Synth / Electronic / Ambient

"When No Pussyfooting was released in 1973 by two great pioneers like Eno and Fripp, that first whisper of their artistic association surprised many critics and fans. Yet, that kind of minimalist ambient sonority carried out by the two appeared in the ear like something absolutely new and innovative. Although nowadays we might be more accustomed to creative operations of this type, we are still fascinated, while listening, by the still possible achievement of relevant moments of musical epiphany, however...

"Hazel is the fifth record from Æthenor, the group of eclectic travelers that includes Stephen O'Malley (SunnO))), KTL), Daniel O'Sullivan (Guapo, Ulver, This is Not This Heat, Grumbling Fur, etc.), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), and Steve Noble (Brötzmann Trio, N.E.W.) Together they bring their considerable pedigrees into play with unexpected and original results. Contradicting expectations of a massive blow-out of sound, everyone plays with remarkable, effective restraint. Atmospheric and layered, this...

"Hazel is the fifth record from �thenor, the group of eclectic travelers that includes Stephen O'Malley (SunnO))), KTL), Daniel O'Sullivan (Guapo, Ulver, This is Not This Heat, Grumbling Fur, etc.), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), and Steve Noble (Br�tzmann Trio, N.E.W.) Together they bring their considerable pedigrees into play with unexpected and original results. Contradicting expectations of a massive blow-out of sound, everyone plays with remarkable, effective restraint. Atmospheric and layered, this...

Edition of 250.

“Aircraft was the name Steve Cohen used for the largely unknown and quite fantastic synthesizer music he was creating in NYC in the '80s. This was in the same period Steve was in the late-period No Wave band, China Shop, along with guitarist Naux (who would go on to play with the Voidoids) and percussionist Richard Edson (whose next band was Sonic Youth).
Steve had been active in the NYC sub-underground since the '70s, even playing at Giorgio Gomelsky's legendary 'Zu Music...

“Limited Edition of 500

The third collaborative work from Italian artists Alio Die and Lorenzo Montanà is an electro-acoustic rumination upon the shimmerings of water. The refined electronics perfectly integrate with the sounds of acoustic origin -- the magic is enthralling. The sonorities of original ethnic instruments such as the psaltery, the rebab (a low stringed instrument similar to the lute, with resonating strings), and the duduk combine with the understated textures of synths, drones...

If you know and appreciate Oren’s ‘Hubris’ for the masterpiece that it is, you will understand the the excitement over this expansion of the idea!

“[This documents] the hypnotic and electrifying live performance of Oren Ambarchi's 2016 LP Hubris by a fifteen-strong band at London's Café Oto.
Over three days in May 2019, Oto toasted Oren Ambarchi at 50/Black Truffle at 10 with Ambarchi and a large group of close friends and collaborators in a series of performances that interspersed existing..

“Evolving the tactics of acclaimed Ambarchi works such as Quixotism, Hubris and Simian Angel, Oren invites an international all-star cast to dialogue with his guitar + triggers inventions. Intricate theme-and-variations build upon the staccato rhythms via expansive improvs from BJ Cole, Sam Dunscomb, Chris Abrahams, Jim O’Rourke and Julia Reidy. Magnetically compulsive!”

“Evolving the tactics of acclaimed Ambarchi works such as Quixotism, Hubris and Simian Angel, Oren invites an international all-star cast to dialogue with his guitar + triggers inventions. Intricate theme-and-variations build upon the staccato rhythms via expansive improvs from BJ Cole, Sam Dunscomb, Chris Abrahams, Jim O’Rourke and Julia Reidy. Magnetically compulsive!”

"Appleton was an assistant professor of music at Dartmouth, and in 1967, became the Director of the Electronic Music Studio there. I first became aware of this artist via the single taken from this album, which contains both of my favorite cuts from it. The album can best be described as experimental electronic prog with strong psychedelic influences, and mostly strange and dischordant passages, featuring an array of wild electronic sound effects. This will appeal even more to fans of avant-garde prog...

This is the Ash Ra Tempel "reunion" live reunion show from April 2000, announced by the very excited MC at the beginning that they are playing together for the first time in 30 years. I guess Mr MC never heard any of the work Klaus and Manuel did together in the 80s and 90s. This is still really good stuff though!

