[engl] Choreosonics was the name of the music for the choreography of Alwin Nikolais - a unique theatre exposition that was described in the late 50s as “the new theatre of shape, motion, light and sound.” In 1953 Nikolais attracted people interested in new art to his dance concerts at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York City. In these con- certs dancers became colourful motivating sources for sculptural shapes; moving in changing atmospheres of light and sound their relationship carefully integrated into a new kind of audiovisual abstract theatre art. The sounds created for this were not con- ceived from traditional music points of view but were designed to share and support the total visual dynamics. Such a creation was possible because of Nikolais’ background as a musician as well as choreographer. At sixteen he was playing piano and organ for the then disappear- ing silent films, improvising and coordinating music four to six hours daily to the dra- matic content of the movie. With this profession obsolete, he turned his skill into accom- paniment for dance. Through this his interests led to his study of percussion accompa- niment and exploration of new sounds. These ideas were stimulated by the kind of dance accompaniment introduced by the famous German dancer, Mary Wigman. This, in turn, induced Nikolais to study dance and ultimately to switch his career from musi- cian to dancer and choreographer. Nikolais was soon heralded as one of the leading figures in modern concert dance, he is credited with bringing about revolutionary ideas opening up new vistas for dance and theatre. Nikolais' activities were centered at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York. His work was created there with his assistant Murray Louis; sound engineer David S. Berlin; artist George Constant and members of his Playhouse Dance Company. All of whom had a hand in the final productions. Performances with names like Prism, Cantos and Totem were met with positive critical view for their multidisciplinary achieve- ments. While his collaboration with Harry Partch on The Bewitched established his name alongside another true maverick of American sound design and forward-thinking composition. Some of Nikolais' dancers were also trained as percussionists who improvised on a curious assortment of sound producing instruments and objects while other dancers worked through the choreography. David Berlin, who assembled and constructed the sound recording equipment, would operate from the sound booth from a window over- looking the stage. Nikolais would direct the experiments and improvising. Within any performance there would be numerous tests of the original sound and their possible electronic conditioning, including many playbacks of short phrases tested to the dancers’ motion. When the sound phrase proved satisfactory the next cut was start- ed. Sounds were cut down, enlarged, replaced and then the whole piece would be linked together and given final editing much the same as a filming process. Nikolais generally tried to avoid any identification of the sound sources, thus inviting the ear to perceive the sound itself divorced from its initial derivation. This, however, was by no means a final criterion, the ultimate one being the value of the sound to the theatre idea at hand whatever its source or manner of conditioning was. The objects used to pro- duce these sounds were without limit except for practical material size. Within the col- lection many percussion instruments were used: drums of all kinds, rattles, bells, gongs, cymbals, wooden blocks, etc. Also whistles, tubes, pipes, pieces of wood, alu- minum, steel and tin containers were utilised alongs-ide glasses, elastic bands, coils of wire, etc. The back of an upright piano in addition to a grand piano were also often at hand. The human voice would be used freely, hand clapping, foot stomping and any sound producing device whatsoever that might served a purpose.

[engl] CLARA MONDSHINE is a musical project of the late radio director, journalist and composer Walter Bachauer who for example used to work for RIAS Berlin in the 70s and 80s. Mr. Bachauer has also been involved as musician in Projects with electronic artist Peter Michael Hamel and kraut rock act BETWEEN back in the 70s. With CLARA MONDSHINE he was able to score three albums before his untimely passing in 1989 of which “Luna Africana” is the first from 1981 and it fits exactly into that era when the sluggish grinding of the early epic “cosmic music” had finally completely vanished and a new peppy drive could be felt with the spacious soundscapes of electronic music. Still rather low-fi with primitive machine grooves and swirling waves of analogue synthesizers to which some hypnotic drones were tastefully added, this music has learned a lot from the grand masters of the 70s and especially the so called “motorik” style of krautish electronics with rather simple melodic patterns and a very rhythmical approach with all those layers of pulses and drones piled upon repetitive structures to gain an effect on you as the listener which sets you into a state of trance. This music is quite imaginative and picturesque and the trip it will take you on leads you through a dark galaxy where only the starlight guides your vessel. Quite a typical example for the later krautish electronics and certainly a must have for fans of ENO / HARMONIA collaborations, CLUSTER “Zuckerzeit” and other similar “motorik” electronic albums. It also has a KRAFTWERK feel just without the vocals of course. Now this long hidden secret gem is unveiled for your stellar listening pleasure. But beware for some of you might get lost in the depth of outer space.

