Mats Gustafsson, born in Umeå in 1964, is a Swedish saxophonist, improviser and composer whose baritone and tenor playing has the force of a rock band. He leads or co-leads The Thing, Fire!, Gush, Sonore, Swedish Azz and the NU Ensemble, has played in Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet and Barry Guy's New Orchestra, and has worked with Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O'Rourke, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi and Ken Vandermark.
An epic second installment from the trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs, Rob Mazurek, nearly 90 minutes of intense live performances from January 2020. They converge here on a wide swath of sounds: expansive free improvs, full-tilt electronics, alt-universe chamber music and spontaneous arrangements of three previously released Grubbs’ songs.
** First pressing of 350 with artwork by Jaime Zuverza ** Astral Spirit presents Shadows of Tomorrow b/w The Brain Produces Electrical Waves by Mats Gustafsson & Joachim Nordwall. Recorded in Nickelsdorf and Brännö in 2019-2020. Mixed by JN at the Gothenburg Sound Experiment.
** 2021 Stock ** Meeting at GOK Sound studio in Kichijoji, Japan in front of a small audience, Swedish baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Fire!) also performing on flutephone and live electronics, and Otomo Yoshihide (Ground-Zero, Regenorchester) performing on guitar, turntable and banjo, recorded these eight amazing improvisations of unusual and unique attitudes and timing. After 2 years it materialized on CD work at all. Mats Gustafsson's strongest baritone saxophone, self-made i…
Welcome to the second release in the Black Dot LP series. Black Dot albums are all recorded live at the White Spot performance space in beautiful downtown Nanaimo BC, a venue which Mats Gustafsson visited on June 23, 2019. Mats is many things to many people -- a doting father, a fancier of fine bourbons, an enthusiastic sport fisherman and a record collector of unparalleled passion. But he is probably best known as a musical performer/composer/explorer with world-gobbling intentions. On this eve…
2020 stock. 2014 release. One of the most celebrated folks in improvised music, Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson made three ultra-limited edition vinyl LPs, each featuring a different dedication to a favorite musician from the past. Released in batches of 99, these records found Gustafsson playing compositions by Duke Ellington, Albert (and his brother Donald) Ayler, and the important post-bop baritone player Lars Gullin. Long out-of-print, these priceless slabs of free music have quickly bec…
NoBusiness presents Hokusai, a new set of recordings by Sabu Toyozumi and Mats Gustafsson, recorded live on 11th and 12th June, 2018 at Jazz Spot Candy, Chiba, Japan by Kunimitsu Tsuburai / 粒来国充. Concert produced by Miyoko Hayashi / 林美葉子Jazz Spot Candy. Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios.
Sabu Toyozumi 豊住芳三郎 - drumsMats Gustafsson - baritone saxophone, fluteophone, flute
* In process of stocking. Includes 1 LP , 48 pages book (LP size) & 1 piece of 500 pieces puzzle of Edward Jarvis painting ''The Hypnagogic Puzzle'' * Underflow Records presents Worn.Kissed. by Mats Gustafsson. The box-set is inspired by paintings of Edward Jarvis exhibited at the Underflow Record Store & Art Gallery in January-March 2020. Recorded by Alex Bolpasis and mixed by Gustav Penka at Suono studio. Mastering and mastercut by Andreas Lubich at Loop-O, Berlin.Mats Gustafsson is a Saxplaye…
Edition of 500, no repress, no digital** Smalltown Superjazzz was a free-jazz subsidiary label to Smalltown Supersound from 2005-2012. The label has been dormant in the years 2012 to 2019, but is now reborn as the AFJ-Serie. The AFJ-Series represents a new start - built on the foundation and heritage of the Superjazzz label. AFJ-Series is short for Actions for free jazz. This was the slogan for Smalltown Superjazzz and was borrowed at the time from Don Cherry & Krystzof Penderecki’s The New Eter…
Temporary Super Offer! The Thing started as a recording project in 2000, for the newly formed label Crazy Wisdom, run by Christian Falk, Conny Charles Lindström and me. I wanted to put together a trio, to record some Don Cherry pieces and since I had recently played with Paal in Stockholm and heard Ingebrigt playing live, I knew they were tight. So, things went where they went.
