This Summer...
*200 copies limited edition* Tokyo-born recorder player/improviser Eiko Yamada has lived in Germany since 1984 and currently resides in Heidelberg. Yamada performs in formations ranging from solo to large ensemble, as well as with a variety of artists including dancers and poets. She returns to Japan once or twice a year and appears in a small number of concerts in Tokyo.During her stay in Japan in summer 2023, Yamada performed with pianist Fumi Endo at Ftarri on August 13. In addition to their …
Born Of The Sun
Tongues slap and flutes trill! The wild spirit of Dawn the Faun has returned, raising the young in the light of each new day and playing around the fire to welcome back the spirits at night. The bounty and exuberance of NOW, under the eternal skies of yesterday and tomorrow
Solo Piano - Edge Of Chaos
Tip! Just when you think you’ve heard everything you want to hear from a solo piano record, something comes along that challenges your preconceptions all over again. Efstathiou has been developing a unique language with the instrument for some time, building up a reputation for idiosyncratic preparations and extended technique. All that’s illuminated in flickering candlelight on ‘Edge of Chaos’; moody and deliciously ambiguous, it’s based on mathematical systems, specifically the transition stat…
What Is What
There is a delicacy and a passionate hardness, stripped bare of cloying sentiment. Its rawness is the exuberance of sound overflowing, basking in its self-created luxury…. It is, every bit of it, composed the same moment you hear it.
VOSTOK: Remote Islands
*2024 stock* This music is improvised and inspired by Judith Schalansky’s book "Atlas of Remote Islands: 50 islands I never set foot in and never will." The music is an echo of her writing, of inspiration by islands, entities with different and changing characteristics.
Reid/Edwards/Coudoux
We maneuver through woody sounds created by individual movements and decisions. Our cello playing is free from classical patterns, a real achievement! It is not natural to develop one's own approach to this high culture instrument. In this trio there are three multi-layered variations of personal expressive will and power.
Filament
This recording documents the first ever meeting between Susan Alcorn and Catherine Sikora. When musicians improvise with each other, a space is created that is unique and specific to the musicians who are playing. With Susan and Catherine, the space that presented itself was enormous, with great freedom and tonal flexibility, opening up endless possibilities for expression.
Interdependenzen
Iinterdependenzen is a selection of 11 solo improvisations that evolved during Maria Reich’s solo impro research. All pieces are uncut and were recorded in different places over 6 months on an iPhone. The situation, the material becomes audible, the wood, the bow hair, the room, the recording device, the musician. "There is no part of me that is alone...."
Conic Tube
Conic Tube comes from the idea that the saxophone is nothing but a metal conical tube that amplifies, modifies and pushes the air through the room, if the instrument is just an object and sound is just air and air is inside-out of us, pushing this air becomes the tool to structure our space and surroundings making possible changes on our environment and energies. With this in mind and spirit this record was produced with the intent to fulfill and open new possibilities for the minds and spirits …
Rotarota
The first solo release of baritone saxophonist Sofia Salvo, “Rotarota” consists of a series of improvised pieces. They evoke emotional memories aspiring to set them free and mutate them into blaring music.
Monophonic
Monophonic is the name of the new album by Maria Bertel. As the title hints the album is a study of music played with 'one voice'. The amplification of the trombone mimics the effect of a magnifying glass, that let otherwise inaudible sounds be heard and brought forward. The compositions are long swathes of sound slowly developing, heavily inspired by drone and noise.
In Search Of A Real World
"Tenor saxophonist Ada Rave, born and raised in Argentina, decided to move to Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 2013. She had heard ‘the call’, followed her musical intuition and became part of the colorful community of Dutch creative improvised music. Educated in the jazz tradition she started to look for a more personal language. A deep search. Not an easy path to go. The destination is always changing. Each step made will call for a next step. A slow process of collecting material, sounds, techni…
End To End
*2024 stock* Barre Phillips was the first musician to record an album of solo double bass, back in 1968, and he has always been an absolute master of the solo idiom. In March 2017, Barre recorded what he says will be his last solo album, the final chapter of his “Journal Violone”: it is a beautiful and moving musical statement. All the qualities we associate with Barre’s playing are here in abundance – questing adventurousness, melodic invention, textural richness, developmental logic, and dee…
Variaciones Sobre Las Instrucciones
*250 copies limited edition* Alvear, Bondi & d'incise consists of Cristián Alvear from Chile, and Cyril Bondi and d'incise from Switzerland. The three musicians collaborate frequently in duo and trio formats. This album documents a duo performance by Alvear (guitar) and d’incise (vibraphone, electronics) of “Sleepless Night” (2022), a work by Spanish composer/sound artist Clara de Asís; and a trio performance by Alvear (guitar), Bondi (vibraphone) and d’incise (electronics) of “uno, dos o tres e…
Masahiko Okura / Naoto Yamagishi / Fumi Endo
*250 copies limited edition* Masahiko Okura, a reed instrument player and composer who has been performing actively since the 1990s, has previously released a number of solo and collaborative albums on Ftarri’s sister labels, Hitorri and Meenna. Percussionist Naoto Yamagishi lived in Europe for several years in the 2010s, and since then has been engaged in wide-ranging activities inside and outside Japan, frequently carrying out overseas tours and organizing concerts in Japan featuring musicians…
Memory Is A Poet, Spinning Stories
*2024 stock. 250 copies limited edition* Born in 1964, Tetuzi Akiyama is a guitarist/improviser active inside and outside Japan. Masahide Tokunaga, who was born in 1982, is an always-original alto sax player. Masatake Abe, born in 1993, is an innovative electric bass player on the jazz/improvised music scene. These three musicians of different generations performed together at Ftarri, Tokyo, on June 6, 2021. This CD contains two improvised pieces (about 25 minutes each) from that concert.This is…
They appear on the circuit from which we disappeared
*250 copies limited edition* Ai Watanabe is a Tokyo-based composer. After studying at Tokyo College of Music’s graduate school, she went to France and completed a graduate program at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Paris, and subsequently earned a doctoral degree at Tokyo University of the Arts. In recent years Watanabe has been focusing on electroacoustic music using field recordings as additional materials, earning high praise inside and outside Japan. Kokichi Yanagisawa is a guita…
El Amigo
*200 copies limited edition* Aquiles Hadjis was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. In 2009 he moved to Tokyo, and in 2017 he received a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from the Department of Painting at Tokyo University of the Arts. Still based in Tokyo, he is engaged in creative work in the fields of film, painting and music. Antonio Mazzei, also from Venezuela, is a pianist and composer. He studied with Fred Hersch and Kevin Hays at New York's New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and has since continued …
The Lightgiver
*200 copies limited edition* Canadian musician Lee Noyes (born in 1977) lived in New Zealand from the mid-1990s to the 2000s and subsequently moved to Sweden, where he continues his work on the improvised/experimental music scene, playing electronics, percussion and other instruments. American guitarist Barry Chabala (born in 1961) has released numerous recordings on improvised/experimental music labels such as Erstwhile Records, winds measure recordings, and Another Timbre. Noyes and Chabala ha…
Mushoku In Excursion
*200 copies limited edition* Ongoing since 2014, Mushoku In Excursion is a duo project by Takahashi 'Takakhan' Seiji and Yuko Nexus6. Kyoto-based Takahashi has planned and organized a wide variety of performances and events. Yuko Nexus6 is a performance artist/writer who lived for a long time in the Kansai area and now resides in Tokyo. The creation of this album began with the two making a one-hour recording by the Uji River in Kyoto. The tape became a foundation over which Yuko Nexus6 (piano, …