Best of 2024
Chitinous
Big Big Tip! Certainly one of the most obscure and perhaps one of the most fascinating work of the English jazz revolution. Master of ceremonies is cellist Paul Buckmaster, known for his work with the Third Ear Band and for his (later) collaborations with Miles Davis, David Bowie and Elton John. Chitinous is his the only album as leader and it was recorded between 31 March and 13 April 1970, by an orchestra of no less than 51 players, with violins, violas and cellos. In this enormous line-up we …
Amphibiaibomma
Huge Tip! 200 copies. Mario de Vega engages with sound as a tangible medium to exasperate perception. For over 20 years, de Vega’s work has been exhibited as large scale commissioned interventions leaning towards liminal zones of aurality, ephemeral situations -often displayed as detritus of actions, prints, materials and publications-, sculpture, performative settings, and three-dimensional formats.
A M P H I B I A I B I H P M A (Amphibiaibomma) is a studio work composed between 2020 and 2024.…
Making Conversation
Crys Cole returns to Black Truffle with Making Conversation, her third solo release for the label. After the intimate song-like constructions of Other Meetings, Making Conversation documents a different facet of cole’s work, presenting three rigorously conceptualised commissioned pieces, each of which extend her signature approach to highly amplified small sounds into new directions.
Future Travel
Huge tip! Black Truffle is thrilled to present the first vinyl reissue of David Rosenboom’s unique Future Travel, originally released on the short-lived Detroit label Street Records in 1981 and here presented in an expanded edition with an additional LP of wild, previously unheard live and studio material from the same period.
Future Travel emerged from the confluence of two important streams in Rosenboom’s work at this time. First, his exploration of ‘propositional music’, defined as ‘complete …
Labyrinthe!
Big tip! An expedition in sound in 10 sequences: Enfoncement [Deep Sink], Gouffre circulaire [Circular Abyss], Noyau secret [Secret Core], Apesanteur [Weightlessness], Entrailles [Entrails], Four solaire [Solar Furnace], Fissures [Cracks], Mer intérieure [Inner Sea], Éruption [Eruption], Remontée [Ascension].
Labyrinthe ! is not only a very unique piece in Pierre Henry’s masterful repertoire, but also a remarkable demonstration of his compositional skills and musical singularity. Indeed, for thi…
Collected Works
Box set on Nonesuch with 27 discs (26 CDs + 1 DVD) in wallets, plus two booklets (132 + 120 pages). Nonesuch Records releases Steve Reich Collected Works, a twenty-seven-disc box set featuring music recorded during composer Steve Reich's forty years on the label, on March 14, 2025, available to pre-order here. The collection represents six decades of Reich’s compositions, ranging from It’s Gonna Rain (1965) to first recordings of his two latest works: Jacob’s Ladder (2023) and Traveler’s Prayer …
Symphony for Improvisers
Biggest Tip! 180 gram Vinyl Edition. Recorded in 1966 and released by Blue Note Records in August of 1967, Don Cherry's Symphony for Improvisers features Gato Barbieri, Henry Grimes, and Ed Blackwell, all of whom had appeared on Cherry's previous album Complete Communion. Also featured are Karl Berger, Jean-François Jenny- Clark, and Pharoah Sanders. The abum received a rating of ***** on AlMusic, with reviewer Steve Huey string that, "Even though the album is full of passionate fireworks, there…
Exactement
Souffle Continu records is thrilled to present Byard Lancaster – Exactement, one of his 4 legendary albums released on Jef Gilson’s Palm Records in the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague …
Us
Souffle Continu records is thrilled to present Byard Lancaster – Us, one of his 4 legendary albums released on Jef Gilson’s Palm Records in the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Alber…
Funny Funky Rib Crib
Souffle Continu records is thrilled to present Byard Lancaster – Funny Funky Rib Crib, one of his 4 legendary albums released on Jef Gilson’s Palm Records in the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy …
Strange Strings
2xLP is remastered with Bonus Tracks, liner notes by Irwin Chusid, and an expanded essay by David Toop. Packed in tip-on Stoughton gatefold jacket, and includes a printed insert card of the original cover art. Fans of Sun Ra's Space Bop and genre-bending jazz were in for a shock with Strange Strings. Even in the eclectic and sometimes baffling Sun Ra catalog, Strange Strings, first issued in 1967, is an outlier. Is it music, or just noise? Or noise as music? John Cage could not be reached for co…
