Best of 2024
Ozone
Stunning, moody, spiritual jazz from Ireland, recorded in 1979; featuring original compositions such as the deep collectors’ cut Spon Song, subtle Latin flavours on Spacer’s Delight, and a beautiful modal arrangement of the traditional Irish air Castle of Dromore. ‘A legendary recording in Ireland, Ozone reflects Noel Kelehan’s keen appreciation of classic quintet-era Miles, with touches of the cerebral fusion of Ian Carr and the arranging genius of Neil Ardley. Not just a landmark Irish jazz se…
Black Magic Man
Black Magic Man is arguably the pivotal Joe McPhee release. It bridged the span between the regional and the international, bypassing the national altogether. "Recorded in the same sessions that produced Nation Time, Black Magic Man consists of music not chosen for that LP. Like its much-feted sister, technically it falls under the domain of CjR, Craig Johnson's herculean effort in support of McPhee. An erstwhile painter, Johnson became a self-taught audio engineer, acquiring equipment expressly…
The Sounds of Sound Sculpture
In 1973, the Sound Sculpture Show took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery. An LP audio catalogue (with a booklet) of the exhibition, entitled “The Sounds of Sound Sculpture”, was released in 1975 under the supervision of the Canadian sound sculptor John Grayson and US composer David Rosenboom. Grayson had edited an important early book on the field, “Sound Sculpture”. The LP included rare takes of Rosenboom and Grayson, amongst others, playing famous pieces by pioneering sound sculptors includin…
Live In Stockholm And Tallinn
Tip! Misha Panfilov, the Estonian contemporary jazz mover whose many Janus faces amount to more than just two, resulting in many album avatars - here shares a live recorded rendition of a recent pair of shows, played back to back in Stockholm, then Tallinn. The first recorded at Fasching, Stockholm, on August 16, 2023, and the second recorded at Paavli Kultuurivabrik, Tallinn, August 19, 2023, this live record is composed of pieces otherwise heard on Panfilov's earlier albums, and they're choppe…
Notte
Taping, expanding, and challenging the parameters of how we perceive rhythm and percussion, comes “Notte”, the debut solo LP by the Italian journeyman drummer and composer Piero Perelli. Ranging from the infectiously hypnotic to complex abstractions and sheets of ambience, every step of the way it's an engrossing listen that shouldn't be missed.
Moltitudine in Labirinto
Bomb! 200 copies, clear vinyl. Valuable vinyl reissue for this historic four-handed work by Gigi Masin and Giuseppe Caprioli. The concept of multitude combined with the figure/symbol of the labyrinth suggests orders of thought relating to the multiple states of being that inhabit the dark labyrinths of the soul, the hidden regions of the human psyche. All in Multitude In Labyrinth leads us to look for keys to understanding the ultimate meaning of a test as enigmatic as it is powerful. A congerie…
J Jazz: Free and Modern Jazz From Japan 1954-1988 (Book + CD)
BBE Music is thrilled to present J Jazz: Free and Modern Jazz From Japan 1954-1988, a remarkable large-format book covering some of the deepest, rarest, and most innovative jazz music released anywhere in the post-war era. Compiled by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden, co-curators of BBE Music’s acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series, the book also features a foreword by Japanese jazz icon, Terumasa Hino. This is the first time a book of this type has been has been published outside of Japan and the firs…
Khandroma
Marking the launch of Ubi Kū - a brand-new imprint exploring the links between Buddhism, spirituality, and contemporary creation - Soundwalk Collective returns with “Khandroma”, the latest in their longstanding series of collaborations with Patti Smith. Rooted in extensive research and field recordings made across Upper Mustang (formerly Kingdom of Lo), in Nepal, during 2016, this absolute stunner weaves transcendent and immersive sonic tapestries that radically rethink the terms and possibiliti…
Musik vom Nebengleis
Mega Tip! ** Incredible compilation assembled by, and including nonetheless than Brannten Schnüre. Gathering together unreleased tracks by Vox Populi! Limpe Fuchs, Läuten der Seele, Christoph Heeman and more, this is the most pleasant surprise we could get from Quirlschlängle. Still two months before Christmas, but the greatest gift is already here. ** "Nebengleis“ is one of those strange and rare German words that seem to be born both out of the dust of a bureaucratic, functional grammar and a …
Radio Cologne Sound Das Studio für Elektronische Musik des WDR
Small repress available! Biggest Tip possible! ** English/German edition. 288 pp + 5CD plenty of incredible music, most of which have never been heard before ** From the Wolke Verlag imprint, who've already brought us incredible books like Karl Berger's "The Music Mind Experience", "FMP Free Music Production - The Living Music", Peter Brötzmann's Along the Way, and George Lewis' "Composing While Black. Afrodiasporic New Music Today", to name only a few and a great many more - comes one of the m…
