Jazz /
Bitter Balls
Bitter Balls – the second full length studio album from mostly Middle Eastern supergroup Karkhana, features members of Dwarfs of East Agouza, „A“Trio, Konstrukt, Chicago Tentet, Land of Kush among others – shows the ongoing incredible progression and artistic flow the group is currently working under. Four new fine tuned compositions of crystal clear and deep, dark, distorted unrock – electric and acoustic. The cross between old school and contemporary oriental free-jazz sounds and western impro…
Human Music
A forward thinking collaboration between electronic music pioneer Jon Appleton and trumpet great Don Cherry, that explores the relationship between the humanity and the manufactured robotic future. Using the techniques associated with Musique Concrete the ensuing improvisations create a unique entry into the great trumpeter's discography. It was an in vogue attempt to render the music of tomorrow, and today sounds more like the soundtrack to a truly great sci-fi movie. Reissued in a fascimile of…
Symphony No. 107 - The Bard
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Symphony No. 107 –The Bard, a previously unheard archival recording of the legendary improvising ensemble MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva), captured in concert at Bard College, New York in 2012. Formed by a group of American expat composers in Rome in 1966, the MEV ensemble played an important role in the development of free improvisation, bridging the live electronics tradition begun by John Cage and David Tudor and the high-energy squall of free jazz. Early re…
Scheiße ’71 (LP)
Following on from the Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett’s anarchic Live ’82 (BT095), Black Truffle continues its deep dive into the archives of legendary drummer/accordionist/photographer/composer/conceptual prankster Sven-Åke Johansson with Scheisse ’71. Recorded in November 1971 during the Berliner Jazztage at a heavy-hitting concert that also included the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and groups led by Peter Brötzmann, Manfred Schoof, and Masahiko Sato, Scheisse ’71 is the only document of a w…
Big Fun
** 2023 Repress of this classic. 180 gram audiophile vinyl, gatefold sleeve ** Originally released in 1974, Big Fun presents music from three different phases of Miles Davis's early-seventies "electric" period. Sides one and four ("Great Expectations" and "Lonely Fire") were recorded three months after the Bitches Brew sessions and incorporate sitar, tambura, tabla, and other Indian instruments. "Ife" was recorded after the 1972 On the Corner sessions, and the framework is similar to tracks fro…
Terrain (Extended)
Gondwana Records and Portico Quartet announce a strictly limited edition collectors-item. Featuring an expanded version of their long-form composition Terrain and re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble and recorded live in Studio One
Improvisie
Bamboo present the first ever reissue of Paul Bley's Improvisie, originally released in 1971. Recorded Live March 26th, 1971 at Club B14 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Improvisie is a part of the 1971 trilogy of Paul Bley and Annette Peacock's combined experimental recorded work. Together with recent reissues of 1971's The Bley Synthesizer Show (BAM 7020CD/LP) and 1972's Dual Unity (BAM 7018CD/LP), Improvisie is taken from a compelling period for two iconic figures of the free jazz movement, and the…
The power of negative thinking
The International Nothing is the Berlin-based duo of clarinet players Kai Fagaschinski and Michael Thieke. The two have been working together since 2000, refining a highly personal language focused on introspective, microtonal textures through stasis, patiently investigating timbre, multiphonics and extended techniques, with a commanding intensity spiced with a dry sense of humor (reflected also in the cover art by Japanese Masae Tanabe). This duo has released three albums on the Japanes…
Reflection Is Circular
Edition of 200. Killer. A shadow-strafing suite of spidery rhythms and inquisitive jazz gestures, effortlessly binding avant instrumental dexterity with spacey feeling in a timeless style that could feasibly be dated to any point between the mid ‘70s heyday of jazz-fusion. Especially highly recommended if yr into Miles Davis 'Big Fun'. In 2017 Giovanni di Domenico released an album with a big band (at least for my standards) of 12 musicians, the band was called Abschattungen and the album «The E…
AC/DC
