Jazz /
Orang-Utan
Following his success with “Blow Up,” the once-weekly favorite bassist Isao Suzuki returns with his fourth release under the Three Blind Mice label. The heavy, groovy sound he crafts alongside the eccentric talent Kenji Mori remains timeless and undiminished by the years.
Mondays At The Enfield Tennis Academy
2024 stock. Mondays at Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet is at last here. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depthful & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-len…
Allt Åt Alla
2024 stock. 300 copies limited edition With roots in the '60s free jazz and contemporary improvised music, the initiative is a non-hierarchical and norm-critical collective. The music is characterised by the joy of playing and the free improvisations, placed in long-composed suite forms. Hard swing, wild improvisations and lyrical melodies melt together in unexpected combinations and give each other new colours and spiritual depth.
"The Initiative brilliant music do nod to past masters, especia…
As Good As It Gets
LP version. The combination of Espen Eriksen Trio and UK saxophone giant Andy Sheppard is truly a match made in jazz heaven, and in the words of Andy: "I knew from the first time I heard the trio play that I would fit right in. I loved the melodic sense and vibe and was thrilled when I was invited to guest with the trio in London in 2016." The common conclusion drawn in reviews of their first album Perfectly Unhappy was simply "more, please," and now Rune Grammofon is delighted to introduce As G…
Sonic Joy
“When foraging for mushrooms, you never know what the forest has to offer that day – who you will meet, what will make you stop in your tracks. But with an open attitude, you will always find something interesting.” It was this mindset this album was recorded with. The Hämeenlinna-based band consists of Victor “Pascal” Tokpanou on percussion, Tuure “Baya” Tammi on keys and trumpet, Ville-Pekka “Ray” Järvinen on bass and, Juha “Murray” Sarkkola on drums. They have played together for a long time …
Nothing Will Disappear
London-based experimentalists Kinkajous have announced their new studio album, Nothing Will Disappear, set for release on October 18th via Nottingham's Running Circle label. Maximalism at its most subtle and tender – ambient music at its most rejuvenated. There are echoes of Sam Shepherd's collaborative work with Pharoah Sanders as Floating Points, and the subtle timbre shifts of Jon Hopkins and James Holden more so than their capital-"J" jazz contemporaries. A marked step-up from their previous…
Awakening
On a quest for cosmic grooves of unity, Àbáse is the imagination of Hungarian producer and keyboardist Szabolcs Bognár. Now based in Berlin, he’s become a protagonist of a fast-rising jazz movement in the German capital. Bringing together musicians from Hungary, Germany, Ghana and Australia for moving project with a global outlook - here is his highly anticipated new album ‘Awakening’ released by Analogue Foundation and Oshu Records. Created following a move to Berlin, marriage, new parenthood, …
Eyes On The Horizon
Bassist-composer Joe Fonda’s Eyes on the Horizon is a gift—a gift from a former student to his master teacher, Wadada Leo Smith. It is the best possible gift a mentor can receive—it doesn’t imitate Wadada’s own work, it’s entirely in Joe’s voice. Featuring Wadada Leo Smith himself, pianist Satoko Fujii, and drummer Tiziano Tononi, it is a gift given by a mature artist out of respect to another whose example of artistic integrity, perseverance, and ongoing creativity continues to inspire him to …
The Susceptible Now
‘The Susceptible Now’ is the new record by drummer and 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner Tyshawn Sorey, who on this occasion offers covers of some of his favourite tracks. With his trio consisting of Aaron Diehl on piano and Harish Raghavan on bass, Sorey continues in the wake of his masterful ‘Continuing’, a record that placed fourth in the 2023 rankings voted by over 150 jazz critics in the Francis Davis Poll and was described by The Guardian as: ‘5 stars: seething with reinventions of ancient magic.…
Folio #5
Brûlez les meubles is a dual-headed jazz project led primarily by Éric Normand (Rimouski) and Louis Beaudoin de la Sablonnière (Montreal). Born from their mutual passion for each other’s eccentric musical worlds, this duo is known for collaborating with experimental improvisers and renowned artists. Their music is abstract and meditative, both modern and simple, drawing inspiration from jazz guitar legends such as Jim Hall, Bill Frisell, René Thomas, and Brandon Ross.
