Prayer
For Sara(.es), who has resonated with numerous musicians, this is a special solo live recording, her first in about a year. Weaving together the sounds of bells, water-emitting instruments, harmonica, crystal bowls, triangle, and more, an energy-filled piano solo unfolds. From 1 May to 14 June 2025, the solo exhibition ‘Prayer’ by artist Keiichi Ikegami was held at Gallery Nomaru, the home of .es (dot es) and the base for Utsunomiya MIX. Following the sudden passing of Satoshi Hayashi, former di…
Fill With Empty
January 2025, Osaka contemporary art gallery ‘Gallery Nomart’ hosted Hideo Takashima's solo exhibition ‘Fill with Empty’. This was Takashima's first exhibition at Nomart, and featured the first live collaboration between British heavyweight drummer/percussionist Roger Turner and sara (.es).
The exhibition title ‘Fill with Empty’ refers to ‘a state filled with margins that contain diverse possibilities,’ according to Takashima. Takashima explains that the exhibition title, ‘Fill witt Empty’, refe…
Folklore & Concepts
Folklore & Concepts, the latest release by Smegma—now five decades into their outsider avant-garde career—extends the band’s legacy of ritualistic collage, spontaneous improvisation, and anti-academic noise. Infused with tape, synths, prepared piano, horns, and voice, the album melds shamanistic energy with surreal group interplay, creating an unpredictable and stubbornly original sonic tapestry.
Kost Nix
*2025 stock. 300 copies limited edition* "Two guitarists with wild and bold aesthetics met for no cost – Kost Nix, an explosive, freewheeling set... Often it is impossible to know who is doing what. They build on the opening, 20-minute piece «Quiet Concessions» massive walls of sound, delicate and raw, strange, poetic and totally weird at the same time. Byron Coley... hears in this piece echoes of early Grateful Dead, and Sonic youth, but you can add Fred Frith’s Massacree and Sonny Sharrock’s L…
Nomia e Hool
** Edition of 80 copies. LP + Artist’s Signed Drawing "Aura" and "Bagatelle", "Continuum", "Pieghe" Artworks. ** HeghL’s Nomia e Hool takes the listener beyond traditional boundaries, presenting two extended tracks as part of a larger multidisciplinary exploration. Originating from a project by Lisa Baume and Francesco Trabattoni, the album gathers creators from diverse backgrounds - music, visual arts, writing, philosophy, science, and more - into a single creative studio. The result is a colle…
Blue Abstraction: Prepared Piano Project 1985–1987
Blue Abstraction compiles a selection of Jessica Williams’ lost prepared piano recordings. These recordings document the beginning of a vital, solitary phase in her career: a period of intense sonic experimentation that began with physically altering a 6’4” grand piano—creating a new instrument, and from there, creating a new music. The results are breathtaking; from melancholic soundscapes with Satie-esque lyricism to forcefully controlled cacophony, always grounded by the distinct emotional vo…
Glasscut
*125 copies limited edition* An alto saxophone and acoustic piano engage in an intimate musical dialogue, reflecting on the current state of improvised music. Okuda and Dyberg’s album unites two artists at the peak of their musical collaboration, deconstructing jazz history into shimmering fragments, reassembling them in new forms that deliberately move away from traditional references. The music incorporates diverse influences—glimpses of classical composers like Webern and Prokofiev, abstract …
Minor Gestures
Minor Gestures' ~ 'Mion-phuingean' by Susannah Star & Band an extended folk session in mystical locations around the Govan stones, river Clyde & underground streamlets.
“tha mise gad fhaicinn,tha mise gad fhaicinn”arsa an caochan
“I see you,I see you”said the blind one
Nature
"I have been fascinated by the sound and potential of gongs since I first heard Stockhausen's Mikrophonie 1 in the late 1960s. When I moved to Oakland in 1999 I discovered the work of Karen Stackpole, one of the few percussionists in the world specializing entirely in gongs, and attended several of her performances. I always tried to imagine how I could combine my own sonic vocabulary with her incredibly rich array, and we enthusiastically agreed to a musical meeting which somehow kept being pos…
From Island to Island
Weaving a transient web, a dreamatorium with its own agenda thoroughly concerned about space—in—between, From island to island is a subtle sonification of deep musicality, real and surreal journeys, and a giant Maelström hiding the unknown multiverse. Invitation for the descent is open, but whether those journeys are imaginary or not, one thing is certain—both Anja Lauvdal and Manja Ristić must take the ferry home.
