Jazz & Improvisation / Contemporary

Norwegian coastal culture meets American dreams in Trond Kallevåg’s most cinematic work yet. Imagine Ry Cooder, Daniel Lanois, and David Lynch sharing a rowboat on a misty West Norwegian morning – that’s the world of Minnesota. With Minnesota, guitarist and composer Trond Kallevåg deepens his image-rich sound – a warm, wistful universe where the atmosphere of Norway’s rugged west coast drifts seamlessly into the wide horizons of the American Midwest. Drawing inspiration from traditional music, j…

"Hey, there's this new guy around that plays like Herbie Hancock!!". When Chilean pianist Matías Pizarro arrived in Argentina fleeing Pinochet's dictatorship, word spread like wildfire in the local jazz scene. In the two short years that Pizarro spent in Buenos Aires, he became one third of the Viejas Raíces project alongside local jazz heroes Jorge López Ruiz and Pocho Lapouble, recorded with famed Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and released his own solo album, Pelo de Rata ("Rat's hair"). Pizar…

On Friday, September 5, Liv Andrea Hauge Trio releases its third album, Døgnville, on Norwegian label Hubro. The record explores the feeling of being “døgnvill” – a Norwegian term describing the sensation of being out of sync with time and reality, like during jet lag or insomnia. The music inhabits this liminal space between structure and freedom, consciousness and dream. Half of the compositions were written while pianist and composer Liv Andrea Hauge was bedridden with a high fever – in a sem…

"Christopher Dammann Sextet is a debut record, but it’s by no means a first effort. Bassist, composer, and improviser Christopher Dammann has been making records for about fifteen years, first as a member of 3.5.7 Ensemble and more recently as the leader of Restroy. Throughout that time, he’s also gigged persistently in Chicago, notably as a regular substitute for Brian Sandstrom in the long-lived free improv collective Extraordinary Popular Delusions, and from Charlottesville, VA (between 2010-…

Welcoming Tori Kudo back to A Colourful Storm with a new edition of Maher Shalal Hash Baz's Faux Départ, a document of a stateside tour that culminated in a recording session at the legendary Dub Narcotic Studio with a one-time ensemble of Greg Saunier and Chris Cohen (Deerhoof), Andrew Maxwell, McCloud Zicmuse, Arrington de Dionyso, Takashi Ueno, Saya Ueno, Naoki Otani, Akiko Hotaka, Masaaki Endo and Naoki Otani. Always spontaneous, never rehearsed. Music in and of this world, seemingly teeteri…

Following their debut “Jazz Report From The Hood", which proved a major success and brought attention to Omasta as one of the most distinctive groups emerging from the contemporary jazz scene, the musicians return with their second album, “Hits Different”. The record develops the language established on their debut, pushing it into new territory and shifting the perspective from that of the protagonists themselves to that of a narrator telling the story. In just one year, Omasta went from an eme…

"The title Looking for Consonance popped into my head one day as I began thinking about a name for this collection of music. This title immediately felt important, so I kept sitting with it. I thought I knew what consonance meant in music, but I also knew it carried other meanings—ones that extend well beyond sound. Webster’s Dictionary defines consonance as “the harmony or agreement of sounds produced simultaneously, resulting in a pleasing and stable auditory experience.” The word that stands …

"Ink Folly, Orchid Gleam is a piece in two movements for alto saxophone, upright bass, and drum set. Each movement was transmuted from a two-part poem of the same name, which was first drafted on a bus to my home of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The pang to return to where nature is abundant wasn't something I expected would be so strong when I moved to New York, but Ink Folly, Orchid Gleam is a product of those emotions. Written with my dear friends Mathias Jensen and Eliza Salem in mind, I knew I…

Cush is a raw, genre-blurring journey of drums, trumpet & baritone sax — where musique concrète meets groove-jazz. A sonic rebellion echoing Corto Maltese’s mythos. For fans of Pierre Henry & wild improvisation.

