Jazz & Improvisation / Contemporary

Błoto has never cared much for dominant aesthetics. Instead, the band has consistently chosen paths less travelled, unexplored territories and uncharted routes where experimentation is not so much a conscious decision as a natural state of being. After years of a rather hermetic approach to recording their albums, the time for change has come. A trip to Bucharest and the opportunity to collaborate with the community of musicians associated with the underground label Future Nuggets, led by Ion D,…

"These three artists don’t need volume or soloing to get their message across. Their message is inscribed in elegant lower-case and rarely used aural fonts. You will find yourself leaning forward because not a note or whisper should be missed..." - Brian Morton

The Tokyo Sessions, the dazzling new album project by Dutch alt sax icon Benjamin Herman, oozes a deep affinity for the Land of the Rising Sun. In 2024 and 2025,  Herman – along with bassist Thomas Pol and drummer and The Tokyo Sessions album producer Jimmi Jo Hueting – found themselves knee-deep in Tokyo’s hyper-eclectic musical underbelly – districts like Shimokitazawa and Koenji where underground scenes in the city continue to flourish. Minds were ceaselessly and consistently blown: noise art…

On Actionreaction 2, Pippo Lionni, Sergio Corbini and Stefano Franceschini turn the studio into a single, improvising organism, where spackle knives and rollers become percussion, free‑jazz piano and sax tangle with electronics, and each canvas is written twice – in sound and in paint.

*2025 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-first release »Stefanovich, Dell, Lillinger, Westergaard: SDLW« featuring world premiere recordings by Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Christopher Dell (vibraphone), Christian Lillinger (drums, percussion) and Jonas Westergaard (double bass). Produced at the Teldex Studio Berlin, the album documents the collaboration between Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard and Tamara Stefanovich for the first time.

The charming, thoughtfoul Oracle conveys the familiarity and empathy of partners who have worked together for years – light touch, intricacy and sensitivity pervade the session. Oracle wins you over with its warmth and melodicism.

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…

With Convergence, his second solo album, Swedish-born bassist Björn Meyer further develops music on the blueprint established with his recording Provenance (2017), making use of the technical potential of the bass guitar to establish striking sonorities and grained textures while also being acutely aware of the acoustic space in which his sounds emerge. In its review of Björn’s previous solo statement, London Jazz News found the bassist demonstrating “that melodic high-jinks and emotional intens…

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.

**2nd pressing, screen printed cover, risoprinted obi, letterpressed insert edition of 200**  Free Jazz band with a psychedelic touch, Phardah, is set to release their debut album Humans and Beings on the 2nd of May, 2025. The band features veterans of the Finnish experimental music and Free Jazz scene: saxophonist Sami Pekkola, double bassist Eero Tikkanen, and electric guitarist Topias Tiheäsalo, along with the younger generation drummer Veeti Hietala. The album was recorded and mixed by Teemu…

Stirring with poetic force, Dark Days by Neil Charles sets the bass as both anchor and insurrection, channeling the spirit of James Baldwin into a contemporary jazz crucible. Here, searing improvisation and taut spoken word entwine, yielding an album that radiates both urgency and gravitas.

This is a hitherto unknown recording of the influential Danish composer, pianist, and bandleader Jeppe Zeeberg, dated November 9, 1963. On this recording, Zeeberg is accompanied by a band comprised of several of his generation’s finest musicians. Inspired by the Ellington/Mingus traditions and the new sounds of free jazz emerging from overseas, Zeeberg was the rare individual who could straddle different styles in one performance – even within a single composition. This concert, recorded at Havn…

Centrifuga Records presents Floating Islands by Lotte Anker, Gerald Cleaver and Craig Taborn. The album is a live performance recorded during CPH jazz festival in 2008. Floating Islands was issued on CD in 2009 on ILK music, and finally we are able to make this superb recording available on vinyl in a collaboration between ILK, Insula Music and Centrifuga. Saxophones – Lotte AnkerDrums – Gerald CleaverPiano – Craig TabornMixed and Mastered By – John FomsgaardRecorded live at Borups Concert Hall

** Limited Edition of 250. To be released between April and May 2021 ** Centrifuga Records presents the first vinyl issue ever of Tom Prehn Kvartets "Centrifuga" tape from 1964. Remastered by Sigurd Djurhuus. Only a handful (4-5 copies) of this tape are known to exist, and luckily Centrifuga Records have managed to restore this music and release it on vinyl now in 2021.

