Jazz & Improvisation / Electronically Augmented Jazz

Sometimes the title of an album tells you everything you need to know. Laurence Pike’s Possible Utopias for Jazz Quintet is like that: The music within represents a search for freedom, potentiality—liberatory strategies that transcend the ego and the solitary, atomized figure. But in this case, the album title is also a red herring, because there is no jazz quintet here—just Pike, his drums, and his machines, not so much an ersatz ensemble as a purely notional one, a thought experiment equipped …

*2026 repress* Searching was self-recorded in Ronald’s living room on a 4-Track Tape Recorder in 1984. The recordings symbolise his engagement to cross-over everything that was known to him musically at that time. Most importantly, all recordings reflect his personal way of searching; searching for his own characteristic sound. Rhythmical patterns meet well balanced distortion, shaping the music into a mirror of his character. He was part of several Dutch Latin and Jazz bands, including Cascada …

Time To Get On Board A New Black Universal Express. With each new recording Anthony Joseph presents an imaginative, personal vision of contemporary black culture, and The Ark is yet another compelling album by the award-winning Trinidadian poet and musician. This second part of a sequence of two albums launched with last year’s Rowing Up River To Get Our Names Back, finds Joseph giving full vent to his desire to explore many thought-provoking themes. However, there is a specific thread running t…

Themes For Dreams marks another left turn, finding Chicago-born and based musician, composer, and producer Will Miller at his most meditative, patient, and intentional. Across 13 gorgeous and strikingly cohesive tracks, the album eschews drums in favor of immersive melodies that float, dissipate, and linger. It's an album meant for rest, with arrangements so welcomely enveloping they feel like a warm blanket. While it's Miller's sparsest record yet, it still keeps his wildly collaborative ethos,…

Zyggurat is Pete Grimshaw's experimental jazz project, in this iteration featuring him on synths and Nathan England-Jones on percussion. Formed in Birmingham, Zyggurat has over 8 years of cosmic electronic wrangling under it's belt. Releases and live shows have featured a charmingly eclectic range of collaborators ranging from tap dancers to sax/flute players, taking in the accordion along the way, with the lyrical drumming of England-Jones the constant and steady accompaniment. Recorded over tw…

Lau Nau (Laura Naukkarinen), Linda Fredriksson and Matti Bye enter the We Jazz Records realm as Kiri Ra! with their new album nen (out 22 May 2026). Kiri Ra! is a trio that creates their sound slowly, in a process of improvisation and discovery. Filtered through the musicians' long-standing friendship and collaboration, Kiri Ra!'s music is a testament to the joy of creation and invention. Their sound together draws from each of the the artists' work before, while creating new world of sound. The…

On Grzyby, Błoto complete their mycelium cycle with a compact blast of medicinal‑and‑toxic club jazz: five mushroom‑named cuts of broken beats, sub‑heavy low end and live improvisation that argue for dialogue and interdependence in a world addicted to walls.

Yuvi Havkin aka Rejoicer returns with an exceptional collaborative album, California Space Craft. On this aptly titled record, he joins forces with seasoned LA bass polymath Sam Wilkes — known for his inspired studio work with Sam Gendel and his dynamic live performances alongside Louis Cole and Knower — and drummer Tamir Barzilay, completing the LA-connected trifecta alongside a select handful of key featured guests. The idea for California Space Craft was born out of a series of inspired live …

What do jazz improvisation, Polish Radio, dingy rap from Memphis, cassette tapes, trap, drill elements and hip-hop loops have in common? These are the ingredients that the Błoto quartet used in their lab to cook an explosive mixture for their third LP entitled “Kwasy i zasady” (eng,“Acids and bases”).  Nobody thought that a band who appeared suddenly and unexpectedly on the jazz scene would develop so rapidly and in such an unforeseen direction. A year ago, critics and music journalists treated …

The first song cycle collaboration by this new partnership is a highly adventurous and ambitious work, and one which explores a journey through dark places expressed in an improvisation-based language of strange sounds and textures, plus some unexpected left turns into electronic and choral music, before emerging from the woodland and into the morning light. I make a lot of records. In fact most years I release more albums than I make live performances. But this one is special to me in many ways…

