Jazz /
Synchrotrony
"A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed path increases with time during the accelerating process, being synchronized to the increasing kinetic energy of the particles.Synchrotrony are a trio who take their inspiration from free improvisation, sound search and simple folk melodies. The band consi…
Free Jazz | Ornette!
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve. Original recordings remastered. As jazz's first extended, continuous free improvisation LP, Free Jazz practically defies superlatives in its historical importance. Ornette Coleman's music had already been tagged "free," but this album took the term to a whole new level. Aside from a predetermined order of featured soloists and several brief transition signals cued by Coleman, the entire piece was created spontaneously, right on the spot. Th…
Trio, Quartet, Quintet
Legendary Modern Jazz album from Germany and the true holy grail of European LPs. First session recording by the internationally awarded pianist Walter Strerath and his brilliant sidemen from 1969, originally released with a beautiful silk-screen printed cover on the tiny Jazz Groove' label in an edition of a few hundred copies only. Outstanding self penned tunes by the trio and Hans Thomas (trumpet/ fluegelhorn) plus Christian Lindner (saxes).
Modern Jazz will never die and it doesn`t smell f…
Zeuhl Jazz
**250 copies, 2020 stock** Sonata Islands is a cultural association, born from an idea of Emilio Galante, that promotes and performs new music and jazz. They organized many concerts and festivals in Italy. After Sonata Islands goes RIO (dedicated to the music of Univers Zero, Fred Frith and Thinking Plague) and Nippon Eldorado Kabarett (with the same musicians, dedicated to Japanese RIO music of the '80s with pieces by After Dinner, Wha Ha Ha, Kiyohiko Semba and Haniwa All Stars), here they pay …
Where Future Unfolds
Where Future Unfolds is a new work spirited by Chicago-based sound & visual artist Damon Locks. Starting as a solo sound collage piece (where Locks pulled samples from Civil Rights era speeches and recordings to create an improvisational pallet for performance on his drum machine), over 4 years the project has blossomed into his 15-piece Black Monument Ensemble – featuring musicians (including Angel Bat Dawid on clarinets and Dana Hall on drums), singers (alumni of the Chicago Children's Choir),…
Food for Thought
**Edition of 200** Texts by Joshua Abrams, Paal Nilssen-Love, Jim Sauter, Mike Watt, Guy Peters, Mette Rasmussen, Dave Rempis, Bruce Ackley, Sandrine Verstraete, Laurens Smet, Ken Vandermark, Koen Vandenhoudt. The idea for this publication started with a request made by photographer, reviewer and overall music enthusiast Hans van der Linden to document the Oorstof series behind the scenes for a whole year. In addition to his unique photographic impressions, we asked graphic designer Marijke Looz…
The Swiftest Traveler
**CD version** An exciting new international trio initiated by Scandinavian saxophonist Torben Snekkestad, accompanied by two esteemed international players in the field of improvised music – the Spanish pianist Agusti Fernández and the British double bass player Barry Guy. The music they create together is situated somewhere between free improvisation, free jazz, and contemporary classical music and executed with lightning fast interaction and explorative, innovative sounds and textures. Record…
Gowanus Sessions II
Gowanus Session II was seven years in the planning. Thollem McDonas, Nels Cline, and William Parker convened at Peter Karl Studios in Brooklyn on January 3rd, 2012 and recorded two complete albums. The first was Gowanus Session I, released by Porter Records in April of 2012. GS II was put aside to eventually complete the five-album palindromic cycle of trio albums Nels and Thollem ambitiously set out to realize. The albums in between include Radical Empathy with Michael Wimberly (Relative Pitch,…
Threnody, At The Gates
This trio is on to something extraordinary; full on furor brushed w thin melodic lines or rage contained in a certain kind of drunken beauty and bliss - all stumbling on towards the heard and the unheard - in a whisper, in a shriek, forces joined and disjoined....This trio is the whole in the never ending audible crack Johan Berthling: double bass; Martin Küchen: tenor and soprano saxophones, retardophone, flute; Steve Noble: drums and percussion. Recorded by David Carlsson at Gula Studion, Malm…
AC/DC
Two totally infectious sets from Decoy -- the trio of John Edwards, Steve Noble, and Alexander Hawkins -- reunited with pocket trumpet and saxophone player Joe McPhee on the closing night of his four day residency at Cafe OTO. In the eight years between the recordings which make up AC/DC and their last release Spontaneous Combustion, Decoy and each of its members have been practicing individually at the very top of their form. Coming together again in such celebratory circumstances and in the go…
Air Time
On Air Time, Air - Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall - hit their 1977 stride, stretching from tightly coiled themes to wide-open improvisation, turning the sax-bass-drums trio into a restless, three-way imagination engine.
