New Arrivals
Utopian Air
*2024 stock. 250 copies limited edition* Beau Beaumont is a sound artist based in Liverpool, England. In summer 2023 she spent two months on a residency program in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture. During that period she invited Tokyo-based musicians Leo Okagawa and Masatake Abe to make a recording with her at her Matsudo accommodation, "Paradise Air." This CD’s one track is 60 minutes, 10 seconds long. Beau Beaumont and Okagawa use electronics, while Abe plays electric bass. The music’s core is a powe…
Memory Is A Poet, Spinning Stories
*2024 stock. 250 copies limited edition* Born in 1964, Tetuzi Akiyama is a guitarist/improviser active inside and outside Japan. Masahide Tokunaga, who was born in 1982, is an always-original alto sax player. Masatake Abe, born in 1993, is an innovative electric bass player on the jazz/improvised music scene. These three musicians of different generations performed together at Ftarri, Tokyo, on June 6, 2021. This CD contains two improvised pieces (about 25 minutes each) from that concert.This is…
They appear on the circuit from which we disappeared
*250 copies limited edition* Ai Watanabe is a Tokyo-based composer. After studying at Tokyo College of Music’s graduate school, she went to France and completed a graduate program at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Paris, and subsequently earned a doctoral degree at Tokyo University of the Arts. In recent years Watanabe has been focusing on electroacoustic music using field recordings as additional materials, earning high praise inside and outside Japan. Kokichi Yanagisawa is a guita…
El Amigo
*200 copies limited edition* Aquiles Hadjis was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. In 2009 he moved to Tokyo, and in 2017 he received a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from the Department of Painting at Tokyo University of the Arts. Still based in Tokyo, he is engaged in creative work in the fields of film, painting and music. Antonio Mazzei, also from Venezuela, is a pianist and composer. He studied with Fred Hersch and Kevin Hays at New York's New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and has since continued …
The Lightgiver
*200 copies limited edition* Canadian musician Lee Noyes (born in 1977) lived in New Zealand from the mid-1990s to the 2000s and subsequently moved to Sweden, where he continues his work on the improvised/experimental music scene, playing electronics, percussion and other instruments. American guitarist Barry Chabala (born in 1961) has released numerous recordings on improvised/experimental music labels such as Erstwhile Records, winds measure recordings, and Another Timbre. Noyes and Chabala ha…
Go Home and Go to Bed!!!
*250 copies limited edition* Tenor saxophone player Junji Hirose and guitarist Kazuo Imai, both Tokyo residents born in 1955, are two of Japan’s representative improvisers. Revered musicians who have long been leading Japan’s improvised music scene, they continue to carry out a wide range of performance activities with tireless energy. Their collaborative recording "Be Quiet!!!," a trio CD with drummer Darren Moore, was released on the Meenna label in April 2023. One year later, their new duo al…
Mushoku In Excursion
*200 copies limited edition* Ongoing since 2014, Mushoku In Excursion is a duo project by Takahashi 'Takakhan' Seiji and Yuko Nexus6. Kyoto-based Takahashi has planned and organized a wide variety of performances and events. Yuko Nexus6 is a performance artist/writer who lived for a long time in the Kansai area and now resides in Tokyo. The creation of this album began with the two making a one-hour recording by the Uji River in Kyoto. The tape became a foundation over which Yuko Nexus6 (piano, …
Oude geuze uit Niemendaal
Tip! *200 copies limited edition* As an American in Belgium, McLoud Zicmuse developed a deep love for some of the customs of his new-found homeland: archery, aging geuze-beers, and not in the least: playing de ‘hommel”, a local cousin of the apalachian Dulcimer. With the persona Linus Vandewolken, Zicmuse took a deep dive into these traditions and created an album that at the same time sounds very traditional and very impulsive. a fearless exploration of the sounds and melodies a ‘Hommel’ is ca…
Caetano Veloso (A Little More Blue)
*2024 repress* Lilith present a reissue of Caetano Veloso's Caetano Veloso (A Little More Blue), originally issued in 1971. Often referred to as "Brazil's unofficial poet laureate" and the "Bob Dylan of Brazil", this heavyweight of Brazilian music was also a young revolutionary who used his music to protest against Brazil's oppressive military regime. This protest music, which became known as tropicalia, first earned Veloso a stint in jail, but by the time this dour album was released in 1971, i…
As Far As November
2024 stock. When the stage is soaked with gasoline, a simple spark of sound from one of them will be needed to blow everything up in the air. That fleeting moment, which barely lasts as long as it takes a note to emerge from the sax, a double bass string to start to vibrate, or to hit a drum head, will now carry on for an hour on the clock. Make no mistake, everything that seems to happen during that time, in fact, is contained in a very single instant. It is a big bang of musical energy expandi…
Ytinamuh
2024 stock. Natalia Kordiak is one of the most promising vocalists, we believe, not only on the Polish but also on the European jazz scene. Ytinamuh (Humanity) is her new album, the second in her career, recorded with a band composed of Poland's most talented young musicians. Maciej Lewenstein wrote in his review : "A clear Masterpiece, and one of the best Polish improvised vocal records of all times!!!"
