John Butcher
John Butcher is an English saxophonist, improviser and composer. John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics. Originally a physicist, he left academia in '82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians.
John Butcher is an English saxophonist, improviser and composer. John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics. Originally a physicist, he left academia in '82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians.
Fathom
*200 copies limited edition. 2024 stock* On Fathom, we hear the sound of the world mirrored back to us. An improvisational collaboration from legendary British multi-instrumentalist John Butcher, Pat Thomas on piano, Dominic Lash on Double Bass, and …
The Glass Changes Shape
"These three artists don’t need volume or soloing to get their message across. Their message is inscribed in elegant lower-case and rarely used aural fonts. You will find yourself leaning forward because not a note or whisper should be missed..." - B…
Unlockings
John Butcher is interested in particular people and their personalities. He prefers not to work in a generic situation, where there's an agreement in advance to play a certain kind of thing, and the music cannot swerve in a sudden fresh direction.
As…
Lower Marsh
The record can be considered a sort of farewell note to one of London’s most crucial venues for improvised music and sound art after its unexpected closure in late 2023 due to gentrification. John Butcher had previously collaborated with these three …
Volatile Object
Tip! The second album from the high-caliber improvising trio Fictional Souvenirs captures a visceral meeting between three of improvised music’s most idiosyncratic, elusive figures. On Volatile Object Pat Thomas (piano and electronics), John Butcher …
Unearthed
"Long-time collaborators and iconoclastic improvisers, drummer Eddie Prévost and saxophonist John Butcher, met at All Hallows Church, in High Laver, Essex in 2023, using the natural ambience of the space to capture these three improvisations, Prévost…
Here And How
"Three musicians who seem like impressionist painters, building, stroke by stroke, on small scale, finally creating a strong statement for the fresh catalogue of the label." - Fotis Nikolakopoulos, Freejazzblog
Lights
Tip! Recorded at the concert marking the release of their previous album (Exta, Fataka 7, 2013), Lights is the second meeting of the trio of John Butcher, Thomas Lehn and John Tilbury. Carefully edited (nothing drastic, just some judicious trimming t…
But Everything Now Left Before It Arrived
*2023 stock. 300 copies limited edition* Guitarist John Russell, a leading figure on Britain's improvised music scene, passed away on January 19, 2021. Born in December 1954, Russell started performing improvised music in London in his late teens, an…
The Very Fabric
*300 coipes limited edition* "The Brønshøj Vandtårn is a concrete water tower, built almost a hundred years ago in the suburbs of Copenhagen. It's 20m wide and 34m high - smaller than some similar shapes I've played in, but with a large, lingering re…
Braids
"Here, then, are three men who have, if you will, won the argument already. They don’t need excess volume or headline soloing to get their message across. Their message is inscribed in elegant lower-case and rarely used aural fonts. You will find you…
The Art Of Noticing
'Making a journey to a Bright Nowhere' series - marking Eddie Prévost's 80th birthday.
Volume 2, Cafe OTO 16th July 2022
Ice In A Hot World
Thermal (John Butcher / Andy Moor / Thomas Lehn) formed in 2001, three musicians from different musical backgrounds, evolving along their personal routes to meet in free improvisations. For twenty years they’ve been taking their subtle and explosive …
Six Hands At An Open Door
Persistence of Sound celebrates the composer Richard Orton (1940–2013) with a selection of electroacoustic and computer music from across his career.
Cold Duck
No relation to the sparkling wine of the same name, Cold Duck is instead a series of nine biting improvisations by S4, an ad-hoc, all-star quartet of soprano saxophone innovators – one British, John Butcher, and the others Swiss: Urs Leimgruber, Hans…
Live at Cafe Oto
CD version. Japanese bluesman Kan Mikami is nothing less than an unalloyed force of nature; a skin-shredding blast of frozen wind from the poor, rural north of Japan that he calls home. In the late 1960s, like thousands of other Japanese young people…
Glints
"The three musicians seem to exchange and overlap tones, creating the feeling of a single and continuous arc extending, curving in space, a kind of bridge or thoroughfare outward." – Stuart Broomer (liner notes) Magda Mayas piano John Butcher tenor a…
Lamenti Dall'infinito
"If this quartet most resembles a jazz band among these Berlin recordings, it might be in its speculative assembly. [...] It’s akin to a novel, Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch, designed with multiple reading sequences, or Nanni Balestrini’s Tristano, in w…
Shaped & Chased
Tip! "Lehn and Robair are particularly well-matched. Lehn is a musician who came to electronics from the piano, while Robair’s resources include both electronics and percussion. Each matches readily with acoustics and circuitry and creates a remarkab…
La Pierre Tachée
"… a kind of ideal duet, no imitation conversation but two simultaneous composers each repeatedly provoked and silenced, prodded and enchanted by the other…" – Stuart Broomer (liner notes) Sophie Agnel piano John Butcher tenor and soprano saxophones