Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Ever since Otomo got into his minimal misuse of stereo equipment phase, a collaboration with Swiss toaster torturers Voice Crack was on the cards. Although Otomo's refraction of high end sinewaves around cranial interiors may not seem like an ideal partner for Norbert Mšslang and Andy Guhl's usual industrial clang, attempts have obviously been made to find a common ground. There's an intense focus upon the fine detail of the unfolding electronic fields, with the Swiss duo providing a constantly …

Recorded on 25 May 2003 in Metz.

Martin Küchen: prepared and non prepared alto saxophone. David Stackens: guitar, low-budget electronics. Recorded at Fylkingen, Stockholm by Andreas Berthling, 16th of May 2004. Mastered by Andreas Berthling, David Stackens and Martin Küchen.

Wolfgang Schliemann's Tre Pezzi per Percussione (Three Pieces for Percussion) is subtitled "Spesso Usate in Maniera non Convenzionale": often used in not conventional ways. Most of the time, Schliemann's approach is closer to sound art than, say, jazz or contemporary classical. This German CD contains three pieces, all improvised, all solo percussion. In "Presque Vu (En Suite)" ("Almost Seen [In a Suite]"), sparse sound events unfold through nine parts over a total of 44 minutes. Most sounds can…

Compilation containing six lengthy solo tracks by some of the most fascinating improvising musicians currently active in Japan. The CD documents a series of lecture-concerts, exploring the meanings, methods and implications of free music, which took place between September 2003 and February 2004 at Mesar Haus in Tokyo.

The legendary Unlimited Festival in Wels, Austria in 1999 was curated by Otomo Yoshihide (Ground Zero). We are happy to release this sampler that captures the great musicians, bands and projects: Otomo Yoshihide solo, Radian, Incapacitants, Kaffe Matthews / Neumann / Krebs, Tetreault / Labrosse, Nagata Kazunao, Novo Tono, Keith Rowe / Taku / Otomo, Poire_Z, O.Y. New Jazz Quintet (their first performance ever!!), Hoahio, O.Y. solo (finale).

Duos, quartets and quintets of FREE improvisations by Tony Coe (clarinet), John Edwards (bass), Alan Hacker (clarinet), Sylvia Hallett (violin, voice, sarangi), Marcio Mattos (cello), Evan Parker (tenor saxophone), Philipp Wachsmann (violin, electronics), Kenny Wheeler (flugelhorn).

Recentemente vi abbiamo presentato il nuovo lavoro di un gruppo aperto di improvvisatori, i DEK, giunti ad una apprezzata seconda produzione audio. Questa volta due dei molti musicisti impegnati in quel progetto ci propongono la loro personale visione musicale, in un lavoro ""di coppia"" (col violino di Deborah Penzo e le chitarre, synth, theremin ecc di Paolo Boschi) altrettanto riuscito. Si tratta ancora di improvvisazione, di matrice contemporanea (soprattutto per le linee molto ""chiare"" ed…

2006 release ** Packaged in oversize cardboard sleeve. "DeK (Die Entartene Kunst, i.e. Degenerate Art) is a group of ""contemporary improvisation"", understood as Instant Composition, in the best European and non-European radical tradition (from Nuova Consonanza to AMM, to Buthc Morris). The ensemble, open, hosts numerous musicians, who alternate from time to time. The core group is made up of Massimo Daolio, Margaret Leitgeb, Davide Negrini, Andrea Bini, Paolo Boschi, Alessandro Verdecchia. In …

This double CD pairs a studio recording from December 2003 (the Gateway part) with a May 2002 concert recording of two long improvisations (the Vienna part). When this trio released their previous Emanem CD Mercury Concert in 1999, Veryan Weston was described as "underrated and John Edwards and Mark Sanders were described as "younger, unacclaimed players who are regulars on the London improv circuit. In the intervening years, Edwards and Sanders have advanced in acclaim, to the point where they …

Digital concert recording Colchester (Mercury Theatre) - 1998 June 24 All of the music of the concert is included unedited, in the order of performance. All instruments were used without amplification or other electronics.

Recorded on 20/21 December 2006 and 2 January 2007 at Studio Z, Berlin

Recorded between th 31th July and 1st August 2003 at Tonstudio by Hrólfur Vagnsson.

