Quartet:Quartet:Trio
*In process of stocking* "A double album of electroacoustic improv sessions from Sommerville, MA, centered around electronic artist Andrew Neumann on the Buchla Music Easel--a complex additive analogue synth--heard in quartet and trio sessions with Forbes Graham (trumpet), Sandy Ewen (guitar & objects), Junko Fujiwara (cello), Damon Smith (double bass) and Eric Rosenthal (drums & percussion). Neumann, also an artist, sculptor and installation artist, can be heard on the Driff album Bathysphere w…
Houston 2012
*In process of stocking. 2023 stock "Lady Band (of Various Fruit Names) is an all-female experimental music ensemble founded by Sandy Ewen in 2009. Performances are singular, often site-specific events, featuring a rotating lineup (and different fruit-themed name for each show), with members contributing graphic and text-based scores for structured improvisation.
Drawing parallels between Ewen's group and Scratch Orchestra, the 1960s-70s London experimental music ensemble Rowe was involved in, S…
Precipitation of a Decision
Tip! *In process of stocking* "Two distinct session, the first CD presenting free improv trio perfomances in St. Louis, MO between Paul Hartsaw on soprano & tenor saxophones, Damon Smith on double bass and Jerome Bryerton on percussion, the 2nd CD finding Hartsaw and Smith in the studio in Oakland CA for a more experimental session, Smith adding laptop & field recordings and both employing extended techniques." - Squidco
Duals
"In this 3-CD set each disc contains one duo session between the three musicians: trombone-bass, piano-bass and piano-trombone. Recorded over the course of Bishop's last year of residency in Boston and soon after Smith had moved to St. Louis, these recordings capture a glimpse of the city's creative music scene at a particularly active time between 2016-22, when, the three musicians interacted frequently in many settings in the Boston area. The Smith/Bishop disc consists of all improvised music,…
Groundwater Recharge
*2023 stock* "Explorative improvisation, from mysteriously quiet moments to scrabbling and determined conversation, configured as trios and quintets by Rebecca Novak on piano, cornet, radio & glassware, Danny Kamins on baritone saxophone, Sandy Ewen on guitar, Damon Smith on double bass and Jerome Bryerton on percussion, all bringing unique moments through extended techniques, objects & radio.
"Groundwater recharge is an important water management practice in California. ... Recharge can also h…
The Eternity-Cult
*2023 stock* "A blend of intonation and improvisation, The Eternity-Cult is a harmonies-across-the-seas program featuring the trumpet and objects of Birgit Ulher from Northern Germany with the double bass (Damon Smith) and percussion and electronics (Chris Cogburn) from the southern US. Despite geographical distances the three are equally committed to free-from improvisation. This disc's single 37-minute track finds the trio exploring textures and pitches from minimalist to embellished, while ma…
Heil ○
Tip! A dream industrial work in which sticky corrosion electronic sounds by Amplified voice, drone sound, and electronics develop with a strange rhythm. Hiroshima-based electro/industrial duo, A.P.O.S. collaborates with SY on the electronics and Self Toxication on the amplified voice.
Incanto
*300 copies limited edition* Another collection of music that, instead of offering an escape route, loads you with questions. Music that originates in a grey, intermediate zone: pieces conceived and performed by an informal group of musicians which were not written. They are improvised but, instead of existing only in their own time, they are rooted in deep interpersonal relationships. A perfect balance between freedom and rigour, between visions and penumbra, between long and complex relationsh…
Don’t Tell No Tales Upon Us
Channeling their shared interest in noise, drone, freak folk, liturgy, and some real haunted New England atmosphere, Tongue Depressor and Weston Olencki unfold their singular vision in two wild pieces of rapturous intensity and resonance. Weston Olencki is a musician, composer, and sound artist from South Carolina, now living and working in Berlin. Their work is centered around questions of instrumental music and its contexts/constructs, various mediated practices of listening and improvisation,…
Entre Pliegos
Entre Pliegos embarks on a quest through shared sonic ancestry to explore the immediacy of communication, invoking a mercurial, yet at times uplifting, musical environ. The drones and growls of low strings flow into explosive electronics, while ecstatic vocal spikes morph into rambunctious linear intertwinings that settle into an interminable, grating exhale. Chilean-based double bassist Amanda Irarrázabal and Brooklyn, NY-based pianist Eli Wallace crossed paths in the summer of 2019, where they…
Raspberry Hotel
Tip! *170 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Having lived and worked in numerous musical directions for many years, Semay Wu’s begrudgingly faithful cello still remains at her side: from Merseyside, to Manchester, to The Netherlands, and now to Central Scotland. Always trying to push age-old boundaries of how the instrument is viewed and heard, her focus has led her to explore further collaborative and everyday improvisations, blending electronics with mixed media and a variety of g…
Do Disturb
Capturing two exceptional concerts at London's Cafe OTO in 2021 & 2022, in the launch of a new quartet expanding the longstanding trio of N.O. Moore on electric guitar, John Edwards on double bass and Eddie Prévost on drums, with Alan Wilkinson on baritone & alto saxophones, and for one performance on each night, tenor saxophonist Nathaniel Catchpole joining.
