Music from United States

Capra Black remains one of the seminal recordings of jazz's black consciousness movement. A profoundly spiritual effort that channels both the intellectual complexity of the avant-garde as well as the emotional potency of gospel, its focus and assurance belie Billy Harper's inexperience as a leader. Backed by an all-star supporting unit including trombonist Julian Priester and drummer Billy Cobham, Harper's tenor summons the brute force and mystical resolve of John Coltrane but transcends its in…

**One of the greatest Spiritual album ever made**180-gram vinyl reissue, new re-edition, reduced price. Improvised spiritual jazz from Joe Henderson and Alice Coltrane. "The Elements" was originally recorded in 1973 and marked a move away from the post bop that Henderson was known for. Working with Coltrane on piano and harp, violinist Michael White, Charlie Haden on bass, percussionist Kenneth Nash and Baba Duru Oshun on tablas, the veteran saxophonist explored themes inspired by the four eleme…

Essential listening for Sun Ra devotees and cosmic explorers! Roaratorio's incredible survey of the unheard Sun Ra continues with Sun Embassy, featuring recordings from Sun Studios - aka Ra's house in Philadelphia - captured between 1968 and 1969. This is prime period Arkestra music, deep in the cosmic zone, with nine tracks that include six compositions never heard before in any form! Add to that fresh arrangements of 1950s classics like "Sunology" and "Ancient Aiethiopia", plus an early rendit…

Armed only with a tiple (sort of a South American mandolin) and his lilting neigh of a voice (and bearing superficial resemblances to labelmates Pearls Before Swine and heady UK acoustic folkers Incredible String Band), Askew spun tales of doomed sisters, crashing universes, budding gay love and a serious fondness for roses on his rare, precious and beautiful album.After this lone release, Ed Askew seemingly vanished in the romantic mists of time … until a second, previously unreleased album sur…

**ltd/numbered 1/50, with paste-on cover** Three long tracks, amazing/perfect duo (they'd have played a lot together, real tight/know each other real well); both musicians are still very very underrated ?! fantastic solos by Mr. Reid. Recorded at the New England Repertory Theatre; Feb. 25 1980 . One of the unsung baritonists in jazz, Charles Tyler had a huge tone on his instrument and played with a great deal of fire, usually in fairly free settings. After studying piano growing up in Indianapol…

2017 release. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s classic, groundbreaking 1967 album Absolutely Free, the Zappa Family Trust has released an expanded, vinyl-exclusive edition of the album in double-LP pressed on shiny black 180gram vinyl, mastered by Bernie Grundman, and cut directly from the original analog master tapes.While the first disc offers the original album in all its glory, the second disc in the set features twenty minutes of rare and …

**2020 small repress** Black Truffle present the premier recordings of two recent works by legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier. Lucier has been crafting elegant explorations of the behavior of sound in physical space since the 1960s and is perhaps best known for his 1970 piece I Am Sitting In a Room (LCD 1013CD). He has written a remarkable catalog of instrumental works that focus on phenomena produced by the interference between closely tuned pitches, often using pure electron…

Emotional Response continues it’s fifth year celebrations in welcoming two of the label’s long held favourite artists – Jefre Cantu–Ledesma and Alexis Georgopoulos – coming together perfectly for an album of laconic story-telling and atmospherics. Over the past decade, Cantu–Ledesma and Georgopoulos have been frequent collaborators. With one another – Jefre’s recent "On The Echoing Green’ (Mexican Summer), Arp’s “The Soft Wave” (Smalltown Supersound) and The Alps “Le Voyage” (Type) – an…

His utterly distinctive, captivating cross-fertilisation of New Age and Gospel Soul, unfurled in a live, hour-and-a-half improvised session, recorded in London last year. The 1984 work Vision Songs Vol. 1 — ‘devotional and inspirational songs’, Laraaji calls them — in its entirety, including the underground favourite All Of A Sudden. Lovingly presented, with a risograph inlay and photographic insert card, in a tiny edition, on cassette only.