A groundbreaking release from two youngish Japanese improvisers. Sachiko M plays sample-less sampler, and Nakamura uses the no-input mixing board--both instruments which conceptually produce no sound, yet these two conjure it out, somehow."Do" was recorded live in Europe and Tokyo last summer, and features three improvisations varying in length from just over two minutes to slightly under 40. While the shorter tracks are worthwhile and hold moments of greatness, it is the first, very long track …

This is a soprano sax/acoustic guitar session recorded at Sehnaoui's apartment in Paris, which is near an old cloister. The record comprises three long improvisations whose grammar derives from an obstinate research for uncharted areas of intelligent needlework, thus fertilizing the ground for new contiguities between the percussive resonance of instruments. The results achieved by this duo through the application of extended techniques bring the whole thing to shine, and quite often. Cha…

FINALLY RESTOCKED! "New studio work featuring three long pieces in classic Necks minimal/maximal style. Why waste words?" (label info)"Chemist is the 13th release from Australian maverick trio The Necks, now approaching their 20th Anniversary, and still occupying a genre-group of one. Their slow, gripping, development of a single idea over the length of a whole CD, while somehow obvious, has proved un-copyable, mostly because it so much depends on the unique musical personalities and extreme vir…

On the one hand, they seem to be releasing too many CDs - on the other, they are so different and so good you really need to have them. This time they offer two long pieces, both exquisite, of which Mosquito is, in my opinion, destined for greatness. Since the demo arrived in the office it's been on continuously. Minimal, with every sound perfectly imagined and perfectly placed, it achieves almost total timelessness. Essential. (label info)

Sound-track to the prize-winning movie. The Necks break with convention here and put several shorter pieces on one CD. All gems and all pared back to the reiterative imperfection that is the Necks' unique and glorious signature. This a band that seems to be coming into its golden age. Prodigious music and highly recommended.

FINLLY RESTOCKED! For the last 40 years the Logos Foundation in Gent has featured, produced and supported a vast programme of experimental music. One of its most distinctive projects is the massive robot orchestra - a huge and growing array of invented instruments - all of them Goldbegeresque physical constructions that produce internally generated acoustic sound, programmed and played through computer driven mechanical processes... Here they have been programmed to play a broad concert o…

RESTOCKED! Another remarkable performance from a group that has no peer and belongs to no genre or movement. Minimal in an essential and structural sense, they succeed where more formal attempts founder, in re-forming subjective time in a way that is genuinely gripping and as far from theoretical as great interpreters can get. Applying extraordinary technique in a remarkably discrete way, they here transfigure a single chord over a long duration, imperceptibly arriving far from their st…

Completely unique, stunningly musical, technically impressive & breathtakingly simple. The Necks have defined an endlessly productive area of performance that is at once both minimal and gripping, obvious yet profoundly subtle. Easy to say, hard to achieve. It can take time for a group with a completely original idea to find its public & The Necks have been pursuing this one for over a decade in their native Australia - but it doesn't age, it just matures.

Tetuzi Akyiama: tape delayed electric guitar ; Jason Kahn: analogue synthesizer, percussion ; Utah Kawasaki: dismanteled roland synthesizer, cell phone. Recorded on 22 April 2004, Tokyo, Japan. 'No less than six new releases on the Creative Sources label, placing the label right in the centre of improvised music. East meets west on the disc of Tetuzi Akiyama (tape-delayed electric guitar), Jason Kahn (analogue synthesizer and percussion) and Utah Kawasaki (dismantled roland synthesizer and cell …

Over the past decade, Swiss-based Günter Müller has collaborated with many of the most prominent Tokyo-based musicians, recording CDs with Otomo Yoshihide, Taku Sugimoto, Sachiko M, Masahiko Okura, and Toshimaru Nakamura. Points and Slashes is the latest of these, a duo collaboration with guitar wizard Tetuzi Akiyama.It's impossible to pin down Akiyama, a musician of diverse interests and activities, with a brief description. He has been playing electric guitar since he was 13, and formed his fi…

Tania Chen: objects, toys, violin, piano ; Steve Beresford: objects, electronics, toys, trumpet, water. Pieces beginning with 'C' recorded by Tim Fletcher at The Bonnington, Vauxhall, London on December 18 2002. Event organised by Adam and Jonathan Bohman. All other pieces recorded by Steve Beresford in west London - pieces beginning with 'L' on August 7 2003 and the rest on June 12 2003. All pieces composed by Tania Chen and Steve Beresford. Edited by Steve Beresford in March 2004. Not to rub i…

Part two of Sun Ra's 1970 appearance at the Fondation Maeght. An important document for this innovator of jazz. Improvisation, percussion, Afro rhythms, mysticism, and the occult -- all this and more is what the Sun Ra universe is made of. One of the most mysterious and fascinating figures in the history of jazz. Many potential listeners may be initially dismayed at the seeming discord that is inherent in the free and avant-garde subgenres. For them, Nuits de la Fondation Maeght, Vol. 2 might be…

Nuits de la Fondation Maeght, Vol. 1 (1970) is the first of two releases capturing Sun Ra and the Arkestra at Saint Paul de Vence, Côte d'Azur, France, in August of 1970, on what was their first European excursion. As a rule, free and avant-garde jazz are a decidedly acquired taste. However, for discerning palettes, these installments present the aggregate at their absolute pinnacle in terms of performance and inspiration. The four works included here offer a wide variety of styles and approache…