Adroit jazz guitar, prog rock fantasia, and Japanese environmental music all rest comfortably behind Leo Takami's Next Door. The follow up to the acclaimed Felis Catus & Silence, Next Door finds Takami ruminating on passages — of time, seasons, consciousness. Through music, Leo contemplates daily events and finds beauty in ordinary moments. He also seems to be questioning the value of being stuck in the world, allowing his mind to wander towards something beyond it. His music is earnest, deeply …

William Hooker is a musician, composer, and poet with over 70 recordings as a leader, encompassing jazz, new music, experimental music and multi-disciplinary forms of expression (e.g. dance, silent film and spoken word). He has been recognized as “an iconoclast, and one of the most innovative musicians and drummers of his generation”  - The Wire,  which is evident nowhere more than on his latest album, Jubilation. The new work features collaborators Matt LaVelle on trumpet, Sarah Manning on alto…

*200 copies limited edition* "What is my heart now" is the debut solo album by Ziemowit Klimek, known so far from bands such as Immortal Onion, Hania Rani, and Magda Kuraś Quintet. It is a cycle of five improvised compositions – "What," "Is," "My," "Heart," and "Now" – unified by a unique artistic concept, with each piece created in collaboration with a different musician. The creative process for each of the five duets began with a conversation between Ziemowit, the guest artist, and the video …

Zach Tenorio invites listeners on an immersive auditory adventure with his latest release, Field Trip. This captivating album showcases a rich tapestry of sound, blending ambient textures, intricate rhythms, and evocative melodies that transport the audience through vivid emotional landscapes. Field Trip exemplifies Zach Tenorio’s innovative approach to music production, where organic elements seamlessly merge with electronic flourishes. Each track unfolds with a cinematic quality, encouraging l…

Nat Birchall goes back to the source. Not Coltrane this time, but the record that led him to Coltrane in the first place. In 1973 a schoolboy in Lancashire ordered a triple LP from his local record shop after reading about it in Black Music magazine. It was Grounation, by Count Ossie & The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari - hand drums, chanting, poetry, and the tenor saxophone of Cedric 'Im' Brooks, soulful and untamed, heard years before Birchall ever put on a John Coltrane record. When he finall…

bastille musique presents its twenty-eighth release »DLW: Extended Beats« featuring world premiere recordings by Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard, Klangforum Wien, Sonar Quartett, Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Martin Adámek (clarinets) and Johannes Brecht (electronics). Together with the guests, Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard extend their beats in terms of co-composition and form as well as instrumentation. In addition to the recordings produced at the Paul-Robeson-Studio, the set also contains a 48-page bi…

“Loss has been a constant (in my life), and I wanted to express a deep acceptance of this, but also a pervasive feeling that these kinds of sadnesses are what beauty is derived from, that it doesn't come from perfection. I find the idea of perfect beauty completely banal. Tension matters.” - Anenon

Tip! Gilles Peterson presents International Anthem is a Deluxe Double LP compilation chronicling the infamous London-based radio host, DJ, label head, curator and cultural impresario's long-standing affinity for and interaction with artists and music from the Chicago-born record label International Anthem. The tracks on this compilation were chosen by Peterson via an extensive review of track lists from his broadcasts on BBC 6 Music, Worldwide FM, and various syndicated radio programs. The compi…

Martin Pyne’s new release, the double album Trios, focuses on his unique approach to the vibraphone. The album places his playing in the context of two contrasting trio lineups. In Vampire Coast Trio Martin is joined by one of his favourite drummers, Johnny Hunter, along with the extraordinary double bass player Michael Bardon. Together they make music with a truly transparent texture, full of both space and sonic detail together with richly lyrical melody and counterpoint. Martin says, “Michael…

A Delicate Stiletto comprises of 10 songs from Herb’s ‘vintage years’. Only 4 of the songs have been officially released before, back in 2006 and the other 6 have been hiding out in Herb’s lounge cabinet for 25 years. Imagine an even more whiskey soaked Dean Martin walking out of the cinema after watching a David Lunch marathon. Entering the nearest seedy night club and going hell for leather on the carpeted stage as a disco ball shines and glistens in the bloodshot eyes of a hundred seated goth…

After a nine-year hiatus, Marteau Rouge  — Pauvros, Foussat, Sato — made a comeback for a one-off concert, this time alongside Daunik Lazro, one of their long-standing friends.

