★Cuneiform Records
America's National Parks
2016 release ** "With America’s National Parks, visionary composer and Wadada Leo Smith offers his latest epic collection, a suite inspired by the scenic splendor, historic legacy, and political controversies of the country’s public landscapes. Writing for his newly expanded Golden Quintet, Smith crafts six extended works that explore, confront and question the preserved natural resources that are considered the most hallowed ground in the U.S. – and some that should be. His 28-page score for Am…
Five Suns
2004 release ** "Guapo is a British trio that plays an intense music that straddles the boundaries of progressive, noise, minimalism and avant-rock. Their sound has been compared to such artists as Magma, Boredoms, King Crimson, Univers Zero, This Heat, Ruins, Sun Ra and Terry Riley. As Sound Projector put it, "Guapo come on like all the hellhounds of Magma, Eskaton and Ruins were after them...on a par with Magma’s Kohntarkosz or Univers Zero’s Ceux Du Dehors". Five Suns is the band’s fifth albu…
Obscure Knowledge
2015 release ** "The group started their life as a heavy bass/drums duo playing post-hardcore, noisy rock, but in the two decades since, they have expanded their instrumentation and their stylistic references to become one of Europe's most highly respected 'muscular and modern' experimental /progressive rock bands. Centered around founding member and extraordinary drummer David J. Smith, the group on the album also features three additional heavy-weights of British experimental rock: Kavus Torab…
Process And Reality
2016 release ** "Three founding fathers of experimental music join forces to conjure an unholy serenade for a society on the verge of collapse on Process and Reality, an hourlong whirlwind of pessimistic prophecy transformed into a heady monolith of sound. Boundary-stretching guitarist Richard Pinhas, founder of the influential French electronic-rock band Heldon, teams with two icons of the Japanese avant-garde – drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, mastermind of warped-prog legends Ruins, Koenjihyakkei and…
Cantos Invisíveis
2016 release ** "Mixing the opaque with the diffused and blurring the lines between electric and acoustic, Rob Mazurek’s wide ambition continues to race toward the outer limits of what is possible in music. These nine selections were recorded in Texas; they offer an almost entirely new view of SPU, one that falls outside musical classification. Here, east and west, northern and southern hemispheres, speak through tropical, desert, ritual, and party sounds that are all inscribed upon one another …
The Celestial Squid
2015 release ** "...The Celestial Squid is so special... Here are two of the greats....no, the greatest." – Jim O'Rourke. "The Celestial Squid pairs guitarist/improviser Henry Kaiser with one of his earliest idols, British guitarist, producer, arranger, and composer Ray Russell. Kaiser has a long history of recording with players he admires and has been influenced by, including John Abercrombie, Derek Bailey, David Lindley, and Fred Frith. Russell may be somewhat of a cipher to non-guitar heads.…
Swim
2013 release ** "The members of Blue Cranes — Reed Wallsmith on alto saxophone, Joe Cunningham on tenor saxophone, Rebecca Sanborn on keyboards, Keith Brush on bass, and Ji Tanzer on drums — bring a unique array of experiences to their group-centered aesthetic, including work with AU, The Decemberists, Laura Veirs, Wayne Horvitz, Rebecca Gates, Laura Gibson, Ethan Rose, Pete Krebs, Black Prairie and Portland Cello Project. The band takes an evolutionary step forward on their fourth full-length …
Ritual
2001 release ** "This is a reissue of the Finnish lp-only first release by this great rock/avant/fusion guitarist and his band, and includes two bonus tracks. The record features a unique blend of heavy guitarwork combined with dual, wailing Coleman and Ayler-influenced saxes and a rhythm section of bass/electric bass and two drummers. The music is quite original, but has certain musical ties to the harmolodic school ala The Decoding Society and Prime Time."
