Experimental / Acoustic

Tip! Elders is the debut release from Ensemble Nist-Nah, a nine-piece percussion group led by Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie. The diverse group of French musicians that make up Ensemble Nist-Nah – whose collective experience encompasses traditional Gamelan performance, contemporary composition, noise, jazz, and everything in between – perform on drum kits, traditional and junk percussion, and a complete set of Javanese Gamelan instruments. Though building on the f…

*150 copies limited edition* In 2010 Giovanni Di Domenico formed a band called “Mo(ve)ments Ensemble” and released a CD on Belgian independent label Spocus. The concept and repertoire of that band reflected Di Domenico’s love for subtle orchestration and chamber music sensibilities, the basic idea behind it being the dissertation of the organic elements that form the instruments involved (in that case the wood of the strings and clarinet) and the re-construction of them by means of musical ideas…

"A recording of a piano tuning session was the starting point for a series of different pieces, all of which question the experience of measurement. These two pieces, "about a thousand years" and "a falling sound", for piano and cello, are a new stage in this process. If the music results from a work of measurement - that of the piano as a territory and of its different acoustic regions, both the voice of Pandit Prân Nath, which gave rise to the playing and scordatura of the cello, and the bass …

*100 copies limited edition* Jacques Puech is playing since is younger age the cabrette (a french small bagpipes), and the bal music associated to it. He is a core member of the La Nòvia collective who make links between traditional music from Center-France and experimental fields and work as well on collectings on an ethnographic basis in the Auvergne territory. Jacques also collaborates with La Tène, a band founded by Insub's Cyril Bondi and d'incise along hurdy-gurdy player Alexis Degrenier. …

Three pieces based on traditional Japanese scales. Lisa Ullén is a pivotal person on the Swedish improvisational and experimental music scene. Active as a composer and performer since the 1990’s she has produced more than fifteen albums over the last decade with many constellations. In 2018, she was awarded the Jazz composer of the Year prize by the Swedish Radio. Ryan Packard is a percussionist, composer and sound artist based in Stockholm/Chicago. His versatile musical practice can be heard in…

Decomposition Study is a collaborative process. The instrument featured here is an arciorgano, a special microtonal organo di legno with two manually operated bellows and 36-key octaves across two manuals, constructed according to Nicola Vicentino’s designs from 1555. The notes of the music, written according to the rules of canonic contrapunto alla mente, are passed between two organists while four other musicians disrupt and amplify the organ’s airflow, acting similarly to cellular enzymes in …

Cyril Bondi wondered and researched about the process of choice in the making of a bells set for cows herd in the swiss mountains.It revealed to be pretty subjective, mixing parameters of sonic efficiency, financial and social reasons, and sometimes a slight touch of musicality, all of these clotted by the notion of "secret". Later he and d'incise spend a cold winter day into a thousand pieces collection of bells, picking a few sets regarding their own principles and finality.

*Last copy remaning at source* Fredrik Rasten (born 1988) is a guitarist and composer based in Oslo and Berlin. He is primarily focusing on musical exploration of just intonation and related sound phenomena, and in his work he is reaching for an actively listening state wherein to intuitively explore the complexities of tone and harmony. On the guitar he is applying real time retuning of the instrument, vocal shadings and different preparations to create warm and fluctuating resonances. As a com…

*200 copies limited release* "Needless to say, anything new from saxophonist / composer Anna Webber raises an eyebrow or two. Her works for large and small ensembles exhibit a knotty sophistication that can be compared to that of Anthony Braxton. Here, she teams with experimental multi-instrumentalist Weston Olencki for just over 32 minutes of sax / trombone outside improv. Several comes across more in the established style of Olencki than that of Webber. While there are a number of contrapuntal…

Tip! *170 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Having lived and worked in numerous musical directions for many years, Semay Wu’s begrudgingly faithful cello still remains at her side: from Merseyside, to Manchester, to The Netherlands, and now to Central Scotland. Always trying to push age-old boundaries of how the instrument is viewed and heard, her focus has led her to explore further collaborative and everyday improvisations, blending electronics with mixed media and a variety of g…

*100 copies limited edition* Camilo Ángeles and Joanna Mattrey present a striking set of pieces culled from an improvised live set at Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City, recorded and filmed February 2022, with a dual recording and video release presented here as “Hailstone Temple”. Both musicians have fascinated Notice Recordings for quite a while, and both exhibit deep relationships with their instruments: flute and viola, respectively. Ángeles originally caught our attention via the TVL …

Tip! 200 copies. Comes in a beautiful gatefold sleeve, designed to our house style by Rutger Zuydervelt. Liner notes by Guy Peters. Live concert at Festival DME - Lisboa Incomum, recorded by Mariana Vieira and Jaime Reis on the 30th July, 2021. Title inspired by Kurt Schwitters. Mastered by Dirk Serries.