[engl] Filed neatly and undisturbed within the micro-genre of 1970?s Italian artsploitation, amongst films soundtracks such as Girl With The Crystal Plumage, A Quiet Place In The Country and House With The Laughing Windows, this obscure library LP is one of the few fully formed concept albums from the recently reappraised discography of Rome’s most versatile and adventurous female production-music composer Daniela Casa. Once destined for a shelf life within the storage rooms of defunct TV studios and educational facilities Daniela’s previously strictly commercially unavailable music has in recent years been given new focus at the hands of open-minded disc detectives and sonic salvage hunters earning Casa’s distinctive feminine take on experimental instrumental mood and movie compositions a place next to her widely respected masculine counterparts such as Alessandro Alessandroni, AR Luciani, Pierro Umiliani, Morricone and Nicolai. Sharing tight studio space and strict syndication schedules with all of the aforementioned artists (under commission from Romano Di Bari’s fervently independent Flipper music factory) Daniela Casa embraced a liberating wind change in affordable music technology which opened doors for uninhabited solo compositions in home studios taking advantage of communal recording consoles and domestic synthesisers which nurtured a lesser-documented creative family tree (or rather secret society) and paved the way for individualistic projects from the likes of Magnetic System’s Fabio Frizzi and Goblin’s Claudio Simonetti.Here, on this repress of the impossibly rare, one-time subscription-only album, Arte Moderna, we find Daniela at her versatile best creating a wide thematic suite (based on paintings and sculptures in an abstract art gallery) for which she would deploy mostly organic and acoustic instruments to construct a set of unorthodox compositions straddling avant garde, free jazz and Giallo tension (with some brief moments of brooding electronics and italian pop). Veering from her stylistic pop interests (which clearly included a fondness for the music of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin) Daniela Casa’s Arte Moderna saw her adopt a less era specific approach combining neo-classical elements and piano improvisations akin to the likes of France’s Francois Tusques or Burton Greene, or America’s Mal Waldron without compromising her strong narrative personality for this unique abstracted picture music. Unintentionally but profoundly political in her prolific existence Daniela Casa’s contribution to a predominantly male industry earned her a small clutch of inspired idiosyncratic Italian female bedfellows such as Nora Orlandi, Giullia De Muittis (aka Kema), Fiorella Fratini, Emma De Angelis and Maria Teresa Luciani, who, with faceless anti-celebrity as its essence, never benefitted the wider critical focus that much of this music now duly commands on the collectors circuit. Finders Keepers Records in continued collaboration with the Di Barri company, with the Casa/Ducros family blessing, are now proud to shine new light on this sonic sculptures and provide a fresh context where educated music listeners are ready to fill the gaps between Delia Derbyshire, Ennio Morricone, Suzanne Ciani and Harry Partch and patronise a very welcome considered alternative to the recent rise in popularity of Italian Giallo soundtracks from a seldom savoured feminine creative vantage point. Daniela’s musical paintings can now be unveiled to the public for the first time, with Modern Art sounding as contemporary as it did when it was recorded forty years ago. The gallery is now open for limited sittings, discerning ears and open minds.

[engl] Trasformazioni is the first work of Daniela Savoldi, cello solo. Synthesis of classical influences, pop, jazz, contemporary and oriental, writing music embraces the idea of improvisation overlapping emotions and different moods among them. The real thrust that drives this work is to tell and collect the steps of experiences, finally saying a clear point of crossing. A mixed in crescendo of colors and signs; an entire reworked from her only and one loop station who could follows and drives dancers, suggests, hides or reveals walks in the desert, eastern crossroads, walking animals, dissonances, surprises, people, dreams. It was urgent a say where she is and who she is just for now. The album is produced by Lorenzo Caperchi sound engineer and producer at the Red Carpet studio, Brescia (Italy).

