John Cage Variations + Four6
Temporary Super Offer! "I ask how CALATO's use of graphic scores help them break down the divisions between contemporary composition and improvisation? “We started as a noise improvisation band,” they respond. “We spent several years playing together without any kind of parts or scores, just working deeply on listening to each other, reacting and generating a kind of togetherness that made it possible to create live music in a very fast and intuitive way.” Then they started investigating diffe…
Electric Rag Live
Maxed out and burning hot nasty, Electric Rag brings together the electric organs, electronics and alto sax of Jean-Luc Guionnet, with the closely amplified drums and percussion of Will Guthrie. After years of playing together in the minimalist pointillist free jazz noise core trio ‘The Ames Room’ (with Clayton Thomas on bass) Electric Rag offers up another point of view on a musical history of nearly 15 years of playing together. The 8 titles of Electric Rag draw on their various experience in…
A Floor, Walls, and a Ceiling
Tokyo's experimental musicians Toshimaru Nakamura and Suzueri collaborated on a CD released in April 2023 on the Italian experimental label Superpang. Includes two improvisational songs using piano, mixer, and self-made instruments.
Musique Improvisée
Cockroach sound. Tender hammering. Whistling, chirping. Much silence in between. Small modulated electric guitar sound. Aha: a rock band?
Live In Madrid = 马德里现场
*2023 stock. Limited edition.* Seijiro Murayama is a Japanese man who lives in France. He performs with snare, cymbal, gong and also voice. In the 80s, he was involved in some legendary rock projects, though you wouldn’t know it seeing him perform today. Cristián Alvear is Chilean. He has released a number of guitar recordings, some of which are of other people’s compositions, as well as his own. You can hear a background in classical guitar in his playing, however the form is always very simple…
Hen Ogledd
*2023 repress* Richard Dawson’s folk music has been hailed far and wide for its innovations; Rhodri Davies’ improvised harp playing is similarly regarded. Both have collaborated with a great many improvisers, composers and musicians, but they play together as only kindred spirits can and their music as Hen Ogledd stands in a field of its own.
Bussei
*100 copies limited edition.* Tsss Tapes presents Bussei by Yoshitake Kawai. Recorded in Sapporo and Kyoto, 2020.
Passenger
*125 copies limited edition.* Tsss Tapes presents Passenger by Jeph Jerman and Ted Byrnes.
Encyclopedia of Luxinpei's Scandals
Luxinpei is a two-piece band from Beijing, formed by Ma Meng and Ma Yuan in 2007. Back to 1990s they were classmates, sharing a same desk. In 2008, Ma Meng became friends with Zhu Wenbo and they formed another another duo project Fat City. After some performance, Zhu started organized a weekly Tuesday performance series in 2009, which was the beginning of Zoomin’ Night. Both Luxinpei and Fat City were core names in early Zoomin’ Night days. Luxinpei’s work could be found in a Maybe Mar’s live co…
September '21
Before the concert, we hadn’t discussed much of what we will be playing. Kirill proposed to place the "June ’21" score on the table, to follow the impression, the feeling, the direction of what it suggests to play. Sometimes we noticed how one part of the score or another would lead us to new ideas whilst we were playing. It was a special concert because of its circumstances. We decided to have one big table for both our setups, and to be standing up during the performance. Kirill used some obje…
Dali Sections 2018-2021
"In 2017 after I finished a tour of Taiwan and returned to Beijing, I left my hard drive on one of those share bikes and it was lost forever. I had close to ten years’ worth of live recordings on that hard drive (I never made any backups). Since then, I’ve made sure to keep recordings of my live performances well organised. To a certain extent, it’s through live performance that I create new ideas. What I regret, then, is that every performance from different phases of my music making life will …
Killed As Time
Conscious Feedback Group (C.F.G.) is a gang of three formed in 2018 by MAI mai, Xu Cheng and Jun-Y Ciao. Improvisation is their way. They use mediums of music, sound, text and performance to explore a non-identifiable style that has nothing to do with fancy illusions.
June '21
The score for June '21 was made in early summer of 2021, in a dialogical process of close live collaboration. Everything we talked about — music, time, politics, and place — was treated as a kind of material with the possibility of being brought into the piece. We didn’t aim to use sound to express such concepts directly, but rather created music with attention to the circumstances: when it was written, where, to whom and by whom it would be played. There was a mutual understanding that we were …
Spalona Ziemia
The trio is a perfect composition for broadly understood improvised music, sufficient in terms of minimum and generally reflecting to the maximum what the musicians want to convey to the listener. In the case of the Wrocław-based trio Marek Otwinowski, Michał Sikorski and Marcin Witkowski, this "width" of understanding improvisation is particularly visible. This is not a classic free-jazz band or even free-improv, because the musicians go far beyond these frames, touching noise, avant-garde, ind…
Enz
"After two and a half years of refining, calibrating, and reconceptualising their approach, pianist Darius Heid, cellist Emily Wittbrodt, and double bassist Jonas Gerigk are now releasing their debut CD. With great enthusiasm, the trio met frequently for playful and dedicated rehearsals, improvising freely then observing and discussing the resulting phenomena, delving further into the depths of their music. A long and involved process - creating trialogues that weave through constant re-examinat…
Kuden
"Kuden is a method of communicating information verbally in Japan. The word also refers to the knowledge of secret techniques traditionally passed on orally, be it from martial arts or from music and the performing arts. An apt title for this exceptional, non-arranged meeting of three musical experts who tell each other about the rich vault of their sound treasures in order to enrich it with something new through this musical dialogue, which is immediately passed on to the spellbound, amazed aud…
The Tape
*60 copies limited edition* Live in concert at A New Wave Of Jazz festival, Hundred Years Gallery (London, UK) on February 8th, 2020.Graham Dunning : turntable, dubplates & spring reverbs, Benedict Taylor : viola, Daniel Thompson : acoustic guitar.
Black Tape, Clear Box With Pins, Sealed. Design By Rutger Zuydervelt
Live In Kyoto
** 180 gram vinyl housed in a black silkscreened bottom-folded heavy jacket. Limited edition of 525 copies ** Enkidu is the mythical Japanese psychedelic noise project of legendary performers Chie Mukai (Taj Mahal Travelers, Che-Shizu, East Bionic Symphonia, Dadnur), Eric Cordier & Seichi Yamamoto (the Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba, Rashinban, Ontoko). Over four bruised side-long cuts, Live in Kyoto faithfully captures the intensity of one particularly eviscerating evening of ritualized self expressi…
06 06 16 - St. Elisabeth Kirche, Berlin
“06 06 16 (St. Elisabeth Kirche, Berlin)” documents a rare three-hour concert by the legendary avant-garde improvisation collective Marginal Consort, on their first-ever appearance in Germany. The event was presented by Manuela Benetton on 6th June 2016, in collaboration with PAN and 33-33. It was supported by Initiative Neue Musik e.V.
"Marginal Consort is a rare gift of restlessness, aspiration and sense, growing ever deeper." — Lawrence English
Fluid To The Influence
Restock 2023. CD version. Chris Abrahams returns with Fluid To The Influence. Building upon the foundation of his previous three editions for Room40, Abrahams charts out a divergent course through lilting piano flows, distended organ passages, thunderous electronic eruptions, and focused concrète explorations. Fluid To The Influence spans a huge spectrum of sound, each movement calling forward to the next in a flowing motion that demonstrates Abrahams's commitment to and interest in the album as…