Alpha State NYC

10/11/2025

After a sizable gap, 4x new Creel Pone titles are up on the site (full update via email in the morning; subscribe via the site if you’re not already on the list!)

07/10/2025

Pones’afoot

07/10/2025

Pones’ Afoot …

17/07/2025

The July Creel Pone batch is now live:

https://alphastate.nyc/collections/all?filter.p.tag=NEW&sort_by=title-descending

09/06/2025

Simon Reynolds goes long-form on Creel Pone:

"a Simon Reynolds level culture blog" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"my brain thinks bloglike"

28/05/2025

TONIGHT from 6PM-8PM; tune in to hear & I discuss the dozen-odd recent titles in the Creel Pone program (celebrating its 20th Anniversary this month!)

https://radio.montezpress.com/

27/05/2025

Finally; very glad to finally push this one up onto the site! The 40th of the “Proto Creel Pone” (P.C.P.; amazing to think that, only a few years ago the idea of going back & making new replica-editions of all of these was but a glimmer, and now we’re already this far along!) titles assembled ca. 2003, here fleshed out considerably to include the entirety of the dovetailed vinyl (and cassette!) -era output of Early Chilean Electro-Acoustic Composers Juan Amenábar & Jose Vicente Asuar.

Collecting the “Música Electrónica” (Astral, 1968), “El Computador Virtuoso: Música Hecha Con Computador Y Sintetizador Electrónico” (IRT, 1973), “Amacatá - Electromúsica Para Este Fin De Siglo” (Asfona, 1974), “Música Electrónica” (Philips, 1975), & “Así Habló El Computador” (Private, 1979) LPs alongside the “Música Electroacústica” (SRT, 1989) tape, this catch-all edition covers every last bit of either Composer’s music as issued contemporaneously in wonderful detail across four discs, ranging from deft, expansive Musique Concrète master-works to lighter fare (the “Computador” & “Así Habló” sets are closer to Moogsploitation -styled rundowns; wonderful in their own peculiar ways).

27/05/2025

Long in the works (apologies Larry!) double-disc set covering three impeccable Library LPs issued between 1974 & 1976 on Montparnasse & Mondiophone by the storied French bandleader & Composer Camille Sauvage, presaged w/ bonus materials as issued by Music De Wolfe (on 78RPM 10” & LP) in 1961 & 1973, respectively.

Credited to Celebrity Symphony Orchestra, the original 1961 “Musique Concrete And Electronique” issue covers four short pieces for Ondes Martenot (Sauvage was an early proponent of the instrument) & ensemble, acting a more abstract & impressionistic (the writing takes many pages from the Debussy/Ravel playbook) foil to Jean-Jacques Perrey’s contemporanous “Mr. Ondioline” outings. The first disc continues with “Fantasmagories” ( 33, 1974; although heard here in its, to my ears, slightly better, later pressing on Zéro International Records) & it’s here that things get really interesting; a general sense of malaise creeps in (surely this is where J.P. Massiera / Horrific Child cribbed many ideas) spurred on by pointillist concert percussion and pitchless electronics that lands somewhere between the electronically-tinged free improv of Morris Pert & the more outré end of the Italian “Giallo” film-score miasma (Morricone / Il Gruppo for sure). At the tail-end of the disc, we get the (same) two “Musique Concrete And Electronique” pieces (slightly reconfigured) as issued on the “Creeps” comp ( /LP 3269, 1973) followed by the two short Ivor Slaney pieces (for completion’s sake) from 2687.*

The second disc kicks off w/ 1975’s “Delirium Tremens” ( 28; subtitled “Angoisse Et Mystère, or “Anguish & Mystery”) & it’s here that the production (by the imprint’s Louis Delacour, and featuring Georges “Nino Nardini” Teperino & Roger Roger throughout) ramps things up considerably, with a fairly consistent layer of keening synths & “Effets Spéciaux” dotting the largely improvised “Nightmare-Space-Jazz” constructs…

27/05/2025

Overjoyed to (finally!) see this one in the “Vetoes” program (one of my own nominations for a change; the cabal had feelings about this one) covering the complete output of the French recording act Art + Technique across 4 releases (two LPs: “Clima-X”; AT-01, 1981 & the incredible “Diabolus In Mecanica”; AT-03, 1982 & two EPs: “Putsch In Memoriam”; AT-02, 1981 & “Alea Jacta Est”; AT-04, 1983-84) by Bernard Filipetti’s revolving-cast ensemble, active for but a brief window in the early 80s.

Often fêted as “Minimal-Synth” classics, I’ve long found these records as a clear continuum from the exact sort of “One Man Against The World (With Synths)” energies found on such canonic C.P. fodder as Nik Pascal’s Narco run ([CP 079.5-080-081 CD]), “Conrad & Sohn” ([CP 005 CD]; particularly the “Let’s Run the Vocals through the Synth” energy, the similarities are uncanny!) & the like. There’s only the faintest trace(s) of “Songs” (lyrics are largely mumbled and/or mono-toned in a mix of French & Invented tongues) which leaves the lingering Drum Machine drift & clearcut Electronic Malaise their due space to traverse the planes.

Two hours of impeccable, inscrutable Electronic Music; this one comes as two discs housed inside the six-panel layout, replete with a facsimile of the Hi-Tec vellum insert found in copies of “Alea!” Vor fans of the Bernard Bonnier ([CP 049 CD]), Philippe Doray ([CP 215 CD]), & Fizzé/Dizzi ([CP 199.16 CD)] titles!

27/05/2025

In something of a surprise gesture (SURPRISE!) there is now an additional double-disc set of Sides focusing on isolated pieces for Tape & Live-Electronics (essentially, the original candidate for the third disc of Creelpolation-2, fleshed out considerably!) including works by Frank Allison Coe, Tony Schwartz, Gerry Olds Trio (two pieces recorded w/ The San Francisco Tape Music Center), Henk Badings, Max Schubel, Diether de la Motte, Joseph Tal, Zbyněk Vostřák, and finally Daniel Godfrey (incredibly eye-opening, proto-Vaporwave piece from 1976!).

[DEEP BREATH] The Creelpolation-2 is now COMPLETE! Thanks for everyone’s patience over the past decade as the pieces all fell into place; couldn’t be happier with how this turned out!