[engl] Perhaps one of the most unique and unlikely exponents of the highly collectible genres of ambient electronics, experimental tape-music and PINA (Private Issue New Age) this English born Jamaican raised sound designer, artist and existentialist furrowed his own ublinkered path through lesser chartered electronic fields for many moons before eventually teaming up with Bill Laswell (with Material) and Daevid Allen in New York to bring self-taught synthesis to Gong during their most oblique periods. Creating two impossibly rare self pressed vinyl LPs of conceptual inner-visionary outer-galactic angular tonal-dronal alien-art soundscapes in the process, the man known under figure shifting guises such as Dennis Wise/Denis Weise/Dr. Wise etc, combined a culture of sound system circuitry and radiophonic trickery adding Tea-pot poetry and sci-fidelity future-folk to his magnetic mesh! Presented here as the first ever dedicated ize Music collection this record combines compositions spanning 1979-1984 in both a solo capacity as well as small-group projects featuring members of the Emerald Web band. Imagine a comic book where a Funkenstein monster called “Laraaji-Scratch Perry” invaded your record shelf while Komendarek and Holger Czukay kept lookout… Dr. Dennis might be the only one Wise enough to outsmart all of them with his powerful amorphous anaesthetic.

[engl] If ever a phonographic accomplishment could encapsulate the precise modus operandi of the Cacophonic label, then the Expériences Musicales sessions made by French born painter, sculptor, music maker, wine merchant and founder of the Art Brut movement, Jean Dubuffet would be a prime candidate. Originally released as an impossibly rare six record box set containing Dubuffet’s first long anticipated forays into sound sculpture and spontaneous artistic noise, these intimate early 1960’s recordings show a lesser-known side of this important artist’s personality and stand up as a vital document in both fields of contemporary art and experimental music. Finally released to a wider audience and presented complete with Dubuffet’s signature style artwork this abridged vinyl edition includes specific selections curated by the artist himself, in conjunction with experimental music pioneer Ilhan Mimaroglu, and showcase what the two leading lights of modern art consider to be the best moments of this historic session. On this limited vinyl pressing Dubuffet succeeds in translating his unique spontaneous creativity and active support of Low Art into musical forms, a process with which he would also collaborate in his dual compositions with Danish avant-gardener Asger Jorn (for a separate series called Musique Phénoménale). Utilising a wide range of orthodox acoustic instruments ranging from violin and open piano to duck whistles and not musical apparatus this set of eight pieces (culled from a potential twenty tracks made under the Expériences Musicales banner) sees the work of the artist approaching music from the perspective of “a man of 50000 years ago”. Recorded at Galleria del Cavallino in Venice Italy during the first months of 1961, these primary experiments with music followed over twenty years of Dubuffet developing his own unconventional artistic persona as an instantly recognisable pioneer of post-war artistic abstraction. His visual art alone, which would go on to inspire and genuinely motivate artists to feed on there rawest spontaneous instincts (hence the translation of Art Brut, meaning Raw Art), would also have huge influences on writers, performers and musicians (from punk to jazz) to this very day. It is surprising, however, how the fruits of Dubuffet’s short-lived anti-career as a non-musician have never fully filtered down to some of his greatest champions. From an original gallery promoted artifact (which can now command fees of up to 5000 euros complete with its original art-prints intact) this highlighted version of Expériences Musicales is now available again on authentic vinyl to the wider public. The recordings you will find within the grooves of this LP were created without any reference and in the artist own words “without any discipline, without anything that would present the artist from expressing himself freely and for his own good pleasure.” Almost sixty years have passed since this sonic objet d’art was first realised, and with all the technology and the advanced science-of-sound, decades of so-called experimental musicians are still struggling to find that Brut energy within their creative endeavours making this early example one of vital existence.

