features a creaking table and an electric harmonium with a board leaning against the keyboard. Second track with ten minutes of genuine trips atmosphere by guitar, violin, flutes and percussions. J.O. MALLANDER: Art critic/artist J. O. Mallander's Decompositions (1970) was a deconstructionist EP consisting of jazz classics 'remixed' by several techniques, such as repeating song phrases as loops, or moving the record player's needle here and there on the vinyl surface in cut-up style, etc. Here the beautiful 'You've Changed' is played backwards, maybe to display some hidden messages. (green-brain-krautrock)
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Yayoi Kusama


Yayoi Kusama (ur. 22 marca 1929 w Matsumoto) – japońska rzeźbiarka, malarka, pisarka, aktywistka polityczna i performerka awangardowa.

Zaczęła tworzyć w wieku dziesięciu lat. Nazywa swoją twórczość „sztuką obsesyjną”. Od 1977 roku mieszka w tokijskim szpitalu psychiatrycznym i otwarcie mówi o swoich problemach psychicznych. Jej znakiem rozpoznawczym są krzykliwe wzory (najczęściej kropki), którymi pokrywa swoje dzieła (instalacje, kolaże, obrazy, rzeźby).

W roku 1957 wyjechała do Nowego Jorku. W 1965 roku stworzyła pracę Infinity Mirror Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life – lustrzany pokój wypełniony refleksami i różnokolorowymi światłami. W 1968 roku wykonała performance udzielając ślubu parze jednopłciowej, ubranej w stroje, które zaprojektowała. W ramach prowokacji artystycznej napisała list do prezydenta USA Richarda Nixona, proponując mu seks w zamian za zakończenie amerykańskiej wojny w Wietnamie.

W 1993 roku była pierwszą Japonką reprezentującą swoje państwo na Biennale w Wenecji. W 2006 roku została nagrodzona Praemium Imperiale, nazywanym Noblem w dziedzinie sztuki, przez Japoński Związek Artystów. W 2008 roku jej najdroższa praca została sprzedana za 5,1 mln dolarów, co stanowi rekordową cenę za pracę żyjącej artystki. (wikipedia)








Yayoi Kusama (born March 29, 1929) has been called Japan's greatest living artist.

Born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Kusama has experienced hallucinations and severe obsessive thoughts since childhood, often of a suicidal nature.

Early in Kusama's career, she began covering surfaces (walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects and naked assistants) with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work. The vast fields of polka dots, or "infinity nets", as she called them, were taken directly from her hallucinations.

She left her native country at the age of 27 for New York City, on the advice of Georgia O'Keefe. During her time in the United States, she quickly established her reputation as a leader in the avant-garde movement. She organized outlandish happenings in conspicuous spots like Central Park and the Brookyln Bridge, was enormously productive, and counted Joseph Cornell among her friends and supporters, but did not profit financially from her work. She returned to Japan in ill health in 1973.

Her work shares some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop, and abstract expressionism, but she describes herself as an obsessive artist. Her artwork is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content, and includes paintings, soft sculptures, performance art and installations.

Yayoi Kusama has exhibited work with Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. Kusama represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and in 1998 & 1999 a major retrospective exhibition of her work toured the U.S. and Japan.

Today she lives, by choice, in a mental hospital in Tokyo, where she has continued to produce work since the mid-1970s. Her studio is a short distance from the hospital. "If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago," Kusama is often quoted as saying.

Yayoi Kusama said about her 1954 painting titled Flower (D.S.P.S),

"One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness. As I realized it was actually happening and not just in my imagination, I was frightened. I knew I had to run away lest I should be deprived of my life by the spell of the red flowers. I ran desperately up the stairs. The steps below me began to fall apart and I fell down the stairs straining my ankle." (metroartwork)
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Jan Brabec & Leština, Brukner, Landovská - Z Jedné Strany Na Druhou (1999)



Recorded with very little means in 1986 and released as a samizdat (illegal) cassette the same year, Z Jedné Strany Na Druhou is a stunning work. For his first solo effort, Plastic People of the Universe's drummer Jan Brabec wrote an assortment of beautiful, languid acoustic songs. Ladislav Lestina plays violin, Brabec and Andrea Landovská sing, and all three plus Vít Brukner alternate with one another on piano, xylophone, drums, and small percussion (mainly bells and cymbals). The breathing tempos, romantic piano lines, and singing style all relate to the form of the art song, bringing to mind Dagmar Krause's Commuters project and News From Babel, but also the 20th century American contemporary songs of Ernst Bacon and Jack Beeson. But this album also projects an uncanny solemnity that fans of Plastic People of the Universe will recognize, only it is not coupled with gloomy music, but instead with very elegant melodies and sparse arrangements. Landovská's voice, although not that of a thoroughly trained classical singer, stays on pitch and conveys enough emotion to seduce, while forming a perfect pair with the exacerbated lyricism of the violin ("Tlukot" stands out in that regard). It seems the album has been recorded with only a couple of microphones picking up the ambient sound. The piano comes from afar and is not particularly well tuned, while some of the subtleties of the percussion work get lost before they reach a microphone, but for the lack of hi-fi quality the listener gains an intimate atmosphere that works admirably well for this particular music. Reissued on CD in 1999 as part of Black Point's Archiv series. (allmusic)
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