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 finalised in 2014. It’s a major work in Ranta’s oeuvre (his first solo release in almost 25 years), highly personal and spiritual. A musical cosmogony in 4 cycles based on different levels of ancient asian spiritual principles.
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…
