Escarpments
(Ini Itu - 1303) LP $21.00
Ethnographic surrealist Kraig Grady captures the sensations of places that just feel different, where the external and internal terrains become one — from an anonymous musical homage with a touch of nostalgia and rural landscapes experienced during personal pilgrimages, to beggars playing the Kalan (a trapezoid-shaped instrument resembling a hammer dulcimer or santur, played using sticks with crescent-shaped heads that draw upon the energy of the moon), to a metallophone called a Meta-Slendro played at the water’s edge while adhering to fluid guideposts. With three postcards. Numbered edition of 250.
Boto [Encantado]
(Ini Itu) LP $16.00
(Ini Itu) Used LP $11.00
“Decomposed and recomposed” landscapes and details, mostly centered around the Boto (Inia geoffrensis geoffrensis), also known as Amazon River Dolphin or Pink Dolphin. Sounds are isolated, cut, scaled up or down, modified and finally reassembled in a delicate and peaceful collage. At times enigmatic, intimate and pastoral, it slowly reveal its nuances. Liner notes include descriptions of the source sounds and a short essay on metamorphic animals. Edition of 250.
Recovery Suite
(Ini Itu - 1304) LP $21.00
Dystopic lounge ambiance inspired by Ross’s time convalescing from a back injury. The interaction of his customized analog oscillator and baptized drosscillator with Bell’s evanescent melodic lines on the shakuhachi evokes the perplexity and obfuscation of the experience of illness, and slow, uncertain recovery. This is a nocturnal record with circular, maze-like undertones galore, where mental landscapes are built on the contemplation of opioid numbness and extraction. With two postcards. Numbered edition of 250.
Cassetopia
(Ini Itu - 1302) LP $21.00
Pre-dematerialization, pre-Reynols material, based on cassettes, possibly reworked but maybe not. Courtis’s music here transcends time; these balanced and measured exercises in subtle conversion are detailed monoliths, borderline cases of slightly aggressive and noisy surfaces, autumnal goofy primitivism, and detached stoner electroacoustics that bridge the gap between Earthy tape conjuration and cosmic drift and drone.
Waa Jiè Méng Xuun
(Ini Itu - 1301) LP $19.00 (Out-of-stock)
Frogs from Taiwan meet modular synthesizers. Darmstadt is in the jungle. With three postcards. Hand-numbered edition of 250.
Stainless Steel
(Ini Itu - INIITU1101) LP $16.00
One side of molten, acid-bathed gamelan, with decay and textural corrosion magnified and enhanced, one side of arcanely wired machines spitting out shifting binary patterns. Plus two locked grooves at no extra charge. Edition of 250
CORNELIA HESSE-HONEGGER / DAVE PHILLIPS
Mutations
(Ini Itu - INIITU1002) LP $16.00 (Out-of-stock)
Using source material recorded in Thailand and Vietnam between 1994 and 2007, Mutations rests between Phillips's constructed works and his pure field recordings. Here he juxtaposes, layers, condenses, stretches, and distorts sounds into balanced progressions, punctuations and dense climaxes which generate an overwhelming and sometimes uneasy environment. Hallucinatory, unsettling, brooding, ominous, always restrained, controlled, progressing toward the horror. Hesse-Honegger is a scientific illustrator and researcher who has studied the effects of radioactivity on insect morphology. Edition of 250, with two high-quality printed inserts. TEDIUM HOUSE BEST OF 2011
Tone
(Ini Itu - 1502) LP $20.00
Using radio, paper, tapes, debris and other objects, the experimental approach of this Japanese sound artist repeats the dismantling, rebuilding, amplification and modulation of tiny sounds throughout seven tracks of delicate and circular meanderings. In Imanishi’s restrained and autumnal ambiance, sounds emerge from nothingness and soon return to it. Evanescent tones display a melancholic sensibility, rooted in the Japanese concepts of wabi-sabi and mono no aware. Calm, austere and enigmatic, this record reminds us that beauty can emerge from ugliness. Edition of 250 with insert.
Rekkez
(Ini Itu - 1202) LP $19.00 (Out-of-stock)
A collection of tracks resembling pages torn from a tormented diary, with a complex array of emotions (anger, angst, gloom, pride, faith, isolation, anguish, etc). Giulia Loli merges Sa’aidi hardcore and Baladi breakbeats in a mutant, syncopated form of instrumental hip-hop; her circular rhythms fuse acoustic instruments (re’qs, mazhar, douf, cello) and electronic tones, augmented by voices, sometimes vocoded, and field recordings from Tuscany, Egypt and various other locations. Often bittersweet and brooding, the raw fuzz of the music evokes an insular and somewhat fractured force, balancing between the abstract and the confrontational. Sprawling Afro-Asiatic melodies and elaborate, convoluted developments. Edition of 250.
A Big Circle Drawn With Little Hands
(Ini Itu - 1201) LP $19.00
Begun as a proposition from ini.itu to work on specific audio materials, Roden expanded the palette to include “radio, old records, instruments, […] things that I can bring from your location to my own.” The sounds are amiable and enigmatic wanderings, slow additions of tiny, delicate elements which sketch nocturnal and rich environments, at times laidback, austere, uneasy, at times dense, wistful, but always intriguing.
Cryptonesia
(Ini Itu - 1501) LP $20.00
The unexpected melt-pop child of dangdut and krautrock, filtered through electronica and post-exotica lenses. Roel Meekop and Frans de Waard resist the temptation to go all subtropical gabber, and instead deliver good-natured beats, boisterous and carefree, exhaling a cheerful and joyous mood. The epic eighteen-minute B-side is a freewheeling and energetic construction of meandering and hypnotic pseudo-gamelan riffs, resulting in trippy and lush washes of bliss. A record to enjoy, not only for its hedonistic take on music history reverse engineering, but also its use of snippets from early ’80s cassettes by obscure electronic puddle-tapper Cybe. Edition of 250 with insert.