Music from United States

Chicago producer and composer Will Miller’s Resavoir has established a strong following at the intersection of jazz, electronic music, and beat-driven production, with more than 9,000 vinyl records sold and 82M+ streams across the project’s first three albums. Resavoir’s 2019 self-titled debut received an 8.2 from Pitchfork alongside broad international critical acclaim, with ongoing support from Gilles Peterson, Lefto, Anthony Valadez, Somewhere Soul, Andrew Jervis and Lovie, plus airplay on BB…

Released in 1983 after a lengthy court battle with IRS Records, Smell of Female originally contained just the first six songs. These, plus out-of-control ad-lib freakouts “Beautiful Gardens” and “She Said” (previously omitted due to legal restrictions) were recorded live at New Yorkʼs famous Peppermint Lounge. There is nothing like the sound of The Cramps, and this set distills that cross of swamp water, moonshine and nitro down to a dangerous and unstable musical substance, captured live like a…

Featuring an over-the-top live set from Down Under, RockNReelinInAucklandNewZealandXXX was recorded at the 100th show of The Cramps’ 1986 Date With Elvis Tour. The album was originally released incognito in cahoots with Ace Records in 1987 as a fake “limited-edition import” bootleg LP, and was intended to compete with the glut of unofficial Cramps recordings. The woman you hear screaming throughout the first half actually fainted when she stopped screaming!  Included alongside other classic tune…

On March 19th, 1999, legendary soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy played with his working trio at The Velvet Lounge at 2128 ½ S. Indiana Avenue in Chicago. Owned and operated by tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, The Velvet Lounge was the central hub for adventurous jazz music in Chicago from 1993 until Fred passed in 2010.  Music critic and journalist Peter Margasak previewed the concert in the alternative weekly Chicago Reader, and someone blew up a xeroxed copy of it that Lacy inscribed across the …

Thirteen pieces from Eric Lunde's first decade, 1983-1991, from cassettes, 7-inches and live tapes, assembled by Joe Colley for his Povertech Industries in 1997. Original CD in digipak with booklet.

Long overdue reissue of the first Windy & Carl album and first ever vinyl pressing. Originally self-released by the duo as a cassette in 1994, Portal set the template for their singular sonic explorations to come. “…ethereal soundscapes that will transport the listener to other plains of reality.” —Acid Test! “Carl layers willowy guitar arpeggios, foggy keyboards, and chimes over Windy’s murmured intonations and rippling basswork. Everything sounds fresh and unaffected in the careful hands of th…

"A quick scan of the world’s favourite crowdsourced discography reveals that Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo was not a total stranger to crackling electric experimentation in the years following his songwriting turns of the 20-teens. Yet »The System«, ingeniously culled and sequenced from Ranaldo’s soundtrack work for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s ›eco-doc‹ of the same name, nonetheless feels like a reawakening. Quietly released in a vastly different (and much more ›filmic‹) form by Doxy Mu…

Following the critical acclaim of her 2022 breakout solo debut, Sweet Tooth, and her rock project Deerlady, which was named a Stereogum Band To Watch, the eight-track album was born out of years of listening to repatriated recordings that came back to Obomsawin’s community in 2023. Coincidentally, the ethnological language recordings that were recovered by Odanak from Dartmouth College came just after the release of her debut album. Obomsawin blends these with her own field recordings. Through t…

*300 copies limited edition* In 2023, Kraków-based composer Martyna Basta and Los Angeles-based sound artist claire rousay were invited to Poland by Unsound for a short residency, where they spent a few days trading ideas and concepts, and brainstorming their first collaboration. Initially motivated to create lengthy, expansive pieces together, they also ended up experimenting with shorter vignettes, and 'hotel room' expresses these two extremes, featuring three long-form tracks and three brief,…

A spontaneous musical transmission exploring healing, unity, laughter, and limitless possibility.

