Experimental / Free Improvisation

A devastating cry for Palestine, nearly five decades later, this radical 1977 masterpiece returns to vinyl via Black Sweat Records. Demetrio Stratos, Gaetano Liguori, and Giulio Stocchi created a powerful sonic testament to the 1976 Tall el Zaatar massacre - a devastating blend of free jazz, experimental vocals, and Mediterranean traditions. More than music, it's unflinching historical testimony that remains painfully relevant today.

After months of silence, Pancrace returns with Papotier - a mesmerizing acoustic ritual where a baroque organ becomes a speaking entity. Recorded in a 14th-century church, the album conjures a world where sacred airs and absurd gestures merge, collapsing the divide between voice, instrument, and myth.

Kommun, led by Swedish guitarist Finn Loxbo, resides in the tension between the experience of circular time; an elongated now, and the expectations contained within our linear perception of time. The ensemble explores the tension between the individual’s own lines and the collective meaning-making. Every sound is equally important, concrete in itself, as much a building block as a decoration. The ensemble collectively improvises phrases that are formed together as a singular element. They are di…

*75 copies limited edition* Operating since the late 2010s, Vienna-based sound artist the concept horse has quietly amassed a distinctive and diverse discography, drawing inspiration from the rich traditions of musique concrète, noise, plunderphonics, microsound, and free improvisation. “Public Detail” follows releases on labels such as Falt and czaszka [rec.], as well as the artist’s own eë editions, and neatly encapsulates the polyglottic breadth of the project. Patinaed piano loops and wistfu…

Following releases on West Mineral and Lillerne Tapes, Iggy Romeu’s inimitable Mister Water Wet project makes its Soda Gong debut. “Top Natural Drum” feels like a double entendre ode to digging culture, drawing equally from the plantlife in the dirt and the grooves in the stacks. Tracks like opener “Soak” concoct a haze of resonant ceramic/wooden percs, skittering drum programming, and addictive yet diffuse melodic and harmonic textures. Dusty-fingered nodders like “Caged at Last”, “Classicfit,”…

A Hiss of Light is the first recording made by sound artists Alanas Gurinas and Sholto Dobie. Both artists work with acoustic sound sculptures and self-made instruments made with everyday materials. In the case of Gurinas, vibrating and taught paper objects emit pulsing sine tones, organic chirps and shimmering noise that drift like weather fronts whilst in Dobie’s work, air is the main material, compressed and channeled through a set of valves, tubes and timers, into pipes of various origins. I…

Cassette edition of the third NSB album from 1985 manufactured and marketed by RRRecords in 1987 on behalf of United Dairies.

Cassette edition of the 1982 LP compilation on UD, featuring Jacques Berrocal, Anima, Foetus, AMM, Nurse With Wound and Operating Theatre, manufactured and marketed by RRRecords in 1987 on behalf of United Dairies.

Audio-visual artist Raimund Wong (Floating World Pictures) and unboundaried composer Suren Seneviratne (My Panda Shall Fly / Soundway) present their debut album on London's ever experimental Kit Records. Interweaving folk, ambient and free improvisation, A Record of Living Beings playfully confronts traditional instrumentation (khæn, shakuhachi, voice, taishogoto, cello) with live tape processing and esoteric '90s software.  The Arolb ensemble began life as Raimund's freeform collaborative radio…

*300 copies limited edition* "The Other World was recorded in the spring of 2023 by Greg Norman at his home studio in Chicago. Each track was done in a single take without editing or manipulation. The recordings were made using a Stratocaster running into a minimal effects chain, which was then fed into a small solid state amplifier and captured by a pair of stereo microphones. I was interested in a sound palette that was very blanketed and gray, which led me to cut the high end tone of the guit…

In the space of a couple of years, Stephen Grew has recorded three absolutely sparkling solo piano releases for Discus Music. All three are spontaneous improvisations arising from years of practice and refinement. Grew is a massively undervalued artist - follow the story he tells across this release and its two predecessors and I'm sure you'll agree. Stephen Grew writes: "Recorded in the Great Hall, Lancaster University, on the 22nd November 2024. This music was recorded on a Steinway D and what…

