Music from United States

Deluxe reissue, on Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series, roduced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tape 180g audiophile vinyl reissues in deluxe gatefold packaging."A brilliant statement of modernist jazz from Sam Rivers – one of his groundbreaking early albums for Blue Note, and one of the most challenging sessions issued by the label during the 60s! The record's a real departure from Rivers' already-great Fuscia Swing Song – with tunes that go farther outside,…

**Edition of 300 copies** The time-stopping tract of ’In, Demons, In!’ is a naturally elemental drone collaboration between eminent experimentalists Jim O’Rourke and CM Von Hausswolff for their eternal admirers at iDEAL Recordings. Offering a transfixing peek behind the curtain of pure black hole drone dynamics, ‘In, Demons, In!’ finds the American in Japanese exile and the proclaimed monarch of the imaginary kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland meeting on common ground after 26 years of international…

**800 copies** Key System Recordings present a reissue of Yusef Lateef's "Hikima: Creativity", originally released in 1983. In the early 1980s, famed jazz saxophonist and musical luminary Yusef Lateef traveled to Nigeria as a Senior Research Fellow to study, write, and teach at Ahmadu Bello University. He cut this record while there; pressed locally in Nigeria, it remained virtually unknown by jazz fans and collectors for over 30 years. On Hikima, Lateef leads a nonet of African musicians in sev…

2019 small repress. First of all, Bengt Berger -- a pioneer of the Swedish underground of the '70s and historical member of bands such as Archimedes Badkar and Arbete Och Fritid -- is a versatile drummer-percussionist and well-educated ethnomusicologist with several research sojourns in India and Ghana. Deeply influenced by Hindustani, Carnatic, and West Africa music, he founded the Bitter Funeral Beer Band in 1980, an ensemble of 12 elements, basing his ideas on the traditional funeral music of…

**Limited edition, double-LP; comes in a gatefold sleeve; edition of 750** Previously unreleased and not known to exist soundboard recording of Alice Coltrane Sextet live in Berkeley, California in 1972. Featuring a dream line-up of Charlie Haden, Ben Riley, Ashish Khan, Pranesh Khan, Bobby W., and Alice Coltrane. Newly re-mastered from the original tapes. In 1972 (Journey In Satchidananda/Lord of Lords era), during one of Alice Coltrane's most creative periods, she gathered five musicians for a…

Originally released on Saturn Records in 1979, both Sleeping Beauty and On Jupiter are studio recordings by the large Sun Ra ensemble (including electric guitar and electric bass) and, for the most part, feature the first recordings of the titles included on them (though most were played live a few months earlier). These two releases belong together, since they were recorded and released in close proximity and are both long, groove-based, pieces that range from proto-disco to relaxed groove-driv…

Originally issued as El Saturn 101679, recorded on 10/16/79, this incredible album is a mixture of live recording and studio post-production: 'On Jupiter' sounds unique to any other album Sun Ra made. The arkestra reflects a disco pulse right back on itself, and delivers one of the most cohesive albums of their career. The title track is a masterpiece of gentle atonal harmony, while 'Ufo' pushes along at a cracking disco-ish pace with fierce brass and spacey dub effects. On Jupiter uses more tha…

Dead Beats: A new composition by American avant-garde composer Alvin Curran for Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt, brought together with the first ever recording of Inner Cities No 9 '9-11-01' The piano has always been at the core of Alvin Curran's oeuvre. Granted, you'd expect a statement like that from the liner notes to a collection of his piano pieces. In this case, however, he's said so himself, in a candid interview with sound artist Andrew Liles: "It’s the focal point and kind of a totem fo…

Rich, multi-layered vocal studies and shortwave electronics from avant-garde polymath John Duncan (LAFMS, collaborator with Pan Sonic, Chris & Cosey, Jim O’Rourke and countless others), bolstered by synths, drum machines and arrangements by Joachim Nordwall. Highly recommended if you’re into anything from Scott Walker and Pere Ubu to Jay Glass Dubs, Coil and Ilpo Väisänen’s classic Liima Versions.​  Venerable avant-garde composer John Duncan follows his prized cycle of cover versions ‘Bitter Ear…

Professor, herbalist and healer, Milford Graves is first and foremost one of the world's great geniuses of the drum. Rarely heard live, even more rarely found in the studio, a new recording by Milford Graves is a special event. Long overdue, this is the CD that free jazz fans and every drummer in the world has been waiting for: his music for solo drums. Intense, shooting off in all directions at once and yet always firmly rooted in the tradition, Tzadik is proud to release this important and his…

Temporary super offer!  Pharoah Sanders, live at the Antibes Jazz Festival in Juan-les-Pins on July 21, 1968. Experimental jazz titan Pharoah Sanders made a lasting impact with his unorthodox approach to tenor saxophone. Born Farrell Sanders in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1940, he was given the nickname Pharoah by grandmother, in reference to the potential regal lineage of his African heritage. Playing clarinet at church services during his youth, he began playing tenor sax at high school. In 1959 …

Mandatory Reality, the new album by Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society, is here. Setting aside (for the moment) the electric instrumentation of Simultonality (GB 048CD/MTE 068LP, 2017) and Magnetoception (MTE 063-64LP, 2015), Joshua Abrams conceived Mandatory Reality for an eight-piece acoustic manifestation of NIS, consisting of himself on guimbri, Lisa Alvarado on harmonium and gongs, Mikel Avery on tam-tam and gongs, Ben Boye on autoharp and piano, Hamid Drake on tabla and tar, Ben…

Blinding Sun Ra reissue, finding Ra on his newly acquired Crumar Mainman synth (with early drum machine!) in stellar 1978 recordings from the same Italian sessions that birthed ‘Disco 3000’ and ‘The Sound Mirror’  Well known to Ra disciples, but not as much to everyone else who stands by his catalogue and doesn’t know where to start, ‘Media Dream’ is a massive highlight of Sun Ra’s fecund period circa 1977 and 1980 - the peak of his output of new LPs.   Recorded live sometime in January 1978, th…

These two discs reveal Christian Wolff as a composer fully exploring, in different ways, the continuum between music which is highly fragmented, embracing extended silences [composed or indeterminate], to that which is more progressive and seemingly driven, albeit taking in disarming and unconventional routes. As a body of repertoire, these works are remarkable for their freshness of musical thought and energy (John Cage considered Wolff to be the most 'musical' of the experimental composers).Ch…

2026 Repress! Out of print in the U.S. for more than four decades, Don Cherry‘s meditative, inventive outsider jazz classic, Brown Rice, is available on vinyl once again as of today via Verve/Universal Music. The album is pressed on standard weight black vinyl and housed in a replica sleeve with original liner notes from acclaimed jazz critic Stanley Crouchuite reach this level of wild invention again. Brown Rice contains the apogee of Cherry’s influences: African, Indian, Arabic and American mu…

Spring Heel Jack brings esteemed trumpeter and vanguard composer Wadada Leo Smith to the mix, along with reedsman and longtime Spring Heel collaborator Evan Parker, fellow Brit John Edwards on bass, and drummer Mark Sanders. The Sweetness of the Water, from 2003, is a strong offering from John Coxon and Ashley Wales (the masterminds behind Spring Heel Jack), with a more intimate, live feel than the group’s previous electro-heavy efforts. Parker returns with his bellowing, screaming sax juxtapose…

My Favorite Things October 14, 1977 presents a superb collection of tracks recorded by the great Sun Ra and his Arkestra at the Variety Recording Studio, NYC. One of the rarely heard documents of the El Saturn label of the ‘70s, these recordings catch Sun Ra and John Gilmore firmly in the foreground, especially when performing on masterly interpretations of John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things and Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy. The performance shows that both are capable of masterfully reflecting the…

**In process of stocking** of Alice's four extraordinary albums Eternity, Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana, Transcendence and Transfiguration in bundle. With liner notes by Mark Richardson and rare photos by Gary Heery and Ginny Winn. Alice Coltrane was a pioneer - one of a tiny number of women in 1960’s jazz to be allowed through the door – wielding her instrument with a force and artistry which couldn’t be ignored. It was her visionary mind which helped push her husband toward the astounding sonic …

Crossings was the second release by the Herbie Hancock Sextet lineup known as the Mwandishi Band, following 1971's Mwandishi which stretched Hancock's already-adventurous writing and expanded the music through post-production. This approach would play an even larger role on Crossings, the pianist's final album for Warner Bros. For two of Crossings' three pieces ('Quasar' and 'Water Torture'), Hancock took basic instrumental tracks to Patrick Gleeson's Different Fur Studios, hoping to learn how t…

After releasing their Warner Bros. debut, the Herbie Hancock Sextet underwent a major transformation in the early '70s. Over the course of a year, every member was replaced (except Herbie Hancock himself and bassist Buster Williams) and each adopted Swahili names. (Williams even led the group in occasional sessions of Buddhist chanting.) Hancock chose the moniker Mwandishi (meaning 'composer'), and the Sextet became unofficially known as the Mwandishi Band. The lineup's first album -- simply tit…