“Julian Cope (author of "Krautrock-Sampler") had invited Schulze and Göttsching to his "Cornucopia Festival" in London, and the two musicians took the offer as a great opportunity for a..

This is the Ash Ra Tempel "reunion" live reunion show from April 2000, announced by the very excited MC at the beginning that they are playing together for the first time in 30 years. I guess Mr MC never heard any of the work Klaus and Manuel did together in the 80s and 90s. This is still really good stuff though and this is the first time that the video footage has been seen!

“Julian Cope (author of "Krautrock-Sampler") had invited Schulze and Göttsching to his "Cornucopia Festival" in London...

“Initially released in 1982 as part of the Wave Notation series (which includes Hiroshi Yoshimura's Music For Nine Postcards), Still Way is, without a doubt, a seminal Japanese environmental/ambient/minimalism album, often mentioned alongside Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass (1983) and Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green (1986) as one of the genre's most important pieces. "Like the moment of stillness, after the wind passes through the garden, when the rain stops for a brief second..." Notably inspired...

“Initially released in 1982 as part of the Wave Notation series (which includes Hiroshi Yoshimura's Music For Nine Postcards), Still Way is, without a doubt, a seminal Japanese environmental/ambient/minimalism album, often mentioned alongside Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass (1983) and Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green (1986) as one of the genre's most important pieces. "Like the moment of stillness, after the wind passes through the garden, when the rain stops for a brief second..." Notably inspired...

“Rasmus Rasmussen (Aerosol, Causa Sui) and Keith Canisius present another delightful set of Astral TV tracks with Travelling The Circuits.
Since their debut album, Chrystal Shores from 2017, the Copenhagen-based duo have refined and perfected their approach to making semi-improvised synthesizer music. Musically it doesn't get much more pure than this. From their vast assemblage of synthesizers -- that is, vintage, modern, digital, analog, and modular synthesizers -- the two producers are squeezing...

"Since 2014, Baal & Mortimer is the project of Alexandra Grübler, created in Düsseldorf, sonically exploring questions of resistance, autonomy, language, and identity. After the release of Earthrise on the label HEAVEN in 2018, her debut album Deixis will be released by Bureau B. She has collaborated with Black Merlin, Musiccargo, and Rupert Clervaux and was most recently a mentee of Laurel Halo for the Berlin Amplify program. Baal & Mortimer regularly presents her material in clubs, art spaces and...

You know Matt Baber as the keyboardist of Sanguine Hum and Antique Seeking Nuns.
Here he shows his talents in a very different style that will appeal to fans of folks like Harold Budd, Steve Reich, Erik Satie, etc. Completely different from what you known him for doing and equally wonderful!
He describes it "as a minimalist modern classical solo piano album but set against backdrops of rhythmic/ambient electronica."...

"A reissue of Bebo Baldan's Vapor Frames 86/91, originally released in 1991. The alchemist Bebo Baldan, accompanied by Steve James on violin and sarod (as well as on instruments of various geographical extractions) mixes, in a personal way, sounds from a bevy of different cultures -- from Mediterranean and Indian, to South American -- with synths, samples, and loops. The result is a boundless music that carries you, riding soft waves and bobbing between Balearic ambient, jazz, and electronic, on islands...

“Now available on CD for the first time. Includes the bonus track "Bestie Infinite" from her 2018 split LP with Eleh. Born Again In The Voltage is an astonishing collection of electro-acoustic pieces for Buchla 200 system, cello, and voice composed and produced by Caterina Barbieri at Elektronmusikstudion (SE) between 2014 and 2015.”

“Now available on CD for the first time. Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full-length from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Gorgeous high resolution analog textures and algorithmic melodies unfold under Barbieri's careful control, exploring the basic nature of sound and consciousness. These pieces are minimal in arrangement but maximal in presence asserting Barbieri as a unique voice in contemporary electronic music composition. Patterns Of Consciousness was originated by ideally...

“Marc Barreca and Kerry Leimer have worked on a nearly parallel musical course for more than forty years. Nearly parallel because their musical paths do occasionally cross. First in 1980 with "Four Pages From An Unfinished Novel" on K. Leimer's first solo album Closed System Potentials. Again during the live performance of Music For Land And Water and for the massive loop piece "Heart Of Stillness" from The Neo-Realist (At Risk) by the virtual group Savant.
Beyond basic file sharing, their recordings..