Holidays Records is on fire! Hot on the heels of their recent incredible vinyl releases of the Italian sound artist and musician Ezio Piermattei’s “Gran trotto” and the duo Acchiappashpirt’s “Ninulla”, they return with one of their most important and captivating releases to date: Hartmut Geerken’s “Requiem for the Snake of Maidan”, a mind-blowing body of archival recordings from the 1970s, made on a stony ridge in the Hindukush mountains of Afghanistan, encountering the artist locked in a sprawl…

300 copies only! First-ever vinyl pressing of the band's inaugural EP, 'Sleepy Jazz for Tired Cats', featuring new artwork and mastering by Marta Salogni. Established in 2013 by Valentina Magaletti and Tom Relleen, the duo operated until 2020 as a creative laboratory for the London-based musicians to explore beyond their traditional musical endeavours. They sought to deconstruct their usual sonic frameworks, venturing into a novel and unfamiliar auditory landscape. Their work seamlessly integrat…

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Tomaga's debut album, 'Futura Grotesk', Hands in the Dark are re-releasing the long sold out record in a limited edition of 500 copies. The reissue is accompanied by the first-ever vinyl pressing of the band's inaugural EP, 'Sleepy Jazz for Tired Cats', featuring new artwork and 300 units available. Both records have been remastered by Marta Salogni for the occasion. Always in search of exploration, with an obvious obsession for deconstruction their norm…

Isak Hedtjärn plays the clarinet — a straight, metal variant of the more common wooden B flat Clarinet. Kvarpan is Isak’s first ‘solo’ record, but you also hear him in ‘quartet’ with himself, too on this diverse suite of improvisations recorded ‘on location’ on a single day at Patons Malmgård — his usual practice spot just by where the ferries head over to Finland. We recorded until the throb of the boats and waiting cars took over.

  A polymath of undeniable musicality, Isak is a constant, alw…

Heirloom is the first Lisa Ullén solo recording to appear on LP and exploits the two-sided nature of the physical format with two variations of the same three-part suite, exploring what it means to be ‘in between’ — be it genre, method or identity. The combination of Ullén’s deft control, patience and unconventional technique makes ‘Heirloom’ a sublime, ravishing listen. The LP is pressed on clear vinyl in an edition of 300 copies and housed with a photo of the small box of the possessions she b…

"Sweet dreams, come back!" The title, the last line of Matthäus von Collin's poem set by Schubert in 1825 as Nacht und Träume, suggests longing for night's return upon waking. Magnus Granberg's 2021 composition takes Schubert's song as departure point, fragmenting its rhythmic phrases into tiny cells and extracting tonal structures to create a new modal framework. The result exists at the intersection where composition meets improvisation, realized here in two versions across this double album. …

The mystical figure On Ka'a Davis returns for his second CD on Tzadik, and his first in twenty-five years - Blending the psychedelia of Sun Ra with Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix, this is an epic, direct from the ever-growing counterculture of Downtown New York - Performing on guitar, synth keyboard, programmed sounds, and percussion On is joined here by Don McKenzie on drums and Ali Ali on trumpet. Years in the making the music is wild, varied, and intensely felt. A New York Underground classic! …

Still Valentine’s Day 1969’ is the highly anticipated live recording which was recorded at the same night as John Fahey’s seminal release ‘The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick’ by influential solo guitarist Sandy Bull. Bull took elements of so many different kinds of music (Arabic, folk, jazz and Indian just for starters) and combined them to forge his characteristic style which would see him garner rabid fans with only a handful of releases. This particular recording was taken from a live show at …

Quartet improvisations recorded at London's Red Rose in June 2007. Rhodri Davies (harp & objects), Matt Davis (trumpet & electronics), Samantha Rebello (flute) and Bechir Saadé (bass clarinet) unite for intimately detailed collective sound explorations mining the lower boundaries of dynamics and densities. Davies and Davis are well-established improvisers; Rebello is a new name; Saadé is a member of the Lebanese improv scene along with Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Sehnaoui, and Mazen Kerbaj. It's …

