★Relative Pitch Records
Images Of One
New York City-based Pavone and Kasten Krause met by being placed together in the ensembles of other like-minded music experimentalists. It wasn't long before they realized their unique sonic preferences, aesthetics, and approaches to their instruments were similarly aligned and worth further investigation. Over the course of two seasons, they explored and experimented with sound worlds and structures, resulting in the four pieces that make up this album. Images of One is the first release from t…
Matanzas
Brandon Lopez (contrabass), Steve Baczkowski (saxophones), and Gerald Cleaver (percussion) freely play propulsive grooves drawing as much from heavy metal aggression as free jazz freakouts. Baczkowski’s reeds with their acoustic distortions impart a crunch to the music and their snaking lines dance over the sinister and doomed romp of the rhythm section. Lopez and Cleaver are most often locked into a martial groove, assembled and disassembled, sometimes faltering and reeling from their own displ…
Crying In Space
"The question to be answered during this live performance was, "Will there be enough space for all the musicians' voices to be heard?" Recorded at Firehouse 12, in June 2019, this new ensemble is an adaptation of various duos and familiar trios. Saxophonist Paul Flaherty and drummer Chris Corsano have performed and recorded numerous discs together since the late '90s, releasing high-octane free jazz. The same can be said of the drummer's duo work with Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen; their tw…
From Union Pool
This adventurous set catches lightning in a bottle. They hit the ground running and never let up. Susan Alcorn's pedal steel soloing is phenomenal while Ryan Sawyer drives the trio forward as Patrick Holmes' clarinet keeps pace with both of them. A breathless set of high energy free improvisation at its best.
Goodbye Ground
Sakina Abdou has expressed herself in many contexts, in musical fields both broad and eclectic. With this solo album, she invites herself within, focus and anchors herself for the first time in her own language, where she summons the many influences which have nurtured her. Through «homemade» recording, naked, raw, without effects or tricks, we meet her on her own, at home. Grab a chair or settle on the floor next to her, on the edge of the bell, almost touching, and find yourself captured in a …
Mutable
The music on Mutable is a totally acoustic sonic exploration. It is an investigation that has led to the development of certain extended techniques in order to discover the ultimate limits of the sound of the saxophone and to try to create new sounds on the instrument.
s/t
Reading Group is thrilled to introduce the debut LP from a new improvising group of three singular artists: Fred Moten (voice), Brandon López (double bass), and Gerald Cleaver (drums). López and Cleaver have been improvising together as a duo for a number of years, over which they’ve developed a secret, unspoken language of organically growing repetitive figures in a wide range of sonic palettes. López and Cleaver have long been recognized as some of the most vital voices in contemporary experim…
Look Like
*In process of stocking* Look Like is the first complete solo release from bassist and vocalist Kelsey Mines. A series of improvised solo-duets, Look Like explores how listening to our on-going internal dialogue helps us conjure honest, outward expressions.
Oracle
Joanna Mattrey & gabby fluke-mogul, two of the most radical & revolutionary New York-based improvisers, join forces in the birth of Oracle. Rejoicing in the strange magic of sound, the duo weaves together new worlds while simultaneously destroying the ones that no longer serve them. Oracle is a declaration, a remedy, and a revelation.
BeingFive
"A project called ‘BeingFive’ might be motivated by a search to know the nature of being and, by extension, what it means to be together. In this way Montreal clarinettist Lori Freedman set up at once an atelier and a laboratory where both a group music could be made of practically nothing and a social organism could uncover both its organising principles and, perhaps, their limits. Here are exceptionally gifted improvising musicians –– hand-picked by Freedman for a Berlin residency project, a "…
Am Frankfurter Tor
*In process of stocking* Anna and Jan first met in 2004 when they started playing together in different combinations as the Kaluza Quartet (with trombonist Christof Thewes and drummer Kay Lübke), trios with pianst Niko Meinhold or with drummer Michael Griener and various others. In 2020 they played their first duo concert on a boat in Berlin (Hosek Contemporary) and decided to continue with their work as duo. The same year they went to Christian Betz’ studio in Friedrichshain to record their mus…
Khimaira
Khimaira is a three headed monster. It has a lion head in front, a wild goat head on it’s back and a snake head at the end of it’s tail. It is the offspring of Echidna, the mother of all monsters. The group collaborates to produce eerie organic sounds, howling cries, whispered hums, disturbing wailing, shrieks that die off and reimerge with an intense fluidity. Yet there is an architecture under-girding the improvisations that's only discernible in its outline.
When No One Around You is There but Nowhere to be Found
*In process of stocking* As both an instrumentalist and composer, Jessica Pavone explores the tactile and sensorial experience of music as a vibration-based medium. Since 2012, she has established an individual body of material for solo viola, concentrating on these elements of performance. The structured yet indeterminate pieces stem from intensive long tone practice and an interest in repetition, song form, and sympathetic vibration. "When No One Around You is There but Nowhere to be Found," i…
Correspondence
Aaron Burnett is “a standout new voice on the saxophone. In a very short time, the young musician has already lent his personal and unhindered approach to a breadth of bandleaders including Esperanza Spalding, Wynton Marsalis, Anti-Pop Consortium‘s HPRIZM, and Weasel Walter. He also toured with three time Grammy winner, Esperanza Spalding in her 2012 world tour with Radio Music Society. Aaron has the also retained the true nature of jazz in his music and his playing, constantly searching for new…
The Embalmer
Matthew Bourne is a renowned pianist with a reputation as a fearlessly unpredictable improviser. Emil Karlsen is an independently minded drummer who plays with power and delicacy. The Embalmer documents one of Karlsen and Bourne’s first meetings. Recorded in a single session in 2020, The Embalmer sees a wide-ranging musical discourse between the two musicians unfold in its most lean form across the six improvised tracks.
Conduits
*In process of stocking* Freely improvised music for baritone saxophone and double bass. Cath Roberts and Olie Brice found an escape from the musical isolation of lockdown with the amazing discovery that it was possible to play (and record) online in almost real time - these are the results.
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*In process of stocking* Vocals, bass, drums, Masked Pickle is three singular "voices" who express their ideas in a unique way, follow their flow but also like to break it, deconstruct the easy path of the sound by yelling, whispering, blowing, bawling, roaring, scraping, declaiming, knocking.
Space
*In process of stocking* Ullén/Bergman/Lund is a piano trio based in Stockholm that plays free jazz that channels the American free jazz tradition as well as contemporary classical music. Combining raw power with an exquisite attention to detail, the three musicians make every moment sparkle with possibilities. In this aural space, every movement matters.
Ullén and fellow Swedes Bergman and Lund are all significant players in the Scandanavian freejazz scene and the trio first met in the sextet A…
Geometry Of Trees
This foursome is resolute in its acceptance of communal responsibility and creation. Vocalist Kyoko Kitamura sings and speaks in wordless flurries matching Taylor Ho Bynum’s brassy exhortations on cornet. Cellist Tomeka Reid and guitarist Joe Morris worry and pluck their respective strings, applying speed and torque in the loosing of spidery cascades of crinkled and crenelated tones. Pitch and timbre differentials are a big part of the interplay with instruments juxtaposed in bursts of activity.
Fukiya
*In process of stocking* The sublime first solo saxophone release of Masayo Koketsu is deeply steeped in the free jazz tradition of Japan. From Coltrane's visit to Japan in 1966 to the free jazz exploits of Kaoru Abe, Masayo Koketsu's astonishing solo session marks her as a force to be reckoned with. A single 46 minute piece of achingly beautiful wails and declarations punctuate the bedrock of silence then retreat back. A singular effort.