Samtvogel
** 500 copies. Limited 50th Anniversary Edition. Red vinyl **Released on the legendary label 'Brain', Günter Schickert's debut Samtvogel (1975) was one of the most significant guitar albums of the Krautrock era. Points of comparison from today's perspective are Syd Barrett or Pink Floyd's more adventurous early recordings. Schickert's follow-up Überfällig of 1980 was released on the equally legendary 'Sky' label. Once again a milestone recording, it showcased Schickert's hypnotic echo guitar whi…
Live in Roma 1980
Double CD box, perfect replica of the LP edition, with extensive booklet. The venerable Holidays, having already had an incredible 2023, returns with their final offering of the year and what might just be their most ambitions release to date, Sun Ra’s “Live in Rome 1980”, an astounding 3xLP vinyl box set that captures the Arkestra immersed in one of their greatest live gigs laid to tape. A perfect snapshot of why this band was so incredible, moving from furious free jazz fire into joyous June T…
Sounds of Egiali - Amorgos
Sound Reporters was a Dutch publishing company that specialised in anthropology, religion, and history, releasing unique documents of the cultural multiplicity of human societies and their importance. These recordings were originally released on cassette in 1988, and consist of field recordings made on the Greek island of Amorgos, part of the Cyclades island group in the Aegean Sea. The release was jointly credited to the painter Harry Van Essen, who lived for several years on the island and rec…
1981-1986
Primitive Art Group 1981-1986 is being released October 25, 2024. This gatefold 2xLP is a combination of the group’s only two albums, consisting of one LP of Five Tread cuts plus “Cecil Likes to Dance” a never-before-released live recording from Thistle Hall (1984) and the full 1985 LP Future Jaw-Clap. This material that has been unavailable since mid-1980s.
Boston Tenor Index
CD Edition. Alga Marghen returns with what might just be their most historically significant release to date, “Boston Tenor Index”, comprising three, never before released compositions - “Index”, from 1969; and “Tenor” and “Boston III”, both from 1972 - by Phill Niblock, that represent some the earliest works in his catalogue to have ever appeared. Truly stunning in audio terms, and an absolute revelation toward understanding how Niblock arrived where he did a few short years down the road, it’s…
Il Divano dell'Orecchio
Taking a deep dive into some of the most important works ever created by the Italian avant-garde, Alga Marghen returns with a much needed and long-overdue brand new edition of their towering 5LP collection, “Il Divano dell'Orecchio”, dedicated to the work of Walter Marchetti. Gathering the composer’s seminal work for Cramps, issued between 1974 and 1989, and a host of archival material, scores, texts, and photographs, it’s an unprecedented dive into this truly singular voice, issued in a brand n…
Verbosonies and Phonographies
* 220 copies limited edition. * Herman Damen is a Dutch artist and language designer who, among other things, has created visual poems, performance works and verbosonies – a genre that Damen developed where vocalised morphomic elements are assembled in different ways. In his works he has been exploring ‘kinetic language’ and the spatial aspects of language. Damen’s manifesto “Semiotic Theatre” states that his work “places itself outside official literature and wants to fascinate, shock or activa…
Multiple Musics
**500 copies** Previously unreleased live recording from the Ranta archives. The creative duo of Michael Ranta and Takehisa Kosugi performed many times in the 1970’s and 1980’s. On this outstanding performance, recorded at the Japanese Culture Institute in Cologne in 1987, the application of an advanced multi delay system, independently utilized by both players, plays a central role. The smartly treated cyclic tapestry of the delay system (modulated, transformed, harmonized) injects additional d…
Habitat
Nothing short of a revelation, the Italian composer Angelo Petronella reemerges after nearly a decade and a half of silence with “Habitat”, a stunning 5CD career spanning box set of works composed between 1981 and 2022. Comprising 27 tracks at the borders of radical musique concrète and electroacustic invention, guided by deft and subtle hand over the decades into total, immersive sound environments - each informing what has been heard and yet to be heard - its totality places Petronella in the …
III-II
Through the course of time, DSR Lines (David Edren) never loses his intimate and profound connection to the universe of modular synths. These recordings made during 2014 in a residence at the Cem/Worm studio in Rotterdam, represent a further magical compendium of his Organic Electronic Music. In particular, here he draws from his expressive arsenal the cosmic and galactic potential of the Arp 2500, which happily floating throughout. A rigorous magician of vaporous, oscillating patterns, sidereal…