Recorded live at the June 2006 Jazz à Poitiers festival, this gem pairs two extraordinary musicians in an unusual and very welcome configuration. Phil Minton - the legendary British vocalist with decades of experience exploring the outer possibilities of the human voice - meets Sophie Agnel, one of the most interesting and original voices on today's scene, though still largely undiscovered given her small discography. Her approach to piano is truly surprising: a mysterious and fascinating mixtur…

Four compositions by the US-Chinese composer: 'Of Monsters' - Ingrid Lee, piano Merima Kljuko, accordion'Cells' - Ingrid Lee & Rowan Smith, amplified snare drums'Bead Spit' - Ingrid Lee, piano, Max Kutner, electric guitar, Tony Gennaro, percussion'Another' - Eric KM Clark & Andy Studer, violins, Heather Lockie, viola, Meldoy Yenn, cello, Jake Rosenzweig, bass & Tony Gennaro, vibraphone

Four beautifully crafted improvisations by an exceptional European trio: French pianist Sophie Agnel, French saxophonist Bertrand Gauguet, and German sound artist Andrea Neumann. Recorded between 2008 and 2010 at various locations in France – La Filature in Mulhouse, La Maison de la Musique in Le Garric, and Bibliothèque Grand'Rue in Mulhouse – Spiral Inputs documents performances using a spatialized sound system developed by Benjamin Maumus, which had the effect of troubling the musicians' sens…

Wade Matthews (software synthesis, manipulated field recordings) and Stéphane Rives (soprano saxophone) recorded these four pieces in Madrid in July 2008, creating music that speaks to transformation, identity, and the improviser's paradox. The album takes its name from Ovid's tale of Arethusa—a nymph fleeing the river god Alpheus who, in attempting to escape change, becomes water itself. As Matthews writes in his liner notes, "in her quest to remain herself, she has become exactly what she fled…

Temporary Super Offer! * Limited edition LP Translucent green vinyl* Musica Elettronica Viva, or MEV for short, was formed in 1966 in Rome by Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran, Jon Phetteplace, Carol Plantamura, Frederic Rzweski, Richard Teitelbaum and Ivan Vandor. From the very beginning the group was based on musical freedom and the shunning of convention. Using contact microphones to record and manipulate sound wherever it could be found – from box springs to vibrators – and improvisationally combin…

Two new solo works by Kieran Daly and Luciano Maggiore ‘Complex envelope functions from nonlinear I/O and feature extraction etc’ and ‘Automatic Love’, sharing one disc. The first instance of these two presenting work in company; they play well together, forming a cohesive ‘split’ disc from beginning to end. Composed in 2023, both pieces deal with electronic and acoustic recorded sound, whilst presenting the distinctive, recognisable and acute styles of both artists.

*100 copies limited edition* Entrefer presents a collaboration between Gaël Angelis and Magali Sanheira. United under the Carbon Sink moniker, the duo pursue their own approach to organic Industrial musique concrète with an arsenal of tool. Recorded both in studio and live, "Climatic Paragon" offers a 70-minute wild ride through electroacoustic warfare and free improvisation. Gaël Angelis : 40x40 amplified copper plate, stones, rusted metal, shells, granular sampler, field recordings Magali Sanh…

From Matière Mémoire, one of the most striking and unique labels currently working in experimental music, comes “Adage Vestige”, the latest stunning statement from the French, Belgium based multidisciplinary artist Roxane Métayer. Encountering one of Europe's most unique voices pushing ever further into abstract realms with her signature hybrid of folk and rigorously experimental approaches, it's an absolute stunner that can't be missed.

