New Arrivals
Wells
"Amirani Records, the label founded and run by Milanese soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo, ends its eighteen-year run with three final releases. The last of the three, a recording of the Sestetto Internazionale, was reviewed here earlier; preceding it a duet for Mimmo and Finnish soprano and sopranino saxophonist Harri Sjöström, and a solo recording by Milanese cellist Walter Prati.
Mimmo and Sjöström are frequent collaborators, whether in the Sestetto Internazionale or as duet partners, and on W…
Due Mutabili
[…] There is something slightly daunting about the notion of an improvising sextet. Do the casual math of instrumental permutations from six soloists to one sextet, adding in duos, trios, quartets and quintets, and you have something like 55 possible combinations. Literally anything might surface, but among the least likely is the superb music achieved here by Sestetto Internazionale, music that dances between the ideal poles of inevitability and unpredictability, inviting a sense of wonder. Lis…
Sferics
"2022 was a shit show. I moved three times. I lived in San Francisco for a sudden moment in time. About eight months to be exact. But I jumped through a wormhole . An atmospheric anomaly that rippled across and through my familial center, taking us into a chaos of cardboard boxes, temporary living spaces, a collapse in our art practices, only to be pulled through the other end of the time warp, re-emerging back where we convened in 2019 in Tucson, Arizona--but now it is 2023 and life has changed…
Hits For The Bin
Nice Music is thrilled to announce the long awaited new full length release from Melbourne/Naarm-based producer Andrew Cowie as Match Fixer. Tantalising with a string of self-released tracks over the last 3 years and following the cloistered urgency of instant NM classic 'Attempts' (2017), 'Hits For The Bin' populates the glowing expanse of his sound world with restrained beat structures, cloaked in Cowie’s signature lush drift and squelched melodic riffing. A foaming wave of relief when compare…
I-I
We are thrilled to introduce the world to the innovative sounds of the Japanese improvisational music trio ‘I-I’. Composed of three exceptionally talented musicians, Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar, daxophone, pedals), Mitsuhisa Sakaguchi (synthesizers, pedals) and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (percussion). This dynamic ensemble has embarked on a remarkable musical journey with their homonymous debut album. "There's no inspiration from others. We just played." With this raw and unfiltered approach to music, ‘I…
My Strong Will
My Strong Will is a new album of "Ethiopian Classical Music" by Girma Yifrashewa. Recorded with Bulgarian musicians and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria, the album is a return to where Yifrashewa completed his own conservatory training in the late 1980s and early 1990s, across both sides of the fall of Communism. Guided by Yifrashewa's piano, these chamber works bring the music of Ethiopia into a Western Classical format, uncovering meditative and emotional new vistas for both…
Trap
Michal Vaľko, aka Line Gate makes a return to mappa with his third cassette for the label. Once again the material is deeply minimalist, but shows marked evolutions in the Slovak, Prague-based artist’s unique trajectory. This time comprising two relatively short pieces (compared to the 40- and 60-minute works previously published on mappa), 'Trap' is perhaps Line Gate’s darkest yet. Whereas previously his works focused on psychoacoustic phenomena, or highlighted the sacredness and timelessness o…
Lados B
On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained …
The World Was Turning Before
*200 copies limited edition* Bill Seaman, Tim Diagram and Stephen Spera talked about making music together during the composing of the Architectures of Light album which Tim released on his Handstitched imprint. Over the course of a few months this evolved into the new LAAPS album — "The World Was Turning Before" which focuses on a balance of sound making and collecting processes explored individually as well as between the three. The network of images of sonic imagination started forming into m…
Mardle: Daily Rhythms of a Pond
Tip! Musician and field recordist Action Pyramid finds magic in the everyday on Mardle, a compelling and confounding suite of hydrophone compositions revealing the sonic 24-hour cycle of the UK’s freshwater ponds. Rooted in Jack Greenhalgh’s sonic research on pond biodiversity, Mardle brings to the surface the delicate sounds of aquatic insect stridulations, plant respiration and photosynthesis - an ecology of otherworldly rhythms and alien hyper-sounds that feel more like early synth experiment…
Murder In Blue
Not that droney as often but circular, grainy, dreamy melodious doodles from Scotland's finest Fraser Burnett…. Might ring in your head just like a summer hit!
