New Arrivals
Berlin Concerts
Berlin, 30 August 1961, two Südwestfunk sessions: Eric Dolphy at 33, on his second European trip, with Benny Bailey, Pepsi Auer, George Joyner and Buster Smith. Hot House, Hi-Fly, God Bless the Child on bass clarinet, and Dolphy's own G.W. and 245. Unheard until Enja issued it in 1978. Christgau gave it an A.
The Long Road To Freedom
Villingen, 26 February 1971. Friedrich Gulda's self-portrait in the form of a course, a double LP mostly of solo piano with Klaus Weiss on drums, Fritz Pauer and a horn section including Benny Bailey and Sahib Shihab. Prelude and Fugue, Play Piano Play, a set of variations on Light My Fire, and a Goethe setting.
Black Glory
One of the first Enja records, the fourth in the catalogue according to AllMusic, recorded live at the Domicile club in Munich in June 1971. Mal Waldron in trio with Jimmy Woode, the former Ellington bassist, and the Swiss drummer Pierre Favre. The same trio made Mal Waldron Plays the Blues for the label the same year.
Four Waldron originals (Sieg Haile, La gloire du noir, The Call, Rock My Soul) and Woode's brief M.C.. AllMusic's note describes a master of repetition and brooding chords in exce…
What It Is
Vanguard Studios, New York, 15 November 1981. Mal Waldron with Clifford Jordan on tenor, Cecil McBee on bass and Dannie Richmond on drums, two weeks after the same quartet had played a Columbia University concert. Produced by Horst Weber for Enja, released in 1982.
Three pieces. Jordan's Charlie Parker's Last Supper; Waldron's Hymn from the Inferno, twelve minutes; and the title track, eighteen minutes, which takes the whole second side. Ron Wynn at AllMusic gives it three stars and two words: d…
Dance
Munich, Vielharmonie, 11 June 1981. Akira Sakata, two years out of the Yosuke Yamashita Trio, with his own trio, Hiroshi Yoshino on bass and Nobuo Fujii on drums, recorded digitally for Enja. Alto sax, alto clarinet and voice; four long pieces, including a version of Brigitte Fontaine's Comme à la radio.
Green River
Nuremberg, East-West Jazz Festival, 6 July 1984. Takeo Moriyama, the drummer of the first Yosuke Yamashita Trio, with his own quartet: Toshihiko Inoue on tenor and soprano, Shuichi Enomoto on flute and saxophones, Hideaki Mochizuki on bass. Recorded live and issued by Enja the same year.
Moriyama had left Yamashita in 1975 and spent the following decade building a group sound of his own. The Vap record East Plants (1983) was the studio version of this band; Green River is the same lineup, less o…
Search For Tomorrow
Berkeley Jazz Festival, 1974. Prince Lasha, the Fort Worth altoist and flautist who had made The Cry! with Sonny Simmons and Iron Man with Dolphy, with Hubert Eaves on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Roy McCurdy on drums and Kenneth Nash on percussion. Three pieces, including the sixteen-minute Mayflower.
Hill Country Suite
Bobby Jones played tenor in the last Mingus bands of 1970-72, toured Europe and Japan with them, and then, with emphysema closing in, moved to Germany, where he died in 1980. Hill Country Suite is one of two records under his name, made at Trixi Studio in Munich on 30 August 1974 for Enja, in trio with George Mraz on bass and Freddie Waits on drums.
Six pieces, all his, and the titles say where he came from: Bringin' in the Sheep, Old Jack Daniels, Halleluja! Y'uns All Come to the Weddin' Dance,…
Friends And Neighbors (Ornette Live At Prince Street)
Ornette Coleman's loft at 131 Prince Street, Valentine's Day 1970. Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, and whoever was in the room singing the title chant. The only Coleman album on Flying Dutchman: six pieces, Ornette on alto, trumpet and violin, taped as a party rather than a concert.