Tip! In Vital Weekly 1397, I reviewed a CD by Dirk Serries, Benedict Taylor and Friso van Wijck they released on the Portuguese label Creative Sources Recordings. Now, the Portuguese entered Serries' label New Wave Of Jazz. The improvised music scene is small but very busy. A trio consisting of Carlos "Zingaro" on violin, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and José Oliveira on percussion. They played on July 30, 2021, in Lisbon and for the title, they took inspiration from Kurt Schwitters. I think the…

*Limited Edition* Here we have two saxophone masters questioning space through sound and movement, and working in the most inspirational place. "Locus" Puget-ville is a small village in the south France countryside, among vineyards and woods. It's also the place where Barre Phillips spent the most part of his life. And It's the place where the Cepi organization led by him and some brave comrades was born and organized lot of meetings on the topic of mutlidisciplinary improvisation. Torto Edition…

Ramble and Torto Editions (Italy) are thrilled to be co- leasing Uragano by Perforto - a string duo for electric guitar and grand prepared piano (wood, metal, paper and other materials).

*150 copies limited edition* Emptiness is the second solo record by multi-instrumentalist Iztok Koren, a member of the bands Širom, Škm banda and Hexenbrutal. A result of an outpouring of pent-up creative energy, the album came about after a last-minute force majeure cancellation of a Širom trip to Sarajevo, where the band was to make music for the theatre show Bordel Eden by director Mirjana Medojević. The musician decided to channel his blocked creative flow into new solo material and ended up…

*Limited Edition* This is the first full-length by the genovese based experimental collective TRÓNCO. Originally live recorded in studio during the summer of 2020, the album has been mixed by Tommaso Rolando and mastered by Domiziano Maselli. It’s a collection of seven pieces that are somehow a multidimensional expansion of the same seed, placed in the ground in an ageless period: a trans-genre and trans-geographic recklessness growth by a wild resonance moving through the body as a spiraloid ar…

*Handmade Limited Edition* Davide Merlino and Tommaso Rolando have a common interest in improvisation, crazy music and sound manipulation. They also curate releases with Floating Forest and Torto Editions.

Canadian bowed guitarist and multi-instrumentalist C. Diab announces his fifth album Imerro, out February 16th, and presents the trip-infused lead single 'Lunar Barge'.

TIp! "This tape was the very first idea I had when considering starting the label. Actually, it may have even be the other way around: the possibility of recording and releasing the first Tom Chant solo album acted as the catalyst for Hera Corp. My main concept behind the label was as simple as "release the music you want to listen to”, and I've listened to and played with Tom so many countless times that I didn't need to think twice. It's difficult for me to point to a specific lineage or style…

TIp! Quiet and blistering harsh acoustic noise. Pere Xirau: snare drumÀlex Reviriego: double bass

Following 'Gargoyles' and 'Light Industry', Colin Webster and Dirk Serries recorded their third studio album at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio in May 2022.  With Colin on the baritone, the pressure is high.  Carefully selected from a way longer session, this shorter album is just that : full-on free interaction with no boundaries hold, spiced by the friendship of both musicians and the respect for each other' skills and approaches.

**200 copies** "For many centuries Indonesia, from the Malay Peninsula throughout the vast archipelago, has been subjected to successive foreign cultural invasions which have left their deep imprint on the indigenous way of life. Among the first was the Mongolian intrusion from central Asia. A later cultural wave came from India when Hindu merchants and immigrants introduced Hinduism and Buddhism into the islands. Subsequently, about the 13th century A.D. Islamic influences penetrated the archip…

Honestly Same is an amplified acoustic and synthetic quintet from Chicago. They improvise patient, contemplative and distinctly contemporary music harnessing the sounds of cello, clarinet, electronics, piano, bass, recorder, percussion, synths and accordion. The group is Zachary Good, Lia Kohl, Mabel Kwan, Zach Moore and Sam Scranton. On their second album (and first LP), “Hot Plate Only”, the quintet finds a balance between airy and organic ambience alongside insistent rhythms and dynamic explo…

If you have a chance to celebrate, take it. Drummer Fredy Studer, one of Switzerland’s top percussionists, has good reason to celebrate. This year he will be 70, he’s playing Willisau Jazz Festival for the 27th time (making him the musician who has played this festival the most) and is publishing his very first solo recordings! He has recorded these with a total absence of overdubs and electronic effects. “Now’s the Time – Solo Drums” is issued as a superb box set by Everest Records und Maniac P…

"Abbuio" is a term that refers to the Italian translation of the English word "Blackout" according to the proposal of the Italian linguist Arrigo Castellani. This new work marks Bignamini's return to the solo acoustic guitar. Moving away from the more classic fingerpicking style, he offers five soft "ballads" (3 improvisations and 2 compositions) inspired by sleepless nights.

