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Re-Release

Black Truffle is honoured to present the premier recordings of two recent works by legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier. A friend and contemporary of pioneers like Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, and Christian Wolff, Lucier has been crafting elegant explorations of the behavior of sound in physical space since the 1960s. Lucier is perhaps best known for I Am Sitting in a Room (1970), in which he repeatedly re-recorded his own speaking voice being played back into a room until the room's resonant frequencies entirely obscure the spoken text. Beginning in the early 1970s, he has written a remarkable catalogue of instrumental works that focus on phenomena produced by the interference between closely tuned pitches, such as audible beating, often using pure electronic tones produced by oscillators in combination with single instruments.

Demonstrating the restless creative drive of an artist now in his 80s, the two recent works presented here both feature the electric guitar, an instrument Lucier has just recently begun to explore. In Criss-Cross, Lucier's first composition for electric guitars, two guitarists using e-bows sweep slowly up and down a single semitone, beginning at opposite ends of the pitch range. The piece is a model of simplicity, exemplifying Lucier's desire not to 'compose' in the conventional sense, but rather to eliminate everything that 'distracts from the acoustical unfolding of the idea'. In this immaculately controlled performance of Criss-Cross by Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley, (for whom the piece was written in 2013), a seemingly simple idea creates a rich array of sonic effects - not simply beating patterns, which gradually slow down as the two tones reach unison and accelerate as they move further apart, but also the remarkable phenomenon of sound waves spinning in elliptical patterns through space between the two guitar amps.

In the comparatively lush Hanover, Lucier draws inspiration from the beautiful photograph that provides the LP with its cover, an image of the Dartmouth Jazz Band taken in 1918 featuring Lucier's father on violin. Using the instrumentation present in the photograph, Lucier creates an unearthly sound world of sliding tones from violin, alto and tenor saxophones, piano, vibraphone (bowed) and three electric guitars (which take the place of the banjos present in the photograph). Waves of slow glissandi create thick, complex beating patterns, gently punctuated by repeated single notes from the piano. The result is a piece that, like much of Lucier's instrumental music, is simultaneously both unperturbably calm and constantly in motion.
Stunning LP design by Stephen O'Malley including an inner sleeve with a portrait of Alvin Lucier by Kris Serafin.
Criss-Cross' recorded at Studios Ina GRM, Paris by Francois Bonnet and mixed by Alvin Lucier. Hanover' recorded in Zurich and mixed by Alvin Lucier.
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Belin.
Criss-Cross' recorded at Studios Ina GRM, Paris by Francois Bonnet and mixed by Alvin Lucier. Hanover' recorded in Zurich and mixed by Alvin Lucier.
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin.

Reemerging from the threshold of the cosmic vortex, Black Lodge returns with another sonic artifact that is charged with vigorous chaotic energy, known as EXPERIMENT_ZERO. Accounts of the radiant object's origin are as mysterious as the raw energy that utters from its core. Following a close study, the guardians of the portal suspect that "Experiment Zero" was a primordial experiment rooted in the slam jack pits and DIY warehouse rituals of ages passed. A sonic dialog constructed of various languages, spanning from roots-house jak to bare-knuckled electro are revealed across the artifact - a revolutionary tale that surpasses the constructs of ephemerality, with a refusal to be ignored. Across the release the listener is confronted with fearless acid lines that are underscored by a tone of revolution, and sets the stage for a human voice that switches between modes of a sharp and mutated presence. The power of such sonic objects are both celebrated and rejected by various tribal societies. It is all dependent on the belief structures and traditional histories of its members. Those that belong to the cult of Ron Hardy, Mad Mike Banks, Traxx, and JTC will welcomingly be drenched in its riotous energies. It is for the dedicated, not the light-hearted. After further research it has been discovered that, Experiment Zero is the product of Dona, aka Dj Plant Texture and Mike Tansella Jr. of Son of Traders, both products of the ancient mercantile city of Bari in Southern Italy. Previous works from these artists have been featured on Creme Organization, Gravitational Waves, Unknown to Unknown, and Illian Tapes. All sonic experimentation was recorded in one take to capture the raw energy of instantaneous collaborative sound craft operating in flux. Black Lodge's 4th release is sure to find a space in the music collections of those seeking to travel within the uncanny portals that unforgivingly defy the status quo. Mastered by: Alex J Michalski Label design: Kosmik Pressing: Deepgrooves (NL)

Black Sheep – and their 1991 ‘A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ album - were definitely an outlier in the Native Tongues fold. They were raunchier and more playful than their peers which, given that those peers were A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and Jungle Brothers, is really saying something.

