★Tzadik
The First Basket
Charming and imaginative music for a controversial film that follows the Jewish basketball experience from ash cans placed on the stoops of brownstones to the bright lights of Madison Square Garden. Composed by Roberto Juan Rodriguez, whose CDs of modern Cuban-Jewish fusion have become Tzadik best sellers, the score jumps from klezmer to classical, dixieland, pop, rock and back again. Featuring an astounding array of downtown musicians, The First Basket establishes Roberto as a versatile compose…
The Storyteller
The Storyteller is another exciting release out of the New Israeli Jazz scene, this time featuring alto saxophonist Uri Gurvich. Born and raised in Israel, Uri moved to Boston in 2003. He has studied at Berklee with Joe Lovano and Herb Pomeroy and now lives in New York, where he appears regularly with his own ensembles. His work places Israeli, Yemenite, East European and North African music into a progressive jazz context. Passionate and virtuosic, The Storyteller is a fabulous debut CD by this…
Boundary Layer
A new recording by the band that pioneered laptop ensembles over twenty years ago coupled with an historic overview of their recordings, unreleased tracks and video clips of the band in performance. Functioning in the West Coast tradition of composer as instrument builder -- redefining music from the ground up -- The Hub makes music using electronic and digital systems of their own devising. A natural extension of the late 1970s ensemble the League of Automatic Music Composers, the group has per…
The Crucible
The legendary Moonchild trio returns for another intense journey into the worlds of magic, alchemy and witchcraft. Following one of Zorn's true masterpieces Six Litanies For Heliogabalus, this fourth volume streamlines and simplifies the music with new melodic elements, bringing Zorn's sax and the lyricism of Masada into the power and structural complexity of the patented Moonchild sound. With Patton using his prodigious voice to sing melodies in addition to his preverbal screams and howls, The …
Mutant Theatre
Dynamic and colorful music for percussion, prepared piano and electronics from a marvelous young Australian composer. Anthony Pateras has studied composition academically, toured extensively throughout Europe, North America and Asia and has collaborated with numerous improvisers and electronica musicians the world over. Mutant Theatre is a twisted cornucopia of driving rhythms and wild sonic explorations. Creative insanity from down under.
Criss X Cross
this legendary album was recorded in 1979 and has been the stuff of legend ever since, so it is great to finally hear it in all it’s glory. A crucial, early concert that was beautifully recorded live in the Sorbonne Cathedral of Paris in 1979 and remains one of the most brilliant examples of Gibson's unique and hypnotic solo performances. I must say there is an element to this music which sounds beautifully theatrical, like the most wonderful, mysterious piece of theatre you could ever wish to s…
Azazel: Book of Angels Volume 2
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* The first new studio recording in almost ten years by one of the most exhilarating ensembles in the ever growing Masada family. Together since 1994, their breathtaking virtuosity, extraordinary passion and telepathic interplay has increased over the years and now their performances set a new standard for excitement, concentration and commitment. Performing thirteen new compositions from Zorn's legendary Book of Angels, these three brilliant musicians, under …
Sound Characters 2 (Making Sonic Spaces)
One of contemporary music's greatest and most elusive mavericks returns to Tzadik with yet another CD of ear-bending electronic sounds. A student of Stockhausen and close collaborator of John Cage and David Behrman, Maryanne Amacher has been creating acoustic art, electronic soundscapes and site-specific installation work since 1967. A new CD of Amacher compositions is a true cause for celebration and Teo! is one of her greatest works. The winner of Prix Ars Electronica in the Digital Musics cat…
Chromatophore
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Anthony Pateras is a composer/performer based in Melbourne who is as comfortable writing for full orchestra as he is performing in intimate improvisational groupings. Pateras represents the best in the new generation of musicians combining the spontaneity of improvisation with the formal logic of composition and for his second Tzadik CD, he has chosen an eclectic mix of ensemble pieces that blend instrumental virtuosity and electroacoustic sonorities in star…
The Child God
Bun-Ching Lam was born in Macao and holds a Ph.D in composition from the University of California at San Diego. She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including most recently the treasured Rome Prize for Composition. For her second Tzadik recording, she has assembled some of the greatest traditional music performers of China and matched them with some of New York's most creative instrumentalists in creating a beautiful and lyrical meeting of western art music and Chinese troubad…
