Jazz & Improvisation / Psych

*2023 stock* Following high praise for her debut release on Nice Music in 2022, a stack of live performances with an ever evolving cast of players and a collaborative release with Simon J Karis, Isobel D'Cruz makes her next move as Hantu - 'Zither Deluxe'. Puzzlingly uncategorisable, 'Zither Deluxe' is nothing short of a post-minimalist masterpiece. A meticulous capture of the Hantu ensemble in peak form, recorded in two continuous takes over a single day by Patrick Telfer (Helen Svoboda, Isolat…

Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids are back with their first major new studio album in over 3 years, an epic, sprawling new work exploring the future, the past and the urgent reality of the present, ‘Afro Futuristic Dreams’.

For her second Discus Music release, Charlotte Keeffe has convened her regular working quartet to explore open ended versions of her compositions which form the basis of their live set. Captured with energy and clarity in the studio, here we have 60 minutes of real group interaction where the music from each player is balanced equally within the total group sound. Charlotte writes: "Charlotte Keeffe’s Right Here, Right Now Quartet featuring Ashley John Long, Ben Handysides and Moss Freed, is a b…

In the early- to mid-'60s, Gene McDaniels was a successful singing star. He hit the charts with the singles "A Hundred Pounds of Clay," "Tower of Strength," and "Chip Chip". However, McDaniels was a more thoughtful and politically conscious man than his hits would suggest, and after the assassination of Martin Luther King, he left America to live in Europe and focus on songwriting. When he returned to the US in 1970, he was billing himself as Eugene McDaniels the Left Rev. Mc D, and his music to…

Siapiau is Welsh for 'Shapes', as the four members of the band create shapes in the air out of apparently nothing. The beauty of improvisation is that, at its best, it creates something perfectly fitted to the moment it was created in. Siapiau is a new project from four improvisers who have been playing together in different formats for over twenty years. It's a band who aren't afraid of the experimental but aren't afraid of a good groove either. It's improvised music that you could, at times, d…

“Enjoy Foat's rhythmic mastery, jazz-infused mood, and cosmic synths, accompanied by Finland's finest, including the legendary saxophonist Eero Koivistoinen.”

"This is the first LP (following a cassette) released under Drew Gardner’s name and it’s a doozy. Drew is a guitarist, probably best known as a founding member of Elkhorn (although his musical partnerships with Jesse Shepard go back way further than that), and his recent work with Jeffrey Alexander’s Heavy Lidders has also been noteworthy as hell. The band here is a trio with Andy Cush (Garcia Peoples) on bass, and the extremely well documented Ryan Jewell on drums. Drew’s guitar playing is jazz…

Not funk music but a demanding, innovative piece of chamber music and psychedelic avant-garde jazz, Think-Tank-Funk is an unusually daring album to appear in 1973 in Finland. Half-impossible to find on vinyl, the Svart reissue comes added with a fresh interview with Helasvuo. Esa Helasvuo, known for his long musical career encompassing choral music, orchestral works, soundtracks and children's music, had years of composing experience under his belt already (he had, for example, written the Vesa-…

*2022 stock.* You know you're into something good when you open the album you just bought and find a lyrics sheet, then play it and quickly realise the record is actually instrumental. The unruliness that defined Costa Blanca's short-lived career resulted in such nonsensical contradictions, and helps understand why one of Spain's best jazz-rock bands of the 70s never had a proper breakthrough. Hailing from sun-bathed Alicante in the Spanish Levantine coast, Costa Blanca shared the stage with som…

SOLL is an exploration in rhythm, melody and soundscape. A musical story free from preconceived roles with melodies driven by eight carefully tuned congas, framed by electric bass and effected guitars. At times phsychedelic, at times spiritual, always grooving with improvisation at the core.

