New Arrivals
Touch
With Touch, the Tortoise bandmembers — Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire, and Jeff Parker — harness their collectivist songwriting approach, a slightly anarchistic but resolutely egalitarian process where ideas triumph over ego towards an abstracted muscularity. While there are still excursions into the dusky, elegantly gnarled jazz ambience that flourished on landmark works like Millions Now Living Will Never Die and TNT, Touch is perhaps most remarkable for Tortoise's un…
Feather and Pine
We are very proud to announce the second album by Michael Krassner for Dark Companion. This innovative, as ever, breathtaking music was originally intended as the soundtrack to a docufilm by Michael James Beck and Star Rosencrans of the same name: the film denounces the severe deforestation of North America’s majestic forests and all the associated problems. The music strikes arcane chords, buried in our collective memory. Ancient tales are told without words, preserving a profound sacredness th…
Further Beyond
"The history and culture of improvised music have been shaped by manifold concepts of freedom, but one in particular explains Amado’s aesthetic. It is his reference to Sam Rivers’ declaration: “Freedom does not mean unconditional renunciation of melody and rhythm, but the freedom to choose what I want to play.” It was this freedom to that led Rivers to punctuate his epic trio sets with grooves and essays on perennials like “Wheatleigh Hall.” Rivers also eschewed the labeling of his music as impr…
Magma
Esmeralda Sella is a young pianist from Ravenna, Italy. “Magma” is her debut album, and also a turning point. It’s the culmination of a journey that was «essential for understanding myself and the world around me» as she describes it. Sella recorded “Magma” with two key collaborators: Federico Giolito (double bass) and Giovanni Nardiello (drums), following years of mutual trust, shared musical experiences and extensive practice. «Our sound is the result of opinions, ideas, and doubts exchanged o…
Schneider Serries #2
"Following their first collaborative LP, which I reviewed in Vital Weekly 1451, there’s a new album by Dirk Serries (guitar) and drummer Jörg A. Schneider. For me, that was an introduction to this musician (Dirk, I have known since 40 years!), who plays with Gaffa, Glimmen, Jealousy Mountain Duo, Les Hommes Qui Wear Espandrillos, Nicoffeine, Roji, SWWS, Tarngo, Teen Prime, The Nude Spur and has several collaborative projects, mostly with guitar slingers, such as Thisquietarmy, N, Mikel Vega, Aid…
Nidarosdomen
At the heart of Trondheim rises Nidarosdomen: Scandinavia’s great cathedral, the northernmost Gothic monument of the Middle Ages, built upon the resting place of Saint Olav. Within its stone walls breathes the colossal Steinmeyer organ, 9,600 pipes of air and thunder. A space made not only for prayer, but for ritual. When Yodok III was invited to perform in this sacred colossus, the idea of summoning Petra Bjørkhaug to the Steinmeyer organ arrived like an inevitability. To let the cathedral itse…
Wonderful Brutalism
*100 copies limited edition* “'Wonderful Brutalism' is an epic, and at times intense slice of improvisation - drums and taishogoto build into an unrelenting stampede with moments of gentle cinematic soundscape. Improvisation at its most dynamic and inspiring.” - Michael Sill Belgium musicians Jef Mertens and Dirk Wachtelaer have both been active in the field of experimental music since the 1990s—Dirk as a drummer and Jef as a documentary filmmaker. It wasn’t until 2023 that they met for the firs…
The Empty Hollow Unfolds (Expanded Edition 2021)
In a long-awaited unveiling, celebrating it's 25th anniversary, raison d’être’s critically acclaimed dark ambient opus The Empty Hollow Unfolds will be available for the first time ever on vinyl, released as a deluxe Double LP edition on Marbled vinyl and standard Black. Originally issued in 2000 this reissue marks a significant milestone in the legacy of Swedish composer Peter Andersson, whose immersive soundscapes helped define an era of industrial ambient music.
The Empty Hollow Unfolds is no…
Ashes
When war erupted in Ukraine, French sound sculptor Lambwool found himself overtaken by an overwhelming surge of fear and anxiety. The escalating threat of nuclear disaster, the looming specter of global conflict, and the harrowing imagery of destruction awakened in him a long-buried childhood trauma: the paralyzing terror of an impending apocalypse. For ten days following the outbreak of war, Lambwool was engulfed in a state of absolute panic. Searching for a way to purge these suffocating emoti…
New Revelations of Being
*300 copies limited edition* American Dark Ambient sound sculptor Ajna returns with his latest full-length work, New Revelations of Being, an eleven-track descent into the abyss of human psyche and metaphysical dread. Following his acclaimed Cyclic Law releases, this new opus draws direct inspiration from the fevered writings of Antonin Artaud’s Artaud 1937 Apocalypse.
