Experimental / Free Improvisation

Nehan is a Japanese free improvisation/avant-garde rock quintet formed in 2022. Their performance is initiated by a 9HZ brain wave emitted from a testee who has been brought into a deep meditative state. nehan respond with gongs, typani, tabla and other percussion, crumhorn, bagpipes, oscillator and mellotron, passing tranformatively through a musical prism, from east to west, from traditional folk and classical to rock, jazz, and electronic.

Tip! *300 copies limited edition* "Before hitting the road together in 2022 Bill Nace and Emily Robb recorded a tour split — a cassette, limited run of 50 — only to be found at their merch table. Now on vinyl, the split captures a moment bursting with verdient, crisp anticipation. Both artists were then on the heels of significant artistic leaps. Robb was wrapping up the promotional cycle of her first full-length solo record, 2021’s How To Moonwalk, and Nace had recently shifted his focus from p…

"Having known Nicole’s playing for over a decade, I’m always in awe of how she pushes the sound of the trumpet. I’ve been attuned to her immersive sound world since we began playing together in 2008. Whether it’s on her Bb trumpet, piccolo trumpet, or flugelhorn, Nicole’s playing is an individual voice. She has always had a unique way of expressing her instrument. Her choice ofsounds and the method in which she incorporates a rich palette of texture and timbre into herplaying takes the uncommon …

*2023 stock. 300 copies lmited release* With over 150 releases under their belt, Tolin Asumer is their first proper US release in almost 20 years. Recorded in Buenos Aires in 2018-2019, and then mixed in 2021, the record opens with Coliso Atomro, an echo-drenched Can-esque excursion into the other-world, with Tomasin taking the role of travel-guide. The use of a bouncing stereo echo-effect mesmerized the listener into a chaotic rock head-nod. The 2nd half of side A features the track Etrol Rene …

*100 copies limited edition* Headlights Recordings presents Manuel Mota's new work Isocèle. Manuel Mota is known for the personal vocabulary he has developed for the guitar. His music draws inspiration from a multitude of references loosely rooted in the blues tradition to craft a sound which was highly regarded by Derek Bailey. Actual but transmitting an enigmatic sense of timelessness. The moment of creation- composition, and the instrumental execution- playing, are to him indistinct, and that…

*2023 stock* Asian Meeting Featival" rose to the highest recent years. This is the studio recordings CD, finally put out via doubtmusic. Amazing musicians / artists from each country in Asia gathered in Tokyo, they played powerful improvisations under directions by dj sniff and Yuen Cheewai. We recorded, selected and edited them for completed the CD. We would like you to fell splender Asian improvisation and experimental music. This CD will be expected all over the world !!! The Asian Meeting Fe…

Tip! Orb Tapes presents “All The Duos,” a brand new collection of collaborative pieces featuring Maria Chavez and Sandy Ewen. A colossal effort, this double CD release contains over 90 minutes of music and showcases the improvisational prowess of both artists. Taking their instruments past the point of recognizability, each has a knack for coaxing unpredictable yet beautiful sounds from her equipment – turntables and guitars treated in utterly novel ways. Now based in Brooklyn, Chavez and Ewen h…

*50 copies limited edition* "This is a set of solo guitar pieces recorded over the course of a few weeks that are sometimes percussive, sometimes droney, sometimes noisy and sometimes nothing. I have recently rediscovered my love for playing the guitar and I used these recordings to work out some sort of live solo guitar set, so there is very little post production and everything is a little gritty as a result. I like a lot of the sounds found in recording this and if you listen I hope you do as…

*100 copies limited edition* This solo could have been titled "16 Caprices for cello.” As in Paganini's Caprices, all the techniques and virtuosity of the classical tradition are used here, expanded and enriched by the sounds and research of the contemporary one. However, the approach to the instrument is physical and bodily characteristic of European free improvisation and jazz. But as in Tristan Honsinger, Leroy Jenkins or in Cage's Freeman Etudes for violin the focus is always The Music, whos…

With over a dozen releases on Karlrecords, and a total output of more than 100 albums in general, Reinhold Friedl doesn't need much of an introduction to anyone interested in contemporary music / avantgarde: his ensemble zeitkratzer is as respected as it is feared for its radical approach on music, and it seems redundant to mention all collaborators and projects. Friedl is known for his unique piano sound, his advanced techniques, and his musical intensity paired with precise exuberant sound con…

*75 copies limited edition* From the label: "On the occasion of Eric Thielemans' japanese tour, we have published 75 numbered cassettes with which Eric will go on tour."