"Marc Barreca's seventh solo album for Palace of Lights extends his work with a broader and deeper palette of synthesized and sampled sound, including sources as diverse as prepared guitars, pianos, Indonesian metallophones and glass harmonica. The music of Aberrant Lens employs long MIDI delays, synced MIDI processing via MAX for Live and extreme warping of disparate looped sound sources driven into entirely new states. The results are new, coherent aural structures: music that questions traditional...

“Marc Barreca's Recordings Of Failing Light explores the subatomic matter of ordinary instrument sounds. Pianos, glass percussion, guitars, and feedback are atomized through sampling and granular processing in search of the audio equivalent of a negative image. In the end, these granular elements became the beds and pads for elaborate extrapolations of deconstructed melodic, rhythmic, patterned, and forward-looking sound-and with the addition of analog sequencer and arpeggiator based textures, some....

“With Shadow Aesthetics, Marc Barreca accomplishes something rare in electronic and ambient musics. The fluid, dynamic changes and movement within pieces; the complexities in time and pitch variation and evolution—typically absent from the mostly homogenous constructs of drone and ambient—all bring previously unavailable depth, shading and emotional charges to a form usually admired for its neutrality.
Shadow Aesthetics results from a virtual arsenal of digital and analog sources operating in a...

"As a part of the early independent music movement, PoL occupies a special niche in electronic, experimental and ambient genres. Following recent vinyl reissues of his 1983 Palace of Lights cassette, Music Works for Industry, and a compilation of early cassette tracks on VOD�s acclaimed American Cassette Culture, PoL has reissued Marc Barreca�s first album for the label, the 1980 release Twilight, as part of an ongoing program of documenting the roots of the Pacific Northwest independent impulse.This...

"The first collaborative work by Marc Barreca and K. Leimer since Savant. A hybridization of Barreca's "Tremble" and Leimer's "Permissions", Premap's 13 tracks coalesced from a huge number of individual sources, each produced as discrete, stand-alone...

“On Time Out of Time is a suite of works originally commissioned for the 2017 installations 'ER=EPR' and 'Orbihedron' by artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand (in collaboration with Jean-Marc Chomaz and LIGO) for the exhibition, 'Limits of Knowing' at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin by curator, Isabel de Sena. These works utilize, among other things, exclusive source recordings from the interferometers of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) capturing the sounds of the merging of...

“On Time Out of Time is a suite of works originally commissioned for the 2017 installations 'ER=EPR' and 'Orbihedron' by artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand (in collaboration with Jean-Marc Chomaz and LIGO) for the exhibition, 'Limits of Knowing' at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin by curator, Isabel de Sena. These works utilize, among other things, exclusive source recordings from the interferometers of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) capturing the sounds of the merging of...

“Time is... Time and duration are core themes in the work of both William Basinski and Janek Schaefer, and this long-distance collaboration took a suitably long gestation of seven years from start to finish. The completed work exhibits those strands of time eloquently and exquisitely. Limitation breeds creativity, being an expression of minimalism and focus. Deploying a delicate piano passage from their collective archive, Basinski and Schaefer weave and reweave in numerous ways, forging a unified flurry...

I know that John spent a lot of time thinking about this album and recording a lot of things that did NOT go on this album and you can hear the result of that ‘quality control’ immediately.

'Between the Axiom and the Sigh' is the first new album from Ephemeral Sun keyboardist John Battema in 8 years. Inspired and influenced by sci-fi soundtracks from the late 70's/80's and the keyboard-heavy electronic/prog/rock of the 80's, it..

This is a electronic / laptop goodie!

“In the early months of 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak ravaged his home country of Italy, prolific composer Bruno Bavota did what we all would eventually do: isolated and waited. What followed was a year of fear, anxiety, and dread. Eventually, fear gave way to fatigue, and the anxiety metamorphosized into nervous energy. The compulsion to create became more powerful than the compression and weight. And so were born Apartment Songs and Apartment Loops...

"Heavy period-synth float with bare accompaniment, thankfully just-pre DX-7."

