Rites (Seymour Wright Alto-saxophone Solos 2003-2023)
Tip! These Rites are designed (realised and situated) – through/in – the saxophone, as:
(conic) vessel,text,structure,lens,‘kitchen’,nexus,body/organ(s),rhythm,ecology/knot,speculative (entrepreneurial) invention,(and shadow).
Horizontal Shift
Horizontal shift, features the international trio, from Germany and U.S., of Birgit Ulher, Carol Genetti, and Eric Leonardson. The CD consists of a live performance recorded in 2018 at Elastic Arts in Chicago. Having known each other since the late 1990s, it wasn’t until early 2018 that Ulher, Leonardson and Genetti were able to perform as a trio at Elastic Arts in Chicago. All three are seasoned performers in their own right — each bringing their distinct palettes in combination to create an im…
Hailstone Temple
*100 copies limited edition* Camilo Ángeles and Joanna Mattrey present a striking set of pieces culled from an improvised live set at Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City, recorded and filmed February 2022, with a dual recording and video release presented here as “Hailstone Temple”. Both musicians have fascinated Notice Recordings for quite a while, and both exhibit deep relationships with their instruments: flute and viola, respectively. Ángeles originally caught our attention via the TVL …
Guitar Solos / Fifty
Big tip! Lunching into 2024 after after a stellar 2023, Week-End Records delivers one of their most important offerings to date, the first vinyl reissue of Fred Frith’s seminal 1974 solo debut, “Guitar Solos”, in more than 40 years, marking the album’s 50th anniversary. A groundbreaking work in the field of avant-garde recordings that changed everything in its wake, incorporating a startling range of sonorities and approaches within constrained means, to celebrate its half-century mark, Frith ha…
Several
*200 copies limited release* "Needless to say, anything new from saxophonist / composer Anna Webber raises an eyebrow or two. Her works for large and small ensembles exhibit a knotty sophistication that can be compared to that of Anthony Braxton. Here, she teams with experimental multi-instrumentalist Weston Olencki for just over 32 minutes of sax / trombone outside improv.
Several comes across more in the established style of Olencki than that of Webber. While there are a number of contrapuntal…
Heavy Breathing
Tip! Every squeak, skonk, breath, tap & honk imaginable. Eye-scrunching-brick-wall-saxophone for Sampler & Alto Sax by Breathing Heavy (Sam Andreae & Ciaran Mackle) on their debut tape for Infant Tree. Both proving how far they are willing to push themselves and their listeners. It's a great pleasure to be able to share this unique music. Fans of Ashcircle will be familiar with Mackles's singular sampler workouts, but will be thrilled to hear how far its goes here. Sam Andreae's work as an impro…
Tayutauta
Tip! *200 copies limited edition* While continuously engaged in the field of traditional Japanese music, female-school gidayu shamisen player Yumiko Tanaka has since the 1990s been carrying out multifaceted musical activities including contemporary classical music, improvisation (in 1996-97 she was a member of Otomo Yoshihide’s band Ground-Zero), experimental music, and theater performance/composition, performing and exchanging ideas with many musicians from Japan and other countries. While Tana…
Live Recordings
*Edition of 100.* "Live Recordings" presents MAW—the trio of Frank Meadows (bass), Jessica Ackerley (guitar), and Eli Wallace (piano/synth)—fully testing the possibilities of their creative dialogue in front of a live audience for the first time. Two concerts in Brooklyn and Saugerties, both staged in October 2021, display the performance of an acute democratic understanding, acquired across formative years of private sessions and conversation, including the late 2020 recording session that prod…
01.30.22
Tip! *Edition of 100.* Stella Silbert and Nat Baldwin’s "01.30.22" starts with a disorienting and curt mixture of vinyl static, chopped and skewed mysterious acoustic guitar strings, and a loud, acoustic “thud”. It’s an introduction to a strange piece of music from a strange album by two fascinating players in the current improvised and contemporary music landscape. This first piece, “5”, warbles and wobbles its way though oddly lyrical passages, framed in sporadic collaged format by the rapidly…
FFlair III
"Basically, we witness an intimate dialogue between two improvisers. If there had not been a special circumstance leading to this result. Christine Abdelnour and Hans Koch could not hear each other. In fact, "FFlair" is based on two separately recorded solo improvisations, which were superimposed at the end. Mind you, without any subsequent editing." - Rudolf Amstutz
