Currently in production are the following new releases . . .

Nakadai (and other works)

Featuring pedal steel guitar and a mallet percussion group made up of Bob Fernandez, John Fitzgerald, M.B. Gordy, and Theresa Knight, this is the first CD reissue of Smith's 1987 LP Nakadai, which Charles Amirkanian's Other Mids Radio called "one of the most explosive LPs of the '80s."

In addition to the original five Nakadai tracks, this release includes two new "bonus" tracks.

"Chas Smith . . . musician, composer, engineer, metal craftsman and inventor is a classic American original." —New Times (Los Angeles)

"With Smith's music, the sounds are as compelling as his concepts and instruments." —The Wire

Point Conception (and Nightbreaker)

Point Conception, scored for nine pianos, is here performed by solo piano (Arlene Dunlap) with an eight-part "cascading echo system."

This CD reissue (originally a Cold Blue LP from the mid-80s) has an added bonus track--the first recorded release of the sparkling Nightbreaker, which is scored for four piano, all performed by Bryan Pezzone.

"Lentz has devised a unique bit of piano literature.  It simultaneously glorifies the acoustical grandeur of the grand piano and regales its legacy with technology and sly insouciance.  Point Conception is Lentz's backhanded answer to the cool purr of ambient piano music.  Such is the typical Lentz reply; tossing knuckleballs into extant musical traditions, but doing so with disarming grace."  —Los Angeles Reader

Point Conception ... a rollicking process piece." —Kyle Gann, The Village Voice

String Quartets #1 ("In Praise of Poor Scholars") and #2 ("Crazy Cloud")

Performed by the celebrated British ensemble Apartment House, led by new-music cellist Anton Lukoszevieze,

For thirty years, Garland’s music has been marked by a radical consonance and a simplification of formal structure. Recordings of his music have been released on the Cold Blue, New Albion, Tzadik, Mode, Avant, Toshiba-EMI/Angel, What Next?/Nonsequitur, and Opus One labels.

"[Garland] is an avatar of an experimental American tradition ... a composer of mesmerizing music; and in many ways, the musical conscience of my generation…. Garland's work always brings increasing cognitive involvement; it is much more intricate than it sounds at first." —Kyle Gann, Chamber Music magazine

'I feel he [Garland] is one of our true originals." —Robert Carl, Fanfare

Trios for Deep Voices

Five intimate movements/pieces for a trio of double basses performed by the composer and two other virtuosos of the instrument, Mark Morton and James Bergman.

This music, much of it inspired by the composer's life in Papua New Guinea, where he studied music's "natural prosody," subtly extends the double bass's standard playing techniques with such expressive elements as a bowing pattern inspired by the sound of hornbills in flight.

new work

New compositions for his newly constructed instrument The Towers, a series of large pipes and plates, and the processed voice of noted visual artist Paul McCarthy.

"The core of [Cold Blue’s] production resides in Chas Smith’s works. … this composer, guitarist and authentic desert enthusiast has developed his own soundworld using unique instruments he designs and builds himself. The heir of Harry Partch and several other instrument inventors, he has given birth to highly beautiful and formal microtonal music. It is rich in complex harmonics and often structured around alternating rising and falling movements. " — Gérard Nicollet, Octopus (France)

Invisible Line

Exquisite, carefully wrought music for a just-intonation scordatura string sextet in which ever-changing "harmonic clouds" of both vibrating dissonance and ravishing consonance drift one into another, moving forward with a distinct sense of inevitability.In its design, the work's interaction of performers is fluid and always interdependent.

Features the composer on viola, new-music cellist Jessica Catron, violist Cassia Streb, and others.

CD single (25 min.)

35 Whirlpools Below Sound

A haunting, emotionally gripping electro-acoustic soundscape by noted composer-performers Newman and Cox, 35 Whirlpools ... is a completely collaborative work that has developed over the 20-plus years that the two have been friends and worked together musically.

CD single (30 min.)

new work

New solo violin music written for new-music champion Robin Lorentz. (CD single)

"The composer ... is confirmed as a master of sensitivity and good taste. In his personal interpretation of historical minimalism, there is a warmth, a presence and a deep involvement, which is extremely rare." —Sands-Zine (Italy)

"Michael Jon Fink—operating within New Music but sidestepping much of its systematic, lab-dulled pretention ... There's something of Gavin Bryars' evanescent emotional skill to Fink's music, something of the soft spatial blur of the Evanses (Bill and Gil) ... what gets me every time is its sheer and honest beauty." —Misfit City (UK)

new music by various composers

Music by 18 to 20 composers—some already associated with the Cold Blue label, some new to the label.

Like its now-classic predecessor anthology, which was simply entitled "Cold Blue," this is not a sampler of works on the Cold Blue label but an anthology of new and previously unreleased music.

Cold Blue Two celebrates the 25th anniversary of the vinyl release of Cold Blue (he first anthology).

Café Desire

An opera

"When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Lentz's music is way out front." —Kyle Gann, Village Voice

"By intriguing his listeners at the same time he wreathes them in smiles, Lentz always comes up with something listenable and worthwhile. That’s certainly true of this new release." — Arved Ashby, Gramophone

"Daniel Lentz’s work, with its sparkle and pulse, has long evinced hallmarks of the minimalist style. But Lentz has often brought a glossy, Pop Art-Southern California palette of colors to his work." — Dusted

blue photographs — selected piano music

Blue photographs collects a few dozen of the many aphoristic piano pieces Fox has written during the past 25 years.

"One of the striking qualities of Jim Fox's compositions is that you can still hear them inside you long after the music is over." —Wadada Leo Smith

"This is music that sounds like it was made in that California of cool northern beaches or the Mojave Desert as seen in the stark intimacy of Joshua Tree or even the remembered despair of the landscape around Donner Pass. This is a music of honesty, seductive and delicate yet strong and dark." —Daniel Lentz

new and recent music

Pacific Northwest composer Kurt Doles offers six lovely dark-hued pieces for multiple pianos, percussion, bass clarinet, cello ensemble, and other groupings.

Performances are by some of Los Angeles' top new music players, including clarinetist Marty Walker, steel guitar player Chas Smith and cellist Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick.