Music from United States

German reedman-composer Peter Brotzmann is, despite an immense catalog spanning over forty years of activity in free music, criminally underrepresented in the format of a "standard" piano-less quartet. From reed-heavy octets and orchestras to the winds-bass-drums power trio, not to mention a long-running trio with percussion and piano, most of the possible formations have been covered. His Die Like A Dog Quartet was the one entry in this instrumental canon in the late 1990s, and produced five re…

Rare outtakes from early pioneering and controversial electronic jazz experiments presented on vinyl for the first time. This previously unpressed music provides and absolutely essential insight into Zen master experimental jazz outrider Don Cherry on the eve of his fertile Holy Mountain period which saw the composer combine all his well-travelled influences – such as the free music incubation of France and Germany with the traditional instrumentation of India, north and west Africa – then retur…

Rafael Anton Irisarri's A Fragile Geography is a record cast in a climate of unsteadiness and transition, reflecting upon the current state of everyday living. Recorded over 2014 and '15, the record bears the marks of difficult terrain -- personal, political, social, and cultural. It tips its hat to the complex and unpredictable dynamics of the contemporary world, correlating concerns both macro and micro. Compositionally, the music mirrors the tensions of contemporary America, contrastin…

Amazing and strong vintage synth and keys duo improvisations by free jazz pioneers Alan Silva and Burton Greene, still exploring and pushing boundaries after half a century of no compromise careers. Burton Green says: “It’s not about the latest (electronic) instruments or gadjets.. it’s about the creativity of the composer/improvisor. Alan Silva and I have so-called “dated” instruments or “retro electronics”, but you can just judge for yourself if what we do with them is dated on not..!.. …

Those looking for a comprehensive overview of Sun Ra’s celestial magic could do far worse than acquire a copy of ‘Artyard in a Box’, a collection of nine classic long players from the Sun Ra archive set across seven CDs. ‘Disco 3000’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘On Jupiter’, ‘Beyond the Purple Star Zone’, ‘Oblique Parallax’, ‘Horizon’, ‘Nidhamu’, ‘Dark Myth Equation Visitation’ and ‘The Antique Blacks’ all appear, spanning the more soulful and spiritual manifestations of his work such as on ‘The Antique…

2015 repress. In 1966, she replaced pianist McCoy Tyner in her husband John Coltrane's group. Coltrane's work became a spiritual wellspring for her, but she surely developed her own style on piano, organ, harp, and later, Indian instruments such as the tamboura. After Coltrane's death in 1967, Alice began recording under her own name for Impulse!, leading groups that included at various times saxophonists Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Joe Henderson, Frank Lowe, and Carlos Ward, double bass play…

** 2020 restock, nice price** Albert Ayler's trio with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray is best known for the July 10, 1964, recording of Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD), the album that made both Ayler and ESP-Disk' famous when it was released in 1965. A decade after that, in 1975, ESP-Disk' also released, as Prophecy(ESP-3030), the first documentation of the group, recorded a month before Spiritual Unity by Canadian poet Paul Haines at a concert at a 91st Street club. These Cellar Café recordings…

Reissue of Anthony Braxton's second album for Delmark Records, originally released in 1969. Featuring Leroy Jenkins (violin and percussion) Leo Smith (trumpet) and Richard Abrams (piano, cello, alto clarinet). "...is there a McDonalds nearby?... remember, jazz musicians have to deal with the problem of no coins. On the road you either eat well and go home broke or you eat junk food and go home sick. Sick, but solvent." -- from Forces in Motion: The Music and Thoughts of Anthony Braxton by Graham…

If a music critic could design their own super group, it might look something like the one that released the experimental, unique, and pulse-quickening 1996 album Cubist Blues. The trio–Suicide’s Alan Vega, Big Star’s Alex Chilton, and singer-songwriter Ben Vaughn–are outsiders each and cult heroes in their own right. Their unlikely union happened in December 1994 in a fog of cigarette smoke at two barely-lit, all-night improv sessions at Dessau Studios in New York. After that fateful session, t…

180 gram exact repro reissue, originally released in 1969. Classic Harry Partch, and the kind of record that's a great introduction to his music. There's lots of Partch's weird invented instruments – like chromelodeon, diamond marimba, mazda marimba, cloud-chamber bowls, gourd tree, and the crazy "spoils of war". "The World of Harry Partch collects three of his best short pieces. 'Daphne of the Dunes' (1967) is a side-long update of 'Windsong' written for dance. The melodic segments are given mo…

