Experimental / Free Improvisation

What does a venue sound like? One might approach this question by assessing the technicalities of how it handles sound: the room acoustics, the quality of the PA etc. Instead, this trio seek answers by enlivening those loose inanimates strewn silently around the venue’s edges – whatever the players could find throughout the backrooms and corners. Pots, pans, dud domestic appliances and old bicycles are hauled up from the groundfloor basement of Punctum in Prague, along with a few stones and tree…

'rustlings' is an album of two pieces written by Stockholm-based violinist and composer Maya Bennardo. One of the pieces, 'dormant gardens i' (2022), was written for and performed by andPlay, a duo of Bennardo on violin and Hannah Levinson on viola. The other, 'summer rustlings' (2024), is a solo violin piece performed by Bennardo. Both pieces were inspired by Bennardo's move to Sweden from New York City, where she developed a new relationship with nature through walking. Her solo and compositio…

Polyvalent Creativity is a new CD release on Confront Recordings featuring free improvisation by bassist Dominic Lash on electric guitar and percussionist Mark Wastell on drums and percussion. The album comprises four tracks: "Potential," "Commitment," "Activation," and "Fulfilment," blending jazz improvisation with rich, textural soundscapes. Reviews highlight its unconventional approach, starting with tuning-like sounds that evolve into emotionally resonant free jazz. Critics praise the duo's …

*Limited edition of 100 copies* In 2017, Oli Heffernan took to the stage in Dundee to play bass for Damo Suzuki, the legendary former frontman of Can. Backed by a one-off ensemble featuring Griff (Interrobang / Regular Fries), Harry (Chumbawamba) and E-Da (Boredoms), the group walked on with no rehearsal and no plan. Suzuki offered a single instruction — “start soft” — and the set unfolded from there. Like all of Suzuki’s performances, the music was entirely improvised: tense yet fluid, explorat…

*150 copies limited edition* If you have been paying close enough attention to the often strange yet alluring part of the world Richard Youngs operates in, you should have noticed that since the middle of 2025 he embarked on a new sonic journey that has subsequently become a trilogy of LPs on Fourth Dimension Records. Each of these is limited to 150 and is named after either a mythical Babylonian king or entity of Richard’s own devising, while the music itself has been of an instrumental nature …

*250 copies limited edition* Tokyo-based electronic sound artist Takuma Kuragaki began his musical activity in the 1990s. In 2020 he released his first solo album, "Bottomless / Blank," on the Hitorri label. The recording earned considerable attention for its extremely minimalistic style, made up only of short, murmuring computer sounds and silences. Pierre Gerard is a Belgian improviser and composer. Energetically engaged in musical creation, he makes skillful use of a variety of instruments in…

*300 copies limited edition* Xiang was born in 1984 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. She started her experimental music activities in earnest in Chengdu in 2017. In performances she uses field recordings, violin, noise and body as materials. She listens attentively to subtle changes in sound and space and carries out site-specific performances adapted to each environment. In addition to solo improvisation and composition, Xiang carries out many performances and collaborative projects with ot…

*250 copies limited edition* Kumamoto-based musician Yoichi Ichikawa also carries out his activities under the name peeq. Making skillful use of various instruments ranging widely from electronic to acoustic, he creates truly diverse and remarkable music. Ichikawa is also known as a member of the team that runs the online label tokinogake. VKHNC is a Seoul-based South Korean musician active on the electronic music scene. In early March 2025, peeq visited Tokyo along with VKHNC, carrying out conc…

*250 copies limited edition* Beijing-based electronics player Sun Yizhou is a representative of China's new generation of experimental musicians. In October 2025, during a visit to Berlin, he had the opportunity to make a recording with Berlin-based trumpet player Axel Dörner. With his groundbreaking playing techniques, Dörner has been a leading figure on the international improvised music scene since the 1990s. This CD contains three improvised duo pieces performed by Sun Yizhou and Axel Dörner…

*2026 stock. 15 copies limited edition* In just 22 minutes, Steve Touchton redefines what a solo guitar record can and should be. The brilliance of 'Guitar Recordings V' lies in Touchton's ability to completely liberate themself from the inherited legacy of the instrument, discovering an entirely new perspective on both the guitar and the amplifier it resonates through. The opener, 'Apparitions,' features ghostly chimes that resemble the timbral scope of a prepared piano, subtly frosted with rad…

*2026 stock. 20 copies limited edition* Hikikomori, a sonic entity forged in the crucible of London's north and south fringes, stands as a testament to the power of chaotic synergy. This avant-garde duo, comprised of Tom Wilson wielding synths and pedals and Dean Valentine Smith commanding the drums, isn't merely playing music; they are conducting sonic experiments that delve into intense and exhilarating new realms. Their sound is a powerful fusion, a volatile cocktail of free noise and jagged …

*2026 stock. 10 copies limited edition* Although Jackson and McLean spent many of their formative years playing in an array of dubious named and increasingly outsider rock groups, ‘Big Gamble’ is the first time they have ever made music purely as a duo. In the intervening years since their last band activities together. Jackson founded Thraa and began to focus on prepared guitar experiments in a series of aurally challenging and investigative solo records issued on his own Fr33zehead imprint. Mc…

*2026 stock* Bristol based musician Luigi Marino & Manchester based musician David Birchall got together back in March 2024 to lay down what became the ‘Bristol Sessions’, their 1st recording as a duo. Cut in Marino’s living room, crafted from his percussion & DIY circuits, with Birchall’s Ebows & banjo. Creating interwoven tension & cinematic drone, Marino & Birchall subtly blend ambient saturation & dissonant intonation.

