★Fundacja Sluchaj!

"Renaissance is back, this time with a double CD on Maciek Karlowski's Fundacja Sluchaj!. This clearly, the trio's masterpiece: rick, diverse, amazingly deep, emotional, expressive and simply beautiful like hell. Disc 1, "Gesualdo", contains Anna Gadt's arrangements, deconstructions and her own original music obviously related to ancient, renaissance music. With one exception: "Monumentum" de-constructs already a de-construction of ancient music by Igor Stravinski of the same title. Everything i…

Ming Bau Set is a collective of three improvisers who began meeting regularly in 2018 to deeply explore improvisation and song form. Over the next three years this process yielded a shared language and vision of music realization that led to their first publication, Yakut's Gallop. They utilized both acoustic and electronic resources to carve a personal sound as well as a sense of place with their inventions. The trio, as it has matured, is notable for its cross generational constitution. Gerry …

Do you remember the legendary CD Legba Crossing released on FMP? Of course, you do! Each Cecil Taylor's music fan does it! Two years later Ove Volquartz assembled almost the same line-up and brought Cecil Taylor to Gottingen to work with the legendary artist longer and more intense. Here you have the whole monumental concert they gave on September 15th! What is the difference? Fundamental as always in the case of such great visionaries like Cecil was! Here, additionally, Mr. Taylor performs not …

Great Italian trio feat. Marco Colonna this time not only on clarinet but also bass clarinet, alto saxophone and flute and marvelous rhythm section Dario Miranda on bass and Fabrizio Spera on drums on his debut

Fundacja Słuchaj! presents Remedy by Thomas Heberer, Joe Fonda and Joe Hertenstein. Recorded August 26, 2020, by Tom Tedesco, Tedesco Studios, Paramus, NJ. Mixed & mastered January 2021 by Jon Rosenberg, Brooklyn, NY. Photo: Kind Bystander. Graphic Design: Semafor. Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski. Special thanks to Maciej Karłowski, Jon Rosenberg, Tom Tedesco. Extra special thanks to Daisy Payero, Ilse Pfeifer, Robin Rusch. Thomas Heberer - trumpetJoe Fonda - bass, flute (track 7)Joe Herten…

Fundacja Słuchaj! presents Move in Moers by In Moers. Live concert recorded by Moers Festival 8th June 2019. Sound engineer: Thomas Block. Mixing/mastering: Patrick Römer, Unisono Studio – Berlin.  All music by Achim Kaufmann (GEMA), Dag Magnus Narvesen (TONO), Adam Pultz Melbye (KODA), Emilio Gordoa, Harri Sjöström (GEMA). Cover photo: painting by Thomas Nyqvist. Group Photo: Miriam Juschkat. Cover design: Zuza Ustjan. Produced by Harri Sjöström & Maciej Karłowski in co-op. Executive Producer: …

Fundacja Sluchaj! presents Warszawa 2019 by Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Recorded live on 12 of October 2019 at 14th Ad Libitum Festival, Laboratorium, U-Jazdowski, Wojciech Krukowski Hall, Warsaw by Kuba Sosulski. Mixed by Evan Parker with Fil Gomes at Arcobarco, Ramsgate, UK. Mastering by Grzegorz Piwkowski (High End Audio). Photos: Piotr Gruchała. Liner notes: Stuart Broomer. Cover Design: Zuza Ustjan. Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski.  The ElectroAcoustic Ensemble was formed in…

Fundacja Słuchaj! presents Room of the Present by Guillermo Gregorio, Damon Smith and Jerome Bryerton. Recorded by Todd Carter, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago 2007 & 2008. Mixed & mastered by Ryan Edwards. "Madipiece 1," "Madipiece 2," "Coplanar 1+2," "Moholy 2," and "Otra Musica 4b." by Guillermo Gregroio, Copyright Guillermo Gregorio "Cards" by Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble Of Chicago Publishing Co. Ascap. This album is structured around two performances of Guillermo Gregorio’s graphic scor…

Fundacja Słuchaj! presents Bosque de Niebla (2CD) by Lucia Martínez, Agustí Fernández and Barry Guy. Recorded: July 9th, 2019 at Rosazul Estudi, Barcelona, Spain. Recording, mixing, and mastering: Ferran Conangla. Photo: Mario Burbano. Liner Note: Lucía Martínez. Liner Note translation: Sarah Claman. Graphic design: Semafor. Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski. Produced by Lucía Martínez for Fundacja Słuchaj. Barry Guy plays exclusively on Thomastik Springs + logo. Music by Lucía Martínez, Agus…

