Best of 2026
Desert Plants
Facsimile reprint of Walter Zimmermann's book Desert Plants, his interviews with American experimental composers from a 1976 trip to America, with a CD of the surviving interview recordings as MP3 files.
Globe Unity 60
Markus Müller's 288-page history of the Globe Unity Orchestra at sixty: Schlippenbach's liner notes, photographs by Gérard Rouy and Cristina Marx, interviews with Schlippenbach and George Lewis, new texts by Corbett, Lake and Gustafsson.
Follie del Divino Spirito Santo
Huge Tip! 300 copies. Originally issued in 1978 by Cetra, Follie Del Divino Spirito Santo emerges from a singular moment in Antonio Infantino's artistic practice - a moment when his early immersion in international Beat circles and avant-garde gestural music had crystallized into something entirely his own: a ritualistic and shamanic engagement with the musical traditions of Southern Italy.
From 1964 onward, Infantino had moved through collaborative circles with Vittorio Gelmetti, Sylvano Bussot…
Albumin
Tip! Jim O'Rourke and Jos Smolders teamed up again after their first collaboration, Additive Inverse from 2021. Over a period of three years, both artists worked in sessions of a day, each in their own studio.The result is sometimes like a warm cloud of sounds, suddenly breaking up into a rhythmic, irregular pattern, after which it dives into introverted mindsets. The music is in constant flux. The project followed the same workflow, but this time Jim took the lead and kicked off with a salvo of…
The Black Ark
Huuuge Tip! In the pantheon of classic free jazz, Noah Howard's The Black Ark looms large. Recorded at Bell Sound Studios in New York City in 1969 - just prior to the alto saxophonist's relocation to Europe - the album was eventually released in 1972 on Alan Bates's Freedom label, and has since acquired near-mythical status among collectors and devotees of the music. Now, Superior Viaduct presents the definitive remastered edition on vinyl, restoring this landmark to the visibility it has always…
The Black Ark + Dogon A.D.
Special discounted Bundle. Two of the greatest free jazz records ever laid to tape, back where they belong. Superior Viaduct reissues Noah Howard's The Black Ark and Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D. — both from 1972, both inexplicably scarce for decades, both essential.
The Black Ark finds Howard backed by a towering ensemble — Norris Jones (Sirone), Arthur Doyle, Leslie Waldron, Earl Cross, Juma Sultan, Mohammed Ali — in four tracks that move from hard-blown spiritual fire to lyrical catharsis. Des…
Path of Enlightenment
Nat Birchall, saxophonist and composer, one of the most authentic voices in contemporary spiritual jazz, presents Path of Enlightenment, a sonic journey through rarely explored scales and modes, from Ethiopia to Byzantium, from ancient Egypt to South Africa.
For this new recording, Birchall deliberately chose the quartet format - tenor sax, piano, double bass and drums - seeking a cohesion and intimacy that allows the music to breathe and tell its story. Joining him are his trusted collaborators…
More Peace + Carsten Meinert / C.M. MusicTrain (2LP Bundle)
Two new archival LPs from Formalibera, Alga Marghen's free jazz imprint, both drawn from the same circle of Copenhagen musicians around 1970, gathered here as a pair.
On one LP, More Peace: Tordenskjolds Soldater (Jesper Nehammer on tenor saxophone, Ole Matthiessen on piano, Henrik Hove on bass, Jon Finsen on drums) live at Jazzhus Montmartre in late April 1970, shortly before they recorded Peace for Spectator Records. The four Matthiessen compositions of that album stretch out here at far great…
More Peace
Live at Copenhagen's Café Montmartre in April 1970, Tordenskjolds Soldater (Jesper Nehammer, Ole Matthiessen, Henrik Hove, Jon Finsen) stretch out the four Matthiessen pieces from their Spectator album Peace, restored from the original tapes.
