Upcoming releases
Portals/Rope
Jana Irmert Portals: Produced entirely from sounds recorded in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Colombia, Portals evokes the hidden world of sounds that lie beyond our perception. Whether concealed in ultra-sonic frequency registers or in the depths of the aquatic medium, these sounds bear witness to an unsuspected and teeming animal activity. Insects, frogs, bats and freshwater dolphins move about, hiding from our eyes and ears. Revealing this palette of sounds, in particular through transpo…
WVLT
WVLT is the newest sonic addition from WNDFRM (Portland-based, Tim Westcott), an album of eight distinct explorations exploring the many facets of experimental IDM. Tim Westcott’s practice is rooted in an acute, nearly forensic attention to sound. Subtle tones, sculpted drones, and lean percussive gestures, always pursued with a patient ear and obsession with sound design. With previous releases on Prologue, Home Normal, and Dragon’s Eye Recordings, and several live performances at Mutek, a new …
Tokyo
Wolfgang Muthspiel and his trio with Scott Colley on bass and Brian Blade on drums (“Together they have something of the empathy of the Bill Evans trio” – Downbeat) goes into its third recording-venture swinging, setting the stage for what may be the group’s most adventurous trio recording with a delicate reading of Keith Jarrett’s “Lisbon Stomp”. Throughout the album however, the Austrian guitarist and his American cohorts turn the spotlight towards Wolfgang’s captivating originals, touching on…
Tramonto
Recorded live in Birmingham during a Contemporary Music Network tour in 2002, Tramonto finds UK pianist John Taylor (1942-2015) in celebratory, outgoing mood, fronting one of his most dynamic and quick-witted groups, with US musicians Marc Johnson and Joey Baron – the energetic team that would later collaborate on the critically-lauded ECM recording Rosslyn. Here the repertoire features the well-known Taylor tunes “Pure and Simple”, “Between Moons” and “Ambleside” (heard in an epic 15 minute…
Juvenile Rock
Once whispered about in underground circles, Juvenile Rock—a crucial artifact from Japan’s vibrant 1980s post-punk scene—returns in definitive form. Originally circulated only as a CD-R and later on cassette, this rare collection of unreleased material from Dendo Marionette is now finally available on double vinyl, bringing new life to a body of work that until now was largely inaccessible outside of dedicated collectors. Juvenile Rock presents an expansive portrait of the band at their most dar…
Dendö Marionette
At the dawn of the 1980s, Osaka’s Dendo Marionette stood at the forefront of Japan’s first great Synth-Wave explosion—an underground movement where icy electronics collided with the raw urgency of Post-Punk. Their sound was both futuristic and deeply atmospheric, channeling a restless creative energy that mirrored the global wave of experimentation while remaining distinctly Japanese.
This definitive double LP brings together the band’s complete studio legacy, finally giving shape to a story t…
Paradise Mambo
Formed in Hakata before relocating to Tokyo in 1984, Akebonojirushi quickly established themselves as one of the most adventurous acts in Japan’s underground music scene. The six-piece band defied easy categorization, blending sharp-edged New Wave textures with the groove and freedom of Funk-Jazz, then distilling it all into daring, unpredictable Pop songs.
Originally released in 1987 on the influential DIW label, Paradise Mambo captured the energy of a vibrant era when Japanese musicians were…
Trap
Originally released in 1985 on Japan Records, "Trap" marks the second solo venture from pioneering Japanese musician Chiko Hige. Delving deep into the raw energy of the No-Wave movement, Hige crafts a powerful, hypnotic sonic journey brimming with hyper-kinetic grooves, jagged guitar textures, and contorted saxophone lines. "Trap" stands as a snapshot of controlled chaos—its blend of frenetic rhythms and edgy soundscapes continues to resonate with fresh relevance, captivating new listeners and l…
Harafuri
If punk culture and aesthetics ever had a poet, it would undoubtedly be Kō Machida. Best known as the visionary frontman of the pioneering punk band INU and later acclaimed as a novelist, essayist, and professor, Machida has built a career at the intersection of raw musical energy and razor-sharp literary craftsmanship. Eleven years after the groundbreaking 1981 masterpiece INU – Meshi Kuuna!, Machida returned with a new creative chapter: the album *Harafuri*. This record marked a significant ev…
Dance Till You Die
Dance Till You Die is more than just a track title—it’s a loud and clear order, a warning, and a timeless statement from one of the most uncompromising Japanese post-punk outfits of the early 1980s.