A single saxophone, a glockenspiel, two microphones, a zoom recorder. These are the materials Patrick Shiroishi brought down with him late one night into the cavernous parking structure below a hot pot restaurant in Monterey Park. It was around 1:30AM; the spot was not too far from where Shiroishi grew up, a blank slate shown to him by his dear friend, Noah Klein. A vacant space for a new kind of collaboration—between saxophone and silence, between noise and reverberation, between negative space…

"Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue Brion Gysin's cult avant funk album produced in Paris by Ramuntcho Matta in the early '80s. The hugely influential Brion Gysin who, with his friend William Burroughs, was revered by the likes of David Bowie, Brian Jones, Laurie Anderson, Genesis P-Orridge, is accompanied here by Matta and French post punk stalwarts Yann Le Ker on bass (from the group Modern Guy) and Frederic Cousseau on drums (from Suicide Romeo) plus special guests including Don Cherry, Ell…

"Here we have two discs, received in the same parcel and which share a love for electronics and saxophones. I am never too fond of lumping things together, but it, in this case, is hard to avoid. Duncan Pinhas was born in 1979 and is a guitarist (any elation to Richard Pinhas is not mentioned), while Yerri-Gaspar Hummel (1982) plays the saxophone. Both musicians have a background in serious (read: composed) music and met "around the composer La Monte Young", as the bio says. I found the opening …

Tip! Recorded at the concert marking the release of their previous album (Exta, Fataka 7, 2013), Lights is the second meeting of the trio of John Butcher, Thomas Lehn and John Tilbury. Carefully edited (nothing drastic, just some judicious trimming the way a photographer might crop an image, reframing it to make it more concentrated), Lights turns the two set continuum of the concert into four distinct pieces.

"I asked Angharad Davies and Phil Julian to play together because I thought they shared a certain sensibility: there’s a stillness or slowness to what they do, but while the surface may appear smooth there’s intense pressure and powerful currents churning below. At their first gig, Phil arrived with a relatively quiet set up, suitable for playing with unamplified acoustic instruments, and was a bit surprised when Angharad turned up and started trying out all of Oto’s amplifiers before choosing t…

We are nine voices, sighted and blind, who have been singing and exploring together for 11 years. Our practice consists of listening to and imitating sound ecosystems. We become the sounds of biotopes, machines, endangered species, humans and non-humans. Our songs blend ancestral and experimental vocal practices. We are the stumbling blocks of a memory populated by tunes, buried melodies that emerge and carry us away for hybridizations, mutations.

We are thrilled to introduce the world to the innovative sounds of the Japanese improvisational music trio ‘I-I’. Composed of three exceptionally talented musicians, Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar, daxophone, pedals), Mitsuhisa Sakaguchi (synthesizers, pedals) and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (percussion). This dynamic ensemble has embarked on a remarkable musical journey with their homonymous debut album. "There's no inspiration from others. We just played." With this raw and unfiltered approach to music, ‘I…

The ubiquity of Coxhill’s sax lines are here answered, cherished, enhanced by the excellent guitar touch of Enzo Rocco. It’s a sort of subtle anarchic dance, intriguing and true.

Tip!  *200 copies limited edition*Erwan Keravec - bagpipes,Mats Gustafsson - piano mate and slide saxophoneRecorded September 13 and 14, 2017 by Martin Siewert, ViennaMastered by Martin Siewert, ViennaCover design/illustration: Lasse MarhaugPhotos by Mike KeysendalThanks to: "Stark Reality"Hans Falb and HeidiTitles inspired from Ted Huges "Crow" (Faber & Faber 1970)

Introducing Tomo Jacobson's new cross-genre ensemble Sounding Society. Sounding Society's debut album "Homecoming Medley Or Society Into Sound" is a continuous 40-minute-long brewing-together of grooves, New Age, free jazz, world music influences, drones, and electronica in one, generously spacious cauldron over a retro-futuristic bonfire. The band consists of long-time collaborators, members of the duo Wood Oorganization, Tomo Jacobson (Warmbladder, Sun Araw, Mat Maneri) & Szymon Pimpon (Pimpon…

*50 copies limited edition* The Delphi was one of the greatest silent movie cinemas of Berlin. It was in operation since the late 20s, it shone in its own golden era, was bombed during the Second World War, was closed and then reused as a warehouse; its walls faded, its floor grew mildewy and its facade today does not indicate anything about what once went on the inside. The interior itself maintains a faded echo of its former glory and its integration in this century’s 20s makes it a hidden gem…

*2023 stock* First two tracks and Side A of New Bodies. From Los Angeles, also of Open City – first full length-- single takes, live--Intensely physical and abstract music that constantly, unpredictably shifts and evolves. Impulse, memory and intent, laid bare in real time. Post-melody, post-groove sound. Concrete, brutal, yes fun-----

tellKujira was born in autumn 2020. Since then it has self-produced a series of artistic residencies, focusing on improvisation and collective writing, instant composition, timber, prepared instruments, alternative tunings. It is in this process that a flexible musical path was born, in a continuous search for structure, open to contamination and which aims to discover a unique blend composed of abstract soundscapes, at times ambient, poly-rhythms, industrial timbres. A versatile blend, which do…

Mega tip! *300 copies limited edition. Sold out at source* Celebrating 50 years of musical, artistic, and political efforts in Sweden and around the world, Maavak is a two 10-CD box set that presents the intense, present, sometimes fragile, and often demanding music of Swedish/Israeli composer, musician, artist, and activist Dror Feilier. Maavak is part of the celebration of Maavak. His diverse spectrum of styles is showcased in these two box sets, which include chamber music, solo saxophone pie…

Huge Tip! 250 copies. A sinopia is an ancient preparatory sketch technique for a fresco. If you scrape the final work off the wall, the sketch remains; simplified and powerful in it’s starkness. Alessandra Novaga, an experimental guitarist/composer based in Milan, Italy found this historic technique resonated with an album she recently recorded with NYC-based drummer Kid Millions (aka John Colpitts of Oneida, Man Forever and many other projects). Italy’s cultural past is the often transcendent a…

From Matière Mémoire, one of the most striking and unique labels currently working in experimental music, comes “Adage Vestige”, the latest stunning statement from the French, Belgium based multidisciplinary artist Roxane Métayer. Encountering one of Europe's most unique voices pushing ever further into abstract realms with her signature hybrid of folk and rigorously experimental approaches, it's an absolute stunner that can't be missed.

