Jazz /
Lifetime of a Flower
*Limited edition of 500 copies.* Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O‘Rourke created the installation Lifetime of a Flower for the Dortmund exhibition Flowers in 20th and 21st Century Art. In it they set parameters, but allowed the process itself to literally grow uncontrollably: they planted seeds in the garden of their Japanese house and filmed as the plants grew for the duration of the exhibition. Visitors were able to watch the stream in real time, while listening to a composition that reflected the org…
Cliffs
When the best American sax player of the moment ( grammy, pools, magazines) James Brandon Lewis meets one of the most interesting French fretless bass electronic visionary Floy Krouchi and French avant-garde drummer Benjamin Sanz and they spend a week improvising in the south of France, they come with one of the best contemporary jazz album of the year!
Fläche & Figur (14 Duos Für Akkordeon Und Drumsets)
Rüdiger Carl and Sven-Åke Johansson are two fellow travelers on the path of experimental music who have worked together since the late 1960s in many formations, most notably as the wild-card Fluxus pranksters on Peter Brötzmann’s legendary 1969 recording Machine Gun, and on many more recordings and stagings of sonic interventions over the decades. In the words of Peter Margasak writing in the Chicago Reader in 2012: “Where to begin with percussionist and polymath Sven-Åke Johansson: Is he a beb…
Killing Time
Temporary super offer! Spittle Records present an expanded reissue of Massacre's Killing Time, originally released in 1981. Following the breakup of Cambridge's avant-rock legends, Henry Cow, guitarist Fred Frith moved to NYC in 1979, and soon found himself deep in the heart of the city's robust post-punk and free-jazz scenes. He performed with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher, from the group Material, as a power trio of sorts under the moniker of Massacre. The group quickly garnered a reputation aro…
Quartet to At Judson Hall "Revisited"
By 1966, the first wave of free jazz had established the foundation upon which this radically generated music could be understood and personalized, shared as a communal activity and still invested with significant singular characteristics. Noah Howard and his bandmates represented a second generation, as creative attitudes were expanding.
Kuge Yoshio Solo
* Edition of 200 * Japanese punk/underground drummer legend. Born in Osaka. Has played with many Japanese underground groups including Les Rallizes Denudes, Keiji Haino, Pungo, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Masami Shinoda Unit, Paradise Garage
Dancing Kojiki
This album was the Yosuke Yamashita Trio's first-ever work, and it is considered to be a real masterpiece. It is a live recording of a superb performance in July 1969 that involved Takeo Moriyama and Seiichi Nakamura on the barricaded campus of Waseda University. This analogue reissue captures the three stunning pieces as well as plenty of ambiance and atmosphere from the gig itself, making it a real moment in time.
One of the earliest albums ever from Japanese pianist Yosuke Yamashita – and a …
Dancing Kojiki
*2023 stock* Japan's legendary drummer steps out here with a killer combo – definitely a "big 4", given that the group features excellent tenor work from Hidehiko "Sleepy" Matsumoto, plus Fender Rhodes and acoustic piano from Hideo Ichikawa! George Kawaguchi's famous sense of swing really gets the whole thing going – that big, round approach to the drums that was somewhere in a space between Art Blakey and Buddy Rich – and which was definitely hitting some of its hipper tones by the time of this…
Likht
Incinerating sound together since 2014, Nava Dunkelman and gabby fluke-mogul combine their expansive palettes with finesse, creating a fierce dialect of their own. Violin and percussion combust viscerally through spirit and song. Forged in flame, Dunkelman and fluke-mogul honor ritual and celebrate their rich sonic hues in their duo release, Likht.
