Paperback, 320pp Wolke Verlag, Berlin Now! Writings 1982–2021 brings together nearly four decades of texts, reflections, interviews, and work commentaries by Austrian composer Peter Ablinger. This extensive English edition — edited by Gisela Gronemeyer — offers an illuminating introduction to one of the most singular voices in contemporary music. Through aphoristic essays, poetic fragments, and precise analytical notes, Ablinger explores listening as an artistic act in itself. Noise, language, writing, perception, repetition, and convention form recurring themes throughout the writings, as do engagements with philosophy, visual art, and literature. The volume also includes commentaries on key works from Weiss/Weisslich to Opera/Werke and Stadtoper Graz, revealing how deeply interwoven music, thought, and language are in Ablingers practice.A landmark book for anyone interested in sound, conceptual art, and the expanded field of contemporary composition.

Paperback, 80pp Wolke Verlag, Synopken Series, 4, March 2026Why has sound become one of the dominant metaphors of late modernity? From ASMR and data sonification to ecological theory and social philosophy music and auditory perception increasingly promise connection, immersion and meaning. In This is not music Magdalena Zorn traces this acoustic turn through the concept of “acoustheology”: a mode of thought in which sound becomes a substitute for theology and grounds worldviews, ethics and social imaginations. Drawing on music history, sound studies, philosophy and media theory the book examines how composers, theorists and artists since the mid-twentieth century have expanded music into a boundless explanatory model — often at the expense of critique, distance and difference. Zorn questions the widespread celebration of resonance, vibration and sonic connectedness and reveals their political, epistemological and affective implications. What appears as intimacy and togetherness, she argues, may just as easily produce conformity, obedience and exclusion. This is not music is a precise contribution to current debates on sound, ecology and culture – and insists on reflection where immersion promises comfort.

The focus is on new compositions, innovative performance formats, influential festivals, and aesthetic, social, and technological developments in 20th- and 21st-century music. Essays, interviews, analytical texts, and reviews offer different perspectives on contemporary music as a living practice—between artistic experimentation, critical reflection, and theoretical classification.Edited by Christopher Fox, Ed Cooper, and Celeste Oram Softcover Magazine, 144 pp.ISSN 0040-2982

Paperback, 544 pp, English/German Edition. Wolke Verlag, Berlin, 1998 In 2002 Christian Wolff was a guest composer at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and during the course of the festival he was interviewed by Christopher Fox and by James Gardner. Fox's interview took place before an audience in the Lawrence Batley Theatre on 25 November; Gardner's interview was recorded in private in the George Hotel, Huddersfield on 27 November, and edited excerpts from that recording were subsequently used in a programme produced by Radio New Zealand. The conversation presented here has been compiled by James Gardner from his transcriptions of the two interviews and presents a wide-ranging discussion of Wolff's musical preoccupations across every phase of his compositional career, from the early piano pieces of the 1950s, to his involvement with indeterminacy in the 1960s, to the political concerns evident in his music after 1970, to the works of the last three decades in which indeterminate and determinate methods of composition are combined.

16 essays in English, 10 in German, with musical examples,296 pp, paperback  wolke, 2012Cage & Consequences brings together analytical essays by scholars of different disciplines, artists“ contributions, and conversations with composers and associates of John Cage. They represent the diversity of Cage“s spheres of influence on the following generations of artists, as well as his significance for musicology, art theory, and media studies. The contributions are presented in their original language, English or German.

edited by M.J. Grant and Imke Misch 164 pp., Pb Wolke, 2018Karlheinz Stockhausen was one of the most influential and prolific composers of the twentieth century. His legacy extends far beyond his extensive catalogue of musical works to his achievements as a pioneer of electronic music, as a writer and thinker on music, and as a teacher. In this volume, various aspects of Stockhausen“s legacy are discussed, including his influence on the creative work of others, and the influences he likewise derived from some of his closest associates. Central theoretical tenets of his work are revisited and new evaluations made regarding the significance, impact and potential of Stockhausen“s contributions in this area. Compositions discussed in the volume extend across the whole span of the composer“s life, with several essays dealing explicitly with the musical, conceptual and theatrical background to Stockhausen“s work from the opera cycle LICHT onwards. Interdisciplinary in approach and drawing on a number of recent studies of Stockhausen“s music, many of which are not otherwise available in English, the volume is a significant contribution to Stockhausen scholarship which—looking forward—provides new impetuses for the future understanding of his musical legacy.