Błoto has never cared much for dominant aesthetics. Instead, the band has consistently chosen paths less travelled, unexplored territories and uncharted routes where experimentation is not so much a conscious decision as a natural state of being. After years of a rather hermetic approach to recording their albums, the time for change has come. A trip to Bucharest and the opportunity to collaborate with the community of musicians associated with the underground label Future Nuggets, led by Ion D,…

On Actionreaction 2, Pippo Lionni, Sergio Corbini and Stefano Franceschini turn the studio into a single, improvising organism, where spackle knives and rollers become percussion, free‑jazz piano and sax tangle with electronics, and each canvas is written twice – in sound and in paint.

Big tip! Spiritmuse Records is proud to present Journey To Nabta Playa, a new album from composer and multi-instrumentalist Angel Bat Dawid and multidisciplinary artist and musician Naima Nefertari (aka Karlsson), releasing May 2, 2025. A powerful meditation on memory, mythology, and ancestral science, the record draws deep inspiration from the ancient astrological stone circle of Nabta Playa, nestled in the remote deserts of Nubia. Journey To Nabta Playa is grounded in a shared inquiry between …

Kin Gajo is a Brussels based electro-acoustic jazz trio drawing inspiration on the one hand from J Dilla and Flying Lotus, and on the other from the sound of British jazz artists such as The Comet Is Coming, Yusef Dayes, and Alfa Mist. With their atypical instrumentation-accordion, saxophone, and drums-the trio has developed a sound entirely of their own, with the accordion often resembling a heavy analog synthesizer. DJ and producer Lefto featured Kin Gajo on his compilation Lefto Presents Jazz…

In November 1926, Tina Modotti wrote: “I accept the tragic conflict between life continuously changing its form, and also immutably fixing it in time.” “No longer, not yet”, the second album from the Italian band “She’s Analog”, is an “instant film” that pretentiously tries to stop movement. The title refers to a zone of transit, in which everything unfolds and blooms. This space isn’t interpreted as exclusively musical; instead it represents that liminal space in which we move and create, both …

"Silva has created what could perhaps best be described as “ambient jazz”. That in itself seems like a contradiction, ambient being at odds with the spontaneity of jazz, and jazz being so vivid. But here we are. It’s partly the texture of the musical sounds that merits comparisons with jazz - far from the purely electronic soundscapes of Eno, early Tangerine Dream etcetera. Rather than tone and atmosphere over musical structure and rhythm, this is tone, atmosphere, musical structure and rhythm. …

Land Back! An unadulterated opening statement intoned by Saul Williams three times, as he joins Carlos Niño & Friends in sound ceremony underneath oak and black walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2024. The performance, which was organized by Noah Klein of Living Earth on the grounds of longstanding conservationist organization TreePeople, was the first of its kind for longtime friends and collaborators Williams and Niño. The two have been in contact since 1997 an…

Ingrid Schmoliner and Alex Kranabetter are pillars of the improvised and experimental music scenes inAustria stretching back more than a decade. Although the former is known primarily as a pianist and vocalist and the latter as a trumpeter, they both possess seriously expansive sonic palettes. Schmolinger works rigorously with sound direction to generate vibrant psychoacoustic and spatialized effects, while Kranabetter routinely deploys electronics to radically transform and expand his sound wor…

With A Semblance: Of Return, South African drummer, composer, and bandleader Asher Gamedze gathers a close ensemble of longtime collaborators to explore what he calls “practices of assembly” - ways of coming together, making sound, and imagining new and old modes of freedom. Based in the independent music scenes of Cape Town and rooted in Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness, Of Return extends the political and musical commitments that have defined Gamedze’s work since Dialectic Soul (On The C…

Combining as the Yatha Bhuta Jazz Combo this LP may be a surprise to followers of Onra, while Buddy Sativa will be known to some via his own 2011 jazz leaning LP "Deus Ex Machina" on Favorite Records. There they collaborated on their first jazz track - "Indica". Pleased with the results they carried on, keeping it simple and adhering to straightforward play-more-jazz stylings they have crafted this LP over sessions sandwiched between their assorted commitments over the last two years. Opening th…

