Adam Shead
Stinger
Recorded live at Chicago’s renowned listening rooms, Constellation in February 2023, and Hungry Brain in July 2023, Stinger captures an exhilarating blend of precision and spontaneity. This album showcases a band that has fine-tuned its sound while embracing the thrill of unpredictability. At the forefront of this musical conversation is Keefe Jackson, a saxophonist whose deep and resonant tones on the tenor saxophone reflect his artistry as both composer and performer. Celebrated for his abilit…
Spi-raling Horn
*2025 stock* Irritable Mystic Records and Balance Point Acoustics are thrilled to announce the release of Spi-raling Horn, an audacious, boundary-blurring album from a staggering quartet: bass clarinetist Jason Stein, pianist Marilyn Crispell, double bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Adam Shead.
Born from a chance collaboration rooted in a shared appreciation between Smith and Crispell for the radical visual art of Cy Twombly, Spi-raling Horn invites listeners into a sonic universe where improv…
Hum
*2025 stock* Since the Stein/Smith/Shead trio's inception in the fall of 2021 they have quickly become one of the most creative and prolific bands working in the fields of jazz and improvised music. Hum see's the group moving deeper into their collective language, producing an album that is unlike any bass clarinet trio album recorded to date. Throughout this recording Jason Stein proves again and again that he is indeed the greatest living bass clarinetist working in improvised music today. Dam…
Spi-raling horn
The trio of bass clarinetist Jason Stein, double bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Adam Shead’s collaboration with master pianist Marilyn Crispell came to fruition by way of Smith and Crispell’s mutual admiration of iconoclastic visual artist Cy Twombly. Due to their shared appreciation and dialogue surrounding Twombly’s work Smith began to conceptualize what shape a collaboration between the two might take. Smith’s ideation ultimately resulted in two concerts and a studio engagement with Crispe…