walter-wolfgang sparrer wolke, march, 2020 pp.304 deustch, korean, english large format hardback, 32cm x 30, weight 1.7kgThis book is the first pictorial monograph about the Korean-German composer Isang Yun, who was born in southern Korea in 1917 and died in Berlin in 1995. It was first in Germany, with influence from what around 1960 was then the avant-garde that he developed an individual musical language of his own. A little later Yun was drawn into the field of tension between political advocacy motivated by humanitarian, societal concerns and responding to ideological incitement, between imprisonment, torture, and reparation. It was in his compositional work that he found a place of refuge. His music proceeds from the primacy of melody and the sustained tone, which he found preformed in the traditional music of his native Korea and then succeeded in developing heterophonically and spatially. The resultant works were characterized by unusual intensity and rich tone colors.

Deutsch und Englisch160 S./pp., Fotos, pb., € 28.–, The Hungarian-Swiss pianist Géza Anda (1921-1976), together with Annie Fischer, György Cziffra and György Sebök, is regarded as one of the most important personalities of 20th-century pianism to emerge from the great tradition of the Hungarian school. Anda’s interpretations of the Classical, Romantic and modern repertoire, especially of the piano concertos of Mozart and Bartók, have long been regarded as authoritative. As a teacher, he had a lasting impact on subsequent generations of pianists. The Concours Géza Anda, founded in Zurich in 1979, has achieved worldwide renown while successfully continuing Anda’s legacy as an artist and a pedagogue. This book, published by the Géza Anda Foundation in Zurich to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Géza Anda’s birth, offers a panorama of his life, work and legacy based on many biographical documents, some of which are presented here for the very first time.

author N.Andrew Walsh,  published Wolke, 2021 500pp, photos, paperbackThe phenomenon of “graphic” scores has been a subject of fascination, controversy, and a flourishing of artistic talent since its inception in the aftermath of the Second World War. The scores of that age, despite their compelling visual presence, nevertheless remain elusive: the means of performance are obscure, and they resist conventional analysis. This study reconsiders graphic scores from the perspective of Information Theory, derived from studies of “ergodic” texts: the ergodic score requires non-trivial effort from the participants in its realization, becoming a cybernetic object that challenges our beliefs about what music is, how it works, and where to find its meaning. The sounds of a musical performance are the field in which a larger metamorphosis takes place: like the labyrinth, the journey to the heart of ergodic scores entails both risk and transcendence. This study illuminates ergodic scores from their theoretical foundations: the abstract theory of how they work, the history of exemplary figures from the postwar avant-garde—including such luminaries of the art as Yoko Ono, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Anestis Logothetis, Pauline Oliveros, and John Cage—and concrete analysis of selected repertoire. Using pioneering theoretical insights—and with the benefit of original archival research, interviews with the artists themselves, and decades of experience as a composer and performer of graphic scores—the author establishes one of the great attainments of the twentieth century as a living art.

Brötzmann – In My Focus is a large-format photo book by Slovenian photographer Žiga Koritnik – a tribute to Peter Brötzmann, one of the most influential figures on the international free jazz and improvisation scene. For almost three decades, Koritnik accompanied Brötzmann on stage, backstage, on tour, and in quiet moments. The result is a powerful, intimate portrait that shows the musician not only as an icon, but also as a human being. The images are complemented by texts from Peter Brötzmann, John Corbett, Mats Gustafsson, Bill Laswell, Heather Leigh, Paul Lovens, and Paal Nilssen-Love, as well as poems by Steve Dalachinsky and Joe McPhee—a dense collection of voices, memories, and reflections from the innermost circle. The volume is published by Društvo Pega (Slovenia). At the request of Žiga Koritnik, Wolke distributes this title in German-speaking countries and internationally. An extraordinary document of a musical era—photographically precise, emotionally intimate, and full of resonance for readers, listeners, and collectors.Hardcover, 144pp, photographs Wolke Verlag, 1st edition, November 2024

