Jazz /
Daughter of War
"Daughter of War" is the debut album of the new four-piece band It Was Her Idea. Vocalist Juliana Venter and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love have already worked together in Paal’s PNL Circus project and wanted to continue that collaboration in a different direction — to explore other aspects they touched on in Circus and to work with material not solely composed by Paal. Their first choice for bassist was Ole Morten Vågan, who on his own is an orchestra. Ole Morten and Paal have long been friends with…
What Just Happened?
"What Just Happened?" is an album that collects four pieces by Paal Nilssen-Love, composed for smaller configurations of his Large Unit ensemble. The pieces are for specific instruments: snare drum, saxophone and tuba — from three to six performers. This act of stripping the ensemble down to single instruments does not mean sparse minimalism, quite the opposite, as Paal explores the possibilities — and limits — of the individual instruments. Contributing to the music's quality is the incredible …
Calls!
"Calls!" is the third album by Paal Nilssen-Love Circus, following "Pairs of Three" (2022) and the live recording "Turn Thy Loose" (2025). Circus originally emerged from Large Unit as a side project but quickly grew into its own band. The group performs music composed by Paal, and in live performances the musicians are free to play any parts of any song at any time. On this studio recording they take a different approach: the songs were recorded separately and carefully produced. On the live alb…
Steam Waterfall
«Steam Waterfall» is the second album in an expanded version of Paal Nilssen-Love's Large Unit. But this isn't the same Extra Large Unit you heard on «More Fun Please» from 2018. This is a live recording from the Oslo Jazz Festival in 2022 featuring core members of Large Unit along with a range of younger musicians Paal had met through workshops and teaching in the two years leading up to the concert. The number of musicians heard is 25—the largest Unit to date—but during the performance, there …
Hohai Bushi
«Hohai-Bushi» is the meeting between Paal Nilssen-Love and his Large Unit ensemble, here in a 13-person lineup, and the legendary Japanese musician Akira Sakata. Since the 1960s, Sakata has been one of the leading saxophonists in free jazz and improvisation, starting with the Yamashita Trio, continuing with his own ensembles, and later transitioning to younger musicians from various genres, including noise and experimental music. Akira Sakata is a living legend from the last 50 years of radical …
Transcendent Universe
Pianist Joel Futterman and bassist William Parker deliver an epic improvisatory journey on this three-track, hour-long studio recording. Futterman and Parker have worked together in duo and group contexts since the 1980s, and their deep creative bond is audible in every note of this suite.
Hidden Fire
On Hidden Fire, Sun Ra turns the late‑’80s Arkestra into a digital seance, using Yamaha DX7 shards, strings and haunted vocals to swap cosmic swing for dissonant ritual, opening one last, ominously glowing portal in his Saturnian saga.
Convergence: Live In China
On Convergence: Live In China, William Hooker and John King turn a Shenzhen stage into a pressure chamber, stretching one unbroken hour of drums and guitar from whispering tension to volcanic release in a charged act of real‑time communication.
Klotski
On Klotski, Lao Dan Quartet throws tenor, bamboo flute and suona into a Chicago crucible, where Mabel Kwan, Joshua Abrams and Michael Zerang keep reshaping time and texture until free jazz feels like a sliding puzzle in permanent motion.
Four Ways
On Four Ways, Roscoe Mitchell joins Stephen Rush’s shape-shifting Yuganaut trio for an electrically unstable encounter, where reeds, synths and oddball acoustics melt into one long, multi-hued improvising organism.
Celebrating Fred Anderson
On Celebrating Fred Anderson, Roscoe Mitchell honors a fellow Chicago giant with a live quartet that turns remembrance into motion, weaving Fred’s themes and Mitchell’s originals into long, tensile arcs of chant, swing and open-form ritual.
Before There Was Sound
On Before There Was Sound, Roscoe Mitchell’s 1965 quartet with Fred Berry, Malachi Favors and Alvin Fielder captures the AACM language in embryo: sharp themes, free rhythm and a restless sense of form already pushing past hard‑bop borders.
Old / Quartet Sessions
On Old/Quartet Sessions, Roscoe Mitchell’s 1967 Art Ensemble - with Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors and Phillip Wilson - appears in raw formation, sketching the grammar that would soon detonate as one of free music’s most inventive bands.
L-R-G / The Maze / S II Examples
On LRG/The Maze/S II Examples, Roscoe Mitchell frames three radically different constructions - a lucid brass-and-reeds trio, a labyrinthine percussion octet and a stark soprano solo - as parallel studies in space, timbre and compositional intelligence.
Nonaah
On Nonaah, Roscoe Mitchell turns the alto saxophone into a fault line, setting stark solos, prickly duets and dense small‑group pieces against one another to test how far a single composition and a single sound can be stretched.
Independent / Interdependent
On Independent / Interdependent, Savina Yannatou, Gonçalo Almeida and Costis Drygianakis turn a live trio into a dark, hovering organism, where voice, double bass and electronics circle each other in tense, shifting proximity, testing how far independence can stretch without breaking connection.
Mushin
On Mushin, Susana Santos Silva and Vasco Trilla strip trumpet and percussion down to pure responsiveness, letting sound arise and vanish like breath in a Zen exercise, where every gesture feels both unpremeditated and utterly focused.
Collective Heliophobic Dream
Suncuts emerged in 2023 from the earlier project Teufelskeller, originally founded by Anton Ponomarev in Moscow. Teufelskeller was invited to perform at the Xciting Festival in Stuttgart but due to various serious reasons the bass player and drummer were unable to go. Ponomarev brought in Swiss drummer Maxime Hänsenberger and Brazilian bassist Felipe Zenicola as replacement musicians. Both integrated quickly, and the new line-up performed the scheduled concerts. Although the three musicians had …
Vonski Speaks
On Vonski Speaks, Von Freeman stretches out with his New Apartment Lounge Quartet at Jazzfest Berlin 2002, turning four long pieces into a swaggering, late‑career testimony to Chicago grit, club intimacy and unforced authority.
Serenade & Blues
On Serenade & Blues, Von Freeman eases his Chicago tenor into an after‑hours glow, trading the swagger of Have No Fear for late‑night ballads and slow blues that stretch time without ever losing their bite.