*300 copies limited edition* Another collection of music that, instead of offering an escape route, loads you with questions. Music that originates in a grey, intermediate zone: pieces conceived and performed by an informal group of musicians which were not written. They are improvised but, instead of existing only in their own time, they are rooted in deep interpersonal relationships. A perfect balance between freedom and rigour, between visions and penumbra, between long and complex relationsh…

Having each followed their own distinct trajectory of exploration for decades - interweaving rigorous experimentalism with transcultural conversations - and building upon roughly 20 years working as a duo, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang return with Azure, their third full-length with Ideologic Organ. Among their most riveting outings to date, comprising five new compositions recorded in Seattle during the spring of 2022, this remarkable body of sonority culminates in a singular gesture of contem…

A single saxophone, a glockenspiel, two microphones, a zoom recorder. These are the materials Patrick Shiroishi brought down with him late one night into the cavernous parking structure below a hot pot restaurant in Monterey Park. It was around 1:30AM; the spot was not too far from where Shiroishi grew up, a blank slate shown to him by his dear friend, Noah Klein. A vacant space for a new kind of collaboration—between saxophone and silence, between noise and reverberation, between negative space…

Alto & Baritone saxophone solo in circular breathing • ArtworK, Music composed and performed by Yohan Dumas • Recorded and mixed by Bertrand Fraysse at La Mami • 2022 • Mastering by Matt Tche • With the help and support of the labels Scolopendre & la Loutre par les cornes • «Fuite» recorded with Maelys Rebuttini for the World bike speed records on snow by Eric Barone • To my grandmothers, my mother, Laure, and the baby marmots

We are nine voices, sighted and blind, who have been singing and exploring together for 11 years. Our practice consists of listening to and imitating sound ecosystems. We become the sounds of biotopes, machines, endangered species, humans and non-humans. Our songs blend ancestral and experimental vocal practices. We are the stumbling blocks of a memory populated by tunes, buried melodies that emerge and carry us away for hybridizations, mutations.

The ubiquity of Coxhill’s sax lines are here answered, cherished, enhanced by the excellent guitar touch of Enzo Rocco. It’s a sort of subtle anarchic dance, intriguing and true.

Michal Vaľko, aka Line Gate makes a return to mappa with his third cassette for the label. Once again the material is deeply minimalist, but shows marked evolutions in the Slovak, Prague-based artist’s unique trajectory. This time comprising two relatively short pieces (compared to the 40- and 60-minute works previously published on mappa), 'Trap' is perhaps Line Gate’s darkest yet. Whereas previously his works focused on psychoacoustic phenomena, or highlighted the sacredness and timelessness o…

*2023 stock* This is my debut album. I had just 'discovered' my singing voice. The songs are recorded in a straightforward fashion. 1, 3, 4, 5 and 12 were recorded in Ingelmunster, Belgium, during the summer of 2002. The rest was recorded in Hilversum, The Netherlands, spring 2003- spring 2004. Michael Anderson of BlueSanct wrote: "Annelies's music is singular. It is genrally one isntrument; piano, cello, guitar, or melodica. Sometimes there is only voice. [...] Like the other artists on Buesanc…

**250 copies** Ruben Machtelinckx has a new quartet. It is not a coincidence that the guitar is central, in particular the steel-string with its typical western sound. 2019 was a fruitful year for Ruben Machtelinckx (BE). This project is the last part of a triptych: in the spring Poor Isa, his duo with Frederik Leroux, released its debut album; in the summer he came out with the cassette Sualme with field recordings, improvisations and compositions; the winter appears to be the proper season for…

*2023 stock* Wakana Ikeda is a flute player whose activities range widely, from performances of composed works to improvised and popular music. She also leads the experimental music group Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble. In 2021, Ikeda and Swiss cellist Stefan Thut released the duo album "afar" on the Ftarri label. Guitarist Takashi Masubuchi started playing improvised music in the latter half of the 2000s, and since 2018 has focused on acoustic guitar performance. While Ikeda and Masubuchi are musi…

*2023 stock. 200 copies limited edition* Masahiko Okura is a Tokyo-based reed player (clarinet, alto sax, etc.), improviser and composer. Apart from his performances on reed instruments, he is energetically engaged in performance activities with his solo project Active Recovering Music. Okura is also a member of the experimental music group Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble. In 2004, Okura released the solo album "Time Service" on the Improvised Music from Japan label. The highly original performance …

Tip! *200 copies limited edition* While continuously engaged in the field of traditional Japanese music, female-school gidayu shamisen player Yumiko Tanaka has since the 1990s been carrying out multifaceted musical activities including contemporary classical music, improvisation (in 1996-97 she was a member of Otomo Yoshihide’s band Ground-Zero), experimental music, and theater performance/composition, performing and exchanging ideas with many musicians from Japan and other countries. While Tana…

*100 copies limited edition* Eventless Plot joins forces with a duo of clarinets for the aptly titled Distance Between Us, an extended composition that gives sensual expression to the nature of distance and its implied correlate, closeness – reflecting and blurring the two across multiple levels both apparent on the music's surface and hidden beneath it. As with previous releases, the ensemble forgoes straightforward narrative forms in favor of a process they call 'semi-composition,' which invol…

*2023 stock* Iterations is the (mostly) unedited documentation of a single session of duets of Carlos Santistevan (upright bass) and Tara Khozein (voice) recorded on Friday June 25th, 2021, in Santa Fe, NM. We made these sounds, thinking very often of our common friend and mentor, J.A. "Dino" Deane, who took his final exit shortly after we made this recording. 2 humans, 2 microphones, 1 instrument, 1 voice. 16 Iterations.