To Those Of Earth And Other Worlds
Strut follow up their hugely successful Marshall Allen - curated ‘In The Orbit Of Ra’ compilation with a newly curated set from the immense 125 LP back catalogue of jazz maverick, DIY philosopher and self-professed member of an “angel race”, Sun Ra. ‘To Those Of Earth… And Other Worlds’ is a hand-picked selection from BBC 6Music / Worldwide DJ Gilles Peterson, long-time champion of Ra’s music and the UK’s leading tastemaker for jazz-based sounds. It serves as perhaps the best introduction yet to…
Planets Of Life Or Death: Amiens '73
In celebration of Record Store Day 2015, Strut and Art Yard join forces once more for the first release anywhere of a live Sun Ra performance from Amiens, France in 1973, Planets Of Life Or Death. Recorded direct from the soundboard and mastered from first generation reel to reel, the title is exclusively available for Record Store Day 2015.Sun Ra and his Arkestra had just completed a residency at the legendary Gibus in Paris in October before traveling to Amiens for a visceral Sunday afternoo…
Lie Together, Die Together
**100 hand-numbered copies** Lie Together, Die Together is a collection of images that work better as mental notes, sometimes just a reminder of a possible project to come, sometimes just falling for a strange aesthetic beauty. The memory images are at odds with photographic representation. From the latter’s perspective, memory images appear to be fragments —but only because photography does not encompass the meaning to which they refer and in relation to which they cease to be fragments—. Simil…
Music for Church Cleaners Vol. I and II
** few copies back in stock ** 2015 repress, don't miss it "Over the course of several months, Áine O'Dwyer was given access to the pipe organ in St Mark's Church, Islington, while the cleaners were at work. Primarily a harpist, this was a rare opportunity to grapple with the 'king of instruments' and apply her sense of melodic, structured improvisation in a new context. Since it's impossible to exert complete control over such a recording environment, she entered into the sessions with a C…
Protest Music
Dense, roiling drone show from Joe DeNardo, who’s best known as Growing but, adopts the Ornament moniker to signify something altered from his usual practice. It starts out with a folksy sort of dissonance and soon starts to curdle and keen in fascinating formations.Joachim Nordwall of iDEAL says: Protest Music is the first release by Ornament, the recent project of Joe DeNardo from the band Growing. Ornament began playing shows in late 2012 around the New York City area, and recorded this album…
Before the Code
LP version. Improviser, composer, and saxophonist extraordinaire Ken Vandermark's group Made to Break return with a new bassist and more energy than ever before. Made to Break's live performances continue to amaze audiences all over Europe and North America. On Before the Code, the quartet's improvisation reaches unprecedented flexibility and immediacy, solidifying Made to Break's status as a truly unique act in the world of free jazz. Ken Vandermark: reeds; Christof Kurzmann: electronics [lloop…
Konzert fur 12 Traktoren
Have you ever heard a tractor orchestra? In this unusual concert, the tractor brands «Famulus», «Pionier», «Zetor» and «Belarus» are both the muses and the stars. Their engines produce a unique rhythmic piston beat. Sven-Åke Johansson has composed a concert specifically for these 1950s and 1960s tractors which is being performed for the first time here in Thuringia. In his search for suitable machines, the composer made great finds in Weimar and environs. Under his direction, twelve tractor dri…
Jukebox-Series 002
Trost starts a new 7" series called Jukebox Series, specially for one-time collaborations & projects. The paper-sleeve stays the same, labels are changing, and there's artwork by Lasse Marhaug. This time Christof Kurzmann teams up with Sofia Jernberg (Fire Orchestra) on one side, and with Ken Vandermark and Martin Brandlmayr (Radian) on the other for two versions of the beautiful song "Beggars." The lyrics are written by Joe McPhee.