*100 copies limited edition* "Will and I have been playing together for a very long time and in a lot of very different contexts. Our musical history goes back to playing basements and art galleries in Providence in 2008, wanders through a years-long informal residency playing as a sax and guitar duo in Bushwick and Ridgewood, and brings us up to just last week when Will joined Taper’s Choice at a sold out Brooklyn Bowl to celebrate Relix Magazine’s 50th anniversary—more on that again later. In …

The Selenites Band - Journey on Az Ma'ar Moon An Ethiofuturist odyssey. With Journey on Az Ma'ar Moon, their third studio album, The Selenites Band continue their exploration of ethiojazz, deconstructing and reinventing it to project it towards the stars.Conceived as a journey to an imaginary moon, each track becomes a stage in an interstellar narrative, where myths, ancestral rhythms and Afrofuturism intertwine. Between heritage and  experimentation, the group deploys a groove from elsewhere: a…

The Département d’Éducation Psychique group - Dynamo Dreesen and SVN : Andreas and Sven = DRESVN & Jean-Marc Foussat - was born in Paris June 25, 2014 in La Java, at a concert organized by Xavier Ehretsmann. The proposal of Xavier and our deep desire at all was to “mix” various networks for the unexpected meeting, improbable, surprising… of artists referenced “techno”, here DRESVN, with others from the “improvised music” in this instance Jean-Marc Foussat. And so as the duo DRESVN the German has…

*100 copies limited edition* This Molar record was created in a few stages. First it was substantial to find creative means which would spark the new material. The Polyend Tracker was perfect for that as it is both simple and surprisingly fresh. Only after that I applied my favourite environment and comfortably sat in my digital domain. The next stage was to find kindred spirits who share the same mental and musical sensibility. Michał Fetler and Jacek Prościński seemed to fit like a custom-made…

Mega Tip! Purple Trap, the powerful trio of Keiji Haino (voice, guitar), Bill Laswell on bass, and Rashied Ali (drums), recorded live on stage at The Stone. Recorded in December 2005, this furious live album by what can easily be called a super group remained unreleased till in 2023 Bill Laswell made it accessible in a rough-mixed digital version for his bandcamp subscribers program exclusively. For this vinyl version, the music has been newly mixed by Dirk Dresselhaus (SchneiderTM) and mastered…

The inspiration for 'Album l' and 'Album Il' began with a performance by Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi at Cologne's Week-End Fest in 2019. For this appearance the renowned experimental musician and composer of the Oscar-winning film „Drive My Car" was joined on drums by Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Joe Talia; both integral members of the top-level improvisational/ experimental scene in Tokyo. While in town for the festival, Ishibashi met up with the members of the Cologne-Berlin based group Von Spa…

The inspiration for 'Album l' and 'Album Il' began with a performance by Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi at Cologne's Week-End Fest in 2019. For this appearance the renowned experimental musician and composer of the Oscar-winning film „Drive My Car" was joined on drums by Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Joe Talia; both integral members of the top-level improvisational/ experimental scene in Tokyo. While in town for the festival, Ishibashi met up with the members of the Cologne-Berlin based group Von Spa…

*2025 stock* Setting the stage for The Zebra Paradox requires building anticipation and intrigue on the inside of the listener before they even hear the first notes. To accomplish this an imagined transference of information must bloom like a deep inhalation of sonic spores. If categories can be applied to explore how concepts are played out in this music and throughout the album, perhaps think of displacement, confusion, time distortion and derangement. Otherwise the listener might choose to tr…

Renowned Swedish musician Tomas Hallonsten’s debut solo recording started out as a Mark Hollis-influenced project featuring Hallonsten’s instrumental compositions sparsly performed with acoustic guitar,piano, bass and drums at its core. Gradually the music morphed and eventually it turned out as a solo album where the compositions came to life mainly via Hallonsten’s unique treatment of drum machine and synths.