Two totally infectious sets from Decoy -- the trio of John Edwards, Steve Noble, and Alexander Hawkins -- reunited with pocket trumpet and saxophone player Joe McPhee on the closing night of his four day residency at Cafe OTO. In the eight years between the recordings which make up AC/DC and their last release Spontaneous Combustion, Decoy and each of its members have been practicing individually at the very top of their form. Coming together again in such celebratory circumstances and in the go…
Nonzigo
Anma Ott is excited to announce the debut LP of Spemakh, a six-piece surprisemusic-group from across Germany (Saarbrücken, Nürnberg, Berlin, Bonn). Drawing from all corners of the compositional sphere, from free-jazz to serialism and concrète, and using a wide range of homemade and custombuilt wind and percussion instruments, as well as viola, doublebass, voice-noise, guitar, objects and miniature electronics, the band is aiming for a radical play with uncertainty, involving humour, gesture an…
...For Some Reason That Escapes Us
**200 copies** "It could be a forgotten music, unearthed from the vacuum of nonusage, reincarnating into a musical form sounding obscure and nevertheless familiar, human. Vilhelm Bromander and Fredrik Rasten materialize resonant sound with double bass, guitar and subtle vocal shadings. The music puts just intonation on display and explores its potential in improvised as well as composed music. On ...For Ssome Reason That Escapes Us, the instrumental and vocal sounds entwine into a collective bod…
The Sweetness Of The Water
Spring Heel Jack brings esteemed trumpeter and vanguard composer Wadada Leo Smith to the mix, along with reedsman and longtime Spring Heel collaborator Evan Parker, fellow Brit John Edwards on bass, and drummer Mark Sanders. The Sweetness of the Water, from 2003, is a strong offering from John Coxon and Ashley Wales (the masterminds behind Spring Heel Jack), with a more intimate, live feel than the group’s previous electro-heavy efforts. Parker returns with his bellowing, screaming sax juxtapose…
Cut Air
Jim Denley has been playing flute since 1969 - after 50 years of a curious love/hate relationship with the instrument this is his first solo flute-only recording. He aims to situate this music within a global outlook, with a pacific perspective. Being from a continent, Australia, where there is no flute tradition, he’s taken cues and elements from flute traditions that still have power and currency — the European flute with it’s purity, brilliance and dexterity, the earthy simplicity of bamboos …
Refraction
I first met Mark sometime in the early 90’s when we were both working in Chelmsford. He was running Soundworld Records above the musical instrument shop of the same name, I was over the other side of town in an insurance brokers. I’d played quite a bit of free improvisation at that point, mostly at the old LMC in a quartet called Make Shift together with Peter Urpeth, Stuart Wilding and long-time colleague and playing partner Geoff Collins. But had been away from it for a few years and wa…
Maru Sankaku Shikaku - Circle Triangle Square
Reissue of this Japanese early '70s performance group. The group's name is literally the icons for a "circle," "triangle" and "square," with "Maru Sankaku Shikaku" substituting as a translation for those images. Circle Triangle Square were a painted bunch of commune rockers and percussion tribe second to none, whose random bells, flute and remedial tea-tray flailings were still more like the Godz or Nihilist Spasm Band than the deep theta-space obliterations of Taj Mahal Travellers. Led by futur…
Workshop Concert
Jennifer Allum,violin. Ute Kanngiesser, cello. Grundik Kasyansky, theremin, electronics. Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, zither. Eddie Prévost, percussion. Daichi Yoshikawa, electronics. At Café Oto on Monday 21 May 2012.
Hasselt
Three open improvisations recorded in concert at Kunstencentrum Belgie Hasselt, Belgium in 2010 by sub-groups from the Electrocacoustic Ensemble, plus an extended performance by the whole ensemble: Richard Barrett, Peter van Bergen, Lawrence Casserley, Peter Evans, Agusti Fernandez, Barry Guy, Ishikawa Ko, Paul Lytton, Paul Obermayer, Evan Parker, Walter Prati, Ned Rothenberg, Joel Ryan, Marco Vecchi.
as : is
It was recorded in Bruxelles 2011, has been mixed and mastered by Sabine Ercklentz. A trio recording of forceful fragility, new sounds mixing, acoustic instruments meeting electronics. Random sounds taken care of. Creating 7 different pieces, each one of them representing its own personality. It is very dense and lo-fi. Christine Abdelnour has been one of the front figures in the last years with her new sounds on saxophone. Andrea Neumann is one of the original creators of the Berlin Scene no fu…