The musicians who perform together on this CD are as unlikely a group of individuals that you are ever likely to find. Yoshikazu Iwamoto brings a cultural past that has deep aesthetic roots in Japanese Buddhism, while John Tilbury's classical European training brings a sensibility that has matured through contract with cultivated traditions of learning and discipline. Eddie Prévost by his presence draws everything together into an indivisible whole, through responses that have been honed from ye…

"Two improvising laptop trios, Stilluppsteypa hailing from Iceland and Chicago's TV Pow, met for the first time in the fall of 2000 and embarked on a week-long tour, captured in part on this recording. As in most successful examples of this genre, the musicians mesh into a whole wherein individual accomplishments are impossible to quantify. The range of sounds and depth of detail produced by this sextet are remarkable, from the quietest clicks and rattles to deeply sonorous hums and ratchetings,…

Virtually the whole of the 1976 Montreal solo concert -- one of his best -- including the complete Tao cycle and several other pieces, one of which ('Hooky') is not on any other record. Reissue of half of Quark LP 9998 with over 50 minutes of previously unissued material from the same concert.

Music for four saxophones (Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Steve Potts & Trevor Watts) with guitar (Derek Bailey) & synthesizer (Michel Waisvisz). Plus highlights from an earlier London concert by Lacy, Potts, Bailey, Kent Carter & John Stevens. Improvisations on original compositions. Reissue of Emanem 3310 (plus an extra piece from the same concert) and the better half of Emanem 304.

If you have only heard the more recent, understated recordings of this giant of the soprano saxophone, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. Just listen to this seminal album and you should understand right away why Lacy is such a formidable force. The initial eight tracks are a reissue of the first LP issued by Emanem, which was Lacy's first solo recording. Each is a gem: radical, accessible, and fascinatingly offbeat. One uses a random radio selection as a backdrop, another mimics duck wa…

Double LP by Dave Okumu, Tom Herbert and Tom Skinner, recorded live at The Crypt in Camberwell, London, on 15 June 2018: covers of Abercrombie, Björk, A.K. Paul and Miles Davis alongside originals.

Recorded between August and September 2004 in Duisburg.

A collaborative CD released in 1996 on incus, featuring former Skullflower guitarist Stefan Jaworzyn and saxophonist Alan Wilkinson. Recorded by Giles Perring at the Red Rose Club, February 27, 1996. Drums of passion (22.11), My psychotic Valentine (15.01), David Murray dons a cunning Alan Wilkinson disguise and blags his way onto a bill at the Termite Club (11.33), Excerpts from a typical hard bop blowing session (10.49), Give a man a saxophone and he'll end up playing jazz (14.23). GREAT!

A sequence of piano and tenor saxophone free improvisations recorded in concert at the Appleby Jazz Festival in 2004. "Looking for an unlikely pair? Here you have it: Stan Tracey, a pianist on his way to be an octogenarian, with a track record that makes the British mainstream jazz community proud, teaming up with Evan Parker, one of the best and most extreme free improvisers of his generation (which is a generation younger than Tracey), adored in avant-garde circles but still largely ignored by…

A sequence of free improvisations -- eight duos, two piano solos & one tenor saxophone solo -- recorded at Gateway Studios. Recorded 9/28/03. 62 minutes.

"Outrageous sounds produced by a workshop orchestra directed by John Stevens - an SME-type improvisation; instrumental & vocal drones; a mechanically rhythmic yet unpredictable piece; and an all-out improvisation featuring non-vocal mouth sounds, vocal sounds & instruments. The exact line-ups on each of these ensemble pieces are not known (apart from the leader on cornet), so they are not given." (Emanem)

2nd volume. The unissued duo works by Stevens (cornet, voice, percussion) and Watts (ss) are way out and an invigorating reminder of the outlandish possibilities of free improvisation, especially "DAA-OOM" ("a loose composition inspired by the music of both the central African pygmies and Albert Ayler -- even 23 years later, the rawness of these pieces is somewhat startling." -- Martin Davidson).

Three different groups in performances utilising frameworks devised by John Stevens sending the music into unexpected areas. From mid-1968 there is the unusual line-up of JOHN STEVENS (percussion), NORMA WINSTONE (voice), KENNY WHEELER (fluegelhorn), PAUL RUTHERFORD (trombone) and TREVOR WATTS (bass clarinet) in a wide-ranging half-hour sequence. Another half-hour sequence features the superb 1971 quartet of STEVENS (percussion & voice), JULIE TIPPETT (voice & guitar), WATTS (soprano sax) and RO…

Two of the last performances by the SME which then comprised John Stevens (percussion & pocket trumpet), Roger Smith (guitar) and John Butcher (soprano & tenor saxophones). A new direction for the music that was sadly terminated later that year (1994) by Stevens' untimely death. Added to this reissue are two short pieces from the previous year, when Neil Metcalfe (flute) was also in the group, and some perceptive comments by Stevens. Reissue of Acta CD 8 with extra material. 63 minutes. Reissue …