Wewantsounds present the first retrospective on vinyl of Saravah Records, one of the most influential French labels founded in Paris by singer, songwriter, and producer Pierre Barouh in 1966. Featuring Brigitte Fontaine, Jacques Higelin, Alfred Panou, and many rare tracks reissued on vinyl for the first time, the set gives a glimpse of the free-form, groovy sound of the label between 1965 and 1976. Supervised by Pierre Barouh's son and Saravah historian, Benjamin Barouh. Pierre Barouh became an…

*2023 re-issue.* Behold! Yes, Blue Butterfly, one of the absolute stunners on the revered Selected Sound, is finally available for all the beat-heads. Heavyweight library funk with a psychedelic touch, the super in-demand Blue Butterfly from *deep breath* Hardy's Jet Band, Orchestra Klaus Wuesthoff, Jan Troysen Band and Orchestra Gary Pacific - was originally released in 1971. Incredibly ahead of its time, it's been rare and sought-after for decades. For many aficionados, this is the best Select…

At the time of release Ebony reviewer Phyl Garland said "One needn't be a "piano freak" to appreciate a truly new recording. First of all imagine seven gifted and talented pianists sitting down to seven grand pianos and proceeding to tear up these instruments - musically, that is. ...the torrent of sound springing from their 70 fingers is so powerful and majestic as to be unlike anything one has ever heard."

Terzetto Garibaldi is the meating of three different strong personalities. Roberto Zanisi (Cosmofonia Rudimentale, Eloisa Manera ensemble, Radical Raptors) is a virtuoso musician playing all kind of instruments specialised in string instruments of eastern world. His roots are in ethnic music, jazz, r.i.o. Luciano Margorani (LA1919, Fracture, Artchipel Orchestra, Beauty is in the distance, OppaT) is a versatile musician going from r.i.o, improvisation to electronics. Carlo Actis Dato (Italian Ins…

Born in 2012 when the three were living in the same apartment building in Cairo's Agouza district, the trio's instrumental improvisation-based explorations are propelled by Louca's North African percussion loops and shimmering keys, Shalabi's West African tinged free jazz guitar and grounded by Bishop's driving Krautrock-style acoustic bass. High Tide in the Lowlands was recorded in Brussels at Les Ateliers Claus on September 5, 2017 and is quite an intense experience. Most performances and reco…

3xCD set of Anthropology Band live in 2022 at the Newcastle Festival Of Jazz And Improvised Music and at Café Oto, London. The band's current 8 piece line up was on fiery form for both gigs, playing a mixture of both old and new material to full houses. With the electric 70s music of Miles Davis as its starting point and the improvised abstraction of AACM as its end point, these recording show a band growing out of the studio and going from strength to strength as it hits the stage.

*2023 stock. 300 copies limited edition* The cooperation between Bruno Vansina (saxes - see also ORT007 Vansina Orchestra) and Teun Verbruggen (drums - see also almost all on Rat-Off) makes the pivot of this trio that was formed at the conservatory of Brussels in 1996. They got their initial inspiration from the trio recordings of Sonny Rollins 'Live At The Village Vanguard'. The music of Miles Davis Sextet with John Coltrane and Canonball Adderley, and the music of Chet Baker had it's influence…

Limited edition One Drop color vinyl Cape Town, South Africa-based drummer Asher Gamedze explores relationships of time between music and history on his new album Turbulence and Pulse, out May 5th 2023. Gamedze’s critically-acclaimed debut album Dialectic Soul was released at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Around the release of that record, with friend and writer Teju Adeleye he organized and participated in a joint online discussion “Poesis,” with historian Robin D.G. Kelley …

*222 copies limited release* In the tradition of toddler crayon scribbles on perfectly painted bedroom walls, multi-freshness composer Ben LaMar Gay expands on the teachings of Alabama star spirits and presents a collection of work involving sound, fabric, movement, rivers, shadows, Lagosian memories, light and listening. 'Certain Reveries' is a long-form composition by Gay, performed in duo with percussionist Tommaso Moretti. It was originally filmed by Chris Strong for EFG London Jazz Fest’s 2…

