★Cuneiform Records
Tabligh
This is the third album by Wadada Leo Smith’s all-star Golden Quartet. Recorded live, the sound on Tabligh veers from a sound akin to early electric jazz ala "In A Silent Way" and especially 'the lost quintet' of Miles in late 1969/early 1970, to both more sparse and modern jazz fare, all of it informed by the distinctive personalities of these four players and their leader's musical concepts. Wadada Leo Smith is a well-respected trumpeter and composer working in avant-garde jazz and improvisati…
'68
** 2022 Stock ** LP edition. For over 45 years, Robert Wyatt has been a major, creative force in music, having had a major impact on the beginnings of both psychedelic rock and jazz/rock in the UK with Soft Machine, to his eventual long solo career as a unique singer/songwriter. In September 1968, the Soft Machine had just finished their second, exhaustive tour of the USA supporting the Jimi Hendrix Experience. At the conclusion of the tour, vocalist/drummer/multi-instrumentalist Robert stayed,…
Middle Earth Masters
*2022 stock* The Soft Machine were one of England's original and best psychedelic bands, emerging out of the same "UFO Club" London scene at the same time as Pink Floyd. While the band would always undergo constant personnel and stylistic change, their best known lineup in their psychedelic days was the trio of Kevin Ayers-bass, guitar, vocals, Mike Ratledge-organ and Robert Wyatt-drums, vocals. They played many shows and built an audience in “swinging London” and beyond. A link with Jimi Hendri…
Hoarded Dreams
*2022 stock* Graham Collier is one of the best known and most important British jazz composers and over a 40 year career, his list of compositions and commissions has grown to encompass ensembles around the world. He is well-known as an author and educator, having written seven books on jazz. Hoarded Dreams is a previously unreleased long-form composition heard here in a powerful live performance from 1983 by an international all-star band that includes Tomasz Stanko, Conny Bauer, Malcolm Griffi…
Workpoints
*2022 stock* Called "A pioneer...a true British jazz original." by The Times, "An inventive and underrated jazz figure" by Jazziz and "Britain's most original jazz talent." by The Financial Times, Graham Collier was one of the best known British jazz composers, and over a 40 year career, his list of compositions and commissions grew to encompass ensembles around the world. He was well known as an author and educator, having written seven books on jazz. He was born in Tynemouth, England in 1937. …
A Love Supreme & Meditations
*2022 stock* Some records tell you what’s what. That’s not a bad thing: there’s a place in music for reportage, for commentary, for what’s going on. But A Love Supreme Electric, the collaborative project between Vinny Golia, John Hanrahan, Henry Kaiser, Wayne Peet, Mike Watt, and John Coltrane’s immortal spirit, starts from a different place. “What if?” it asks. In fact, ALSE asks “What if?” over and over again, joyously interrogating the twin templates of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Meditatio…
Baker's Dozen
Big Tip! Box set of all previously unreleased materials by US avant / progressive rock band The Muffins. "The finest progressive band that America produced." - Fred Frith. It is an all-too-rare occurrence for a band, throughout its career, to create music that continually pushes the envelope and transforms the landscape. It is an even rarer occurrence for such a band to reunite after a long separation, and embark on a second musical career that proves as innovative as the first. The Maryland-bas…
Facelift (France & Holland)
From their beginnings as a psychedelic rock band in 1966, sharing stages with Pink Floyd and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, to being one of the originators of electric jazz/rock by early 1969, Britain’s Soft Machine were restlessly creative. Facelift France and Holland captures them at a pivotal moment in the first quarter of 1970 as a short-lived quintet, just before they recorded and released their breakthrough album, Third. As broadcast on the French TV programme Pop 2, the film of Soft Machin…
Bremen To Bridgwater (2CD)
This release, Bremen to Bridgewater, contains two albums worth of previously unreleased live recordings made in Germany and England during two very different periods of the band’s career. The German radio recordings were made on June 20th, 1971 at Lila Eule (Lilac Owl), a well known jazz club in Bremen. The English recordings were made at the Bridgewater Arts Center, during two tours that the band made with different lineups in February and November of 1975, and feature some of the very last rec…
44½ : Live + Unreleased Works
Art Zoyd - 44 1/2 : Live and Unreleased Works 12 x CDs + 2 x DVDs box set with book. 'Art Zoyd is a quartet, but their instrumental arsenal produces the sound of a mighty orchestra.' – The New York Times Originally founded as a psychedelic / progressive rock band in France in 1969, with the arrival of soon-to-be co-leaders Gerard Hourbette and Thierry Zaboitzeff in 1971 and then with the departure of the band's founder, the group radically changed direction. By 1975 they were no longer a ‘rock'…
