Reissues
Frictions / Frictions Now
Awesome archival CD covering the entire production by The Free Jazz Group Wiesbaden, a quartet with the odd instrumentation of reeds (Dieter Scherf), trumpet (Michael Sell), guitar (Gerhard König, who also played flute) and percussion (Wolfgang Schlick). They released two appropriately schizoid LPs on Scherf’s LST label in 1969 and 1971 (Frictions and Frictions Now, here collected) before disbanding. This is a stunning copy of their first very rare private press side, 1969 Frictions, a spectacul…
PoorManMusic
Homemade noise made by, among others, Philip Corner, Max Neuhaus, Steve Reich, James Tenney, Malcolm Goldstein, Jackson Mac Low, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Carolee Schneemann, Jerome Rothenberg... the Technicians of the Sacred. Gift Event III: A Celebration for poets, musicians, and dancers, based on the orders of the Seneca Indian Eagle Dance and performed at the Judson Dance Theatre, Judson Memorial Church, New York City, March 21 and 22, 1967. A part of the Spring Happenings.
The legandary…
Maki Asakawa
2019 Repress. A stunning survey of the 1970s heyday of this great Japanese singer and countercultural icon. The “Queen of the Japanese Underground” stuck to her unique personal style – long black dress, dark glasses, cloud of cigarette smoke…Deep-indigo, dead-of-night enka, folk and blues, inhaling Billie Holiday and Nina Simone down to the bone. A traditional waltz abuts Nico-style incantation; defamiliarised versions of Oscar Brown Jr and Bessie Smith collide with big-band experiments alongsi…
Mooko
**2009 release, long out of print, very few copies available** Mooko was the first installment of a short-lived "power trio" comprised of Japanese free saxophonist Akira Sakata, bassist Bill Laswell, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. At the time of this recording, the latter two were deeply into their Last Exit project, a band with whom Sakata sat in during their tour of Japan. This trio is a bit like a pared-down version of Last Exit, without the incendiary guitar work of Sonny Sharrock…
Reportage
Masterpiece! A genuine lost and unreleased full-length LP from one of the most mysterious figures of early Italian electronic sound and library music. A missing puzzle piece in the small discography of experimental tape and synthesiser music by the composer known only as Lamartine recorded (but never pressed) in 1974 by the archive that bought you the work of Daniela Casa and the wildest electronic experiments of Alessandroni, Giuliano Sorgini and Fabio Frizzi. Having sat in the can for ove…
Metti Una Sera A Cena
Quite possibly the greatest Morricone score ever – and one whose dreamy bossa-inflected title theme has been covered a number of times over the years (most recently by the group Balanco!) From the first minutes of the album, you'll instantly recognize the main theme – as it's swells of voices and lilting keyboards are among one of Morricone's best signatures from the time. Don't worry about getting bored because you may already know it, though – as the album has loads of other beautiful …
Via Lactea
Mexican rock had a strong renaissance in the eighties, when most bands, majorly coming from the prog scene, turned to Spanish language again. One of the big acts from that era was Jorge Reyes' led Chac Mool. Chac Mool counted on its ranks with Carlos Alvarado, who was an accomplished musician on its own and who would record one of the most interesting electronic prog albums of the era, on which Reyes also collaborated. Originally released on mexican private label Momia in 1980. "Carlos Alvarado'…
Counterchronology
Unreleased very first recordings from 1979 (!)by Giancarlo Toniutti together with Tiziano Dominighini (pre “airthrob in” project!) documinting his very first approach on electric and acoustic instruments and noises. Recovered and mixed by Giancarlo Toniutti 2014. Limited to 300 copies
Luxury Apartments
Originated as a project to explore potential film/animation synchronisation with nods to his growing penchants for neo-classical, fee jazz and minimal music, German born and Derbyshire raised musician, painter and mathematician David Tyack began working under his new Luxury Apartments moniker in the summer of 2002. Having recently finished a self-penned conceptual LP with Can frontman Malcolm Mooney and writing and recording for the then yet to be mixed LPs by Jane Weaver’s Misty Dixon an…
Free and Loose
**CD version** Eraldo Volonté is a veteran of italian jazz: he is one of those characters that are always seen wherever there is good jazz to play or listen to. With a difference from many pioneers, however, Volonté has never lost even a shred of his enthusiasm, even if he has been playing professionally for more than a quarter of a century and like almost all of is colleagues, in Italy, has had to adapt and be part of an infinite number of bands playing all types of music. His enthusiasm has ke…
Lullaby For The Fishes
