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Participating Labels

Albany Records

Albany Records was established in 1987 by Peter Kermani, a former chairman of the American Symphony Orchestra and board member of the American Composers Orchestra. The label’s mission has been to make available underrepresented works by American composers such as Morton Gould, Peter Mennin, David Diamond, and Eric Ewazen. With over 800 discs represented in DRAM alone, Albany provides a healthy cross-section of the twentieth century American composer of opera, orchestral and chamber music, also branching out to include many works from the classical and romantic canons by composers such as Handel, Rossini, and Schubert. 

Suggested Listening

David Maslanka: Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble

Eric Ewazen: Rhapsody for Bass Trombone and String Orchestra

David Diamond: String Quartet No. 3

Artifact Recordings

Artifact Records is part of the non-profit, artist run organization, Ubu, which supports experimental music and performance originating from the San Francisco Bay Area.  Artifact’s catalog represents composers and performers that “thrive in the cracks between the commercial, academic and classical music establishments”, and is predominantly electronic in nature.  Representative composers and performers include Mark Trayle, John Bischoff, Tim Perkis and Larry Polansky.  

Suggested Listening

James Tenney: Fabric for Che

Tim Perkis: Clavitron 6000

John Bischoff: Dovetail

Cedille Records

Cedille Records was founded in 1989 by James Ginsburg, then a 23 year old law student, as a project of the Chicago Classical Recording Foundation. Its mission was to promote music being made by Chicago’s most talented musicians and composers. Composers predominantly featured include Easley Blackwood, James Ferris and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. Often the music of these composers and many others is performed by windy city musicians such as Rachel Barton Pine, Jennifer Koh, Alex Klein, Patrice Michaels, Eighth Blackbird and the Pacifica Quartet. The repertoire found on Cedille is not purely Chicagocentric though. A significant portion of their catalog also features showcase performances of the classic masterworks of Europe.

Suggested Listening

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: Sinfonietta No.1 for Strings

Easley Blackwood: Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media, Op. 28

J.S. Bach: Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001

Cold Blue Music

Cold Blue Music features Southern Californian minimalist and post-minimalist composers such as James Tenney, Chas Smith, Harold Budd, Ingram Marshall and Peter Garland. Cold Blue started in the early 1980s as a vinyl only label, releasing short works by electronic and electroacoustic composers on a series of 10” and 12” EPs and LPs.  Despite a 15-year hiatus, the label still maintains a commitment to the minimalist aesthetic with newer releases by Charlemagne Palestine and John Luther Adams and short CD single releases of works by West Coast composers.

Suggested Listening

Michael Jon Fink: Piano Solo

Chas Smith: Gate 5

John Luther Adams: The Farthest Place

CRI, Inc.

CRI (Composers Recordings, Inc.) was founded in 1954 by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore and Oliver Daniel. Moore was a well-established American composer, Luening was just beginning his work with Vladimir Ussachevsky, with whom he would help found the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1958, and Daniel was a promoter for such American musical luminaries as Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison. CRI was dedicated to the promotion of new music by American composers, releasing over 600 recordings on LP, cassette and CD over its 49 year history, CRI includes works by Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Harry Partch, Ned Rorem, Roger Sessions and Charles Wuorinen, to name just a few. In 2003, CRI was forced to go out of business due to financial pressures. Ownership of the CRI catalogue was assumed by New World Records in 2006, since which time New World has worked to maintain the availability of many CRI titles that had gone out of print or never before been digitized.

Suggested Listening

Otto Luening: Trio for Three Flutists

John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano Sonata I

George Crumb: Ancient Voices of Children: El niño busca su voz

Deep Listening

Curated by experimental composer/theorist/improvising performer Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening Recordings is committed to “music and sound works that transcend cultural boundaries and stretch the mind.” Primarily an outlet for the Deep Listening Institute and Oliveros’ own work, the recordings focus on music involved with Deep Listening, a philosophy and practice developed by Pauline Oliveros that, “distinguishes the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the voluntary, selective nature of listening. The result of the practice cultivates appreciation of sounds on a heightened level, expanding the potential for connection and interaction with one’s environment, technology and performing with others in music and related arts.” The Deep Listening catalog has a concentration on electronic music, drone and free improvisation.

Suggested Listening

Pauline Oliveros: Timeless Pulse 2

Scott Smallwood: Desert Winds: Six Windblown Pieces: Debris

Joe McPhee: Unquenchable Fire: Movement 3

Frog Peak Music

Frog Peak is an artist run organization that specializes in publishing the writings, scores and recordings of their member artists. The organization attempts to provide an arena for their composers to become publishers along the lines of Kenneth Gaburo’s idea of “publishing as an eco-system.” Besides Gaburo’s writings (Lingua Press), Anthony Braxton’s tri-axium writings and composition notebooks and the word works of Australian Chris Mann, the Frog Peak label features the works of such underappreciated experimental composers as Larry Polansky, Anne LaBerge, David Rosenboom, Daniel Goode and David Mahler.

