John Tchicai
West Africa Tour (Sierra Leone, Liberia & Guinea), April 1985
Groundbreaking box, 4LP in a cardboard box (paste-on front/stamps on back, practically hand-made) with a 15 pages booklet, black vinyls; ltd ed, numbered - ALL recordings available here for the 1st time! "One of music's most amazing powers is its ability to tell a story. In the case of The African Tapes, three musicians lived an incredible story and transformed the experience into a narrative of pure sound. Lengthy negotiations with various foreign ministries and embassies gave fruit in 1985 …
Treader Duos
Recorded February 2008, this album captures a specially organised Treader concert at St Giles-in-the-Fields church in London's West End. A series of duos played at the event, each improvising over the course of a twenty-five minute set. First up, the excellent John Butcher (on tenor and soprano saxophones) pairs with drummer Mark Sanders for 'Tooth Pivot', an incredible opener that stumbles into life through the reverberant performance space, with Butcher at first sounding measured and contempla…