CHIU, TOM - The Live One

Xi

CHIU, TOM - The Live One

"XI Records announce the release of Tom Chiu's new double-CD, The Live One, a diverse and thoroughly engrossing album that showcases the multiple facets of Chiu's visions. Chiu is a polymath who is as comfortable with lyricism and the beauty of tonality as he is with process-based works and challenging conventions of composition. Chiu specializes in creating spatial experiences and altered states of mind with his music, with a singular, questing path. On the album opener, "Into The Forest", melancholic themes build and become wrapped in echoes that reverberate like a skipping stone casting ripples in a pond. Dry and delicate melodies emerge that float spatially. The piece is an assemblage of over 60 musical fragments composed by Chiu, which coalesce seamlessly into a homogeneous whole. "BABIP", a solo performance, begins with Chiu's pizzicato which evokes the spirit of gamelan, and builds through increasingly intense gestures, woozy double stops and extended techniques until he starts transforming the sound of his instrument with live effects. The functionally-titled "Duo Improvisation 16741" sees Chiu pairing with sound artist and composer Michael Schumacher. Together, they create a hypnotically jarring sonic whirling dervish. Chiu's live effects invoke undertones of Tuvan throat singing as glissandos layer with insistent bell tones. The insistent piece thrillingly morphs into electronic pulses and sirens, journeying deeply into sonic abstraction. The track "Birave Trifecta" sees Chiu performing with Dan Joseph on hammer dulcimer and Jason Cady on modular synthesizer under the moniker JCC Trio. The trio's piece begins as almost a folk stomp, with echoes of minimalism in its insistence. It builds to euphoric intensity with Chiu's bravura playing, sawing at his instrument with fierce abandon. "RETROCON" is a work performed by FLUX Quartet. The epic piece unfolds like a mini symphony, with the quartet creating a stunningly rich sonic world. The layers of the string quartet swell and undulate like a small boat in the middle of the ocean negotiating the waves of an impending storm, then wail plaintively before returning with clustered hives of notes. A startling and insistent monolithic pulsing then seems to summon dark deities before receding with a delicate beauty. The final piece on the album, "deKonstruct", is an improvisation which quotes from existing materials, colliding Bach and Chiu. Chiu uses a looping pedal to create a bed for his hyper-kinetic performance which mutates through his arsenal of sonic manipulation, to mesmerizing effect. (from the liner notes by JG Thirlwell)" - Xi Records.
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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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