*300 copies limited edition* A new BLJ album of uncompromising industrial power noise. You know exactly what to expect. If you need to know more you don't need that album. BLJ for those recordings were: Sean E. Ramirez, Nathan Golub, Thomas Puopolo (Scarlet Diva), Richard Ramirez, Kevin Novak, JRL, Anjilla Ulfhednar (Moonbeam Terror), Scott Kindberg, Domokos.

One day in a Paris studio, December 1997. David Murray goes back to the gospel church of his Berkeley childhood with Fontella Bass, the voice of Rescue Me and the Art Ensemble's Theme de Yoyo, over Hammond B3, electric bass and guitar. Amazing Grace, How I Got Over, and Murray's own twelve-minute Missionary.

Five years after Julius Hemphill's death, the World Saxophone Quartet records its farewell to him: four horns alone, no drums, at Studio Victor in Montreal in 1999. David Murray's title piece, three Oliver Lake tunes, a Jack DeJohnette opener. The Penguin Guide calls it one of the group's most accessible records.

Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1 March 1999. The World Saxophone Quartet plays a full concert and the tape stays in a drawer for three years. Justin Time released it in 2002 as Steppenwolf, and it turned out to be the last record John Purcell made with the group. The WSQ mostly recorded in studios. A live album from this period is a different animal: the pieces stretch out, the four players introduce their own tunes at the microphone, and Oliver Lake reads a spoken narrative. Jim Santella at All …

Eight Jimi Hendrix songs for four saxophones, plus trombone, violin, electric bass and drums. Experience was recorded over three days, 13 to 15 March 2003, and released by Justin Time in 2004. By then the World Saxophone Quartet had a new fourth voice. Bruce Williams, on alto and soprano, had replaced John Purcell alongside the three founders, Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake and David Murray. For the Hendrix material they brought in a rhythm section: Matthew Garrison on electric bass, Gene Lake (Oli…

Munich, Studio Meilhaus, 6 November 1990. Archie Shepp on tenor and alto, singing on three tracks, with Horace Parlan on piano, Wayne Dockery on bass and George Brown on drums. One day of work for the Dutch label Timeless, released the following year. Shepp and Parlan had recorded the spirituals of Goin' Home and the blues of Trouble in Mind as a duo for SteepleChase in the late 1970s. This quartet session comes out of the same relationship, a decade on, and the material tells you where Shepp wa…

Gil Scott-Heron's last album for Flying Dutchman, cut over two days in March 1972 at RCA Studios. One side of songs with Brian Jackson, Hubert Laws, David Spinozza and Pretty Purdie; one side of poems over hand percussion, including No Knock and The King Alfred Plan. Bob Thiele produced.

Wuppertal Stadthalle, 26 April 1964: the Mingus sextet with Eric Dolphy, Clifford Jordan, Jaki Byard and Dannie Richmond, two months before Dolphy's death. A 37-minute Fables of Faubus, the Dolphy-Mingus duet Starting, and Meditations. Issued by Enja in 1980; the CD adds Meditations.

One day at Vanguard Studios, New York, 7 January 1982. Woody Shaw on trumpet with the band he had by then been working with for a couple of years: Steve Turre on trombone, Mulgrew Miller on piano, Stafford James on bass, Tony Reedus on drums. Produced for Enja by Horst Weber and Matthias Winckelmann. Shaw had come off a run of Columbia albums and was six weeks away from the Jazz Forum concerts that Elektra Musician would issue as Master of the Art and Night Music. This is the same quintet in the…

Nuremberg, East-West Jazz Festival, 6 May 1972. Mal Waldron's trio with Jimmy Woode, the former Ellington bassist, and Allen Blairman on drums. Three long pieces, all by Waldron, taped live and issued by Enja only in 1975. Waldron had settled in Europe in 1965 and rebuilt his playing from scratch after a breakdown. By 1972 the new style was fully formed: dark, insistent, built from a few repeated cells that tighten over long stretches. The Enja records from these years (Black Glory, Plays the Bl…