Dawn
Dawn presents Mike Osborne in both his earliest surviving recording, as a co-leader with John Surman of a quartet from 1966, and in 1970 with the first known recordings of his mighty trio with the transplanted South African rhythm team of Harry Miller and Louis Moholo. These unearthed recordings not only fill in important gaps in Osborne's own discography but in the history of British jazz as a whole. The first six tracks, recorded in 1970, are by his trio, his main vehicle as a leader and…
Skull Sessions
Mazurek finds a challenge irresistible, and this is one of his most exciting projects" – The Wire
Skull Sessions combines two of Rob's groups: Sao Paulo Underground and Starlicker with additional personnel. The band is an international cast of masters, including drummer John Herndon (of Tortoise), vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz and flutist Nicole Mitchell, (both DownBeat poll winners on their respective instruments), Guilherme Granado on keyboards and electronics, Carlos Issa on guitar and …
Chronolyse
Cuneiform Records is proud to announce the first-ever vinyl reissue of Chronolyse, the masterwork of 1970s analogue electronics that French electronic musician and guitarist Richard Pinhas created in tribute to Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, Dune. This special reissue, pressed on 180 gram white vinyl and featuring the original album artwork, celebrates Chronolyse’s conception nearly 40 years ago as well as the 50th anniversary of Dune, the first volume of which was published in 1965. Ch…
Rhizosphere/Live, Paris 1982
Rhizosphere, originally released in 1976, was Pinhas' first solo album. It consists of four solo pieces for synthesizer, plus a extended fifth synthesizer piece which is a duet with Heldon drummer Francois Auguer. I have always found it to be a mesmerizing work, on par with its influences of Terry Riley and Philip Glass, but completely different from them due to the usage of only Moog and ARP synthesizers. For this CD release, an additional 38' was added of a previously unheard, professio…
Galactic Parables: Volume 1
Composer, cornetist, electronic & acoustic sound specialist and musical director Rob Mazurek leads his largest regular ensemble, the Exploding Star Orchestra through one of his most ambitious recordings. While Galactic Parables: Volume 1 is a self-contained cosmos, marked by colliding melodic lines and startlingly beautiful passages, as the title indicates, it’s part of a larger work. Ever since Exploding Star Orchestra’s debut recording, Mazurek has been gradually building an epic science ficti…
Return The Tides: Ascension Suite And Holy Ghost
"I have always thought of the idea of passing as a beautiful thing, in which the soul or life force of the individual is somehow transferred to the immensity and brilliance of the entirety. The idea of Heaven and Hell (and everything inbetween) has always been a hallmark within the limited spectrum of what we humans can come up with and the idea of God or Gods has, for some, been an interesting way of putting a life and circumstances into some kind of mysterious belief system that can at times b…
Virtually
The previously unreleased show captured on Virtually, recorded 3/23/71, presents the classic quartet Softs [Elton Dean/Mike Ratledge/Hugh Hopper/Robert Wyatt] during their final European tour & just 4 months before their dissolution. The recording [licensed from German radio & taken from the master tapes] is superb for the time period, & the performance really sparkles, with everyone shinning, although special note must be made of Robert's drumming, as he plays with more gusto on this show than …
Noisette
Noisette is the third in Soft Machine series, recorded January 4th, 1970 at the same concert as "Facelift" on Third, by the short-lived quintet formation of the group: Elton Dean & Lyn Dobson-reeds, Hugh Hopper-bass, Mike Ratledge-keyboards & Robert Wyatt-drums & vocals. Noisette features the rest of the concert, & showcases a band in transition from their earlier psychedelic/ progressive sound towards the jazz rock sound of Third & Fourth. It features the quintet performing versions of material…
Way Back When
This is a truly stupendous archival find, with broad appeal to both jazz and early fusion fans. This never before released album was recorded on October 7th, 1969 by John Surman and British jazz superstars. It is a mix between the vibrancy of late 60's uk jazz and spacey early electric jazz/rock ala "In A Silent Way"; listening to this album, you can hear that the fusion explosion is on the cusp of happening. Soprano/baritone saxophonist John Surman is one of the UK's best known jazzmen, having …
Switzerland 1974
Soft Machine were one of the greatest UK avant/jazz-rock bands of all time and their work, whether their earliest performances as a psychedelic band, who were contemporaries of, and shared stages with Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, all the way to being one of Europe's best known 'fusion' bands, their work continues to be name-checked by today's hip experimentalists. By mid 1973, Soft Machine had gone through a tremendous amount of personnel turnover and a shifting in t…