AVANT-GARDE/EXPERIME Archives - Guerssen Records

Separate Ways / P.S. I Love You

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 23:00:00 +0000

Limited to 240 hand-numbered copies. 1/2 is the musical project of Ivan Antunovic from the D.I.Y label 0.5.

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De Unicornis Veritate

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 23:00:00 +0000

ADN Ckrystall is the pseudonym of French synth experimentalist Érick Moncollin. Armed with a Crumar, Multiman 52 with brass pedal and sustain/volume pedal, two Kawai Synthi 100-F, Roland CR-65, Korg PS-3200, Roland Jupiter-4, a Boss flanger, MXR phasing and a TEAC 8-track recorder he produced his first LP, Jazz’Mad, with the help of synth expert sound engineer benoit Hutin. The LP was self-released in 1982 to critic aclaim and generated a fan base that has turned it into a timeless classic, having been reissued four times since then.
But what most people don’t know is that Moncollin produced a second album with songs written 1982/1983 that has remained unreleased ever since. Only recently he found the tapes in his parents’ house and transfered them for it’s first ever vinyl release.
First ever release with Moncollin’s art on cover and liner notes by himself. Limited to 500 copies only!

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AK Musick (CD)

GuerssenAdmin — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 22:00:00 +0000

DIY experimental album from the 70s underground Kraut scene featuring clarinettist Hans Kumpf. Radical, freaked-out sound with hints of free-jazz, improv and avant-garde. File next to Anima, Annexus Quam, Albrecht D, Gulda, Nihilist Spasm Band, Nurse With Wound…

AK Musick was an improv collective assembled by Hans Kumpf to “make music in a very democratic way”. The five players had a classical education but they were also influenced by avant-garde composers like Helmut Lachenmann and Johannes Fritsch. Their only album, “AK Musick”, was recorded in 1972 at the famous Bauer Studios in just three hours and engineered by Martin Wieland, who had previously worked with Keith Jarrett for the ECM label. Some of the instruments used were: clarinet, cello, oboe, organ, piano, darbuka, tam-tam, ektare, flute, zither…Includes the amazing “Impro-vision” which sounds like electronic music but using only natural instruments.

“AK Musick” was originally released in 1972 on Kumpf’s own AKM Records label. It was a private homemade edition of 150 copies with spray printed covers. During the 70s, AKM Records was also home to other free-jazz rarities like “Free Blacks” by Perry Robinson / Hans Kumpf (where Hans also collaborated with his friend Wolfgang Dauner) and “In Time” by Theo Jörgensmann.

Very hard to find now, we present the first ever LP/CD reissue of “AK Musick” done under license from Hans Kumpf.

*Remastered sound

*Booklet with liner notes by Klemen Breznikar (It’s Psychedelic Baby) plus rare photos and memorabilia

*LP edition includes free digital download coupon

Tracklist:

Hava
Schace
Impro-Vision
My Ape & My Monkey
Ron Do
Baz

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Evolutions, Contrasts & Electronic Music (FPH)

GuerssenAdmin — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 22:00:00 +0000

One of the most prolific composers of contemporary music in The Netherlands, Henk Badings was born in Indonesia in 1907, the son of an East Indies Company army officer, and orphaned at an early age. Back in Holland, Badings worked as a mining engineer and palaeontologist, but abandoned this career to devote his life to music, making an impact in 1930 with the performance of his first cello concerto. The composer of various symphonies that made use of unusual music scales and uncommon harmonic structures, Badings began experimenting with electronic music in the 1950s, composing the first side of the Electronic Music LP in 1952 for a performance at the Gravesano Music Festival, using 12 oscillators and a violin, the second side in 1958 for a ballet performed by the Hannover Opera Ballet; recorded at Philips’ studio in Eindhoven, it utilizes various sound generators, the final track featuring Dick Raaijmakers, a composer and electronic music specialist then employed by Philips in the field of electro-acoustics.

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Creamcheese Düsseldorf

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 23:00:00 +0000

The experimental project Pissoff was founded in the late 60s by multimedia-artist Eberhard Kranemann and some friends who studied together at the Düsseldorf Academy Of Fine Arts. The chaotic, loud and soundwise undisciplined band took part in various events at this location and other places. Due to the intense fluctuation of band-members the performances by Pissoff were characterized by continously changing participants and variations of the involved equipment: cello, violin, clarinet, tenor saxophone, flute, vocals, electric guitar, electric bass guitar, organ and drums. In 1968 Pissoff performed together with Joseph Beuys who was professor of sculpture at the Art Academy at that time. During this incomparable audiovisual interaction Joseph Beuys staged his Hndaktion: in concentrated manner he moved his hands in front of his head while listening and visually reacting to the very loud and abstract staccato-rhythms by Pissoff. The event was recorded by Eberhard Kranemann on a Telefunken mono-tape-recorder and remains the only existing audio-material by Pissoff until today. On that night Eberhard played cello, clarinet and tenor saxophone while the other members added sounds by electric guitar, electric bass and drums. Earliest musical experimentations that can be defined as the origins of the band Kraftwerk already started in 1967 by Eberhard Kranemann and Florian Schneider-Esleben. Sometimes Kranemann invited Florian Schneider-Esleben to join Pissoff.

