★Otoroku
Two Duos
Tip! “Two Duos” is pressed from cellist Okkyung Lee’s most recent OTO Residency; the first side a duo with Jérôme Noetinger on Revox B77 and the second with Nadia Ratsimandresy on Ondes Martenot. Cut together, the two meetings seem to raise three cellos in the search for expressive voice: the cello, it’s magnetic reproduction, and the dual controls of the machine invented to expand on its musical qualities. On the A side Noetinger’s opening tape hiss establishes a current; an electrical partner …
Deorlaf X
New music from XT (saxophone player Seymour Wright and percussionist Paul Abbott) in the form of an exhilarating, super compressed, reflective re-assembling of a dozen years working together. Re-animating free improvisation with a Chicago house palette, Deorlaf X is made up of frenetic slabs of mutated multiphonics and triggered percussion, suspended in bouts of possessed reflexive quiet.
Where the duo’s 2019 release Palina'tufa on Empty Editions focused primarily on a response to the real (and …
Some Good News
Double CD documenting the magic meeting of one of the all-time great rhythm sections in jazz: percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker, with London’s brilliant Black Top (Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas) and Elaine Mitchener. Across two sets the quintet are infectiously energetic and inspired, striding from synchronised heavy groove to star bright solos, whilst incorporating dub effects, guimbri and sumptuous blues piano playing.
Formed by Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas but always real…
Six of One
Originally recorded and released in 1980, "Six of One" beautifully captures the detail in Evan Parker's high frequency split tones for which he is now perhaps better known. Five years on from "Saxophone Solos" and with circular breathing and polyphonics well worn into his live performances, Parker's experimentations here produce sustained passages of brilliant flight. Set into the echoes and resonances of a St Judes On The Hill church, the results are stunning.
"The recital commences with a sp…
Saxophone Solos
Reissue Evan Parker's first solo LP Saxophone Solos. Recorded by Martin Davidson in 1975 at the Unity Theatre in London, at that time the preferred concert venue of the Musicians' Co-operative, Parker's densely woven and often cyclical style has yet to form; instead throaty murmurs appear under rough-hewn whistles and calls -- the wildly energetic beginnings of an extraordinary career. Reissued with liner notes from Seymour Wright in an edition of 500. "The four pieces across the two sides of Sa…
The Snake Decides
Milestone reissue, one of the greatest singular sonic gestures of the 20th century.. Soprano saxophone solos recorded in 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford by the late Michael Gerzon. One of the final Incus releases and one that was written up in The Penguin Guide to Jazz as ‘an essential document of modern music’. Otoroku is proud to release the first ever vinyl re-issue of Evan Parker’s legendary recording The Snake Decides. Featuring 4 solos recorded in 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford by th…
Collected Solos
A truly stunning accomplishment on the part of Otoroku, "Collected Solos" is easily one of the most exciting reissues of the year. Gathering all four of Evan Parker’s seminal solo releases for Incus, plus a cassette featuring extra cuts from the sessions at FMP studios from the "Saxophone Solos" session, and an accompanying booklet written by the late writer, Paul Haines, issued in a deluxe, screen printed box, in an edition of 250 copies, it is a towering artifact of European free improvised mu…
The Truth
Pat Thomas is one of the most extraordinary pianists of our time. In a first time duo with saxophonist Matana Roberts, the lyricism of his distinctly dexterous and curious approach to the piano paints pathways for Robert’s poignantly vocal saxophone. Together the two speak; locked grooves and neat switchbacks on the keys form dialogue with long deliberate lines on the alto, punctuated by Roberts’ ecstatic vocalisations.
The trio of improvised pieces which make up the record’s first side are ric…
Gjerhan
III (pronounced /el/) is Daichi Yoshikawa, Paul Abbott and Seymour Wright. This recording includes two bare 20-minute excerpts from separate performances at Café OTO. Daichi Yoshikawa (feedback); Paul Abbott (drums); Seymour Wright (alto saxophone). gjerhan began from subterranea, sweat, haze and dedication emerging out of intimate and intense weekly meetings begun in 2009 -- their first, 2012 public performance, squeezed into a London basement was a sheer, vexed and exhilarating smack of organi…
AC/DC
Two totally infectious sets from Decoy -- the trio of John Edwards, Steve Noble, and Alexander Hawkins -- reunited with pocket trumpet and saxophone player Joe McPhee on the closing night of his four day residency at Cafe OTO. In the eight years between the recordings which make up AC/DC and their last release Spontaneous Combustion, Decoy and each of its members have been practicing individually at the very top of their form. Coming together again in such celebratory circumstances and in the go…
![Super Majnoon [East Meets West]](https://cdn.soundohm.com/data/products/036/ahmed-super-majnoon-east-meets.jpg.500.jpg)
Super Majnoon [East Meets West]
[Ahmed], the quartet of Pat Thomas, Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Seymour Wright – make music of heavy rhythm, repetition and syncopation set deep into an understanding of jazz and the obscure depths of its history. Across the 2 LPs which make up Super Majnoon [East Meets West] the group work and rework the music of the late musician Ahmed Abdul-Malik to create a stamping, swinging, relentlessly propulsive record where profundity and physicality root right back to ecstatic feeling.Abdul-Malik wa…
Spirits Rejoice!
