New Arrivals
Evening Measures
First solo LP in a decade from long-time Pelt/Black Twigs/Eight Point Star leader, presenting a remarkable program of solo Hardanger and octave fiddle music. Evening Measures is a bold and unique statement, a direct and disarming individual expression of a musician’s inner thoughts and inspirations. Like some of Mike Gangloff’s work in other projects, this ricochets back and forth across the line between the most traditional and the most “out” music, blending drone, melody, and the pure tactile …
The Solar-Myth Approach
A double cd that showcases both the prolific output and unparalleled creative verve of Sun Ra, the man who created his own genre. Upgrading his celebrated band The Arkestra to the rank of Solar Myth Arkestra, the bandleader-composer-pianist-keyboardist produced enough music in his lifetime to fill a universe, and these sessions, though their precise date and place of recording remain unknown, are among the finest he released in the ‘70, which was an action-packed decade for him.
Featuring rever…
Meditation / Resurrection
*2023 repress* "Meditation / Resurrection is a double-album presenting a bounty of beautiful new William Parker compositions performed by two of his flagship ensembles, the Quartet -&- In Order To Survive. It was recorded & mixed live during a one-day studio session in late 2016. With the tone of the pieces & performances reflecting our current moment, this is Parker & the groups' follow-up to 2013's epic Wood Flute Songs box (2013). At the core of both groups is Parker's foundational bass toget…
Dark Country Magic
Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records bring to you the much-anticipated vinyl pressing of Dark Country Magic from this wonderful Maine trio (Quinnisa making her first intentional effort with "Moo Hoo" on this release). Caleb Mukerin and Colleen Kinsella have been key personages of the Portland sonic underground as members of the cosmically-shifting Cerberus Shoals and the folkily psychedelic Fire on Fire before forming the more personal and hermetic Big Blood back in 2006. The band's multi-phas…
No Refunds
Recording in Brooklyn's Seaside Lounge in 2014, these five previously unreleased collective improvisations bring together West Coast reedist Vinny Golia, performing on clarinet, saxello, sopranino, baritone saxophones with double bassist Max Johnson and drummer Weasel Walter, an absolutely impressive example of free playing intent and well-balanced conversation.
Operate Spaceship Earth Properly
*Edition of 250 copies* Comes with printed innersleeve. 2018 repress, on splatter vinyl. "Our last Big Blood release was the idiosyncratic Ant Farm, Colleen and Caleb's collaboration with the late composer Elliott Schwartz, which presented music designed for a museum installation. With Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, Big Blood return to the vast universe of strangeness they explore inside their own skin. Now fully incorporating the vocals and guitar of their daughter Quinnisa (previously a 'se…
Root Perspectives
"Every gesture and nuance of [Dickey’s] percussive pronunciation is telling.” –Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes
Eternity
* This quality LP reissue was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. * Released in 1976, Eternity was Alice Coltrane's first album for Warner Bros. after eight wondrous records on Impulse! Combining the drones and textures of India, the gospel and R&B of her Detroit youth and the dissonance of modern classical composition, Coltrane's music in the '70s would become increasingly difficult to categorize. Having moved a few years earlier to…
In The Dark
Allen Lowe writes: In the Dark is a commemoration (sic) of the worst time of my life – a period of time during which, having been operated on to remove a cancerous tumor in my sinus, I slept for only brief periods of time. Sometimes I made it as long as two hours continuously, but most often I dozed off for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe an hour – encamped as I was on my couch, trying not to wake my wife as I wandered in the dark contemplating the long night ahead. Sometimes I turned the televisi…
America: The Rough Cut
Allen Lowe writes: "America: The Rough Cut is my statement not only on American music and American song, but also my commentary on the way American musicians of all styles handle that old-time music and those old song forms . . . The old things -- not just the blues, but gospel music and pre-blues shouts and language, plus hillbilly/minstrel song and medicine show irony -- reflect a disinterest in the polite trappings of (primarily but not only white) society, an implicit rejection of basic tona…
No Joke!
