Experimental / Free Improvisation

Three hot chunks of explosive improvisation fill the debut LP by Los Condenados, one of the Boston area's most resolutely form-destroying units. Blending electronics, woodwinds and vocals into searing blasts of audio-thuggery, Los Condenados create a gibbering racket that sounds like a collaboration between Voice Crack, the Snyder/McPhee Duo, and Schimpfluch. Andrea Pensado, an Argentinian expatriate (by way of Poland's Krakow Academy of Music), handles laptop and vocals. Her voice contains some…

The full recording of the first meeting between Bill Orcutt (USA) and Okkyung Lee (South Korea). Individually these players have focused on an idiosyncratic approach to their chosen instruments and technique. Okkyung is one of the most singular voices to compromise the cello's classical origin, while Orcutt has spent many years developing a unique abstraction of traditional guitar blues. Live at Cafe OTO is an uncompromising combination of these individual elements and an ecstatic improvised ass…

Composition for improvisors does not have to result in the garnished claptrap of an Jon Lloyd or Barry Guy. Here, Werner Dafeldecker (bass, guitar) and Michael Moser (cello) operate like Luigi Nono, they organize events that interrogate the process of sound production. Along with Radu Malfatti (trombone) and Burkhard Stangl (electric guitar), they spin a tense, linear music almost hysterical in its focus. It is hard to credit that traditional instruments can actually make these sounds, let alone…

Uneven Eleven is an improvising power trio that should not, on paper, work as well as it does: Charles Hayward on drums (This Heat, Massacre), Kawabata Makoto on guitar (Acid Mothers Temple, Gong) and Guy Segers on bass (Univers Zero, X-Legged Sally). Three players from three different corners of the avant-garde, captured in full flight at Cafe OTO in London on 24 May 2013, in one of those rare meetings where the chemistry is immediate and combustible. Live At Cafe OTO spreads four long collecti…

GGRIL [Le Grand Groupe Regional d'Improvisation Libérée] launches Vivaces, recorded concert conducted by famous British saxophone player Evan Parker. Going for seven years now, ''Le GGRIL'' is Tour de Bras' home big band, based in Rimouski, Québec, located hundreds kilometers east from urban centers. GGRIL is an eclectic reunion of improvisation enthusiasts from a large array of ages and musical traditions. The band features a dozen musicians living in Lower St-Lawrence region. They worked with …

"Lost big D eclectic jazz from the late 80's ! not much info/track titles about it ?! seems an unissued studio date who was planned for release but never happened, until now... it feauture rare appearances by members of Sphere (Vreeland/Dana) who unfortunatly released only one fantastic album back then on Strata... and Ron English who also rec. an LP for Strata under his name (but never issued on wax) and played with Lyman Woodard (drummer Leonard King was also part of the Organization), Wendell…

Complex, hyper-contrapuntal and molecular modes of group playing from the quartet of Stephen Grew (keyboard, processing), Richard Scott (wigi, buchla lightning, blippoo box), Nick Grew (transduction) & David Ross (drosscillator), joined by Evan Parker.""Recorded live in Zero Space, Bratislava at the Next Festival of Advanced Music (2009). "Through the process of free improvisation... Grutronic... have somehow rediscovered or reinvented complex, hyper-contrapuntal and molecular modes of group pla…

Yet another essential cracking new set of songs from bill orcutt, showcasing a further development of his unique visceral acoustic style. the language that orcutt uses looks familiar at first glance, but cut deeper and its myriad of twisted audio thats both full on and drenched in melancholy, usually in the same gasping breath.while a lot of it is the classic face melting style, some quieter segments counter balance on the title track as well the epic closet ‘a line from ol’man river’ and ‘heave…

The trio of Michel Doneda, Christoph Schiller and Jonas Kocher performing music of delicate tension and great assurance recorded in the spectacular church at Ligerz, Switzerland.  "Music of delicate tension and great assurance, recorded in 2010 in the spectacular church at Ligerz, overlooking Lake Biel in Switzerland. "The generous acoustic of the church influenced our playing. We had to deal with space and silence....I think you can hear that in our music" Jonas Kocher