Guitarist and musical organizer Dominique Répécaud has a perfect feel for freerock improvisation, which he has proven especially with his tribal, shape-shifting ensemble Soixante Etages, which often works with sound collages, his former offshoot, the power-trio Etage 34, or the super-quartet Rekmazladzep, featuring saxophonist Daunik Lazro, bastrombonist and trumpeter Thierry Madiot and guitarist Camel Zekri. His most recent activities also include the duo Les Massifs De Fleurs with sound magici…

The Wrocław band Ślina returns with their third studio album, this time recorded with Mikołaj Trzaska. This is not the album of Trzaska + Ślina or Ślina + Trzaska. This is Ślina Trzaska (a kind of wordplay in polish, means: The saliva cracks). A kind of full, new band that was created in the outstanding Sudeten studio Monochrom and is sometimes continued live. Free improvisations and Krautrock motility are still the hallmark of Ślina, but the organic, radical sound of Mikołaj Trzaska's saxophone…

BPJ producer Matt Parker's debut concept recording, finally receiving an official release. Created using the techniques of legendary jazz producer Teo Macero, and inspired by a love of Sci-Fi and progressive jazz and rock. Featuring guest appearances from Stone Foundation members Rob Newton and Anthony Gaylard.

Evil in Oslo represents the Hedwig Mollestad Trio at a critical juncture in their musical development. It was released on the same day as their studio offering Black Stabat Mater. Though both are comprised of Mollestad compositions, they couldn't be more different. Black Stabat Mater is tighter, its musical terrain is more easily discerned as jazz-rock. Evil in Oslo is a different beast. Recorded in two clubs, its tracks feature jams from Mollestad's first three albums in four medleys. It's a si…

Rune Grammofon mainstay Hedvig Mollestad joins forces with legendary 12-piece Trondheim Jazz Orchestra on her latest prog-jazz-metal opus.

Legendary composer/producer David Axelrod's album, Heavy Axe, is a jazz-rock opus that encapsulated the sound of the mid-70s.With help from iconic players Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Cannonball Adderley and George Duke, the album moves between lush funk sounds, full round low end, and majestic orchestral flourishes that made Axelrod's sonic realm a goldmine for sample-hungry hip-hop beatmakers from the '90s to today.180-gram LP remastered from the original tapes and packaged in a tip-on jacket.

The distinctive rolling grooves, growling basslines and blasting horns of Snakehips Etcetera combined to present Nucleus's most energetic record. First released on Vertigo in 1975, original copies of Snakehips Etcetera are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

French non-jazz trio overflowed by Simple Music Experience’s funders Tamara Goukassova, Théo Delaunay and Alexandre Larcier, offering a 40mn of non-simple music madness, and navigating between a dozen of etiquettes from undecided space rock to motorik-infused-dub, medieval folk, cartoon trance; everything under the seal of psychedelia and half-improvisation.Built from drums, violin, springs, samples, reiterations, overdubs, trumpets, synths, distortions; and the appearances of L. Cedrón (Fiesta …

*300 copies limited edition. 2023 stock* Actor/singer/flautist Vesa-Matti Loiri's debut album 4+20 was a largely instrumental piece of psychedelic jazz. The follow-up, Vesku Suomesta, from 1972, is more vocal-oriented but no less psychedelic. With guitar hero Hasse Walli, keyboard experimentalist Esa Helasvuo and free jazz guru Edward Vesala in the lineup and with the material consisting of Finnish folk traditionals, the outcome is an oddly captivating and unique set of vocal jazz caught between…

Theta Six – OUA’s sixth album – is an ever morphing tapestry of new sounds arriving via wormhole direct from the left field progressive sound universe. It evolved from a studio session of bass driven rhythms followed next day by a marathon free-improvisation session. These sessions were amalgamated through a high impact collision which made extensive use of chance procedures, and then carefully sculpted and arranged for horns and voices by Martin and Jan. The music is heard as a single continuou…

Under The Sun is the follow-up to the astonishing Roots and contains yet more absolutely essential Nucleus material. Originally released on Vertigo in 1974, Under The Sun was never re-pressed and of course those original copies are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press. Under The Sun opens with the crisp, medium tempo “In Proc…

Funky synthesized jazz with mood and feeling from the Estonian composer and keyboard veteran Tõnu Naissoo. Backed up by Finnish players including Aleksi Heinola on drums, Temu Åkerblom on bass and Markus Holkko on reeds & flute. First album in our New Library Series, recorded and produced at Jazzaggression’s own Pelto studio!

