NON GRATA (CD, Monktail Records)
The Monktail Creative Music Concern has released it's first CD, NON GRATA, on their own Monktail Records label. Each CD is numbered in a limited edition, letter-press sleeve. The recording was captured by Scott Colburn at Ye Olde Gravelvoice Studio and features an 11-piece ensemble: Ahamefule J. Oluo (trumpet ), Gabriel Herbertson (trumpet), Ryan Murtfeldt (flutes, clarinet, tenor saxophone), Izaak Mills (flute, bass clarinet, c melody, tenor & baritone saxophone), Bill Monto (alto & tenor saxophone), Adam Weiss (tenor saxophone), Stephen Fandrich (piano, Fender Rhodes), John Ewing (percussion), Mark Ostrowski (percussion), Stephen Parris (electric guitar, trombone), John Seman (double bass).
Available for purchase at Playback, Wall of Sound, Sonic Boom, Everyday Music, Silver Platters, Coffee Messiah and soon enough at a new monktail.com
Andrew Drury: A Momentary Lapse (Innova, CD)
"A jazz dream-team ventures into new territory with Eyvind Kang (violin), Briggan Krauss (alto saxophone), Chris Speed (clarinet/tenor saxophone), Myra Melford (piano), Mark Dresser (bass), Andrew Drury (drums/composer). "Š(H)e's a sophisticated modern composer. (Š) Šexceptional compositions, which prove tune after tune that melding Eurocentric formality and American syncopation can be as smoothly put to use by an undersung Yank as better-known Continentals. Evidence here indicates that the playing and writing Drury demonstrates on this CD is no momentary lapse. lthough there¹s every probability that he will produce more exceptional music in the future, right now you have this CD to seek out and admire."--Ken Waxman, Jazzword"
Available via Amazon, Tower, Cdemusic, etc
Ann Cummings: Inside the Music, 20th century Revelations (Sound & Sight Productions, CD)
"Sound & Sight Productions is pleased to announce the CD release of Inside the Music, 20th century Revelations featuring composers of the 20th century performed by pianist Ann Cummings. This 2 disc set introduces a new style of program recording and includes oral commentary tracks created by Cummings. Featured composers are Schoenberg, Cage, Thome, Prokofiev, and Scriabin. Ann Cummings (solo piano)."
Available at www.InsidetheMusic.com
Materia Confusa: Transmutation (Sonance, CD-R)
"The alchemical transformation of base elements to aural splendor is illustrated here to stunning effect. Disparate sources combine and bleed their essences into a transcendent and cohesive whole, all the while inspiring one's imagination to flights of hallucinogenic beauty. Within these two tracks comprised of processed acoustic source material, angelic voices mesh seamlessly with Tibetan horns, plateaus of looping, shimmering spectral voices have the power to haunt again and again, a charged atmosphere of otherworldliness is created throughout."
Available from: www.materiaconfusa.net
Chris DeLaurenti: Sand Point Sound Gazetteer (SPACE, CD-R)
"The Sand Point Sound Gazetteer (SPSG) is a compact disc of on-site field recordings that documents some of the sonic spaces of Sand Point Magnuson Park in NE Seattle. This summer edition of the SPSG pinpoints typical, unusual, and mysterious (remember the Latin phrases Hic sunt Leones and Terra Incognita denoting unknown territories on Medieval maps?) locations of sound activity from playing fields to distant parties to surging culverts to balloons contorting in the wind to... In the exploratory sprit of early dictionaries and ancient maps, SPSG is woefully yet earnestly incomplete, betraying the character and compulsions of its compiler."
This free, site-specific release is neither in stores nor on the web. The SPSG is only available with the free Project 18: Verge brochure at the exhibition's opening reception on Saturday, August 16 (7 pm to midnight at SPACE 7400 Sand Point Way), and through September 14 during Sand Point Magnuson Park's regular hours."
Planes Overhead: Distant (Leaftone, CD)
"A three-inch mini-cd release out on the new Leaftone label featuring a set of tracks recorded several years ago in northeastern Washington. The focus is on atmosphere, using organic textures to create a relatively dark-toned resonance, most of the original sound sources now forgotten."