*200 copies limited edition. First repress* All compositions by Tahmela Six. Recorded on December 29, 2023, at Tahmela’s Villa, Tampere. Session produced and engineered by Jarno Alho

All songs composed, arranged, recorded and mixed by Lauri Kallio. Recorded in Kiikala Church & C.O.W. Kiikala Studio Complex

Viive debut album ‘Sen Jälkeen Kun’! The debut album, “Sen jälkeen kun”, explores themes of growth and the intrinsic need for connection. It ultimately took shape as a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist (yet). The album was recorded at Mutka studios, the duo’s own creative space in a mid-century wooden house located in Jyväskylä, Finland. The piano and drums were set up facing each other, fostering a deeper connection between the players. The naturally imperfect and lively acoustics of the…

Kadi Vija’s new album, Tiny Hands Gathering Wonder, The World Becomes Magic, is a narrative jazz suite released in October 2025 that explores the tactile, the playful, and the vividly imaginative, blending synth colors, hand claps, and intimate vocals into a singular rainbow-hued sonic journey. The album’s ten tracks move through shifting moods that conjure both childlike awe and jazz sophistication, opting for miniature landscapes over grand statements.​

Way To, the debut album by Eero Savela, released August 2025, marks a persuasive, understated move into the spotlight for the Helsinki trumpeter. Blending the sinuous pulse of '70s jazz-funk with a modern Scandinavian restraint, the album—clocking in at just 37 minutes—opts for dialogue over display, its six tracks assembled as layered conversations between empathetic musicians and understated lyricism.

*100 copies limited edition* Bishu Chattopadhyay’s Fragments is a collection of nine compositions shaped by movement, memory, improvisation, and the passage between worlds. Born and raised in Kolkata and now living in New York, Chattopadhyay has spent much of his life moving between musical and cultural landscapes. The album reflects that experience without attempting to resolve it: fragments of a life, fragments of a time, fragments of a world in which beauty and uncertainty exist side by side.…

Son-Icon Music - orchestra and choral works by Charlotte Hug Music notation and conducting form the basis of the classical Western tradition of composition and performance. As early as the 1960s, alternatives to this system were sought again and again – a system which implies a lack of maturity in the individual performer. With her “Son-Icons” Charlotte Hug developed a medium and compositional technique, which integrates the imagination and artistic resources of the individual into a guided whol…

Ming Bau Set is a collective of three improvisers who began meeting regularly in 2018 to deeply explore improvisation and song form. Over the next three years this process yielded a shared language and vision of music realization that led to their first publication, Yakut's Gallop. They utilized both acoustic and electronic resources to carve a personal sound as well as a sense of place with their inventions. The trio, as it has matured, is notable for its cross generational constitution. Gerry …

*In process of stocking.* “Well, isn’t it always now?” Joel Futterman’s audible smile, in response to my simple query about the time during a phone conversation, bespeaks and accentuates the deeper truths embodied in his creativity. Grounded, sometimes adrift, forced to live in the world of duality, we capitulate too willingly to the whims and whiles of intervals, to their capricious grip on our intersecting realities, to their encapsulation of alternating mood and ebb-and-flow vitality. Doors o…