I invited the two young Norwegians to Stockholm for a recording date at Atlantic Studios. One day of recording for the …
"NoBusiness presents archive studio recordings by DUX Orchestra, which featured Mats Gustafsson and Will Connell, Jr. among its revered members. Duck Walks Dog (With Mixed Results) was recorded on 16th October, 1994 in NYC by Steve Guttenberg and features music by guitarist JC Morrison, arranged in collaboration with Dave Sewelson.Dave Sewelson - baritone saxophoneMats Gustafsson - baritone saxophoneWill Connell, Jr. - alto clarinetDave Hofstra - bassSusie Ibarra - drumsWalter 'Sweets' Perkins -…
An übertrio drawn from distinct parts of the creative music spectrum, The Underflow was recorded during a sizzling two-night stand in May 2019. In a series of duets and trios, guitarist David Grubbs, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and trumpeter Rob Mazurek met headlong for the first time, converging not only their acoustic and electric instruments, but at times submerging themselves in a tangle of electronics, then emerging into shamanic bell-shaking chant or chest-rattling howl. Ranging from extr…
In 2018, Mats Gustafsson provided raw saxophonic material for the elusive Wendy Gondeln, who sometimes applied a scalpel, sometimes a pneumatic drill, to rework, remix, reimagine all the Swede's squeaks, pops, blats, and tones. In some places, Gondeln adds violent violin to thicken the roux, making Ornette's fiddling seem like Yehudi Menuhin. Uncommon bedfellows: disjunct techno and improvised music. But the Shitholes make it work brilliantly, even inviting minimal techno pioneer and co-founder …
Edition of 500, no repress, no digital. After closing out Smalltown Superjazzz’ run in 2015, Mats Gustafson fires up its new iteration - Actions For Free Jazz - in the lacquer crackling, spittle-riddled investigations of ‘Link’ with avant-turntablist Christian Marclay Both known for charting paths less travelled, here they point to strange, liminal zones of perception on their first collaboration, with Gustafsson’s electronically processed tenor and baritone sax channelling an ecology of wee be…
Some recordings, the world is just not ready for them when they're made. In 2008, Swedish born, Austrian resident saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Poughkeepsie, New York multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee made a suite of studio recordings, Brace For Impact that they loved so much they immediately culled, mixed, and mastered them. A decade later, when the original label for which they were planned had not yet issued them, Gustafsson and McPhee offered them to Corbett Vs. Dempsey, and when the label …
Discussing this impending studio date, the indefatigable saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and intrepid vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz decided to compose new pieces for one another. The resulting tracks -- which also include a hallucinogenic arrangement of "Timeless", dedicated to its composer, the recently deceased guitarist John Abercrombie -- show a markedly different side of both musicians. Quiet, at times tender, this meeting of like-minded musicians evoked a new kind of tension, not one birthed o…
Trost presents the first vinyl edition of How To Raise An Ox by Zu and Mats Gustafsson. Initially released on CD in 2005 by Atavistic. Features new cover artwork. Long-running intense jazz/noise-core band Zu from Italy teams up with Viking-saxophonist extraordinaire Gustafsson (The Thing, Fire!). Mastering by Andy Moor (The Ex) and Colin McLean.Personnel: Mats Gustafsson - baritone saxophone; Luca Tommaso Mai - baritone saxophone; Massimo Pupillo - bass; Jacopo Battaglia - drums.
**Small repress available** Swedish saxophone player/improviser/ composer/music archivist Mats Gustafsson has worked in the outer regions of jazz, avant-garde, experimental rock and free improvisation for more than 35 years. Gustafsson is also a passionate record collector who strongly believes that actively nurturing the urge to seek for rare and obscure vinyl is a gateway to higher musical knowledge – a knowledge that it is a musician’s duty to share. He has coined the term Discaholism – and o…
**Edition of 110 copies only** A beautifully conceived record, housed in a silkscreend slip-in cover with a paste on picture – and one that sounds equally beautiful too – a super limited picture disc that features the mighty Mats Gustafsson working on bass sax and live electronics – while getting some heavy accompaniment from the flaming drums of Didi Kern (of Bulbul fame) The music is kind of a long, sonic text – with the drums almost always pointing forward with a pulsating vibe, which frees …
Live recording of a collaboration between multimedia artist Christian Marclay and free jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, which featured Marclay on turntables and Gustafsson on saxophones and took place at Café Oto in London on 13 March 2013. The limited edition release of 500 copies includes the duo’s performance on the A-side and an etching by Marclay on the flip side. Marclay’s onomatopoetic artwork has also been screen printed on the thick card cover.