[engl] Limited edition of 1000 copies! 3xLP set includes the bonus album, Pianoworks Vol. 2, featuring new recordings of every Eluvium solo piano work ever released. All 3 records are pressed onto a unique, custom-mixed Iridescent Mother of Pearl colored vinyl. Pianoworks is Eluvium's first solo piano album since his sophomore album, An Accidental Memory In The Case Of Death (2004). Inspired by the quiet thoughts and solitary observations of children - and the evolution/dissolution of that ephemeral, uncorrupted wonder of simple joy - Pianoworks begins with a song about children's piano lessons, and culminates with an etude driven by the struggle to hold onto innocence and imagination as adulthood settles in. The record's dramatic simplicity in both execution and expression is with purpose: Cooper wants the music to be simple enough to inspire children and novices to play, and the concept simple enough to resonate regardless of age or experience. As any minimalist painter, poet, or architect can attest, it is oftentimes the profoundly simple art that proves to be the most time-consuming and torturous to produce. Pianoworks exemplifies this dichotomy, having been recorded, re-recorded, and re-re-recorded in the span of nearly a decade. Cooper exhausted every attempt to achieve a very specific, peculiar sound that is out of time - a sound not entirely lost in an attic, but also one not easily found in a playlist. The process to achieve this elusive sound was painstaking, but it has yielded a rare kind of music that is as uncomplicated as it is uncompromised.

[engl] Imagine a coven of Jodorowsky, Daevid Allen, Mr. Crowley, Rameses and Arthur Brownthen combine them into a one-man mutant magician and add the finest Australian synth duo since Cybotron. BEHOLD Geoff Krozier & The Generator. This faithful reproduction of one of Australias rarest synthy post-prog vinyl artefacts bequeths the only recorded fruits of the precious magick months before Geoff Krozier’s untimely death in 1981. Combining shamanic spoken word with nodding kosmische instrumentation this album is fuelled by ARP/Roland/ETI (Aussie synth) technology and leaves fans of synthetic soundtracks, electronic experimentalism and stubborn synth pop salivating for more (and more there is). Meet this Ex Kongress (NY punk band) collaborator, Sydney’s official 1980 Magician Of The Year and “the high priest of exorcism-rock” and watch him, and his trusty studio wizards, provide fans of Bruce Haack and Doris White with one of the most absurd electronic private press LPs to come from either end of the pointed planet.

[engl] CHECK OUT is designed as a collection of readymade exhibition sounds and images, published as a hardcover fine-art photobook and marketed (also) as a LP record. It includes one hand numbered 10” vinyl from a limited edition pressing of 500 copies, whose tracks have been composed for / executed with a single guitar and recorded in one take during night, in the corridors of a school in Nowa Huta (Krakow, PL). CHECK OUT is divided into sections (chapters / tracks) and has three main granularities, i.e. excess, exposure, and death. Excess as an event of exceedance that stretches time and sight. Exposure like in Latin’s ex·ponere, “to pose oneself out”, implicitly meaning interruption, abandon. Death: “Amen, CHECK OUT”. It is possible to die of exposure, i.e. dying of not being in the own Place of Nature…

[engl] Pioneering electroacoustic and tape music by Henk Badings assisted by Dick Raaijmakers (Kid Baltan) from the Hanover Opera Ballet production of Evolutions choreographed by Yvonne Georgi. Premiering in Hannover in 1958 then in Rome and Vienna in the following year the ballet Evolutions (Evolutionen) by Yvonne Georgi was the second of three groundbreaking collaborations with Henk Badings (bookended by Cain and Able aka Elektronisches Ballet in 1957 and Die Frau Von Andros in 1960) in which electronic tape music was combined with avant garde choreography, thus contributing to a vibrant global movement which drew a line between experimental dance artists and concrete/electroacoustic musicians such as Alwin Nikolais, Maurice Béjart (with Pierre Henry) and George Balanchine (with Remy Gassman) amongst others. Assisted by fellow Dutch electronic music pioneer and Philips sound laboratory technician Dick Raaijmakers (aka Kid Baltan), Badings, an Indonesian born musician of Dutch parents, would by the late 50s begin to expand his successful career as a composer of "roman- tic modernism" and develop electronic, polytonal and microtonal music which instantly attracted ballet mistress Georgi to his unique brand of musique con- crète. As a key exponent of forward-thinking and conceptual dance, Georgi devised a narrative based on the evolution of technology and is agonising effects on mankind. Garnering mixed opinions amongst the classical ballet cognoscenti in 1959, the projects of Georgi and Badings were viewed as a part concert/part instal- lation due to the radical sonic shifts and the physical deployment of large elec- tronic speakers to replace the otherwise acoustic orchestral accompaniment. Utilising the entire apparatus of the studio at Philips’ physics laboratory in Eindhoven before committing to master tapes, Evolutions not only stretched the perceptions of modern ballet aficionados but also stretched the technical boundaries of electronic music at one of its most exciting and vibrant junctures in musical history.