First time ever on CD, never before published Cecil Taylor Quintet feat. Harri Sjostrom - sax, Tristan Honsinger - cello, Teppo Hauta-aho - bass, and Paul Lovens - drums. The legendary band recorded live at Tampere Jazz Happening 1998. Recorded October 30.1998 at Tampere Jazz Happening by the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE at Tampere Jazz Happening. Originally produced for YLE by Veli- Pekka Heinonen. Final mix by Patrick Römer and Harri Sjöström + Paul Lovens. Mastering by Patrick Römer of Un…

Son-Icon Music - orchestra and choral works by Charlotte Hug Music notation and conducting form the basis of the classical Western tradition of composition and performance. As early as the 1960s, alternatives to this system were sought again and again – a system which implies a lack of maturity in the individual performer. With her “Son-Icons” Charlotte Hug developed a medium and compositional technique, which integrates the imagination and artistic resources of the individual into a guided whol…

Drum and voice – a more archaic pairing could hardly be imagined. Under this motto, in 2016 the festival “Ad libitum” in Warsaw invited Charlotte Hug and Lucas Niggli as an improvisation duo. Although they live in the same city of Zurich, this was a first for both musicians. The electrified audience was just as overwhelmed by this recent discovery as the duo themselves: if they had known that their meeting would release such an exceptional, electrifying energy, this duo would have been born long…

Fundacja Słuchaj! presents Scratching Fork by Marek Malinowski, Robert Rychlicki-Gąsowski and Wojciech Zadrużyński. Recorded at A/V Studio in Bydgoszcz, 11-12.11.2017. Recorded, mixed by Artur Maćkowiak. Mastered by Marcin Bociński. All compositions by Marek Malinowski. Photos by Wojciech Woźniak. Liner Notes: Robert Rychlicki. Graphic Design: Zuza Ustjan. Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski. Special thanks to Tomasz Łuczak.  A place between structure and fluctuation where planning and spontane…

Fundacja Słuchaj! presents Unmoved Mover, a solo album by Vasco Trilla. All music by Vasco Trilla. Recorded on 30/06/2020 by El Pricto at T.U.R.F, Barcelona. Mixed and Mastered by El Pricto. Photo by Arvydas Gudas. Graphic Design: Zuza Ustjan. Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski. "Vasco Trilla is a masterful visionary sonic alchemist, a sound painter of subtlety and grace. His work has a great capacity for stillness and space, qualities both rare and much needed in these chaotic overstimulated …

Fundacja Słuchaj! presents Tempranillo by Evan Parker & Agusti Fernandez. Recorded on November 24th, 1995 at Estudi 84, Barcelona (Spain). Recording and mixing engineer: David Casamitjana. All music by Evan Parker and Agustí Fernández. Piano tuning: Xavier Clascà. Original mastering: Coque Vázquez. New mastering: Ferran Conangla. Liner notes: Miquel Jurado. English version: Oriol Rogent. Photos: Sònia Balcells. Cover art: Zuza Ustjan. Recording produced by Agustí Fernández. Original CD released …

Do you remember the excellent album Tone Hunting released a few years on Clean Feed? Of course, you do! Now we have the second incarnation of that excellent band but with a change on the seat of drums. Kuba Suchar is here replaced by a great drum's painter and probably one of the most musical percussion master Vasco Trilla. So on saxophone, we have Berlin-based Anna Kaluza, on acoustic bass guitar Rafał Mazur, and Artur Majewski on trumpet.

*2026 stock* Dødsdromen means "death well" in Danish, a stunt show in which drivers of motorcycles and miniature cars ride in a circle along a vertical wall, performing dangerous stunts due to friction and centrifugal force strength. P.O. Jørgens - drummer, composer from Denmark known by his own legendary label "Ninth World Music" and band Mokuto trio (where he plays with Lotte Anker on saxophone and Peter Friis Nielsen on bass), collaborations with Mats Gustafsson (Torden Kvartetten) and Peter …

Fundacja Słuchaj! ‎presents Known / Unknown by Paul Lytton and Nate Wooley.  Recorded January 2018 in Dusseldorf, Germany. Engineered and Mixed/Mastered by Bojan Vuletic. Special Thanks to Bojan and Maciej. All Music by Paul Lytton (GEMA) and Nate Wooley (fourwordseamusic BMI). Paul Lytton photo by Gerald Schauder. Nate Wooley photo Frank Schneeman. Graphic Design: Małgorzata Lipińska. Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski. It had been awhile since we'd made a real studio recording in which I cou…

Two great improvisers, pianist Elisabeth Harnik from Austria and trombone master Steve Swell play together! It's their first CD release! Check out how deep and colourful can be improvised music world!

