AZABU
Metaphon 013 – 2022
Release date: 25 November, 2022
CD and 8 page booklet in gatefold cardboard sleeve
Edition of 500 copies
Price: 15 euro : available through the La Scie Dorée webshop
Listen on Bandcamp
1-Azabu I (1971/2021) 43:46
2-Azabu II (1971/2021) 32:07
Even though only being fully terminated 50 years after its conception, ‘Azabu’ can be regarded as the starting point of Michael Ranta’s creative self-discovery. The recordings that form the base of ‘Azabu’ were mostly made in the Tokyo district with the same name (Azabu-Juban). Next to abstracted field recordings ‘Azabu’ is also pervaded by a rich variety of percussion, string and wind instruments, all played by Ranta himself. Subsequently Ranta edited, layered and processed the recordings at the NHK electronic music studio in Tokyo. Both pieces display a vast array of acoustic, electronic and concrete sound events meticulously sequenced to a complex fusion symbolizing the entire spectrum of earthly and heavenly sounds. Dynamic extremes evoke a restless flight through space, or through the depths of human subconsciousness, between dream and reality. Ultimately the music disappears, like a dot in the sky gradually fading into nothingness – an “ascension” that closes the loop in a ritual of life that can begin anew again at any time.
Michael Ranta: composition, performance, mixing (1971)
Stefan Deistler: final mixing and mastering (2021)
Painting: Wayne Jacob
Text: Egbert Hiller
Production: Timo van Luijk
Design: Meeuw
Thanks to Vincent de Roguin
TAIWAN YEARS
Metaphon 009 – 2020
Release date January 20, 2021
CD and 12 page booklet in gatefold cardboard sleeve
Edition of 500 copies
Price: 15 euro : available through the La Scie Dorée webshop
Listen on Bandcamp
Three previously unreleased works from the 1970’s recorded and mixed in Japan and Taiwan.
1-Kagaku Henka (1971) 18’40”
2-China Filch (1975) 27’06”
3-At Night (1978) 23’06”
More than any other of Ranta’s releases this album shows his multiple roots and ideas as a composer, percussionist and concrete/electronic musician, building a seamless bridge between Eastern and Western avantgarde. Ranta is one of those rare composers able to organically melt his wide artistic span into a singular but yet diverse universe morphing his rich vocabulary as a percussionist with the Oriental esoteric tradition, the psychedelic underground and the realm of electronic minimalism.
Michael Ranta: performance and mixing
Recording engineers: Shigeru Sato, Tsutomu Kojima
Mastered by EARLabs
Painting: Wayne Jacob
Production: Timo van Luijk
Design: Meeuw
Thanks to Philip Knight
DIE MAUER
Metaphon 008 – 2019
CD in 6 panel fold out sleeve
Edition of 500 copies
Release date: November 2019
Price: 13 euro : available through the La Scie Dorée webshop
11 track album of previously unreleased music for a ballet choreographed by Philippe Talard.
Composed, performed and recorded by Michael Ranta in 1988/1989.
Mixed by Michael Ranta and Stefan Deistler.
Mastered by Earlabs.
Program notes for the ballet by Karla Nieraad.
Translation by Christoph Heemann.
Production and artwork by Timo van Luijk.
Design by Meeuw.
1.Prélude 5’10”
2.Danse Générale 15’22”
3.Lost in the Dark 5’24”
4.Lamento 4’24”
5.Underground 5’17”
6.Absurd 11’45”
7.Confrontation 5’44”
8.The Wall is There 6’04”
9.Soloist over the Wall 3’36”
10.Bells in Space 5’27”
11.Apocalypse 7’20”
Prelude
Underground
Absurd
The Wall is There
Bells in Space
YUEN SHAN
Metaphon 006 – 2015
LP version: 2LP, gatefold sleeve with insert, 300 copies
Price: 32 euro : available through the La Scie Dorée webshop
CD version: CD, gatefold card sleeve with booklet, 500 copies
Price: 15 euro : available through the La Scie Dorée webshop
Listen
16 track composition for pre-recorded sounds and live percussion performed by Michael Ranta. (entirely different work from the Yuen Shan CD released in 2005). All material previously unreleased.
Yuen Shan (Round Mountain in Chinese) was conceived in 1972 and finalized in 2014. A musical cosmogony in four movements expressing different stages and cycles in life, The Ritual of Life. A major work in Ranta’s oeuvre.
1. Yin-Chu
2. Gu-Luan
3. I-Shr (2014)
4. Li-Huai
…All returns to the origin, to the silence, to the void.
This is the way of nature.
All things arise and disappear.
One observes their eternal recurrence…
