Jazz /
Eje Thelin At The German Jazz Festival
An amazing set from Swedish trombonist Eje Thelin – a live date, but a totally excellent session that stands as one of the best demonstration of his talents in the 60s! On the European scene at the time, Thelin was easily one of the most inventive players on the trombone – one of the few who could hit the soulful swing of American musicians like Curtis Fuller or JJ Johnson, but also an artist who was starting to stretch out into new realms too – just a touch of Grachan Moncur and Roswell Rudd, w…
Visionary Fantasies
The 100th record released by Matchless! A series of inspired solo and duo performances from AMM founder, percussionist Eddie Prevost and free improvising saxophonist John Butcher, captured live at London's Iklectik in 2018, splitting the album between solo and duo work as the two morph their instruments into incredible sonic devices, with intense concentration and dialog nothing short of fantastic."Although Eddie Prévost and John Butcher shared the stage at Derek Bailey's 1990 London Company Wee…
A Philosophy Warping (Live) LP
Second album by Turkish free jazzers Konstrukt and the Japanese avant-garde/noise icon Keiji Haino, this time recorded live in concert. Celebrating their tenth anniversary these days, Konstrukt have since been creating an impressive catalog including collaborations/performances with significant musicians like Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Akira Sakata, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Michael Zerang, Alfred Harth, or Alexander Hawkins that gained them an ever growing a…
Noth
Seminal NYC ensemble Zs present their first release on Social Noise: the label dedicated to documenting a career in telepathic collaboration. Noth was recorded live at Cafe Oto in London in April 2017 and, in their usual maximalist (un)convention, features Sam Hillmer on tenor sax, Patrick Higgins on guitar and electronics, Greg Fox on drums and electronics, and Michael Beharie on electronics. Frenetic, impassioned, intentional and above-all connective improv explorations intended to cause neuro…
Odyssey
**A labor of love, this marvelous self-produced six-disc set collects trumpeter Bill Dixon's previously unreleased solo recordings since the 1970s.** 2001 release. Odyssey is the definitive compendium of solo trumpet music by Bill Dixon, as compiled by the artist. Dixon (1925-2010) was known primarily for his small and large ensemble masterpieces of the decades between Intents and Purposes (1967) and Tapestries (2009). While he appeared infrequently in solo performances, he was continually evolv…
machine gun
Cien Fuegos present a reissue of the Peter Brötzmann Octet's Machine Gun, originally released in 1968. One of the most important albums of European free jazz, finally in the Cien Fuegos series. Recorded May 1968 at "Lila Eule", Bremen. Recorded with a whiff of revolution in the air back in May '68, this landmark Brotzmann LP taps into the spirit of its time with a robust garage rock sensibility, lending a considerable urgency to the session, with the highest volume passages taking up far more ai…
Machine Gun - Alternate Takes
Alternate versions, never before released on vinyl from Peter Brötzmann Octet's Machine Gun (1968). As Brötzmann has said: 'It was the feeling, the very naive feeling that we could take a little part in changing the world.' Adopting its title from Don Cherry's nickname for Brötzmann, 'Machine Gun' drew on the huge horn section of Lionel Hampton's 'Flying Home' for inspiration, translating the hilarious saxophonic power of the jump blues and Illinois Jacquet's booting and hollering into an abstra…
Again
Recorded July 2nd and 3rd, 2017 by Øyvind Gundersen at Studio Paradiso, Oslo Mixed October 2017, by Andreas Werliin at Repeat Until Death, Stockholm Mastered by Lupo at Calyx mastering, Berlin Liner notes by Brian Morto. Mats Gustafsson (saxes), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b) and Paal Nilssen-Love (dr) have followed an interesting concept with The Thing. They take the power of blues and heavy rock and mix it with the freedom of improvised music using the riff as the foundation of their pieces.Mats G…
Baby Talk
LP version. Live at Molde International Jazz Festival 2015. All music by James Blood Ulmer. Viking jazz band The Thing team up with one of the legendary men of jazz and blues. Guitarist and singer Ulmer combines (free) jazz, blues, funk, and rock -- always on the edge, melting it to some kind of free funk... In 1980, Ulmer recorded the genre milestone No Wave with John Zorn and Pharoah Sanders. Personnel: James Blood Ulmer - guitar; Mats Gustafsson - tenor and baritone saxophones; Ingebrigt H…
More Intra Musique
When glancing over the history of indigenous French free improvised music, there tends to be two observable categories of musicians - those who worked and collaborated with their counterparts from abroad, and those who worked independently. The former is generally more celebrated, and among those the drummer Jacques Thollot, who worked with Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Sonny Sharrock, Sam Rivers, Joachim Kühn, and numerous others, as well as with French pioneers like Barney Wilen and Jef Gilson, rank…
II
London based saxophonist Colin Webster is quickly establishing himself on the European avant-garde scene. Working with a broad range of collaborators, Webster is known for working from extreme sonic palettes -- from minimal to maximal, constantly pushing boundaries. Webster first worked with Dirk Serries on the landmark Endless Voids performance led by Dead Neanderthals at the 2014 Incubate Festival. Since this initial meeting, the two have worked on different collaborations both live and i…
Trebuchet
LP version. The new album combines again the trademarks of Made To Break: the soulful and grooving play of Ken Vandermark (one of the key musicians/composers in the current free jazz scene) on reeds with the filigran electronic distortions and loops of Christof Kurzmann, with a solid rhythm layer by the young Dutch bassist lloopp Jasper Stadhouders and drummer Tim Daisy. An unusual "jazz" record, fascinating so much the more. Personnel: Ken Vandermark - reeds; Christof Kurzmann - electronics; ll…
Thinking out loud
Boneshaker are Mars Williams (reeds, toy instruments), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums & percussion) and Kent Kessler (bass), three prolific powerhouse musicians, carrying among them a Grammy nomination and decades of experience with the top ensembles in the world. Thinking Out Loud is their third album. Personnel: Mars Williams - reeds; Paal Nilssen-Love - drums; Kent Kessler - bass.
Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis
Proton Pump is a milestone achievement in the winding career of alto saxophonist, gibberish shrieker and jazz legend Akira Sakata. It’s a lightning-fast, real-time cut-up of melody and bare-knuckle action that swings between the avant garde and hardcore be-bop. Sakata is backed by his famed rhythm crew Chikamorachi -- drummer Chris Corsano and acoustic bassist Darin Gray -- and joined by composer and pianist Masahiko Satoh.
Sakata and Satoh emerged out of the late-1960s Tokyo jazz scene -- S…
Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis
As live albums go, Tashi Dorji and Tyler Damon nail it down. No matter the crowd -- head thrashers, Instagram zombies, shaken jazzniks -- the shadow lines of feedback and bombastic percussive bombs are always at peak intensity. Through telepathic engagement the Bhutanese-born guitarist Dorji and Midwestern drummer Damon act with one-mind destruction as Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis perfectly captures. It’s a pure sound for these disruptive, politically tumultuous times. Or Marc Master…
Libido
Libido is a noteworthy moment in contemporary Free Improvisation you should not miss. It’s so fragile, yet uncompromising, so sensitive and confrontative at the same time… It’s simply beautifull" Edition of 200 copies on black vinyl. Comes in a cardboard sleeve with inner envelopes and includes a paper inlay. Blemishes are Thomas Lumley (tenor saxophone) Nicola Hein (guitar), Constantin Herzog (bass) and Niklas Wandt (percussions)
Live at the Magic Triangle
One of the most original cornet players to emerge from the avant-garde, the great 81-year-old Bobby Bradford hasn't dimmed at all over the years – and he sounds wonderful here on cornet in the company of Ken Filiano – bass, effects, Royal Hartigan – drums and Hafez Modirzadeh – tenor saxophone. Bobby made his mark in Los Angeles, playing with Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and John Carter. Over two decades, saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh has developed his pioneering chromodal concept, a cross-cul…
Walthamstow Moon ('61 Revisited)
On November 17th 1961, John Coltrane played at the Granada Theatre in Walthamstow. On November 23rd, 55 years later, free jazz legend Evan Parker made this six track recording in the same space with John Russell and John Edwards. This recording has personal resonances for Evan: he attended Coltrane's performance 55 years ago at the Granada. Evan Parker: "John Russell, John Edwards and I are going to record in that same cinema. It has had the usual chequered life of classic old cinemas of the…
There'll Be No Tears Tonight
2016 release. A reissue of Eugene Chadbourne's There'll Be No Tears Tonight, originally released by Parachute in 1980. One of the absolute essentials of Eugene Chadbourne's oeuvre, what he described as "free improvised country and western bebop", featuring his frantic, skewed interpretations of classic songs such as Merle Haggard's "Swingin' Doors", Roger Miller's "The Last Word In Lonesome Is Me", and Willie Nelson's "Mr. Record Man", There'll Be No Tears Tonight was recorded in Spring of 1980.…
Picnic
2016 release. The first reissue of Picnic, originally released on Data Records in 1985. A little-known gem of Dutch free music, Picnic is the brainchild of cellist Tristan Honsinger, who composed all but one of its 12 compositions. Brilliant and whimsical, the tracks bring to mind Honsinger's work with ICP Orchestra, for whom he has also composed extensively. Here he's working in an incredible ensemble, with trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, saxophonist Sean Bergen, Jean Jacques Avenel on bass, Michael…