Free Radicals
A documentary film by Pip Chodorov on the history of experimental film. Includes a 56 page book on the film. a film that shines with its cast: Hans Richter, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Maurice Lemaitre and other “star” experimental filmmakers (mostly americans, up through the ‘70s) parade in majesty. They do so with no false modesty (their candidness and confidence are rather surprising, sometimes humorous), and with a clear pleasure at having their turn in front of the camera, to …
Romperayo
Romperayo reunites percussion heavyweights Pedro Ojeda from projects such as Los Pirañas, Frente Cumbiero, Ondatrópica and Chupame El Dedo (also on discrepant), on drums, percussion and timbales; Eblis Alvarez from worldwide acclaimed bands Meridian Brothers and Los Pirañas, on samplers and synths; Ricardo Gallo, virtuoso organist and pianist on synthesizers and Juan Manuel Toro, renowned bassist and composer, on bass. As a sound Romperayo is a fast moving musical journey through Colombian tropi…
Johnny Kafta Anti Vegetarian Orchestra
Initially a combination of two of Lebanon's most active and longest standing groups, JKAVO was founded when Scrambled Eggs (punk-rock band founded in 1998) & 'A' Trio (free improv trio founded in 2002) joined forces and mixed styles to record 'Beach Party at Mirna el-Chalouhi' in January 2009, combining each trio's distinctive sound to create something genuinely new, somewhere between punk and krautrock, free jazz and improvisation. Though self-released and self-distributed in a very special for…
Ghost Tapes
The haunting collages of Turkey resident El Mahdy Jr come to discrepant with the appropriately named Ghost Tapes LP. Born in Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria, El Mahdy Jr. and his family fled the Civil war of his native Algeria in the 90's, relocating to Turkey. Upon returning years later to Algeria, Mahdy started working as a French-Arabic translator, first in Algeria and later in Burkina Faso. Sick in bed with malaria, he began to paint sonic pictures of his travels in exile; digitally decoding a hazy …
Last live
Long form twisted blues from the Japanese Seijaku Trio of Keiji Haino (guitar, voice, violin & flute), Mitsuru Nasuno (bass) and Yoshimitsu Ichiraku (drums), performing live at Club Goodman in Tokyo in 2012. The music is profoundly introspective and dark, with spacious sections leading to vocal interventions from Haino, either melodic speaking to urgent shouts. His guitar work shimmers and distorts, and the band punctuates or creates powerful grooves below. It's an album to take time with, as th…
After Seijaku
The Seijaku Trio of Keiji Haino (electronics, guitar, voice), Mitsuru Nasuno (bass, electronics) and Yoshimitsu Ichiraku (electronics), recording 2 years after the "Last Live" album, in an epic voyage of meditative and intricate electronics performed live in Tokyo in 2014 at Club Goodman. As "Last Live" explains, Yoshimitsu Ichiraku can no longer play drums due to physical issues, necessitating this transformation from a heavy abstract blues band into this ritualistic trio. It's a fitting and ea…
Like the dust under a mother's knife
Recorded live at ODUM - Chicago - February 24, 2007 by Todd Carter Drawings by Leif Elggren.
Active since the late 1970s, Leif Elggren has become one of the most constantly surprising conceptual artists to work in the combined worlds of audio and visual. A writer, visual artist, stage performer and composer, he has many albums to his credits, solo and with the Sons of God, on labels such as Ash International, Touch, Radium and his own Firework Edition.
Kevin Drumm is an experimental musician bas…
10 Suicides
In 1980 Ilitch mastermind Thierry Müller released his second LP, 10 Suicides, on the French imprint S.C.O.P.A. Unlike his debut Periodikmindtrouble (also available from Superior Viaduct), which featured intricately layered instrumentals, 10 Suicides explores a more art-damaged pop sensibility. While distorted guitars and atmospheric synth workouts remain a part of Müller's signature sound, several songs credit the mysterious Ruth Ellyeri, who was not an actual person, but rather Müller's female …
Vertigo
After more than 25 years of confusing the heck out of anyone who dares turn up to a concert expecting to hear a run-of-the-mill jazz trio, Sydney mavericks The Necks are set to continue to push the trajectory of jazz out of the stratosphere of convention with their new, incredible album. The Necks 18th album Vertigo is an eventful, kaleidoscopic tone poem set against a darkly shimmering background. Slowly but inexorably moving forward, it crosses many frontiers yet remains true to the mission…
Commencing
Just arrived!! Leicester, England -- mid-1990s. Aaron Moore, Nick Mott, Clarence Manuelo, and Daniel Padden create a freeform group called Volcano the Bear out of their frustration with standard musical limitations. Now, in 2015, after 20 years of experimenting with improvisation, folk, Dada, post-punk, krautrock, noise, surreal comedy, pure avant-garde, and more, the group has obtained a cult following and high critical praise across the globe. Renowned for their highly theatrical and obscu…
Experiments in Incest
Shoc Corridor was the London post-punk quartet of Paul O'Carroll (Voice, Synth), Andy Garnham (Synth, Bass, Drum), Chris Davis (Guitar, Bass, E-Bow) and Nogi Prass (Synth) named after the Sam Fuller film from 1963. Chris met Nogi shortly after moving to London in 1979, started playing music together, fell madly in love and decided to form a band. They recruited Andy, who had previously played in a band with Steve Luscombe of Blancmange, and lyricist and vocalist Paul. A home studio was set up at…
The Reconstruction Of
Compuma aka Koichi Matsunaga reaches back through time to 1970s Hawaii to perform a mind meld, with his old-school Roland drum machines and present-era compumagic Vulcanizing and reshaping Haku's original home-grown analog synth madness. Haku aka Frank Tavares composed a number of theater pieces and songs to highlight the multiethnic character of his native Hawaii, and released an LP of his compositions in 1975 (reissued by Em in 2015 (EM 1136CD/LP)). In Haku's work, new age musical elements, tr…