Experimental / Free Improvisation

*200 copies limited edition* "In our oversaturated digital age, where ubiquitous media connections enable instant gratification and a continuous flood of competing interests, we often make snap judgments as we multitask through masses of incoming information. Technological advances were supposed to unleash creative thinking, but this deluge has instead led to an erosion of our creativity and attention. In many ways, the idea of a 'long-form' music is unsuitable for and out of phase with our time…

** Edition of 100. Heavy weight 180 gram vinyl. Hand-painted covers on thick gray cardboard ** Editions presents Days Falling by Jason Kahn. Recorded April 9, 2020 in Zürich at Kunstraum Walcheturm. Recording, mixing, mastering, liner notes and LP artwork Jason Kahn. Many thanks to Patrick Huber for allowing me to record in Kunstraum Walcheturm. These pieces were recorded during one evening on April 9, 2020 in Zürich, my home for the last twenty-one years. I rode my bike through the rainy night …

Colonia Dignidad was the settlement of a German evangelical sect. After being prosecuted for child abuse in Germany, the group fled to Chile in 1961. Like similar religious sects, it was characterized by the outward appearance of a unified, godly community with well-tempered cultural activities and social welfare, but inwardly and in its environment by oppression, sexual abuse, and exploitation. In the 1970s, it unquestioningly inserted itself into Pinochet's regime of terror, aiding in the impr…

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a framework of interdisciplinary knowledge, methods, and management tools for organizations. It starts from the premise that imbalance is inevitable but also desirable. The flow management method of the Theory of Constraints, called Drum – Buffer – Rope, involves pacing the release of manufacturing orders to the pace of the bottleneck to avoid excess work in progress and reduce cycle times, while ensuring that parts arrive sufficiently early to never stop the s…

*2024 stock* "Put on the circuit via Oslo / Norway-based imprint Conrad Sound on December 4th, 2k20 is "Svart / Hvitt", the sophomore album effort created by the multi-membered group named The Touchables which includes a plethora of artists from the countries Jazz and Contemporary Music scene with at least one of its members - Martin Taxt - being a household name to readers of these pages for his deep explorations of microtonal tuba performances. Split in four subsequently numbered, unnamed part…

*25 copies limited edition* Originally released on tape by the Belgian label Dadaist Tapes, Nerve Plexus takes on an improvisational approach; constructed from a blend of homemade instruments, guitar and percussion; the sounds are uniquely placed and sculpted into jumpy abstractions and atmospheric forms generating a synthesis of genres. Recorded and mixed at ZIG Systems, Hudson Valley. New York 20-21 Mastered by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering, Brooklyn New York. Lacquer cut by Rich Flores at NYLC,…

Bee Reiki gestated within the regular lockdown zoom meetings Steve and Paul were holding in 2020 and 2021. Steve being based in London and Paul just outside Brighton, in these online meetings, like many musicians at that time, they mostly chatted and caught up with news and analysed the lack of live performance opportunities created by the pandemic. In the odd fifteen minutes or so they weren’t doing that, they attempted to improvise together using the Zoom platform. Steve would balance his iPad…

Edition of 50* A classically trained Chinese bamboo flautist, Lao Dan picked up the saxophone again around 2013 as he went wildly astray in the world of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation. While demonstrating an ever-growing ability to deliver explosive force and intensity in his free playing, Lao Dan keeps a brutal honesty in his approach to the instrument. He plays ‘jazz’ as what it is, not what it’s supposed to be. Navigating constantly between the East and the West, Lao Dan embraces a u…

Michalis Siganidis seems to narrate through the strings in this absolutely physical, organic way his experiential, intellectual and emotional relationship with the instrument. The accompanying electronic commentaries by Jannis Anastasakis refers to a dialectic of question and answer. Through this pulsating sound environment, the listener receives a musical world deeply internal, a circuit - extremely subtle but also coarse with a fierce intensity in places - of rare in expressiveness psychic vib…

Zurich bass guitarist and composer Martina Berther is known for her delicious basslines in experimental rock outfits Ester Poly and AUL. On this solo debut, she conjures something utterly unique from her instrument. 'Bass Works' showcases Berther's talent and ingenuity across 12 startlingly varied one-take compositions. Taking root in improvisation, the collection unfolds like a playbook of strange and beautiful techniques. Voided melodies, harmonics and surfaces that prickle and collapse in sol…

Deadly double-header of concrète jazz and shearing computer music from Wanda Group, spurted on his private label U G ORGANIC THROAT BLOWER - RIYL Sun Ra, Tod Dockstader, Graham Lambkin, Joseph Hammer.​

Tip! *Limited edition of 200 copies* Lava music, maybe. Lava music, always evolving, always surprising, always exciting because we don’t know what the other will bring to the music that we start improvising and exploring together. We’ll see what bubbles will form in this lava music and sometimes an idea comes up, a bubble pops and it becomes a track. Lava, like the wax that was melted to press the record. Lava, like energy flowing, slow. Improvising most of the time, you really connect with the …