Six sounds, six perspectives, six personalities. The “Sestetto Internazionale” is unique in different ways. You won’t find this line up a second time: two soprano saxophones, violine, piano, turntables and quartertone accordeon. Three high melody instruments and three instruments which act rhythmically and harmonically and melodically. But those cathegories don’t exist here. The only thing that counts is listening. These six worldclass improvisors like to create and expend sound scapes. It’s not…

We don't need to explain anything. Pianist Agusti Fernandez and bass player Barry Guy, probably two most important and creative masters of their instrument and incredibly creative musician work together with great success from many years. Recently they invited to company a young Catalan saxophonist Don Malfon, one of the most promising voice on the scene. Result? Fully improvised cycle of seven miniatures recorded live on Kultur-Schranne in Dachau (Germany) that portray these marvelous artists i…

First time ever in the studio! Two great musicians! Double bass virtuoso from France, Bernard Santacruz and drum wizard Michael Zerang from the USA. Beautifully recorded in the legendary studio La Buissone in Pernes les Fontaines, where was made some most excellent recordings in such labels like for example ECM. Recorded on October 14th 2019 at Studio La Buissonne by Gérad de Haro. Mixed by Gérard de Haro. Mastering Nicolas Baillard. Liner Note: Michel Dorbon. Photo: Michel Dorbon. Cover design,…

Trevor Watts: a legendary man, an exceptional saxophonist, a forerunner of everything that is really valuable in European improvised music, turned 80 last year. As a still active and extremely creative musician (his latest productions can be found primarily in the Listen Foundation! catalog), his long creative journey took many artistic challenges. So before you reach for the music contained in this box set, here is a brief historical outline. Around the mid-1960s, after sharing their musical ex…

Twenty years ago bass player Rafał Mazur started his journey in the improvised music world. From that time he became one of the key figures on the European scene and one of the most adventurous acoustic bass players in the world. From that time he played with such great improvisers as Laurence D. Butch Morris, Joelle Leandre, Barry Guy, Agusti Fernandez among others. Now we celebrate this jubilee by releasing the four-CD box set where Rafał invited to play the music of such fantastic musicians a…

There’s a question once posed by John Cage that seems to invite an expanding variety of answers, something about what’s more musical, a truck driving by a factory or a truck driving by a music school.  Percussionist Zlatko Kaučič’s quintet adds another environment to the mix, a church, and has musicians standing in for other elements: bassist Silvia Bolognesi and three reed players: Michael Moore on alto saxophone and clarinet; Michael Colonna on clarinet and bass clarinet; and Albert Cirera on …

Legendary British saxsophoneist Evan Parker, and two great improvisers from Denamark Lotte Anker and Torben Snekkestad. Three reed's masters from different generations in beautiful perfomance where logic, philosopy and emotions build astonishing space. Recorded live at “KoncertKirken – Blågårds Plads” in Copenhagen, 24th Of September, 2016 By John Fomsgaard. Mixed And Mastered By John Fomsgaard at Karmacrew. Cover Design: Małgorzata Lipińska. Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski.

Last year Maciej Karlowski invited me to participate in the Ad Libitum Festival and perform four different concerts to celebrate my 60th birthday. From among the many projects I have been a part of, he chose three: The Aurora trio, which had been performing regularly for over ten years and has released four CDs; the piano solo El Laberint de la Memòria; and the Thunder trio, which was a world première. The fourth concert was an invitation to play and conduct a group of Polish musicians who had t…

The second album of Zakrocki & Olak is even better than the first one. The reason is simple: it is recorded with Agustí Fernández, whose inside piano effects enrich the general sound of the ensemble.

