★Trost Records
Swarm Patterns
Three creative cells of Austrian avantgarde music form a playfull trio of piano and drums/percussion -pianist and composer Elisabeth Harnik has various improvisation projects, for instance with Joelle Leandre, Ken Vandermark, Zlatko Kaucic, Tony Buck, etc. She is backed by Martin Brandlmayr of Radian-fame, who works fluently in jazz, electronics and acoustic music, and Didi Kern who, coming from Bulbul guitar underground and Noiserock, lately found his place in the international improv scene.
The Heart Of A Whale
Paul Wallfisch has played in bands like Firewater and Little Annie, while Dana Schechter has logged time with American Music Club, Angels of Light and her own Insect Ark, among others. They’ve been friends since meeting in New York in the 1990s. Years later they forged a stronger connection as bandmates in Botanica and palying with Swans. Over the years Paul Wallfisch has been a prolific composer for film and TV, including Dummy, with Adrien Brody and Milla Jovovich (which the musician also appe…
The Harbour of the Broken Hearted
In times when arbitrariness, absolutist madness and the pressure to reject each other are boiled up into some kind of new normality, it sometimes feels as if you are doomed to drown in your sea of sorrows. Until you manage to resist the maelstrom, once again. To focus on the good and the beautiful, and to nurture it stout-heartedly. Nobody said, it’s gonna be easy. On his fifth album, Bruch seems to draw an analogy between the sea and life with his choice of title. The sea itself has never been …
Breath in Definition
Ingrid Schmoliner and Alex Kranabetter are pillars of the improvised and experimental music scenes inAustria stretching back more than a decade. Although the former is known primarily as a pianist and vocalist and the latter as a trumpeter, they both possess seriously expansive sonic palettes. Schmolinger works rigorously with sound direction to generate vibrant psychoacoustic and spatialized effects, while Kranabetter routinely deploys electronics to radically transform and expand his sound wor…
Rotations +
Rotations+ is a trio project of Sven-Ake Johansson with German turntablist Ignaz Schick and Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger recorded live at the beloved Berlin experimental venue KM28 in September of 2023. The collective improvisations are instilled with a deep interest in color and timbre, and each track offers a fresh perspective. While Johansson toggles to accordion on the album’s final track, squeezing tender lines alongside Hautzinger’s moody brass and Schick’s scratch-pocked layer of w…
Volatile Object
Tip! The second album from the high-caliber improvising trio Fictional Souvenirs captures a visceral meeting between three of improvised music’s most idiosyncratic, elusive figures. On Volatile Object Pat Thomas (piano and electronics), John Butcher (saxophones), and Ståle Liavik Solberg (durms) were recorded live at London’s Café Oto in January of 2023.
Live at SuperDeluxe - Volume 1
Trost Records returns with a blasting gut-punch of an LP, with “Live at SuperDeluxe - Volume 1”, a full throttle body of improvisations from the all-star quartet of Akira Sakata, Jim O'Rourke, Mette Rasmussen, and Chris Corsano - never before captured on tape - live at legendary Tokyo venue, SuperDeluxe. Riding the wire between free jazz and noise, it's nothing short of powerful, real-time advocation of socio-political importance of free improvisation that leaves you on the edge of your seat fro…
Live Album
Flute, harp, drums: a rare combination that this trio turns upside down. In the wake of John Zorn's experiences on the borders of jazz and noise, the collaboration between Delphine Joussein, Rafaëlle Rinaudo and Blanche Lafuente aims at pushing their instruments beyond their limits, with the enthusiasm of a mad scientist... It is no coincidence that the three musicians, considered the missing link between Nirvana and Sun Ra, have already aroused a big curiosity and are constantly touring accross…
Miniatures
Since emerging in the early 1980s the French bassist, composer, and vocalist Joëlle Leandre has ignored the gaps between improvised and composed music, jazz and new music, inventively braiding post-Cagean concepts with the free jazz ferment she witnessed first-hand growing up in Paris. Accordion master and fellow countryman Pascal Contet was initially rooted in contemporary music, helping to bring it back as a viable, versatile instrument in experimental music, but throughout his long career he’…
Chicken Shit Bingo
Peter Brötzmann collaborated with many artists in his career, regularly adding new compatriots into the fold, and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love became one of his staunchest allies after the percussionist joined the Chicago Tentet in 2004. They worked in various contexts, including this inexhaustible, hard-hitting duo. Most of the albums they’ve issued have captured live performances, but in 2015 they made this stunning studio recording. As Nilssen-Love says in the liner notes, “Peter had a…
Afro Blue
Saxophonist Mats Gustafsson is notorious for his prolific nature and constantly expanding circle of collaborators, but few of his partnerships have been as powerful and profound as Gush, the Swedish trio which formed way back in 1988 and celebrates its 36th anniversary in 2024. This performance was captured live at the famous Stockholm jazz venue Fasching on December 17, 1998, and the music excited all three musicians when they revisited it this year. The album is named for the Mongo Santamaria …
Gomberg III-V - Airplay
Mind altering quartertone trumpet experiments from one of the world's most highly regarded and idiosyncratic players.
