20 Sept 2023
The Durutti Column

Les Disques du Crépuscule presents CD and vinyl editions of Fidelity, the 1996 studio album by cult Manchester ensemble The Durutti Column.

Originally released by Crépuscule in April 1996, Fidelity featured 10 tracks written and performed by Vini Reilly, with occasional guest vocals by Eley Rudge. In addition to Vini’s trademark guitar stylings, the album showcases sleek electronic textures and programmed beats, including standout trracks Grace and Future Perfect (recently heard in acclaimed FX series The Bear).

This 2019 vinyl re-master features two bonus tracks: My Only Love was originally released in 1995 on a covermount CD with a specialist guitar magazine, while experimental piece The New Fidelity was issued on a Portuguese compilation album from 1992 called Hare, Hunter, Field.

The double disc vinyl edition is pressed in 180gm black vinyl. The cover artwork is by Crépuscule design director Benoit Hennebert, based on a portrait by Vini Reilly of filmmaker Carol Morley. The CD retains the original 1996 artwork..

For further details click here
22 May 2023
JOSEF K / It's Kinda Funny (Singles) / TWI 022 CD 
Josef K

Crepuscule presents It’s Kinda Funny, an expanded 20 track CD collection of classic singles by iconic Scottish post-punk guitar group Josef K issued between 1979 and 1982, together with John Peel session tracks.

As well as the three legendary 45s on Postcard Records (Radio Drill Time, It’s Kinda Funny and Chance Meeting), the album also includes both Crepuscule singles (Sorry For Laughing, Missionary) as well as the original Absolute version of Chance Meeting from 1979. All b-side tracks are also included, as well as the BBC John Peel session from 1981.

Digipack cover art by Jean-Francois Octave. 8 page booklet features liner notes and archive images by Simon Clegg.

"Josef K specialised in cerebral, nerve-jangling funk, like disco played by Franz Kafka (or Franz Ferdinand). They also had some of the best, most insidious guitar riffs ever, notably The Missionary and Revelation, although they could do mordant: see It's Kinda Funny. What's no laughing matter is this music's dour brilliance" (Classic Pop, 03/2016)

For further details click here

11 Mar 2023
ERIK SATIE / Art Works 1892-1924 / TWI 1258  
Erik Satie

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents a comprehensive 4 disc CD boxed anthology by visionary French avant-garde composer Erik Satie, collecting together works associated with the Dada, Cubist and Surrealist art movements, as well as his celebrated musique d'ameublement (furniture music) written between 1917 and 1923.

Disc 1 offers Satie's extraordinary Vexations, the score for which is just three lines long, yet a complete performance (840 repetitions) may last for anything between 14 and 28 hours. First performed under the supervision of John Cage in 1963, this radical, enigmatic, proto-Surrealist work is now recognised as a significant milestone in the avant-garde canon. This meditative 70 minute recording features 40 repetitions of the motif, performed by Alan Marks on piano.

Disc 2 is a collection of Dada-related works, including music used by Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, Kurt Schwitters and Rene Clair. An enthusiastic Dada activist in Paris between 1920 and 1924, Satie collaborated extensively with Tzara, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. Performed on piano by Bojan Gorisek, this disc includes Trois morceaux en forme de poire, performed by Satie in 1923 at Tzara's notorious Soiree du Coeur a Barbe, as well as Ragtime Dada, an extract from the ballet Parade performed at Dada events staged by Kurt Schwitters and Theo van Doesburg in 1922. Also included is Satie's score for Entr'acte, Picabia's dazzling multi-media 'instantaneist' ballet. Relache dates from 1924, while Cinema is Satie's music for an intermission film by Rene Clair.

Cubist Works on Disc 3 offers four works composed by Satie between 1913 and 1924 for his collaborations with Pablo Picasso. These include piano and orchestral versions of his scores for the celebrated 'Cubist' ballets Parade (1917) and Mercure (1924), as well as a seldom-heard organ 'diversion', The Statue Found (1923). This third disc also includes The Puppets Are Dancing, written for the French Futurist dancer/poet Valentine de Saint-Point in 1913, and the ludic Trois valses distinguees du precieux degoute ('Three Disgustingly Precious Waltzes'), a barbed swipe at rival Maurice Ravel, premiered at an exhibition of works by Picasso, Matisse and others in 1916. Solo piano performed by Bojan Gorisek.

Disc 4 leads with Satie's often referenced (but seldom heard) musique d'ameublement (furniture music), written to order for various benefactors between 1917 and 1923. Intended to be heard in the background, rather than actually listened to, these five disparate pieces have been cited as a conceptual precursor to the ambient, minimal, functional and serial works of Brian Eno, Paul Hindemith, Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

Also included are the experimental pieces Descriptions automatiques and Sports et divertissements, the latter a collection of 21 miniatures from 1914 published with illustrations by Charles Martin. Disc 4 also finds space for Satie's single-act, neo-Dada lyric comedy Le Piege de Medusa, comprising 'seven tiny dances for Jonah the Monkey', illustrated by Cubist painter Georges Braque., as well as his 'Christian ballet' Uspud from 1892.

The 4 full length CDs are housed in a clamshell box, which also includes an illustrated 32 page booklet featuring detailed liner notes by James Nice and Stephen Whittington.

For further details click here


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