**1000 copies** Otoroku is extremely proud to present the first vinyl reissue of one of the most legendary free jazz records ever produced. Originally released in 1978 on Ogun recordings, Louis Moholo Octet’s Spirits Rejoice! is a high achievement in the movement of the era as it soars beyond oppression with a raucous and spiritually uplifting surge of movement and melody. Featuring Harry Miller, Johnny Dyani, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti and Kenny Wheeler, this is forme…
Tree Dancing
This recording from the earlier years of Cafe Oto documents the impossible pairing of four contemporary giants. It's the reason the venue opened in the first place, for miraculous one-off groupings like this. "The magic of the first minutes -- an alto solo by Joe McPhee of true purity -- soft-spoken, masterful and accomplished -- brought back to mind the blissful Coleman/Haden duet last year at the Royal Festival Hall. 'Ornette gave me freedom to move in a certain way,' said McPhee. He searched …
Seasons Changing
Charles Gayle is a saxophonist, pianist, sometimes a clown and
radical musical performer wrapped into the body of a humble person
living in Downtown Manhattan since the 1960s. As this set attests to, it
is sometimes hard to predict what he will do on stage... In all his
musical (and personal) life Charles Gayle has remained outside of any
form of mainstream, carving his own singular path. There is no player on
the scene today with the emotional wallop of Charles Gayle. John Edwards
is a t…
The London Concert
Following on from the re-issue of Topography of the Lungs, Otoroku is proud to follow up with another legendary free-improvised document, this one from the duo of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, originally released on the INCUS label in 1975. "The London Concert is one of those rare recordings that capture musicians at a special moment of confluence, a moment when procedures are proving fruitful and before practice has hardened into dogma, when different visions are not yet turned into position pa…
The Elephant Clock of Al Jazari
Four exceptional improvisations of powerful solo piano with an unusual and inventive twist live at London's Cafe Oto
Vi Ar Alla Guds Slavar
Vi Är Alla Guds Slavar is the latest missive from the long-running duo pairing of Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, etc) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth, Chelsea Light Moving, Dream/Aktion Unit, etc). Thurston had first come across Mats' playing on a duo disc with Barry Guy and had assumed he was one of those older beardy European improv guys - Remember this was before the internet and everyone knew everything. Their first actual meeting goes back to the early 90s at Bl…
Song Sentimentale
Outside of the 2CD release ‘Never Too Late But Always Too Early’ (Eremite, 2003) there has been scant documentation of one of the most dynamic pairings in all free jazz. Featuring unique material on each format Song Sentimentale rectifies this anomaly with a full blown audio account of the breathtaking communicative heights obtained by these three legends of the living. Over 3 nights in January 2015 the trio seduced a winter worn crowd with the kind of organic interplay only these three can conj…
Live at Cafe Oto
The full recording of the first meeting between Bill Orcutt (USA) and Okkyung Lee (South Korea). Individually these players have focused on an idiosyncratic approach to their chosen instruments and technique. Okkyung is one of the most singular voices to compromise the cello's classical origin, while Orcutt has spent many years developing a unique abstraction of traditional guitar blues. Live at Cafe OTO is an uncompromising combination of these individual elements and an ecstatic improvised ass…
Takanehishigu
Born in 1964, Yukihiro Isso is a Japanese Noh flutist (hayashikata fuekata) from a family that has been playing this instrument since the 16th century. He received his initial instruction in flute playing from his father, Yukimasa Isso, and performed on the Noh stage for the first time at the age of nine. Beginning in his middle school years, he began listening to a variety of different kinds of music and studying new instruments including the recorder and piano. An acclaimed performer of classi…