An absolute psychedelic tribal UFO and proto-industrial-noise in the story of music.  A pioneer touch of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Whitehouse, Test Department mixed with something full stoned and tribal ... ahead of its time in the 60's !!! This epic album is presented for the first time remastered with the same real rough sound and same feeling seeked at the time. And more volume added. this 1969 album has long been hailed as an underground classic. Included in Spin's 2013 list "The Top 100 Alter…

The dreamer dreams again with her 4th album of otherworldly microcosms, 'Divers', recorded by Steve Albini and featuring contributions by Nico Muhly and The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, arriving five years since her last opus for Drag City.  Still possessed by a voice that teeters between sublime and ridiculous (I honestly laughed out loud at the first song), Joanna Newsom remains a precious spirit within the indie folk paradigm, blessed with an air of stately patience and poised, imma…

"Roger Miller, king of many roads both known and unknown, has a long and illustrious recording history. As a member of Sproton Layer, Destroy All Monsters, Mission of Burma, The Din, etc., he has made many records that are definitive statements of powerful outsider rock music in many guises. But this, his third solo LP, originally released by Forced Exposure in 1988, remains one of the great lost chords in his discography. Although he'd been focusing mostly on extended keyboard techniques for a …

The  sixth and darkest sunn 0))) album featuring very special guests Oren Ambarchi, Wrest (Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice/ Twilight) Malefic (Xasthur, Twilight) and John Weise (Bastard Noise).  Tonal magma explosions created under the influence of utter blackest atmospheres, sunn 0))) endlessly seeks to push boundaries and demolish pre-conceived ideas of their eminence.  Sinister vocal performances courtesy of Wrest (known for his solo work under the names Leviathan and Lurker of Chalice) and Malef…

2015 restock / Recorded live at the "Donaueschingen Musiktage 1967", October 21st, 1967. "This is an exciting album. The important tenor Archie Shepp and his 1967 group -- with both Roswell Rudd and Grachan Moncur on trombones, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Beaver Harris -- romp through the continuous 43-and-a-half-minute "One for the Trane" before an enthusiastic audience at a German music festival. Although he improvises very freely and with great intensity, Shepp surprised the crowd by …

"already released on vinyls in the late 80's (Naima/Serene were on a Jazzway LP and Serene/Springtime on a West Wind album) but NOT with this track sequence and i may sounds exaggerated but in this way to me it's simply Eric Dolphy's best album to date. perfect & totally in tune, you'd play this one all night & all day too... rec. with a fantastic 6et wich include the great Donald Byrd and Nathan Davis, most probably his very last live rec. since Eric left this planet on June 29, 1964 (the…

For the first time on vinyl, Charles Mingus's great score for the legendary 1959 directorial debut of John Cassavetes, Shadows. Much has been said about the controversial relationship between these two masters. "The score encapsulates Cassavetes' and Mingus's unique approaches to both improvisation and composition in their respective media, illuminating the oppositional nature of jazz to mainstream cultural production and the underbelly of race relations in 1950's America" --Ross Lipman, "Mi…

** small repress available ** A breathtaking album, nothing short of a masterpiece!!!! Starting from this edition* onward, our Zeit Composers series will go vinyl, and will definitely open up to international artists beside the usual Italian suspects. The first release in the new vinyl-only series features the collaborative effort of Belgium-based talented composer Giovanni di Domenico (of Italian origins) and avant-everything master Jim O'Rourke. A long composition for string and electro…

Originally released as a 3 CDr set on Inyrdisk to commemorate 30 years of If, Bwana, and now available on manufactured CDs, this triple disc gracefully spans 3 and 1/4 hours of riveting musique concrète and refined experimentation from Al Margolis. These recent recordings come to you re-mastered and repackaged from the self-released tapes sold in a nearly invisible edition during a brief tour, sub-titled within Thirty as Blue Two, Green Three and Yellow Four. Thirty captures If, Bwana championi…

Survey of saxophonist Ulrich Krieger's chamber music, probing the ties between the rock and classical avant-gardes: six works from 1997-2005 played by California E.A.R. Unit, Sonic Boom, Ensemble Experimente and others, with Krieger himself.