★Smalltown Superjazzz
Wood cuts
Peter Brötzmann, alto & tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, Bb-clarinet. Paal Nilssen-Love-drums, percussion. Recorded October 2008 in Oslo, Norway.Second album from the godfather of European free-jazz, Peter Brötzmann and Norwegian virtuos Paal Nilssen-Love. This is the follow-up to 'Sweet Swea' from 2007. Woodcuts is another free jazz mastodont from the two masters. This is European free-jazz at its best. Recorded live in concert at Kampen in Oslo, Norway.
Letter To A Stranger
Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love are back with another amazing album. This time a studio recording, recorded in Chicago's Strobe Recording in January 2011. The album contains 10 new compositions of their characteristic soulfully groovy free jazz. Vandermark & Nilssen-Love use free improvisation as a means to explore all levels of dynamics, density, rhythm, timbre, form and tonality. The results of their work are experienced as intense, exhilarating, and boundary breaking. Raw music with brut…
Live At The South Bank
Awesome, 10/10 on Digitalis "The late Steve Reid, veteran jazz drummer and percussionist and Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), the British electronic musician/producer young enough to be his grandson, present the fifth and final installment of their momentous synergy. The music on this double LP was recorded in concert on June, 20 2009 in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall at London's Southbank Centre, as part of the Meltdown Festival curated by free jazz legend Ornette Coleman. For this marath…
Shinjuku Growl
Smalltown Superjazzz is very proud to present two new albums by The Thing. And this time it is The Thing with guitars! And none others than two of the best guitar players in the improv world today; Otomo Yoshihide and Jim O`Rourke. Both albums are recorded live at Pit Inn in Tokyo, Japan. Shinkjuku Growl with Jim O`Rourke was recorded the 4th of February 2008 and Shinkuju Crawl with Otomo Yoshihide was recorded the 2nd of October 2007 (and was also recorded by Jim O`Rourke). These two live docum…
Diskaholics Anonymous Trio
Smalltown Superjazzz is proud to to rerelase the debut album by Diskaholics Anonymous Trio. The album was released 10 years ago on the now defunct Crazy Wisdom/Universal label, and the album has been unavailable since then. The trio creates a pulsing, massive and monumental sound. Free-jazz, noise, electronic ambience, drone music and punk all mixed. The result of these three titans clashing together is an intense blow-out. Raw, grandiose and brutally beautiful. The album features three l…
3 Nights In Oslo
Awesome 5 CD box set recorded over 3 nights in Oslo on February 19-21, 2009 at Victoria, Nasjonal Jazzscene. This time out the Tentet +1 includes Mats Gustaffson, Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Joe Mcphee, Johannes Bauer, Per Ake Holmlander, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kent Kessler, Michael Zerang & Paul Nilssen-Love.
Milwaukee Volume
Revered reeds and drumming duo Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love return to Smalltown Superjazzz with another magisterial set of live improvisations. Released alongside their Chicago Volume, this disc was recorded live in concert at Milwaukee's Alchemist Theater on 10th June 2007 (the Chicago Volume was laid down the following day) and finds these two free-jazz maestros on blistering form. It's a joy to hear how the improvisations evolve - on 'Clean Sweep' the pair …
Lean Left, Volume 1
Earlier this year The Ex toured with a wonderful brass section, which comprised saxophonists Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark, trumpeter Roy Paci and trombonist Wolter Wierbos, fleshing out the core quartet. Thrilling as that show was, however, the horn section were deployed firmly in counterpoint to the Ex’s rhythm throughout. Lean Left is another matter entirely. Recorded live in Amsterdam in March 2008, it’s an exhilaratingly vivid and spontaneous workout focused on just two or three…
Bag It
double Vinyl edition with additional tracks: The Thing with Mats Gustafsson, Ingebrigt Haaker-Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love covering 54 Nude Honeys, The Ex, Duke Ellington and Albert Ayler, intense modern improv. Swedish reed-chewer Mats Gustafsson is probably bored to tears by now by the Brötzmann comparisons that so regularly greet his work with the Thing. Even so, the elder German icon remains a central pillar of reference, most noticeably through a gnarled horn language that balances mach…
Seven
Third album from Oslo's PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE & Chicago's KEN VANDERMARK who have previously worked together in SCHOOL DAYS & FME follows their 2 "Dual Pleasure" releases. While it seems barely possible, the duo have become even more groovy on this third album. Free Jazz w/roots in both the American & European traditions: warm, groovy, melodic & funky at the same time as it is raw, wild & energetic. The pure art of spontaneous music. Independent underground jazz at its very best & a free jazz master…
Splatter
The duo is back with a mini album, 4 tracks and 20 minutes of music recorded live when Smalltown celebrated its 10 year anniversary in Oslo in February 2004. As with their debut album Gustafsson & Nilssen-Love`s punkrock roots are highly visible & the musical expression is an explosion of energy created by breath & muscles. ÒSplatterÓ is raw power that brings to mind the the wild & beautiful days of Albert Ayler and Peter Brotzmann`s Machine Gun session.