Carsten Meinert / C.M. MusicTrain
Unreleased recordings by Danish tenor saxophonist Carsten Meinert, with the Danish Radio Jazz Group on side A and his C.M. MusicTrain on side B, Coltrane-rooted fire with Ole Matthiessen and Pierre Dørge. Liner notes by Mats Gustafsson.
Energy Center (Book)
In Energy Center, Ed Hazell tells the essential story of Studio Rivbea, the Lower Manhattan loft where Sam Rivers and Bea Rivers made radical music possible on its own terms. Drawing on new research, photographs, posters and an unrivalled sessionography, the book restores 24 Bond Street as a home, school, rehearsal room and self-determined cultural engine.
Katcharpari
** Audiophile reissue from the original masters, 180gm vinyl pressed by Pallas, laminated hand-glued gatefold cover. Limited Edition. ** Katcharpari is the second solo album by Italian jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava, recorded and released in January 1973 and considered a cornerstone of the jazz-rock/fusion genre. Recorded in Milan and released on the German label BASF, Rava himself described it as his "breakthrough album." Thanks to the critical acclaim this work received, Rava caught the attention …
Now I Imagine A Place Not The Same
Electric guitarist and composer David Torn announces "now i imagine a place not the same," an expansive new double LP out May 29 via Kou Records. Produced by Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Thurston Moore), the album revisits the raw electricity of Torn’s early processing language while carrying it forward with the perspective of decades of exploration. Visceral yet weightless, it deepens his long-standing dialogue between alternate tunings, looping systems, and touch-sensitive electronics. Melody, noi…
Anima Pepsi + The Days Pass Quickly (2LP Bundle)
The two new Blume LPs together: David Tudor's Anima Pepsi, composed for the Pepsi Pavilion at Expo '70, and Lea Bertucci's The Days Pass Quickly Immersed in the Shadow of Eternity, written for Norbert Rodenkirchen's flutes.
The Days Pass Quickly Immersed in the Shadow of Eternity
Commissioned by ZKM Karlsruhe, Lea Bertucci's work for flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen sets his Renaissance, Medieval and Neolithic flutes inside electronic process: an electroacoustic piece that sounds like an ensemble reaching across centuries.
Anima Pepsi
Two pieces David Tudor composed in 1970 for the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, built by E.A.T.: Pepsibird, from tapes of human and animal brain waves, and Anima Pepsi, from insect and animal field recordings.
Complete Works for Multiple Piano
In Complete Works for Multiple Piano, Morton Feldman’s quietly radical writing for three or more hands is heard as a three‑hour continuum of hushed, hovering sonorities, where time dilates and the piano becomes a shared, breathing instrument.
BLK+LND / K&L for KL
Two of Phill Niblock's final compositions for low-pitched instruments, heard together as he intended: BLK+LND for acoustic bass and bass clarinet, K&L for KL for two bass clarinets, both built from recordings layered into slow microtonal mass. Completed weeks before his death in January 2024. LP with insert.
Ethiopian Musics 1971
Taking a slight deviation from the widely celebrated path through experimental sounds that has largely defined their efforts over the years, the venerable Sub Rosa returns with rare and essential dive into the world of ethnomusicology with ‘Ethiopian Musics 1971’, their third release dedicated to the recordings of Ragnar Johnson and the second devoted to the groundbreaking recordings he made in Ethiopia with Ralph Harrisson during the summer of 1971. Belonging to a larger body of recordings dedi…
Now Jazz Now 100 Essential Free Jazz & Improvisation Recordings 1960-80 (Book)
277 pages. 196 x 268 mm. Open NOW JAZZ NOW and you're not just looking at a book - you're entering the minds of three lifelong obsessives. Byron Coley (music writer and critic), Mats Gustafsson (saxophonist, The Thing, Fire!), and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth founder, solo artist) have spent decades accumulating, discussing, debating, and above all listening to free jazz and free improvisation. This book is the result of that shared mania. What they've created isn't a conventional history or a ra…