Across 25 pièces sans vide, Le UN turn a 25‑strong improvising society into a living ecosystem: three discs of large‑ensemble swarms, smaller constellations and street‑level interventions where sound, space and social experiment are impossible to separate.

“Deep Time” is a tape composition commissioned in 1991 by the Deep Listening Institute for Deep Listening Band. Fritz Hauser’s tape features recordings of sounding stones (manufactured by Arthur Schneiter) and various watches and clocks (thanks to the Bucher family in Switzerland for permission to record that family clock!). The performers improvise with the tape. On October 26, 1994 Pauline Oliveros, David Gamper, Urs Leimgruber and Fritz Hauser recorded 2 versions of Deep Time. Both of these 3…

*100 copies limited release* Tertous is the first album by the duo formed by Mélanie Loisel and Rachel Langlais. It consists of seven acoustic instrumental pieces recorded at GMEA in Albi (France). A double bassist with a classical background, now engaged in free improvisation and experimental forms, Mélanie Loisel also develops the solo project Borguefül, in which she explores a ritual, transfigured double bass at the crossroads of imaginary languages and reimagined traditions. Rachel Langlais,…

Drummer, singer, composer, and producer Mariá Portugal (BR) joins Berlin-based percussionists Burkhard Beins (DE) and Emilio Gordoa (MX) to form the Erosão Percussion Trio, which is now releasing its debut album through Kassiani Records and Fun in The Church. Their performances are strongly grounded in improvisation, drawing on a wide variety of percussion instruments — ranging from the traditional drum set to other unconventional instruments. The trio’s sound is enriched by the percussive use o…

A Scanner Darkly, The Game Players Of Titan & The Transmigration Of Timothy Archer were originally released on cassette by Tribe Tapes as Philip K. Dick Volume One. Dr. Bloodmoney (mislabelled as Lies Inc.) & Second Variety were originally released on cassette by Detachment Programs as Philip K. Dick Volume Two. Flow My Tears The Policeman Said & We Can Build You are previously unreleased material from the original sessions and are exclusive to this release.

On Landlocked, Mo'ong Pribadi and Sholto Dobie build a clattering, breathing machine‑folk from self‑made pipes, horns and percussive junk, where air compressors and human lungs mingle into an uncanny music of phasing clicks, drones and phantom tunes.

On Taillis, Roxane Métayer and Charles Dubois cultivate a sparse, alive thicket of sound where violin, prepared drums and resonant objects trade roles, letting melody, pulse and texture quietly braid into fragile, shifting song‑forms.

These stunning recordings combine the great strengths of Pauline Oliveros on her Roland V-Accordion, Issui Minegishi; Ichigenkin master and great-great granddaughter of the founder of the Seikyodo Ichigenkin tradition and Miya Masaoka on her 21 string Japanese Koto. Together, these masterful improvisors create a beautiful and fascinating world of instrumental communication. This trio of legendary artists establish a sonic zone so compelling that you'll never want to leave. This double CD preserv…

Triple Point, featuring Pauline Oliveros, Doug Van Nort and Jonas Braasch, was an improvising trio with a core instrumentation of soprano saxophone, greis/electronics, and V-accordion. The name refers to the point of equilibrium on a phase plot, which acts as a metaphor for the group's improvisational dialogue. Triple Point's musical interaction was centered around an interplay between acoustics, physically-modeled acoustics (v-accordion), and electronics. Van Nort captured the sound of the othe…

*2026 stock* Ad old men but not down-trodden paths when the areas are only popular & sought after by the still few. For many, there’s a Milky Way between pop & this music; for fewer, it’s like standing on either side of a hybrid ant. The guitar (the chordophone) & the drums (the membraneophones) are known by most, but the sound here is of the rarer kind, although there is indeed string play & rhythmic things, just not in the usual way, but instead according to other orders & expressions, like an…

Bill Nace turns a traditional two‑string instrument into a focused sound laboratory, contrasting a feedback‑touched, spiralling first side with a pared‑back, bodily repetition that slowly blooms into vast harmonic space.

On D'une nostalgie inconnue, Delphine Dora turns a three‑week Portuguese sojourn into an intimate cartography of feeling: piano, harmonium and field recordings tracing a dream‑folk geography where Atlantic waves, stray voices and solitary improvisations blur into one interior tide.

