Jazz /
With, Without
Phil Minton is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter. He is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake with his own ensemble. Minton is perhaps best known, however, for his completely free-form work, which involves "extended techniques" that can be as unsettling as they can be mesmerising. His voca…
Nothing but the Music
The sounds of late '70s and '80s east coast avant-garde jazz, soul, and punk rock are well documented, but in Nothing but the Music Thulani Davis gives us something beyond, delivering a collection of synesthetic, transportive documentary poems that breathe anecdotal and impressionistic life into a sonic-social history about which most can only speculate. Davis' verse takes free flight with its muses, scatting and leaping off the page and the shoulders of the musicians, nightclubs, and choreograp…
Complete Recordings
Deluxe, spot gloss-printed, massive three-hour box set collecting the full work of Herbert Joos (one of the most celebrated musicians in Lithuania’s avant-garde scene) 1968-1973 units, the Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe and Four Men Only
The Sea is Rough
The Sea Is Rough is only a single (released as a 12’’ EP, played in 45 rpm) that features 2 pieces, recorded by the Russian power-pree jazz outfit Brom (Бром) with Japanese legendary trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, known for his collaborations with innovative improvisers around the globe like Peter Brötzmann, Han Bennink, Henry Kaiser, Bill Laswell and Paal Nilssen-Love. This promising meeting of Brom and Kondo was recorded at Orange Studio, Moscow in March 2019. The first version of the title-piece…
Eastern Saga: Live at Tusk
Turkish free jazzers Konstrukt continue their series of exciting collaborations with Otomo Yoshihide, highly repudiated multi-instrumentalist and composer in the experimental world. #4 in the continuing series of Konstrukt collaborations on Karlrecords is a live document of the concert by the Turkish freeform group with the Japanese experimental musician Otomo Yoshihide from the TUSK Festival 2018. Konstrukt, the Istanbul based free jazz/freeform group founded and led by Umut Çağlar and Korhan F…
Axis/Another Revolvable Thing
Axis / Another Revolvable Thing is the second installment of Blank Forms’ archival reissues of the music of Japan’s eternal revolutionary Masayuki Takayanagi, following April Is the Cruellest Month, a 1975 studio record by his New Direction Unit.
Psychic Armour
"Operating at an extremely high level, Smyth and Corsano share a special connection. One can almost see their thoughts syncing together and their bodies merging into one four-armed monster. Several moments are reminiscent of the best work from Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley, while still managing to sound like Smyth and Corsano." — Burning Ambulance
“With the energy and focus on display, it is tempting to compare the meeting to two heavyweights coming toe-to-toe, prepared to slug it out… but that wo…
New Grass
Albert Ayler's 1969 album New Grass has been misunderstood from the day of its release. The album finds Ayler experimenting with soul music and digging back into his R&B roots (he started his career playing saxophone with Chicago bluesman Little Walter), fusing it with the avant-garde free jazz (the one element of the record which garnered consistent praise) and adding the vocals of Rose Marie McCoy, The Soul Singers and Ayler himself. As if predicting the divisiveness of the record to follow, A…
Armitage Road
**Seminal Spiritual Jazz from South Africa, 1970. Officially licensed and re-mastered re-issue**. With a unique sound founded on a persuasive mix of American and African jazz, Armitage Road, originally released in 1970, was the only studio recording released by South Africa’s Heshoo Beshoo Group. As a highly prized collector’s item, a re-issue and re-appraisal of this lost gem from the apartheid era has been long overdue. Heshoo Beshoo loosely translates from the inter-tribal lingo of the townsh…
My Greatest Love
LP version. We Release Jazz present a reissue from Geneva's Boillat Thérace Quintet, the My Greatest Love album, featuring bebop and hard-bop legend Benny Bailey and available for the first time since 1975. Galvanized by the creation of the Montreux Jazz Festival in the late '60s and lively local scenes, jazz music was healthy and booming in Switzerland in the 1970s. One band that beautifully captured this energy was Jean-François Boillat and RaymondThérace's Boillat Thérace Quintet whose self-t…
Transition East
"Transition East" features two new pieces of music created by Angel Bat Dawid in response to Emma Warren's 2019 book "Make Some Space" – i.e. the book that chronicles the history of London DIY music institution Total Refreshment Centre. Angel Bat Dawid, who first met Emma Warren at Total Refreshment Centre in 2017, composed & recorded "Transition East" alone in her space on the Southside of Chicago, originally to be accompaniment for the audiobook version of "Make Some Space." Angel conceptualiz…
