Experimental / Solo Instrument

*2026 stock* Solo doublebass album by Pablo Jimenez. Recorded at Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal

*2024 stock* "This is one of the many solo albums that Mamer completed in 2013. At that time Mamer's desire to create erupted like a volcano. I remember that bookstores had just released his solo albums "Stars" and "Cycles", as well as IZ's "Echoes"; many fans were slowly accepting music like IZ's "Shadows", and some people started to talk about the expansion and "revolutionization" of folk instrumentation on "Stars", while Mamer was already immersed in another world.  One day he handed me a bun…

This series of reel-to-reel tape recordings, to be jointly released by Old Heaven Books and Liu Ying Studio, aims to offer to our listeners the best quality of sound we can achieve so far. Whilst a small part of these releases come from historical archives, the majority are freshly made by musicians we invite to our studio. We record these studio sessions − some of which free-improvised, others more composition-based − on reel-to-reel tapes. With high-quality studio equipment, we make a small nu…

"Over 40 years of sustained performance and publishing, English saxophonist, improvisor and composer John Butcher has shaped much of what the soprano and tenor saxophone can do, and what their roles and vocabulary in improvised music might be. There’s a situated purposefulness to Butcher’s music. It is always concerned with its context, flexibility, space and company: how group playing works and flows; how aspects of improvisation fit into a living musical world; how and what the saxophone can b…

*250 copies limited edition* Minami Saeki is an actor who also has experience as a film director. Energetically engaged in musical activities as well, she is known for her work as a voice performer on the experimental/improvised music scene inside and outside Japan, mainly through collaborations with composer/guitarist Taku Sugimoto.This album introduces Minami Saeki the composer to the world. Just one of her compositions, "vacances" (2018), is recorded in this 2-CD set. Comprised only of a set …

*400 copies limited edition* An exhibition of paintings by artist sasakure. was held at Ftarri, Tokyo, from September 3rd to 30th, 2023. During that period, three concerts with live painting by sasakure. were held at Ftarri. The first concert, on September 9, was a duo performance by sasakure. and pianist Fumi Endo. (A painting by sasakure. graces the cover of Endo's solo album "Cold Light in Warm Blue," released on the Hitorri label in 2023.) This duo CD includes two pieces from that September …

'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…

*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…

solo set recorded at SÅJ Studio in Berlin in 2017 that reconnects with Sven-Åke Johansson’s 1972 seminal first solo record Schlingerland originally released on Fmp, presenting just the man and his drum set, and it's a fascinating listen. "You can hit beats so that they betray an intention – through accentuation or emphasis. Or you can hit them so that they seem mechanical, devoid of intention, a pure pulse, as in much minimalist music. Both possibilities abound in different genres. But there is …

Jan Jelinek and legendary jazz percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson probe ideas about the “anthropology of drumming” with entrancing results for Luxembourg’s Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu label. A sterling addition to Jelinek’s catalogue of solo releases and experimental collaborations, ‘puls-plus-puls’ finds the German artist properly indulging a formative passion for jazz music alongside one of free-jazz music’s most respected percussionists. Of course, this being Jelinek, the results are craftily complex but un…

XI Records releases Drop By Drop, Suddenly, a two-CD set of eleven compositions for bassoon composed and performed by Leslie Ross. Ross is not only an internationally renowned instrument builder but is also an uncompromising creative musician. The first disc starts with a series of short seed pieces that play primarily with the timbral and microtonal differences highlighted between tone-holes, forming a layered effect while playing with only one fingering, single note or multiphonic. They range …

*2026 stock* Recording Kang Taehwan’s music, his underground practice room has been the place where he has spent the most time with his saxophone and remains his most familiar space. The concrete and brick finishes, high ceiling, and asymmetrical structure in all directions create a unique reverberation. Because the shape of the room is irregular, the acoustic balance shifts constantly from side to side and front to back depending on the pitch. Although Kang’s performance is on a single instrume…

Cien Fuegos present a reissue of Sven-Åke Johansson's Schlingerland / Dynamische Schwingungen, originally released in 1972. Sven-Åke Johansson (Mariestad, Sweden, 1943) works as a composer, drummer, accordionist, poet, and visual artist. Longtime collaborator of the free improv scene in the German '60s with Kowald, Brötzmann, Schlippenbach. He contributed to numerous exhibitions, publications, and recordings. Sven-Åke Johansson - drums. Recorded 1972 in Stockholm, Schweden. Engineered by Göran F…

