Music from United States

**2020 repress **Lovely Music presents a reissue of Robert Ashley's Private Parts, originally issued in 1978. This newly mastered CD release is a must-have for aficionados as well as a perfect introductory work to Ashley's oeuvre. Among Lovely Music's first six releases, it came to be known as "the yellow record". No one had ever heard anything like it; Ashley presented an unvarnished exposition of the inner workings of a man's mind. And on the other side, those of a woman. These two episodes we…

Bocian Records presents Umwelt by Lucio Capece (Gema): on bass clarinet, slide saxophone, cardboard tubes, analog synthesiser and filter, and Ben Vida (Bird Show/ASCAP): on Synthesis, sampling and digital arranging. Recorded in Brussels, Berlin, New York, 2016-2020. Mastering: Joe Talia. Graphic design: Ania Witkowska / Fontanna.

Restocked, very last copies ** Private edition, limited to 107 hand-numbered copies ** Broadcast from SWR, recorded at 10th Deutsches Jazzfestival Frankfurt, Germany, on March 24, 1968.  This is is Cherry at his absolute best, encountering him with a stellar line up comprised of Don Cherry (tpt, cnt, bamboo fl); Steve Lacy (ss); Karl Berger (vb, p); Kent Carter (b); Jacques Thollot (d). This live set captures a pitch perfect image of his roving, restless and ambitious creative mind – an artist p…

Steve Reich remains one of the most important figures in 20th century music. Though he studied at the prestigious arts institutions Julliard and Mills College, by the mid-1960s Reich set about dismantling the very orthodoxy that he had been trained in. Forming a new musical language based on repetitive processes, Reich became established as part of the so-called "Big Four" of New York minimalists (along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Philip Glass). Reich's influence can easily be seen toda…

Strut present the 4CD edition of Sun Ra's 'Egypt 1971' along with the original albums 'Dark Myth Equation Visitation', 'Nidhamu' and 'Horizon' released as individual LPs, documenting Sun Ra's first trip to Egypt with his Arkestra in December 1971. In the years leading up to 1971, Sun Ra wrote many compositions and poems specifically inspired by the ancient African Kingdoms and many others with associated mythological and heliocentric connotations. As such, a visit to Egypt and the opportunity fo…

* First ever reissues of this iconic demonic slice of Saturnian splendor, one of the most coveted releases in the Ra canon! Features the emblematic “Nuclear War” anthem, earmarked to be played like an air raid siren when we as a society decide to pack up and call it a planet. A cut further popularized by Yo La Tengo. Stunning new cover art blending favorite elements from the handmade original Saturn pressings. * While the most renown track in this omniversal opus is the atomic expletive-filled r…

In the years leading up to 1971, Sun Ra wrote many compositions and poems specifically inspired by the ancient African Kingdoms and many others with associated mythological and heliocentric connotations. As such, a visit to Egypt and the opportunity for the Arkestra to play there was a matter of necessity. Ra’s first ever concerts outside of the US had occurred in late summer and autumn of 1970 with performances in France, Germany and the UK and a second European tour was arranged for late 1971.…

In the years leading up to 1971, Sun Ra wrote many compositions and poems specifically inspired by the ancient African Kingdoms and many others with associated mythological and heliocentric connotations. As such, a visit to Egypt and the opportunity for the Arkestra to play there was a matter of necessity. Ra’s first ever concerts outside of the US had occurred in late summer and autumn of 1970 with performances in France, Germany and the UK and a second European tour was arranged for late 1971.…

* Available on LP for the first time in over 30 years! Featuring contributions from the queen of afrofuturism, June Tyson. Includes a bonus cut from the same sessions, not available on the original LP. * True studio albums of Ra with the Arkestra are rare on this planet or beyond. This studio saucer is an interplanetary interpreter, here to convert even the faintest of heart to the sounds of Sun Ra. Recorded with Arkestra veterans at the same NY studio that hosted countless Sun Ra sessions since…

The planets align this October as the mighty Sun Ra Arkestra, under the direction of the maestro Marshall Allen, release their first studio album in over twenty years, ‘Swirling’. Recorded at Rittenhouse Soundworks in Philadelphia, the new recording represents the continuation of a heartfelt rebirth of the Arkestra under Allen’s guidance since Sun Ra left the planet in 1993, gaining new generations of followers from their regular touring across the globe. With a big band line-up featuring long-s…