‘Strobelite Honey’ catches that difference perfectly, leaning heavily on a pair of 1980 disco samples rather than the jazz of their brethren, and taking a somewhat less chivalrous approach to women. ‘Strobelite’s slender but fun narrative sees rapper Dres up in the club and fooled by the lights – approaching a girl he likes the look off but backing off when they reveal she’s not what he expected. Charmed, we’re sure.

Dres and his partner Mr. Lawnge were always willing to push boundaries, and that extends to the often confusing labelling of the various remixes of this choice single. 12”s dropped with the ‘No We Didn’t Mix’, ‘Yes We Did Mix’ and ‘Maybe We Did Mix’ (not to mention a separate 12” of House mixes).

The last and best of these accompanied the original version on the now-rare 1991 7”, as it does here. The ‘Maybe We Did Mix’ adds urgent horns - almost like the buzzing of a bee - and a new beat to completely reconfigure the sound into something much more of its era. It’s a reminder of when remixes were about much more than the same beat with different rappers.

Lascelle 'Lascelles' Gordon - the driving force behind Vibration Black Finger – astonishes us yet again with a magnificent second album. Once more his inspiration is drawn from the obscure spiritual jazz collectives of the 1970s where he employs a vast array of like-minded collaborators to create a listening experience infused with an ever-present undercurrent of personal expression and cultural empowerment that's as enriched with ideas as it is progressive in its form.

Having earned his chops as founding member of the Brand New Heavies, Campag Velocet and Heliocentric World, Lascelle's latest album Can You See What I'm Trying to Say bursts with energy and vivid contrasts, flowing effortlessly between beat-laden grooves, oscillating improvisations, soulful recitations, audio verité and moody atmospherics. The album drops like a post-hip-hop reimagining of foundational genres, with a prayer to the future.

''Can You See What I'm Trying to Say' is a quote from Marion Brown, the great alto saxophonist' explains Gordon. 'The album was put together over the last three years, not in the conventional way of going into the recording studio with musicians, but starting from ideas I had on various formats (cassettes, mini disc, DATs & reel to reel). I also used field recordings. I did a lot of home recording with long time musical friends Ben Cowen & Diana Gutkind, some of them going back 20 years. The voices of my nieces (heard on Law of the Universe) were recorded 25 years ago. 'Only in a Dream' and 'Empty Streets' are the only songs that were recorded live in the studio.'

'I was blown away by the New Life Trio 'Empty Streets' (from 1978) and was fascinated by the vocals' continues Lascelles. 'I always thought it would be great to cover this tune'. Such is the power of this song, it's used to open the album, with vocalist Ebony Rose turning in a thoroughly haunting vocal performance. While not a concept album as such, Lascelles has nonetheless conceived and presented Can You See What I'm Trying to Say to be heard as a complete listening experience, with each track blending into the next, resulting in a seamless expression of music.

Following 'Empty Streets', some instrumental interludes segue into a dimensional drift of beats, space synths, horns and electronics; there's a vocal reprise of 'Acting For Liberation', sung with gusto by Maggie Nichols, and then there's the album's momentous finale, 'Only In A Dream', which takes off as an ominous drone before a delicious bassline from the late Ken Kambayashi transforms it into an intense, soaring epic which finally descends onto another world.

In a career spanning several decades, Lascelle Gordon remains an omnivorous musical force, whether as DJ, collaborator or radio broadcaster. As amply demonstrated on Can You See What I'm Trying to Say, he refuses to rest on his laurels and continues to impress with music that is as rich, vital and contemporary as anything he's done before, covering an incredible amount of musical ground in the process.

With a hybrid jazz based on African grooves, Ethio-oriental melodies and psychedelic dub this Belgian five-piece creates an atmosphere where ancient and modern sounds fuse into a powerful, hypnotic and groovy sensation.

