Released the week of March 26th, 2001

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Magic Carpathians are centered around the duo of Anna Nacher and Marek Styczynski, founding members of the now defuct Polish ethno-folk group Atman. Following the disbanding of Atman, Anna and Marek continue to create forest music, although the Magic Carpathians benefit from an infusion of traditional rock instruments and electronics, and a host of guests.

Recorded and mixed at the Krakow Radio Station Recording Studio by Aleksander Wilk between May and November 2000, Ethnocore 2: Nytú was composed and arranged by Anna and Marek, with Tomasz Radziuk (ex-Atman), Jan Kubek, Ramunas Jaras, and Wadada and Marek Miczyk (both of the European festival group Suns of Arqa). Also figuring into the composition are field recordings made by Anna and Marek during their travels to India and Nepal in autumn 1999.

Traces of nytú - a mythical, archaic technique of vocalization given in the language of Slavonic rituals, nowadays almost completely lost and forgotten - can be found in the remnants of ancient Carpathian culture and some archaic pagan rituals which have been stored within the folk religious tradition among the Carpathian villagers. The important common tradition of singing across Eurasia makes similar the vocal technique from Mongolia, the Altai region, Central Asia, Ukraine and the Balkan region. Anna has been working on reviving the tradition of nytœ through individual research and "Reclaim the Voice" workshops, run for women exclusively (which have garnered enough attention in Poland that Cosmopolitan published a brief article on Anna and the voice workshops).

Anna Nacher Voice, dulcimer, mini-harmonium, tscheng arco, sitar, percussion
Marek Styczynski Shepherd's woodwind instruments and Slovakian fujara, didjeridu, X oboe, French horn, Jew's harp, chimitra, voice.
Tomasz Radziuk Bass guitar (acoustic fretless and Kramer's bass guitars)
Jan Kubek Tabla, djembe, doof, percussion Ramunas Jaras - Minimoog, clarinet
Wadada Sitar
Marek Miczyk Violin

• U.S. tour - shows on both coasts in March, including an appeareance at SxSW
  
• Features ex-members of Atman, one of Drunken Fish's most-downloaded artists
  
• Previous Atman releases on Drunken Fish have gained cult status
  
• Members of Suns of Arqa guest on sitar and violin
  
• Their third album, the first available on a U.S. label

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  India Mai
  Ram Nam Satya He
  Uluru
  Transcarpathians
  Global Dharma
  The Marpha Beat
  Nytœ
  Radical Acoustic
  Atropa Belladonna Cries
  Denega
  India Mata

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CHARLES K. NOYES
Full Stop
ECSTATIC PEACE E20) CD

Released the week of March 12th, 2001

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Known to many as a percussionist who has associated with Henry Kaiser, Bill Laswell, Fred Frith, Bob Ostertag, Elliot Sharp, Bobby Previte and numerous other icons from the downtown scene, NYC-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Charles K. Noyes has handed in a stunning slate of breathtaking new sounds (in a gorgeous full-color package) culled from the past decade's work. You probably recognize his name from memorable contributions to numerous compilation albums - State of the Union (reissued by Atavistic, 1996) and Island of Sanity: New Music From New York City (No Man's Land, 1987), for example - that form the cornerstone of any respectable avant garde music library.

In the artist's own words, Full Stop reflects some of the areas I have been both actively and indirectly exploring for the past 10 years. I conceived each piece with both a particular acoustical concept as well as an emotional center associated with it: all are concerned with my ongoing struggle against time. As such they may be best approached as stills from a film as opposed to strict compositions.

• Beautiful music that all college kids can, should, and shall trip out to
  
• Released by Thurston Moore's prestigious label
  
• The first recording released under the artist's name after several decades as an indispensable sideman
  
• For fans of any moody dissonance between AMM and Penderecki

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  The Call
  (From) Mud Into Animals
  Mystery = Misery
  The Urbanchich Method
  John Cage in Heaven
  In Memoriam Kathy Acker
  White Noyes
  A Separate Reality
  Hex Code
  Mizo No Oto
  The System at War with Itself
  Murder / Massage

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MARGARET DEWYS
I Oh
(ECSTATIC PEACE E86C) CD

Released the week of March 12th, 2001

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Margaret De Wys is a composer living and teaching in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Her music has been premiered and performed in arts festivals and concert halls around the world. She has collaborated with artists Joan Jonas, Charlie Ahearn, Glenn Branca, Maryanne Amacher, Rudolf Grey, and Kiki Smith. With Branca she was a founding member of the legendary NYC no-wave group Theoretical Girls. Her collaboration with Smith, "Daughter," is the first sound piece purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The cover art is by artist/photographer/musician Barbara Ess (a member of late '70s no-wave girl/toy trio Y PANTS) and liner notes by reknowned language poet George Quasha.

This composition developed as a music-centered response to my personal work with 'liminal states of consciousness' that arose in a non-art context generally characterized as healing. Based on casual recordings of my own voice that I made during actual sessions, my soundtrack focuses on sequences of highly stimulated vocalization ('excited', 'ecstatic', etc.), particularly those that seem to embody a unique and intense experience of knowing, something like a direct encounter with vitality. The effects: sound, vision and emotion in the rawest possible state. Truth shot through me like a whistle."

-Margaret De Wys
• Pivotal member of late '70s no wavers Theoretical Girls
  
• Cover art by Barbara Ess, liner notes by George Quasha
  
• Heavyweight within the museum sound-art scene breaks ranks and infiltrates the commodity fetish playground known as wholesale distribution of mass produced objects
  
• Goodbye, 20th Century!

  30-second RealAudio excerpt:

  I Oh

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JESS HOLZWORTH and JUTTA KOETHER
The Outer Sound Project
(ECSTATIC PEACE E86B) CD

Released the week of March 12th, 2001

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40 minutes of found, encountered, and created music by NYC-based artists JESS HOLZWORTH & JUTTA KOETHER, drifting with handheld tape recorders through the streets of The Big Apple from May to November 1999. The sounds they collected were later processed and edited, becoming sensual, variable tools towards a personal and thoughtful art/action and transcending themselves into the miasma of the beauty of daily life.

We as artists know and feel the true identity of sound from existentialism to our immediate surroundings. For us this was a project of triumphant research, exploring movement, sound, and emotion. Movement of our universe, the sound of this movement and the effects of them together. Culture of sound experienced in everyday life, while cruisin' and walking, a futile affair. A sonic field of power, a materialist activity, an instinctual pulsation from which aural pictures of social relations, far and close, emerge. Reaction, interactions, affections of beings and objects. Something that keeps us alive, picked up while walking, creating our songlines, seeking spiritual meaning in material space. Our dance and music, based on a temporary loss of self in chosen surroundings of sound. Those are our songs, ambivalently involved, detached, yet dialogical, interacting with what we found. Our seekers' trips through streets, spots, stores, a kitchen. We are creating some ultimate reality. Everywhere, there is life full of incident. We feel one is one's life. You can hear us working on it. Time's embroidery of blood, music, laces, laughter... and here we go: "walkin' on, leather, leather, leather... wawawa... walkin' on...

-Jess Holzworth & Jutta Koether
• Released by Thurtson Moore's prestigious label
  
• Avant field recordings of New York City - you know Smithsonian Folkways is kicking themselves over this
  
• A true Sonic life of aureatory experience

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  [track 1]
  [track 2]
  [track 3]
  [track 4]
  [track 5]
  [track 6]
  [track 7]
  [track 8]
  [track 9]
  [track 10]
  [track 11]
  [track 12]

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