Mats Gustafsson
Saxplayer, improviser and composer. Soloartist and international tours and projects with a.o. Peter Brötzmann, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O´Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Ken Vandermark and in working groups The Thing, Sonore, FIRE!, Gush, Boots Brown, Swedish Azz and Nash Kontroll. Large ensemble work with Barry Guy New Orchestra, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet and the NU – ensemble.1800 concerts and over 200 recordproductions in Europe, Australia, Africa, North & South America and Asia.
Saxplayer, improviser and composer. Soloartist and international tours and projects with a.o. Peter Brötzmann, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O´Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Ken Vandermark and in working groups The Thing, Sonore, FIRE!, Gush, Boots Brown, Swedish Azz and Nash Kontroll. Large ensemble work with Barry Guy New Orchestra, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet and the NU – ensemble.1800 concerts and over 200 recordproductions in Europe, Australia, Africa, North & South America and Asia.
Member of: DUX Orchestra
Xylophonen Virtuosen
A collection of improvised duets with guitarist Jim O’Rourke and reedist Mats Gustafsson. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2xLP & digital and marks the first ever vinyl pressing with previously unreleased tracks. Tracks A1, B3 (excerpt), C1, C2 and D3 (excerpt) were in parts or in its complete form released on legendary Incus label (1999) with a different mix and master. The duo recorded the improvised duets at Chicago’s Acme Studios during 1999, with Gustafsson on te…
Volume 1. "Inhale"
“The debut record of Luft (the duo comprised of Mats Gustafsson and Erwan Keravec) - is a two volume album of exceptional explorations within the bagpipe and reed universe ——unknown music of poetic beauty and high energy cascades. Fast moving changes in texture and layers vs static repetitions and alternatives densities and melody treatments! Vol 1 - is focusing on the interaction between the two persons/ instruments - with a huge variety in extended techniques and various ways of treating the i…
Instant Opaque Evening (2LP)
An epic second installment from the trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs, Rob Mazurek, nearly 90 minutes of intense live performances from January 2020. They converge here on a wide swath of sounds: expansive free improvs, full-tilt electronics, alt-universe chamber music and spontaneous arrangements of three previously released Grubbs’ songs.
Shadows of Tomorrow b/w The Brain Produces Electrical Waves
** First pressing of 350 with artwork by Jaime Zuverza ** Astral Spirit presents Shadows of Tomorrow b/w The Brain Produces Electrical Waves by Mats Gustafsson & Joachim Nordwall. Recorded in Nickelsdorf and Brännö in 2019-2020. Mixed by JN at the Gothenburg Sound Experiment.
Duo / Timing
** 2021 Stock ** Meeting at GOK Sound studio in Kichijoji, Japan in front of a small audience, Swedish baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Fire!) also performing on flutephone and live electronics, and Otomo Yoshihide (Ground-Zero, Regenorchester) performing on guitar, turntable and banjo, recorded these eight amazing improvisations of unusual and unique attitudes and timing. After 2 years it materialized on CD work at all. Mats Gustafsson's strongest baritone saxophone, self-made i…
Wantlist In the Black Dot World of Adventures
Welcome to the second release in the Black Dot LP series. Black Dot albums are all recorded live at the White Spot performance space in beautiful downtown Nanaimo BC, a venue which Mats Gustafsson visited on June 23, 2019. Mats is many things to many people -- a doting father, a fancier of fine bourbons, an enthusiastic sport fisherman and a record collector of unparalleled passion. But he is probably best known as a musical performer/composer/explorer with world-gobbling intentions. On this eve…
Torturing The Saxophone
2020 stock. 2014 release. One of the most celebrated folks in improvised music, Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson made three ultra-limited edition vinyl LPs, each featuring a different dedication to a favorite musician from the past. Released in batches of 99, these records found Gustafsson playing compositions by Duke Ellington, Albert (and his brother Donald) Ayler, and the important post-bop baritone player Lars Gullin. Long out-of-print, these priceless slabs of free music have quickly bec…
Hokusai
NoBusiness presents Hokusai, a new set of recordings by Sabu Toyozumi and Mats Gustafsson, recorded live on 11th and 12th June, 2018 at Jazz Spot Candy, Chiba, Japan by Kunimitsu Tsuburai / 粒来国充. Concert produced by Miyoko Hayashi / 林美葉子Jazz Spot Candy. Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios.
Sabu Toyozumi 豊住芳三郎 - drumsMats Gustafsson - baritone saxophone, fluteophone, flute
Worn. Kissed.
* In process of stocking. Includes 1 LP , 48 pages book (LP size) & 1 piece of 500 pieces puzzle of Edward Jarvis painting ''The Hypnagogic Puzzle'' * Underflow Records presents Worn.Kissed. by Mats Gustafsson. The box-set is inspired by paintings of Edward Jarvis exhibited at the Underflow Record Store & Art Gallery in January-March 2020. Recorded by Alex Bolpasis and mixed by Gustav Penka at Suono studio. Mastering and mastercut by Andreas Lubich at Loop-O, Berlin.Mats Gustafsson is a Saxplaye…
Actions For Free Jazz
Edition of 500, no repress, no digital** Smalltown Superjazzz was a free-jazz subsidiary label to Smalltown Supersound from 2005-2012. The label has been dormant in the years 2012 to 2019, but is now reborn as the AFJ-Serie. The AFJ-Series represents a new start - built on the foundation and heritage of the Superjazzz label. AFJ-Series is short for Actions for free jazz. This was the slogan for Smalltown Superjazzz and was borrowed at the time from Don Cherry & Krystzof Penderecki’s The New Eter…
She Knows...