Recorded in 1985, this long piece, unpublished until now, belongs to the Gamelan series, which Philip Corner has worked for years and counting dozens of pieces. In the word of the author, the piece, for two pianists "...represents one of the most “curious” manifestation in the Gamelan series. The increment-link, high-to-low, is maintained on the chromatic scale of the piano keyboard, giving durations from 1 to 88. However they are realized in both directions at the same time. And counted out lou…

180 gram reissue of Miles Davis' expansive 1972 album. ""Here are killer groove riffs that barely hold on as bleating trumpet and soprano sax lines (courtesy of Dave Liebman on track one) interact with John McLaughlin's distortion-box frenzy. Michael Henderson's bass keeps the basic so basic it hypnotizes; keyboards slowly enter the picture, a pair of them handled by Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, as well as Ivory Williams' synthesizer." (All Music)

Double LP version. "My Brother The Wind, Vol. 1 captures Afrofuturist visionary Sun Ra's initial 1969 encounter with the Moog synthesizer. The album has been meticulously remastered from archival session tapes and includes rare and previously unreleased studio material. Recorded in 1969 and self-released by Sun Ra in 1970 on his independent Saturn label, My Brother The Wind is one of several albums that showcase Ra's initial reckonings with the then-recently introduced Moog synthesizer. A…

Reissue on 180-gram opaque white vinyl. Originally released in 1965. The transitional "Bells" was just under 20 minutes, released originally as one side of a clear vinyl LP with the other side empty of music. It was recorded at a May 1, 1965, Town Hall concert of ESP artists, displaying Albert Ayler's new group, which added Albert's brother Donald and Charles Tyler. The denser sound of "Bells" shows Ayler moving towards the bigger sonic statement made on Spirits Rejoice (ESPDISK 1020CD/LP), h…

The holy grail for Sun Ra collectors and fans, his original album previously released on Jackpot, with Tip-on Gatefold Jacketand Transparent Blue Colored Vinyl and an album that forever gave them a slogan to live by! The record's different than some of the other Arkestra work from the time – in that it's a bit tighter and more spiritual, more in keeping with the style of the Blue Thumb label, for which it was recorded – and soaring along on a wave of post-Coltrane spiritual jazz enthusiasm…

**3 LP bundle** Pharoah Sanders is Spiritual Jazz, is Devotional Music, is the greatest living link between John Coltrane, Kamasi Washington, and the next generation of this great lineage. His Tenor Sound, his Singing Voice, his compositions, and his recordings have already stood the test of time, in his time, endured, ever-aged so finely, and have now (in my opinion) surpassed critique. Pharoah Sanders is a giant, an innovator, colorful, prayerful, and worthy of all our attention, celebration, …

Christina Kubisch contemplates Nicolai Tesla and his concept of electrical remoteness as it applies to the modern world. In this piece, Kubisch considers whether this is the future Tesla envisioned and what remoteness means in an age where remoteness hardly exists at all. "Tesla's Dream" includes electromagnetic field recordings from tramways, analog machines, light systems, power stations, airports, banks, security systems, advertising, and the sounds of discharges and activities of Tesl…

Home Age is the first proper Eleh full-length since 2012's Homage To The Pointed Waveforms. These three new pieces seek to expose the inherent musicality of pure electrical currents via high resolution Serge STS synthesizers. Like early Eleh work, Home Age is inward looking, domestic, and deliberate, but also slowly emotional and revealing as if peering blurry-eyed through a window. Melody, harmony, and counterpoint are suggested but not revealed. Packaged in a deluxe gold-on-black, heavy…

Just when you think you are grasping the breadth and quality of the music of Julius Eastman (1940 - 1990), a recording such as Julius Eastman: The Zürich Concert shows up, and you have to go back and reassess his work and wonder what will show up next. This recording is from a 1980 solo seventy-minute improvisatory concert in Zürich, a cherished cassette made by a friend of Eastman's, who recently realized its uniqueness and decided that he should share it. The Zürich Concert was performed on Oc…

Corbett Vs. Dempsey present a reissue of Sun Ra Discipline 27-II, originally released on El Saturn Records in 1973. Arguably the last great original-era Saturn LP to be reissued on CD, Discipline 27-II has long deserved to be more familiar to Sun Ra fans and layfolk alike. Recorded during the same sessions in 1972 at Chicago's Streeterville Studios that produced Ra's most popular and best-known record, Space Is The Place (1973), it's got much the same vibe, from the 24-minute four-part suite of …

The master of twisted noise is adding a new album to his incredible discography. Following his monumental album ‘The Gag File’ on Dais, ‘Switches’ is the next chapter in the evolution of Aaron Dilloway's sound. Created on piano and tape ‘Switches’ is a spiralling journey into the rugged mind and soul of one of the most influential figures in radical modern music.Pressed on 180 g colored vinyl and housed in a reversed board sleeve illustrated with artwork by dutch artist Henri Jacobs on fr…