Jazz /
Thousandfold
*2023 stock* "Thousandfold is Brooklyn-based guitarist Adam Caine's debut as a leader; he's worked with Soundpainting composer Walter Thompson in addition to leading his own quartet, quintet, and the trio heard here. He's joined on these eight improvisations by regular conscript, drummer John Wagner, and bassist Tom Blancarte. The unaccompanied opening to "Castros" provides a good space in which to view Caine's approach to the guitar. It begins with blocky, almost Thelonious Monk-like cadences (…
Monk Dreams
*2023 stock* "The duo of saxophonist Jimmy Halperin and bassist Dominic Duval let you know right away what side of Monk they're most interested in, opening and closing with "Brilliant Corners," perhaps the most 'angular' and abrasive of Monk's compositions. Halperin and Duval take it in stride—well, make that tense stride. Halperin really leans into this music, creating swirling patterns on "Off Minor," "Blue Monk" and "Monk's Dream" that gives them a very different feel from the usual accounts.…
African Experiments 1972 - 1979
The Afro National band was formed in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1972. Their inspirational leader, Sulay Abu Bakarr accompanied by his wife Patricia and Ayo Roy Macauley split from the Sabanoh Jazz Band to form their new group. They skillfully merged highlife and jazz sounds with a deep knowledge of West African sounds. Growing to become one of the premiere bands to emerge from Sierra Leone they not only defined the sound of the country for a generation but also crafted some of the country's most …
Magical Connection
*2023 stock* "Consciously more percussive -- and more commercial -- Szabo's newly formed sextet was clearly up to the challenges of combining rock with jazz. More an instrumental-pop confection, Magical Connection doesn't quite live up to its promise. But even as Szabo covers pop hits by Carpenters, Buffalo Springfield and John Sebastian, he often plays with great wit and solos with energetic dexterity." - AllMusic
Seven pieces / about an hour / saxophone, piano, drums
There are some jazz musicians long known by cognoscenti for a mere handful of recordings: Dupree Bolton, Earl Anderza, Hasaan Ibn-Ali, Alan Shorter, Dewey Johnson. Add saxophonist Mark Reboul to that list. Before the release of this album, his discography consisted of four tracks on three albums on which he was a sideman. On Higher Primates’ Environmental Impressions (GM, 1987), he plays sax on two of the percussion-heavy album’s five tracks: a fragmentary track, and a sixteen-and-a-half-minute …
At Earth School
*300 copies limited edition*
Recorded live 2nd October 2022 at Café OTO, London by Pedro SubtilMixed December 2022 by Alex BonneyMastered by Mikey Young
All compositions by Nicole Mitchell (Wheatgoddess Creations ASCAP) and Alexander Hawkins (PRS), except "There is a Balm in Gilead" (traditional, arr. Mitchell/Hawkins)
Ngayon
In the Filipino language Tagalog, Ngayon translates to “now.” Appropriately, this sophomore effort from Karl Evangelista’s Apura is intended to capture the feeling of an abstract and transcendent present - a moment apart from the desperation and uncertainty that afflicted the past several years of human life. What began as an indictment of fascism vis-à-vis Apartheid South Africa, Trump’s America, and the long lineage of Filipino political corruption slowly morphed into a story about how battli…
The Separatist Party
Long before the pandemic, Reed had been thinking about isolation, haunted by a 2015 story in The New York Times about the death of a resident named George Bell, a hoarder who passed away at home, his body undiscovered for nearly a week. In January 2022, Reed gathered a group of some of the most creative figures in Chicago’s experimental and improvised music community to put sound to those thoughts of forced seclusion: cornetist Ben LaMar Gay, poet and spoken word artist Marvin Tate, and members …
Vertical Motion
"In 2018, I had the good fortune to organize a session with two absolute heroes of music: Anthony Davis, and Kjell Nordeson. I'd been playing with Kjell in various groups for a few years, and had been studying with Anthony at UC San Diego; the three of us had played as a trio a handful of times. For the session, we played some of Anthony's older works, including some which referenced The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. With that idea of literature and music in mind, I brought some mi…
Texas Edition
Tip! *200 coipes limited edition* This release is an orchestral expansion of the vocabulary of The Hatch. The duo work of Desprez and Rasmussen extrapolating into two local scenes in Texas in 2019. This album also features Sonic Transmissions artistic director Ingebrigt Håker Flaten who was living in Austin Texas from 2009 – 2020.
