Jazz /
Neptun
**CD version** Neptune, a planet invisible to the naked eye, it was originally discovered through mathematical deduction after scientists noticed unexpected changes in the course of Uranus. It was named after the Roman god of the sea. In addition to being ruler of the liquid element, he was said to have tremendous power over our subconsciousness and emotions, which we ourselves still today have little understanding of. The title represents the unknown, ranging from the depths of the human mind …
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 …
No Right No Left
**CD version** No Right No Left is the first solo album of drummer Andreas Wildhagen. Recorded in Wildhagen's practice room in late July 2016, it explores different expressions and levels of energy. The music is improvised, still certain ideas can be traced throughout the record. In order to eliminate right and left, one has to imagine a view which is not rooted in a subject or object. If we lack a reference point, right and left disappears. Right and left, good and bad permeate society, but mus…
Landet Er Gitt Oss
**CD version** Improvisation, truth, joy, jazz and doubt. These are but a few of the elements that frequently emerge in the universe of Filosofer, and on their debut Landet Er Gitt Oss. Using the Norwegian version of a term used for people who spend most of their time pondering over life's big mysteries, one is lead to believe that their music is rooted in complex concepts and theoretic academia. So it is not. Filosofer focuses more on guts and feel rather than analyzing and thinking. Their basi…
Synchrotrony
"A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed path increases with time during the accelerating process, being synchronized to the increasing kinetic energy of the particles.Synchrotrony are a trio who take their inspiration from free improvisation, sound search and simple folk melodies. The band consi…
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 …
The Swiftest Traveler
**CD version** An exciting new international trio initiated by Scandinavian saxophonist Torben Snekkestad, accompanied by two esteemed international players in the field of improvised music – the Spanish pianist Agusti Fernández and the British double bass player Barry Guy. The music they create together is situated somewhere between free improvisation, free jazz, and contemporary classical music and executed with lightning fast interaction and explorative, innovative sounds and textures. Record…
Felis Catus and Silence
Felis Catus and Silence is a breakthrough release for Tokyo composer-guitarist Leo Takami, following the milestone albums Children’s Song (2012) and Tree of Life (2017). Takami counterpoints the soothing aesthetics of prime-era Windham Hill New Age guitar-heroism with meditative, intellectual compositions comprised of ambitious, process-oriented arrangements. While Takami largely wears his genre influences on his sleeve -- jazz, classical, Japanese gagaku -- the influence of ambient music is a t…
Goshu Ondo Suite
"Eri Yamamoto transcended jazz, classical and folk forms in creating her new work for jazz trio and 50-member choir. She has seamlessly melded biography, group improvisation and far-ranging compositional vocabularies in a momentous seven-part suite, featuring her longstanding trio in collaboration with New York-based Choral Chameleon, directed by its award-winning founder, Vince Peterson. The suite is based off of the Goshu Ondo, a traditional circle dance song from Shiga, Japan, where it was su…
Segment Tones
**300 copies** "Tonus is a group that always contains Dirk Serries and his wife Martina Verhoeven, but otherwise seems to be an open membership group. Today, on Segment Tones, it is a trio. Serries plays accordion and soprano melodica (the latter I would believe for the first time), Verhoven is on concertina and cello and Colin Webster on clarinet and alto saxophone. Whatever the line-up of Tonus might be, I do believe they play slow and quiet music; music that is not in any way, shape or form, …
Close | Quarters
**300 copies** "Close | Quarters is a seven-track slice of often compacted and angular improv for viola and prepared chamber. The two players here are Benedict Taylor and Anton Mobin. Taylor is a British improviser / avant musician who has been active in the scene since the early 2000s releasing a good body of work, as well as becoming a respected name, and Frenchman Mobin has once again been active since the early 2000’s making a name for himself as both an improviser and sound artists.The albu…
Ear Duration
**300 copies** "Overall, especially on the over 35-minute Set 1, which perversely in placed last on the CD, the improvisations’ mooring is supplied by the brief, repetative but distinctive patterning of Belgian pianist Martina Verhoeven. Much like John Tilbury’s program with AMM, these continuous motifs are the reassuring signposts for the puffs, scratches, strums and plops contributed by Britons, flutist / alto saxophonist Colin Webster, violist Benedict Taylor and Graham Dunning using a snare …
Cagean Morphology
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "The Serries-Verhoeven acoustic, chamber duo – Serries on the acoustic guitar and Verhoeven on the piano – is actually the last one to be recorded in the Tonus series but the duo distills the very essence of the series serves as a fitting introduction to this series. Cagean Morphology was recorded, mixed and mastered at the Sunny Side Studio at Anderlecht, Belgium on March 10th 2018. The minimalist layout of the Tonus series, was designed by Rutger Zuydervelt, aka Mach…
Texture Point
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "Minimal art is often presented as an act of simplification, a field in which nothing much happens and lesser (or even lazy) artists can have a field day. However, it is both in the visual arts and in music, perhaps one of the most misunderstood movements. Minimal artists not only sought out a certain core essence, but leading artists and theorists, such as Donald Judd, also offered a reaction against the extravagant focus on the subjective by the abstract expressionis…
Intermediate Obscurities I+IV
**300 copies, 2019 stock** What self-taught musicians lack in education and (sometimes) technical prowess, many make up for with the need to carve out a space for themselves. Their trajectory is often like a perpetual motion of restless movements. Even among those musicians, Dirk Serries is a special case. Loyal to whoever he comes across, but a solitary seeker at the same time. An eternal outcast whose discography expands at a swift and steady pace, building an island entirely of his own, despi…
Su Mimmi non si spara!
The music of Italian cellist Francesco Guerri obliterates the line between contemporary classical music and free improvisation, sculpting spontaneous invention into startling, unpredictable compositions.On his striking third album, Su Mimmi non si spara!, Guerri presents a dozen innovative pieces that span a wide range of stylistic approaches and technical challenges, invigorated by the physicality of his virtuosic playing and the deep emotional bond he maintains with his instrument. Su Mimmi no…
Universal Beings
Paris-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In the Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced and re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation and experimentation In the Moment established a procedural blueprint that …
Thousand Seconds of Our Life
**300 copies** A solid and distinguished work by two talented musicians coming from the lively Lithuanian jazz scene: Jan Maksimowicz – soprano saxophone, Dmitrij Golovanov - piano.All compositions by Jan Maksimowicz and Dmitrij Golovanov, except Dienda by Kenny Kirkland. Recorded on 13th, 16th and 26th September, 2018 at InTegra House, Trakai, Lithuania. Engineered and mixed by Artūras Bieliauskas. Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios. Design by Folk Science.
Live
If you've missed out on bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg, now's your chance to play some catch up ball. He's one of creative music's most eloquent exponents, having emerged from the fertile Swedish jazz scene around 2005. With his band Torbjörn Zetterberg Hot Five, he began a fruitful relationship with the thoroughly excellent Moserobie label, run by his frequent band mate, saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar, and by the time he was making records like Skildrar Kvinnans Kamp and Och Den Stora Frågen, Corbet…
Lubok
Blend 3 is an organism made up of three different but similar personalities. The group explores the diverse sonorities of a trio that, without a predetermined set, utilizes composition and improvisation as its only resources. By means of this combination of composition and improvisation, what is already written is proposed in an original and revisited way time after time. Concurrently, improvisation as an actual practice rather than as a genre is developed with a deep compositional function. Ble…