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Clear Memory (CD)

GuerssenAdmin — Thu, 28 May 2020 22:00:00 +0000

Formed in 1978, Bomis Prendin is a collective of experimental “noisicians” from Washington DC, pioneers within the DIY, Industrial, cassette culture and experimental electronics scene.

Using cassette recorders, mutated musical toys, electric guitars, bass, rewired circuitry, analog pedal effects & cheap keyboards, they recorded and released in the late 70s a couple of astounding flexi-discs (Test and Phantom Limb) which led to them being included on the infamous Nurse With Wound list.

“Clear Memory” was originally released in 1984 only on cassette (50 copies) and it’s an incredible example of DIY mutant psychedelic pop and homemade electronic weirdness which sounds years ahead of its time.

Here’s the first ever reissue.

*Master tape sound
*Four-page insert with liner notes by Klemen Breznikar (It’s Psychedelic, Baby)
*Includes digital download card
**File under: unfathomable & unpredictable**

” ‘Clear Memory’ reveals a wonderland of sense-expanding psychedelic potentiality lurking below the surface.” – Mutant Sounds

“Their music features an incredible variety of sounds, images and structures that places it somewhere between slightly mutated rock and roll and pure experimental composition.” – Gary Indiana (Modern World)

RIYL: RESIDENTS, CHROME, CABARET VOLTAIRE, FAUST, THROBBING GRISTLE, CLUSTER, OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL…

Tracklist: 01. First Light – 02. French Passport – 03. Respect The Road – 04. Street Without Lunch – 05. Why Blondes Eat – 06. I Don’t Want – 07. Hell’s Little Ransom – 08. Forced Delight / Debris Factory – 09. Jumpstart – 10. Robop – 11. Keep The Letters – 12. Busy – 13. I Walk The Lawn – 14. The Big Horizon – 15. Integers

CD / Digital Bonustrack: 16. Endocircumventual

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Capon – Mate – Morris – Rahoerson

GuerssenAdmin — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 23:00:00 +0000

Heavyweight 180 gr. LP

First ever LP reissue

Carefully remastered from the master tapes

4 page booklet with rare and unpublished photos

In November 1976, Jef Gilson’s phone rang. What a surprise! It was Serge Rahoerson, one of the musicians he had met in Madagascar at the end of the 60s and who had played on his first album “Malagasy”. Rahoerson announced that he was in Paris for a few days.

Immediately, Jef wanted to organise a recording session, starting the next day. He thought of a trio including Serge, Eddy Louiss on organ and cellist Jean-Charles Capon, who had also been on one of the trips to Tananarive and so had also known Rahoerson there.

Unfortunately, Eddy Louiss -who had already played with Gilson and Capon on the album “Bill Coleman Sings And Plays 12 Negro Spirituals” in 1968- had to drop out at the last minute: he was delayed by a session with Claude Nougaro. Jean-Charles Capon had also become a sought-after studio musician since his trip to Madagascar in 1969. He appeared on several key albums on the Saravah label including the now famous “Comme À La Radio” by Brigitte Fontaine, “Un Beau Matin” by Areski and “Chorus” by Michel Roques, without mentioning the album by his own Baroque Jazz Trio. He was also to be found with Jef Gilson for his album on Vogue with the ex-drummer from Miles Davis’ first great quintet, Philly Joe Jones, or also in the orchestra led by Jean-Claude Vannier for the album “Nino Ferrer & Leggs”. He also played regularly on albums by Georges Moustaki.

Jean-Charles Capon and Serge Rahoerson found themselves thus in the studio, with Jef at the controls. He had decided to record the rhythmic structure right away. He would find the soloists later, that didn’t worry him. Serge Rahoerson was on drums. Though a saxophonist by training, Jef remembered that Serge was also capable of great things behind a drum kit: he was the improvised drummer on their cover of “The Creator Has A Master Plan” on the album “Malagasy”… The great memories came flooding back (the nod on the title “Orly – Ivato”), and the old magic worked again.