Temporary Super Offer! The Thing started as a recording project in 2000, for the newly formed label Crazy Wisdom, run by Christian Falk, Conny Charles Lindström and me. I wanted to put together a trio, to record some Don Cherry pieces and since I had recently played with Paal in Stockholm and heard Ingebrigt playing live, I knew they were tight. So, things went where they went.
I invited the two young Norwegians to Stockholm for a recording date at Atlantic Studios. One day of recording for the …
Duck Walks Dog (With Mixed Results)
"NoBusiness presents archive studio recordings by DUX Orchestra, which featured Mats Gustafsson and Will Connell, Jr. among its revered members. Duck Walks Dog (With Mixed Results) was recorded on 16th October, 1994 in NYC by Steve Guttenberg and features music by guitarist JC Morrison, arranged in collaboration with Dave Sewelson.Dave Sewelson - baritone saxophoneMats Gustafsson - baritone saxophoneWill Connell, Jr. - alto clarinetDave Hofstra - bassSusie Ibarra - drumsWalter 'Sweets' Perkins -…
The Underflow
An übertrio drawn from distinct parts of the creative music spectrum, The Underflow was recorded during a sizzling two-night stand in May 2019. In a series of duets and trios, guitarist David Grubbs, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and trumpeter Rob Mazurek met headlong for the first time, converging not only their acoustic and electric instruments, but at times submerging themselves in a tangle of electronics, then emerging into shamanic bell-shaking chant or chest-rattling howl. Ranging from extr…
The Shithole Country & Boogie Band
In 2018, Mats Gustafsson provided raw saxophonic material for the elusive Wendy Gondeln, who sometimes applied a scalpel, sometimes a pneumatic drill, to rework, remix, reimagine all the Swede's squeaks, pops, blats, and tones. In some places, Gondeln adds violent violin to thicken the roux, making Ornette's fiddling seem like Yehudi Menuhin. Uncommon bedfellows: disjunct techno and improvised music. But the Shitholes make it work brilliantly, even inviting minimal techno pioneer and co-founder …
Link
Edition of 500, no repress, no digital. After closing out Smalltown Superjazzz’ run in 2015, Mats Gustafson fires up its new iteration - Actions For Free Jazz - in the lacquer crackling, spittle-riddled investigations of ‘Link’ with avant-turntablist Christian Marclay Both known for charting paths less travelled, here they point to strange, liminal zones of perception on their first collaboration, with Gustafsson’s electronically processed tenor and baritone sax channelling an ecology of wee be…
Brace For Impact
Some recordings, the world is just not ready for them when they're made. In 2008, Swedish born, Austrian resident saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Poughkeepsie, New York multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee made a suite of studio recordings, Brace For Impact that they loved so much they immediately culled, mixed, and mastered them. A decade later, when the original label for which they were planned had not yet issued them, Gustafsson and McPhee offered them to Corbett Vs. Dempsey, and when the label …
Timeless
Discussing this impending studio date, the indefatigable saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and intrepid vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz decided to compose new pieces for one another. The resulting tracks -- which also include a hallucinogenic arrangement of "Timeless", dedicated to its composer, the recently deceased guitarist John Abercrombie -- show a markedly different side of both musicians. Quiet, at times tender, this meeting of like-minded musicians evoked a new kind of tension, not one birthed o…
How To Raise An Ox
Trost presents the first vinyl edition of How To Raise An Ox by Zu and Mats Gustafsson. Initially released on CD in 2005 by Atavistic. Features new cover artwork. Long-running intense jazz/noise-core band Zu from Italy teams up with Viking-saxophonist extraordinaire Gustafsson (The Thing, Fire!). Mastering by Andy Moor (The Ex) and Colin McLean.Personnel: Mats Gustafsson - baritone saxophone; Luca Tommaso Mai - baritone saxophone; Massimo Pupillo - bass; Jacopo Battaglia - drums.
Discaholics!
**Small repress available** Swedish saxophone player/improviser/ composer/music archivist Mats Gustafsson has worked in the outer regions of jazz, avant-garde, experimental rock and free improvisation for more than 35 years. Gustafsson is also a passionate record collector who strongly believes that actively nurturing the urge to seek for rare and obscure vinyl is a gateway to higher musical knowledge – a knowledge that it is a musician’s duty to share. He has coined the term Discaholism – and o…
Marvel Motor
**Edition of 110 copies only** A beautifully conceived record, housed in a silkscreend slip-in cover with a paste on picture – and one that sounds equally beautiful too – a super limited picture disc that features the mighty Mats Gustafsson working on bass sax and live electronics – while getting some heavy accompaniment from the flaming drums of Didi Kern (of Bulbul fame) The music is kind of a long, sonic text – with the drums almost always pointing forward with a pulsating vibe, which frees …