Experimental / Free Improvisation

Tip! "I met Benedict Taylor in London in 2017 where I was doing a six month residency thanks to the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec. I heard Benedict perform in ensemble and solo contexts and rapidly felt a strong connection with some of my musical concerns. I was particularly caught by his ability to listen to what sound elicits or suggests as he articulates and shapes it; a dynamic interplay of sensitivity and agency, at times yielding pretty surprising results. We managed to meet for a …

“Oxygen Room is a wonderfully moody, at points downright haunting/uneasy trip into primally slurred and ritual tipped improv. The four-track CD appears on Slovenia’s Inexhaustible Editions, and I must say it’s a most compelling and often eerier ride of an album – really taking the improv form down a fairly original and distinctive path.The CD comes presented in a white six-panel digipak – this features on its cover and first inside flap two different green circles made up of different shapes, th…

An adventurous sonic exploration of the voice, cello and electronics. A large component of Audrey Chen music is improvised, is completely un-processed and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of an analog synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language.

Mathieu Werchowski's latest album draws its sounds from improvisations generated by a violin, a few dozen freshly awakened birds, highly reverberant spaces, a voice saying words of Roberto Juarroz and Paul Verlaine, the nostalgia of childhood westerns, a viola mounted with electric guitar strings and the memory of those who left too soon.

Jean-Luc Guionnet and Claire Bergerault have been working as an organ and voice duo in various churches since 2007. The challenge is, each time, to adapt to the configuration of the building and the organ, and then to stretch their music on the breach of this singularity.

Thirty years of non-idiomatic improvisation and Eastern-leaning drone from an American group that once had the guitarist Jack Rose in it. They know the American folk vernacular well and have never treated it as a museum.

Absolutely stunning solo electric guitar improvisation captured in the moment of pure focussed solo improvisation. If you were to buy one solo guitar album year make it this one.

A truly stunning piece of work, Aspen Edities’ latest - Eyvind Kang’s “Sonic Gnostic” - radically bridges the worlds of minimal composition, rigorous experimentation, and improvised forms, in ways that locks Kang in the mind as one of America’s most original thinkers in the contemporary landscape of sound.

While we may live in an oversaturated time of hi-definition, microwave-pulse paced images and video snippets, one format that has remained in play since the early 1900’s is that of radio. A format perhaps overlooked most in its ability to not only act as a conduit of audio, but also that of a uniquely non-visual live performance, facilitating a direct audio-only portal from performer to the imagination of the listener.Radio is a place where live collaboration and conversation can occur not just …

These American legends of outsider avant-garde need little introduction. Since becoming core members of the Los Angeles Free Music Society five decades ago, they have retained their focus, determination and unmatched originality, influencing generations and never seizing to advance further avenues of progress. Mutant Stomps is a result of Smegma’s living room recording sessions at their pink house in Portland. All tracks were produced 2012–2013, with one dating back to 1975 for good measure. The…

Airway began as a solo project of Los Angeles Free Music Society member Joe Potts. The first release was the Airway 7-inch, which featured subliminal messages to coincide with an art exhibition in Tokyo. Since their August 1978 live debut at the LACE Gallery, the group has performed many concerts with different large lineups, always with Joe Potts’ subliminal message experiments as a central feature. Airway’s “Live At LACE” LP, first released in 1978, and introduced to Japan by Takuya Sakaguchi,…

Three brand new spaced-out transatlantic duo explorations, available in November on 7" vinyl from Astral Editions.  A stunning art object of sound and vision. credits released November 12, 2021  Ashley Paul - guitar, voice, bells, clarinet, keyboard - in London Jeffrey Alexander - guitar, wooden saxophone, moog, electric piano - in Philadelphia

Cassette reissue of a legendary LP, recorded live in Ottawa at the Dominion Tavern on March 23, 2012 during Damo's Canadian tour. Originally released in an edition of 100 on the band's own Birdman Sound label, this set finds the peripatetic Can singer (who, like Chuck Berry before him, tends to play with instrumental backing by local talent) in some of the best company he has yet found. TBWNIAS (in septet format this evening) lay down thick slabs of the distended heavy guitar psych with which th…

A powerful collision of musical personalities -- American saxophonist (and Dutch resident) John Dikeman invited avantgarde trumpeter Jaimie Branch, bassist Luke Stewart (Irreversible Entanglements) and drummer Aleksandar Skorić to form a new band project. This quartet presents its own definition of contemporary improvised jazz; with no distinct leader and with tight and supportive interplay, they demonstrate the independent musical voice of each own. Album cover by Jaimie Branch. Personnel: John…

Crazy Doberman is a curious outfit, a rotating collective of musicians that come and go for recordings and live performances.  The group is centered around Drew Davis, Tim Gick, and John Olsen of Wolf Eyes. Illusory Expansion is far from their first dance – it is more like their 20th release – and features a total of 16 musicians in a free-improvisational jam session.  There is a hint of a Bitches Brew vibe herein, but Crazy Doberman is more experimental and not overtly jazz. Other reference poi…

Crazy Doberman are an Indiana free-improvisation and jazz collective created in 2016 as an offshoot of the group Doberman, started three years before. Core members, including Tim Gick and Doberman cofounder Drew Davis, appear on many recordings, but Crazy Doberman’s lineup is loose—it varies on each of the band’s 40-plus albums and has featured dozens of musicians, among them Wolf Eyes’ John Olson and percussionist Tyler Damon.