ESP is proud to present a new William Parker album in collaboration with his wife Patricia Nicholson. No Joke! is unapologetically political, facing down injustice and inequality and other “in”s with artistic integrity and “outside” music.
World Construct
Throughout his long and prolific career, Matthew Shipp has presented several different and impressive trio formations. Among the featured members have been bassists William Parker, and Joe Morris, and drummers Guillermo E. Brown, Whit Dickey, and Susie Ibarra. In 2015, two other premier players, bassist Michael Bisio, and drummer Newman Taylor Baker stepped in as the rhythm section on The Conduct of Jazz (Thirsty Ear). Their fourth album as a unit, World Construct makes the group the most enduri…
SILVA
Bára Gísladóttir is an Icelandic composer and double bassist based in Copenhagen. She is an active performer and regularly plays her own music, mostly solo or with her long-time collaborator Skúli Sverrisson. Additionally, she is the double bassist of Elja Ensemble. Occasionally, she performs as a soloist with ensembles or orchestras, most recently in her own double bass concert, "Hringla," with the Copenhagen Philharmonic. Every sound on SILVA is of the double bass, processed to various degrees…
Pangrams
"Pangrams" evokes a wide range of emotional moods, sketched in a chamber atmosphere. The four pieces stress the immediate and deep understanding of Di Domenico and Moberg.’ - Eyal Hareuveni
Roedelius/Hausswolff II
*200 copies limited edition. Black Vinyl* Deep and beautiful ambient experimentalism from two true masters. “Roedelius / Hausswolff II”is this duo’s second album. The two met in Vienna in 2016 when Carl Michael Von Hausswolff invited Hans-Joachim Roedelius to participate in the collective sound-installation and concert””freq_out ”. Since H-J had been, and still is, organizing the festival “More Ohr Les“ in his home town Baden just outside Vienna it has been natural for him to invite CM to collab…
It's Not Up To Us
Another legendary one out @Superior Viaduct, the super rare (and amazing) debut by sax / flute player Byard Lancaster on Atlantic's subsidiary label Vortex dedicated to avant-garde jazz. Featuring Sonny Sharrock on guitar. Quoting the Andy Beta's brilliant review on Pitchfork "When John Coltrane succumbed to cancer in 1967, free jazz/fire music was sucked into a giant vacuum along with him. A patron of music and patron saint to so many of its players, there was a crossroads left in his wake. Ele…
Black Woman
An extraordinary piece of energy music that goes way beyond jazz. A legendary album produced by Herbie Mann and originally released in 1969 on the Atco subsidiary Vortex. Sonny Sharrock (and his wife Linda) recorded these tracks with a cast of New York free jazz all-stars including pianist Dave Burrell, drummer Milford Graves, trumpeter Teddy Daniel, and bassist Norris Jones among the others. A radical album with uncompromising blasts of atonal electric guitar, free-form sonic explorations, ecce…
Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Puo' Sparare
* Red vinyl edition * Milano Odia: La polizia non può sparare, a 1974 movie directed by Umberto Lenzi, is the quintessence of the Italian police films. Not only, it's even more violent and extreme than usual, with one of the best interpretations ever by the Cuban actor Tomas Milian.The soundtrack for the film is commissioned to Ennio Morricone, who at the time was already a full-time score composer, and had already worked in the same field. The Maestro wrote the entire OST starting from a single…
Lo Chiamavano Trinità...
* 2023 Repress in 180 gr. green and silver vinyl. Limited to 500 copies * A catalog such as Beat Records, with its roots in the '60s may have a difficult logistic. Beat Records changed many times head quarter up to moving to Via Filippo Nicolai 16 from the late '80s up to nowadays. Such a company catalog, sensibly grown during 55 years of life, was always needing more space and so, recently, the label decided to find a new place where to agglomerate various storages spread through Rome. What doe…