Implicatures
*300 copies limited edition* Sam Weinberg is a saxophonist and improviser living in New York City. Recent focus has been material for solo tenor saxophone, and trio music represented on Implicatures (Astral Spirits, 2023) which features Tom Rainey and Chris Lightcap.
Live at Mohren, March 25th 1984
In a truly monumental event, De Occulta Records launches their brand new Willisau Jazz Series - drawing on 30 years (1968 - 1998) of incredible live recordings made at the legendary Swiss musical institution, Willisau Jazz Festival, by its founder Niklaus Troxler - with “Live at Mohren, March 25th 1984”, comprising an astounding and never before heard, 75-minute performance by Sun Ra and his Arkestra.
Tutankhamun
2023 stock. Tutankhamun, the 1969 album by avant-garde jazz pioneers Art Ensemble of Chicago, features performances by Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, and Malachi Favors Maghostut. As the AllMusic review states, 'This landmark album is one of the most influential free jazz recordings in the '60s avant-garde canon.' Previously out of print for over three decades, Tutankhamun has been remastered for vinyl at Infrasonic Mastering and pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl at Pallas in Germ…
The Spiritual
The Spiritual, a free jazz album recorded by the Art Ensemble of Chicago in 1974, finds the group of stellar musicians at their creative peak. With various types of percussion, though the absence of a traditional drummer, the ensemble is able to create vivid, freeing compositions without the confines of conventional structure. The quartet, consisting of Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, and Malachi Favors, explore the depths of avant-garde jazz through a means that has yet to be touc…
Janus
*2023 rstock* Janus is a compilation of rare material from Sun Ra and his Arkestra, drawing from tapes recorded between 1963 and 1970, taken from both live and studio performances. The space-age jazz shaman conjures up a variety of styles and moods along the way. The album has been remastered, and pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl at Pallas in Germany.
Spaceways
Spaceways features live performances by Sun Ra and his Arkestra from New York City in 1966 and 1968. Free and "spacey" as ever, the recordings capture Sun Ra in his element with over a dozen Arkestra members backing him up. The recordings were remastered for vinyl and pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl at Pallas Group in Germany.
Standards
*2023 stock* Sun Ra, the extraordinary, outlandish, and sometimes controversial pianist, is often described as an “acquired taste”, with a massive and diverse catalog. This release is a good place to start for uninitiated or dismissive listeners. The album showcases Ra’s grounding in the jazz tradition, with unique takes on standards like “Time After Time,” “Easy to Love,” and “But Not for Me”. Not unordinary for Sun Ra, the recording process was informal; “Can This Be Love?” was recorded in his…
Calling Planet Earth
*2023 stock* Calling Planet Earth comes from a concert recorded at Tivoli Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark on December 5, 1971. Sun Ra and his Arkestra are captured in their prime, while exploring some of their most far out material to date. The recording received its first ever vinyl release with for Record Store Day 2015 as an exclusive color vinyl pressing. Now it will receive a wide release on black vinyl. The recording was remastered and pressed on 140gram audiophile-grade vinyl at Pallas Group …
Funky Donkey Vol. 1
Tip! Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue, in collaboration with Corbett vs. Dempsey, one of the great albums out of the B.A.G. galaxy recorded by Luther Thomas and a cohort of musicians including Joe Bowie, Charles Bobo Shaw, Floyd LeFlore and Lester Bowie. Recorded live in 1973 at The Berea Presbyteryan Church in St. Louis, the album consists of two tracks, the formidable, aptly titled "Funky Donkey" and the spiritual "Una New York." Released as a private press on Thomas' own Creative Consciou…
Silent Tongues - Live At Montreux '74
*2023 stock* "Cecil Taylor's solo piano set at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1974 drew critical acclaim, earning five-star reviews from the Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide and AllMusic's Scott Yanow. The set features Taylor's five-movement work 'Silent Tongues,' along with two encores. After being out of print for nearly four decades, the classic live album has been remastered at Infrasonic Mastering and pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl at Pallas Group in Germany. Silent Tongues is a must-have …