BLUME Vinyl & CDs

Review: Brazilian pianist Jocy De Oliveira was so much more than a musician. Born in 1936, the self-made artist and sound designer was an early experimenter in her homeland, and was instrumental in giving way to much of the later wave of creativity and freedom that went into Brazil's musical dynasty. Estorias For Voice, Acoustic & Electronics Instruments first came out in 1981 and, while its rough edges and sudden bursts of oddity where a marvel back then, they haven't exactly become any less impactful as time went on. In fact, the looseness with which these 'stories' are weaved together is, and always will be, a source of wonder and mystery, from our end. Mixed with tactical bursts of electronics and curious vocal samples, these piano songs have done plenty for the rise of experimentation in music and, specifically, for the advent of electronic music.

Review: Valentina Magaletti has proven herself to be a drummer and percussionist with rare talent over the last two odd years. She pursues a nice kind of estate ritualism when she records and here the multi-faceted improviser is her in solo mode. It was recorded in one single continuous take in the empty Cafe Oto in London, during late October of 2020. She manages to interlace and weave together a stunning tapestry of polyrhythms and electronic interventions that make for a deeply involving, cathartic record across two whole-side pieces. There is always a sense of risk here, that the music might collapse at any more, and that is what keeps you so on edge throughout.

Review: Blume Records return to the forefront of the contemporary experimental canon with the first ever vinyl edition of (a study of) James Tenney's infamous Fluxus suite, Postal Pieces. The storied composer and music theorist was an alpine fixture of the modern music compositional world, with his various writings - both notated on the stave and prosaically penned in the journal - amounting to exquisitely impenetrable tracts on every isolable facet of music theory from harmonic perception to process music to sound synthesis to spectral music. Originally a set of 11 pieces but truncated to five here, drawing on a set of live recordings laid down in 2003, Postal Pieces is one of many of Tenney's works emphasising process over end result. Perhaps the emphasis on process was an attempt to treat the sufferances of "schizophonia", which had plagued musicologists since the 1930s as one of many fussed-over consequences of recorded music obscuring the original source of the sounds heard through an extended medium. The album's sonic pentagram - of long sequences resembling air-raid sirens, its basal textural swells and backroomed feedback loops - might sound doomy to the glib ear. Ultimately, though, this album could also be read as a simple formal exercise, one intended to divert Tenney's own aversion to writing letters (despite his wont to write music theory). Ironically enough, we're sure that, in the wake of this reissue and its hot demand, the postal system itself will thank Tenney for the boost in revenue.

Review: Marking its first decade of activity, Blume returns with the first ever vinyl reissue of the seminal New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, from 1977, the third and final instalment in a suite of releases that includes James Tenney's Postal Pieces and Ben Vida's Vocal Trio. Distinctly a standout compilation in the feminist avant-garde hall of fame, New Music For Electronic & Recorded Media compiles individual pieces from the likes of Johanna M. Beyer, Annea Lockwood, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Spiegel, Megan Roberts, Ruth Anderson, and Laurie Anderson. Centring on the Ptolemaic turn towards female inclusivity, amidst the Copernican metastases of aleatory and generative music in the 1970s, the various sonic effluvia here range from buzzing pulse wave gallops through abstracted Northeastern American fields (Spiegel's 'Appalachian Grove I') through to primal minimalist abreactions (Megan Roberts' 'I Could Sit Here All Day') and pitch-whacked, satirical, musical-saw-backed anti-performances (Anderson's 'New York Social Life').

Review: Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, Blume presents Ben Vida's Vocal Trio on cream vinyl. It is a groundbreaking album that merges systems-based synthesis with real-time vocal collaboration and exemplifies a significant leap forward for one of the US's most innovative artists. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu, Vocal Trio is both creatively visionary and remarkably beautiful and comes on limited vinyl with specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert featuring the visual score. It is surely set to be one of the most important contemporary records of 2024.