Jazz /
Dream Archives
The trio-debut of pianist, composer and 2025 MacArthur Fellow Craig Taborn with Tomeka Reid and Ches Smith has been eagerly awaited. In its review of the group’s live show from Fall 2025 the German daily Hamburger Abendblatt found nothing put praise for their performance, calling it “unpredictable, exhilarating”. The trio’s approach on Dream Archives is full of complexities, and as the title suggests, a wide musical spectrum is covered as multitudes of idioms seem to be pulled from history and r…
Nineteen Seventy Seven
Brazilian avant-jazz vanguardists Grupo Um celebrate their 50th anniversary, sharing a second previously lost 1970s album from the vaults. Nineteen Seventy Seven (titled after the year it was recorded) is another rip-roaring instrumental fusion treasure from the band which spawned from within Hermeto Pascoal’s famed mid-1970s São Paulo collective.
Like their debut album Starting Point, Grupo Um’s Nineteen Seventy Seven was recorded when Brazil's military dictatorship was at its most repressive. …
Dance! Skip! Hop!
Tip! The Tomeka Reid Quartet - dance! skip! hop! (OOYH 041) releases February 13 2026 (LP/CD/limited streaming) on Out Of Your Head Records, featuring the steady quartet of Tomeka Reid (cello) with Mary Halvorson (guitar), Jason Roebke (bass), and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). Soon after finishing these compositions in June 2025, Reid realized that much of the music made her want to dance. Inspired by the title of Josh Berman’s stellar A Dance and a Hop, as well as her tendency to skip in public, the…
Half of What You See
*100 copies purple vinyl limited edition* Out Of Your Head Records announces the latest chapter in creative music: 'Half of What You See' by Wrens, a bold new contribution to the label’s tradition of boundary-pushing artistry and limited-run releases. Continuing their dedication to inventive sound and visual originality, Out Of Your Head Records—spanning Richmond and Brooklyn—invites listeners into a world where sonic textures and emotional immediacy collide.
'Half of What You See' showcases Wre…
John Zorn's Bagatelles Vol. 6
On John Zorn’s Bagatelles Vol. 6, John Zorn hands a fresh batch of his angular miniatures to the Brian Marsella Trio, who render them as a volatile, deeply melodic piano‑trio songbook where Monkish heads, free detonations and elusive “exotic” moods feel entirely at home.
John Zorn's Bagatelles Vol. 5
On John Zorn’s Bagatelles Vol. 5, John Zorn hands eight spiky miniatures to the Kris Davis Quartet, who turn his angular “weirdo tunes” into a fierce, lyrical piano‑guitar quartet set where structure, swing and free combustion constantly collide.
Exotica
On Exotica, Sun Ra is recast as an unlikely lounge visionary, folding the lush fantasy worlds of Les Baxter and Hollywood mood music into raw, off‑kilter Saturn tapes that turn easy listening into uneasy, Afrofuturist escape.
Black Suite
Belonging to an incredible, audiophile reissue initiative dedicated to the seminal Jazz Actuel series - one of the greatest depositories of 1960s free jazz - at long last we're gifted one of the greatest of them all: the first ever fully authorized reissue of Jacques Coursil's towering 1971 LP, Black Suite, fully remastered from the original 1969 analog master tapes. Featuring an all-star line-up of Anthony Braxton, Arthur Jones, Burton Greene, Beb Guérin, and Claude Delcloo, it has long remaine…
A Gentle Reminder
There's a story that gets to the heart of this record. Years ago, Keefe Jackson spent an evening with South African-Dutch legend Sean Bergin - the only time the two ever met. At some point Bergin told him: "Keefe, you remind me very much of my friend Ab Baars." Jackson replied that he'd heard this many times, that he'd even stopped wearing a certain hat to avoid the comparison. Bergin paused, then said: "These things happen." And so a band got its name - from a throwaway line that turned out to …
Light
On Light, Palle Mikkelborg condenses a lifetime of orchestral colour into a quietly radiant final opus: solo trumpet, flugelhorn and piano drift through self‑designed soundscapes, joined sparingly by harp and guitar, like hymns remembered in slow motion.