"A series of three pieces/suites; "Leapday Night", "A Traveler's Dream Journal", and "Interspecies Smalltalk" involving Rhys Chatham/Ben Neill (on trumpet/mutantrumpet), Fluxus mainstay Takehisa Kosugi (violin), and David Behrman himself on electronics. Behrman creates thickly layered liquid sounds utilizing this complex computer music system which absorbs, actually hears, the sounds of instrumentalists, and then plays..

“Following the release of lo-fi electronic masterpiece I Don’t Remember Now / I Don’t Want To Talk About It and his brilliant follow-up Plaster Falling, Cincinnati-based artist John Bender began assembling his third and last album, Pop Surgery, in late 1982.
While all of Bender’s work draws from intimate home recordings—featuring the artist alone with various keyboards, analogue sequencers and tape delays—Pop Surgery remains the one that perhaps best distills his arrant deconstruction of the “pop”...

This is a great set of ambient, sculptural music with a fascinating story. In brief, Harry Bertoia was a jeweler, sculptor and furniture designer (among other things) who, starting in the 50s, began to sculpt sculptures which produced sound, made of tall vertical rods.
In the late 70s, there were 11 privately released recordings made and released by Bertoia. Now for the first time in over 40 years, new releases of previously unheard and unreleased works are being released on his reactivated...

This is a great set of ambient, sculptural music with a fascinating story. In brief, Harry Bertoia was a jeweler, sculptor and furniture designer (among other things) who, starting in the 50s, began to sculpt sculptures which produced sound, made of tall vertical rods.
In the late 70s, there were 11 privately released recordings made and released by Bertoia. Now for the first time in over 40 years, new releases of previously unheard and unreleased works are being released on his reactivated...

This is a great set of music with a fascinating story. In brief, Harry Bertoia was a jeweler, sculptor and furniture designer (among other things) who, staring in the 50s, began to sculpt sculptures which produced sound, made of tall vertical rods.

In the late 70s, there were 11 privately released recordings made and released by Bertoia. Now for the first time anywhere, all 11 of them are reissued taken from their original master tapes.

This is a must for fans of experimental sounds....

“When Harry Bertoia's Sonambient label was resurrected, Important Records' intention was to tell the story of Bertoia's groundbreaking Sonambient work as revealed through his extensive collection of notes and recordings.
When the first new LP was released in 2016, Important were only in possession of 1/20th of the archive. Now, in 2019, the label is excited to release the first LP of new material from the full archive and they present it to increase understanding of what Bertoia was doing in his...

“When Harry Bertoia's Sonambient label was resurrected, Important Records' intention was to tell the story of Bertoia's groundbreaking Sonambient work as revealed through his extensive collection of notes and recordings.
When the first new LP was released in 2016, Important were only in possession of 1/20th of the archive. Now, in 2019, the label is excited to release the first LP of new material from the full archive and they present it to increase understanding of what Bertoia was doing in his...

“In 1970, Harry Bertoia had been developing his sonic sculptures for over ten years. He had only been composing/recording for two years and the four long pieces chosen for this CD find him starting to arrive at the sonic forms he had been searching for. Hints Of Things To Come is one of the most unique and melodic pieces discovered so far in the Bertoia tape archive. In this piece, you hear him slowly create and articulate a musical riff. Bertoia builds this phrase patiently until the composition reaches...

"This is a deluxe CD/DVD package containing historic recordings made in Harry Bertoia's Sonambient barn. The DVD, a film titled Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture of Harry Bertoia, by Jeffrey and Miriam Eger, was shot in 1971 and follows Harry Bertoia in performance and interview throughout his Sonambient barn deep in the Pennsylvania woods.
This film offers a rare opportunity to follow the artist in practice, listening carefully as he moves contemplatively through his sculptures and gongs. Interview...

“III: Chroma/Contour is the third album from Billow Observatory, the collaborative project of Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual, Ulrich Schnauss collaborator, and more) and Michigan native Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull). The album's nine tracks eschew the pulse and rhythm that defined the duo's previous effort -- II: Plains/Patterns (2017) -- in favor of sparse melodic possibilities and a more abstract palette of sounds.
Chroma/Contour suggests looking both 20 years forward and twenty years back, while...