"Electric Fruit" alludes to the vexing encounter between nature and technology, one of the most complex issues that we face as a global society. The album brings together a powerhouse of innovators—Weasel Walter, Mary Halvorson and Peter Evans—to emphatically capture, question and explore the throes of this crucial contradiction. "Electric Fruit" is a stirring and potent recording of the dangerous confrontation between the innate and the artificial, the organic and the robotic. Each member of th…

Into the Night Sky is the sixth album from avant guitarists Alan Licht and Loren Connors, the first after 2003's In France (FBWL). Since 1993 these New York City artists have evolved an instrumental dialogue merging shades of electric blues and minimalism. These two epic pieces -- one from 1996, the other 2006 -- recorded live in concert clearly show far their desolate sound world grew over a decade of collaboration while the core of layered guitar complexities and alien melodies remain. T…

Aka: the shape of (free) jazz to come. Bill Nace on electric guitar and Steve Baczowski on bass saxophone bless us with two sides of furious, raw improvised music. Their motto is easy to recognize from the beginning: total freedom, with instruments on fire moving along as if in the middle of a power electronics assault. Just a few seconds of silence, and then a small, delicate whistle starts, soon accompanied by a sinister percussive sound that introduces a sax / guitar dialogue which is …

Barcelona-based Ferran Fages is known both for his lyrical acoustic guitar playing (on solo discs such as Cançons a per un Lent Retard and Al Voltant d'un Para/'lel) and for hard-edged electronics (with groups such as Cremaster and Octante). His work in Ap'strophe—a duo with Athens-based zither player Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga—is an intriguing combination of these two sides of his music: there is plenty of resonant acoustic playing, but this is set against both the metallic textures of Lazari…

Named after the slow loris—an animal beloved by Patrick Farmer and Sarah Hughes for its shy, gradual movements—this London trio creates music that moves at a similarly unhurried pace. Farmer (natural objects, e-bow snare, tapes), Hughes (chorded zither, piano, e-bow), and Daniel Jones (turntable, e-bow, piezo discs, electronics) recorded these three pieces at Middlesex University in 2009, producing what Richard Pinnell in The Watchful Ear describes as "a calm but invigorating massage of the eard…

AMAZING RELEASE!! Between 1977-1978 Japanese improvising guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi performed with his "New Direction Unit" in a series of concerts of different formats (trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, &c). This "Archive" box set included the recordings of 5 concerts in Japan: the "another situtation" concert at Purcinera and "Regular Concerts" from Jean Jean in Shibuya. Comprised of live improvisations, this beautifully packaged box also has a booklet with details on the concerts, though mos…

They explore the indigenous urban music phenomenon on this, their debut collaborative release. NNBB are one of the most enigmatic, mysterious, & defiantly anti-commercial groups to emerge from the New York loft scene during the '90s. Incorporating elements of folk, drone, psychedelia, free jazz, noise, & just about everything else, they have nevertheless carved out a distinctive sound from complementary & disparate component elements. EMBRYO fused traditional ethnic music with their own jazzy sp…

Barcelona's Octante—Ruth Barberán (trumpet, speaker, microphones), Alfredo Costa Monteiro (accordion, objects), Ferran Fages (oscillators, pick-ups), and Margarida Garcia (electric bass)—create what one reviewer calls "a crackling and crunching kind of sound" that's "utterly condensed." The quartet has essentially become "one common music machine" where distinguishing individual instruments becomes nearly impossible. The two extended improvisations (each around 29 minutes) recorded in Barcelona …

Richard Bamford, drums, percussion. Stuart Brown, drums, percussion. John Burgess, bass clarinet. George Burt, acoustic guitar. Matthew Cairns, trumpet. Aileen Campbell, voice. Neil Davidson, electric guitar. Nick Fells, shakuhachi. Krzysztof Hladowski, bouzouki. George Lyle, double bass. Raymond MacDonald, soprano & alto saxophones. George Murray, trombone. Peter Nicholson, cello, voice. Emma Roche, flute, baroque flute. Ernesto Rodrigues, viola. Guilherme Rodrigues, cello. Matthew Studdert-Ken…