Receiving critical acclaim for their second album 'Artifacts' (2017), the Belgian quintet are pleased to announce the release of their much-anticipated third album entitled 'Future Flora', released 12th April via Sdban Ultra on vinyl / cd / digital.

Piloted by saxophonist/flutist/composer Nathan Daems (Ragini Trio, Dijf Sanders, Echoes of Zoo), the input of notorious musicians, drummer Simon Segers (MDC III, De Beren Gieren, Stadt), cornet player Jon Birdsong (dEUS, Beck, Calexico), keyboardist Wouter Haest (Voodoo Boogie) and bassist Filip Vandebril (Lady Linn, The Valerie Solanas) leads to the specific universe that only Black Flower is able to create.

Where debut album 'Abyssinia Afterlife' (2014) and 'Artifacts' (2017) bathed in an atmosphere of psychedelics, mythical figures, ancient sounds and modern cultures, new album 'Future Flora' refers to the power of plants and their importance for the future.

"'Future Flora' is a metaphor for the importance of feeding and watering powerful and revolutionary ideas and initiatives that can save our world. You can compare it with plants that fight between the paving stones of the city for their future. These "urban warriors" need water to survive and grow. Their future and ours depends entirely on how we look at the plant world", says Daems.

Black Flower's musical cross-pollination of sounds and rhythms remain on 'Future Flora', but there is still room for a more Western touch with Romanian and Maloya (Réunion) influences. Daems developed his own arrangements where Western, Oriental and Ethiopian scales and chords are fused together to create a real mix of traditional instrumentation and modern electrical vibrations.

The strong underlying groove is omnipresent, but the room for psychedelics, folklore and experimentation grows. Songs like new single 'Hora de Aksum' combine modern western rhythms with doses of Balkan eccentricities while 'Future Flora' takes you on a psyche-delicious 21th century Ethio-dub-jazz trip with echoes of Mulatu Astatke and Fela Kuti.

"The general feeling that dominates is that of strength and perseverance. The feeling that we have to fight for our future and that we have to do it now! The whole album is interspersed with this atmosphere and sounds swirling, haunting and ecstatic. For those who once saw Black Flower live at work, this energy will be extremely recognizable", he adds.

Dark-Side Electro Conjurations- and Gnashing EBM from Medellin, Colombia, Seething with Raw-Punk Energy & Foamy Blood around the Mouth. No nonsense Body Music!

