Jazz /
"Concerto Alla Statale" Nov. 29, 1975
*2024 stock* This concert was recorded live on November 29th, 1975, during "New Trends in Italian Jazz", a series of concerts held at the State University, Milan, and has never been released before.
Educated Guess Vol. 1
2024 stock. Dave Tucker says that he brought this disparate group of musicians together for a live performance at London’s Cafe Oto last March on “an educated guess,” predicting that the artists - Mark Sanders (Drums & Percussion), Pat Thomas (Piano & Keys), Dave Tucker (Guitar) and Thurston Moore (Guitar) - would be able to create something extraordinary through improvisation. The condition of their encounter would later become the collective’s name, an “Educated Guess” and the eponymous title …
Roscoe Village (The Music Of Roscoe Mitchell)
Tuned metal percussion figures prominently in the sound universe of Roscoe Mitchell. Many of Mitchell's early compositions for the Art Ensemble of Chicago feature xylophone and tuned bells, and his immersive set-up known as The Cage arranges an array of percussed instruments in a circle around him, including all sorts of metallophones and gongs. On Roscoe Village, Chicago-based improvisor Jason Adasiewicz has transcribed and arranged a selection of Mitchell-penned pieces, performing them all on …
Post Koma
Berlin-based Swedish bassist and producer Petter Eldh returns with a new Koma Saxo album Post Koma, out on We Jazz Records, 10 November. The title Post Koma aptly describes the vibe of this one: The Koma Saxo sound continues its evolution, morphing into a holistic vision of jazz now and soon, where live instrumentation and repurposed sampling lose their boundaries. Over the course of its three iterations (self-titled debut in 2019, LIVE in 2020, Koma West in 2022) Koma Saxo has sounded at times …
Lasting Ephemerals
*2023 stock* Sparkling acoustic duo featuring a contemporary wild chamber attitude, improvising instant compositions, sound texture explorations and sudden lyrical flights. Their improvisation, that has been defined "A Gentle Vertigo", freely crosses boundaries and welcomes rich contradictions between melody and blessed chaos. Experimental flavors, multi-perspective intuitions and reciprocal listening are the extremely well balanced blend of this duo that strives for an improvisation where "thin…
Busy Butterflies
*2023 stock* "To watch two butterflies in flight is to see a complex intertwining of zigs and zags, dips and weaves, as each—seemingly erratically--rides the turbulence its wings create to carry it along. Together they trace an unchoreographed but nevertheless coherent set of variations on the line as they move with, against and through each other’s paths.
The intricate pattern of two butterflies’ interwoven flight paths stands as a fitting analogue for the nuanced complexity of Busy Butterflie…
HerbstReise
"I look at this HerbstReise of ours as a sequence short but complete gaze of sound, often evocative in a narrative way, aimed at fulfilling an articulate as well as legible pattern. Though a single breath crosses them, fascinating opportunities are not alien to the syntax, the outline, and the expression of these improvisations. A clear ellipsis the dialogue proceeds delicately and consistently into, even when it thickens.
The inner timing, the layer of colour that shines through have a reflecti…
Thinking Of Khlebnikov
*2023 stock* "Russian-born percussionist Vladimir Tarasov is sort of the “old man” of jazz in Lithuania – he’s called Vilnius home since 1968, and achieved international renown as an improviser with the Ganelin Trio (1971-1986). In addition to work as a sound installation artist and solo percussionist, he has also worked with American composers like Anthony Braxton and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Thinking of Khlebnikov, a dedication to Russian Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov, is Tarasov’s first dis…
Monk Dreams
*2023 stock* "The duo of saxophonist Jimmy Halperin and bassist Dominic Duval let you know right away what side of Monk they're most interested in, opening and closing with "Brilliant Corners," perhaps the most 'angular' and abrasive of Monk's compositions. Halperin and Duval take it in stride—well, make that tense stride. Halperin really leans into this music, creating swirling patterns on "Off Minor," "Blue Monk" and "Monk's Dream" that gives them a very different feel from the usual accounts.…
At Earth School
*300 copies limited edition*
Recorded live 2nd October 2022 at Café OTO, London by Pedro SubtilMixed December 2022 by Alex BonneyMastered by Mikey Young
All compositions by Nicole Mitchell (Wheatgoddess Creations ASCAP) and Alexander Hawkins (PRS), except "There is a Balm in Gilead" (traditional, arr. Mitchell/Hawkins)
The Very Fabric
*300 coipes limited edition* "The Brønshøj Vandtårn is a concrete water tower, built almost a hundred years ago in the suburbs of Copenhagen. It's 20m wide and 34m high - smaller than some similar shapes I've played in, but with a large, lingering reverberation. Some sounds seem to float away as if through liquid, others acquire a shifting haze, and some just prefer to sit around. Thomas Buhl-Wiggers, of the Cejero festival and label, kindly invited me to play there in the summer of 2022 and arr…
Openness
Let's move to Montreal in 2006, when Francois Carrier's ensemble performed on the La Chapelle festival stage with an unusual and astonishing line-up.