Sandy Bull may have been the first man in the '60s folk renaissance to foreground modal drones in his music and thereby forge a link between Scottish ballads, jazz, and sitar meditations. The results are seismic, and when seen in the light of the millennial freak-folk scene, they cast Bull as one of the genre's primary father figures. VANGUARD VISIONARIES seeks to introduce neophytes to Bull's finest noodlings, covering ground that's similar to the previous Vanguard best-of, RE-INVENTIONS. The d…

It's taken a long fucking time, and finally, a fully legit LP - only reissue of this amazing Helsinki monsterpiece from 1970. shh ! is highly collectable in it's original form on the band's own O Records imprint (home of 3rd erection, samsa trio, one point music, etc). In a non - dream state, I've seen 2 copies and both were in a condition slightly more well kempt than hammered ++. shh ! is primarily a document of Pekka Airaksinen's experimental compositions, consisting of primitive samples, gui…

1976 was a year of flux and change. For the recording of the fifth Area album, the core membership of Stratos, Fariselli, Tofani and Tavolazzi were present, but drummer Capiozzo only appears on about half of the album, replaced on various tracks by either Walter Calloni or Paul Litton. Steve Lacy augments the band, as do several other studio musicians (including a string quartet). Perhaps it was the contributions of this eclectic group of guests that gives Maledetti its bi-directional feel. On o…

The album consists of live versions of the jazz tunes created by the legendary Steve Lacy. The tapes are from the Wellington Jazz Festival 2006, where Malcolm dresses Lacy's melodies in a free folk influenced suite of noise. Malcolm is known for playing three guitars at the same time: two with each foot And one in the conventional way (with his hAnds And arms), And this is how he performs also this songs. The outcome has recently been edited And mastered by Kai Mikalsen. Greg Malcolm has earlier…

Korm Plastics is proud to present the eleventh release in the Brombron series. Originally a co-production between Staalplaat and Extrapool, it is now hosted by co-curator Frans de Waard. In the year 2000 Frans de Waard and Extrapool started the Brombron project. Two or more musicians become artists in residence in Extrapool, an arts initiative in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, with a fully equipped sound recording studio. These artists can work in a certain amount of time on a collaborative project;…

Yes, by God, here's another one. Rock root punch left in bloody piles of nutmeg dirt circus. Fuck the bleat. Fuck the beat. Fuck the entire fucking fleet. A return to the magnificence of spell-over-form. An end to spiel-necessity. Destructive formatting vanishes in a pfff of steam. Welcome to one future. For information on NNCK consult your local oracle.

Extraordinary homage to pioneering instrument-builder and improviser Hugh Davies (1943-2005), recorded in January 2008. Adam Bohman (prepared balalaika & amplified objects), Lee Patterson (amplified objects) and Mark Wastell (cello) - three improvisers heavily influenced by Davies's work - improvising alongside solo recordings Davies made in the 1970s. A virtual quartet where one voice is fixed, unable to respond. Davies - who worked as Karlheinz Stockhausen's assistant in Cologne in the mid-60s…

Trio improvisations recorded at the Church of St. James the Great, Friern Barnet, north London, November 2007. Matt Davis (trumpet & field recordings), Matt Milton (violin) and Bechir Saade (bass clarinet & flute) - three improvisers following that strain of British improv interested in amplifying the quiet and concentrating on minute gestural nuance. An entirely acoustic affair meets electronics in reverberant sacred space. The music opens with "a spectrum of Saade's bass clarinet multiphon…

Paolo Angeli (Sardinian guitar & electronics), Evan Parker (soprano & tenor saxophones), Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet). The Freezone in 2007 was played by just three. The smaller than usual line up allowed for a more intense investigation of the relationships between the players. For the first time an entire set was played by all three musicians and this set was so successful that it is presented unedited, along with two duos. There will be no Appleby Festival in 2008,…

Brand new re-release of this MEV masterpiece. For the realization of "Friday", recorded in London in May 1969, MEV were Frederic Rzewski (piano, electronics, etc.), Alvin Curran (flugelhorn, etc.), Richard Teitelbaum (moog synthesizer), Franco Cataldi (trombone, etc.), Gunther Carius (saxophone, etc.). The main theme around this MEV piece is communication. Communication by means of music can be a very efficient means of reaching quick agreement among large numbers of people, because when you cal…