**LP FORMAT IS VERY LIMITED - PLEASE BE AWARE THAT UNFORTUNATELY THERE MAY BE CUTS TO ORDERS**

For Los Angeles' The Black Queen, the depths of isolation and loss have always functioned as a gateway to being born anew. Much has transpired since the band released their cold, cutting debut album Fever Daydream (a record that Revolver described as 'a haunting exploration of the darker side of pop music'). But throughout it all, the trio of Greg Puciato (former frontman of the now-defunct The Dillinger Escape Plan), Joshua Eustis (of Telefon Tel Aviv, Puscifer, and Nine Inch Nails), and Steven Alexander (a tech member for Nine Inch Nails, Ke$ha, and A Perfect Circle) have emerged as triumphant and intense as ever, documenting their journey via the synth-streaked industrial anthems of their sophomore release, Infinite Games.Formed in 2011 after a chance meeting between Puciato and Eustis backstage at a Dillinger show in which they both realized they were huge fansof each other's work, The Black Queen became a labor of love for its members to explore sounds and emotions that they couldn't quite fit into their full-time projects. Injecting a pained, twilit edge into slick new-wave tracks as fit for the dance floor as they are for some imagined dystopian skyline, the trio have managed to channel their scattered, eclectic influences into a surprisingly cohesive vision. 'We've got a pretty weird cross section,' Puciato says of the band's musical chemistry. 'We can go out for food and listen to Power Trip on the way there, then Baltimore club music on the way back, and then talk about how killer Maxwell's Embrya album was, and then get sidetracked and talk about the Celeste video game soundtrack, then all have to be quiet so that we can grab a voice recording of some weird sounding radio interference. It's all over the place and unusually far reaching,and there's a lot of passion for discovery.'After releasing their 2016 debut album Fever Daydream to critical acclaim however, the trio underwent several major upheavals that cast the project in a completely new light. Puciato's main project The Dillinger Escape Plan disbanded. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden killed himself while Puciato was on tour with him. Eustis put out music under his beloved Telefon Tel Aviv monikerfor the first time since his former bandmate Charles Cooper died in 2009. Thetrio's storage space was robbed. Puciato suffered a relapse into crippling anxiety and paranoia. Once again, in the face of tragedy, The Black Queen had to rebuild everything from the ground up.The first step was acquiring a new studio space, which immensely helped the band get back into the rhythm of freely collaborating with one another, and experimenting with sounds for as long (and as loud) as they wanted. The resulting album, Infinite Games, marks a massive leap forward for The Black Queen. Not only are the band's icy R&B instincts more sharply pronounced; they've also rendered their morbid electronics in more lush detail than ever before, filling out the corners of their songs with chilling ambient passages
that create a wide-screen backdrop for Puciato's eerie, tortured vocals. 'I think this album is actually hookier, but more insidious in that it reveals itself over time,' Puciato says about Infinite Games. His choice of words says something about the album's creeping, pitch-black approach to pop music.With this release, the group have also announced a new undertaking in the form of their new label, Federal Prisoner. Resisting the more marketing-centricapproach that feels standard at this point for the record label game, the goal of Federal Prisoner is to provide an outlet for projects that emerge naturally from The Black Queen's own creative endeavors and collaborations with otherartists. In a way, Federal Prisoner solidifies TBQ's commitment to creating music on their own terms, following the same organic sense of inspiration that led them to forming in the first place. As Puciato puts it, 'It's just an expression of passion and individualism in a way that opens more doors for us to create and to own what we create with minimal compromise. It's as much an act of refusal as it is a statement of intent.'Infinite Games, the second album from experimental Los Angeles synth-pop trio The Black Queen, comes out on September 28th

Freshly Re-pressed

Gigantic producer/DJ from Scotland, Creep Woland, lands back on the Astral Black heli-pad with his 'Chamberlain' EP. Four blistering breaks-led, club ready, jungle tracks intended as an ode to the rolling bass and rainy days that raised him. Picking up near enough where his Close Reading debut left off, Chamberlain sees a more refined and honed execution of the hard hitting electronica Woland has become known for.

Informed by the experience of playing to dance-floors, as well as educational journeys down to London for radio sets, these new tracks are fine tuned and bass heavy - perfect for existential club experiences or the driving of sports vehicles. The subdued intrigue of EP opener 'Imposter Syndrome' sets the mystical and reflective tone of the record, while down the line junglist anthems 'Medieval Draw' and '0800-Falkirk Triangle' call for slow motion gun finger. Written at a time of personal hardship and mastery of oneself, the hopeful promise of closer 'Lord Chamberlain' acts as a sonic representation of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel of this particular time in Woland's life.

Recently, Chamberlain EP's 'Imposter Syndrome' has been receiving early radio support from Rinse FM's Jossy Mitsu & Impey on NTS, whilst his debut release Close Reading received radio support from the likes of Josey Rebelle (in her award-winning Essential Mix), Om-Unit and JD. Reid as well as critical acclaim from FACT, CLASH & Hyponik. In addition to its various accolades, Close Reading also lead to Woland being handpicked by Lanark Artefax as the opening act for his 'Enter The Gateway' performance, and has since performed alongside the likes of Om-Unit, Proc Fiskal, DJ Storm and more.

Current 909 – Something With Black In The Name Remixed 12″
limited edition of 500 copies

Ital Tek (a.k.a. Alan Myson) returns to Planet Mu with his sixth album ‘Outland‘. The album was written during a period of new beginnings following a move out of the city to a quieter space and the birth of his first child. During this time of self-imposed isolation Alan recorded a huge amount of source material and spent weeks and months sitting up at night with his newborn, listening back and making notes on how the new record should take form, focusing and developing ideas to shape this lean ten-track album.

