Jazz /
Simulate
*2025 stock* Since its Fall 2022 Inception, Undisclosed Sims has quickly become one of the most creative and prolific bands working in the Chicago scene of jazz and improvised music. Simulate, the group’s first recorded material, exposes the band’s deep and diverse collective language producing an album that draws influence from ambient music, kraut rock, free jazz, and art-rock. Throughout-Wills McKenna, Luke Polipnick, Andrew Scott Young, and Adam Shead-prove again and again that they are here…
Hum
*2025 stock* Since the Stein/Smith/Shead trio's inception in the fall of 2021 they have quickly become one of the most creative and prolific bands working in the fields of jazz and improvised music. Hum see's the group moving deeper into their collective language, producing an album that is unlike any bass clarinet trio album recorded to date. Throughout this recording Jason Stein proves again and again that he is indeed the greatest living bass clarinetist working in improvised music today. Dam…
Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople
Land Back! An unadulterated opening statement intoned by Saul Williams three times, as he joins Carlos Niño & Friends in sound ceremony underneath oak and black walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2024. The performance, which was organized by Noah Klein of Living Earth on the grounds of longstanding conservationist organization TreePeople, was the first of its kind for longtime friends and collaborators Williams and Niño. The two have been in contact since 1997 an…
Cruelty Bacchanal
Cruelty Bacchanal, the second release from guitarist Matt Hollenberg’s group Shardik, is a ferocious statement of intent. Years in the making and issued on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, the album presents a volatile and politically charged fusion of modern classical structure, metal intensity, and free jazz unpredictability. Hollenberg’s compositions are marked by intricate rhythmic architecture and an uncompromising sonic vision, alternating between explosive virtuosity and dark, layered atmosphere…
Summer 2025 "Forfolks" (Magazine)
We Jazz Magazine announces the release of Issue 15, "Forfolks," a stunning 128-page exploration of contemporary jazz's most innovative and boundary-pushing artists. This meticulously crafted summer 2025 edition positions itself as an essential document for serious collectors and adventurous listeners navigating the complex terrain of modern improvised music.
At the heart of this issue lies an in-depth examination of Jeff Parker, the visionary guitarist whose work bridges experimental electronics…
Reese and the Smooth Ones
Reese and the Smooth Ones was captured during the same revolutionary Paris session as Message to Our Folks, but stands apart as a two-part, 40-minute odyssey of unchained invention.
Shishiodoshi
Kaze and Koichi Makigami Unleash Musical Mayhem on New Album Shishiodoshi.
Funky Best
Repressed for the first time in Limited edition. Licensed by Nippon Columbia. Issued with an obi strip.
Seeds
This long-awaited LP reissue of a European jazz treasure released in 1969 and led by multi-reedist Sahib Shihab!
Groet
2025 stock In the ever-evolving landscape of European improvised music, Groet stands as a testament to the restless creativity and sly wit of pianist Guus Janssen and drummer Han Bennink. Released on the Dutch label Data in 2005, this album captures two of the Netherlands’ most idiosyncratic voices in a dialogue that is as unpredictable as it is deeply musical.
Janssen and Bennink, both veterans of the Dutch avant-garde, approach the piano-drum duo format with a sense of play that borders on the…
Elastic Jargon
2025 stock Elastic Jargon is an album by Dutch composer and violist Maurice Horsthuis, released in 2007 on the Data label. The project brings together a unique ensemble of string players, with Horsthuis as the sole composer, exploring the boundaries of what can be achieved with string instruments alone.
Slang
2025 stock In the shadowy interstices of contemporary jazz and free improvisation, Slang by Elastic Jargon emerges as a document of restless inquiry and coded communication. Released on the Dutch label Data in 2010, the album is a cryptic dispatch from the margins, where genre boundaries are not so much blurred as actively subverted
Elastic Jargon—true to their name—stretch the language of jazz until it snaps, then reassemble the fragments into something at once familiar and alien. The group’s a…
Astronotes
2025 stock In the ever-mutable landscape of Dutch jazz, Joost Buis’s Astronotes stands as a testament to the playful collision of composition and improvisation. Released on the Data label in 2004, the album finds Buis—trombonist, composer, and bandleader—at the helm of a vibrant ensemble drawn from the heart of Amsterdam’s creative music scene.
From the opening bars of “The Eggs,” it’s clear that Buis is less interested in adhering to tradition than in subverting it with wit and invention. The b…
Tides Of Unrest / Berlin 2023
American percussionist Jeff Arnal and German pianist-composer Dietrich Eichmann’s two-decade partnership fuses polyrhythmic structures and vibrant textures in dynamic, improvised soundscapes. "Tides of Unrest" captures their creative synergy in a 2023 session, blending innovation, tradition, and collaboration.
BorderlessSoutheastofTheNorth
"What we have here is a result of an idea ignited almost 15 years ago with its roots deep in the era of subculture 1990s, when its teenage protagonists started listening to records. But the comradeship between the three of us started in the early 2000 when I was pursuing my first Utopian idea of an art commune in the form of a counter-festival in the Southeastern Slovenian countryside on the border with Croatia. An idea from which, years later, another Utopian project was born - an international…
Via Brasil
One of the most outstanding Bossa Jazz productions from West Germany at the beginning of the 80s! These masterpieces captivate with their stylistic perfection and journey from Bossa Nova to Jazz to slight Disco´n Boogie influence. Its still on of the most DJ spinned Bossa tunes from W.-Germany in the last 30 years!
The two highly talented, creative and sensitive artists Judy (Jude Enxuto) and Ximo (Ximo Gregorio) had lived in Germany since 1980 and performing in several clubs, small art stages a…
Dedos
Here comes a true South American Latin JazzFunk treasure from Argentina!!! Sound Essence is more than proud to present these lost recordings from 1974 to music lovers again in all their glory. Carlos Franzetti, who has once again been in the spotlight in recent years thanks to the re-release of his strong late 70s JazzFusion record "Graffiti", was also in charge of this record called Dedos. The story behind: In 1974, after Carlos Franzetti was living in Mexico and worked as the musical director…
Gruppo AdRa
This recording is an experiment in composing from percussion first. To feel movement in harmony and arrangement through the improvising senses of a percussionist. The melodic and harmonic elements appeared instantly after recording the percussion with Rama Parwata. The additional Tenor Saxophone of Cheryl Durongpisitkul (Sola) and Bass Clarinet of Flora Carbo (Sfondo and Mondo) were the final touches to bring life into the music. The result is a through-composed work, a narrative starting inside…
Sonor
For a few fleeting moments during a sunset, the sky is cast a vivid shade of amber. A dramatic flare of colour, a moment belonging to both the day and the night. It is within this vibrant, ephemeral world, that Mongolian-born, Munich-based Enji has written her new album Sonor. Sonor is a record full of life and optimism, from an artist finding the beauty of existing between two worlds, much as a sunset does. Between the cultures of Mongolia and Germany, tradition and innovation, nostalgia and ex…
House and Home
Wheelhouse reunites as a trio after a decade apart. Their new work, "House and the Home," reflects years of artistic growth, personal change, and enduring bonds, capturing the essence of shared musical evolution and community.