With New Revelations of Being, Ajna channels Artaud’s fragmented visions of destruction, renewal, and transcendence through a va…
And The World Will Perish In Flames
*300 copies limited edition* Forged in the fires of Spain’s underground, Dayofwrath unleashed their uncompromising vision with the limited cassette release of And The World Will Perish In Flames via Cloister Recordings in 2021. With its raw aggression, suffocating atmosphere, and apocalyptic intensity, the album quickly became a coveted cult artifact. This new CD edition preserves the original spirit, unrelenting, furious, and bleak, while opening the door to a wider audience. Its presence withi…
A Near Permanent State Of Wonder
RogueArt proudly presents A Near Permanent State of Wonder, the first duo recording by pianist Alexander Hawkins and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum. Two of the most distinctive and restlessly inventive voices in contemporary creative music meet in an intimate, exploratory session that balances lyricism and abstraction, rigor and generosity, fragility and fire.
The album documents a rare level of rapport between the musicians. Hawkins, celebrated for his agile navigation between tradition, avant‑gar…
Insect Life
Insect Life debuts on 577 Records with a Cosmic, Creative, Art-Driven Opus — Out November 7th. Avant-garde experimental ensemble Insect Life is set to release their self-titled debut album, Insect Life. The album delivers a sound that is raw, wild, and authentic, blending improvisation, orchestral textures, and dynamic interplay into an immersive, art-driven experience. There’s something hypnotic about the whole listening experience, drawing the listener into its cosmic, abstract world.
Born fr…
A Few Meaningful Things
And now, something completely different. Marco Avitabile is an Italian guitarist and sound artist who shapes raw improvisation into fragile textures. Once rooted in post-hardcore and metal, his playing has since become stripped-down,ambient, guided more by instinct than technique. 'A Few Meaningful Things' — his second solo work and first for Colectivo Casa Amarela — lets strings collide with live processing, a luminous meditation on simplicity, touching many styles while belonging to none.
This…
Elemental View
Few contemporary composers have created instruments as singular as Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument, and fewer still have explored its possibilities with the depth and invention documented on Elemental View. This six-movement work, performed in collaboration with The Living Earth Show, transforms an industrial-sized space into a resonating chamber where 136 precisely tuned strings create what can only be described as environmental music in its most literal sense. Fullman has spent decades …
The Story Of Valerie
2025 Stock. The discovery of a cassette of Carola Baer's early 90s private home recordings was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. Made as a one off mixtape of newly recorded songs, and given away to a long-since forgotten recipient, this cassette was found in 2017 at a Goodwill "bins" location in Portland, Oregon. These chaotic, by the pound thrift stores contain 1000's of unsorted items in constant flux, which are only available for the public to buy for a limited time before th…
Music From the Mountain People of Vietnam
In the remote villages of Vietnam's Central Highlands, a profound musical transformation is taking place. Traditional songs that have echoed through generations of the Jerai, Banhar, Ede, and Rongao ethnic groups now exist alongside new forms of expression, creating a complex sonic landscape that Vincenzo Della Ratta has documented across two decades of field recording. This exceptional release captures not just the music itself but a pivotal moment in cultural history—the last flowering of anci…
Faust
Few debut albums arrive with the kind of self-contained logic and radical spirit found on Faust's self-titled 1971 statement. Released at the height of rock music's imperial phase, it marked the beginning of a project that would sidestep genre and expectation entirely, offering instead a fractured, exploratory take on what popular music could become. This Bureau B reissue offers a fresh opportunity to engage with one of the most curious and uncompromising records of its time. Faust emerged from …
Otomo Yoshihide Plays Christian Marclay
As the title suggests, the second installment of Otomo Yoshihide Solo Works is a collection of works that pay homage to Christian Marclay, the turntablist who was one of his biggest influences. Merkley was a pioneer of turntable improvisation in the early 80's in a way that was completely different from the context of hip-hop DJing, and at the same time, he is one of the leading contemporary artists. It is no exaggeration to say that the impact of encountering his performances and works is one o…
Heavenly Arms with Otomo Yoshihide
Heavenly Arms – featuring Otomo Yoshihide – is a bold new sonic journey that bridges experimental sound, improvisation, and emotional resonance. The record, released in collaboration with the visionary Japanese composer and guitarist Otomo Yoshihide, showcases a meeting of worlds where free improvisation collides with delicate melodic structures.
Across its tracks, Heavenly Arms captures the raw immediacy of live interaction while preserving an intimate, cinematic atmosphere. The album moves f…