Best sellers
Towards The Flame, Vol. 2
"Three of Europe's most acclimated and proven improvisers—pianist Robert Mitchell (Steve Coleman, Greg Osby), bassist Neil Charles, and drummer/percussionist Mark Sanders (Jah Wobble, Rachel Musson)—band together as The Flame for the first time and emerge from pandemic isolation, and the forever wars and broken civics that accompanied it, with a hypnotic performance captured absolutely live on Towards the Flame.
Recorded at London's Cafe Otto in February of 2022, The Flame comes to life like mos…
Busy Butterflies
*2023 stock* "To watch two butterflies in flight is to see a complex intertwining of zigs and zags, dips and weaves, as each—seemingly erratically--rides the turbulence its wings create to carry it along. Together they trace an unchoreographed but nevertheless coherent set of variations on the line as they move with, against and through each other’s paths.
The intricate pattern of two butterflies’ interwoven flight paths stands as a fitting analogue for the nuanced complexity of Busy Butterflie…
Kwiatostan
Despite the Covid-19 outbreak disrupting promotional and concert plans of the band Błoto, the three pressings of the debut album ‘Erozje’ have quickly sold out. Instead of leaving fans with old (recorded in 2018) material, the quartet decided to build the momentum and release the second album in 2020, entitled ‘Kwiatostan’ (‘Inflorescence’).
Mind Maintenance (LP)
Meditative moods from the Chicago duo of bassist Josh Abrams and percussionist Chad Taylor. With Taylor on mbira and Abrams on guimbri, instruments from diverse African states, finding a new pairing that moves past world music and jazz into something new, to do with dance, meditation, listening and convergence. Natural Information Society's Abrams has been using the guimbri, a lute-style bass, for years, but it's rarely sounded better than it does here, alongside Taylor's resonant mbira. Taylor …
Materia Oscura
Squadra Omega is one of the bands which best represents the vast spectrum of the Italian underground. Psychedelic, avant-garde, jazz-rock, improvisation, kraut-rock, rock in opposition and ethno-tribalism blend seamlessly into the work of a collective that moves and expands depending on the urgency of the moment, focused around a core that rotates around the two members OmegaMatt and OmegaG8. In the band's wide discography we find compositional freedom, improvised jam-sessions in and a am…
High Rise II
2023 repress! Pitchfork Best New Reissue: 8.4: Black Editions present a reissue of High Rise's II, originally released in 1986. High Rise exploded onto Tokyo's underground music scene with the roar and reckless abandon of a motorcycle accelerating headlong into a dead man's curve. Born from the explosive chemistry of bassist/vocalist Asahito Nanjo and frenetic guitarist Munehiro Narita, the band blazed a wild new stream of psychedelic guitar music. Their second album is a defining document of th…
September Night
Recorded at Munich’s Muffathalle twenty years ago, in September 2004, this previously-unreleased concert recording of the Tomasz Stanko Quartet is a fascinating document, capturing a developmental chapter in the music between the song forms of the Suspended Night repertoire and the improvised areas that the Polish musicians would explore on Lontano. The Munich show was a highlight in a year in which the Stanko Quartet played a record number of gigs, with extensive tours of the US and Europe. T…
My Prophet
On My Prophet, Oded Tzur together with his quartet of pianist Nitai Hershkovits, bassist Petros Klampanis and the new group member Cyrano Almeida on drums, continues on the idiosyncratic musical path he has carved out for himself – a flowing jazz idiom that seamlessly combines multiple forms of expression –, while delving deeper into the meditative and highly concentrated realm of improvisation. In the process, the saxophonist presents some of his fiercest playing yet.