*2024 stock* This is not a split album. Shadows is the curious offspring of MoE and The Observatory, a radiant chase after light and darkness, casting amorphous, illusory paths of Indian carnatic loops and heavy narcotic gamelan dreams. Containing just three songs, the album explores a hauntology of sounds, a melange of evocative synths, disembodying voices, percussion, and a ton of guitars from the most rancorous to the more profound. Wandering along the length of spaces and in between, Shadows…

*2024 stock* "On the same day that MoE released “Skinwalker”, their collaboration with UK band Bruxa Marie, the Norwegian trio also released “Saint Vitus Dance”, itself also a collaboration with Escalantes (Martin and Oscar). As with “Skinwalker”, we can expect a lot of noisy experimental jazz improv / sludge doom rock fusion, though with Martin Escalante on saxophone the recording leans a bit more to the free jazz side. Even so, sludge doom metal fans shouldn’t dismiss this album as there’s ple…

*2024 stock* "I picked this album up because I was (and still am) enthralled by MoE’s 2018 release with Lasse Marhaug. The sardonically titled Tolerancia Picante, however, is a different beast altogether and this beast is punk rock. The adjective, the attitude, and the aesthetics. Not pop-punk or post-punk or one of those derivations, but straight-up cacophonous, cantankerous in-your-face aggression…minus the power chords and fueled by free jazz curiosity and musicality. “Tolerancia Picante” ope…

In an exhilarating convergence of sonic exploration, experimental noise guitarist Nina Garcia and danish trombone virtuoso Maria Bertel have teamed up to create a heavy-hitting, collaborative record that pushes the boundaries between extreme improvisation and harsh noise. Both renowned in their respective fields, Garcia and Bertel bring their unique styles and influences to create a masterpiece of collaborative improvisation. Knækket Smil (meaning „broken smile“) is a living, breathing, moving e…

*50 copies limited edition* Extremely limited edition purple transparent cassette made for 2023 California tour. Hand numbered edition in printed 0-card hand painted with glitter spray.    Recorded on April 1st, 2022 in Gowanus Brooklyn, Gowanus is the first release from Andrew Lafkas, Todd Capp, and Bryan Eubanks since 2019's eponymous LP on Sacred Realism. They are here augmented by the modular synthesis of Xavier Lopez, who often plays with the trio in Berlin. The music on these recordings sp…

*50 copies limited edition* An extremely limited numbered and stamped edition of 50 glass-mastered CDs with individual covers painted by artist and philosopher Tim Bradley. Packaged in a beautiful painting on paper and polyvinyl sleeve.    Three live recordings of an electro-acoustic work developed and performed in 2013. A mesmerizing fusion of sine tones, open-circuit electronics/feedback, samples, and tuned noise, these structuralist compositions navigate the intersection of compositional rigo…

50 copies limited edition. Mirror Mountain is the first release by Many Chants a Trapped Secret, the new solo project by Jef Mertens, evoking textural sounds for imaginary films. The concept/story/idea for Mirror Mountain was inspired by old drawings I made in the late nineties. Each track was recorded chronological, imposing a new direction in the story. Sounds leading to titles and titles leading to sounds.

50 copies limited edition. Jef Mertens: Guitar & Objects. Jean D.L.: Guitar. Recorded at Taping Policies, Geel / 2022Artwork: Hannelore Van Dijck

50 copies limited edition. Guitar recorded and mixed by Jef Mertens - June 2022. A take on the guitar noise by Bill Nace, recorded with a similar guitar, a squier Jagmaster.Mastered by Jürgen de Blonde.Artwork by Wouter Vanhaelemeesch.

*100 copies limited edition* Belgian musician Mertens came onto the scene as a documentary filmmaker (Sonic Youth, Borbetomagus, Loren Connors, etc) but he has been developing his own unique guitar style over the past few years. This 10” has three wads of it. The first is a wonderful sidelong chunk of motoric chiming string music not all that far from a pop version of Remko Scha. The two shorter tunes on the flip fiddle around with some of the same ideas in different ways, all pretty hep.

For 46 minutes Alex Zhang Hungtai punctures our perception of linearity, working like a conductor, encouraging percussive flurries to trip and fall over each other, sometimes tempered by contact mic feedback to help skewer the chronology. He’s assisted by three additional percussionists - Wet Hair’s Ryan Garbes and Shawn Reed, and Leonard King - while Signal Decay’s Nick Yeck-Stauffer plays trumpet, with each extra voice blurred into the middle distance, curling like pipe smoke into convulsive w…

Avant garde supergroup Better Corners hit sublime stride with atmospheric post-everything second album.