"This is one of those occasions when we 'labellers of music' get stuck in our own glue. Consider the complication: A group called Indo Jazz Fusions containing Indian and British musicians, an American-born guest, and the result, a uniquely beautiful music which is patently not quite Indian, not quite jazz, not quite contemporary-American. I think the most accurate thing you can say is that it can only be played the way it is by men in contact with the jazz tradition. The group is led, and all th…

*In process of stocking* "A magic dwells in each beginning.” The members of the freeform psych-inducing collective known as Spiritczualic Enhancement Center are of the same mind as Hermann Hesse on that one. Within the mythologically-rich universe assembled by the band - Transporting Salt - Enhanced Edition is a serious deluxe revisit of their most original encounters. In the five years since it was hermetically spawned, the group has stretched into an esoteric wave of musicians counting well ov…

**1000 copies** New Superfly reissue of French progressive Jazz rarity on private label with Teddy Lasry and Bernard Lubat, totally unique cinematic Jazz suites, pretty unique concept album! - strictly limited release to 1000 copies, printed in Japan, with insert and obi

"Crazed time signatures abound as musicians from the West look East for inspiration, infusing their rock and jazz sounds with vibes looted from India and the Far East. A true marriage of Western and (Middle) Eastern music with a fuzzed-out psychedelic edge.Released originally in 1969, Middle Eastern Rock is a unique, compelling fusion record from Armenian-American oud player John Berberian. The Rock East Ensemble, Beberian’s backing band, consists of the artist’s standard group, which specialize…

Come for the leopard, stay for the stone cold jams. Yet another thrilling, funky-prog jazzy-rock fusion beauty from Ian Carr’s Nucleus. Originally released on Vertigo in 1975, Alleycat was never re-pressed so those original copies are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press. Alleycat was the last Nucleus album recorded for the V…

Eric Ghost is well named as he is indeed a mystery man. A contemporary (and best friend) of 1960's funky jazzman Jeremy Steig his self published private press albums are much coveted and difficult to obtain and command high prices. This psychedelic jazz masterpiece was recorded in 1975 and features Dave Valentin bassist Lincoln Goines in his studio debut as well as Jim McGilveray who went on to record with Paul Horn and The Cult. If you're a fan of The Blues Project "Flute Thing", Paul Horn's mo…

*2022 stock.* Way back in the early 1980’s a group of young musicians mostly in their 20's played around the LA jazz scene in a loosely organized jazz/fusion ensemble under the leadership of woodwind instrumentalist/composer-arranger Dennis Dreith. Those musicians, virtually unknown to all except their peers went on to illustrious touring and recording careers working with the biggest names in the music business and added their talents to scores of top charting recordings. Dennis himself grew in…

140-gram LP in gatefold sleeve with a special drawing by Mazen Kerbaj. Mastered for vinyl by Harris Newman. Edition of 500. Entirely recorded at Tunefork Studios on the outskirts of Beirut, Burj al Imam's five tracks include three largely improvised numbers, a loose reworking of Sun City Girls track "The Imam," and a cover of traditional Americana song "Gently Johnny" (a highlight of Alan Bishop's live Alvarius B. shows). True to their habits, the Lebanese trio of trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj, guitari…

*In process of stocking* Official Afrodelic reissue of the ultra-rare Tunde Mabadu’s debut album. Originally released in 1978 on Blackspot label (Decca's West Africa division), Bisu, which includes the supergroovy ‘Red Jeans’, differs from the later 1980 ‘Viva Disco’ album by a much more pure African style. A beautiful and soulful production in which Tunde's deep voice and sax move on the excellent horns arrangements, percussions, the wahwah rhythm guitar and weird keyboards and synths (at times…