Serpentine
After the wild Afro-jazz fusion of Trancedance (reissued as BT118) and the meditative solo Christer Bothén Donso n’goni (BT133), legendary Swedish multi-instrumentalist Christer Bothén returns to Black Truffle as part of a dream quartet completed by the three members of Ghosted: Oren Ambarchi (guitar), Johan Berthling (bass) and Andreas Werliin (drums). Recorded at a rustic studio built by Werliin and Hans Fredriksson in the sylvan surrounds of Hamburgsund, Sweden across a few days in September …
Almost This
"There is a familiar species of experience. I believe it is nearly universal. Here’s the brief: we have not seen a person in a long time, someone with whom we were once close. For no good reason – no falling out, no unpleasantries at all – our paths have not crossed. Then, in an instant, we are together, thrown or brought or drawn. Circumstance has landed us proximate and here we are, face to face. Within seconds, we recognize the person. I mean really recognize them. Not just their external app…
Synàntisi
"Autumn has always brought me bright thoughts and fruitful encounters. Barry and I, although we had known each other for many years — and although I had grown “into adulthood” musically through the influence of masters like him — had never had the chance to play and record together. Finally, October 2025 gave me this wonderful gift: an extraordinary meeting. Coming face to face with a champion of free improvisation placed me in a position where I had to draw upon all the creativity available — a…
foam & mesh
Recorded by Karl Winand and Markus Massinger at artacts – Festival for Jazz and Improvised Music, Alte Gerberei, St. Johann in Tirol, Austria. Mixed and mastered by John Butcher
Sophie Agnel - pianoJohn Butcher - saxophonesPascal Niggenkemper - double bassStåle Liavik Solberg - drums
Rhizoming
Chinese tradition tells the story of how one day, the Emperor decided to decorate the walls of his new palace. He summoned two of the most famous painters of the time and gave them two months to complete the paintings on the walls. One of the painters immediately got to work and spent two months diligently and meticulously sketching, applying colors, correcting, and perfecting his painting. The second painter arrived a day before the deadline and painted his painting in a single gesture, without…
Six or Seven Ways Towards Becoming Undone
The duo of Camila Nebbia and Chris Corsano brings together two fiercely creative voices from the international improvised music scene. Nebbia’s searching tenor saxophone lines meet Corsano’s explosive, highly textural percussion in a set of spontaneous exchanges of raw expression. Their music moves fluidly between delicate detail and surging intensity, driven by deep listening and fearless experimentation. The result is a striking dialogue where every gesture reshapes the sonic landscape in real…
Studio Recording
The new release by Ochibonoame captures the trio’s raw and searching approach. With Makoto Kawashima on alto saxophone, Louis Inage on bass, and Naoto Yamagishi on drums and percussion, the group navigates the volatile terrain of silence and eruptive energy. Their music unfolds as an intuitive dialogue, where fragility and abrasive sonic bursts collide in real time. The result is a deeply visceral document of spontaneous creation, rooted in the underground spirit of Japan’s improvised music scen…
Vi la pampa arder
The trio of Luciana Bass, Ezequiel Jaime, and Federico Isasti brings together three distinctive voices from Argentina's adventurous improvised music scene. Centered on Bass’s expressive sonic palette, their music is both volatile yet deeply attentive, fueled by Jaime’s exploratory playing and Isasti’s highly responsive drumming. They move freely between sparse textures and intricate collective energy. This release documents a trio deeply attuned to one another, forging form and intensity in the …
Distractions for Trumpet & Ajaeng
On Distractions for Trumpet & Ajaeng two radically distinct instrumental traditions converge in a study of texture, fragility, and focus. Kelley’s whisper-quiet trumpet tones and microscopic bursts of air intertwine with Kim’s bowed ajaeng, its coarse, resonant grain stretching and splintering in real time. The result is a taut, immersive dialogue that transforms subtle gestures into seismic events and invites listeners into a heightened space of deep listening and unpredictable detail.