Christian Marclay was recently awa…
"A significant part of the success is down to the amazing tour de force by Norwegian experimental vocalist Stine Janvind Motland who brings an affecting mix of vulnerability, sexuality and sheer prowess to the party. Gustafsson selected a line from each of 20 favorite Little Richard songs to serve as the basic text for Motland to embroider. Via a graphic score Mats Gustafsson also ensures ample solo space for his illustrious cast, as well as composed sections peppered throughout the performance.…
Vi Är Alla Guds Slavar is the latest missive from the long-running duo pairing of Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, etc) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth, Chelsea Light Moving, Dream/Aktion Unit, etc).Thurston had first come across Mats' playing on a duo disc with Barry Guy and had assumed he was one of those older beardy European improv guys - Remember this was before the internet and everyone knew everything. Their first actual meeting goes back to the early 90s at Bl…
Mats Gustafsson and Joachim Nordwall joined their forces for a magmatic new LP out on Bocian. This long player was recorded at Garnison7, Vienna by Martin Siewert in January 2013. Mats Gustafsson - blowing stuff, organ surfing, piano mating.Joachim Nordwall - guitar wanking, synth loving.Mixed by idealist & Christopher Berg at Svenska Grammofonstudion, Gothenburg in Octobre 2015.
Mats Gustafsson plays slide, tenor, baritone, bass saxophones. Christof Kurzmann uses special ppooll software and voice, live processing. Recorded, mixed & mastered at Garnison 7, Vienna by Martin Siewert. Artwork by Jimmy Draht. Liner notes by Ken Vandermark. Limited vinyl edition of 300 with screen-printed covers. Ken Vandermark, from the liner notes: "On the surface, its fundamental components seem to come from the 20th century: the saxophone (invented in 1846, but not coming to the fore unti…
In October 2015, a three-day was held at Porgy & Bess in Vienna for the 50th birthday of Mats Gustafsson, saxophone player extraordinaire in contemporary (free) jazz with The Thing, Fire!, and various duo/trio/ensemble formations. Many collaborators of Gustafsson's were invited to join in various formations. The first three discs of the four-CD set were recorded October 26-28, 2014 at Porgy & Bess in Vienna byMikael Werliin. The fouth disc was recorded October 26-28th, 2014 at "Strenge Kammer," …
Begun as a temporary project in 2014 by Mats Gustafsson(The Thing, Fire!), Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt), and Massimo Pupillo (Zu), this trio soon evolved into a band project. They're now releasing their first album on Trost Records, with a tour to follow in 2016. Mats Gustafsson: saxophone; Brian Chippendale: drums; Massimo Pupillo: bass.
To kick off their new “Jukebox Series”, Trost Records provide us with a single pairing up the jubilarian with German painter Albert Oehlen. It’s certainly a somewhat unexpected collaboration; but then again, Gustafsson is a restless soul, constantly looking for new challenges, constantly seeking to push the envelope – so why not team up with someone from the visual arts? Besides, Oehlen is no complete stranger to the world of music. In the 80’s, he was part of the Neue Wilde art movement – along…
Thurston Moore’s résumé is monolithic – with his band Sonic Youth and as a solo artist few people has had the same impact on music in the last 35 years. Moore has been instrumental is building bridges between the mainstream and underground experimental music.Coming out from the jazz scene, Mats Gustafsson holds a similar position, with endless projects, collaborations and three decades of non-stop touring, recording and performing.The duo have collaborated several times before, starting with Son…
In case you weren't there, Bocian present documentation of a pretty unhinged Cafe Oto session between gifted improvisers, Mats Gustafsson (reeds), John Russell (guitar) & Phil Minton (voice). Just imagine stumbling in on this one unprepared - a trio of blokes bleating, parping and yanking like Reeves & Mortimer after three days on the sauce. Of course, that description does a disservice to their well-honed extended technique and dexterity, but we'd defy anyone to keep a totally straight face at …
On December 14th, 2011 - Mats Gustafsson played an amazing solo concert at our table at Bar Brooklyn in Stockholm. He was supposed to play a "real" concert but bastards didn't care much for that so he ended up playing at the head of our table. Someone spilled a full beer over his merch that was on that table, and we were all overly excited, of course. Jean-Louis Huhta recorded it on his Zoom, and this is an excellent document of today's leading free jazz magus. Limited to 200 copies. Tran…