Hidden Beauty
*100 copies limited edition* Sign Libra’s third album Hidden Beauty is an intimate voyage through feminine nature, guided by the arts of subtext, musical collage, and mysterious allusions. Enigmatic and mischievous, Sign Libra’s signature blend of evocative composition with lyricless, ethereal vocalizing is offered here with a new feeling of presence and closeness. Hidden Beauty is a chance not only to be heard but seen and felt: to release the invisible and bring fragility to the surface.
Closures
*100 copies limited edition* The opposite of closure is opening. The album Closures fractionally links back to Konspekt by mapping the condition of perception and feeling after the closure (of a certain) phase of life. Even though we’re talking about a concrete phase – the most painful loss so far – the pieces don’t revolve around it at all. What is taking place in the pieces is everything after June 2023.
– “a lively joy (from life)”– “perceiving the environment”– “the world is a beautiful plac…
Spirit Of France
Obscure, rare spiritual jazz, deep folk and psychedelia sounds from the French ‘70s - ‘80s underground.
Angel Tape
Islaja presents her new album ”Angel Tape”, the first release on the new Helsinki-based label Other Power. Drawing inspiration from childhood epiphanies while listening to an alleged recording of angels singing, Islaja has crafted an album that stands out as a major work in her expansive and celebrated catalogue, which includes previous releases on labels such as Ecstatic Peace!, Fonal and Svart. Islaja, aka Finnish artist Merja Kokkonen, describes her new album as a “counterwork” to her most re…
Grief In The Kitchen And Mirth In The Hall
From our now-venerable, but ever thistle-sharp, Scots singer of new songs and old, comes a fifth full-length collection of traditional songs. Reaching down the centuries to unpack these numbers anew, Alasdair finds a set of eternal melodies – and with them, an unsettling number of surreal images that parallel the madness of our modern times.
Trio
Jesper Nordberg Trio is a group based in Copenhagen (DK) and Malmö (SE), featuring the double bass player Jesper Nordberg, violinist Stefan Pöntinen and trumpetist Ruhi Erdogan. With Nordberg's compositions as a starting point, the trio's playing can be characterized by close interplay, radical shifts, and having elements ranging from experimental improvisation, Balkan music, Scandinavian folklore, jazz and expressionism. Jesper Nordberg's warm tone and rhythmic displacements meet Ruhi's trumpet…
Variations On No Particular Theme - Part 2
*2023 stock* Lo and behold, the second and final part of the diptych from the unusual free improvising quartet featuring two New York-based viola players Mat Maneri & Tanya Kalmanovitch, and Copenhageners Tomo Jacobson on double bass & Kresten Osgood on drums, is finally here! This time, we enter into a darker, fiercer, seemingly telepathic exchange - a powerful finale to an unprecedented musical journey.
Variations On No Particular Theme - Part 1
Perhaps for the first time in the history of music, here is two violas, double bass, and drums quartet featuring the New York-based Mat Maneri & Tanya Kalmanovitch, and Copenhageners Tomo Jacobson & Kresten Osgood. Calling their music chamber free improv gives some clues about the sound world you are entering, but it also falls very short in the face of the multitudes presented here. ‘Variations On No Particular Theme’ is a pregnant name in which we can look for the key to this album. Of course,…
The Cod And The Cat
*2023 stock. 50 copies limited edition* After his oneiric, Casio-centric 'Nullpluss' that Kristian Tangvik released two years ago, the time has come for his next move. In Kristian's own words: "The Cod and the Cat has developed over the course of two years. It came to me in a dream. Some compositions arrived while traveling, others in a complete standstill. And so I have gathered a fresh combination of exceptional performers from the rich and exciting underground of Copenhagen's music scene, and…