Voices of Anxious Objects
Tzadik's Lunatic Fringe series continues with the work of manic visual artist and master of musical mayhem, Ken Butler. Performing on hybrid instruments of his own creation, Ken has been performing to enthusiastic audiences everywhere from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Pink Pony bar, accompanied by the intoxicating rhythms of Seido Salifoski and Stomu Takeishi. Ken Butler's music is a delightful anecdote to the humdrum sounds of today's popular stylings. Rubberband trumpet, double axe ce…
Museum of Dannys
The hero of last year’s Self Indulgent Music collection is back by popular demand accompanied by his quirky band of kooks and renegades: Museum of Dannys is a compendium of Cohen’s best work from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, and features his now-legendary underground hits "Suicide"—"Ranting in the Street" —"I’m Not Me"— and "Judgement Day." Arrangements as creative as Esquivel, lyrics as real as Dylan, hooks as catchy as Brian Wilson. Danny’s unique blend of astral projections, bad tacos, Satanism …
Self Indulgent Music
Tzadik is proud to introduce you to three exciting new artists. This special CD release is a passport to their unique worlds of sound. Danny Cohen and Mike Boner both hail from California, Horse Cock Kids are based in Cologne but they all share an intense passion for their own self-indulgent fantasies. Songs about sex, degeneracy, puberty, loss of identity, truth, love and boredom from three of the most howlingly original songwriters you have ever heard. This is what Tzadik's Lunatic Fringe seri…
Horse Tricks
Mark DeGliAntoni, the talented sampler magician for the pop group Soul Coughing studied composition at the Manhattan School of Music and released his first recording in 1995 on the Avant label as part of the experimental composer collective Rough Assemblage. Horse Tricks is his first solo release and features many of his acclaimed musical colleagues in a variety of musical contexts showcasing the wide range of Mark's compositional interests. From instrumental trip-hop and rhythm tracks to ambien…
Fired City
Composer, theoretician, inventor and instrument builder Frank Denyer is a legendary figure in the Harry Partch/Scelsi tradition. His music is utterly unique and intensely personal, often requiring specialized new instruments of his own design and radical playing techniques. Fired City presents six of his most dynamic compositions in definitive performances supervised by the composer himself. Having worked closely with Denyer for many years, The Barton Workshop is unsurpassed in this repertoire a…
Soul Machine
Fima Ephron, the dynamic bassist for the psycho-semitic-avant-klez-band Hasidic New Wave steps out on his own for yet another new approach bringing Jewish music into the 21st Century. Soul Machine blends Jewish scales and sensibilities with jazz/rock fusion via Weather Report and late Miles. Boasting an incredible lineup of downtown’s newest jazz stars, Fima’s colorful program also features a moody remix collage by the talented composer/performer David Torn.
The Watchman
Active for over a decade, New York cellist Erik Friedlander is finally receiving due recognition, not just as a musician, but as a composer of note. These works display his unique take on Radical Jewish Culture - sweeping melodic lines (reminiscent of cantorial singing) in instrumental arrangements that are both adventurous and traditional. Friedlander's first album, Chimera, was released on Avant in 1995. He has performed and recorded with Framework, Joe Lovano, Myra Melford, Dave Douglas, Fred…
Being and Time
Norman Yamada is a brilliant young composer who has worked with Anthony Coleman, Marc Ribot, the Crosstown Ensemble, the Agon Orchestra and was previously heard on the Avant CD by Rough Assemblage. Being And Time, the first CD dedicated to his compositions for small ensembles is an atavistic exploration of rock gestures, ambient noise and today's post-modern malaise. A unique compositional statement from a new generation of genre-busting musical thinkers.
KOVED - A Tribute to Martin Weinberg
Whether singing in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino or French, Zahava Seewald is one of the most accomplished and soulful vocalists in the modern Jewish music scene. Following up on her very successful Tzadik debut Abi Gezint!, her latest recording takes a traditional klezmer repertory into a dynamic world mixing gypsy violins and Kurt Weill cabaret. Dedicated to the creative arranger/performer Martin Weinberg, whose premature death robbed Jewish music of one of its guiding lights, KOVED is a passionate …
Fragments - Modern Tradition
The world's foremost Brazilian percussionist, Nana's stunning virtuosity is matched only by the originality of his compositional vision.The music here ranges from his trademark solo music to ensemble pieces featuring some of his favorite collaborators, among them Cyro Baptista and Egberto Gismonti, including a lovely piece for string orchestra. Nana's seductive voice and percussion is on the forefront throughout, weaving in and out of this delightful collection of award-winning film scores.