Retrograde
Matt Lavelle (trumpet, flugelhorn, alto clarinet) and Reggie Sylvester (drums), New York avant-jazz veterans and longtime cohorts in the Bern Nix Quartet, perform in duo here on Retrograde, their debut on ESP-Disk'. Visiting destinations overlooked on John Coltrane's tour of the solar system, they craft their own space suite of earthier delights. This album was recorded live at Andrea Wolper's WhyNot Experiment?
series. Matt and Reggie played two sets; the second set, with Bern Nix
in the audi…
Tropical Gothic
It's 2018 and it's time for some new discoveries into Mike Cooper's limitless exploration in his collection of guitars. The title itself, Tropical Gothic references Cooper's beloved areas of "the South" with a Gothic, dark, remote interplay... he explains: ''Tropical Gothic includes, but is by no means limited to, a reflection on a region where European colonial powers fought intensively against indigenous populations and against each other for control of land and resources.'' On each side, Mike…
Earlier Music
Officer! was founded by Londoner Mick Hobbs. His roots were in the RIO scene of the late 70s and early 80s. Initially he worked as guitarist in The Work, subsequently he became closely associated with This Heat and their Cold Storage Studio in Brixton, working with artists like Family Fodder, Catherine Jauniaux or Zeena Parkins. The band's first album 8 New Songs By Mick Hobbs came out in 1982 on cassette only. It forms the first half of this CD re-issue. With the exception of two songs that cam…
Bichon Frisé
The cassette release Bichon Frisé features 4 tracks of atmospheric and eerie New Age music, made by Børre Mølstad, Danielle Dahl, Niklas Adam and Anders Vestergaard at the beautiful peninsula "Nesodden" outside of Oslo back in 2013. The sound is both soothing and easy listening but with an underlying feeling of hallucinatory horror; perhaps not unlike the popular dog breed after whom it is named.
Rock Y Roll
** Edition of 300 ** War Extension announces the vinyl re-issue of Rok Y Roll by Vic Serf & The Villains, originally released by It's War Boys on cassette in 1982. Musicians on the album comprised Vic Serf (alias of Jim "Amos" Welton), Cathy Spermwrecker, Rita Chulo, and Larry O'Houlihan, along with guest appearances from Ron Dealo, Lepke B., and Sara Fancy. The recording is situated in a particularly fervent and inventive period of 1980s independent and experimental music-making, in which musi…
Stoner Witch
The true gods of the stoner underground music, the Melvins, released their album Stoner Witch in 1994. The album is one of their most successful releases and one where their musical capacities can be felt in the depth, powerful and experimental sounds. It melds the sound of their earlier records with some ambient and hardcore melodies. The monster anthem “Revolve” is a true masterpiece that breathes the southern rock and brings a handful of well-crafted riffs. Another epic track and one of the b…
Uivo Zebra
When improvisers turn to electricity and imposing volume levels, the results are sometimes as intense as they are tedious, because they forget that it can quickly become a stodgy, lumbering mess that bleeds out way too soon. Not so here, as the musicians of Uivo Zebra have the experience, but also (and more importantly) the awareness that the most enduring results are found when guts, self-knowledge, shared vision and discipline are kept in rigorous balance. Which needn’t imply it becomes safe o…
Zwölf
12 short live solo guitar, like a portrait of the Austrian musician at a time of his course, oscillating between minimalism, American primitive, improvisation or noise. Guitar’s lover will be pleased.Some tracks with field recordings from Steve Bates.Mastered by Martin Siewert.
String Quartets
String Quartet 1, 2 et 3 composed by Reinhold Friedl (Zeitkratzer) and performed by Quatuor Diotima.Reinhold Friedl’s string quartets do not pretend to be string quartets, they are anti-Goethe. There is no sophisticated conversation of four elder gentlemen, sitting in armchairs. The music is physical work for the performers and intended to be physical pleasure for the listeners. All three quartets are based on the same idea: smooth transformations from a given texture into another one. The rando…
Momentary Encounters
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.Momentary encounters(5) (2015) by Heather Roche (clarinet). Any three players (2016) by John Lely (melodica), Simon Limbrick (vibraphone), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello). A grey, bent interior horizon (2016) by Cristian Alvear (guitar), Distributed tourism (2014/17) by Mira Benjamin (violin), Simon Limbrick (vibraphone), Heather Roche (clarinet), Nancy Ruffer (flute), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello).Four fine, delic…
O Zomer!