Paperback, English-German Edition, 655 pp Wolke Verlag, MusikTexte, Berlin, 2009 Collection of writings about ideas concerning music by American composer Robert Ashley. For nearly forty-five years, composer Robert Ashley has pursued his vision of opera in the face of near complete indifference from the American mainstream culture industry. Ashley’s experience parallels that of other American indepen-dent avant-garde figures such as Terry Riley, Alvin Lucier, and Pauline Oliveros. Like these composers, Ashley uses notation only to the extent that it conveys his ideas to a longtime “band” of collaborators (which includes singers Jacqueline Humbert, Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, and Joan La Barbara, along with engineer/mixer Tom Hamilton). Like Oliveros, Ashley is also keenly interested in performance as ritual; for the past three decades he has composed operas that rely upon the inflections and rhythms of American english and are set against the backdrop of a largely static “electronic orchestra.” Although much of Ashley’s work is conceived for television, only the seven-part Perfect Lives (1977–83) has been completely realized in its intended medium, and it has never been shown on American networks. Now, as Ashley enters his eighties, a european musicologist—Ralf Dietrich—has taken on the task of gathering Ashley’s essays, sketches of pieces, and program notes into one volume.

Please note: This book contains 400 pages and weighs 2 kg so has to be shipped via courier. Please add your phione number when purchasing. This book is dedicated to the history of the music label Free Music Production (FMP), which from 1968 to 2010 achieved incomparable things as a Berlin platform for the production, presentation and documentation of music and decisively shaped the musical development of the '70s and beyond. Based on many conversations from over thirty years with key protagonists such as Peter Brötzmann or Jost Gebers, Markus Müller tells the success story of a musicians' initiative that emerged in the context of the 1968 ideas of self-organization and self-determination and worked successfully in an international network for over 40 years. Thematic focal points include the Total Music Meeting and the Workshop Freie Musik, the production of recordings, relations with GDR musicians, FMP and women, the internationally groundbreaking collaboration with Cecil Taylor. The book builds on the major FMP exhibitions in Munich and Berlin, but in many aspects goes far beyond them. Thanks to unrestricted access to the FMP-Publishing Archive in Borken, many first-published documents and photographs from the history of FMP can be found.

With contributions by Lasse Marhaug, John Corbett, Gérard Rouy, David Keenan, Karl Lippegaus, and Jost Gebers Brötzmann has always created and still creates the covers of his recordings himself – sometimes also for other musician colleagues – and in the past also often the posters for various FMP projects (Workshop Freie Musik in the Academy of Arts or Total Music Meeting in the Quartier Latin, later in Podewil). Looking at his early posters and record covers it“s striking how fully formed his visual sense was from the very beginning. He had a background from both advertising and Fluxus art and built upon that. Just like his playing, he knew what he wanted to say with his graphic design. The music and visuals were coming from the same place. And there“s no question who it“s coming from. When you see a design by Peter there is little doubt who made it. His work has such a strong character that when we try to copy the style (and many have) it“s obvious who we“re stealing from – so we fail. (Lasse Marhaug) In his graphic endeavors, Brötzmann has in fact made a body of work consistent with his music and his art, an oeuvre that undermines the presumption that design is inherently rigid. More than just the decoration of information, Brötzmann“s five decades of design bear witness to a sophisticated, delicate, and earthy sensibility, along with a dogged sense of internal logic. His record covers and posters are passionate and thoughtful, playful and brutal, basic and human. (John Corbett) This catalog with about 260 works is published to the exhibition at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Sept. 2016

Paperback, 112pp Wolke Verlag, Berlin  Some think Eric Dolphy was an otherworldly apparition. His stellar career lasted little more than 5 years. He was one of the most important pioneers of the jazz avant-garde of the 1960s. As a multi-instrumentalist, Dolphy played flute, bass clarinet, alto saxophone and clarinet. He also composed and arranged. His brilliant solos in performances with the Mingus Band, among others, are milestones in jazz and music history. Guillaume Belhomme traces his biography in sketches. “For having been an innovator, Eric Dolphy became an original. The depth of his message then caught up with him. At the source he created, a lineage of individual musicians that has not yet faded out of sight has continuously drawn, searching, perhaps, for ways to cross to the other side, beyond the obvious and the easy.”Guillaume Belhomme “Finally we have an English translation of Guillaume Belhomme’s wonderful biography of Eric Dolphy. I can read just enough French to know that it is a heart-felt homage to the great man. This translation will make a fuller appreciation possible.” - Evan Parker

