Jazz /
Finch
**300 copies** "The British tradition of guitar improvisation includes some game changers like the Derek Bailey, but also John Russell, Keith Rowe and Fred Frith. Yet it doesn’t prevent Daniel Thompson from carving out his own little corner. Finch proves that even in the most demanding and intimidating of circumstances, Thompson has a sharp, creative mind. Surely, there will be more to follow. There should be." - Guy Peters"Daniel Thompson's Finch contains music recorded in a studio called the S…
An Evening at Jazzblazzt
**300 copies** "Another special such place, situated in Holland, but only a few hundred meters from the Belgian border, is JazzBlazzt. It is as homely as can get - basically a garage turned into a small concert venue - but at the same time a miraculous place, where many artists that have appeared on this label have performed." - Guy Peters"Dirk Serries, still on acoustic guitar, meets again violist Benedict Taylor, and pianist Martina Verhoeven (she plays only on the second set) in a live perfor…
Clinamen
"Pianist / composer Giovanni Di Domenico formed this trio because of the extremely special quality of the sound he wanted to achieve within a musical group, and the choice of the musicians involved in it is extremely related to that special quality. Clinamen, in ancient roman philosopher Lucretius’s 'De Rerum Natura’, is the magic force that makes an atom to change direction during it’s fall and thus be able to hit other atoms and ‘create’ Energy and Life. It’s not a law, it happens by ‘chance’……
Opus Caementicium
"The Mafioso expression 'cement shoes' describes a method of execution or body disposal – wrapping the victim or body in concrete and pushing into deep water. This expression has become a tongue-in-cheek death threat by criminals, despite no real evidence of using this method of execution. Now this American expression also graces the name of a new pan-European trio, featuring Italian, Brussels-based Fender Rhodes and electronics player Giovanni di Domenico, Portuguese, Rotterdam-based electric b…
Finding Ourselves In All Things
**CD version** Finding Ourselves In All Things features two lengthy tracks, standing in stark contrast to each other: Melting With Butterflies is brimming with life: chaotic, hysterical and joyous - celebrating the viewpoint of all small things and their seemingly frantic nature. The Way Mountains Make Love is equally intense, but with a quite different energy – a slow moving organic unity vibrating with the frequencies of everything big and ancient.Both tracks explore and elaborate on its respe…
Gibberish, Balderdash and Drivel
**CD version** Gibberish, Balderdash and Drivel consists of three nonsensical musical conversations between Malaysian nylon guitar player Goh Lee Kwang and Norwegian bass player Christian Meeas Svendsen. The album was recorded in an independent art gallery close to Kuala Lumpur with a handheld device. It tells us the story of the first encounter between two different mindsets, nationalities and generations trying - and totally failing at - making any sensible dialogue with their respective music…
Most Intimate
**CD version** Most Intimate is Nakama’s third release. Their previous albums have been very conceptual, dealing with the relation between sound and silence on Before the Storm and then form as something malleable on Grand Line. Most Intimate is different. It is more personal, more transparent and more.., well, intimate. It offers a close-up on the musicians and how they deal with music in different roles. Because even though the music on this album isn’t conceptual, the structure of it is, and …
Kyūbi
**CD version** This album is a free exploration of sound within the boundaries of two violins and the musicians playing them. Close interplay and together-ness permeates the 36 minutes of eclectic but cohesive music, ranging in expression from reductionist and sparse textures, to filmscore-like tonal landscapes with clear dramatic outlines. The record reflects both the duo's dionysic and apollinian sides, and the balance between the two creates something universal which the listener can relate …
Forms & Poses
**CD version** Forms & Poses is Norwegian bass player Christian Meaas Svendsen’s second solo album, and features four compositions / improvisations which explore the physical connection between the human body and the double bass. Although recorded in two entirely different settings, it is clear that Svendsen’s mind-set on all these tracks are one and the same, and the release shines as a condensed representation of his creative diversity. The CD version comes with a 24-page long booklet with lin…
Before the Storm
Before the Storm features four original compositions by Nakama’s leader Christian Meaas Svendsen. The album is the group’s first recording, and can be summed up as an investigation of sound related to silence through a minimalistic approach to both written and improvised material. The tracks on the recording are four attempts to define the nature of what we normally define as silence, and present at the same time a musical idiom of a band that operates on the outside of conventional borders."The…