Moving World
In 1974, a brash young designer called Augustus Kerry Taylor had an idea. He'd gather together the hottest musicians in Ghana and record an album of the heaviest and funkiest sounds coming out of America. And this time, he wouldn't just design the cover, like he'd done with Fela Kuti, he'd even release it on his new label, Emporium, as well. Local Accra legends Joe Wellington, Jagger Botchway, Leslie Addy, Officer Toro, Oko Ringo, Soldier and Steve answered the call. They were christened the Kel…
Sweet Funk Music
Who said that all Nigerian afrobeat from the 70s was dark and though provoking with a melancholic edge despite the ongoing powerful grooves and a more or less political message denouncing the the methods of the country’s leaders to increase their own wealth and power while the simple people suffer. Well, this 1978 album by bandleader Thony Shorby Nyenwi proves this idea wrong. What we have here is a sacredly rare gem, fetching 300 € for a copy in playable condition. A crown jewel of Nigerian afr…
I've Been Loving You
“I’ve Been Loving You” sees Manford Best finally laying the ghosts of The Wings to rest and emerge as a serious player in the glittering new world of Afro boogie. Recorded in London, with Nigerian super producer, Jake Sollo, at the desk, it is a highly polished collection of disco classics, guaranteed to fill any dance floor in the world. The title track gets the party started with an irresistible bass line and chirpy horn section. Written by Best while he was still in The Wings, the song is unr…
Alpha & Omega
In the mid eighties FM radio stations took over the airwaves in Nigeria. They wanted fresh new styles to play andin creasingly radio personalities like Bisi Olatilo, Ruime Effetie and Shea Martins were turning to reggae. Nigeria’s Freak Father Number One, Benis Cletin, saw the writing on the wall and created his deeply philosophical roots reggae opus, ‘Alpha & Omega’. Benis delivered a set of songs that tapped unashamedly into reggae’s message of peace and love. The title track is a philosophica…
She Is My Woman
She Is My Woman is Murphy William’s loose, funky and spontaneous call to the dance floor. It’s an infectious collection of good-time tunes that the band seem to be enjoying as much as the listener. Williams was a stalwart of the Nigerian music scene, joining Godwin Omabuwa’s Cassanova Dandies at 17 before becoming one of the two lead vocalist of The Apostles from Aba. He was famous for his distinctive four octave voice, a voice that legendary label boss, Godwin Tabansi decided was perfectly suit…
Let's Dance Together
William Onyeabor wasn’t the only Nigerian experimenting with synthesizers in the 70s and 80s. Goldfinger Doe was twiddling knobs too, no more so than on Let’s Dance Together – a prime slab of cosmic Afro boogie funk, recorded with legendary percussionist, Mike Umoh (a.k.a B.M.S.) Goldfinger met Umoh playing with Bongos Ikwue & The Groovies. Bass player Bashiru Musa, was a fellow Groovie too, and when the three hit the studio to record Let’s Dance Together, the groove was already tight and hot. T…
Co-Operation
After years of gigging around the east Nigerian music scene, Foundars 15 finally hit the jackpot when they recruited legendary bass player, Marshall Udo. Charismatic and confident, Udo immediately energised the band, bringing a new funky and psychedelic vibe as well as a bunch of songs he’d workshopped with the Funkees. The tone of the album is set early. Nek Adirika’s searing guitar lick announces ‘We Are On The Move’, a track that is both funky and determined. ‘Co-operation’ is a horn-driven s…
I Want You Girl
In mid-seventies, Nigerian bands came and went with alarming regularity, rising meteorically from the slums to stardom and falling back again just as quickly. Masisi Mass Funk from Anamara State was one such band. But during their brief moment in the stratosphere, they produced a funk gem in I Want You Girl. The band was championed by Ebere Ikoro from the Hygrades. He took them under his wing after an ill-advised collaboration with Soly Dibong. They were originators not imitators, he said. He pr…
Cold Fire
The self-proclaimed funkiest band on the west coast of Africa, the Heads Funk Band, could arguably make that claim for the whole continent. Featuring the slick guitar of Felix ‘Feladey’ Odey, the slinky drumming of Eddie Offeyi and the swirling keyboard chops of Kevin ‘Fortune’ Coburn, nobody was funkier. And that’s not even taking into account the dance floor monsters they were releasing at the same time as Akwassa. Cold Fire was their second album as the Heads Funk Band. Where their first albu…