A unique live performance at Issue Project Room gathered the former Sonic Youth member and artist Kim Gordon and the legendary minimal blues master and artist Loren Connors in 2014.  In December 2014, the Issue Project Room venue in New York City offered the first-time duo with the legendary Brooklyn- based guitarist Loren Connors and the rock icon Kim Gordon. From this almost 1 1⁄2 hour set, Kim and Loren decided to archive their favourite movement on a physical record which is a 12” vinyl now …

**Never-before released document of Don Cherry blowing cool fire in Rome, 1976. First official release. Mastered from the original master tapes.** An amazing document of the life experiment that was the Organic Music Society. This super quality audio, recorded by RAI (the italian public broadcasting company) in 1976 for television, documents a quartet concert focused on vocals compositions and improvisations. Here, Don Cherry and his family-community’s musical belief emerges in its simplicity, w…

Tip! Recorded in Ravenna and Brussels, 2021 credits released September 8, 2021  Mastered by Francesco Covarino

Recorded live at Conservatorio Nicolini, Piacenza, Italy, May 22. 2015 during "Musiche Nuove a Piacenza" Festival. Limited edition 980 handmade and individually hand numbered copy in papersleeve, with 21,50 x 21,50 miniposter © 2015

In a rain forest of moments. the eye hears what the ear sees. through each moment of Karin Johansson’s and Finn Loxbo’s music runs the firm conviction that all points and layers of sound – in true democratic spirit, carry the same weight. Or lightness. as precise as scattered bird calls may be crucial to the totality and the outcome of the drama as a whole, as cautiously do they take care of the phrased line by being extremely exact with the gaps and the charged rest, where that very thing appea…

If you weren’t paying attention, you might think this is a collection of solo ruminations by German pianist Georg Graewe. Listen closer, however, and you’ll discern contributions from harpist Sara Kowal and Viennese turntablist dieb13. Across 15 short improvisations – most of them just two or three minutes long – Graewe’s is the dominant voice. Kowal’s rippling harp tends to blend in with Graewe’s right-hand excursions, adding an extra layer of detail, while dieb13 contributes tactile electronic…

* Double CD in 6 panel ecopack * Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free jazz improvisers. Amongst many others he has worked with trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Herbie Hancock, saxop…

Saadet Türköz was born in 1961 in Istanbul into a family of nomads from Kasachstan. In 1981 she came to Switzerland where she was soon in contact with the free jazz and impro scene. From 1991 to 1992 Saadet attended a course in musical improvisation at Werkstatt für Improvisierte Musik (WIM) with Peter K. Frey in Zurich. Ever since, she has been working with jazz musicians from both Switzerland and all over the globe, for example she recorded with Elliott Sharp, Koch-Schütz-Studer, Okay Temiz, E…

An epic second installment from the trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs, Rob Mazurek, nearly 90 minutes of intense live performances from January 2020. They converge here on a wide swath of sounds: expansive free improvs, full-tilt electronics, alt-universe chamber music and spontaneous arrangements of three previously released Grubbs’ songs.

Meditative moods from the Chicago duo of bassist Josh Abrams and percussionist Chad Taylor. With Taylor on mbira and Abrams on guimbri, instruments from diverse African states, finding a new pairing that moves past world music and jazz into something new, to do with dance, meditation, listening and convergence. Natural Information Society's Abrams has been using the guimbri, a lute-style bass, for years, but it's rarely sounded better than it does here, alongside Taylor's resonant mbira. Taylor …

* Edition of 80 tapes (white plastic), hand-dubbed, hand-cut inlays, incl. download * Gud Er Kvinde („God Is A Woman“) is the Danish duo of Maria Bertel and Johannes Lund. They sparsely release music under this moniker. They do have a myspace site. They both played in the Danish version of the Jooklo Duo, aptly entitled Jooklo Danish Group. Maria is playing in one of my all-time favourite bands, Selvhenter. Johannes‘ solo performance at the Kraak Fest 2017 would have been the sole reason for me …

Joe McPhee's Unquenchable Fire, a work inspired by Rachel Pollack's award-winning novel of the same title, was commissioned by The Deep Listening Institute for the Deep Listening Band and premiered at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. The Deep Listening Band explores the sensual combination of musical sound combined with natural sound, as well as the sounds of daily life and one's own thoughts. One never knows what Pauline Oliveros will do next, but whatever it is, she is sure to go beyond boundaries…