Make Way For Mother Mallard
Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company was the first all-synthesizer band to ever deliver live concerts. They were founded in the late sixties by David Borden, and they were the first to do so. They even predated giants such as Tangerine Dream with their live performances. Make Way For Mother Mallard: 50 Years Of Music is a double disk collection of wholly new music that was published to commemorate the band's fiftieth anniversary. The first disc of the compilation included previously unh…
Flashpoints and Undercurrents
Recently celebrating his 80th birthday and one of Europe’s foremost jazz musicians, John Surman is a masterful improvisor, composer, and multi-instrumentalist (baritone and soprano sax, bass clarinet, and synthesizers/electronics). For nearly 60 years, he has been a major force, producing a prodigious and creative body of work that expands beyond jazz. Surman’s extensive discography as a leader and a side man numbers more than 100 recordings to date and has featured dozens of prominent artists w…
Emissaries
Radio Massacre International is a British trio of Steve Dinsdale (keyboards, electronics), Duncan Goddard (keyboards, electronics) and Gary Houghton (guitar, keyboards). These three musicians have worked together in various configurations since the early 1980's and formed R.M.I. in 1993. They released their first album in 1995 and since that time have released dozens and dozens of albums. Appealing to fans of classic era work by Ashra/Manuel Gottsching, Heldon, Pink Floyd, Popol Vuh, Steve Roach…
New Moon In The Evil Age
Hugely influential and appearing nearly everywhere within Washington D.C.'s contemporary music scene as bandleaders and contributing artistic voices, cellist and vocalist Janel Leppin and guitarist Anthony Pirog have long been creative partners as well as life partners. Their Cuneiform Records debut Where is Home (2012) is considered a crucial modern recording from the region. Following that release, the two have crafted a double-LP opus which crosses genres and mirrors their exploratory and dia…
To March Is To Love
If cellist/composer Janel Leppin’s wonderful and widely celebrated 2022 solo debut album Ensemble Volcanic Ash was a creative eruption, her follow up To March Is to Love is a glowing magma flow that greatly expands her singular band’s sonic terrain. The project thrums with immediacy as Leppin and her all-star sextet honor their musical ancestors and reflect on disquieting times. Bandcamp Daily declared “There’s no end to the melodic intensity of Ensemble Volcanic Ash. Even at its lushest and mo…
Travelling Somewhere
South African born and raised pianist/bandleader Chris McGregor formed the racially mixed Blue Notes in the early 1960's, touring and trying to get by in extremely difficult political circumstances as best they could. By 1964, facing continuous government harassment, Chris & the Blue Notes fled their South African homeland, finally settling in London in 1966. They made a huge impact on London's jazz scene and befriended many in London's emerging avant-garde jazz community. By 1969, the Blue Note…
Univers Zero
Expanded reissue of the Univers Zero's 1977 debut album, reissued as a CD with a bonus track "La Faulx". Long-running Belgian chamber rockers and avant-garde pioneers led by drummer and composer Daniel Denis, Univers Zero formed in 1974 with co-composer and guitarist Roger Trigaux (who left the band in 1980). This is their first album, recorded between August 2 and 5, 1977. "The rhythmic energy and dissonant riffs, the distinctive sound of the bassoon and strings, and the tricky, fragmented time…
Høvikodden 1971
Tip! This well recorded and carefully mastered set captures the most famous version of the band (the ‘classic quartet') on their final European tour on two consecutive nights on February 27 and 28, 1971. While the two sets from the second night (February 28, 1971) have been released before, this is the first time that the entire two-night stand has been released. So half of this is previously completely unreleased.
This is a excellent, stereo recording of the band performing in a relatively smal…
3+3
Much has happened to Tomeka Reid, who was already one of jazz's definitive figures in the 21st century, in the 4½ years since her last album by this all-star quintet. Most notably, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022, one of the most prestigious awards in the creative arts field in the USA. The same year, she also won the DownBeat Critics Poll for miscellaneous instrument (despite many deserving talents emerging on the instrument, the jazz polls don't have cello as a category for reco…
This Is Not The End
Despite it’s title, This is not the end, is, indeed, the final release by the legendary Rock In Opposition band Present, as founder and composer Roger Trigaux died during its recording. The final result is blindingly precise works of syncopated instruments, all seemingly coming from different angles but ultimately working together as a cohesive, if powerfully overwhelming whole.
Trigaux admits that “I use lengthy repetition and polyrhythmics to push not only the listener but myself to a paroxysm…
Damaged Goods
Listen to Location Location Location’s debut, Damaged Goods, and it’s easy to visualize the three musicians sweating it out in the recording studio, locking in on a groove and just jamming. With, it should be noted, occasional breaks to contemplate the basics, then add subtle overdubs: some bit-crunched guitar here, a marimba there, perhaps a harmonized line or a spacey reverb effect. But essentially live, essentially just three guys in a room, giving their all. But that’s not how it went down a…
The Dutch Lesson
By 1973 Soft Machine already had a long history of playing in Rotterdam, appearing at major festivals such as Hippy Hippy Fair (1967), Kralingen (1970) and AHOY (1971, Phil Howard’s debut), and no less than four times at the city’s most prestigious venue, De Doelen, most recently (in September 1972) on a double bill with Robert Wyatt’s Matching Mole. This time, however, they were booked in a smaller venue, which they filled to capacity at around 400. Part of an arts complex originally known as O…