Hi-Nology
Gatefold packaging. Terumasa Hino is undoubtedly one of the most famous Japanese jazzmen. Learning the trumpet at the age of nine, he began his career as a professional musician by playing in the orchestra of an US Army base, before joining Hideo Shiraki's Quintet and then forming his own band in 1964. On Hi-Nology, his brother Motohiko Hino appears on drums, Hiroma Suzuki on electric piano, Kumitsu Inaba on electric bass and Takeru Muraoka on tenor sax. The inspiration from the "electric period…
The Annual / Giftnalen / The Broken Flag Story (3 Book in bundle)
Since their relaunch in 2019 as, primarily, a publisher of books, the legendary Dutch imprint, Korm Plastics - founded in 1984 by Frans de Waard - has been blowing our minds with incredible volumes, roughly attending the music scenes to which they belong. Their three latest - Steve Underwood’s incredible immersion into the story of Broken Flag, “Even When It Makes No Sense”; the Kristian Olsson edited and assembled encyclopaedia of esoteric knowledge, dark music and arts, “Giftnalen”, and the 20…
Even When It Makes No Sense - The Broken Flag Story (Book)
Bomb! Softcover, 17×24 cm, 144 pages. English cassette and record label Broken Flag was founded in 1982, and whilst not having released anything for a long time, it has never officially ceased to exist. Their primary interest was radical music, noise and power electronics. They first released music by label boss Gary Mundy’s project, Ramleh, but later also by Le Syndicat, MB, Controlled Bleeding, Giancarlo Toniutti and various Mundy solo projects.
Steve Underwood’s text appeared in a 2010 magazi…
Aha
Since more than 40 years, Anne Gillis has discreetly unfolded her proper singular universe without any compromise. She playfully moves with determined restrictions, excavating contrasting forces; sensual and visceral, mechanical and organical, black and white, … She extends this personal expression in her visuals using self-portrait photos, handwritten text and her theatrical performances are equally aligned. Her music can be considered as musique concrète using the tape machine as compositional…
Si()six
Several years of mutual appreciation and encounters on- and off-stage have been the root of this chance meeting, resulting in an unplanned mysterious collaboration album where the aura of each individual - none other than Anne Gillis, Jac Berrocal, Vincent Epplay, Timo van Luijk - is augmented by the magic osmosis of united forces. The 12-tracks display a collage of dreamy musique concrète with desolate instrumental and vocal interventions, masterfully balanced out by Vincent Epplay.
Recorded at…
The Ortho-Project
Returning to the unreleased oeuvre of the master of cybernetic sound Roland Kayn, frozen reeds hereby unveils a new high watermark for longform electroacoustic composition, unfolding across 15 CDs in a luxurious gold-stamped boxed set.
Sodorome Vol. III: Les Romans de Massou
From 1973 until his death, Jean-Marie Massou lived isolated in the heart of the forest in the Lot, a territory he traversed and redrew in his own way, digging countless underground galleries, unearthing gigantic stones that he shifted, erected, aligned, piled up, engraved. When he was not moving heaven and earth, he drew and recorded on hundreds of cassettes his laments, his stories, his dreams, his speeches about the end of the world, ecological disaster, or the arrival of extraterrestrials. Je…
Motor Tapes
Closing the achingly long four years wait since her last full-length, the American composer/percussionist Sarah Hennies returns with “Motor Tapes”, her second release with New World Records. Comprising three astounding new pieces, made in collaboration with three acclaimed ensembles - ensemble 0, Talea Ensemble, and Ensemble Dedalus - that simultaneously encounter her moving into new uncharted territory, while remaining rooted in her singular practice, exploring musical, sociopolitical, and psyc…
Patterns
Biggest Tip Possible! Classic free jazz album reissued for the first time since the '70s. Old-style Gatefold LP, with liner notes by Ed Hazell. Noah Howard, an alto saxophonist and composer, was known for weaving intricate and innovative musical patterns, often likening his work to "sound paintings." His 1971 album Patterns, the first LP he self-produced on his Altsax label, stands as a testament to his experimental and spiritual approach to music. In interviews, Howard frequently used visual te…