Alan talks of the record being a collaboration between two parts of himself, something that definitely comes across as the album unfolds. Textures are something Alan excels at and on his last album, the largely beatless ‘Bodied’, it felt as if he was building a new sound-world. On ‘Outland’ he expands upon this. The album brings together the extremes of Alan's sound, contrasting roughened bass and beats with starker more detailed atmospheres and emotions.

The most beat-driven song here is ‘Deadhead’, with its gnarled bouncing bass, angular distorted melodies and cavernous textures. On tracks like ‘Bladed Terrain’ the contrasts are even more defined with buzzing drones and razor sharp drums plunging into a grainy fog, giving the track a dramatic 3D feel.

Then there are the stop-start pauses of ‘Leaving The Grid’, where the song evaporates into space before reemerging with shuddering rhythms and ghostly textures. Melodies crawl around these tracks as if they’re just waking up, as heard on the atmospheric ‘Angel In Ruin’.

The sleep-deprived fraying of the senses became Alan’s routine and one which he says gave him a renewed creative energy; half-asleep, working through the night, and then into the daytime super-focused but exhausted. Prone to audio hallucinations whilst writing the album, he aimed to capture these distortions in his perception of pitch and time, and you can hear these effects interpreted on tracks like ‘Endless’ and ‘Open Heart’ as melodies phase and slip out of time like an emotional Doppler effect.

This is also true of the soaring atonal synths at the peak of ‘Diamond Child’, which feel like the aural equivalent of eye floaters. These intuitive feelings and functions are a difficult thing to capture in sound, but Alan manages it beautifully and always makes the result feel warm and adventurous, heartfelt and epic.

The two inimitable long tracks from George Thompson AKA Black Merlin have reached Offen on 13.11.2019, and Offen said: let there be 013! Featuring words by Alexandra Grübler on „Textured Land“. Artwork by Patrick Keuthen, mastered by Enrico Mercaldi at Time Tools Mastering.

BLACK BONES are back to outdoor digging it seems, coming over all Balearic for this, their 7th outing !

Not a cm of precious vinyl wasted again as we get another indispensable 4-tracker deftly combining excavations from the Scottish highlands, a buried blue beat classic, and some more of their expertly unearthed idiosyncratic pop from the tiled discoteca's of yore...

Limited, hand-stamped vinyl 12"

For no particular reason, there hasn't been that many sister funk 7"
re-issues out on Tramp so far. Therefore we are especially proud to present this amazing double-sider. This is soul music at it's best.

Unreleased album from 1981, a collaborative project by David Behrman, Paul DeMarinis, Fern Friedman, Terri Hanlon and Anne Klingensmith recorded at Mills College in 1981.

Previously known only to cognoscenti through an obscure self-released three-track 7”, this is the first publication of the complete album, an outrageous confection that mixes art-song and theatrical monologue with live electronics. Starting life as a performance art piece described by the artists as ‘Western Performance Noir’, the record centres on a series of texts written by Friedman and Hanlon in which female narrators comically embody a series of iconic roles (The Recording Artist, The Former Movie Star, and The Rancher). Other lyrical themes include recurring references to the notorious cannibal pioneers, the Donner Party, an ironic take on Japanophilia, and the luscious “Archetypal Unitized Seminar,” a satirical poke at self-help culture, whose lyrics are rendered in Indian raga style to the accompaniment of electronic glissandi and toy noisemakers. Delivered by Friedman, Hanlon, Klingensmith and special guest Maggi Payne in forms ranging from spoken monologue to Country & Western waltz, the texts are accompanied by instrumental and electronic contributions by Behrman and DeMarinis. Musically, She’s More Wild is truly unique, demonstrating these two pioneers of live-electronic performance adapting their signature processes to something approaching a ‘pop’ format: we hear the gliding, frequency-sensitive electronics familiar from Behrman’s classic On the Other Ocean and the mutant hacked Speak n’ Spell heard on DeMarinis’ Songs Without Throats propelled by drum machines and twisted into song forms. Perhaps comparable only to the David Rosenboom and Jacqueline Humbert’s contemporaneous Daytime Viewing in its interweaving of performance art tactics, high-tech electronics and pop sensibilities, She’s More Wild is an essential document, both immediately gratifying and ultimately thought provoking.