Jazz /
Words Were Coming Out Our Ears
Recorded at the legendary Atlantis Studio in Stockholm, Words Were Coming Out Our Ears captures a unique musical encounter in the moment. Pianist Johan Graden, bassists Vilhelm Bromander and Pär Ola Landin, and drummer Nils Agnas entered the studio without a fixed plan – the music emerged organically through improvisation and attentive interplay.
What sets this album apart is the instrumentation. With two double bass players, the music gains an unusual depth and weight, where the bass not only s…
For These Streets
Adam O’Farrill - trumpet & flugelhornMary Halvorson - guitarPatricia Brennan - vibraphoneDavid Leon - alto saxophone & fluteKevin Sun - tenor saxophone & clarinetKalun Leung - trombone & euphoniumTyrone Allen II - double bassTomas Fujiwara - drums
Produced by Spencer Murphy.Conducted by Eli Greenhoe.Mixed by Chris Krasnow.Recorded at The Bunker Studio by Chris Krasnow, Alex Conroy, Nicky Young.Mastered by Alex DeTurk.Artwork + design by TJ Huff (huffart.com).
All works composed and arranged by A…
FATHM
*100 copies limited edition* "Fathm isn’t so much an album as it is a question—a pause in the middle of a conversation no one’s having, but everyone’s pretending to understand. It asks nothing of you, but demands your presence, your ear, your breath. The flute, a tender and fragile instrument, becomes almost otherworldly—like a butterfly in another dimension with teeth, or a marsh wren that screams only in windings. It speaks in fragmented thoughts, tracing edges of longing, absence, and memory.…
The Hemphill Stringtet Plays Music Of Julius Hemphill
The Hemphill Stringtet:
Curtis Stewart - violinSam Bardfeld - violinStephanie Griffin - violaTomeka Reid - cello
All music by Julius Hemphill (Subito Music Corporation).Recorded, edited, and mixed by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio.Mastered by Paul Zinman, Soundbyte Productions.Cover photography by Nina Contini Melis.Artwork + design by TJ Huff (huffart.com).
The Hemphill Stringtet would like to thank the Aaron Copland Fund and Continuum Culture for their generous financial support.
We would also …
Hard Top
Hard Top assembles the previously unreleased 1975 recordings of legendary South African saxophonist Kippie Moketsi (also spelled Moeketsi). The 2LP vinyl edition is presented in a gatefold sleeve featuring artwork by Mafa Ngwenya and comes from As-Shams Archive on the heels of the Tete Mbambisa's previously unreleased African Day album in 2024.
By 1975, at the age of 50, saxophonist Kippie Moketsi had already earned his stripes as a South African jazz figurehead. His tenure with the Jazz Epistle…
Ray And His Court
Latin funk at its finest. A kingpin player of Miami’s Cuban music scene, Ray Fernandez, brought together his ‘court’ for this sensational Afro-Cuban funk triumph. Largely a family affair, the album features his wife, two sons and a range of other talented musicians including Rickey Washington on saxophone, father of the contemporary jazz maestro Kamasi Washington. Originally released in 1973 on Manuel J. Mato’s iconic and collectible Sound Triangle Records, Ray & His Court is a dose of Miami hea…
Oasis
Buenos Aires or any city in the world. Daniel Melingo is in a rehearsal room. The musicians accompanying him have left, exhausted. The instrumentalist musician has been playing all the instruments, which for him are extensions of his body, for hours. The piano, the drums, the guitar, the bass, the xylophone, the saxophone, the bouzouki. He conducts an orchestra made up of himself. As if he was looking for the secret formula in his laboratory where every sound - even if it is not instrumental - i…
Yowzers
Yowzers is a new album by Chicago composer, improvisor, instrumentalist and musical folklorist Ben LaMar Gay. The twelve track collection is a leap forward in the lexicon of Gay’s recorded output, and a veritable masterwork of ancient inner-body rhythms and intuitive melodic storytelling. It’s worth mentioning that a leap forward for Gay is no small feat. The musical ground he has covered in the last decade, both as a bandleader and collaborator, is immense. His de facto debut album—the 2018 com…
Cup & Ring
During a 50+ year career across the spectrum of music saxophonist Larry Stabbins has worked with most of the important figures at the cutting edge of European Jazz and Improvisation from Mike Westbrook to Keith Tippett and Tony Oxley and Germany’s Peter Brotzmann, as well as with Robert Wyatt and Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA. Alongside this he played in the seminal pop group Weekend and formed Working Week with guitarist Simon Booth, a project that took a melange of latin, soul and jazz into the wo…
The Bass Speaks
This release from composer / saxophonist / poet Keith Jafrate, together with a top flight band of Discus Music regulars, is a powerful and beautiful spiritual work. Never rushing, and always deeply involving, this music creates a peaceful yet mindful vibe in the midst of troubled times.
