HENCEFORTH Records

HENCEFORTH Records is building its catalog slowly but surely. We want to submit music to the world that says something -- has a point of view. While we love virtuosity, we don't love it for its own sake. From the beginning of time, music has carried a message and we want to continue to carry that forward. Hence, the name, HENCEFORTH: from now on. While the music we find important may not always be soothing, we hope it is a conduit for candor. HENCEFORTH Records' quest is to bring to the attention of a contemporary listening audience the work of some of today's most vital artists whose vision crosses the boundaries and expands definitions of contemporary classical, improvised, electronic and experimental music.

Our first CD was SOS Live with Lisle Ellis, Marco Eneidi and Peter Valsamis. Second was Baggerboot with violinist Gunda Gottschalk and accordionist Ute Völker from Wuppertal, Germany (home of many of our favorites: Peter Brötzmann, Pina Bausch, and the late Peter Kowald), and bassist Peter Jacquemyn from Belgium. We heard their trio play at the Antwerp Festival in 2004 and realized that we wanted to hear them again. We released Gustavo Aguilar’s unsettled on an old sense of place in August, 2007. Minamo is is a duo recording of live performances by Carla Kihlstedt, violin and Satoko Fujii, piano, an example of powerful genre-bending music that we prefer. This was released October 20, 2007 an received a great review from Ben Ratliff of the NY Times. Lisle Ellis’s Sucker Punch Requiem: An homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat was released February 2008, also with many stellar reviews. True to the spirit of HENCEFORTH Records, Ellis’s creation, inspired by the life and work of one of the most important artists of the last century, brings together an astounding array of musicians: Lisle Ellis, bass, electronics, and sound design; Oliver Lake, saxophone; Susie Ibarra, percussion; George Lewis, trombone; Pamela Z, voice and electronics; Holly Hofmann, flute; and Mike Wofford, piano. Next was Cities and Eyes with Andrea Parkins and Jessica Constable. This CD is an extraordinary debut disc from The Skein, a duo project from internationally lauded improvising artists Andrea Parkins, electric accordion, effects, samples and live processing, synthesizers, piano, voice and Jessica Constable, voice, electronics. January 2010 we released Mike Olson’s “Incidental” a very imaginative way to compose. This piece was constructed from thousands of small musical fragments. The fragments were performed by seventeen live musicians, recorded, edited and then loaded into a software program where Olson constructed the actual musical composition. Many of the fragments were subjected to extensive signal processing and other manipulations during the compositional process. It’s a sound to behold. In May 2010 the release of "Dither". They are a New York based electric guitar quartet dedicated to an eclectic mix of experimental repertoire which spans composed music (5 composers on "Dither") improvisation, and electronic manipulation. Formed in 2007, the quartet has performed in the United States and abroad, presenting new commissions, original compositions, multimedia works, and large guitar ensemble pieces. With sounds ranging from clean pop textures to heavily processed noise, from tight rhythmic unity to cacophonous sound mass; all of Dither's music wholeheartedly embraces the beautiful, engulfing, and often gloriously loud sound of electric guitars. The quartet's members are Taylor Levine, David Linaburg, Joshua Lopes, and James Moore. This CD shows off their talent and creativity. Toca Loca, Gregory Oh, pianist from Toronto; Simon Docking, pianist from Halifax and Aiyun Huang, percussionist from Montreal, came to my attention when I heard them perform at the Sound Symposium in St. John’s Newfoundland some years ago. I knew the work of Aiyun Huang as she studied with percussion with Steve Schick at UCSD. I loved their music and am pleased they chose Henceforth to release their first contemporary classical CD, SHED. Elliott Sharp wrote the liner notes for Dither and likes what HENCEFORTH is about. He is a central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s and has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He sent us this story and I found it fascinating, hence, our 10th release: Binibon.