Experimental / Free Improvisation

Awesome 5xCD box featuring collective releases from the 70s to the recent years by the Swedish legendary pioneer of free jazz and improvised music. Sven-Åke Johansson (Mariestad, Sweden, 1943) is a composer, a drummer, a poet, an author and also a visual artist. Longtime collaborator of the free improv scene back in the German sixties with Peter Kowald and Peter Brötzmann, furthermore with Manfred Schoof, Schlippenbach, Rüdiger Carl and Hans Reichel. He contributed to numerous exhibitions, p…

2014 release. More solo percussion from Weighter Recordings, this time from Tim Feeney, whose work I had been unfamiliar with up to this point. The long, drawn-out drum rolls from which the album's two tracks are formed invite immediate comparison with the work of Weighter director-in-chief Nick Hennies, with whom Feeney performs in the trio Meridian. However, much as artists of the Sixties and Seventies explored the shared format of monochrome painting with very different concepts in mind…

** Edition of 100 ** Tsss Tapes presents Entenka by Tim Olive: magnetic pickups, electronics and Kayu Nakada: circuit boards. Recorded August 13th, 2020, Kobe. Mastered by Francesco Covarino.

"Desire is exploitation," the label notes for this ambitious two disc set proclaims. The demons get in any way they can, through laws that repress or through indulgence that never seems like it will ever be enough. "Demons!" explores the dread that accompanies our facing our own capacity for evil, as individuals and as a culture. Once again, Stephen Moore and Walter Cardew use orchestral and cabaret motifs to propel their horrific tales of sin and revenge. And where better to probe the personal …

**300 copies limited edition** "When the Nihilist Spasm Band's first album was released in 1968, no other band in the world recorded such a racket. For these Canadians, who had been practicing for three years in their London (Ontario) rehearsal room, the motto seemed to be to indulge in spontaneous sound creation, thus justifying the abolition of all limits in the de'bride's performances they organized every Monday night. Enjoying noise without hindrance turned out to be their only creed. The re…

Evan Lindorff-Ellery is a visual and sound artist based in Kingston, New York, and co-owner of Notice Recordings. "No Water Recordings 2011" was created in Ravenswood, Chicago using a hydrophone against a bridge, above water, and a contact mike and ceramic insulator against a brick. The recordings were captured to cassette which was transferred 10 years later by Branic Howard. This album exists as an antithesis of much of Evan's recent fascinations with water, yet accommodates similar poetic end…

Limited edition of 100 copies. "Here are two new releases by Manuel Mota, our man on the guitar and as before, he presents one disc with the music of his own making and one in collaboration with another musician. In this case that is Giovanni di Domenico. He plays the Fender Rhodes. I believe he is from Brussels, which is also where this CD was recorded, at the Theatre La Balsamine. This was for me a good moment to look at what the Fender Rhodes is, having only a vague notion. I would have calle…

**2022 stock** In their own contemporary version of ’L’ Histoire du Soldat’, Plan Kruutntoone and Reinier van Houdt roam the rough edges of holes in plaster, at home in a dangerous world. Sleeping in the flag, accepting their free daily buns. Gratefully learning from Igor S. and Sonic Y. while upholding the red flower. Together with Garshin they inspect the ward. And with Rosa; dear and beautiful retarded alto. And Chleb; singer with the wooden voice. And Zorro cares for all. Esc.rec. releases '…

"...and again I woke up. rendering Xenakis pale. shifting myself and stuff around in search of security. how to put it to make it to that?"