Cepi Meets Hic
"Cepi is a solid reality located in the south of France. It’s Barre Phillips’ vision about improvisation. It can be flexible about the team but not about the idea above it all. Hic stands for Hidden Improvisers Consort; it’s a study group under the guide of Claudio Lugo. This meeting has been organized and strongly desired by Barre Phillips and Tommaso Rolando. We made a big circle, we played with the fire."The Cepi Nomads: Barre Phillips - Contrabass / György Kurtag - Electronics / Laurent Char…
Zeuhl Jazz
**250 copies, 2020 stock** Sonata Islands is a cultural association, born from an idea of Emilio Galante, that promotes and performs new music and jazz. They organized many concerts and festivals in Italy. After Sonata Islands goes RIO (dedicated to the music of Univers Zero, Fred Frith and Thinking Plague) and Nippon Eldorado Kabarett (with the same musicians, dedicated to Japanese RIO music of the '80s with pieces by After Dinner, Wha Ha Ha, Kiyohiko Semba and Haniwa All Stars), here they pay …
Where Future Unfolds
Where Future Unfolds is a new work spirited by Chicago-based sound & visual artist Damon Locks. Starting as a solo sound collage piece (where Locks pulled samples from Civil Rights era speeches and recordings to create an improvisational pallet for performance on his drum machine), over 4 years the project has blossomed into his 15-piece Black Monument Ensemble – featuring musicians (including Angel Bat Dawid on clarinets and Dana Hall on drums), singers (alumni of the Chicago Children's Choir),…
Gowanus Sessions II
Gowanus Session II was seven years in the planning. Thollem McDonas, Nels Cline, and William Parker convened at Peter Karl Studios in Brooklyn on January 3rd, 2012 and recorded two complete albums. The first was Gowanus Session I, released by Porter Records in April of 2012. GS II was put aside to eventually complete the five-album palindromic cycle of trio albums Nels and Thollem ambitiously set out to realize. The albums in between include Radical Empathy with Michael Wimberly (Relative Pitch,…
Battle Pieces
Battle Pieces uses trumpeter Nate Wooley's "social music" system, where each piece is constructed for a soloist who improvises with no score while the remaining player choose at will from over 75 compositions over which the soloist must find their path; here at Roulette in NYC with Nate Wooley, Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone), and Matt Moran (vibraphone).
L'homme à la Caméra / La Glace à Trois Faces
"Un Drame Musical Instantané were founded in 1976, featuring Jean-Jacques Birgé, Bernard Vitet and Francis Gorgé. Their aim was to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or their live shows which they tried to renew every time they played. Their sound was created with many influences: they borrowed their sources from rock (synthesizer player Birgé and guitarist Gorgé, both authors of the album, Défense de); jazz (trumpeter Vit…
The Underflow
An übertrio drawn from distinct parts of the creative music spectrum, The Underflow was recorded during a sizzling two-night stand in May 2019. In a series of duets and trios, guitarist David Grubbs, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and trumpeter Rob Mazurek met headlong for the first time, converging not only their acoustic and electric instruments, but at times submerging themselves in a tangle of electronics, then emerging into shamanic bell-shaking chant or chest-rattling howl. Ranging from extr…
Boskage
**300 copies** "The modus operandi of more than a few of the recent New Wave of Jazz releases is sparse free improvisation using extended techniques. These albums, often disjointed with abrupt transitions and long minimalistic passages, exhibit a surprisingly consistent approach despite their aleatoric nature – a commitment to the unpredictable. Enter acoustic guitarist Daniel Thompson and saxophonist Colin Webster, both experienced improvisers who team up on the three tracks of Boskage. This pa…
Puncture Cycle
**300 copies** "Spreading their intuitive playing over nine, randomly sequenced improvisation titled with numbers, Benedict Taylor and Dirk Serries many variations on fiddle string twists and slurred guitar fingering produce tunes that are manually constructed, deconstructed and put back together again. Tracks often posit and resolve singular experiments. For instance, the hard dry swagger of IV opens up into a tremolo and spiccato bowed narrative. Swift, repetative slithers from Taylor enliven …
Quartet & Quintet - Double Vortex
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "Understated, tightly controlled, minimalist music always gets the better deal. There is something mature and cultured about an artist who distills and reaches for the essence instead of provoking and dabbling in exuberance, volume and a cluster of diverging ideas. In a world that is nearly driven to total chaos by a maddening abundance of impulses, Goethe’s worn out adage - that it is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself - has become the ultimate compl…