"Every new musical language requires new performance skills. Works such as HO NOW and STRUNG OUT were, in effect, pieces written to develop these skills which include stamina, sustained concentration, and an ability to play continuously in an easy an…
"Cosmos" is a hard-to-find, alternately chaotic and tightly organized mid-'70s session that was issued on the Cobra, and then Inner City labels. Sun Ra provided some stunning moments on the Rocksichord, while leading The Arkestra through stomping ful…
In the late '50s, Sun Ra emerged from big band to modern/progressive big band status, began to employ electronics, and used a more Afro-Centric percussive focus. This recording perfecly demonstrates those qualities, and more. There are several def…
Sun Ra's Angels & Demons at Play is a diptych created by merging two recording sessions. The first is a laid-back introspective affair ("angels?") recorded in 1960. Even frolicsome, these bouncy melodies follow the percolating rhythms with a gently l…
The Sun Ra Arkestra looks both forwards and backwards in time on this obscure small label LP. Ten years earlier, one could not have imagined Ra and his men romping through "On the Sunny Side of the Street" or reinventing "Flamingo." However, those ve…
More stuff from Sun Ra's archives, this time focusing on his work with doo wop groups. Sun Ra had a home tape recorder early on, and most of these are previously unissued home rehearsals. The sound is generally excellent given that these are '50s hom…
The interplanetary jazz travelers of Sun Ra's Arkestra reached transcendent heights over the many decades their free music spanned. Live in Nickelsdorf 1984 finds a particularly spirited lineup of the Arkestra simmering through an almost three-hour s…
Beautiful slice of 1987 new age ambience by Laraaji and his plugged in zither, reissued by Brian Eno's All Saints Music. "Heavenly tone clusters that stretch out into infinity and recall Popol Vuh's soundtracks for Werner Herzog. Floating, dream-like…
Collaborating with drummer Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Man Forever), guitarist Alan Licht (Lee Ranaldo & the Dust, The Blue Humans, Love Child, Run On, etc.) is back for another release on New Images Ltd. We Thought We Could Do Anything is a far le…
After the last If, Bwana (Al Margolis) release on Pogus the large-scale double cd E (and Sometimes Why), this brand new If, Bwana recording is a little more intimate. This release consists of six smaller works for one or at most two instruments - wit…
'Masami's and my conversations look like heroin addicts talking : A phrase. A five minute silence. Another phrase. A five minute silence. A question. A five minute silence. Another phrase. A five minute silence. An answer. Et cetera.The BLACK ALBUM s…
Robbie Basho's Zarthus, dating from 1974, is, in his own words, "An album of Persian, Arabic, Westerns Themes (sic), woven together into a single 'Fabric D'Amour' to cover the barren manekin (sic) of modern times." Easily the album that most indulges…
Extraction is a collaboration between composer Ben Vida, visual artist Meredyth Sparks and curtor and writer Anthony Elms. Continuing Vida's explorations of digital and analog synthesizing systems,ÊExtractionÊgives particular focus to aural phenomena…
For over 20 years Black Leather Jesus has been there, watching, waiting, playing in small, poorly-lit rooms. Founded by Richard Ramirez in 1989, everything they do is harsh, chaotic, and completely unlistenable to the sane mind. Ramirez was inspired …
As a body of repertoire, these works are remarkable for their freshness of musical thought and energy (John Cage considered Wolff to be the most 'musical' of the experimental composers). Christian Wolff uniquely blends experimental concerns with clas…
The first ever career-spanning collection of the music of legendary electronic mystic, Laraaji. Featuring rare early tape works, plus collaborations with Brian Eno, Bill Laswell and Blues Control, this triple vinyl edition houses each LP in its own p…
One of the essential albums of 70’s creative jazz, and a landmark recording in the second wave avant-garde movement of that era. The music of the late great saxophonist and composer Julius Hemphill presents a strong combination of Blues roots, free e…
Restocked Side A: recorded and mixed in 1993 by John Duncan and Jim O'Rourke at Christoph Heemann's studio in Aachen. Final mix in 2013 by Jim O'Rourke in Tokyo. Side B: Stay alive recorded live with Oren Ambarchi and Joe Talia on 9 March 2013 at S…
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* The latest in John Zorn‘s second Masada songbook, the highly melodic and dynamic Book of Angels, the 10 songs on Alastor come courtesy of master composer and violist / multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Kang. Though Ka…