Joke Lanz was born in Basel, Switzerland and is a well-know noise musician, performance artist and turntablist. He is also founding member and singer in the art rock group Sudden Infant, a meber of the legendary Schimpfluch group (alongside Rudolf Eb.er, Dave Phillips, Marc Zeier and Daniel Löwenbrück) and performs in many duos and and other forms in the improvisation scene. He also writes music for theatre and film, radio, installations and objects. Dieter Kovačič aka Dieb13 is an Austrian impr…

* Double CD in 6 panel ecopack * Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free jazz improvisers. Amongst many others he has worked with trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Herbie Hancock, saxop…

**Limited to 100 copies** "Evidence hints at the event. Parts of broken drumsticks, a sound recording, a photograph and a written approach. Traces, relics. The work „Safe Crash“ by visual artist Florian Bräunlich consists of porcelain drumsticks, plastic buckets, a wooden platform, varnish, cymbals, cymbal stands, a floor tom and a spotlight on which the second release of „dispari“ is based.A sound recording witnesses Sven-Åke Johansson’s performance of Florian Bräunlich’s “Safe Crash” at HFBK, …

“Thanks to Anton Mobin and his ‘prepared chamber’, a wooden box with strings, objects, and amplification. An instrument not unlike Tore H. Boe’s ‘acoustic laptop’. It is also an instrument for which we don’t know what it will sound like, unlike the piano, played by Martina Verhoeven, even when she plays the piano less traditionally; techniques that go back to John Cage and his prepared piano. Verhoeven divides her attention to both the keys and the inside of the piano. In the prepared chamber of…

**Limited edition of 100 copies** “Following some forty CD releases on his imprint New Wave Of Jazz, Dirk Serries thinks the time is right to expand to the world of vinyl. Here he plays a 1957 Hoffner archtop guitar, and recorded with a single microphone, some 50 centimetres from the guitar and there has been no other audio processing. The liner notes, as always by Guy Peters, are on the front cover, and he uses the extra space the format allows him, to talk some more on the history of free jazz…

Absolutely stunning solo electric guitar improvisation captured in the moment of pure focussed solo improvisation. If you were to buy one solo guitar album year make it this one.

A double CD featuring two extended live performances by the electroacoustic quartet of John Butcher (sax), Angharad Davies (violin), Rhodri Davies (harps) & Lee Patterson (amplifed devices)

**Edition of 100** Recorded and edited in Salsipuedes, Córdoba, Argentina between 2019 and 2020.  Mastered by Francesco Covarino

**Limited edition of 75** Daniel Bruno: trombone, electronics Javier Bustos: experimental lutherie, electronics Recorded by Eric Kamatsu at Estudio El Cubo, Buenos Aires (Argentina), on November 11th, 2019.Mixed and mastered by Daniel Bruno and Javier Busto. Released January 11, 2022

New release for Warble, Berlin-based duo by Brad Henkel and Miako Klein. Trumpet and recorder in their elemental form (tubes and air) envelop the space with a magnified environment of harmonizing and clashing timbres. Whistling overtones, percussive thumps, shrieking voices. Walls of sound, nervous twitches, burrowing moles.

Tip! “When choosing a title for an audio document of improvised music, you really can’t go wrong with Impermanence; it’s not exactly original, in terms of either the specific genre or music as a whole, but it will never not be accurate. In the case of Violeta García (a cofounder of the splendid TVL Rec imprint) and Émilie Girard-Charest’s first meeting as a duo, the word accumulates a more unique meaning because of the two musicians’ chosen instruments. Cellos are often associated with their abi…

Tip! "I met Benedict Taylor in London in 2017 where I was doing a six month residency thanks to the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec. I heard Benedict perform in ensemble and solo contexts and rapidly felt a strong connection with some of my musical concerns. I was particularly caught by his ability to listen to what sound elicits or suggests as he articulates and shapes it; a dynamic interplay of sensitivity and agency, at times yielding pretty surprising results. We managed to meet for a …

“Oxygen Room is a wonderfully moody, at points downright haunting/uneasy trip into primally slurred and ritual tipped improv. The four-track CD appears on Slovenia’s Inexhaustible Editions, and I must say it’s a most compelling and often eerier ride of an album – really taking the improv form down a fairly original and distinctive path.The CD comes presented in a white six-panel digipak – this features on its cover and first inside flap two different green circles made up of different shapes, th…

Mathieu Werchowski's latest album draws its sounds from improvisations generated by a violin, a few dozen freshly awakened birds, highly reverberant spaces, a voice saying words of Roberto Juarroz and Paul Verlaine, the nostalgia of childhood westerns, a viola mounted with electric guitar strings and the memory of those who left too soon.