Sand
Sand is a Fields composition for 20 instrumentalists, three singers, and conductor. It combines three areas in which he has often worked: modularity, manipulation of text, and integration of composition and improvisation.Like Fields’ previous modular works, Sand is constructed of units whose interrelationships vary from weak to strong. In performance a conductor spontaneously selects, combines, sequences, and layers modules. Sand also includes improvisational elements within structures and “orga…
Fata Morgana
"If you have the belief that your house plants are talking amongst themselves, you may not be crazy. French composer and electronics musician Erikm aka Eric Matt, with the help of the experimental chamber Ensemble Dedalus, transmutes sounds created beyond the frequencies of human hearing into a spectrum accessible to our limited range. This process reveals a world of creatures and natural phenomena that, unless you were working in a specific scientific discipline, may never suggest itself to you…
Matanzas
Brandon Lopez (contrabass), Steve Baczkowski (saxophones), and Gerald Cleaver (percussion) freely play propulsive grooves drawing as much from heavy metal aggression as free jazz freakouts. Baczkowski’s reeds with their acoustic distortions impart a crunch to the music and their snaking lines dance over the sinister and doomed romp of the rhythm section. Lopez and Cleaver are most often locked into a martial groove, assembled and disassembled, sometimes faltering and reeling from their own displ…
Crying In Space
"The question to be answered during this live performance was, "Will there be enough space for all the musicians' voices to be heard?" Recorded at Firehouse 12, in June 2019, this new ensemble is an adaptation of various duos and familiar trios. Saxophonist Paul Flaherty and drummer Chris Corsano have performed and recorded numerous discs together since the late '90s, releasing high-octane free jazz. The same can be said of the drummer's duo work with Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen; their tw…
From Union Pool
This adventurous set catches lightning in a bottle. They hit the ground running and never let up. Susan Alcorn's pedal steel soloing is phenomenal while Ryan Sawyer drives the trio forward as Patrick Holmes' clarinet keeps pace with both of them. A breathless set of high energy free improvisation at its best.
Goodbye Ground
Sakina Abdou has expressed herself in many contexts, in musical fields both broad and eclectic. With this solo album, she invites herself within, focus and anchors herself for the first time in her own language, where she summons the many influences which have nurtured her. Through «homemade» recording, naked, raw, without effects or tricks, we meet her on her own, at home. Grab a chair or settle on the floor next to her, on the edge of the bell, almost touching, and find yourself captured in a …
Mutable
The music on Mutable is a totally acoustic sonic exploration. It is an investigation that has led to the development of certain extended techniques in order to discover the ultimate limits of the sound of the saxophone and to try to create new sounds on the instrument.
Free Jazz and Improvisation on Vinyl 1965-1985 (Book)
*2023 stock* Over the years the fantastic, genre-defying Norwegian label Rune Grammofon has published a few books mostly celebrating its own snazzy design aesthetic and rich history, but a gorgeous new volume by art historian Johannes Rød focuses more on the music and artifacts that have influenced label owner Rune Kristofferson, who penned one of the forwards for Free Jazz and Improvisation on Vinyl 1965-1985 (there’s a second one by notorious “discaholic” and reedist Mats Gustaffson). Rød deli…
Ostro
Temporary Super Offer! 'The music on this CD is an impressive document of such a search for meaning and artistic legitimacy. It doesn’t want to add something even louder to the supposedly spectacular. On the contrary: Here, it is about the subtle intimacy and emotionality of human relationships, about breathing as one. It is about being interested in each other beyond ever new superlatives. This is where the unobtrusive authenticity of this music comes from, what makes it special and thoughtful.…
Tesserae
Drummer Tilo Weber joins forces with bassist Petter Eldh (Koma Saxo) and Elias Stemeseder, who plays harpsichord and keys here on Weber's We Jazz debut, "Tesserae". The three musicians plus guests present a unique jazz trio sound for all times, without boundaries. Weber, based in Berlin, came to the attention of We Jazz Records with his his highly inspired drum work on Otis Sandsjö's Y-OTIS, and has since then also been awarded with the prestigious Deutscher Jazz Preis for the arrangement of the…
In Paris, Aries 1973
** 2023 Much needed reissue ** Edition of 500. Aguirre Records present a reissue of In Paris, Aries 1973 by the Black Artist Group. "This outstanding free jazz session was recorded in 1973 in Paris by Chicago outfit. It was Lester Bowie, trumpeter with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, who suggested that the Black Artist Group should head for Paris. In 1972, several members took his advice and flew to France for an extended stay. The following year, a concert featuring saxophonist Oliver Lake, trumpe…