Keith’s liner notes explain how Uroboro’s 2nd double album on discus came into being: “John suggested, during our very first recording session as a quintet, in august 2022, that i should write a pamphlet entitled…
Sonor
For a few fleeting moments during a sunset, the sky is cast a vivid shade of amber. A dramatic flare of colour, a moment belonging to both the day and the night. It is within this vibrant, ephemeral world, that Mongolian-born, Munich-based Enji has written her new album Sonor. Sonor is a record full of life and optimism, from an artist finding the beauty of existing between two worlds, much as a sunset does. Between the cultures of Mongolia and Germany, tradition and innovation, nostalgia and ex…
Ex-perimento #5
2007 release ** "Pangolinorchestrà is a hybrid between a village band, ICP-tet, Liberation Music Orchestra, Albert Ayler Band, Jimi Hendrix Experience, N.E.E.M., Screamin Jay Hawkins, Jannacci and assorted Bennink-stuff. “Ex-perimento #5” - recorded at the “Centro Stabile di Cultura” in San Vito di Leguzzano and produced by the same Center in cooperation with Idee Nere and Stella Nera - gives a good image of a band whose forte should be the action directed from above the stage."
Jet Black
A trio of leaders in their own right performing pianist Satoko Fujii's demanding compositions, bassist Takashi Sugawa and drummer Ittetsu Takemura rise to the challenge in a set of six exciting works that push and pull this remarkable piano trio in unexpected directions, responding to the twists and turns of Fujii's intense and intricate directions; superlative!
Altitude 1100 Meters
Celebrating her 65th birthday with her first compositions for strings, pianist-composer Satoko Fujii writes for the specific musicians of GEN, a sextet of violin, viola, bass, piano, electronics, and drums, in a suite inspired by Nagano's mountain views, leveraging microtonal string techniques for an expressive and texturally rich sonic landscape.
NatJim
Right out of the gate one feels the energy and excitement between Japanese trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and NY drummer Jim Black, each pushing the other through strong instrumental character and outrageous technique over nine Tamura compositions recorded in the studio in Switzerland, their first recording in 25 years since their 1999 Buzz Records album White and Blue.
Aloft
Propelled by the confidence and intimacy that a familial relationship brings to two improvisers, imbued by each player's masterful technical skills and creative drive, the husband and wife duo of pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura expand their catalog with this set of magnificent dialogs, sometimes quirky, always powerful and implicitly lyrical.
Killing Time
Massacre was a guitar trio formed by Fred Frith, who moved to New York after the break-up of Henry Cow, with Bill Laswell (b) and Fred Marr (dr). The album was greeted with surprise and acclaim at the time as the work that steered Frith towards an aggressive, sharp-edged sound based on improvisation. The trio disbanded after one album and reformed in 1998, replacing Charles Hayward on drums, and this time the album is reissued at the correct pitch, as intended by the artist, after being released…
Life Is Complex
2017 release ** "Building beats and sounds with electronics is a huge part on the record. The drums and the electronics prime the whole album without being reduced to a straight beat. Patrick Schimanski moves from abstract sounds to micro rhythms to straight beats (saturated by any background you can think of) and back again. The drum sound has a percussive tone to it as well: There are bells and congas and more like it. Patrick Schimanski is working a lot with different theaters around Germany …
The Magic City
According to many enthusiasts and scholars, this album is among Sun Ra's most definitive studio recordings. The Magic City contains just four tracks, with the title- theme taking up the whole of the A side at a little over 27 minutes. Then on the B side comes The Shadow World, followed by Abstract Eye and Abstract I, which are two variants of the same composition. These pieces are essentially ensemble improvisations recorded live.
Ursgal = Урсгал
2025 stock On her second album Ursgal Mongolian singer Enji creates a unique blend of Jazz and Folk with the traditions of Mongolian song. Currently based in Munich, her lyrics tell personal stories about unbearable distances, the oddness of being on earth and the simple truths in life.She’s accompanied by Paul Brändle on guitar and on double bass.
Born in Ulaanbaatar, Enji grew up in a yurt to a working-class family. Having always been drawn to music, dance and literature, she initially wanted…