Why Do You Mourn
The End is near - after two albums on the now defunct UK label Rare Noise, the powerful project of Sofia Jernberg (vocals), Kjetil Møster (clarinet and tenor saxophone), Mats Gustafsson (flutes, baritone saxophone and electronics), Anders Hana (baritone and bass guitar) and Børge Fjordheim (drums) release their third album on Trost. They combine Avantrock, Jazz and a haunting beautiful voice to a seethe mix of emotions, noise, music - a sonic landscape, dynamic and captivating. This album is a t…
The Less You Sleep
*In process of stocking* Austrian based collaborators of free jazz, improvisation and sound experiments releasing the long awaited debut album of Dry Thrust - the new project by the trio of German pianist and composer Georg Graewe, Martin Siewert (Radian, Trapist, Also) and Dieter Kern (DEK Trio, Bulbul, Fuckhead). Graewe, has since been leading a variety of ensembles since the early 80s - ranging from trio to chamber orchestra formats - which have involved some of the leading instrumentalists i…
Another Way Of The Heart
*2023 stock* "A few rare albums fit perfectly into your emotional state of mind and capture the fragility of our impermanent lives so beautifully as Another Way of the Heart by Norwegian reeds and trumpet player Torben Snekkestad and Danish pianist Søren Kjærgaard. Both Snekkestad and Kjærgaard were associated with the Danish label-musicians cooperative Ilk Music but, unfortunately, their discographies, especially in recent years, don't match their great creative potential.
Snekkestad and Kjærga…
To Speak
Aaron Turner: guitar, tapes, effects
Turner is known as guitarist of legendary Isis and Sumac, among others. Today exploring with his solo work an abstraction of metal, avantgarde and noise. Brutal and beautiful at at the same time.
Le Temps
'There is a beguiling sense of simplicity in the complexity of le temps. In the scale of its orchestra - containing at least samulnori, clubs, bicycle bells, and bathtub plugs - that could be confused for just the kit. In the breadth of technique, in opening, closing, rubbing, and other gestures that confront the ear with a blown snare but could otherwise pass as traditional play. In the seemingly singular focus on one aspect of the kit in each vignette, the metal of rims and cymbals in “ouvertu…
Paradiso Infernal
Glowering debut LP of concentrated, razing guitar noise and resonant atmospheres from Christina Nemec (Chra) and Christian Schachinger, both erstwhile collaborators with the dearly departed Peter Rehberg in Shampoo Boy and Peterlicker
Practically picking up where Shampoo Boy left us, mid-decade on Blackest Ever Black, but with notable absence of their close spar Rehberg, Paradiso Infernal explore stark negative space with nods to the precise minimalism of Giacinto Scelsi on their eponymous entra…
Superstructure - Holding up a Bridge
Austria pianist and composer Elisabeth Harnik has created a multi-faceted body of work by crossing genre boundaries through various collaborations in the field of improvised music, composition and sound art. Superstructure was written in 2006 and was recorded and produced live in concert by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF-Ö1 with "Jeunesse -- Musikalische Jugend Österreichs" at Radio Kulturhaus Vienna in 2007 and performed by All Ears Area Ensemble with Elisabeth Harnik (piano), Petra …
Like One Long Dream
A powerful collision of musical personalities -- American saxophonist (and Dutch resident) John Dikeman invited avantgarde trumpeter Jaimie Branch, bassist Luke Stewart (Irreversible Entanglements) and drummer Aleksandar Skorić to form a new band project. This quartet presents its own definition of contemporary improvised jazz; with no distinct leader and with tight and supportive interplay, they demonstrate the independent musical voice of each own. Album cover by Jaimie Branch. Personnel: John…