Ensamseglaren
Huge Tip! Small repress. "I stood on top of the mountain and looked out over the landscape. It was so beautiful that my chest hurt. The light vibrated, time stood still, and the contours dissolved for a moment. Everything had changed; I felt it then. I took their little hands so as not to lose contact with the ground. Then we ran down the mountain, scraping our knees. Still, we didn't make it. You had already put away all the nautical charts, loosened the moorings and steered out among the skerr…
Nimbus West small vinyl bundle
Specially priced bundles drawn from the catalog of Nimbus West — the American label widely regarded as the greatest single depository of West Coast avant-garde jazz. With the label's future uncertain and no represses planned, this is a final opportunity to explore one of the most vital and visionary corners of recorded jazz before it disappears from circulation for good.Nimbus West bundle six contains the following LPs:
Curtis Clark "Amsterdam Sunshine"
Curtis Clark "Deep Sea Diver"
Horace Taps…
Nimbus West vinyl bundle
Specially priced bundles drawn from the catalog of Nimbus West — the American label widely regarded as the greatest single depository of West Coast avant-garde jazz. With the label's future uncertain and no represses planned, this is a final opportunity to explore one of the most vital and visionary corners of recorded jazz before it disappears from circulation for good.Nimbus West bundle four contains the following LPs:
Curtis Clark "Amsterdam Sunshine"
Curtis Clark "Deep Sea Diver"
Horace Tap…
The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 4
Solo (Steinway) piano. Los Angeles, September 1982. Just read the titles: "A Dress for Renee" - infectious melody, keeps coming back like a persistent thought. "Shades of Soweto" - South Africa seen from South Central. "The Hero's Last Dance" - whoever that hero was. "First Call of the Humming Bird" - nature breaking through concrete. And then "Forgiving" - as a closing statement, as a breath.
Horace Tapscott was a fierce critic of racial bigotry, and his music never hid it. But here there's als…
The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 3
Solo piano. Recorded March 1983, Los Angeles. Five pieces, forty-one minutes. Where Sun Ra meets Erik Satie. This is the third volume in what would become Tapscott's monumental series of solo recordings - over thirty hours captured between 1982 and 1985, documenting his own compositions alongside works by unknown Black composers in the Los Angeles area. Producer Tom Albach considered these the most important music Horace Tapscott ever made.
The titles read like chapters from a life: "The Tuus," …
Swarm Patterns
Three creative cells of Austrian avantgarde music form a playfull trio of piano and drums/percussion -pianist and composer Elisabeth Harnik has various improvisation projects, for instance with Joelle Leandre, Ken Vandermark, Zlatko Kaucic, Tony Buck, etc. She is backed by Martin Brandlmayr of Radian-fame, who works fluently in jazz, electronics and acoustic music, and Didi Kern who, coming from Bulbul guitar underground and Noiserock, lately found his place in the international improv scene.
Quintessence
A remarkable document finally surfaces after nearly 40 years in the NDR archives. John Taylor - the piano master of dense, orchestral voicings and skittish melodic invention - captured here in 1987 with the full NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dieter Glawischnig. All music written and orchestrated by Taylor himself. This is the logical conclusion of everything the man stood for musically - from Azimuth to Johnny Griffin's band to this luxurious symphonic setting. Stan Sulzmann on sopra…
What Was
The first release of a 1995 studio session, produced by Evan Parker. The Kenny Wheeler Sextet includes Ray Warleigh, Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence and Tony Levin.
Let the Spirit Out/Live at 'Mu' London
Big tip! This is it! Chicago spiritual jazz master Kahil El'Zabar delivers one of the most powerful live recordings in recent memory! Captured over two unforgettable nights at "mu" in London - July 15th & 16th, 2024 - this is music as ancient ritual, as communion, as healing force. El'Zabar created new material specifically for these performances, alongside reimagined arrangements of classics like Wayne Shorter's "Footprints", Gershwin's "Summertime", and Duke Ellington & Juan Tizol's "Caravan".…
Blackpool Cool
Head’s Blackpool Cool was self-released in 1977 on the band’s own Head Records, marking the Scottish group’s third and final album. Long prized by collectors, it stands as a distinctive entry in UK jazz-rock and fusion, driven by an inventive interplay of trumpet and keyboards and a sharp, forward-moving sense of rhythm.
Influenced by the exploratory edge of groups such as Nucleus, the album showcases the band’s creative confidence and the multi-instrumental talents of John Davies. The sound is …