Jazz /
Entwined
Avant-garde bassoonist Karen Borca's first proper leader record is a series of duos with drummer Paul Murphy who she first played with in Jimmy Lyons group.
Dust And Ash
“Weston lays down a ferocious groove with ecstatic shouts … tugging rhythmic displacements that tease like thunder and lightning throughout.” — All About Jazz
Dream Walks
"The starry floor/The watery shore/Is given thee til the break of day.“ - William Blake
Music records a dream in which your other body goes out for a walk with a friend or two or more and brings back things you can grasp in the real world. If the ground beneath you is water and reflects the stars you may dream you're walking on stars. One morning, the Somnambulist woke up from his dream-walk with a record in his hand and miraculously they were all there: the uncanny encounters, spooling elucubra…
Everything Is True
Everything is True is an album of a personal and sentimental nature, where various musical styles blend, influenced by music from different cultures, contemporary, orchestral, and electronic music. The instrumentarium is equally diverse, combining acoustic, electronic, and even unconventional instruments such as lithophones or prototypes of string instruments like the bassdesmophon. This fusion creates timeless-sounding pieces with exceptional tonality. Most of the tracks on the album were recor…
Unknown Rivers
Unknown Rivers is bassist Luke Stewart’s debut for Pi Recordings. An omnipresent and galvanizing force on the music scene, Stewart is a leader or co-leader of such bands as Irreversible Entanglements, Exposure Quintet, Blacks’ Myths, Heart of the Ghost, and Remembrance Quintet. He is also among the most in-demand collaborators, having performed with the likes of David Murray, Nicole Mitchell, Moor Mother, Jaimie Branch, Nate Wooley, Ken Vandermark and countless others. Stewart is also a curator …
Breakdown Lane: Free Solos & Duos 1976-1998
"Duck Baker should be a national treasure. He should be an international treasure. Should be? In my book he already is. I first came across his work in the 1970s on early Kicking Mule LPs in my local library in the UK, which was his temporary base then, and is his permanent home now. Many years later I was astounded by Spinning Song, his CD of Herbie Nichols compositions. Around the same time, I made contact with him by way of thanks following a review he wrote of my work on Stuff Smith and, lat…
Infinite-Sum Game
“Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.” – William Parker, from Conversations II (Rogue Art)
Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 1
*2024 stock* Before any instrumentation, Francisco Mela addresses his fellow musicians, pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker, with a sense of anticipation and affirmation, “Okay guys, ready? Rolling!” The sense of camaraderie and his artist-focused approach is heard throughout the album’s majestic improvisation—as well as in its inspiration, dedicated to Mela’s longtime musical partner, the legendary jazz musician McCoy Tyner. Tyner was well-known for his boundless musical talent, an…
Volume 1
*2024 stock* Super groups are not a riskless endeavor—but when they’re made up of longtime friends and master improvisers, they tend to work. On their collaboration, simply titled Volume 1, up-and-coming American saxophonist John Dikeman (When The Time Is Right, 577 Records, 2021) is accompanied by a group of UK-based music masters: pianist Pat Thomas, a 577 Records mainstay (Shifa Live at Cafe Oto 2019, BleySchool 2019, Shifa Live in Oslo 2020, Educated Guess 2021), bassist John Edwards (EMPoWe…
Volume 1
*2024 stock* Brooklyn-based pianist Eva Novoa delivers a masterfully executed trio album of melodic themes replete with touches of swing, grooves and exquisite electronic landscapes. Novoa’s articulated playing flows with plenty of room gifting the band full freedom of improvisation.
On the track ‘Rocket Man’ you can hear the possibilities of the traditional jazz trio format as it projects into the future, combining the acoustic beauty of the piano with the electronic tapestry of modular synthes…
A Lifeboat, Part II
*2024 stock* Matthew Putman and Michael Sarian found a home in a makeshift studio, using a borrowed 20-year-old keyboard, a good microphone, and in cramped apartment acoustics, to improvise throughout the pandemic. What they called their “weekly pilgrimages” gave them a sense of much-needed sanity, grounding their friendship and keeping them afloat, as Sarian describes, “much like a lifeboat.” The resultant project was an exploration of cadences, rhythms, and full of searching and synchronicity.…
A Lifeboat Part I
*2024 stock* In the first lockdown, Matthew Putman (on keyboard) and Michael Sarian (on trumpet and flugelhorn) began to meet up (with precautions) for semi-regular sessions in Sarian’s makeshift home studio. The conditions were less-than-ideal—a borrowed 20-year-old keyboard, an inadequate microphone, and cramped NYC apartment acoustics—but they continued their “weekly pilgrimages, searching for [their] cadences, rhythms and melodies through the Fall.” The sessions gave them much-needed sanity,…
Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On
Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On is the new album by Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman. The pair have orbited each others worlds for a number of years through audio visual collaborations spanning record releases, films and sound installations. Wasylyk’s cinematic compositions have been nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year Award and been awarded BBC Radio 6 Music’s Gideon Coe’s Album of the Year. He has collaborated with former National Poet for Scotland, Liz Lochhead, and…
Godtet
7 years since its release; the iconic debut from Godtet gets a repress. The self-titled LP marked the inception of La Sape Records along with the genesis of Godtet. Stitched together more like a beat tape. 12 movements recorded live with no overdubs; "This record came about with no preconceived ideas of what we were making or what it would sound like". A crystallisation of Godtet which aided to form the sound of La Sape.
Traversing across spiritual jazz, dub and experimental gestures. It caught …
Harlesden Sessions
‘Harlesden Sessions’ is a collection of duo recordings between versatile saxophonist David Bitelli and gifted drummer Ollie Usiskin, whose imaginative improvisations take us on a journey through post-bop, jazz-funk and free jazz landscapes. The two North West London natives would meet up on occasional Thursdays to play improvised sax and drums duo sessions. As their understanding grew, they decided to start recording them and ‘Harlesden Sessions’ presents the best of these concise improvised exc…
Duos
*300 copies limited edition* The first duo recording between towering free jazz saxophonist Paul Dunmall and the highly creative saxophonist Kevin Figes, sees them perform ten improvised pieces using an assortment of instruments, including various saxophones, clarinets and flutes. With no pre-composed themes or motifs, what you hear are two master musicians in the moment of creativity. The wholly improvised conversations seem to encompass and distil the history of jazz, moving between free and c…
Carne Vale
Foster, Wick and Bennett each subvert the traditional expectations of their instruments in favor of a timbrally rich palette of unconventional sounds. The interplay on these improvisations is sympathetic; they communicate fluently in their own collective language.
Band Width
Living on different continents, the possibilities of linking up were few and far between but we did keep in touch and perform when the occasion presented itself. The software SonoBus solved the problem of distance and we recorded, Mark on the edge of a desert in San Diego and me in the middle of three Australian deserts at Alice Springs. A selection from these sessions you hear on this CD.The duos were recorded direct to stereo live.On the last track you will hear our most recent guest Vladimir …
Prose Métallique
Using 'everyday' objects to prepare the instrument in a simple way structures this "Prose Métallique", in which each piece offers a poetic approach to language and textual references. Recorded in one day, these close-miked solo pieces for alto saxophone explore the area where voice and instrument converge.
The Way Out of Easy
January 2nd, 2023. Aside from being the second of a new year, it was a pretty ordinary night at ETA in Los Angeles, where guitarist Jeff Parker - alongside his ETA IVtet with saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose - had been holding down a regular Monday gig since 2016. At the time, nobody knew it was the first gig of the last year that ETA would be open for business.
Over seven years of holding down that residency, Parker’s ETA ensemble evolved from a band th…