Grain Live
"It’s unfortunately rare for an improviser, especially in a solo context, to concentrate on one idea, a single angle of attack, and to work that idea deeply, to discover hidden jewels within a relatively “narrow” range and further, to surprise the listener with unexpected divergencies. Agnas, in the three selections from a live event presented here, does this beautifully. On ‘1992’, he places his guitar on his lap and approaches it as a kind of dulcimer, generating a strong and captivating rhyth…
Precipitation of a Decision
Tip! *In process of stocking* "Two distinct session, the first CD presenting free improv trio perfomances in St. Louis, MO between Paul Hartsaw on soprano & tenor saxophones, Damon Smith on double bass and Jerome Bryerton on percussion, the 2nd CD finding Hartsaw and Smith in the studio in Oakland CA for a more experimental session, Smith adding laptop & field recordings and both employing extended techniques." - Squidco
Unprotected Sleep
Tip! *In process of stocking* Christine Abdnelnour and Andy Moor have explored the notion of hypnagogia or ‘Unprotected Sleep’ to drive their process for this improvised album, delving in their own experience and memories. Unprotected sleep is commonly defined as an altered state of consciousness that occurs beyond the proper or intended time of waking up, not sleeping in your own safe bed, or even sleeping without a blanket. Being slightly out of phase, one is vulnerable, fragile, but the mind …
Cantare la voce
* 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl * Reissue of a 1978 LP out on Cramps Records. Demetrio Stratos's research into the field of phonetic and experimental poetry led to his freeing his voice every naturalistic restraint, restoring its depth and dimension. The result of this can be heard in the two recordings of his compositions "Metrodora" and "Cantare la Voce" where what sounds like an instrument is in fact his voice.
Draw From The Source
”In its sum, Draw From The Source recounts a multidimensional journey whose sources and paths constantly cross. Marco von Orelli and Sheldon Suter reveal a lot about themselves, about their individual idiosyncrasies and about their common feelings in this performance carried by finest lyricism. But behind this journey from the north to the south, from urban stagnation to Mediterranean lightness, there is also a call for us to reflect on the true nature of our existence in a
changing world.“ – R…
Abstersion
Dinzu Artefacts presents Abstersion by Lorenzo Abattoir. An exquisite collage exploring the internal sound-world of an upright piano. The piano here has shed its traditional use as a musical instrument to emerge as a wonderfully sonorous body in itself. Incidental sounds which are typically relegated to the periphery are moved towards the center of attention in a kaleidoscopic unity which privileges no sound over any other, opening up a whole world of noise, tone, and every shade between.
Trasluz
Amidea Clotet's Trasluz is the result of research into the sound and textural possibilities of the electric guitar treated as a source of sound amplification. Clotet creates spontaneous, raw and vivid soundscapes, which call for the importance of the present moment, of knowing how to listen to what surrounds us and to ourselves.
The Industrious Tongue
The Industrious Tongue of Michael Foster is a 2-part work probing the most intimate and sensitive glands of the saxophone's internal architecture. This work is dedicated to several filmmakers whose work explores the erotic extremities and complexities of contemporary intimacy which has served as a focal point of inspiration for this album: Hisayasu Sato, Takashi Ishii, Naomi Tani and Jacques Rivette.
Solo Acoustic Guitar Improvisations II / III
*200 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* "These performances are all about the process, about exploration and they more than once reminded me of a quote by Derek Bailey about the creation process as a kind of jigsaw puzzle: “Emptied out of the box, there’s a heap of pieces, all shapes, sizes and colors, in themselves attractive and could add up to anything— intriguing. Figuring out how to put them together can be interesting, but what you finish up with as often as not is a picture o…
Unnameable Element
*100 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* 'Trumpet, piri, and Vocalnori (amplified gongs via the voice) unfold a splattering of sounds, gurgling textures, gestural outbursts, and fragmented melodic runs. With their uncanny doublings and waves of resonance, these sounds accumulate and disperse in a confounding of the senses, increasingly attuned to the interstices of its sonic reflections and refractions.' – Adam Zuckerman