Their fifth album, Folio #5…
Àlea
"Sofa is delighted to announce the Italian musician and composer Andrea Giordano (b. 1995)’s Àlea, a suite for large mixed ensemble in which Giordano also performs as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. Dedicated to Giordano’s friend and mentor, the Italian jazz musician and pedagogue Alessandra Giachero, who died unexpectedly in 2020, Àlea is at once a lament and testament to Giordano’s multifarious musicianship. In dense, rending orchestration, the artist shows us the multidimensionality of gr…
Dawn & Dusk
*2024 stock* The Wind (music by Scott Clark, lyrics by Laura Ann Singh/Scott Clark)Dawn & Dusk (music by Scott Clark, lyrics by Laura Ann Singh)Silent Singing (music and lyrics by Scott Clark)Above The Gray (music by Scott Clark)
Tracks 1-4 recorded August 16, 2021 and mixed at Minimum Wage Recording by Lance Koehler.Tracks 5-8 recorded live March 28, 2022 and mixed at Spacebomb Studio by Curtis Fye.Tracks 1-8 mastered at Minimum Wage Recording by Lance Koehler.Album art + design by TJ Huff (huf…
Clamor
*2024 stock* Clamor rethinks the notion of 'women's work' as a space for both collaboration and singular voice. Just as our ensemble is limited and enabled by the written score, so might be individual enunciations of how gender norms limit agency. Clamor utilizes a collective, improvisational vision that prioritizes an intentionally fluid style by employing indeterminacy, navigated by the performers via time-based scores. These principles are balanced with metered notation to shape the overall f…
Bakunawa
Andrew Barker - drums, percussion William Parker - bass, b flat pocket tuba, gralla Jon Irabagon - tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone
Recorded by Andrew Barker January 3rd, 2022 at Phantom Ear Studio, Brooklyn, NY.Mixed by Andrew Barker.Mastered by Steve Silverstein.
Sweet World
Sweet World was recorded in the summer of 2023 in Brooklyn. It features a book of songs that my trio with drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell, and cellist Christopher Hoffman performed for a year or so leading up to the recording. I wrote most of these songs with Nathan and Chris in mind. I tried to bring my whole musical self to this project. I love so many kinds of music. Improvisation is central to everything I do. The written material for these pieces all fit on one or two pages and each of them crea…
Colla Voce
What if the blue that I see is different from the blue that you see? This question is an infrastructure for my Afro-Surrealist Anti-Opera, Colla Voce. Often, when we think of Surrealism, we think of subconscious mental states, dreams, nightmares-those unexplored corners of our psyche. But Afro-Surrealism protests: what if that which one calls a ‘dream' is a nightmare to another? What if that which one calls ‘rational' is completely baseless to another? And surely, we must have varying ideas of w…
Quartet Music Vol. I: LuMiSong
The first time the band that became LuMiSong ever played together was during the Great Lockdown of July 2020. The others wore masks while I stood twenty feet away with the door behind me open to a Gowanus side-street. I hadn’t shared a sound or negotiated an eighth-note with anybody for months and the experience overwhelmed me with emotion. (The most basic facts of collective music-making are the most profound.) We all brought in music to that session and to the many that followed. Matt and Sant…
Quartet Music Vol. II: Kardamon Fall
"I had a little chuckle after Michaël Attias handed me his LuMiSong album at an early May show in Brooklyn. I’ve seen the bandleader perform numerous times, and have long felt his skills at creating reflective music were just as potent as those he uses to wax expressive. Meaning an Attias hush, whether curt or prolonged, often provides the emotional impact of an Attias explosion. The expertise required for each resides in the Israel-born, Paris-raised, Minneapolis-schooled, New York-wisened saxo…
Hammer, Roll and Leaf
The saxophonist Sakina Abdou follows up her first solo album with this trio release, which has all the freshness of a very first encounter.The album is the fruit of an improvised, closed session of several days in her home, punctuated by two concerts, and offers an arc of 60 minutes that retraces a musical itinerary that is intimate and acoustic. We have previously heard Toma Gouband with Evan Parker and the pianist Marta Warelis with Dave Douglas and Andy Moor. Sakina Abdou first played with Go…
Entwined
Avant-garde bassoonist Karen Borca's first proper leader record is a series of duos with drummer Paul Murphy who she first played with in Jimmy Lyons group.