The record is an attempt to document a sound installation by Konrad Smoleski presented in at the Polish Pavillion at the 55th Venice Biennale 2013. The sound sculpture is based primarily on the manipulation of the tolling of a bell. Through the process of transforming this familiar tone of traditional bells, Smole ski also changes its meaning: a sound that evokes a variety of associations is given an abstract frequency that seems devoid of connotations. Not only does the artist free the sound fr…
Wire Magazine's official King of All Skronk Mats Gustafsson is back with his partner in time Paal Nilssen-Love for a new duo record this week. I'm rather struck by the creepy skeleton on the front cover, and I'm also gleaning enjoyment from the textural bubble'n'squeak madness on the disc. There are quite a few droney periods on this one, with Gustafsson eking soft moans and primal howls and jagged rasps from his saxophone, with the drums often puttering around amorphously, but there are also mo…
Mats Gustafsson, aka King Skronk, aka Skronkmeister General, aka The Skronk Controller, aka Squeaky Pete, aka Skronkmaster Flash, joins forces with another experimental giant Lasse Marhaug (aka The Ear Destroyer, aka Mr Skreee, aka Electro Crunch Bastard, aka Testicle Hazard) on this sanity-obliterating collaboration. Squeaky reeds go head to head against fluttering, hissing, rotting reels in a shrill, broken, fluttering noise experiment. It sounds horrible, of course, and if you're looking at t…
LP + CD version. Here are two of the planet's most uncompromising and inventive young hornithologists and saxophonists, Colin Stetson and Mats Gustafsson. Mats Gustafsson is the uncompromising Swedish saxophonist famous for his no-holds barred style. Colin Stetson is a member of Arcade Fire's touring group, and his prodigious bass saxophone tones have been called on by a host of American alternative acts including Bon Iver, Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, TV on the Radio, David Byrne, Feist, My Brig…
Of course we know Bocian since their earliest releases, which was all on 7". Now, an impressive catalogue further, they suddenly return to this format, and make two of them. On one hand Bocian is a label for strictly improvised music and on the other hand for radical experiments in electronic music. This 7" is clearly a product of the first interest. These four pieces were recorded earlier this year in Vienna and has Nilssen-Love on congas and Gustafsson on slide and brass saxophones. This is th…
Sweden's advanced free jazz piano trio Correction (Sebastian Bergstrom on piano, Joacim Hyberg on bass, and Emil Astrand-Melin on drums) are met by fellow Swede, baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, for a stunning album ranging from abstract to hard blowing improv."In Gaito Gazdanov's marvelous novel "The Spectre of Alexander Wolf" there is a crucial scene in which the narrator contemplates his future lover Jelena Nikolajewna and wonders about her disharmonic physiognomy which he considers as a…
If jazz, as the eminent critic Whitney Balliet once wrote, is the “sound of surprise,†Cuts, an intensely cathartic, fiercely turbulent collaboration between Japanese noise purveyor Masami Akita (aka Merzbow), Hungarian drummer Balazs Pandi and Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustasfsson, is the “sound of shock and awe.†A sonic assault of epic proportions, it blends the bombast of Merzbow’s grinding white noise barrages with Pandi’s thunderous pulse on the kit and Gust…
restocked, very last around...3rd in a series of 3 solo one-sided LP (previous two on qbico)... this time Mats G on baritone sax render an homage to his own country leading sax player: Mr. Lars Gullin. (label press)
Mats Gustafsson is perhaps the pre-eminent saxophonist of this post-free jazz/improv era. A perfect combination of Peter Brotzmann's fiery passion, Evan Parker's extended technique and Ken Vandermark's willingness to explode genre boundaries, Gustafsson's discography spans over two decades and sports numerous must-hear recordings with a long laundry list of collaborators, including such luminaries as Brotzmann, Vandermark, Joe McPhee, Jim O'Rourke, Derek Bailey, Sonic Youth and The Ex. Illustrio…
"Cheerful Mats was dragged into the studio last year by David Grubbs for the ostensible purpose of contributing to a Thicket-in-the-works. The pair instead became terminally sidetracked with recording the two lengthy duets for harmonium and tenor saxophone and harmonium and fluteophone (Mat's invention -- a flute with a reed mouthpiece) that make up Apertura. Listening to Apertura, the first question is 'who is doing what?' It's not certain that even the artists themselves know." Two long …
Bengt is the new solo recording by Mats Gustafsson and is dedicated to Bengt Nordström. Mats Gustafsson plays a plastic alto sax. A classic Grafton sax. The type of sax that was used by Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman and Bengt Nordström. Nordström is best known having produced Albert Ayler´s first recording Something Different!!!!!! on his Bird Note imprint. It is in his own role as a sax player Bengt was truly inventive. Bengt was playing solo sax improvisation already in 1962 (!!!) Nor…