SETT
SoundScapes Festival # 4 Berlin 2023
"Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström has been calling Berlin home for nearly 40 years, and for over 10 of them, he has been organizing concerts at venues around the city, featuring a who-is-who of the city's rich improvisation scene and beyond, under the title "SoundScapes." Starting in 2016, he extended the concept and held the first two SoundScapes Festivals in Helsinki, followed by one in Munich, and then, finally, in his adopted hometown. SoundScapes #4 was held over two mid-autumn nights in …
Mental Shake
*2025 stock* CD version. Cafe OTO's tenth Otoroku release sees a return to the group that kick-started the label -- the veteran German reedsman and free-jazz pioneer Peter Brötzmann with the long-running London bass/drums partnership of John Edwards and Steve Noble. After the release of The Worse The Better, that group went on to play a series of devastating shows in Europe and to emerge as one of Brötzmann\'s finest working groups. Over the same period, Peter was developing a deep rapport with …
Solo Acoustic Guitar Improvisations VII
'Solo Acoustic Guitar Improvisations VII' is volume 7 in a series Dirk Serries is recording in honor of the Höfner archtop guitars. A few years ago Dirk fell in love with the acoustic guitar and specifically the Höfner brand for its specific and unique harsher sound their vintage archtop guitars hold. It's definitely far away from Dirk's electric constructions but at the same the acoustic approach is merely another way for him to express his fascination for sound in particular and how you can …
Here today gone tomorrow
"In the quartet on this album, Paul Dunmall has returned to his first love: totally free improvisation based on interaction between the four players. Many aspects of Paul Dunmall’s playing are apparent on this album. His approach is to listen very carefully to what is happening around him and to react to it. If you see him play live, you will see how he concentrates on the flow of the music, often stepping back and allowing the music to develop before choosing the right moment to enter or re-ent…
The Quartet
Huge tip! It is a huge honour to announce the publication of Peter Brotzmann’s final concerts on Otoroku. When we invited Peter to do a residency at Cafe OTO back in February 2023 we had no idea these would be his last ever shows and he played with such power it would have been hard for anyone present to believe he would never play publicly again. Recorded over two nights this grouping of Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, John Edwards on bass and Steve Noble on drums feels especially resonant and …
Volume 1
*Limited Edition of 100. Pink Vinyl! 2024 stock* Super groups are not a riskless endeavor—but when they’re made up of longtime friends and master improvisers, they tend to work. On their collaboration, simply titled Volume 1, up-and-coming American saxophonist John Dikeman (When The Time Is Right, 577 Records, 2021) is accompanied by a group of UK-based music masters: pianist Pat Thomas, a 577 Records mainstay (Shifa Live at Cafe Oto 2019, BleySchool 2019, Shifa Live in Oslo 2020, Educated Guess…
Floating Similarities
*100 copies limited edition* Freshly on Creative Sources is this debut duo collaboration by French 11 string guitarist Christian Vasseur and Belgium's Dirk Serries on his archtop guitar. Performed and recorded at the stunning Oude Klooster chapel in Brecht (Belgium). Both musicians met each other for the first at the Alternative Guitar Festival, organised by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg in 2023 at Haekem Theatre (Brussels, Belgium) and immediately felt a kindred spirit for the abstract and immense…
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 musicians in different contexts, but Unlockings documents a first-of-its-kind quartet line-up.
"I wanted a new combination, but made of players I’d worked with over the years" says Butcher. "Choosing is probably 75 % about the player and 25 % about t…
Schneider Serries
Recorded June 2023 at the Loundry Room, Hückelhoven Germany.Recorded, mixed and mastered by Peter Koerfer at the Unknown, Döhr Germany.
Dirk Serries : guitarJörg A. Schneider : drums
Three On A Match
Sophie Agnel plays the whole piano. Its body matters as much as its strings. The keyboard's lid is just as good closed as it is open - in fact it’s best slammed open and closed rapidly. Joined by bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble, Three on a Match explodes the piano trio - each player sparking off the other so quickly that it’s impossible to figure out who lit the flame.