"The only time I met and spoke with Cecil Taylor was in 2003 in the basement of Tonic, the much-beloved and long-gone Lower East Side venue, where he, Sunny Murray, Andrey Henkin and myself were sitting in one of those old wooden wine-cask cabanas they had. Murray’s group was playing there that evening and Cecil had come out to see the band. I remember Cecil whispering a query in my ear: “Mr. Allen, who is your favorite architect?” At that point I was not a follower of architecture but having re…

** The two recent Henri Texier reissue LPs in a special discounted bundle **  Henri Texier "Amir" (LP)     For years Amir, Henri Texier’s debut solo LP, stood slightly in the shadow of its follow-up, Varech, but is equal and towers in every possible way. There is no other record like it on earth - stunning from start to its final turn. In our view, it’s one of the greatest artefacts of the 1970s France scene, and that’s no small thing! Deceptively minimal and elegant, Amir is the first time the …

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.

Ashwin & Above is a collection of pieces composed and recorded between 2018 – 2022. For the most part it is a celebration of making music alone. Some of the pieces ended up celebrating friendship and took on new life in the context of group performances. I wouldn’t point to any unifying quality except to say I very much hope you enjoy the space, it is a lung full of turbulence and joy.’ - Adam Coney ‘I’ve been excited to get my hands on this LP and it hasn’t disappointed. I’ve played several tra…

Slow fade into the New Year with the Full Spectrum Records debut of Denton, Texas’ Kory Reeder: ‘If the Thought Evaporates.’

Everything about Stefano Pilia’s spiritual journey always seemed to point directly towards ‘Spiralis Aurea’, his astounding 2022 release for Die Schachtel, a deeply resonating piece of art that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind. ‘Spiralis Aurea Trio’ out in January on Maple Death Records, showcases the electric guitar ensemble formed by Stefano Pilia, Alessandra Novaga and Adrian Utley (Portishead) during three live…

Full Spectrum Records returns with a new exploratory edition from players Al Jones, Lori Goldston, Greg Kelley, and Austin Larkin: ‘Miasms.’

Tip! *2024 stock* Full Spectrum rides again with a very special long player from our “house band,” Tender Crust, with the release of their latest set of recordings – ’Convexity.’ Now a quartet – with the inclusion of bass clarinetist Rebecca Hubsher, alongside returning band members Gretchen Korsmo, Carl Ritger, and Andrew Weathers – the group traveled to the far reaches of northern Colorado to record in the otherworldly acoustics of Rangely’s Tank Center for Sonic Arts. Located on the outskirts…

*70 copies limited edition* "Here are our musical ambitions given form by electric guitars, keyboards and digitally recorded loops. Here are also the ambiguities and uncontrollable elements of life. You’ll hear the late summer wind in the background, the wind-chimes hanging from the garden shed, the kids’ feet walking over the gravel, their voices in the distance. Both worlds make this single-take live recording a whole." - Opal SatelliteRecorded on August 22nd, 2022 in Hämeenkyrö, Finland

**100 copies** Zarabatana with Bernardo Álvares, Carlos Godinho, Norberto Lobo & Yaw Tembe . Recorded, mixed and mastered by Mestre André. ”The emotion flows from this improv, while maintaining a heterogeneous sound that makes its origins intriguingly difficult to triangulate."

**Edition of 200** International cast for this precious compilation on Tsss Tapes. Water and percussions are the main characters here.

Tip! Recorded in Ravenna and Brussels, 2021 credits released September 8, 2021  Mastered by Francesco Covarino

Debut release on reissue label Otic curated by mastering engineer and musician Joshua Stevenson (Otic Sound, Staked Plain, Von Bingen, Cast Exotic Archives, JOMF).

Sofa is proud to announce the debut album of Montreal-based band House of Gold, a very special group playing American composer Isaiah Ceccarelli’s songs and compositions. House of Gold is a quartet that blends quiet melodies and songwriting, chamber music, minimalist folk song, improvisation, jazz harmony, and early music influences into an immersive and embracing sonic experience. Composer, drummer, and singer Isaiah Ceccarelli has built a repertoire of songs around his original texts and intim…

In the spring of 2020, Muddersten did not go to Japan. Nor did the trio collaborate with alive painting artist Akiko Nakayama as planned before the global lockdown. Instead, a video triptych was made by Akiko and sent to the trio serving as a score for a musical performance. The piece was commissioned by Muddersten and had its first performance at the Periferien Festival in Oslo, in August 2020 in the midst of the Covid pandemic.  On this release the trio uses sonic ready-mades as a method for i…

Calamita = Karkhana members Tony Elieh, Sharif Sehnaoui and Lebanese drummer Malek Rizkallah join forces with the Egyptian singer Aya Metwalli - the result is the improbable meeting between free jazz / improv, punk rock & Oum Kalthoum! Calamita is the "rock project" of Sharif Sehnaoui and Tony Elieh, two of the most active musicians on the Lebanese experimental scene (among others projects, both are members of the "free Middle Eastern music" collective Karkhana). Sehnaoui comes from a jazz and i…