The quartet’s synergy is…
Pianoon
"The Piano’s been one of the instruments Limpe Fuchs received an academic education for when attending the Music Academy in Munich during the early 1960’s. In the early 1970’s Friedrich Gulda, the world-famous classical pianist, who was eager to leave behind the orthodoxies, limitations and restrictions of the classical music world, got to know Limpe and was inspired by her fearless approach towards music. They started improvising and performing together and their musical dialogue lasted until t…
The Complete Fingers Remember Mingus
For the first time ever, the complete recording sessions for the Spotlite vinyl album ‘Fingers Remember Mingus’ expanded with bonus tracks. The original album sessions, and the extra tracks, were all recorded between 1979 and 1983. Co-produced by Jazz In Britain with Dave Green, who formed and led the Fingers quartet and who provided most of the recordings from his own tape archive and wrote new notes to complement the 24 page booklet which compiles contemporary reviews and articles about Finger…
Ary Lobo 1958-1966 (Limited Dance Edition No.19)
"Hailing from Belém do Para in the north of the country, Ary Lobo was ready to launch his campaign on the south of the country and set out for Rio de Janeiro in October of 1955. There he encountered the usual southern biases against singers from the North and it was only after meeting Gadé, a respected pianist, that he was able to secure an audition at Rádio Mauá. But the opportunity nearly turned into a disaster as he arrived to that session in such a frail state that he couldn't perform. Insuf…
The Magic City
Notable for the sprawling near thirty-minute-long title track, originally released in 1965 this is a testament to Ra’s experimental instincts and indifference to following jazz trends
White1
White1 was originally released in 2003 by Southern Lord as a CD and very limited 3 sided LP edition of 540 copies (in a white sleeve with a sticker, packaged in an embroidered pillowcase and containing a sleeping pill.)Sunn O))) co-founders Stephen O’Malley & Greg Anderson originally conceived the White albums to be “acoustic” but the sessions at Fontanelle’s Magnetic Park studios in Portland Oregon quickly took a far different route toward the psychedelic and the electronic/synthetic, with tran…
White 2
White2 was originally released in 2004 by Southern Lord as a CD and limited double LP edition of 1000 copies (in a tip on gatefold sleeve in various vinyl colors). Sunn O))) co-founders Stephen O’Malley & Greg Anderson originally conceived the White albums to be “acoustic” but the sessions at Fontanelle’s Magnetic Park studios in Portland Oregon quickly took a far different route toward the psychedelic and the electronic/synthetic, with trance and drone experiments.The White2 album was notably t…
Excelsior Mill Sun Ra Excelsior Mill
"The outsized sounds emerging from the Excelsior Mill organ captured here constitute a unique chapter in the Sun Ra story, a dizzying phantasmagoria that offers a whole new view on what Ra could do - It might thrill you; it might unnerve you; it might strum your heartstrings; it might spook the living daylights out of you. Most likely you'll experience all of the above before the jolting musical jeremiad is done. Pressed on violet vinyl! When you're Sun Ra, you don't need synthesizers to evoke a…
O Life, O Light Vol. 1
Originally from Kingsport, Tennessee, New York-based Zoh Amba is a notable rising star in the avant-garde music scene. Growing up in the Appalachian mountains, Amba practiced saxophone to the forest that surrounded her home before she later traveled to study with David Murray in New York, and also at the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music & New England Conservatory in Boston. Today, her music is full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, repeated incantations and powerfully executed Free Jazz…
Sylphine Soporifera
Air is the central element in Antonina Nowacka's third solo album Sylphine Soporifera. The title names an imaginary species and the land they inhabit, inspired by the unreal desert landscape of Paracas and the undulating tree-less hills of the Outer Hebrides, and comes from the writings of Rudolf Steiner, who describes creatures called Sylphs as the spirits of the air, and the Latin word sopor which means deep sleep. As with all her releases, Nowacka's other-worldly vocals coming as if from beyo…
Resolve
Following several releases over the past decade of archival Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings material and collaborations with other ensembles, on labels including Black Truffle, Choice Records, Megafaun and Superior Viaduct, Drag City is excited as well to be able to introduce Resolve, the first release of new Excited Strings music from Arnold Dreyblatt since 2002. Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excite…
Perfectly Beneath Us
Field Records takes a look into the vast catalogue of Celer, the prolific ambient project from Tokyo-based artist Will Long. Perfectly Beneath Us was originally released in 2012 as a CD-R on Still*Sleep, and now it’s being presented as a vinyl release remastered by Stephan Mathieu.
Dedicated To The Bird We Love
A rare psychedelic selection from the Norwegian duo of Nina Johansen on vocals and guitar, and Runa Walle on sitar, guitar and vocals, with support from their Indian friend Satnam Singh on flute and tablas plus some local jazz and rock musicians rounding out the rhythm section. Originally released in 1970 in Norway only, and selling in ridiculously small numbers, this has been something of a legendary cut for lovers of all things psychedelic, just waiting for the right time for a re-release.