Jazz /
Papirfuglen
Moskus conveys their perspective of the world with vivid improvisation in a genre-free universe. In their In their most recent release, “Papirfuglen”, the ensemble further solidifies their position as one of the most cutting-edge and transfixing voices in the newest generation of both Norwegian and international jazz. They have a unique musical approach, with a combination of infectious playfulness and a headstrong penchant for experimentation. And with these tools Moskus takes yet another ste…
Sleeping Beauty
In 2021, the international contemporary music festival Only Connect commissioned an interpretation from I Like to Sleep of the first movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila symphony. A project which initially led to a 15-minute piece performed at the festival, with the trio re-writing the music of Messiaen, but also rewriting the music of their own. Messiaen as a reference and compositional tool may be heard in the album for those really listening for references. With “Sleeping Beauty” the tr…
Fire Hills
Fire Hills is Olie Brice’s third album as a composer bandleader, following the critically acclaimed ‘Immune to Clockwork’ (Multi Kulti, 2014) and ‘Day After Day’ (Babel, 2017). A double album, Brice’s compositions for improvisers are explored by two groups of the most exciting and creative musicians in the UK, all significant bandleaders themselves.
Fire Hills showcases two versions of a new phase in Brice’s music. During 2021 – a year of covid lockdowns and greatly reduced gigging opportuniti…
Als Ik Niets Meer Van De Kano Zie
*Limited Edition of 100 hand-numbered copies.* Improvisation is a universal non-verbal language. For many of us it is a practice, not a music genre, one that knows no boundaries. Personally I’m really interested in the locality of an improvisational recording. I find it much more intriguing to listen to someone who improvises and lives outside of the big hubs for free jazz and free improv of the western world. It might seem trivial to many of you, but the fact that the titles and bandcamp notes …
Red Clay
The first Freddie Hubbard album released on Creed Taylor CTI label marked a shift away from Hubbard's recording with Blue Note Records. It was the album that established Taylor's vision for the music that was to appear on his labels in the coming decade. "Red Clay" is Freddie Hubbard's seventeenth overall album.
Carpathes
"Percussionist Paul Lovens turns in some exemplary work on Carpathes, joined by Michel Pilz (bcl) and Peter Kowald (b). Actually it is mostly Pilz' date as he appears throughout the record either in solo, trio or duo with Kowald. But it is Lovens who most impresses me here as he hammers, rings, jingles the percussion, managing to both give rhythmic freedom and abstraction while implying a more traditional rhythm and he sustains himself very well. Actually the rhythm is constantly outstanding in …
Duet
“Composition 429” is the first piece using a new writing method that Braxton calls “Lorraine.” The composer’s notes to the piece describe Lorraine as “a music system that governs the ‘sonic winds’ of breath.” Saxophonist and longtime collaborator James Fei contributes an essay detailing the Lorraine system, which uses a combination of traditional notation and color-coded symbols of the composer’s design to indicate “specific sound types or performance techniques,” drawing from Braxton’s long his…
Katyusha
This isn’t your grandfather’s free jazz. Hell, it probably isn’t free jazz at all, but you have to call it something. “Katyusha” is ballistic fire music that starts where the most berserk, intense free music begins and then sustains that, then pushes it further. Blood vessel bursting intensity, stamina, speed, and momentum is here in blinding quantities, all the while retaining lightning fast interaction. No dull roar, the densities and dynamics do vary, but there is never a dull moment or coast…
Akisakila / Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees)
*Limited edition of 400 copies.* Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees) is a collaboration between XT (the duo of Paul Abbott and Seymour Wright) and pianist Pat Thomas. Across the two LP sides (80 minutes), and four gatefold panels (13,331 words) together they reflect on, and take inspiration from, the late pianist, composer, poet Cecil Taylor. On 12 August 2018, as part of a Cafe OTO tribute to the recently deceased Taylor, the trio perform live a 'version' of The Cecil Taylor Un…
Future Percussion + Sotto e 'Ncoppa
Tip! This bundle includes the two recently reissued Future Percussion and Sotto e 'Ncoppa. A lost bit of 70s Italian modal jazz, with spiritual overtones and global percussion from drummer extraordinaire Tullio De Piscopo – an incredible set of heavily rhythmic grooves recorded in Milan in 1978 – originally a tiny edition effort on Carosello Records, and the most impressive rediscovery yet from New Platform! For the occasion, the Tullio De Piscopo Quintet meets Argentine percussionist Luis Ag…
Soundnitia / Soundmagnificat / Soundmusication