Jean-Luc Guionnet and Claire Bergerault have been working as an organ and voice duo in various churches since 2007. The challenge is, each time, to adapt to the configuration of the building and the organ, and then to stretch their music on the breach of this singularity.

Fred Lonberg-Holm born in 1962, composer, improviser. He began formal cello studies at the age of 10. Former student of Anthony Braxton, Morton Feldman, Bunita Marcus and Pauline Oliveros. Fred was active in a number of projects, including the Peter Brötzmann Tentet, XMarsX (with Mars Williams), VCDC, ADA Trio (with Peter Brötzmann and Paal Nilssen-Love), the Vandermark 5, and many others that are still active today. Ongoing projects of which he is a member include Joe McPhee’s Survival …

The International Carnival of Experimental Sound, or ICES '72 for short, was an ambitious festival sprung from the mind of Harvey 'Job' Matusow (1926-2002). Jumping off from his associations with the influential Source magazine, Harvey brought together over 300 artists from more than 21 countries to perform in London, England over the course of two weeks in August of 1972. Based on the theme of Myth, Magic Madness and Mysticism, he assembled an amazing diversity of performers working in diverse …

While we may live in an oversaturated time of hi-definition, microwave-pulse paced images and video snippets, one format that has remained in play since the early 1900’s is that of radio. A format perhaps overlooked most in its ability to not only act as a conduit of audio, but also that of a uniquely non-visual live performance, facilitating a direct audio-only portal from performer to the imagination of the listener.Radio is a place where live collaboration and conversation can occur not just …

These American legends of outsider avant-garde need little introduction. Since becoming core members of the Los Angeles Free Music Society five decades ago, they have retained their focus, determination and unmatched originality, influencing generations and never seizing to advance further avenues of progress. Mutant Stomps is a result of Smegma’s living room recording sessions at their pink house in Portland. All tracks were produced 2012–2013, with one dating back to 1975 for good measure. The…

In a rare performance at Donau Festival in Krems, Austria in May of 2012, Tony Conrad (member of the Dream Syndicate project by La Monte Young), Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Psychic TV / Throbbing Gristle...) and Edley ODowd (Psychic TV /  Toilet Boys...) collaborate to create a unique, completely improvisational soundtrack that is at once transcendental & visceral. Consisting mainly of 2 violins, orchestral percussion and sparse electronics, quiet droning gives way to volcanic crescendos a…

Three brand new spaced-out transatlantic duo explorations, available in November on 7" vinyl from Astral Editions.  A stunning art object of sound and vision. credits released November 12, 2021  Ashley Paul - guitar, voice, bells, clarinet, keyboard - in London Jeffrey Alexander - guitar, wooden saxophone, moog, electric piano - in Philadelphia

Cassette reissue of a legendary LP, recorded live in Ottawa at the Dominion Tavern on March 23, 2012 during Damo's Canadian tour. Originally released in an edition of 100 on the band's own Birdman Sound label, this set finds the peripatetic Can singer (who, like Chuck Berry before him, tends to play with instrumental backing by local talent) in some of the best company he has yet found. TBWNIAS (in septet format this evening) lay down thick slabs of the distended heavy guitar psych with which th…

A powerful collision of musical personalities -- American saxophonist (and Dutch resident) John Dikeman invited avantgarde trumpeter Jaimie Branch, bassist Luke Stewart (Irreversible Entanglements) and drummer Aleksandar Skorić to form a new band project. This quartet presents its own definition of contemporary improvised jazz; with no distinct leader and with tight and supportive interplay, they demonstrate the independent musical voice of each own. Album cover by Jaimie Branch. Personnel: John…