* Limited Edition of 300 Clear Vinyl * One of the major statements in the history of Jazz and African American liberation movements. Originally released in 1960 on Candid Records, Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite consists of five original compositions and performances staging and celebrating different moments and aspects of the African American history and culture. Here is a wonderful cast of musicians reunited around Max Roach – drums and Abbey Lincoln – vocals. Throughout the album you can find g…

Black Saint present a reissue of Frank Lowe, one of the most powerful tenor sax voices in the post Free Jazz era and one of the main figures in the mid Seventies NY Jazz Loft scene. "The Flam" recorded and released on Black Saint in 1975 stands as one of Lowe's best albums ever. This is highly Intense music with deep meaning and timeless message performed by an amazing collective featuring Frank Lowe - tenor sax, Leo Smith - trumpet, flugelhorn & wood flute, Joseph Bowie - trombone, Alex Blake -…

With Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, the French ensemble Links presents a classic of the 20th century: Written in 1978, it was Reich’s first work for a larger ensemble. From today’s perspective, it is an icon of American post-minimalism which has not lost any of its fascination. Rhythmic precision, a large dynamic spectrum and a unique range of colors guarantee for an unforgettable listening experience.

Together, ‘Spirits Rejoice’ and ‘Bell’s encapsulate a four month period where long-gestating ideas of Ayler’s were birthed, helping to usher in a conception of music unlike virtually anything else extant, paving the way for his own adventures of the next several years and, perhaps more importantly, providing an extremely fertile bed for a generation or two of musicians to come. – Brian Olewnick Albert Ayler’s recording career was a short one, spanning only the years 1962 – 1970, yet he went thro…

In the year 2000, when Bologna was European Capital of Culture, AngelicA Festival, then in its tenth edition, invited Cecil Taylor to hold a concert at the Teatro Comunale - Opera House of Bologna: solo, with his piano (and his dance and his poetry readings) he opened an evening that ended with a rendition of the luminous piece Coptic Light by Morton Feldman performed by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, conducted by Jurjen Hempel. This unusual juxtaposition (not in the history of th…

On October 14th 1989, Horace Tapscott, founder of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, performed alongside his close friend and musical partner Michael Session at the Théâtre du Chêne Noir in Avignon, France. This was during a tour in which they traveled across Europe. The duo presented compositions by Leimert Park musicians Jesse Sharps, Nate Morgan and Tapscott himself. The stark instrumentation of this concert led to minimal arrangements of compositions typically performed by much larger ensembl…

Ed Askew has been in NYC for 30 years. A few years ago he moved from Washington Heights in Manhattan to Ridgewood in Queens. And starting next month, he will be in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. During all this time, Ed developed a home recording method which is very nuanced and at the same time concise. Ed’s harpsichord, tiple, synth and a muscular use of Pro Tools all play a role. His lyrics are on a whole new level; and his voice is his own. 2020 Seven Songs is his most recent home recording…

Laraaji’s sublime zither improvisation, Celestial Vibrations (1978) forms nothing less than an early archetype for new age ambient music. It was originally issued as a privately pressed meditation aid and sold in limited numbers around NYC until, that is, Brian Eno famously stumbled across Laraaji doing his thing, and the rest, as they say, is laid out in the ambient history books.  That fateful meeting with Brian Eno - interestingly enough in the same year that Eno compiled the definitive No W…

"Moon Piano" is the second in Laraaji's trilogy of piano albums, and follows the spiritual "Sun Piano", released earlier this summer. The piano was the first instrument the esteemed ambient idol learned, and his return to the keys feels generous and open-hearted. Laraaji's focus here is more melancholy and contemplative than on the album's predecessor, and while the same process was used - “I’d sit down, touch the piano and through free association, also blending it with my prepared mental state…

Chris Brown’s (b. 1953) compositions Some Centre (2019) and First Light (2016), performed with such assured lucidity and subtle shading by the three members of The Chromelodia Project, engage with significant precursors in music and in literature, drawing upon their words and innovations, their insights and adventurous spirits while, in the process, transporting those uncompromising benefactors to a different frontier. Brown makes songs from poems by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) and Jackson Mac L…