Tip! This bundle includes the following items:
"Soundnitia" is the cipher under which the experimental group The Talismen constituted in 1974 and made its presence known on the Jazz scene with the first LP. The initiator and spiritus rector of the avant-garde ensemble is the saxophonist Fitz Gore, a "stormer of the valves" and unknown to the augurs of the jazz scene. As a saxophonist and a newcomer, he documents with his ultra-hard sound. Fukara (Swahili) is a clear affinity to the school of "h…
Voices of the Spirit
*2022 stock.* In early 2020, Rick Countryman was reunited with his mentor and friend, Sabu Toyozumi. It was the occasion for several concerts, most often with Simon Tan, some of which were recorded. The one who is the subject of this album was held at the Tago Jazz Cafe in Cubao (Quezon City-Philippines); it was published less than four months later on the legendary Japanese label ChapChap, co-sponsored by free music in the Archipelago champion and discerning music lover, Takeo Suetomi. The latt…
Musique Pour Deux Corps
*2022 stock.* Sofa Music and Full Rhizome-Sonoro are proud to present the new album of Ingar Zach/Michele Rabbia – Musique pour deux corps. Born with the same passion for sound, "Musique pour deux corps" brings together the duo Ingar Zach/Michele Rabbia for their second release. The two percussionists present an album full of invention, research, and development of a new percussion-music, using an unlimited and inexhaustible material that only percussion can offer. The skins are used as surfaces…
Sources
This almost acoustic duet is the result of instrumental introspection on both sides, over the long term, so that one day the encounter will happen. These two figures of improvised music, with contrasting backgrounds but common values, explore together the sound matter, and reveal the surprising complementarity of their playgrounds.
Sakina Abdou and Raymond Boni give us to hear the spontaneity of a game cultivated with as much seriousness as casualness, in which the incarnation prevails to any fo…
Music For Violin Alone
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Music for Violin Alone is the debut date as leader for virtuoso violinist Mark Feldman, who has performed as a sideman with countless musicians, in genres ranging from country to avant-garde jazz. Here he performs original, classically styled pieces that exude high drama. The violin arcs over small measures of time, plummets into hurt, soars back up into the air, then lands lightly spinning. Feldman bows out grit and texture with ribbed vibratos, and achieve…
Archipelago X
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Laptop wizard Ikue Mori, master keyboardist Brian Marsella and classical percussion virtuoso Sae Hashimoto are Archipelago X, a dynamic new trio born during the 2020 pandemic. Recording at their home studios and exchanging tracks back and forth for months, the music is detailed, evocative and dramatically mysterious, blending electronica, classical, ambient, film soundtrack, pop and jazz into a remarkably original aggregate. Inspiring and engaging music by t…
Boiling Point
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 300 copies.* "Boiling Point" is the sophomore release from Gordon Grdina's Nomad Trio featuring Matt Mitchell (piano) and Jim Black (drums) and also follows up on 2021's Astral Spirits Grdina / Black duo release "Martian Kitties." The self-titled 2020 debut of Grdina’s Nomad Trio (Skirl Records) was hailed by PopMatters for setting up “loose structures for wild improvising [while also including] a healthy menu of hot unison licks and fleet melodies.” S…
Final Thaw
*Limited edition of 500 copies.* Final Thaw is the debut from the new trio of John Kolodij (guitar), Jayson Gerycz (drums) & Dylan Baldi (saxophone). You will likely recognize Kolodij from his incredible Astral Editions album "First Fire • At Dawn" and you likely will recognize Baldi & Gerycz from Cloud Nothings (as well as Powers/Rolin/Gerycz, Monocot, etc)...and Iceberg doesn't really sound like any of those things, in the best way possible. "Final Thaw" features two sidelong workouts that bui…
Master Of Time
*Limited edition of 500 copies.* Coming on vinyl is a noteworthy release from guitarist Tashi Dorji and percussionist Susie Ibarra. Master of Time is a live performance commissioned for the exhibition of Bardo Now, The Second Buddha: Master of Time at the Tang Teaching Museum during a residency on April 16-18, 2019. Vinyl contains the tracks "Confluence" and "The Way of the Clouds".
L'Epaisseur De L'Air
*2022 stock.* After more than three decades with the alto, heavyweight French artist and multi-instrumentalist Jean-Luc Guionnet arrives with his debut solo saxophone recording, a double-LP masterpiece, “l’épaisseur de l'air” (the thickness of air). Recorded in a barn in Brittany, the album merges texture, repetition, gesturality and architectural acoustics to create a definitive statement on the profound physical relationship between improviser and instrument. A student of Xenakis’ at the Sorbo…