*300 copies limited edition* Treader is proud to announce the first solo release from label-founder John Coxon. Best known for his work in Spring Heel Jack and Spiritualized, as well as extensive collaborative work with J. Spaceman, Evan Parker, Charles Hayward, Han Bennink and Pedro Reyes to name a few, it was perhaps inevitable that recent times allowed Coxon the space and time to experiment on his own. Real Magic Vol. 1 is the result of a year’s worth of early morning recordings made during 2…

"Masses is an utterly unexpected, and utterly gripping, collaboration between the East London duo, Spring Heel Jack and a group of top-flight improvisers, drawn largely from New York’s ascendant free jazz network but also including Evan Parker and microtonal violinist Matt Maneri. If there are precedents for this particular mix, in which studio-processed audio environments are played back in real time as the triggers for, and fixed components in, a series of group improvisations, they feel few a…

"Piano and reeds duet. More precisely, Didier Fréboeuf, the pianist, is also credited for clavietta and objects and the prompter Jean-Luc Petit, tenor and sopranino sax as well as contrabass clarinet. Three Crusts. Not badly chosen title compared to the improvised music that they play towards each other: these two do not stay on the surface of things. They work in depth on their exchanges by developing a nice variety of playing modes both on the keyboard and in the strings and on the reeds. I ap…

"Intense and stormy "vintage" electronic music - ethereal loops or organ or keyboard effects - synalgias of the unresolved - (AKS by Jean-Marc Foussat) goaded and torn by the extreme bites of the soprano saxophonist (Guy Frank Pellerin). The feeling of duration of their improvisations (22, 19 and 25 minutes) diminishes as the spells fall in this weather of the emerging moment. A nice variety of games in the game phases means that we no longer follow the order of the music, nor its logic. We find…

"Most Americans discover European improvised music using a map dominated by Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, which dwarfs and shoves the rest of the continent to the margins. At some point, however, even they realize the land lies differently. Yet, extensive exploration is required to correct the proportions, label the tributaries, and overlay the trade routes. In this endeavor, recordings become the coordinates that begin to flesh out the map's heretofore blank spaces. Madly You is valuable in th…

Frozen Reeds is proud to present the only recorded duo playing of two legendary musical figures. “This is one of those moments that we’re always hoping for, and it's so rare. And it's so hard to talk about, because it's so beautiful. It's like you're seeing some new species of plant that you never knew existed or something.” – Bill Frisell

Recorded and mixed by Chloë Sobek and Vijay Thillaimuthu. Mastered by Joe Talia.

*2023 stock. 250 copies limited edition* On March 17, 2021, Tetuzi Akiyama, Ayako Kataoka and Kiyomitsu Odai gave a concert at Ftarri in Suidobashi, Tokyo. This CD is a complete recording of the two sets they performed that day (25 and 34 minutes respectively). Akiyama played electric guitar; Kataoka used turntable, electronics and voice; and Odai performed on computer. Internationally renowned improviser/guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama lives in Tokyo and performs frequently both in Japan and overseas.…

2023 stock. Very much in the tradition of Anthony Braxton's seminal For Alto, or Evan Parker's Monocerous, this wonderful new album by clarinettist Alex Ward is improvised free jazz at its most unencumbered and radical, charting a solitary musician's excursion into pure expression. Divided into four segments, this set was committed to tape at Abbey Road Studios at the beginning of the year, taking in all manner of logic defying techniques and virtuosic sequences, as well as stretching the parame…

*2023 stock. 300 copies limited edition* Guitarist John Russell, a leading figure on Britain's improvised music scene, passed away on January 19, 2021. Born in December 1954, Russell started performing improvised music in London in his late teens, and for many years he toured and gave concerts not only in the UK and Europe but throughout the world. Known as a Japanophile, Russell traveled to Japan for the first time in 2001, and subsequently visited the country many times, including as recently …

*2023 stock* Wakana Ikeda is a flute player whose activities range widely, from performances of composed works to improvised and popular music. She also leads the experimental music group Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble. In 2021, Ikeda and Swiss cellist Stefan Thut released the duo album "afar" on the Ftarri label. Guitarist Takashi Masubuchi started playing improvised music in the latter half of the 2000s, and since 2018 has focused on acoustic guitar performance. While Ikeda and Masubuchi are musi…

Olavi Louhivuori Presents "Immediate Music III" - A Boundary-Pushing Musical Triumph with drummers Glenn Kotche and Tony Buck