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.O Zomer! (2007) by Apartment House, Philip the Wanderer (2012) by Philip Thomas (piano) & Clemens Merkel (whistling). For Mira (2012) by Mira Benjamin (violin). Duet for Cello and Orchestra (2015) by Charles Curtis (cello), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducor Ilan Volkov.Two ensemble works and two solo pieces by Christian Wolff’s favourite contemporary composer, who is blazing a very personal trail th…
Just So
Finally the second batch of CDs in the highly-acclaimed Canadian Composers Series is here.Just So (2008/18). 5 Warblework (2011). About Bach (2015). Leaving (2011) by Quatuor Bozzini with Clemens Merkel & Alissa Cheung (violins), Stephanie Bozzini (viola), Isabelle Bozzini (cello).Another disc of extraordinary music by Cassandra Miller, this one containing four string quartets superbly played by Quatuor Bozzini.
Joutsenen Juju
Gatefold jacket, black vinyl limited to 300 copies. Svart Records are proud to present the first ever reissue of Ilpo Saastamoinen’s groundbreaking album Joutsenen juju. Originally released on Love Records in 1976, this double vinyl release features a full album of unreleased bonus material from Saastamoinen’s personal archives. An active musician since his teens in the 1960’s, Saastamoinen played in Soulset with Harri Saksala and Paroni Paakkunainen. He then befriended the legendary drummer Ed…
Canti E Vedute Del Giardino Magnetico
2023 Repress American composer and multi-instrumentalist Alvin Curran has remained one of the great emblems of experimental music for the last half-century. In 1966, along with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, Curran co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva, a seminal gesture in collective free improvisation. In the early '70s, his solo work would become a crucial bridge between minimalist traditions on both sides of the Atlantic. Canti E Vedute Del Giardino Magnetico, Curran's solo debut, was…
Niblock For Celli / Celli Plays Niblock
Phill Niblock’s riveting and rare work for Joseph Celli sees necessary and long-awaited reissue on the amazing Superior Viaduct, who continue to carefully and studiously unfold the history of avant-garde and experimental music before your ears.
Idiophonic
Seijiro Murayama (percussion, voice) lived in France for many years and is currently based in Paris. Alto sax player Jean Luc Guionnet, who lives in Paris, is also known as a pipe organist. The two musicians have released three CDs to date: Le Bruit du Toit (Xing-Wu Records, 2007), Window Dressing (Potlatch, 2011), and Mishima, Day & Night (Ftarri, 2015). Guionnet played the sax on each of these albums. Their fourth release, Idiophonic, is the first on which Murayama performs with Guionnet the o…
Molecules
Limited edition of 400. This masterful performance was born of the meeting of two master improvisers, Kazuo Imai from Japan and Roger Turner from the UK. Imai, who studied with Masayuki Takayanagi and Takehisa Kosugi, is one of Japan's leading improvisers and guitarists. Turner is a drummer and percussionist who has been actively performing throughout the world since the beginning of the 1970s. His Japan tour in October 2017 included concerts with Japanese musicians in various locations, includi…
Musique pour le lever du jour
**Co-produced by David Sylvian and Yuko Zama, artwork by David Sylvian** Melaine Dalibert (born 1979), a French composer/pianist, has been increasingly recognized for his compositional piano works as well as his interpretations of works by Gérard Pesson, Giuliano D’Angiolini, Tom Johnson, Peter Garland and many others. Trained as a classical pianist in Rennes (where he teaches now), Dalibert studied a large repertoire of contemporary composers’ works at the Paris Conservatories. Being involved w…
Drop By Drop, Suddenly
XI Records releases Drop By Drop, Suddenly, a two-CD set of eleven compositions for bassoon composed and performed by Leslie Ross. Ross is not only an internationally renowned instrument builder but is also an uncompromising creative musician. The first disc starts with a series of short seed pieces that play primarily with the timbral and microtonal differences highlighted between tone-holes, forming a layered effect while playing with only one fingering, single note or multiphonic. They range …
Good Morning Universe
Recorded at Levontin7, Tel-Aviv, Israel on the 17th February, 2017. Edition of 300. Tel Aviv based bassist and composer, Shay Hazan. Started playing the electric bass at age 12. In 2007 his musical path has changed radically when he took on himself the work of studying the double bass. While studying at the Jerusalem Academy for Music & Dance Shay was preforming original and improvised music in different settings around the country. Soon after graduation Mr. Hazan started playing in the New Albe…