Suggested Listening

Larry Polansky: Chris Morphs: 1

Daniel Goode: Mockingbird

Anne LaBerge: [sic]sauce (for amplified flute and HMSL-driven computer)

Innova Recordings

Originally founded in 1982 as an outlet for winners of the McKnight Fellowship offered by its parent organization, the non-profit American Composers Foundation, Innova Recordings has since expanded to include jazz, world and experimental music. In 1994, Innova introduced the Recording Assistance Program, giving less established artists access to a broader public by allowing them to release their work. Known primarily for their releases of seminal Henry Brant and Harry Partch works, Innova’s catalog is incredibly eclectic, with early releases by such disparate figures as Anthony Braxton, Libby Larsen and David Dunn.

Suggested Listening

Harry Partch: By the Rivers of Babylon

Anthony Braxton and Taylor Ho Bynum: All Roads Lead to Middletown

David Dunn: Mimus Polygottos

Lovely Music

Lovely Music was founded by Mimi Johnson in 1978. Originally only releasing early operas by Johnson’s husband, Robert Ashley, Lovely has become one of the longest active labels exclusively for new and experimental composition. Besides Ashley, Lovely has released multiple recordings by other such leading American experimentalists as Alvin Lucier, “Blue” Gene Tyranny, Eliane Radigue, David Tudor and Annea Lockwood. From Ashley’s dramatic reworking of the operatic form to Lucier’s groundbreaking work with acoustic space, Lovely has consistently been at the forefront of post minimalist composition.

Suggested Listening

Alvin Lucier: Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators

Robert Ashley: Automatic Writing

David Tudor: Phonemes

Mode Records

Mode Records is a New York based label primarily concerned with composed music from latter part of the 20th century to the present day. Especially notable are their projects to release the complete recorded works of John Cage, Morton Feldman, Iannis Xenakis, Giacinto Scelsi and Christian Wolff. Far from just concentrating on the 1950s New York and Darmstadt schools, Mode has also already released significant recordings from a diverse group of composers such as John Luther Adams, George Cacioppo, Jason Eckardt, Anne LeBaron, Phill Niblock, Lou Harrison and Gerard Pape.

Suggested Listening

Jason Eckardt: Tangled Loops

John Cage: Four: part one

Iannis Xenakis: Persephassa

Mutable Music

Mutable Music was founded by Thomas Buckner, a new music baritone and also the founder of the legendary 1750 Arch Records. Concentrating primarily on new chamber and electronic compositions and free improvisation, Mutable has released a large amount of work featuring Buckner, Roscoe Mitchell, Earl Howard and Tom Hamilton. Mutable’s catalog features everything from solo documents and chamber works by AACM members Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams and Jerome Cooper to electronic experimentalism by Hamilton and Noah Creshevsky.

Suggested Listening

SPACE (Thomas Buckner, Roscoe Mitchell, Gerald Oshita): New Music for Woodwinds and Voice: Marche

Muhal Richard Abrams: Duet for Violin and Piano

Noah Creshevsky: Vol-au-vent

New World Records

New World Records (incorporated in 1975 as Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc.) is dedicated to the documentation of all styles of American music, many of which have been ignored by the commercial recording companies.  An essential resource for students, scholars, librarians, teachers and the general public, New World's catalogue currently includes over 400 CDs and embodies the widest spectrum of American music -- from Native American to jazz, 19th century classical to electronic, opera, musical theater, folk and beyond.  New World Records is a non-profit organization.

Open Space

Open Space Recordings documents the musical offerings of Open Space Publications and the Open Space Magazine, a forum for artists, writers and composers to publish experimental work. The recordings concentrate heavily on the works of J.K. Randall and Benjamin Boretz and consist mostly of experimental works utilizing electronics or electroacoustic techniques. Most works are performed by the composers, but such new music stalwarts as Harvey Sollberger, Martin Goldray and Margaret Kampmeier make appearances as well.

Suggested Listening

J.K. Randall: Shouldn’t We Talk I

Benjamin Boretz: Black/Noise I

Steven Mackey: A Matter of Life and Death

Pogus Productions

Pogus productions is the brainchild of Al Margolis, a.k.a. If, Bwana and former founder of the Sound of Pigs cassette label. Releases concentrate on electronic, electroacoustic and experimental music that is “uncompromising, non-commercial and definitely not for everyone (unfortunately).” Besides being the primary outlet for If, Bwana’s recordings, Pogus has released important works by Annea Lockwood, David Dunn, David Rosenboom, Kenneth Gaburo and Pauline Oliveros ranging from modern chamber music to live electronics to tape collage pieces.

Suggested Listening

If, Bwana: Walking Der Dog

Kenneth Gaburo: Fat Millie’s Lament

Annea Lockwood: Thousand Year Dreaming: Breathing and Dreaming

XI Records

XI Records was founded by experimental composer Phill Niblock for the promotion of his work and the work of other artists working specifically with sound and acoustics.  XI’s releases tend toward drone and ambient elements. Much of the work of Niblock, Ellen Fullman, Tom Johnson and Eliane Radigue found on the label is more concerned with the micro-elements present in two or more tones interacting than in a more traditional contrapuntal setting. XI also represents many modern New York post-minimalist composers such as Alan Licht, Michael Schumacher, Peter Zummo and David Watson (Australian living in New York).

Suggested Listening

Phill Niblock: SLS

Ellen Fullman: Body Music

Michael Schumacher: Room Pieces: Still