Milestone reissue!! Here's the much needed reprint of Rolf Julius’ first and only (and almost impossible to find) LP from 1985 / Rolf Julius was the archetypal “sound artist“. He painted with sound, he colored with pitch, and his work demands the attention and open-mindedness of those who embrace modern art. He collected found sounds, and mixed them with prerecorded single tone notes which were then, electronically modified and filtered through tiny loudspeakers, transformed into music. De…
Live At Maya Recordings Festival
Bomb! 500 copies. After twenty one recordings there may not be too much more to say about the superlative English threesome of saxophonist Evan Parker, bassist Barry Guy and drummer Paul Lytton. Some 30 years on since their debut Tracks (Incus, 1983), they converse in a language entirely of their own making, which relies on a staggering density of ideas, chops to burn and a preternatural responsiveness. Live At Maya Recordings Festival, captured at Winterthur, Switzerland in 2011 forms another t…
Live At Kassiopeia
A never earlier released duo recording that was played back in 1987 at Kassiopeia, Wuppertal brings these two great musicians and composers together for this unique and unforgettable session. There are times when one fantasises about the possible collaborations that might have been: Hendrix with Miles Davis, Jeffrey Lee Pierce with R.L Burnside, Capt. Beefheart with Sun Ra ― imagination is a wonderful thing. But when a vault somewhere pops open and a collaboration of two of improvised music's ti…
Look Up
2012 release. Born in Buffalo in 1939, Charles Gayle had hit New York City by the early '70s. He almost made his mark with an album on ESP-Disk' in 1974, but the label shut down before it came out. When he next recorded in 1988, he had been homeless for a while, sheltering in an empty Brooklyn storefront. The Knitting Factory gigs and concurrent CDs from Swedish imprint Silkheart, the Knit's own house label, the Italian label Black Saint, and a particularly well-received-in-Europe album on FMP, …
Recital
Originally released in 1961. Peruvian singer Yma Sumac glided effortlessly from contralto to coloratura, her voice covering a range of no less than four octaves -- skeptics even suspected studio trickery! Her early repertoire included popular music and jazz pieces, but by this 1961 concert, she was devoting herself to the goal of making known the music of her homeland and neighboring countries. This is the first time ESP-Disk has released this concert on vinyl. To fit it on a single LP, the orch…
College Tour
50th Anniversary Edition on "Esperanto-Green" colored vinyl. In the Spring of 1966, ESP was given a grant by the New York State Council on the Arts, to tour the five colleges in the state with music departments. Artists for this tour included the Sun Ra Arkestra, Burton Greene, Patty Waters, Giuseppi Logan and Ran Blake. Accompanied by an all star backup group from among the participants, Patty's performances resulted in the album, College Tour, her second recording for ESP-Disk'. The album expa…
The East Village Other
Originally released in 1966. The first North American release of the "electric newspaper," an archetypal '60s counterculture "happening" from August 6, 1966, this is also the first edition anywhere since the original vinyl to include the lengthy closing track, "Interview with Hairy." A legendary all-star cast of performers got together to make an anti-war collage of words and sounds that defies mere track listings -- one of the elements is "Silence" by Andy Warhol, which, contrary to at least on…
Spirits Rejoice
Live recording of Albert Ayler's large septet configuration, featuring brother Donald, Charles Tyler, Sunny Murray and both Henry Grimesand Gary Peacock on bass. Compared to the bare trio of Spiritual Unity, this nearly big band of two bass players and a strong horn section allows Ayler's expressive vision depth from the joyous to the aggressive in Ayler's five original compositions. The digitally remastered recording was originally made at 30 ips instead of the usual 15 giving it excellent fide…
New York Eye And Ear Control
Originally released in 1966. Featured artists: Albert Ayler (tenor sax), Ed Blackwell(trumpet), Don Cherry (trumpet, cornet), Sunny Murray (drums), Gary Peacock (bass), Roswell Rudd (trombone), John Tchicai (saxophone, alto sax). Michael Snow is a Canadian national treasure, a true Renaissance man. He assembled a stellar group to improvise a sound track for his art film, titled Walking Woman, featuring a silhouette that is rumored to have been inspired by Carla Bley. Digitally remastered. Manufa…
Trio
Lowell Davidson recorded this singular session on July 27th, 1965 with Gary Peacock and the ever amazing Milford Graves. Sadly, the only recording ever released by Davidson, it remains fresh and exciting 40 plus years later. On Ornette Coleman’s recommendation, ESP-Disk’ owner Bernard Stollman signed up pianist Lowell Davidson (then majoring in biochemistry at Harvard) for this album without having heard him play. Davidson came to New York and got to work with the elite rhythm section of drummer…