„Though separated by the sea between Croatia and Norway, the two artists have dev…
Courage Bones
*200 copies limited edition* The dynamic duo of Audrey Chen and Tashi Dorji proudly present their new collaborative album "Courage Bones." This release showcases an intense dialogue between Chen's raw, visceral voice and layered analog synthesizer with Dorji's blazing, anti-capitalist ethos-driven guitar work.
"Courage Bones" embodies a fearless journey into improvised sonic storytelling that defies conventional boundaries. Chen employs a personal and ecstatic language, blending traditional and …
Alchemical Theatre
Friends and musical cohorts since the early 1980s, these three master improvisers come together to perform a freewheeling set of outrageous and mind-blowing improvisations. Recorded at Roulette, founded in 1978 and one of New York’s most adventurous venues, the music is full of surprising twists and jumps from one mood to another with mercurial synchronicity. Dedicated to the memory of Downtown theatrical genius Richard Foreman, “Alchemical Theatre” presents nine pieces of tele-pathic, counter-i…
What We Do When in Silence
Huge Tip! * Limited edition of 300 copies, Embossed cover, comes with insert and postcard * Killer record here! Three Italian heavyweights doing what they do best - radical improvisation that sits somewhere between electronics, silence, and pure Mediterranean mystery. This is the real deal. Nicola Ratti, Alessandra Novaga, and Enrico Malatesta - three names you need to know if you're serious about contemporary improvised music.
The sound? Imagine if AMM had been born in Southern Europe with lapt…
Wrestling for Futility
Tip! *100 copies limited edition* Russian modular synthesist Ilia Belorukov, now based in Serbia, and Alex Riva, a Zurich-based flutist, here focusing on woodwind recorders. The pair have performed with Notice Recordings alum Jason Kahn, and toured as a duo with the novel instrumentation they use here, presented on “Wrestling for Futility”. The pairing is not a combination we hear often, and Belorukov and Riva seem to relish in the obscurity and uniqueness of the timbres and textures conjured by…
Aerodynamics
Tip! Welcome to the 20th Century: "My point of departure for the octet was to treat the ensemble as a flock of clarinets and develop swarm-like scenarios. At the same time, I thought of the 8 players as a kind of acoustic 8-channel-installation with the musicians surrounding the audience. This could be seen as an expansion of the stereo analogy we sometimes work with in The International Nothing. While The Nothin’ is all about developing a very personal language of new sounds with self-invented …
Everyone I Love Is Sleeping And I Love Them So So Much
Yara Asmar’s new album, “everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much”, presents 11 pieces recorded over the past year between the small town of Alfred in upstate New York and Beirut. These sometimes fragile and tentative sound sketches reflect the times as Yara steps out, as if onto ice, into a new life on a new continent. She works with unfamiliar instruments, new materials and new sounds to build on her intimate style; homemade mechanical music boxes and a personal archive of family…
Dark Kitchen
Dark Kitchen, the latest collaboration from Tom Jackson and Daniel Thompson, emerges as a striking exploration of sound and emotion. Released through Confront Recordings, a label renowned for adventurous and boundary-pushing music, this album exemplifies the duo’s deep commitment to improvisation and sonic innovation. From haunting textures to dynamic interplay, Dark Kitchen offers listeners a richly layered experience that challenges the conventional boundaries of modern music. Jackson and Thom…
Towers of Silence
Confront Recordings proudly presents Towers of Silence, an evocative new album by acclaimed artists Don Malfon and Vasco Trilla. This release explores sonic landscapes that blur the boundaries between experimental jazz and ambient improvisation, inviting listeners into a deeply immersive auditory experience. On Towers of Silence, Malfon and Trilla weave intricate textures and haunting melodies, crafting a soundscape both intense and contemplative. Their masterful interplay demonstrates a profoun…
Scratching At The Surface
“Scratching at the Surface” is a new collaboration from Erin Rogers and Kelsey Mines. This collection of striking vignettes dives deep into sonic exploration, weaving together powerful low-end resonance and shimmering high tones. Inspired by the sea’s raw energy and quiet beauty, Rogers and Mines craft a mesmerizing soundscape of undulating rhythms, bold textures, and immersive mystery.
Red Shifts
Redshifts marks the debut collaboration between artists Zeena Parkins and Cecilia Lopez. Recorded in January 2025, the album features a striking interplay between two singular instruments: Parkins’ self-invented electric harp and Lopez’s RED—a large-scale, handwoven electronic instrument made from speaker wire. This collection of pieces captures a vivid sonic dialogue between Parkins’ masterful, expressive performance and López’s sculptural approach to sound and instrument design. These are one-…