The leader recalls that time: "In late 2005, I was putting together my annual series of concerts with both local and international artists and musicians. Two of these nights were dedicated to special guests. At the time, I had just heard of Tomasz Stanko from his beautiful album, Matka Joanna. Instantly, I knew I had to do something with him. I lis…
Live At Banlieue Bleue
2023 stock** "Such is the strength and conviction with which the Sudo Quartet performs that thoughts immediately turn to how they developed such a cohesive group sound. But when uniting four virtuoso stylists from the European free improvisation scene, it's a near certainty that their paths have crossed many times during their careers. Whatever the history, it becomes straight away apparent from the first few notes that there are powerful forces at work as Léandre's richly resonant bowing meshes…
Una ofrenda a la ausencia
“Una ofrenda a la ausencia” (an offering to absence) explores in depth the rawness, harshness and roughness of sound embracing the intense and unfiltered expressions that emerges from absence.
Skra’s Confession
*2023 stock* The Orange Blue Green band improvises freely in the true sense of the word. An improvisation initiating from the very first sound produced without any prior coordination regarding the style, structure or anything relating to the overall musical form. An acoustic, almost classical trio that has embraced the fundamental features of the sound of chamber music, along with the various musical idioms and experiences of the members’ multi-dimensional course. Their music features a primal e…
Fulufulu Paupepa Paupapa
GBK are an Austrian free jazz trio that isn't afraid of being groovy. The band was founded in 2007 after a first meeting the year before, being thrown together in an improvised music session. They performed many years under the name of KGB before changing their name recently due to Russian war against Ukraine. All three musicians are happy to swap roles in their trio, therefore abstract experimental sounds have the same place in their repertoire as groove and melody. Drummer Didi Kern works both…
You Is You
What does it sound like to be a working artist? Here, flutist Joe Melnicove, joined by his mentor, saxophonist George Garzone, drummer Billy Hart and bassist Ben Street, tries to convey it. ‘You is You’ is inspired by a spirit of radical self-acceptance and self-knowledge, from a single melody he composed at home in Rosh Pinna, Israel. Recorded in New York, the songs have clear allusions to the experience of being musicians. Tracks like “Monday Night” and “No Applause” invoke the experience of a…
Bengt "Frippe" Nordström
Second edition. 300 copies, all parts identical to the first edition For the past decade, Mats Gustafsson has fastidiously produced and compiled the most thorough and comprehensive collection of archival solo recordings of the late legendary Swedish saxophonist and eccentric archivist of free music activity in Sweden, Bengt “Frippe” Nordström (1936–2000). Bringing together rare and unreleased recordings taken from an extensive collection of home-recorded solo sax improvisations, it documents his…
Sam Jesteś Pompa Vol. 2
Remont Pomp (repair of pumps) is a band playing ethnic, avant-garde and improvised music, which was founded in 2003 at the Polish Association for People with Intellectual Disabilities Koło in Gdańsk, created by the association's charges. The band's inspiration is ethnic music with an emphasis on the richness of African music. Remont Pomp also discovers the space of experimental music by playing unusual instruments and objects not usually associated with music. The band uses a variety of instrume…
Sand
Sand is a Fields composition for 20 instrumentalists, three singers, and conductor. It combines three areas in which he has often worked: modularity, manipulation of text, and integration of composition and improvisation.Like Fields’ previous modular works, Sand is constructed of units whose interrelationships vary from weak to strong. In performance a conductor spontaneously selects, combines, sequences, and layers modules. Sand also includes improvisational elements within structures and “orga…