How good does it feel to pull back from time to time? To really shed excess, more-ness, and follow a single path with intention? The exploration of one thing can illuminate corners of the world overlooked by minds pushed in increasingly omnidirectional cycles of want. Tone Keepers is a collection of four compositions by flutist, composer, and sound artist Rachel Beetz that follow a straight line into unexpected territory. Each piece revolves around a simple but inventive technique for generating…

Here is the second volume of protean solo improvisations recorded by Loren Connors in his artist's garret in New Haven, Connecticut. Like the first volume, it was committed to tape and pressed to vinyl in 1979. Never having seen a copy of this record, and having pressed it before we discovered a master cassette exists, this is as good a transfer as can be had for the nonce. Loren's chair creaks like rusty crow and the amount of random tapping and thumping during the original session just about d…

On While Whirling, French-Japanese violist Frantz Loriot unleashes the essence of the viola as an explosive expressive force. Pushing the instrument to extremes, he ceaselessly explores its most subtle and unexpected sonorities. From a single acoustic string instrument, he miraculously teases and evokes hallucinatory impressions of harpsichords pounded, bells struck, electronics cracked, dirt shoveled; Loriot has created a unique, personal music filled with moments of textured transcendence and …

"Richiamare" is an attempt to create a bridge to the past, a connection between absence and precariousness as a vivid action of the present. The French Suite No. 3 by J.S. Bach is a piece that accompanied me for many years during my growth and studies as a musician. It made me confront the difficulties of the instrument, the need for dedication and the tendency to reach a higher stage of awareness. Many years later, that same piece resonates in my memory in a different way. It has created its ow…

* 2025 edition, Gatefold edition. 2xLPs pressed on black vinyl * Ideologic Organ is proud to announce a rejuvinated version of Kali Malone's 2019 landmark album, The Sacrificial Code, featuring a new arrangement of the titular composition recorded in 2023 on the 16th-century meantone organ at Malmö Konstmuseum. Kali Malone’s landmark album The Sacrificial Code emerged from a momentous confluence of dedication and inspiration. In 2019, Malone was finishing a master's thesis in electroacoustic com…

Recorded in St. James Norlands church in London in November 1968 and first released in the following year, this work stands as the first solo bass album in the history of Jazz and improvised music. Born in 1934 in San Francisco, Barre Phillips is one the most influential bassists of his generation. In his long career Phillips has played and recorded with almost everyone in the world of Jazz and beyond, a long list of forward thinking music icons including Don Ellis, Bobby Hutcherson, Dave Hollan…

Hoffman’s bass in Sightings defined NYC noise. Organ’s Obsolete: solo, looping, immersive bass meditations—psychedelic, visceral, and uniquely powerful.

Samara Lubelski crafts intricate, fragile sonic worlds—simultaneously delicate and chaotic. Her music explores creation, destruction, and liminality, evoking alien yet lyrical landscapes where every gesture births its opposite, forever shifting between presence and disappearance.

Jonas Kocher returns to solo work with Archipelago, his third solo album, following Solo (2011) and Materials (2009). Across seven improvised pieces, Kocher explores the tension between control and unpredictability, between the organic and the mechanical. The result is a captivating music where precision meet raw physicality, and where each moment unfolds with striking immediacy. Rich in contrasts and textures, Archipelago navigates through resonant chords, fragmented melodies, sharp attacks, ha…

Conversation No. 1/ Collecting Rocks from the Places We’ve Been is a solo for bass clarinet which can be performed as a duo, trio, or maybe someday with many, many bass clarinets, or in collaboration with other artists.  Katie Porter is interested in creating systems of music that she can exist in together, for herself and others, music that collapses and expands on itself, where we are free to choose the phrases, iterations, and lean into the occurrences of overlapping tones, vibrations, multi-…

"In late 2022 I became a father and lost my own father in quick succession. This music represents a conversation between my selves who met at that nexus of birth and death, sharing what they felt about the past, the present, and the future. The pieces are very intentionally set in different seasons and sonic environments so as to welcome the listener to this metaphysical meeting point for musical ideas and emotions."

"I had the privilege of meeting Wadada Leo Smith after a show, ‘Everyone thinks the trumpet is made out of brass — it’s really made out of air.' This recording is my exploration of that concept."

I recorded Open Space with in a single continuous take: my cello, an amp, and a distortion pedal. I was watching a film that was a static shot across a very large canyon, the light slowly shifting. I hope it offers the listener room to breathe and dream.