The Fat Is Gone
Recorded live at Molde International Jazz Festival in 2006. The meeting between the godfather of free-jazz & the innovators of the modern free-jazz scene in Scandinavia, Mats Gustafsson & Paal Nilssen-Love, resulted in this mastodon of an album. This is the European free-jazz underground at its best. A devastating, blasting, raw, ferocious sonic assault on all senses. And beautiful, painfully beautiful.
Slap & Tickle
Massimo Pupillo, Terrie Ex & Paal Nilssen-Love recorded this gem live in concert at Kongsberg International Jazzfestival in July 2007. With the two tracks, Slap & Tickle on 32 & 16 minutes, they attack all senses with an exploding riot of free rock. If possible to describe, the music is in the midst of Black Flag, DNA, Pere Ubu, Last Exit, James Blood Ulmer, early Sonic Youth & of course Terrie's very own legendary band The Ex. All free improvised. Total freedom, total rock!
Second Original Silence
Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke and Mats Gustafsson last convened for the monumentally noisy Diskaholics Anonymous LP, Weapons of Ass Destruction. Now the trio have returned to Smalltown Superjazz for yet more sonic carnage, this time joined by ace drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, guitarist Terrie Ex and bassist Massimo Pupillo. There's a tremendous breadth to the kind of ground covered by these musicians. At no point do you feel as if the ensemble is running out of ideas or stagnating on one particular …
Dual Pleasure 2
Their first duo album “Dual Pleasure” was hailed as a masterpiece, and among others nominated for Norway`s Alarm Award. The sequel, Dual Pleasure 2 was recorded in the studio over two days in Oslo, while CD 2 was recorded live 2 days after the studio session at Kampen Jazz in Oslo. The result is “Dual Pleasure 2” , a complex and grroving piece of independent underground jazz. A clash between the highly influential and innovative Chicago and Scandinavian jazz scenes that started in 2000 when the …
Live At Blå
First live document and fourth album overall from a band that mixes free jazz ecstasy with garage rock intensity. Even with no electricity, they make a hell of a noise and the album is an explosion of energy. Recorded at the Bla in Oslo.
Garage
Smalltown Supersound's "Superjazz" offshoot delivers this much-discussed darkcore jazz fusion album led by sometime sonic youth collaborator Mats Gustafsson, here rummaging through improvs and cover versions like a garage band picking up trumpets, double bass and drums for their heavily skewed but massively charming workouts. Sticking a hairy a tongue out at the polished slickness of the Bad Plus, The Thing offer up cover versions of tracks by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The White Stripes and Peter Bro…
Action Jazz
The Thing pretty much tore my living room to shreds on the release of their last album 'Garage' with its rock 'n roll take on free jazz. Their rendition of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's 'Art Star' especially defined their sound perfectly with a distinctly punk rock ethic applied to what to most sounds like truly out-there jazz. It's hardly surprising that the band is made up of Norwegians then, the country that has birthed some of the most continuously exciting free jazz to date and continues to with lab…
Brewery Tap
Brewery Tap is the duo of free jazz saxophonist Evan Parker & Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten. The recordings on this disc was recorded live at Oslo Jazzfestival the 13th of August 2007 at the Belleville venue.
Tomorrow Came Today
Tenor saxophonist (and occasional trumpeter) Joe McPhee has been a firebrand presence on the American and European avant-garde jazz scenes since the 1970's, while Paal Nilssen-Love is a free jazz drummer from Norway, about half McPhee's age. Yet each is perfectly in tune with the other on TOMORROW CAME TODAY, a high-energy session of freely improvised jazz. TOMORROW is less about theme-solos-theme, and more about spontaneity, unfettered freedom, and collective interplay. It's likely that this st…