Bill Orcutt is back with what might be the most beautiful record in his 21st-century guitar quartet series. Music in Continuous Motion (Palilalia, LP/CD) pointedly steps away from the cut-and-paste constructivism of Music for Four Guitars into a sonic stratum that's - as Tom Carter writes - "yearningly melodic, resolutely human, and built for performance." Four guitars, twelve tracks, most hovering around two-and-a-half minutes each. No waste. No fat. Pure music. Where Music for Four Guitars ope…

On Embrace 4: Orakelstücke/Aquin, Polwechsel open their rigorously quiet universe to two singular composers, Peter Ablinger and Klaus Lang, yielding a diptych where struck objects, voices and long, glowing tones summon an almost liturgical sense of mystery from everyday sound.

On Embrace 3: Magnetron/Quarz/Obsidian, Polwechsel with Andrea Neumann turn acousmatic tape, simulated multitracks and graphic notation into an intricate laboratory of cause and effect, where elevator doors, room ghosts and painstakingly negotiated scores yield two of their most conceptually precise and sonically uncanny works.

On Embrace 2: Chains and Grain, Polwechsel distil their chamber‑improv logic into a score grown from their own playing: a tense, breathing matrix of repeated figures, frayed textures and in‑the‑moment reactions that is rebuilt afresh every time it’s performed.

On Embrace 1: Jupiter Storm/Partial Intersect, Polwechsel with Magda Mayas and John Butcher fold fixed media, stopwatch scores and free low‑string improvisation into a dense, shifting topology of resonance and friction, pushing their chamber‑reductionist language into newly electronic and spatialised terrain.

*200 copies limited edition* 'Meditation Music Beyond The Unsleeping Psychopathic Mind' — a raw, deep free-jazz exploration where synth, voice, saxophone, and percussion dissolve into a single, unfiltered sound world. No boundaries, no polish — just presence and freedom for sonic expression. Music spontaneously composed (improvised) by all members of the group. Recorded at Threshold Studios in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Produced by our good friend Devin Brahja Waldman and wrapped in hypnotic cov…

*200 copies limited edition* The album was recorded in a small chapel of a monastery in the city center of Ghent. A chapel, by nature, is a place of contemplation and meditation, which inevitably influenced the music. Movements slow down, attention is sharpened and the overwhelming silence of the space becomes part of the music. Sound and silence are meticulously woven into each other. Even when the music grows at times dense and heavy, there is an ever-present sense of closeness and intimacy. T…

‘Pungnyu’ is originally a tour album created for the first overseas tour of the band Woo-ryeok and the Pung-gak changi. In response to public requests citing that there are no officially available albums other than the music released on Bandcamp, the idea arose to produce a tour tape, which became the starting point for ‘Pungnyu.’ The recording was carried out in one take at 'Under,' a studio and workspace of Choi Tae-hyun, who is a member of the Kwang program and also a musician. Parts of membe…

"Another window opens - and with it, another singular mystery of modern impressionism joins the catalogue of Les Disques Omnison. Classicaly trained yet reshaped by Paris experimental and improvisation scene, Jeanne Gorisse pushes her "bass" practice further on her second solo album, a follow-up to her 2024 debut "Immersion Libre". Alongside the double bass, she explores bowed electric bass, and re-records herself to tape on several tracks; creating an intimate dialogue between the acoustic and …

Filtro returns with a short ep reflecting its new approach to minimal strucures and small electronics. Sounds for night reflections and dark disquiets. Filtro is an electronic duo composed by Angelo Bignamini and Luca de Biasi. The duo focuses their research on the characteristics and properties of sound, disconnected from its original context and meaning, favoring minimalist and abstract constructions, questioning the modes of reproduction and distribution in space. They have released several m…

*300 copies limited edition* The first resonant space Zosha Warpeha played in was the Emanuel Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Norway. Built as a mausoleum, its walls reach up into a gradual archway, creating an environment where sound expands and reverberates for twelve seconds before decaying into silence. Warpeha was greeted only by dim lights when she entered, and it wasn’t until she had spent several minutes listening that she was able to make out the frescoes that covered every inch of the room: g…

*2026 stock* Recorded at Rimi/Imir Scenekunst, Stavanger. Recorded and Mixed by Gaute Granli. Mastered and cut by Frédéric Alstadt. Cover design and print by Drid Machine. foil by Bokbinderiet Erland. Financial Assistance: Stavanger kommune. THANK you: Rimi/Imir Scenekunst and Kafé Hærverk. Thore Warland uses SLB electronic drums.

*2026 stock* Recorded at Rimi/Imir Scenekunst, Stavanger. Recorded and Mixed by Gaute Granli. Mastered and cut by Frédéric Alstadt. Cover design and print by Drid Machine. foil by Bokbinderiet Erland. Financial Assistance: Stavanger kommune. THANK you: Rimi/Imir Scenekunst and Kafé Hærverk. Thore Warland uses SLB electronic drums.

Aspen Edities is pleased to present Aerial, the third album of the experimental quartet Oker.

On Live Non-Plus Ultra, Strain of Laws—the duo of Aaron Hemphill and John Wiese—drag voice and electronics through a pressure system of sub‑bass, hiss and mumbled fragments, documenting their 2025 LA set as a single, slowly suffocating industrial hallucination.