Brought in momentarily from Europamerica, Gilson’s new big band, in which JC Capon also played, the saxophonists Philippe Maté, from France (another Saravah stablemate) and the American Butch Morris (soon to be a key member of David Murray’s band) were invited to record their parts later and Gilson mixed it all as if it had been one single session (as he had already done on other albums, with the tracks by Christian Vander recorded before the creation and success of Magma).

The album would not appear until 1977, on Palm, Jef’s own label, and was dedicated to the memory of Georges Rahoerson, Serge’s father, who had also played on the album “Malagasy” and who had died prematurely at the age of 51 in 1974.
“I only received my own copy of the album in 1981 when I came to live in France definitively”, a still-moved Serge Rahoerson told us in 2013. “I was playing in a club one night and Jef turned up by surprise with a copy of the album for me, I was so pleased to see him again. When I arrived in France, I told everyone that I had played with Jef Gilson a few years previously, and I was surprised to learn that so few people knew of him. For us, he was of one of the great jazz visionaries.”

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Chitinous

GuerssenAdmin — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 23:00:00 +0000

Certainly one of the most obscure and perhaps one of the most fascinating work of the English jazz revolution. Master of ceremonies is cellist Paul Buckmaster, known for his work with the Third Ear Band and for his (later) collaborations with Miles Davis, David Bowie and Elton John. Chitinous is his the only album as leader and it was recorded between 31 March and 13 April 1970, by an orchestra of no less than 51 players, with violins, violas and cellos. In this enormous line-up we find the cream of English musicians involved, starting with trumpeter Ian Carr and ending with drummer John Marshall. The leader is on cello, his main instrument, but also on keyboards, which he shares with the excellent Pete Robinson. The music is organized in suites, with very broad suggestions that draw from classical and contemporary music and then move back into jazz territory.

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Circles (CD)

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 23:00:00 +0000

In the late 1970s and through the 1980s there was a lot happening on the German "post Krautrock underground" that few people knew about, lots of independent artists doing their own thing, either via small labels or doing it themselves. Circles were one of these bands.

Based on the Frankfurt suburbs, they consisted of the multi-instrumental duo of Dierk Leitert (synthesizer, sequencer, drums, bass, guitar, voice, saxophone, flute) and Mike Bohrmann (guitars, bass, synthesizer) plus a few collaborators. Carrying the torch of 70s bands like Cluster, Harmonia or Liliental into the 80s, Circles were also contemporaries of groups like Throbbing Gristle, Ilitch and Nurse With Wound so you can also expect some similarities in their music.

"Circles" was their first album, released in 1983 as a private pressing on their tiny Einhorn label, housed in a cool and mysterious looking cover. This little known but excellent kraut/psych/experimental album is highly recommended to anyone into Harmonia, Cluster, Fripp / Eno, Heldon, Conrad Schnitzler, Neu!, Throbbing Gristle, Ilitch, Irmin Schmidt, Amon Düül II...

First ever reissue, including booklet with detailed liner notes by Alan Freeman (The Crack In The Cosmic Egg, Ultima Thule) telling the story of the band for the first time.

"Circles are one of the most fascinating of German ambient/electronic bands from the post new-wave era" - Alan Freeman (The Crack In The Cosmic Egg)

Tracklist:

1. Einblicke 3:22

2. Viele Wege 3:30

3. Chant 2:44

4. Rockola 4:08
5. 10o Unter Null 5:23

6. Troflut 4:40

7. Reibend 3:23

8. Intermezzo 0:21

9. A) Woistich 8:03

B) Umgedreht 3:44

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More Circles (CD)

GuerssenAdmin — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 23:00:00 +0000

"More Circles" was their second album, released in 1984 as a private pressing on their tiny Einhorn label. Experimental krautrock with lots of psychedelic guitar, keyboards, motorik drums, drones, proto-ambient sounds and avant-garde / dadaist touches.

RIYL: Harmonia, Cluster, Fripp/Eno, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Chrome, Heldon, Conrad Schnitzler, Neu!, Eroc...

First ever reissue, including booklet with detailed liner notes by Alan Freeman (The Crack In The Cosmic Egg, Ultima Thule) telling the story of the band for the first time.

"Circles are one of the most fascinating of German ambient/electronic bands from the post new-wave era" - Alan Freeman (The Crack In The Cosmic Egg)

Tracklist:

1. Minimal Instant 1:12

2. A) Several Steps Leading Through Different Rooms 9:44

B) Escapades 3:29

3. Tripletwin 1:38

4. Paris Cut 4:07

5. Mental Dart 5:02

6. Trio Atonale 2:54

7. Tranquilo Gonzales 6:25

8. Sequences 4:04

9. Consequences 2:20

10. Spiral Dance 5:22

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