See You When I Get There is Amy Cimini’s first solo viola album. While playing in noise bands and experimental projects for over 25 years, she has developed a sonic palette for the amplified viola that combines overtone-rich distortion with percussive techniques nestled in reverb and delay effects meant to fill large acoustical spaces.  Overall, this record embraces noise abstraction as much as a tuneful directness, that evokes Cimini’s fellow experimental string players, historical protest musi…

*97 copies limited edition* Free immersion is a practice that consists of freediving as low as possible and then climbing back up by gripping the rope that serves as a guide. No help, no artifice, everything happens with the strength of the arms. The fall into the depths is dizzying and the feeling of freedom, total. 4+1 pieces of double bass played with a bow, without artifice, recorded almost in one go. This record is deliberately abrasive without being aggressive, and reserves surprises of so…

Over the past decade, saxophonist Makoto Kawashima has consistently established himself as one of the most compelling improvisers in contemporary music. His unique approach to solo performance aligns him with the tradition of groundbreaking Japanese saxophonists like Kaoru Abe, Tamio Shiraishi, and Masayushi Urabe. Operating at the fringes of improvised music, Kawashima's artistry unveils a delicate essence, placing equal focus on silence and minute detail alongside intense expressions of tone a…

Lao Dan's innovative approach to music seamlessly intertwines elements of rock, free jazz, and noise with textures of Chinese folk music, creating a unique tapestry characterized by improvisational and aesthetic tension. His fearless transgression of genres, infusing Chinese folk-tinged free jazz with the raw energy of punk, results in a compelling and dynamic listening experience.

Paula Sanchez is a musician working with sound in the intersection of experimental music, improvisation and performance art. Putting the body and materials to the limit, in the destruction, composition/decomposition of a mutable sound space. In the pure presence, of an embodied sound that invents relations as it makes its way into nothingness. This album is the result of performative experimentations with cello and cellophane, and erotic encounters of transparent asphyxiation.

"How and why do we continue to make art in this bizarre time? Let me try here to offer a small break from insanity. I do believe that for listeners in our small pond, focused attention on sonic expression might help the individual keep a connection with their humanity and reinforce positive human endeavors—love, empathy, and truth-seeking. These seemingly obvious pursuits now need support as they are so unbelievably at risk. I offer this music as an aural refuge for mind and body. Such small bre…

The legendary double bass master is not appearing in our catalogue for the first time, but for the first time we have the honour of publishing music that has not appeared on Paul Rogers' albums many times before. A recital for solo double bass! If one could wish for the bass to speak, we believe that it does so most fully and poignantly when played by this wonderful master.

Percussionist extraordinaire Valentina Magaletti recorded live at Colourful Storm's showcase at Cafe Oto in 2021. Intricate, textural longform percussion pieces comprised of traditional drums, found objects, voice and electroacoustics conjured to hypnotic effect. A rare solo recording, following collaborations with Laila Sakini, Yves Chaudouët, Marlene Ribeiro and outings for Blume and Takuroku. Extremely curious listening for fans of African Head Charge, The Necks, and followers of Magaletti's …

Big Tip! *Limited to 600 copies on black vinyl with three sleeve colour variants: 300 x red, 200 x green and 100 x blue (not available for wholesale). You will receive a mix of green & red covers* A Queer Anthology of Drums - "a percussive collage of low-fi frequencies documenting a journey that never took place" (Takuroku), a home recording capturing Valentina's ritualistic free-improv essence, is now being presented to audiences across the world by bié Records, via both streaming services and…

Japanese bamboo flute maestro and goat (JP) cohort Rai Tateishi makes an impressive debut statement with his holistic attempts to transcend the limits of ancient instruments to reveal gently delirious insights comparable with Jon Hassell, Phew, Bendik Giske, FUJI|||||||||||TA.

'A Coiled Form' by UK-based composer Bryn Harrison. The piece was originally composed as a shorter solo in 2020, and then revised and expanded in collaboration with violinist Sarah Saviet, who gives an astonishing virtuosic performance, to become a 50-minute solo work. It was released on CD by Another Timbre in November 2022.

Tip! *2025 stock* Body of Sound, Body of Music is Norwegian bass player Christian Meaas Svendsen’s second solo bass album. The entirety of the recording is based around a framework which Christian calls bass, body, bows: An ongoing introspection in how he can use all of his instrument and all of his body without any external preparations other than the traditional bow, albeit usually several of them at the same time. This is the basis. Furthermore, the recording is an investigation in bringing t…

Eunoia is Anneleen Boehme’s debut solo album.

Tip! *300 copies limited edition* Isak Hedtjärn plays the clarinet — a straight, metal variant of the more common wooden B flat Clarinet. Kvarpan is Isak’s first ‘solo’ record, but you also hear him in ‘quartet’ with himself, too on this diverse suite of improvisations recorded ‘on location’ on a single day at Patons Malmgård — his usual practice spot just by where the ferries head over to Finland. We recorded until the throb of the boats and waiting cars took over.

  A polymath of undeniable m…