* Edition of 150 copies * Inaugurating the “Albe” series— a collection of LP’s to be released on Le Cabanon Records  ​Fantômes is the first album by Horla.  Fantômes​ is a musical isthmus, a frontier seldom travelled, a sonic corridor wherein animated bodies, sounds and dreams, instrumental and woody murmurs roam. Composed over the course of two years spent in Madagascar, the writing of this record bore witness to the insolent profusion and phantasmagorical incarnations of tropical wildlife, to …

Long awaited re-issue of The Necks 2011 masterpiece. Always different, here the Necks resolutely layer polyrhythmic material to form seething blocks of sound - in two long pieces, one more stripped back to the live trio, the other featuring multiple strata of swirling Hammonds, noise-guitar and electronics. Their 16th release still resonates on its own.  It features two starkly contrasting tracks: the pulsating, raw, 'Rum Jungle' and the slower building, rather hypnotic 'Daylights.' Polyrhythms …

** Edition of 60 copies ** Granny Records presents Entroterra by Marco Paltrinieri. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Design & Artwork by Yorgos Vourlidas. Composed, Recorded and Mixed by Marco Paltrinieri. Voice and Words by Marco Paltrinieri.

** Edition of 60 copies ** RETE is Vasilis Liolios and Savvas Metaxas. Analog modular synth, Percussion, Objects, Tapes, Prepared piano, Field recordings, Voice. Track A1-Berlikon (featuring Eleni Ikon). Words and Voice by Eleni Ikon. I am sitting in a room not that different from the one you are in now. In fact it is the same room. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice which is going to be played back into the room at another point in time. It is dark here, empty, silent. It occurs to m…

** Edition of 60 copies ** Granny Records presents Bewilderment by Dominique Vaccaro. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Design & Artwork by Yorgos Vourlidas. Recorded, Edited and Mixed by Dominique Vaccaro.

In September 2014 Intonema co-organized the Russian tour of Gaudenz Badrutt, Ilia Belorukov and Jonas Kocher. They played in Moscow, Yaroslalv, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg. They recorded the material of this album in Intonema's hometown, St. Petersburg, which extends the series of releases recorded in rotunda of the Mayakovsky Library. Acute attention to silences and extremely careful work with sound comes from the “fourth” collaborator, the space of the rotunda and its speci…

XI Records is very pleased to announce the release of Tom Chiu’s new double-CD The Live One, a diverse and thoroughly engrossing album that showcases the multiple facets of Chiu’s visions. Chiu is a polymath who is as comfortable with lyricism and the beauty of tonality as he is with process-based works and challenging conventions of composition. Chiu specializes in creating spatial experiences and altered states of mind with his music, with a singular, questing path. He is a gifted improviser a…

** "Mini-LP" style sleeve with spine. Printed outer and inner sleeves with high gloss varnish. Glass-mastered CD. Fold-out 4p insert ** Piętnastka is back. The duo project of Piotr Kurek and Hubert Zemler returns with a fantastical album titled Kambium, released almost precisely a decade after the debut Dalia. Seamlessly fusing eerie organs, haunting reverbs, clanging percussion and a handful of other instruments, the album's seven tracks radiate something oddly mythical yet futuristic. Just lik…

Interesting, lesser-known Italian band Eazycon are quite rightly compiled for Fear And Pleasure - Retrospective 1980-1989. Delighted and surprised to see that a version of Art Ensemble of Chicago’s ‘Noonah’ is here alongside Eazycon’s sometimes art-rocky, sometimes sitar-tinged sound. Variety is always welcome.

**Edition of 80** New live recordings, oriented with only two instruments, viola and frame drums. The album was recorded during a period of many live sessions between 2019 and 2020 with just a Rode nt4 stereo microphone and one of the very first Sony mz md. The sessions were amplified. Frédéric Charlot - Viola. Olivier Charlot - Frame drums.

** Edition of 300. Coloured 12" Vinyl LP housed in a black liner bag, full colour four page booklet featuring photography and artist notes, download token featuring the album tracks plus extra track not included on vinyl album ** Folding is the new vinyl LP and CD of collective compositions featuring piano by Izumi Kimura, violin & viola by Cora Venus Lunny and field recordings by Anthony Kelly. The wonderfully nuanced music of Izumi Kimura and Cora Venus Lunny folds with immersive field recordi…

** Edition of 50 ** Meditations on almost falling. All proceeds will be donated to Vagus, a local organisation helping people experiencing homelessness. Thank you to mu tate, Ivan Zoloto, Adela Mede (Adela Donoval, Ashley Grace, Cecilia Morgan, Eleanor Ferrand-Brooke, Rebecca Cockram, Jacob McGarry, Verity Alderman), Lucy Duncombe, HMOT, Medina Bazargali, Elina Bolshenkova, Malvern Brume, Leila Bordreuil, Zach Rowden, Ferrand, Sonicwilderness Brno Crew (AGF, Antonie Bernadová, Eva Marie Sližová,…