Emerging from Japan’s underground scene, Daisuck & Prostitute forged a raw yet magnetic sound that blended the abrasive edges of No Wave with an almost ritualistic sense of groove. Dance Till You Die stands as a rare testament to their uncompromising vision: esoteric and challenging, yet undeniably…
Wrong Filament
Wrong Filament embodies Robert Piotrowicz’s creation of fictional traditional music — not studied but invented, a utopian and oniric construct that becomes tangible in sound. These imagined traditions act as communal forces of music-making, resisting dominant structures of power. The album unfolds in six dense compositions built on rhythm, repetition and minimal melodic gestures that draw on archetypal patterns of Eastern European traditions. Entirely synthetic yet strikingly instrumental in cha…
Quelques idées d'un vert incolore dorment furieusement
For more than fifteen years, Toc – the Lille-based trio of Jérémie Ternoy (Fender Rhodes, Piano Bass), Ivann Cruz (guitar) and Peter Orins (drums) – has been pursuing a singular sonic quest where the energies of experimental rock, the unpredictability of improvised music, and a constant drive toward excess converge. On stage as on record, Toc invents a telluric and ever-shifting music, built from flows, ruptures, and accumulations, where hypnosis and chaos feed off one another.
For this new albu…
Learning
‘Learning’ - Sophie Agnel’s first solo LP, feels like the dark, physical inversion of her excellent ‘Song’ which came out on Relative Pitch earlier this year. Sinking her unique sound into vinyl for the first time, the LP arrives as Agnel recovers from a brain tumour - a shocking discovery that will require Agnel to start again with the piano. It’s a terrifying prospect, but Agnel has been here before, having reorientated herself almost entirely away from her early classical training over the la…
A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever
Kara-Lis Coverdale returns to Smalltown Supersound with her fourth full-length album, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever, a collection of nine pieces, dedicated to solo piano. Known for her musical innovations at the intersection of experimental electronics and minimalist traditions, Coverdale’s previous albums Aftertouches, Grafts and, most recently, From Where You Came (Smalltown Supersound) garnered special acclaim for their deep exploration of timbre. On A Series of Actions in a Sphe…
Wooley The Newt
Stephen McCraven's Wooley The Newt was his first album under his own name, released on Marion Browns own Sweet Earth record label in 1979 (orignal copies are rare and go for $500). Working with Stephen and the carvery we have remastering the audio and restored the original artwork. Stephen is a master drumer and composer and has worked with Archie Shepp for many years,he has also played & recorded with many; Marion Brown, Mal Waldron, Reggie Wokman and Stanley Cowell to mention just a few. Steph…
Traveling Light
From out of the dark, the crackle of feed back birdsong signals a return to the land of sound environments exclusive to the music of Rafael Toral. A year and a half after his epochal electric guitar album, Spectral Evolution, Traveling Light finds him sharpening his focus, moving boldly from abstract forms to concrete compositions in the form of a set of jazz standards. Based on Toral’s discography, this may seem an unlikely endeavor, but happily, Traveling Light transpires to be one of the majo…
Àlbum
Urpa i musell feel very fortunate to announce the reissue of Àlbum by Joan Saura (1954-2012), originally released on compact disc by Nova Era – Música Secreta in 1998.
Kōri no ryokō / Jäämatkailu
Water can retain or wash away memory; flowing or freezing. It gives life and shapes earth, while frozen imprints of an ancient past are waiting to melt – back into sound or fluid motion, or simply to dissipate and disappear. For their split release, Yoichi Kamimura and Olli Aarni offer two distinct reinterpretations of a performance recorded live at the Temppeliaukio Kirkko – a church in Helsinki built directly into solid rock and bathed in natural light – meditating on glacial landscapes and wa…
Two Lonely Space Pilots
Hekura are a Barcelona-based duo that create expansive soundscapes anchored in ritual minimalism. With influences ranging from the ethereal mysticism of Alice Coltrane to the hypnotic pulse of Steve Reich, their music explores the boundary between introspection and bold sonic exploration. Inspired by ethnographic traditions and the raw energy of Julius Eastman, their compositions fuse scattered percussion, shimmering textures, and hypnotic saxophone rhythms for moments of solitude and profound r…
Jazz Report From The Hood
Over the past few months, five young musicians performing under the name Omasta have taken the Polish and European jazz scenes by storm. Having gained recognition for their intense live shows, they are now ready to deliver their debut studio effort. Jazz Report from the Hood a collectively composed album immersed in the textures of city streets and everyday urban life. The name Omasta comes from a regional Krakow dialect word meaning “fat added to food for flavor.” It’s a fitting metaphor: the g…