Keep The Dream Up
2024 stock. "The Session. The day started out a little different - Park West Studio is in Brooklyn and so am I. It's not too far, but I would need to take the subway and walk a bit so I decided to make it easier on myself and take a cab. When I got in the cab, I started to space out and think about the music. The ride seemed like it was taking too long, and I regained consciousness and asked “are we going the right way?” The cabbie got short with me and said we were almost there. He stopped and …
Seven Skies Orchestra
2024 stock. The great maestro Ivo Perelman rarely gives samples of his playing in the setting of larger ensembles. This is perhaps the first time we have had the opportunity to listen to him in the setting of a sextet formation. Especially for this session, the ensemble consists of some of the greatest experts in their instrumental classes. Here, Nate Wooley meets vibraphonist Matt Moran, and all this is set against a backdrop of exquisite string players including Mat Maneri, Fred Lonberg Holm, …
The House Of Memory
2024 stock. "João Pedro, Silvia, Adriano: three friends, three travel companions, three alchemists capable of giving infinite shades of color to music; listening to them is like enjoying the beauty of an exhibition of abstract paintings, yet full of warmth and sensitivity. A far cry from certain forms of art that are undoubtedly important, perhaps even necessary, but that creep into the darker side of emotions and life: in this case we are in that expressive sphere, so difficult to navigate, whi…
Duot With Strings
2024 stock. Saxophone player Albert Cirera one of the most important Spanish improvisers works with Ramon Prats fascinating drummer from many years. They both are one of the shinest points on the European musical scene. On the other hand ZARM Ensemble. ZARM Ensemble is an award-winning string quartet started by legendary Portugal violin master Carlos "Zíngaro”, David Magalhães Alves (Violin), Ulrich Mitzlaff (Cello), and Alvaro Rosso (Double bass).From an almost compulsive fascination with sound…
Live At The Hungry Brain
2024 stock. Trumpeter Russ Johnson is a recent Midwest transplant after spending 23 years as an important member of New York City’s jazz community. He has seven recordings as a leader or co-leader and performed on more than 75 recordings as a sideman. Russ has worked alongside many of the legendary figures in jazz including Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell, and Joe Lovano. In addition, he has recorded and/or performed with a long list of the most prominent musicians currently on the inter…
Welcome To The Troposphere
2024 stock. Three years ago, the eminent pianist Elisabeth Harnik and the great trombone master Steve Swell released for the first time their joint album Tonotopic Organisation, which is highly regarded by both critics and fans of both musicians. Three years have passed and the duo is now launching the second instalment of their improvisatory explorations. Listen to how the musicians have changed over this time, and how their art has changed. We are happy to give you the Welcome To The Stratosph…
Travelogue
Legendary pianist Matthew Shipp, one of the greatest improvisers Joe Morris and fantastic drummer Jerome Deupree known from iconic band MORPHINE together!
Raging Bulgakov
Simon Nabatov has undertaken one of the most unusual projects in contemporary music, an intense scrutiny and setting to music of modernist Russian literature, much of it taken from the years of Stalinist censorship, repression and imprisonment. For 25 years, beginning with Josef Brodsky’s Nature Morte, he has set text in partially improvised settings, including excerpts from Isaac Babel’s grim Red Cavalry and poems by Daniil Kharms and the Gileya group. Along with that largely poetic enterprise,…
Six Hands Open As One
In 2019, a year before the onset of the pandemic and three years before the full-scale war in Ukraine broke out, we released Illuminated Silence. This was the first album of a new trio consisting of the young Japanese-born, Irish-based pianist and composer Izumi Kimura and the greats of the improvised music world Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway. The album was very much liked by listeners and I heard from many of them the question whether there is a chance that this formation will survive, because …