Bomb! Danish pianist Tom Prehn was one of the first Europeans to deeply explore free music. With his quartet featuring Fritz Krogh on tenor saxophone, Poul Ehlers on bass, and Finn Slumstrup on drums, Prehn recorded Axiom in October, 1963, for Sonet, though it went unreleased until 2015 because the band felt that their music had moved beyond it already. To hear the music they were talking about, one could only turn to two privately-made reel-to-reel tapes, Centrifuga and Sohlverv, recorded in Au…

** 2021 Stock ** Actions 1966 67, is a selection of recordings by TCJQ. The music is truly unique an is among the absolute best from the Scandinavian avantgarde jazz scene at that time. We are proud to make this recording available on vinyl for the first time, and to be able to tell the full story of TCJQ on a 4 pages insert. Enjoy!. Liner Notes – Tim Thorlund Boisen. Painting – Franz Beckerlee. Photography By – Jan Persson, Ole Henning Hansen. Remastering– Joachim Michaelis. Cover design – KLD …

When Ballister hit the stage at the Catalytic Sound Festival in Chicago in December 2022, no one in the band was quite sure what to expect. Although they’d done a two-week tour of the US in April of that year, their first reunion following an almost three-year break due to the pandemic, you never know what might happen after several months apart. Sometimes that first gig is magic. And sometimes it swims around searching for a center. That’s just a danger of the art form. But drummer Paal Nilssen…

Propulsion is the debut album by a stellar quartet of journeymen Chicago improvisers assembled by saxophonist and Aerophonic Records founder Dave Rempis. Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz is known for his extensive work with the late Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Mike Reed, and his own trio Sun Rooms. Bassist Joshua Abrams is the leader of Natural Information Society, perhaps the best-known group internationally to emerge from Chicago over the last decade. He also maintains longstanding relationship…

Allium is the second recording by this chamber trio, a follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2018 release Ithra. On that record they made a singularly powerful statement delving into non-soloistic group interaction and compositional development in a free-improvised context. Allium ventures even further down that fertile path. In fact it’s frankly difficult to believe these pieces weren’t pre-composed and rehearsed at length. The beginnings, endings, development, and structure of each one demon…

"In the quartet on this album, Paul Dunmall has returned to his first love: totally free improvisation based on interaction between the four players. Many aspects of Paul Dunmall’s playing are apparent on this album. His approach is to listen very carefully to what is happening around him and to react to it. If you see him play live, you will see how he concentrates on the flow of the music, often stepping back and allowing the music to develop before choosing the right moment to enter or re-ent…

"To me, these guys sound as if they have a story to tell and enough confidence to believe that they can tell and retell the old stories in new and exciting ways. Hendriksen and Gisler have formed together on this kind of thing, but if it remains true in jazz that rhythm and the percussionist are at the heart of every new step forward, then Paul Amereller’s role in the trio is crucial. No one will mistake him for anything but a contemporary, but he plays in full knowledge of the history of the mu…

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.

This is British improvised music at its absolute finest. Three giants of the UK scene – pianist Robert Mitchell, double bassist Neil Charles, and drummer Mark Sanders – locked in a room at Café Oto in February 2022, no safety net, no second takes, just forty minutes of pure telepathic interplay. The result is devastating. Vol. 2 captures the second half of The Flame's legendary debut performance – and if Vol. 1 was a revelation, this is the confirmation. Three extended pieces that move from tend…

Big tip! *2025 Stock* Ashram Sun is a transcendent journey toward the inner source of Surya Botofasina’s musical being. Returning to the places and spaces of his spiritual and musical upbringing, the keyboardist and vocalist’s second LP for Spiritmuse after 2022’s acclaimed Everyone’s Children delivers an inspiring meditation on the works and message of his mentor, Swamini Turiyasangitananda, better known as Alice Coltrane, and takes us back to his grounding in the Sai Anantam Ashram – a Vedic a…

World Without Form was originally released in 2012 on CD format only, the album is now being made available on vinyl for the first time, in two separate volumes because of the length of the recording. Each of the two volumes also contain a previously unreleased track from the sessions. Volume 1 has ‘Ithnaan’ which is an earlier version of the track released as ‘Man From Varanasi’ on Nat’s ‘Cosmic Language’ album.

The compositional minimalism of Jewels of Thought is a major thread through Sanders albums of this period, setting up a sparse canvas for colorful tenor saxophone meditations. In one instance Sanders' playing may be soft, beckoning and glad, while elsewhere his saxophone becomes a crazed, outraged beast unleashing its fury on the world. Regardless of which way these compositions lead, listeners are made to feel more like sonic travelers than mere consumers.

Bastille Musique presents its thirty-eighth release »DLW: Live at Salle Cortot« featuring world premiere recordings by Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard. The live recordings were made between 2023 and 2025 at venues such as Salle Cortot (Paris), Resonanzraum (Hamburg), Orangerie Theater (Cologne), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) and Paul-Robeson-Studio (Berlin) and document the development of Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard’s repertoire during this period. In addition to the recordings produced by bastille musiqu…

Bill Frisell, Kenny Wollesen, and Carol Emanuel are The Gnostic Trio and their unique blend of minimalism, early music, and jazz has resulted in some of the loveliest music Zorn has ever created. “Sing Me Now Asleep” is their first CD in over five years and not surprisingly it explores some unexpected new directions—notably two ambient-influenced pieces in the spirit of Zorn’s Absinthe and Redbird, and a dramatic long form composition in the style of his cinematic file card works. Enhanced by th…