2024 stock. Saxophone player Albert Cirera one of the most important Spanish improvisers works with Ramon Prats fascinating drummer from many years. They both are one of the shinest points on the European musical scene. On the other hand ZARM Ensemble. ZARM Ensemble is an award-winning string quartet started by legendary Portugal violin master Carlos "Zíngaro”, David Magalhães Alves (Violin), Ulrich Mitzlaff (Cello), and Alvaro Rosso (Double bass).From an almost compulsive fascination with sound…

2024 stock. Trumpeter Russ Johnson is a recent Midwest transplant after spending 23 years as an important member of New York City’s jazz community. He has seven recordings as a leader or co-leader and performed on more than 75 recordings as a sideman. Russ has worked alongside many of the legendary figures in jazz including Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell, and Joe Lovano. In addition, he has recorded and/or performed with a long list of the most prominent musicians currently on the inter…

2024 stock. "João Pedro, Silvia, Adriano: three friends, three travel companions, three alchemists capable of giving infinite shades of color to music; listening to them is like enjoying the beauty of an exhibition of abstract paintings, yet full of warmth and sensitivity. A far cry from certain forms of art that are undoubtedly important, perhaps even necessary, but that creep into the darker side of emotions and life: in this case we are in that expressive sphere, so difficult to navigate, whi…

Simon Nabatov has undertaken one of the most unusual projects in contemporary music, an intense scrutiny and setting to music of modernist Russian literature, much of it taken from the years of Stalinist censorship, repression and imprisonment. For 25 years, beginning with Josef Brodsky’s Nature Morte, he has set text in partially improvised settings, including excerpts from Isaac Babel’s grim Red Cavalry and poems by Daniil Kharms and the Gileya group. Along with that largely poetic enterprise,…

“The Dialogues” recalls the early jazz journeys of its creators, blending decades of musical growth into intimate conversations between violin and double bass. Drawing from jazz, classical, and contemporary influences, the album captures pure, wordless musical dialogue.

For a few fleeting moments during a sunset, the sky is cast a vivid shade of amber. A dramatic flare of colour, a moment belonging to both the day and the night. It is within this vibrant, ephemeral world, that Mongolian-born, Munich-based Enji has written her new album Sonor. Sonor is a record full of life and optimism, from an artist finding the beauty of existing between two worlds, much as a sunset does. Between the cultures of Mongolia and Germany, tradition and innovation, nostalgia and ex…

Leo Genovese Returns with New Album Solo Brooklyn, Live from the New York Forward Festival

Louis Sclavis’s 13th ECM recording finds the French clarinetist drawing inspiration from two sources – the street art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, and the interpretive originality of a splendid new quartet.  Pignon-Ernest’s works were previously the subject of Sclavis’s highly acclaimed 2002 recording Napoli’s Walls.  This time Sclavis looks at a broader range of the artist’s in situ collages from Ramallah to Rome,  in search of “a dynamic, a movement that will give birth to a rhythm, an emotion, a …

Haeun Joo Unveils a Bold, Free-Spirited Debut on 577 Records with Just Gravity, Capturing the Immediacy of Improvisation and the Beauty of Intention.

After playing complete improvised music with no constraints from 2016 on and releasing their first Album “Torbid Dayligtht” the quartet “Gratkowski / Zoubek / Landfermann / Mahnig” got renamed in 2023 to “In Cahoots” and now performs compositions by Frank Gratkowski, still with plenty of space for creative improvisation. In Cahoots also extends to a Quintet featuring Ingrid Laubrock on Tenor and Soprano Saxophones. The new Quintet version had its debut in Darmstadt 2023.   “Beneath the subatomic…

Released in 1981, the debut of the legendary keyboardist from Eberhard Weber’s Colours band and later the Jan Garbarek Group, Freigeweht presented Rainer Brüninghaus as a highly original and idiosyncratic sound sculptor in his own right, accompanied by ECM stalwarts Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn and drummer Jon Christensen as well as oboist Brynjar Hoff. In a review of the album from the year of its release, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung traced Rainer’s influences and minimalist …