*2025 stock* This acoustic piano-drums collaboration can be transformed through electronics into a hybrid spatial continuum creating a frictional, nervous symbiosis filled with jolts but also with abrasive and/or restrained fluidity. After an initial meeting within the N-Ensemble project initiated as a Carte Blanche from the AMR jazz club in Geneva by Nicolas Field in March 2018, Valerio Tricoli (IT, tape Recorder Revox) , Nicolas Field (drums, UK/CH) and Thomas Florin (piano, CH) wanted to deve…

British South African composer & producer Galina Juritz presents 'One Weird Trick', her debut solo album on London's home for interdisciplinary oddballs, Kit Records.

An irresistible splurge of sax, krautrock grooves and heavy modular doom that should excite fans of Bent Arcana, Holden/Zimpel and The Comet is Coming.” -- Uncut "Blend of disobedient free jazz with krautrock" -- Louder Than War Kimatika, the 3rd album by the Slovenian audio-visual trio Etceteral, is a visceral plunge into the raw undercurrents of futuristic jazz, motoric propulsion, free improv and elastic compositions. A growling baritone sax weaves through pulsating electronics and restless d…

Over the past few months, five young musicians performing under the name Omasta have taken the Polish and European jazz scenes by storm. Having gained recognition for their intense live shows, they are now ready to deliver their debut studio effort. Jazz Report from the Hood a collectively composed album immersed in the textures of city streets and everyday urban life. The name Omasta comes from a regional Krakow dialect word meaning “fat added to food for flavor.” It’s a fitting metaphor: the g…

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, …

Imagine it’s late afternoon, you’re outside by the lake, and there’s sunlight on the water. This is the peaceful and contemplative scene that Matt Gold and Resavoir set on their collaborative LP Horizon. Across 10 lush and exploratory tracks, it’s the product of two Chicago-based musicians—Will Miller, the acclaimed trumpeter, composer, and producer who’s worked with SZA, Whitney, and more, and Gold, a seasoned multi-instrumentalist and accomplished guitarist—effortlessly combining their distinc…

Tip! Across A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, DePlume’s reflections on healing, dignity, and struggle are communicated through a stirring assemblage of disparate musics: ghostly and ancient folk melodies, groove-anchored maelstroms of swirling folk-jazz, elegant string arrangements that strike a midpoint between Ravel and Gainsbourg (courtesy of Macie Stewart), disembodied voices reconfiguring into the shape of a post-modern Greek chorus, noir atmosphere, and allegoric, troubadouric song. Throug…

Sitting in a darkened room in Dalston, London… the music pushes across a very nicely tuned sound system, (a la Cafe Oto). The crowd is captivated by this multi-instrumentalist maestro Jimi Tenor. He plays smoky sax, juxtaposes it with some crazy Moog, all the while underlaid by a funky electronic looping groove. It's a conversation piece! At the end, Jimi says "I'm not quite sure what to do with this track, or what to call it"…. In a moment of 'bravado' one shouts out in reply "Release Me!", the…

A collaboration between saxophonist Ilhan Ersahin and São Paulo's finest musicians Guizado, Ze Nigro, Samuel Fraga, Chicao, and Tony Gordin. This dynamic fusion showcases the rich talents behind Céu, Otto, Curumin, Tulipa Ruiz, and the legendary Gal Costa. Born from Ilhan Ersahin's deep ties to São Paulo, cultivated through the annual Nublu Jazz Fest, this record embodies the city's vibrant spirit.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Jogo Duro, a collaboration between Ilhan Ersahin and some outstanding São Paulo musicians Guizado, Ze Nigro, Samuel Fraga, Chicao & Tony Gordin who also happen to be great friends. These are players who will be familiar to those following the careers of Céu, Otto, Curumin, Tulipa Ruiz and the late, great Gal Costa. This record is the result of the amount of time Ilhan has spent in São Paulo over the last decade due to putting on the Nublu Jazz Fest there every year. Wi…

*100 copies limited edition* The sixth issue in the U Jazz Me catalog is an album by the jazz super group Late Night Poems, which has already appeared on wax with the U Know Me Records logo in 2022. Imagine a jazz club straight out of New York in the 1990s. Imagine a jazz club in one of Poland's medium-sized working-class cities, which has been operating continuously for 45 years, driven and run by one tireless man. The greatest from the country and the world have played there. They stare at you…