The City of Gardens is an album that is a natural consequence of the artistic initiative "Contemporary Sonus", initiated by RGG in 2015. It is an idea, within which a completely new musical story was created, composed and dedicated to performers with a specific approach to improvisation. Artistic agreement and a friendly bond between the members of the quintet was a key deciding factor of the character and emotional charge, flowing directly from the creation of sound. The Contemporary Sonus of o…

"Play me your music – said Ravi Coltrane years ago, to the Polish participants of the SIM workshop. What does "your music” mean? Is it the music you love, the music desire to play, the one you study thoroughly or the one you've been listening to as a child and it awakened your imagination for the first time? Or perhaps, the one considered our roots music for historical and traditional reasons? How can we meet the criterion of "ourness” and how can we determine which music is more „our” than othe…

 Nate Wooley and Torben Snekkestad recorded live at "KoncertKirken – Blågårds Plads" in Copenhagen, July 5, 2015. The result is an astonishingly focused music, which transfers listeners into a completely different world and different order of things, enclosed in sounds played with great care, as if each of them was so fragile that any inattention could destroy its structure

It is very common today to see musicians from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds converging at some geographical point to improvise together. Collective improvisation is an interactive art. The responses among the improvisers are individual and subjective, but the whole result implies a kind of inter-subjectivity. Subjectivities are historical and embodied. They are configured through successive experiences within concrete contexts and are embodied in the sense that subjectivity can’t exis…

"Tools Of Imagination is one of the newest albums, recently released by Fundacja Sluchaj. The music was recorded by great duo – Evan Parker (tenor saxophone) and Eddie Prevost (drums, percussion). Both musicians are great famous jazz masters. Their improvisations always are played with passion and have expressive, live and bright musical language. The music is based on avant-garde jazz and free improvisations. Musicians like to improvise spontaneously – they are the masters of creative, colorful…

"Torben Snekkestad and Barry Guy first worked together on 2015’s impressive Slip, Slide and Collide - that recording, with its labyrinthine improvisations and near-feverish eruptions, proved the duo to be fiercely attuned to one another. Now, on Louisiana Variations, another voice is drawn into the fold - that of Spanish pianist Agustí Fernández, a long-time collaborator with Barry Guy and an excellent composer/improviser in his own right. On this release, the trio lose none of the intensity pre…

Recorded by Maxim Khaikin at Dom Cultural Center, Moscow, on November 6th 2017

The jazz violin tradition in Poland is dominated by two Giants: Michał Urbaniak, who pioneered highly non-trivial use of electric violin in fusion music of 1970s and Zbigniew Seifert, who combined free and modal jazz à la Coltrane with fusion. Amazingly, this tradition is present even today, listen to the winners of the first two Seifert Competitions: Bartosz Dworak or Mateusz Smoczyński. An exception that support this rule is Adam Bałdych, who records for the ACT label and whose music has a Sca…

Note from Barry Guy: Zlatko Kaučič invited Maya Homburger and myself to perform a concert in Ljubljana. This meeting (2016) proved to be convivial and communicative on many levels. Other than making music we discussed our individual situations and general views including the many pressing events that continue to accumulate in the world. Zlatko himself lives close to one of the “corridors” where displaced refugees make their agonisingly slow walk to a more hopeful future.  It is to these people t…

The concert and Agustí Fernández’s 60th birthday, celebrated in a quite extraordinary way, was possible due the generous support of the 2015 GREC Festival de Barcelona. The personnel is completely different from the Polish recording, and so is the music. Despite the presence of the explosive Mats and super-abstract Joe, Agustí’s music carries certain "kindness", lyricism and melancholy in the freely improvised parts. Despite the truly abstract nature, there are also certain similarities (in the …

"On June 15th 2016 the website jazzarium.pl celebrated its fifth anniversary. It wasn't turning 18, but in the virtual reality time flows a bit differently, you count it not the same way as outside the Internet. On such occasion we wanted to hear music that was unheard before. Music, that gives you no chance to prepare for or to anticipate its perception; music that is full of risk on one hand, and that can open new horizons for both listeners and musicians on the other.Therefore, we decided to …

"The Liquid Trio Plays Bernoulli is the new album which was released on October 23 by Fundacja Sluchaj. The album was recorded by Liquid Trio – it’s Agusti Fernandez (piano), Albert Cirera (saxophones) and Ramon Prats (drums). The musicians iquid Trio are playing together for a long time now. Through the years of their musical career they had formed, created and masterfully improved their own playing style and manner. Energetic and active collective improvisations are full of strong, powerful an…