Signaling
On Signaling, Nick Mazzarella and Tomeka Reid compress a wide slice of Chicago’s creative music history into intimate alto–cello dialogues, tracing a clear line from Hemphill/Wadud’s 1970s duets to a present tense that feels urgent and newly carved.
All the Numbers
On All the Numbers, Lester Bowie’s first sessions as a leader catch the future Art Ensemble core in 1967 workshop mode, running multiple takes of two pieces that keep splintering into different shapes, energies and internal logics.
Saga of the Outlaws
On Saga of the Outlaws, Charles Tyler turns his Albert Ayler-honed fire into a single, 36‑minute “polyphonic sonic tale,” driving a rough-riding Rivbea band through chants, stampedes and long, wind-scarred horizons of sound.
Battle Pieces
Battle Pieces uses trumpeter Nate Wooley's "social music" system, where each piece is constructed for a soloist who improvises with no score while the remaining player choose at will from over 75 compositions over which the soloist must find their path; here at Roulette in NYC with Nate Wooley, Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone), and Matt Moran (vibraphone).
Felis Catus and Silence
Felis Catus and Silence is a breakthrough release for Tokyo composer-guitarist Leo Takami, following the milestone albums Children’s Song (2012) and Tree of Life (2017). Takami counterpoints the soothing aesthetics of prime-era Windham Hill New Age guitar-heroism with meditative, intellectual compositions comprised of ambitious, process-oriented arrangements. While Takami largely wears his genre influences on his sleeve -- jazz, classical, Japanese gagaku -- the influence of ambient music is a t…
L'homme à la Caméra / La Glace à Trois Faces
"Un Drame Musical Instantané were founded in 1976, featuring Jean-Jacques Birgé, Bernard Vitet and Francis Gorgé. Their aim was to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or their live shows which they tried to renew every time they played. Their sound was created with many influences: they borrowed their sources from rock (synthesizer player Birgé and guitarist Gorgé, both authors of the album, Défense de); jazz (trumpeter Vit…
Nonzigo
Anma Ott is excited to announce the debut LP of Spemakh, a six-piece surprisemusic-group from across Germany (Saarbrücken, Nürnberg, Berlin, Bonn). Drawing from all corners of the compositional sphere, from free-jazz to serialism and concrète, and using a wide range of homemade and custombuilt wind and percussion instruments, as well as viola, doublebass, voice-noise, guitar, objects and miniature electronics, the band is aiming for a radical play with uncertainty, involving humour, gesture an…
Spirits Known and Unknown
Leon Thomas' debut solo recording after his tenure with Pharoah Sanders is a fine one. Teaming with a cast of musicians that includes bassist Cecil McBee, flutist James Spaulding, Roy Haynes, Lonnie Liston Smith, Richard Davis, and Sanders (listed here as "Little Rock"), etc. Thomas' patented yodel is in fine shape here, displayed alongside his singular lyric style and scat singing trademark. The set begins with a shorter, more lyrical version of Thomas' signature tune The Creator Has a Master P…
The Underflow
An übertrio drawn from distinct parts of the creative music spectrum, The Underflow was recorded during a sizzling two-night stand in May 2019. In a series of duets and trios, guitarist David Grubbs, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and trumpeter Rob Mazurek met headlong for the first time, converging not only their acoustic and electric instruments, but at times submerging themselves in a tangle of electronics, then emerging into shamanic bell-shaking chant or chest-rattling howl. Ranging from extr…