[engl] A schizoid sonic sketchbook from the Maledictus Sound-maker Dr. J. P. Massiera. A disturbing mix of dismembered tape samples, para- noid-poety and cosmic chaos resurrected from the crypt of Studio Antibes 1976 Dawn Of The Dead, or The French Connection 2, or For A Few Dollars More, or Evil Dead 2. For an article relating to the bizarre Gallic concept album you are about to subject your ears to, any of the aforementioned 70s cinematic references could conveniently provide a snappy and relevant headline. More signifi- cantly, however, these four names, amongst a slew of surprising others, represent the micro-phenomena of freakish ‘sequels’ that up the ante and out-weird their predecessors pushing the envelope beyond what we thought we were prepared for... Not unlike The Horrific Child LP by Jean Pierre Massiera. Like a self-hypnotism disc or an astrological record ‘... Mr. Whinster’ was marketed in the format of a psychological experience rather than a pop record. A bloodstained patchwork of surrealism and brooding psychedelic rock the LP stitched together Massiera's own shock-tactical spoken word (in the style of his earlier exploitation record 'Erik' which described the ‘Streets Of Desolation’ after the Nazi occupation) and a cacophony of live instrumentation and de-tuned and collaged samples from the vaults of the Antibes Studio. Most of the contributors loosely described as the 'person- nel' were featured in snippet and sample form apart from some short cus- tom written passages that were performed by musicians from the Nice Music Conservatory directed by Antibes regular Gérard Pontieux who would later appear on the credits as an arranger for Human Egg and Turn Radio On (Massiera's rare proto-disco collaboration with his half brother Bernard Torelli). Extra electric basslines were dubbed onto the record courtesy of ex-Pyranas / Hermaphrodites bassist Tony Bonfils (who would later appear in Synthesis and Human Egg). Beneath the deep theatrical growls of JPM himself, backing vocals came from the two singing duos Paul & Virginia and Micky & Joyce including samples lifted straight from precious sessions such as Visitors or Les Chats Renaissance. Massiera also credits vocal appearances to two bizarre figures from the French glit- terati in the form of stage singer Roberto Galbés and the larger than life celebrity impresario Bob Damiano (who would later write lyrics for Massiera’s extra terrestrial Venus Gang project).

[engl] After almost two years of busy tour schedules and widespread unanimous critical acclaim longstanding experimental pop crusader Jane Weaver finally commits one of her most requested projects to vinyl in the shape of dedicated mini-album The Amber Light presented here on exclusive and limited Amber transparent vinyl. Originally issued as a limited CD only bonus disc for The Silver Globe album global re-release The Amber Light surprised fans expecting B-sides and outtakes with what for many stood up as its own isolated project including some of Jane’s best material to date including the pulsating synth anthem I Need A Connection which since became a radio favourite also appearing on film and fashion shows throughout the latter half of 2015. The Amber Light also included further collaborations with Finders Keepers Andy Votel as well as long awaited collaborations with Atari/Star Wars Synthesist Suzanne Ciani, Tom Furse (keyboardist from The Horrors) and Sean Canty from Demdike Stare. Recorded over the course of two long weekends between tours with her custom-built band operating at an energetic optimum, The Amber Light captures Jane exuding the passion, experimentalism and justified confidence which is instantly reflected with some of her best songwriting to date. Currently causing a stir with her collaboration with Beyond The Wizards Sleeves and within the final throes of recording a brand new LP it is still a very exciting time for this unique multi-tasking independent female composer who’s loyal long-running fan-base multiplies with every closely recorded breath. Trepidation is not required here, The Amber Light means you can go.

