Experimental electronics and theatre LPs by Entourage, Ann Macmillan, Craig Kipka reissued

Spanning minimalism, animal sounds, and healing synth and trombone compositions.

Smithsonian Folkways is continuing its vinyl reissue series with the release of three experimental and avant-garde albums from its back catalogue, this May.

Read more: The haunting beauty of plunderphonics, field recordings and sonic art

The reissues include The Entourage Music & Theatre Ensemble’s 1976 album The Neptune Collection, experimental electronic composer Ann McMillan’s 1979 LP Gateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal And Other Sounds, and Craig Kupka’s 1982 album Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2.

The Neptune Collection was recorded in the mid ’70s, and sees The Entourage Music & Theatre Ensemble traversing between jazz and folk.

For Gateway Summer Sound, McMillan fused the sounds of the natural world – including frogs, insects and field recordings from New York’s Gateway National Recreation Area – with gongs, bells and a harpsichord.

Finally, Kupka’s Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2, with its gentle compositions for trombone and synth, was “intended as an aid for meditation, a guided journey inward towards self-discovery,” explains Smithsonian Folkways.

All three albums will be released on the 22nd May.

Head here to pre-order The Neptune Collection, here to pre-order Gateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal and Other Sounds, and here to pre-order Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2; check out the artwork and tracklist below.

The Neptune Collection

Side A

1. Neptune Rising
2. Druid Dance
3. Euphoric Bells
4. King’s Birdcage
5. Nature Spirites

Side B

1. Incantation for the Death of Self
2. Days
3. Space Needle Suicide
4. Tar Box Poltergeist

Gateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal and Other Sounds

Side A

1. Amber ’75
2. Syrinx
3. Episode

Side B

1. Gateway Summer Sound
2. Gong Song

Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2

Side A

1. Trombones of Lithia

Side B

1. Crystals