Third archival MEV release on Allan Bryant's label. The first track, 'Quadrupl Play', is a piece for rubberbands recorded in 1966 by Allen Bryant. It can be described as 'variations on melody' and was played at the first MEV concerts in St. Paul du Vence, France and at Teatro Argentina in Rome. The second track, 'Pich Out' (or 'Rocket Take Off)', for 4 guitars, is loud and thundering, played by 4 musicians through 4 speakers at Sala Beloch, Rome in March 1967. Features Rzewski, Phetteplace, Curr…

A previously unreleased document of MEV -- four sections of an improvisation recorded in London, 1968, spread out over 43 minutes. The line up was Bryant (synthesizer), Alvin Curran (trumpet, percussion), Frederick Rzewski (amplified percussion, singing), Jon Phetteplace (amplified cello). Powerful, historic noise and the first easily available MEV music on CD. Also comes with a Bryant solo synth wig-out piece at the end. Both of these IRML CDs come in regular jewel cases, and endearingly primit…

Bob Downes is most often thought of as a jazz flautist, composer and group leader, but throughout his varied career that has included such diverse musical activity as working with the John Barry Seven and playing on Egg's second LP, he also had his own fluid conceptual group Open Music with principle bass player Barry Guy and drummer Denis Smith. Other players that passed through Open Music include Chris Spedding, Kenny Wheeler, Ray Russell, Ian Carr, Henry Lowther, Harry Beckett, Harry Miller, …

** CD Box. The white industrial cardboard box includes an audio CD, a 12-page booklet, five folded posters with graphical scores, plus “Roulette”, a clock-like gadget originally used as the score of the aleatory composition with the same title.** Insieme Musica Diversa, which can be translated in different ways (as diverse music toghether, or different collective music ecc.) truly is a source of endless enchantment. Merging elements of DIY electronica, psychedelia, noise, progressive and free-fo…

Sakada is: Mattin (computer feedback), Rosy Parlane (computers and radio) and Eddie Prevost (percussion). "Undistilled was recorded at live performances in London and Rotterdam in 2002. Components are a restricted range of percussion (Eddie Prevost), electronic sounds confected earlier for intuitive, tweaked release (Rosy Parlane), and nervous hyper-attention to every noise present, allowing spontaneous digital transfiguration of some (Mattin). The product is a formidably dense mesh of textures …

Australian Ross Bolleter's new disc features five compositions. Four of them are solo works: "Unfinished Business" for ruined piano; "Under Rookwood" for double bass; "Labyrinth Tango" for accordion; and "Piano Dreaming" for ruined pianola. "That Time (Simulplay II)" is for a duo of prepared piano and double bass. Of course, with Ross, this thumbnail description tells not much of the story. So we'll let Ross say a few words. Step on down. "During the drought that never ended at Nallan Sheep Stat…

The original MEV (Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Joh Phetteplace), recorded in the spring of 1968 in Rome. "Vault find recordings of a MEV concert from Spring of 1968, featuring the original lineup of Allan Bryant (synthesizers), Alvin Curran (percussion, trumpet), Frederic Rzewski (percussion), and Jon Phetteplace (cello, percussion). Booklet reprints prime Bryant rants on church/state separation ('TH' 10 GRAETST AMERICNZ WR AGENST ORGANYZD RLIJN (OR)'), questionable medical prac…

"La Grima (Tears) was performed on August 14, 1971, at the Genyasai festival in Sanrizuka, Japan. The first six minutes or so of this performance can be heard on the omnibus LP Genya (released on CD in 2004). This CD presents the complete, unedited version of the performance.As if to slash through the audience's scornful, jeering reaction to Takayanagi's opening remarks, the group launched into a fiercely convulsive performance. Despite having a variety of objects thrown at them, Takayanagi and …

"between", for me is about the tension and space between objects, and how we might occupy this area, to reside if you like between the conventions, to locate the flexibility that comes from de-theorizing the dogmas. It seemed to me as if Toshi and I were navigating a route through a familiar part of town, where each of the buildings stood for and represented expectations, styles, outcomes and histories. We wanted to resist entering the buildings and to stay between. The cover art and photo attem…

Recorded live 2000 at Berlin (1) and 2001 at Graz, Wien (Vienna) and Berlin.