Everyone I Love Is Sleeping And I Love Them So So Much
Yara Asmar’s new album, “everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much”, presents 11 pieces recorded over the past year between the small town of Alfred in upstate New York and Beirut. These sometimes fragile and tentative sound sketches reflect the times as Yara steps out, as if onto ice, into a new life on a new continent. She works with unfamiliar instruments, new materials and new sounds to build on her intimate style; homemade mechanical music boxes and a personal archive of family…
Live Critique of Judgement
Mitsuru Tabata began his musical career in 1982. Since then, he has played a key role in many of Japan’s most influential underground and experimental groups, including Noizunzuri, Boredoms, Leningrad Blues Machine, YBO2, Zeni Geva, Acid Mothers Temple, and Gaseneta, as well as projects related to tributes to The Stalin centered around Jun Inui. Alongside his work in these seminal bands, he has toured internationally, participated in numerous collaborative sessions, and released a series of home…
Lummernikt
Lummer is the Swedish name for the now protected family of vascular plants (Clubmoss/Lycopodiaceae). Lummer grows slowly and the spores with which it reproduces can take 12—20 years to develop. These spores, known as Nikt in Swedish, were once ground into an extremely flammable light yellow “old woman’s gunpowder” that was used for early theatrical pyrotechnics. Volatile and explosive, Lummernikt requires careful handling. There is something of the small scale dangerous in Finn Loxbo’s Lummernik…
Cafe OTO
Legendary Japanese experimentalist Keiji Haino (Fushitsusha) and London's fearless drummer Steve Noble took to the stage at Cafe OTO in 2012 for a monumental concert - with Haino's extreme treatments of electric guitar, and feedback, with Noble on a lot of percussion...
While Haino theatrically sweeps between bleak and uninhibited paranoia, deep-level zoning and bluesy contemplation, Noble's huge set up and graceful approach brings space, light and shade - so much so that at one point Haino unpl…
Elsewhen
Futuro Ancestrale, the ensemble around saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Giuseppe Doronzo, was born from the idea to combine contemporary improvisation and non-western music traditions. In Elsewhen, electronics play a central role along with ancestral instruments borrowed from Chinese, Albanian or Chadian traditions. Doronzo's concept of convoking those sounds and cultures in the same musical space is a way to celebrate, and to create a vibrant dialogue between histories.
Glasfisk
Danish experimental rock band Echo, Bravo presents "Glasfisk", a powerful new album that explores the space between chaos and clarity. Blending raw energy, poetic lyricism in danish, and adventurous improvisation, the record showcases the band's distinctive sound at its most focused and compelling.Across eight immersive tracks, "Glasfisk" moves effortlessly between intimate moments and explosive sonic landscapes, drawing listeners into a world where melody, noise, and emotion collide. Bold, unpr…
Stürmischer Himmel (CD)
First CD re-issue on Spalax from 1988 of the debut album by one of the weirdest and most radical groups linked to krautrock, the free improvising duo of Paul and Limpe Fuchs.
Shutsumin
Shutsumin, the debut recording from the generation spanning duo of Japanese legend Otomo Yoshihide, toggling between guitar and turntables, and rising saxophonist Kei Matsumaru, a native of Papua New Guinea, who moved to Tokyo after studying jazz at the Berkelee College of Music in Boston, where he's become a close collaborator of Eiko Ishibashi in addition to leading his own genre-defying solo projects. Both musicians casually ignore lines between jazz, experimental music, and noise, fashioning…
Pneuma
Double bassist and composer Henry Fraser announces the release of Pneuma, a new solo album out June 12 on Kou Records and recorded, mixed, and co-produced by Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Jóhann Jóhannsson) and Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Marc Ribot). Across eight concise movements, Fraser explores breath, resonance, and the evolving relationship between composition and improvisation, shaping an intimate sonic landscape in which the double bass seems to inhale, bloom into overtones, and dissolve back int…
Man Eating Tree
Tip! Man Eating Tree is the first solo album by Belgian-born, Oslo-based pianist Jonas Cambien. On prepared piano and electric organ, Cambien channels a soundscape of meditative repetition and oscillating rhythms. Cambien's background is dappled with diversity. While training in classical piano at the Conservatory of Brussels, he focused on contemporary repertoire. This would deeply shape his playing and ensuing projects, largely in Norway, where Cambien has embedded himself as a pillar of Oslo’…
The Rhythm of Design
Sound fragments unfold across Zurich, making loss, memory, and cultural change physically and acoustically perceptible. In The Rhythm of Design, Zurich-based fine arts duo Michael Meier & Christoph Franz explore urban displacement and its impact on the local music scene.Focusing on six venues that have disappeared or are under threat, the artists collected materials on site—wood, metal, and other architectural elements—and, with the support of professional instrument builders, transformed them i…