Live at Commend, NYC
*300 copies limited release* Live at Commend, NYC documents an evening under the spell of Carlos Niño and a cast of new and familiar friends and cosmic collaborators including Laraaji, Surya Botofasina, Photay, and Will Logan. Performed and recorded at Commend, the once and future gravitational center of RVNG Intl., on November 16, 2021, Live at Commend, NYC transcends format for serene, celestial sound.
Fragments
* 200 copies limited edition * The latest installment of THERE, Commend’s ongoing series of music recorded beyond but inspired by the communal efforts of RVNG Intl.’s Lower East Side space, arrives courtesy of New York sound artist Rachika Nayar. fragments is an EP of sonic miniatures Nayar constructed from guitar loops and in the familiar comforts of her own bedroom. While growing up and developing a relationship with the instrument and her capabilities, using delay pedals to improvise layered …
Maiandros
Testimony to the first encounter of the trio during a concert given at the cave12 on the 28.10.2020, on the same evening of the new Covid announcements which brought on a re-confinement in France, and eve to a six-month long shutdown of cultural places in Switzerland. A concert from which we emerged staggering and with burning ears due to the ongoing crisis surrounding us. A masterful sonic performance. Before silence.
Drawing from the dense and intense sound material of the evening, Francisco M…
Now's The Time - Solo Drums
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…
Panzer Constellations
*In process of stocking* The music of Panzer Constellations was the result of a single occasion - by the invitation of After Action Review - to record a duo of soprano saxophones for the wonderful acoustics available at the former Heeresbekleidungsamt, Bernau - now an expansive abandoned building.
The New Boyfriends 3
Tip! On this third release The New Boyfriends breaks out from duo formation, introducing Masa on saxophone to become together a brain blistering harsh jazz trio. First part is filled with two scorching harsh noise tracks where junk metal abuse, harsh pedal noise and fierce sax blowing collide intensively. The second one focuses more on atmosphere and textures while retaining the qualities of harsh noise
Abstract Musette
"This seemingly improbable duo finds both artists defending a common cause, with Lanz as stunning turntablist to serve as a perfect companion to Kocher's iconoclastic approach to his instrument. Detailed moves, fast gestures and throbbing pulses are recurrently cut by silences and sustained tones. Short rhythmic patterns and precise syllables emerge only to give way to more intimate sequences where players drift into some neutral space before re-colliding again into actualizations of micro-event…
Archytas Curve
Tip! *300 copies limited edition* Trio existing since 2014, it consists of three major figures of the Swiss improvised music scene. Koch, Kocher & Badrutt brilliantly achieve to play a subtle electro-acoustic improvised music, blending acoustic sources and electronics on a surprising way to create a music full of unpredictable events and of particular beauty. Archytas Curve is their second release. […] I am stunned by the immediacy of the improvising. They have developed a special way of playing…
None Corsa
Debut vinyl outing for Valentina Magaletti and Pino Montecalvo’s Avvitagalli project couretesy of London's Horn of Plenty label. Variegated percussion + WTF jams inspired by a visit to an abandoned, torched palazzo somewhere in southern Europe. Its charred, decaying splendour casts a fitting backdrop to the surreal push-pull of Valentina & Pino’s aural capers. None Corsa explores presence and absence, purpose and chance, and the tension between serenity and disquiet. Composing and decomposing, g…
Dead Cities Lie Buried / Lift Comrades, Lift Comrades
Marble, lasagne, lego, moon, liquorice, sap, weightlessness... These are all words and their associated sensations that come to mind when I think of the music of Société Etrange and more precisely to this brand new album mysteriously named "Chance". To tell the truth, it's lucky that this trip exists.The German groove of Can, the ghostly haze of Phew and the industrial elasticity of African Head Charge. All this and more. Société Etrange is an entity, it's a name and a sound. A compact and preci…
February Papers
For Avant-Garde / Improvised Music enthusiasts, this is a Holy Grail!
SoundScapes # 3 Festival Munich - 2021 SchwereReiter
'14 musicians from nine different countries went on a sound journey directed only by their own musical fantasy, no borders – except one, more about that later. The venue, the newly built „Schwere Reiter“ in Munich, is perfect for this: clear acoustics, clear architecture. In the middle of the covid pandemic, in a short time when concerts were possible, such an intense and open exchange could happen, two days in a row, on October 1st and 2nd 2021 – a stroke of luck. A music that moves, stimulates…
Substantial Myths
The most promising vibraphone virtuoso Emilio Gordoa collects an excellent quartet with such fantastic young colleagues Dag Magnus Narvesen and Don Malfon and legendary iconic bass player John Edwards. They presented their music first time at the Artacts Festival in St. Johann in Tirol. Now this great performance is available on CD.
Room with No Name
Luis Vicente, one of the most demanding trumpet players from Lisbon with the companion of the excellent pianist Seppe Gebruers and magnificent drummer Onno Govaert. Three young faces in an improvised world in their second trio recording. Unedited improvisations in the order as played, are composed by an interaction between the musicians, instruments, a nameless room, audience, microphones and you.
Live In Allentown
*2022 stock* Jim Sauter & Don Dietrich (saxophones), Donald Miller (electric guitar), Adam Nodelman (bass guitar). The 3rd annual Halloween extravaganza. Recorded October 29, 1986. Reissue of cassette only release Live in Allentown (Lowlife LL02). Includes the entire second set with Scott Legath on electronics, not previously released.
Songs Our Mother Taught Us
*2022 stock* The work of upstate New York noise-jazz trio Borbetomagus is frequently described in terms of overwhelming power and aggression. In a live context, that's absolutely the dominant impression one is likely to get. On record, though, it's possible to have some control over the volume, and thus to listen closely and carefully and discern real technique at work, not to mention a subtlety that's not really surprising, given that saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich, and guitarist Dona…
Right Here, Right Now
"The album offers a varied collection of adventurous improvisations in different constellations. Underlining that Keeffe is a multi-sided, very inventive and inspired musician." - Dolf Mulder Vital Weekly
The 4, The 8, The 10
That a variety of moods are conjured so effectively speaks volumes about how both artists are in synch with their objectives, so clearly vested in the realization of their ideas, so highly attuned to their birthing of new musics that to accompany them on their magical mystery tour is an experience not soon forgotten." - Darren Bergstein, DMG The electronics / woodwind duo celebrates its 15th year of existence with a new album, the first for 5 years. Material developed for concerts during the per…
Live At Super Deluxe
*350 copies limited release* A new album from Anglo-Norwegian trio The Geordie Approach, in a unique collaboration with Japanese koto-player Michiyo Yagi. Live at SuperDeluxe is both a tribute to the long-lost venue which for many years constituted the hub of high-end Tokyo experimentalism, as well as a testament to the transnational ethos of improvised music. The three musicians of The Geordie Approach have long been drawn to the experimental, rustic, activist-run underground venues found in ba…
Gated
There are enough ideas in the first couple of numbers to fill a whole album, with wailing sax and clarinet and lightning propelled guitar in the brief opener ‘Heat Patch’- think Zappa- then Fripp in ‘The Celebration Restriction’. It’s a whirlwind, visceral listen with the free spirit of experimental jazz and the nous of heavy rock." Phil Jackson.
Conceived and realised over an 8-month period of intense solitary work, "Gated" is Alex Ward's most ambitious musical statement to date. The ten pieces…