"Launch show for the quartet to mark the release of new CD 'EMPoWered' on Brooklyn's 577 Records. Edwards, Moore and Prévost have comprise…
Documentation '89 - '93
An excellent glimpse into one of the more poorly lit corners of Swedish experimental sound. This CD collects some of the earliest solo recordings of Joachim Nordwall, under the moniker A.B.O. Our ears catch whiffs of Francois Douris and the likes, but any definite reference eludes us.
“Growing up in the remote south East of Sweden was great for anyone into having a bad start in life. In my early teens I was exposed through my friend Zwarre to suitable music like Throbbing Gristle, Brainbombs and…
The Welt
Cross-generational titans of noise and sound experiments, John Duncan, Joachim Nordwall & Henrik Ryland supply a proper drone zoner hashed from shortwave radio, no-input mixer and analogue synths on the iDEAL powerhouse.
To Favour the Occurrence
*200 copies limited edition.* To Favour the Occurrence CD - Knurl's harsh noise is formulated by the give-and-take of restraint and control. With his alter-ego as Pholde, Alan Bloor uses these same techniques to create ambient soundscapes rich with the tactility of their found metal sources.
The Less You Sleep
*In process of stocking* Austrian based collaborators of free jazz, improvisation and sound experiments releasing the long awaited debut album of Dry Thrust - the new project by the trio of German pianist and composer Georg Graewe, Martin Siewert (Radian, Trapist, Also) and Dieter Kern (DEK Trio, Bulbul, Fuckhead). Graewe, has since been leading a variety of ensembles since the early 80s - ranging from trio to chamber orchestra formats - which have involved some of the leading instrumentalists i…
Les Bons Contes Font Les Bons Amis
*2023 stock* Un Drame Musical Instantané were founded in 1976, featuring Jean-Jacques Birgé, Bernard Vitet and Francis Gorgé. Their aim was to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or their live shows which they tried to renew every time they played. Their sound was created with many influences: They borrowed their sources from rock (synthesizer player Birgé and guitarist Gorgé, both authors of the album, Défense de); jazz (t…
Chimæra I
Tip! A body is bounded. It operates within physical limitations and biological constraints. Whilst some see these physiological boundaries as a terminus, others such as Colin Stetson perceive them as a nexus of possibility, and perhaps even of expansion. It is in this zone of unsteady tension and promise that his new album Chimæra dwells. Collecting a series of extended drone works for saxophone, Chimæra charts an entirely new thread of work for Stetson. This thread simultaneously maintains stat…
Couple In Spirit
"During 2019 Keith, Julie and myself had discussed the idea of a new Couple In Spirit album for Discus Music. Rather than choosing one of the many possible live recordings of the duo, Keith and Julie were keen to make a new multi tracked studio recording, something they had not done for 30 years since their EG release. The studio was booked for spring 2020, and the project was opened for advance subscriptions. The New Year arrived, lockdown kicked in, Keith’s already fragile health deteriorat…
Gee Vaucher: Beyond Punk, Feminism and the Avant-Garde (Book)
As one of the people who defined punk's protest art in the 1970s and 1980s, Gee Vaucher (b. 1945) deserves to be much better-known. She produced confrontational album covers for the legendary anarchist band Crass and later went on to do the same for Northern indie legends the Charlatans, among others. As well as offering an overview of Vaucher’s career, the book also offers a whistle-stop tour through later 20th century counterculture. We hear about the Fluxus movement; COUM Transmissions (the …