Flight Mode (Live In Berlin 2023)
"Legendary saxophonist and improviser Harri Sjostrom knows how to build bands. This has certainly been the case since the Lifting The Bandstand album, but back then the great Cecil Taylor was the leader. This is certainly one of the many lessons Harri Sjostrom has learned from the brilliant pianist and leader. He has since given evidence of this an endless number of times. The latest band he has established is a quartet with Elisabeth Harnik, arguably one of the most important pianists in improv…
The Invisible
"Masters of musical tension. Maintaining tension, resolving tension. It's an integral part of improvised music, but of this international trio in particular. Rodrigo Amado and Dirk Serries first bonded over a couple of duo concerts in the summer of 2018. With his roots in (free) jazz, lauded Portuguese saxophonist Amado became an intriguing sparring partner for the Belgian guitarist, who's been involved in a more abstract style for some time now. With English Andrew Lisle, a drummer with an extr…
The Defiance of Self
*200 copies limited edition* After "The Disintegration Of Silence", marked as a continuation of the work between visual artist Stefano Gentile and Belgian ambient musician Dirk Serries, Dirk returns to Stefano's Silentes/13 label with a new album, entitled "Defiance Of Self". In the wake of its predecessor, Dirk worked on this album in January 2024 using his motherboard of pedals and an electric guitar to create this slightly darker and experimental album. Once again performed and recorded entir…
At Future Dawn
"At Future Dawn" is the second Cloudchamber release for Dirk Serries. Picking up where Dirk left off with "Nocturnal Discord", this album pushes those ambient boundaries once more. Known since the early eighties for his trademark ambient music under the Vidna Obmana pseudonym, Dirk continues to steer his music into new territory using a motherboard of pedal effects and one electric guitar. "At Future Dawn" contains music that constantly breaks down and build itself up again, all done real-time w…
Tryptophan Suite
*200 copies limited edition* Our 2nd release in the Axis series, graced with the beautiful b&w photography of Martina Verhoeven, is a special one. When José Lencastre came over last year for a recording with Dirk Serries (a pending release somewhere), we did this last-minute trio concert for the Jazzblazzt series in The Netherlands. With Martina Verhoeven on the electric crumar piano, this trio became something else. Tryptophan Suite represents the very first notes this new trio played togeth…
Live / Studio
Recorded partly at London’s Cafe Oto and Cable Street Studios, 'Live / Studio' represents the debut by established British improvisers Phil Durrant and Daniel Thompson. Moving within and between close textural territories, the duo explores shifting sonic patterns and a dynamic interplay resulting in an intimate listening experience
A Field Perpetually At The Edge Of Disorder
*2024 stock*I n his review of Exta, the critic Brian Olewnick commented that “there's a tendency on the part of [John Tilbury's] younger companions to defer a bit to him”, adding that, in his view, this was not “necessarily a bad strategy”. In this encounter, their first as a trio, John Edwards and Mark Sanders do not defer to Tilbury at all, and it proves to be perhaps the best strategy of all. This is a vigorous music of equals, the democratic clamour of three distinct personalities committed …
Obsidian
The first release of 2024 is in! After their well-received debut duo album Puncture Cycle (released five years ago on A New Wave Of Jazz - this album you find here), British key improviser Benedict Taylor (viola) and Dirk Serries (archtop guitar) are back with a new duo album. An album they recorded at the fantastic Oude Klooster chapel in Brecht (Belgium) on August 11th, 2023. Full-on interaction, fast-paced dialogue while still listening and corresponding in depth with the sublime acoustics …
Just Another Day At Home
John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, John Butcher and many others. Edwards studied art and knew from very early on that his future wouldn't be a desk job. From inheritance money he bough…
Hunt At The Brook Again / Hunt At The Brook With Neil Metcalfe
Tip! In Vital Weekly 1397, I reviewed a CD by Dirk Serries, Benedict Taylor and Friso van Wijck they released on the Portuguese label Creative Sources Recordings. Now, the Portuguese entered Serries' label New Wave Of Jazz. The improvised music scene is small but very busy. A trio consisting of Carlos "Zingaro" on violin, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and José Oliveira on percussion. They played on July 30, 2021, in Lisbon and for the title, they took inspiration from Kurt Schwitters. I think the…