English-German Edition in two volumes 906 pages. These lectures, discussions were within the last years of Feldman's life, he died in September 1987, these were 1985 to 1987, for the "Nieuwe Muziek" in Middleburg, and the topics, subject matter runs the entire cornocopia of post war music, modernity, complexity, post-modernity, post-truth, post metaphysics. The discussion(s) are with all top-recorgnized composers Kaija Saariho, Iannis Xenakis, pianist Geoffrey D. Madge, Louis Andriessen, and not-so-well-known composers but important nonetheless as Konrad Boehmer and Bunita Marcus, Feldman's companion.Feldman was always a very engaging talker, conversationaist, he primed himslef with into-the-night discussions at the Cedar Bar in New York City, speaking with great painters de Kooning, Franz Kline, Pollock, Marc Rothko, Philip Guston his close friend.There is much anecdotal shibboleths here as well, as when a student who came to Alban Berg, and after some hours was not examining the student's composition. Berg said something like "how can you be a composer and not smoke cigarettes?". Time spent with Stefan Wolpe was also productive, right out of high school, and the house concerts of his works and others.

584 pp. 2024.  Mark Lehmstedt (b. 1961) is a German publisher, editor and historian. Lehmstedt publishers focusing on cultural history was rewarded Best German Publisher in 2019 and 2020. Mark Lehmstedt teaches media history at the University of Leipzig mainly dealing with German book history from the 15th century to the present day. At the occasion of the 100th birthday of Art Tatum in 2009 he published the first biography of the pianist in German.For the first time this book in detail reconstructs the often blurred traces of the life of the Afro American piano virtuoso from Toledo, Ohio. Based on the stories of many contemporaries and fellow musicians and on countless reports in the daily press and jazz journals, a fascinating portrait emerges of a unique artist and the pulsating world of jazz of his time. Ever since his first appearance in New York City in 1932, Art Tatum has been regarded as the most important pianist in the history of jazz. His technique took the breath away even from concert pianists of the calibre of Horowitz, his touch was of unparalleled lightness and elegance, and his improvisations across the entire harmonic spectrum put him decades ahead of his time.

Philip Freeman is a veteran music journalist and the author of New York Is Now!: The New Wave Of Free Jazz, Running The Voodoo Down: The Electric Music Of Miles Davis, and Ugly Beauty: Jazz In The 21st Century. He lives in Montana. With a contribution by Markus Müller  Softcover, 344 pp, Fotos Wole Verlag, July 2024  For 60 years, Cecil Taylor’s music marked the farthest boundary of avant-garde jazz. His volcanic piano improvisations, delivered with astonishing technical command and unrelenting power at marathon length, were regarded as the ultimate in free jazz. But Taylor was much more than that: He was one of jazz’s (and America’s) great composers and arrangers, developing a unique and instantly recognizable compositional voice and a radical method of transmitting his ideas that in effect taught the members of his ensembles to speak an entirely new musical language. In the Brewing Luminous is the first full-length biography of Cecil Taylor. In the Brewing Luminous takes the reader from his birth in 1929 to his death in 2018 and beyond. It provides detailed analysis of his extensive body of work, which encompassed solo performance and ensembles of every size from duos to big bands, and included work meant to accompany dancers and theatrical performances. It also explores his poetry and the broader milieu of which he was a part. Taylor was not an island; he was a fixture on the New York cultural scene and welcomed with open arms in Germany, Italy, Japan and elsewhere. And he did not work in isolation — his bands were crucial collaborators, and his music was impossible to imagine without the contributions of players like alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, bassist William Parker, and drummer Andrew Cyrille, all of whom and many more are discussed here as well.

wolke, 2020 136 pp., paperbackAdorno and the Aesthetics of Postwar Serial Music is the first book-length study of the relation between Theodor W. Adorno’s aesthetics and postwar serial music. Adorno’s extensive writings and lectures about serialism, his first-hand knowledge of the technique, and his personal acquaintance with leading serial composers did much to shape his philosophical work. That work, in turn, influenced postwar composers, and the signs of this influence are clearly visible in the compositional theory and aesthetic ideas of the period. This book presents a detailed examination of these ideas, and places them in their historical, philosophical, and cultural contexts. It will enable a better understanding not only of serial music and aesthetics, but also of Adorno and his aesthetic theory. As such, it will appeal to composers, music historians, philosophers, critics, and anyone interested in the aesthetics of modernism.