In My Dreams brings Bill Frisell together with a circle of long-time collaborators for a rare sextet performance. Featuring Jenny Scheinman (violin), Eyvind Kang (viola), Hank Roberts (cello), Thomas Morgan (bass), and Rudy Royston (drums), the album captures musicians whose connections stretch back decades, now meeting in this configuration for the first time. Moving freely across Frisell originals alongside jazz and Americana standards, the group plays with an ease born of familiarity and mutu…

** Special Time-Limited Offer ** Evolution documents Grachan Moncur III stepping out as a composer‑leader with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Jackie McLean on alto, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. The pieces blend post‑bop structures with freer approaches to metre and harmony, resulting in music that feels constantly tilted yet never topples. Moncur’s trombone leads themes that are by turns mournful, eerie, and boldly declamatory; the band responds with solos…

*2024 stock* Odd Jazz is a collaborative creation of Finnish musicians recorded at the all analog studio in Southern Finland, Hämeenlinna. On this album you find compositions performed by various music collectives in different formations with the unified goal to enrich their compound and give us listeners the delight of sharing their experience of the vast unknown. A feeling of unity is transmitted through the spiritual and mostly improvised idiom. The core members of Odd Jazz are Tuure Tammi (t…

Tip! In 40 minutes of improvised music, the Pipeline ensemble creates a piece that can unhesitatingly be described as orchestral, collective, and even choral. Without patterns, scores, and reference points, the group shapes an organic and cohesive course.

"Those who know know. Muriel Grossmann's reputation as a leading practitioner of spiritual jazz that grooves, deeply grooves, has grown steadily with every new recording. From early albums such as 'Quartet' in 2008 to 'Birth of the Mystery' in 2010 to her breakout album 'Golden Rule' in 2018 and her recent 'Devotion' in 2023, Grossmann's music has won accolades from critics and adoration from listeners around the globe. From her recording studio and her own label Dreamlandrecords on the island o…

*3rd repress* Jazz is not dead. Traditional and classic jazz disciplines have been alive and progressing perpetually throughout the ethers of the musical universe, for upwards of the past 70 years within the dispensation of recorded music history. Moreover, Jazz contains a multitude of sub-styles that outreach and influence enthusiasts of the genre via various sonic characteristics, shapes and forms. It is a genre which never negates the multitude of intricate musical preferences and gravitation…

Extra Stars is a deeply beautiful expression of Gregory Uhlmann’s ever-evolving sound world, and comes at a pivotal juncture in the LA-based composer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist’s musical journey.

In the finest tradition of BBE Music’s J Jazz Masterclass Series, we have a real obscurity of quality to savour. Taken from the rare 1978 private press album ‘Introducing’ by the Hideyasu Terakawa Quartet featuring Hiroshi Fujii, this private press gig recording was originally released in less than 100 copies. This BBE Music edition is the first time this very rare album has ever been reissued. Led by saxophonist Hideyasu Terakawa alongside bassist Tetsuo Miura and drummer Aki- hiro "Thunder" Na…

Kin Gajo is a Brussels based electro-acoustic jazz trio drawing inspiration on the one hand from J Dilla and Flying Lotus, and on the other from the sound of British jazz artists such as The Comet Is Coming, Yusef Dayes, and Alfa Mist. With their atypical instrumentation-accordion, saxophone, and drums-the trio has developed a sound entirely of their own, with the accordion often resembling a heavy analog synthesizer. DJ and producer Lefto featured Kin Gajo on his compilation Lefto Presents Jazz…

*200 copies limited edition* "Emmanuelle Bonnet’s second album is an ode to free horizons, insects, and the passing of time. Prérie(s) is an ethereal moment filled with breath. It is a breeze of warm air which blows a shared space much like into a balloon and traces a way made of the constant search for sonic togetherness. Together, the four musicians expand the bounds of spontaneous composition, toying not only with sound, (non)harmony and textures but also, with each other. Working with words,…

In November 1926, Tina Modotti wrote: “I accept the tragic conflict between life continuously changing its form, and also immutably fixing it in time.” “No longer, not yet”, the second album from the Italian band “She’s Analog”, is an “instant film” that pretentiously tries to stop movement. The title refers to a zone of transit, in which everything unfolds and blooms. This space isn’t interpreted as exclusively musical; instead it represents that liminal space in which we move and create, both …

2026 stock As the title of the album suggests, the new album by spiritual jazz legend Muriel Grossmann, MGQ live im King Georg, Köln, is a live recording of a concert at King Georg Jazz Club in Cologne. Recorded on November 11, 2022, the symbolic start of the Cologne carnival season, the album will be released three years later, at the end of the carnival season on Ash Wednesday, March 5. 2025. If by chance a concert in Cologne takes place on the November 11, it's only logical to stick to the nu…