★Eremite
Slight Freedom
2023 restock. The long awaited repress of Slight Freedom, acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's first solo album & a New York Times' best albums of 2016 selection, is here. Pressed on premium 120-gram audiophile-quality vinyl by RTI from lacquers cut at sterling sound by Steve Fallone, presented in a retro flipback jacket. Second edition of 1,399 copies. What we said in 2016: "Slight Freedom, Jeff Parker's first ever solo record, presents the first opportunity to hear the guitarist in ful…
Stories
”David Blue was the peer of any singer in this country, and he knew it, and he coveted their audiences and their power, he claimed them as his rightful due. And when he could not have them, his disappointment became so dazzling, his greed assumed such purity, his appetite such honesty, and he stretched his arms so wide, that we were all able to recognize ourselves, and we fell in love with him.” - Leonard Cohen
David Blue is the ‘blue’ in Bob Dylan’s “Baby Blue”, the voluble chain-smoking pinbal…
Mandatory Reality
Small repress. Double LP version. LPs pressed on premium audiophile-quality vinyl at RTI from Kevin Gray Lacquers; Presented in a textured gatefold Stoughton "laserdisc" jacket with a cover painting by Lisa Alvarado. Jackets, retro-audiophile sleeves and record labels hand-screen printed by Alan Sherry at Siwa Studios, Northern New Mexico. Mandatory Reality, the new album by Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society, is here. Setting aside (for the moment) the electric instrumentation of Sim…
Unity
Eremite present Byron And Gerald's Unity, a private press free jazz album recorded in 1969 at Howard University and the first release on Byron Morris's EPI label. It is the only hardcore free jazz record out of 1960s DC, and a viscerally powerful cultural dispatch on the sociopolitical upheavals of its time. From Byron's 2017 liner notes: "In the early spring of 1969, several months before moving to Poughkeepsie, NY, Gerald Wise and I, along with the recording engineer Len Jones, conceived of th…
Magnetoception
Restocked!! On Magnetoception, Joshua Abrams is back exploring new contexts for the guimbri, the three-stringed north African bass lute at the heart of his Eremite recordings Natural Information (2010) and Represencing (2012). The artist's first large-scale work on vinyl, Magnetoception began as a commission by Eremite for Abrams to make a double LP based in extended performances by an ensemble of Abrams, guitarists Emmett Kelly and Jeff Parker, and drummer Hamid Drake. The group recorded the…
Natural Information
Eremite presents the first CD edition of Joshua Abrams's acclaimed 2010 LP Natural Information, now out of print on vinyl. Abrams's first record for Eremite is another fascinating entry in his discography of recordings that gather aesthetic input from all over the map into vivid personal statements. At the heart of Natural Information is the guimbri, a three-stringed animal hide bass traditionally used by the Gnawa people of North Africa in healing ceremonies. Combining solo, trio, and qua…
Represencing
Eremite presents the first CD edition of Joshua Abrams' acclaimed 2012 LP Represencing, now out of print on vinyl. Represencing is the second installment of the Joshua Abrams sound-world, first introduced in 2010 on Natural Information (MTE 061CD). Abrams again organizes small group statements around the resonant grooves of the guimbri, a North African three-stringed, animal hide bass, with a unique and broadly assimilative compositional voice. Blending sources that range from traditional mus…
Alan Silva & The Celestrial Communication Orchestra
Unboxed editiion. 4 x CD: for some time now, alan silva has commented that the market value of his records should more closely resemble the price of a lithograph or an artist's print than the price an ordinary record. we remind him that his albums are not produced in special gallery editions, but "mass produced" for a niche market. silva has responded with THE TREASURE BOX. eremite agreed to support the effort, giving away four of its catalog numbers, & what little sanity & peace of mind t…
Big Chief
Examples on record of sunny murray's enduring originality and influence as a drummer are many (refer to eremite 14, 45 & 46, among others), but very few recordings demonstrate his strikingly unusual voice as a band leader and composer. none do so more spectacularly than his 1969 album big chief. unfortunately it's been a sick collector's item since long before ebay. so it is with great pride and satisfaction that eremite returns to our friends in the human clan this long unavailable masterpiece.…
Red, Black And Green
Originally produced and issued by charles 'bobo' shaw himself, red, black & green, by the band "solidarity unit, inc." documents what happened at "the bag room" in st. louis, mo, the day jimi hendrix died. shaw & the ten piece group produce a raw, teeming clattering sound, captured in a gloriously blunt low-res recording as stark as the b&w cover art. lake & bowie were by this time already powerful soloists, & both declaim fervently and damn near relentlessly over shaw's swaggering themes. de…
New World Pygmies vol.2
Eremite continues its documentation of this remarkable duo, who have played together since 1973, with a double c/d set (140+ minutes) featuring two concert recordings from a 2000 tour. on both versions of "new world pygmies," parker's recent interest in double-reed instruments & moondoc's introduction of a soprano saxophone move their music into realms of joyfully non-tempered playing recalling the Master Musicians of Jajouka. elsewhere the bass & alto join for ravishing performances of composit…
Drum Dance to the Motherland
Deluxe reissue of this outsider holy grail, cosmic free jazz at the top!!There's not another record on the planet that sounds even remotely like vibraphonist khan jamal's eccentric, one-of-a-kind masterpiece, drumdance to the motherland. in its improbable fusion of free jazz expressionism, black psychedelia, & full-on dub-like production techniques, drumdance remains a bracingly powerful outsider statement thirty-four years after it was recorded live at the catacombs club in philadelphia…
Father of Origin
Deep archeology into a long buried and previously undocumented chapter in the history of the early '70s loft era brings forth the revelatory Father of Origin, Eremite's box set retrospective of percussionist/bassist Juma Sultan's Aboriginal Music Society. Drawn from Sultan's mammoth private archive of recordings, this ground-breaking set includes two audiophile LPs and a CD, a 28 page 12x12' book featuring previously unpublished photographs and ephemera and a detailed historical essay by jazz sc…