Tip! This fourth release by Great Waitress titled back, before was recorded before the pandemic and lockdowns in 2018, and has taken four years to get to production. A live set was beautifully recorded by Peter Farrar at the Annandale Creative Arts Centre in Sydney and mixed and mastered by Joe Talia.  In the elegant liner notes, Chris Abrahams writes of Great Waitress transcending “ ...the individual contributions of Mayas, Altman and Brooks. It's an identity made from a multi-dimensional count…

Jim Denley and Dutch musician Cor Fuhler first met at the Taklos Festival in Switzerland in the early 1990s and Cor's frequent visits to Australia over the years gave them the opportunity to occasionally play. In 2012 Cor moved to Sydney, allowing them to ramp up the duo - this is their first release together.Over 7 weeks at the end of 2013 they recorded weekly in Cor's backyard studio, eventually choosing take 9 and 12, titling them Skive and Wag. Their imaginative preparations and inventions …

A live performance of saxophonist Bhob Rainey, electronics artist Bonnie Jones and percussionist Chris Cogburn

“Terror Iridescence” is the 4th full length release by the latter-day, New York City based reincarnation of the seminal Punk Jazz/No Wave/Brutal Prog unit The Flying Luttenbachers, and the 17th album since 1992. After all of this, longtime fans tend to expect notable creative twists to be pulled by the band with each release, and this one will not disappoint. This time around, our heroes have issued forth a boldly abstract haunted-house salvo of dizzying surrealism, loaded with exceptionally biz…

Since his Beat Diary debut (a 12xLP box set comprising 365 beats recorded daily over the course of a year), Julian Sartorius has immersed himself in unique and ambitious projects - trekking the path not travelled to arrive at rhythmic life forms through found objects and prepared instruments. Equally as mighty are his two other escapades, the most recent being Locked Grooves - 112 beats cut as endless loops on vinyl spanning 56 dense 1.8 second compositions per side. Preceding that is his audito…

In a rain forest of moments. the eye hears what the ear sees. through each moment of Karin Johansson’s and Finn Loxbo’s music runs the firm conviction that all points and layers of sound – in true democratic spirit, carry the same weight. Or lightness. as precise as scattered bird calls may be crucial to the totality and the outcome of the drama as a whole, as cautiously do they take care of the phrased line by being extremely exact with the gaps and the charged rest, where that very thing appea…

Founded in 1968, The Maciunas Ensemble took Fluxus founder George Maciunas (1931-1978) score Music for everyman (1961) as an invitation to explore the infinite space of sound patterns and musical structures. This exploration still continues after more than forty years. With Paul Panhuysen, Remko Scha, Jan van Riet, Leon van Noorden, Hans Schuurman, Helena Koning, Vincent Panhuysen. Since its foundation in 1968 the musicians of the Maciunas Ensemble always recorded their music with tape recorder,…

* Edition of 250 * The arrival of Amirtha Kidambi and Lea Bertucci’s End of Softness finds us in a vastly different world, a mere six months after the release of their debut Phase Eclipse (2019). Working remotely in isolation, Bertucci and Kidambi engaged in a process of creative editing, lifting fragments from the Phase Eclipse sessions and a live performance, to re-contextualize the music amidst a pandemic. The crisis lends a new expression of agony to the torrential caterwauls of Kidambi’s vo…

The first full-length vinyl outing from this British free music collective, featuring Neil Campbell (A-Band, Total, Sunroof!, numerous solo releases), Julian Bradley (Negative Kite), Bridget Hayden, Michael Flowers, and Adam Davenport. “…two sides of gloriously ethereal ambient-drone epiphanies that reveal an ensemble remarkably adept at building melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic intensity without ever prompting the listener to think that they are repeating themselves.” – Kevin Lian-Anderson, One …

Fred Frith summarizes the release on his website as "early 80s weirdness with John Zorn." To expand a bit, perhaps "idiosyncratic improvisation with a strange set of tools from two master musicians" would help place the form and ability of the music of Frith and Zorn, who have travelled and performed sporadically as a duo over several decades. These are five fascinating recordings from the blossoming downtown NY scene, originally from two NYC performances recorded on cassette in 1983 a…