**Edition of 100 copies on heavy weight 180 gram vinyl, comes in hand-painted cover on thick grey cardboard. In process of stocking.** "Spirits marks the second release of my duo with Christian Wolfarth, though in 2010 recordings of a trio with Christian, Günter Müller and myself (then on electronics) came out as the CD “Limmat” on the Mikroton Recordings label in Moscow. Following this trio CD, Christian and I didn’t play together again until 2016, when we had a series of concerts in Switzerlan…

If you weren’t paying attention, you might think this is a collection of solo ruminations by German pianist Georg Graewe. Listen closer, however, and you’ll discern contributions from harpist Sara Kowal and Viennese turntablist dieb13. Across 15 short improvisations – most of them just two or three minutes long – Graewe’s is the dominant voice. Kowal’s rippling harp tends to blend in with Graewe’s right-hand excursions, adding an extra layer of detail, while dieb13 contributes tactile electronic…

* Edition of 80 tapes (white plastic), hand-dubbed, hand-cut inlays, incl. download * Gud Er Kvinde („God Is A Woman“) is the Danish duo of Maria Bertel and Johannes Lund. They sparsely release music under this moniker. They do have a myspace site. They both played in the Danish version of the Jooklo Duo, aptly entitled Jooklo Danish Group. Maria is playing in one of my all-time favourite bands, Selvhenter. Johannes‘ solo performance at the Kraak Fest 2017 would have been the sole reason for me …

Utterly fantastic and indispensable overview on 4 CDs. "Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) was begun one evening in the spring of 1966 by Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran, Jon Phetteplace, Carol Plantamura, Frederic Rzweski, Richard Teitelbaum and Ivan Vandor in a room in Rome overlooking the Pantheon. MEV’s music right from the start was also totally open, allowing all and everything to come in and seeking in every way to get out beyond the heartless conventions of contemporary music. Taking its cue from …

* Edition of 150 copies * Inaugurating the “Albe” series— a collection of LP’s to be released on Le Cabanon Records  ​Fantômes is the first album by Horla.  Fantômes​ is a musical isthmus, a frontier seldom travelled, a sonic corridor wherein animated bodies, sounds and dreams, instrumental and woody murmurs roam. Composed over the course of two years spent in Madagascar, the writing of this record bore witness to the insolent profusion and phantasmagorical incarnations of tropical wildlife, to …

2012 release ** Limited hand-numbered edition of 500 copies in cardboard sleeve. "Dead Country (Sevket Akinci, electric guitar. Umut Çaglar, electric guitar, monophonic synth, tape delay. Murat Çopur, electric bass. Kerem Öktem, drums, percussion) + Alfred 23 Harth, alto sax, clarinet, vocal, electronics. Recorded at Deneyevi, Maslak by Ergin Ozler on the 21st of november 2011, artwork and design by Mazen Kerbaj.

In September 2014 Intonema co-organized the Russian tour of Gaudenz Badrutt, Ilia Belorukov and Jonas Kocher. They played in Moscow, Yaroslalv, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg. They recorded the material of this album in Intonema's hometown, St. Petersburg, which extends the series of releases recorded in rotunda of the Mayakovsky Library. Acute attention to silences and extremely careful work with sound comes from the “fourth” collaborator, the space of the rotunda and its speci…

Music composed & mixed by Anthony Pateras. Tape part recorded and assembled at Gold Tony Love’s Audio Hell, Castlemaine, Australia. Perfromance recorded by Tomasz Kubiak live on 27th September 2019 at the 17th Sacrum Profanum Festival in Małopolska Garden of Arts, Kraków, Poland. Festival curated by Krzysztof Pietraszewski. Pseudacusis was commissioned by the Musica Sanae project by In Situ Foundation (Sanatorium of Sound Festival in Sokołowsko) in collaboration with Michał Libera, Phonurgia (La…