“III: Chroma/Contour is the third album from Billow Observatory, the collaborative project of Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual, Ulrich Schnauss collaborator, and more) and Michigan native Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull). The album's nine tracks eschew the pulse and rhythm that defined the duo's previous effort -- II: Plains/Patterns (2017) -- in favor of sparse melodic possibilities and a more abstract palette of sounds.
Chroma/Contour suggests looking both 20 years forward and twenty years back, while...

“The genesis of ambient duo Billow Observatory came in summer 2004, when Denmark's Jonas Munk (also known for his solo project, Manual), was first introduced to Detroit, Michigan's Jason Kolb's work with Auburn Lull. A split EP between Manual and Auburn Lull was discussed, and although this didn't materialize, the duo began exchanging ideas and audio files, finally meeting in person during 2007 when they played a show together in Michigan. As time passed, their work on a debut album began to coalesce...

"A remastered edition of Biosphere's The Hilvarenbeek Recordings, originally released in 2016."

"'As The Sun Kissed The Horizon' is one of my favorite Biosphere tracks. It's a recording of (what to me sounds like) the empty fields after a bustling summer's day, as the sun slowly sets and people leave for home. It reminds me of my summer's youth, and every time I listen, I picture myself in that exact field, the same field I spent my summers playing football in, hanging with friends and generally...

“The Senja Recordings is a collection of various outdoor recordings and studio improvisations recorded on the island of Senja, Arctic Norway, between 2015 and 2018.
Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalog of ambient electronic music. He is well known for his works on ambient techno and arctic themed pieces, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources.
His 1997 album Substrata voted by the users of the...

"Six years in the making, this is the sixth CD released by ReR from the visual/sonic art group Biota. Unique in their history and method, Biota painstakingly construct complex, organic structures that mix extensive studio processing and musique concréte techniques, with a highly eclectic orchestra of acoustic and electronic resources - from kit drums, through mediaeval winds, strings and barrel organs, to early experimental electronic instruments. Their works are always performance driven and interleaved...

“Chicago’s Bitchin Bajas, a synth-oriented trio in operation for the last dozen years, always keeps you guessing. The group released its last album of original material five years ago — Bajas Fresh, which displayed so much musicianship it seemed its prime movers, Cooper Crain, Daniel Quinlivan and Rob Frye, had employed a whole orchestra.
On Bajascillators, they walk it back, and it works perfectly for the times we’re living in five years forward. The group apparently upgraded a lot of its gear in...

This is your last chance on this apparently now out of print set!

Chicago’s Bitchin Bajas have released a bunch of great, vinyl-only, cosmic, deep space, electronic / krautrock albums.
Think Cluster + Terry Riley + 1975-era T Dream sequences and you get the idea.
This totally wonderful set takes all of their USA vinyl-only releases for Drag City and reissues them on CD for the first time in a nice and very reasonably priced package; you want this! “It wasn’t so long ago....”...

This 1977 release by the synth man of Gong & Hawkwind features both studio and live festival recordings.
Tim had his own, very unique take on 'electronic space music' and this has always been a real favorite of mine from the period.

"British synthesizer wizard Tim Blake became a mainstay of the adventurous musical Gong collective in the mid-1970s and joined legendary rockers Hawkwind by the end of the decade. In between, he recorded a number of experimental solo albums, of which the first...

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a newly re-mastered edition of the classic 1978 ambient masterpiece “Blake’s New Jerusalem” by Tim Blake. Tim first came to prominence as a member of Gong, where his synthesiser experimentation and mastery was demonstrated on albums such as Flying Teapot”, “Angel’s Egg” and “You”. He would also join Hawkwind from 1979 – 1980 and from November 2007.
After departing Gong in 1975 he teamed up with French lighting designer Patrice Warrener to...

“A reissue of Serge Blenner's La Vogue, originally released in 1980. Music for the apocalyptic eighties Deutschland state of mind. When Serge Blenner left his native France for Hamburg, West Germany, neither he nor anyone else could have guessed that he would inadvertently compose a soundtrack for the Cold War. But his dark, monotone synthesizer album La Vogue turned out to be just that. Blenner was born in 1955 in Alsace, the easternmost region of France. He studied composition and harmony at the...