Available from http://www.leaftone.com
The Last Days of Russell: Corporealis EP/Maze EP (Elephant, CD)
"Urban-experimental music from the basement of a Seattle madman. Ambient / illbient / hip-hop / funk / noise fusion."
Available at: http://nevermind.digitaldownlow.net/russell
Chris DeLaurenti: The night I met Maria C_____ (Locust Music, CD)
"The fifth installment in the Met Life series brings us a tongue firmly in cheek offering from the rapid cut up techniques of Seattle's Chris Delaurenti. Simply put, it's a little exercise on waste and getting wasted. This field recording documents the removal of waste at a transfer station in Seattle and the response rides the pun to its excessive extreme as DeLaurenti quickly becomes a participant in the flailing and drunken fanfare at a party, raising the ever important question What on earth are we all doing? No doubt, it's this style, edgy humor, and raw guerrilla techniques that make DeLaurenti a sort of Fellini of the audio underworld. (label description)"
Available from Wall of Sound in Seattle, by mail order from Anomalous Records at http://www.anomalousrecords.com/ and on-line at Locust's site: http://www.locustmusic.com/catalog.html
Entropic Advance: Monkey with a Gun (Symbolic Insight, CD)
"Seattle KMLP i-radio DJs Wesley Davis' and Casey Jones' fifth release as Entropic Advance is a great example of how parts of hostile glitch experimental extravaganzas can be combined with parts of spacey lounge electronics. Their temporal and structural underpinnings evolve around broken d'n'b fragments; their gluing manipulation involves ambient noises and progressive pads tweaking. Occasional odd field recordings and tv samplings render it all more tangible, like if they want you to keep in touch with real life. With or without those reminders it's easy to get carried away by the beautiful atmospheres by Entropic Advance, with their reverb-washed and soaked treated trumpet, their deep-end subsonic component, their tranquil and classy pace, their elegant and sophisticated chord sequences (when there is such thing as a chord sequence), their dreamy and disturbing alien beats and so forth. Interestingly the duo also get exciting when they sing to what they do (think of Roger Waters, Trent Reznor, Tweaker, Dream Into Dust, think vaguely...). A pleasant surprise that you should take into consideration. Review by: Marc Urselli-Schärer from Chain D.L.K.com"
Available at Wall of Sound, Everyday Music, Easy Street Records, Sonic Boom Records, Tone, Musicwerks, and online at:
http://www.cdbaby.com/entropic4
http://locusproductions.com/entropicadvance/id17.htm
http://unitcircle.com/catalog/getbandinfo.asp?artistID=28
komafuzz/Wet Spot Etiquette: SITUATION:NORMAL v1 (kolorform records, vinyl)
"NW dronescape artist komafuzz pairs up with Wet Spot Etiquette (from Vermont) to bring you a beautiful EP on kolorform records. Both artists involved with this project took turns personifying and remixing the image of the surface of a geranium leaf intensly magnified by a scanning electron microscope. Pops and clicks mesh into a wall of whispering sounds that breathe past your ears as you dilly dally through the forest of sound. Packaged in a plastic sleeve with b&w inserts. Limited to 100 copies world wide.
Available from: kolorform@yahoo.com
Various Artists: An Eloquent Mass: Experiments in Sound Volume One (kolorform records, CD-R)
"Thirty five artists from all over the world including Xaxis Wye, Human Abstract, Big City Orchestra, and komafuzz, display a wide arrange of experimental musics. This double cd is limited to 300 copies."
Available from: kolorform@yahoo.com
Various Artists: Somniloquies, Volume One (Parasomnic Records, CD)
"Somniloquies is the debut release from Parasomnic Records, a new record label based in Seattle emphasizing on dark ambient, darkwave, neo-folk, noise and experimental electronic music. This compilation features 16 artists including Azure Skies, Hollydrift, Kava, Anaphylaxis, Suffering and the Hideous Theives, The Devouring Element, Mayfairgrin, brain:blood:volum, Substructure and others. From drifting ethereal soundscapes to harsh feedback loops to thumping avant-techno, this compilation features a wide variety of quality underground sonic manipulation."
Available at www.parasomnicrecords.com