Silver Tendril
*300 copies limited edition* "Silver Tendril" like his recent work, it focuses on the nuances of the sound's "physicality." The intensity of the '90s returns in a refined form, withadded nuance and subtlety. Where "Pulse Demon" emphasized that raw directness (which alreadyforeshadowed the Harsh Noise Wall), "Silver Tendril" develops rhythmic structures within whichsonic chaos suddenly erupts. This is not TNB-style chaos, but rather a gradual breakdown, a perverse shift from structure to chaos.
Bad Trip
*100 copies limited edition* "Bad Trip" is a nightmarish plunge into a dystopian world that, unfortunately, is all too close to reality. With this album, composed in secret over several months alongside various other projects and collaborations currently in progress, Noise Entropy sought to synthesize his diverse musical influences through his personal soundscape. The result is a blend of industrial and dark ambient, with a cinematic quality. Noise Entropy describes his music as "cosmic, hypnago…
Iris ter Schiphorst
Iris ter Schiphorst’s music combines political awareness with poetic power, sensual sonority and formal radicalism. In honour of her diverse oeuvre, the Zafraan Ensemble has released a selection of musical collaborations created for her anniversary on vinyl. A particular highlight is the recording of “Hyper-Dub” with Dirk von Lowtzow, frontman of the band Tocotronic, featuring his intense and timeless text about Berlin. Recorded at the Sendesaal Bremen, the Bonello Studios Berlin and the Nikolai…
Caribouddhism
*50 copies limited edition* Gary Lawless is a poet, bioregional advocate, and co-founder of Gulf of Maine Books. In the seventies he spent a year studying with Gary Snyder in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. On these recordings Lawless relates of his worldwide travels often spent in the wilderness and traces his journeys through various marks and tracks, through inner and outer landscapes of space/time. While traveling in Newfoundland during the nineties together with his wife Beth Leonard and the J…
At The Falls
*50 copies limited edition* After reading On the Road and meeting Ken Kesey, Mark Terrill set out as a merchant seaman and afterwards spent time in various locations in Asia, North Africa (studying with Paul Bowles in Tangier), and Europe, where he eventually settled down near Hamburg in the mid-eighties. To quote Lawrence Ferlinghetti on his poetry, “Mark Terrill, the true poet and ‘forlorn observer’ of the world he sees as essentially forlorn, if not absurd, if not entirely hopeless, and nothi…
A net to catch the sun in
*50 copies limited edition* Surrealist artist Hazel Cline deciphers wings of sapphire on the illusory screen of human eyes. Asymmetrical images harpoon jewelled fragments of bird skeletons changing into circling swarms of bees.
Shèntàn
*50 copies limited edition* Radical soundcollages by Bart De Paepe (Ilta Hämärä), Ignace De bruyn (Bokrijk) and Erwin Van Looveren (W Ravenveer) spit onto marine saliva landscapes. Mummified recordings that shatter art brut localism from the dream's forge, scratching exausted fingernails along liquid silent stone surfaces echoing the dementia of fiery skies.
Mountain Call
Mountain Call by bassist Miroslav Vitous with Michel Portal, Jack DeJohnette, Esperanza Spalding, Bob Mintzer, Gary Campbell and Gerald Cleaver, recorded in Prague between 2003 and 2010. ECM, 2026.
Racco
Few musicians, and few albums, embody such a joyful sense of freedom and vitality. Racco is where the artistry of Ryojiro Furusawa reaches its peak.
In Fiesta
More than sixty years after its original recording, a masterpiece that has captivated audiences around the world is reborn on an analog mono pressing with truly powerful sound.
Each Day, as if it Were Your Last
'Each Day, as if It Were Your Last' marks a striking new chapter for Pallette and a complete departure from his Past Inside the Present debut, 'Pathways'. Released in November 2020, Pathways emerged from an introspective period in Alexander Carlo Buckley’s life, presenting four lovely loop-based compositions shaped by hypnotic, consonant arrangements, fleeting melodies, and a patient sense of ebb and flow. Each Day, as if It Were Your Last moves beyond those meditative foundations, expanding Pal…