[engl] KAREL GOEYVAERTS was born in Antwerp in 1923. After having received a humanistic education in Antwerp, he took courses at the Lemmens Institute in Malines. From 1943 until 1947 he studied at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Antwerp. From 1947 until 1950 he studied composition with Darius Milhaud, music analysis with Olivier Messiaen and was in addition the pupil of Maurice Martenot at the "Conservatoire National" in Paris. In 1949 he was awarded the 2nd Prize for Composition and the Lili Boulanger Prize at the same Conservatoire. He obtained the Halphen Prize in 1950. During the winter of 1950-51, he wrote the "Sonata for two pianos". Because of its decisive and total stylistic novelty he designated this work as "Composition No 1", thus rejecting all his former work. With this sonata he created a structural synthesis of the dodecaphonic system of Anton Webern and the teachings of Olivier Messiaen and laid the foundations for generalized "punctual" serialism. He demonstrated the application of this technique on the electronic medium in his compositions Nrs. 4, 5 and 7. During the period 1951-1956, he influenced directly through personal con- tact and intensive correspondence the musical creativity of Karlheinz Stockhausen, whom he met during the summer-courses of 1951 in Darmstadt. In 1953, Goeyvaerts and Stockhausen produced the first elec- tronic music in the studio of the NWDR in Cologne. In 1970 the BRT appointed him as producer at the "Institute of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music" (IPEM) in Ghent. Since 1974 he is in charge of the New Music productions for BRT-3 in Brussels. Karel Goeyvaerts received several awards, such as the Koopal Prize in 1967 and the Visser-Neerlandia Prize in 1969. He also was given commissions by the BRT, the Festival of Flanders and the NOS (Neder-landse Omroepstichting). His works have been performed in several European countries, in Canada, the United States, Japan and at the festivals of the "International Society for Contemporary Music" (ISCM) Brussels 1950, Oslo 1953, Graz 1972 and Bonn 1977.

[engl] Welcome to the parallel musical universe of Miss Maria Teresa Luciani, a landscape of sonic architecture and theoretical composition constructed by a family of engineers that reinvented the wheel before the vehicle even began the journey. Imagine, if you will, the musical equivalent of Peter Cook’s Archigram group or the soundtrack to Charles and Ray Eames’ private sketchbooks, hinting at a new municipal, utopian metropolis just hours before the blueprints are suspiciously misplaced by the courier and mainstream pop building regulations piss on our asbestos bonfire. These 1972 constructions of progressive, cyclic, proto-industrial colour music were never intended for public habitation. These are the Sounds Of The City in a galaxy far, far beneath our radar and above your expectations that was never built. Pseudo-futurist pop music? Cubic folk? Tape-op-art? Sì, grazie! Before the needle hits the first groove, the story of Maria Teresa Luciani reads like an Alphaville caper full of foreign intrigue, low intensity identification fraud, secret codes, family bonds, mistrust and wanderlust… Naturally, you are holding a genuine Finders Keepers article. To say this rare Italian concept album is “unbelievable” is justified on multiple levels. This multi-storey storage facility of found sounds, radiophonic samples, tape loops, early electronic music experiments, mechanical folk, cinematic vision, sound design, educated music theory, political pop and high concept art-as-noise successfully layers more musical ideas within its unique structure than one would think possible for a solo artist within any musical genre. This is why Sounds Of The City presents us with a brand new genre defying compositional framework, pre-dating sampling culture, cut ‘n’ paste plunderism and industrial music in the process. Pre-digital, indefinable and genuinely unbelievable. But who is Maria Teresa Luciani? On hearing this record respected collectors and enthusiasts have suggested “the female answer to Basil Kirchin,” or “the Italian Daphne Oram”. Both with justified cause. Mystery, myth, legend, teacher, artist, inventor, author, musician, psychologist, daughter, and (possibly most importantly) sister.