Billie Harris
Onomat
*43 copies limited edition* 'On his first solo album 'Onomat', Bill Harris, from Pittsburgh, who lives in Chicago, who is also the founder of the collective Amalgam, limits himself to his drum kit, microphones and amplification, producing a collection of striking sound sculptures. A good example where this approach leads is 'Mangosteen', in which the percussion movements are creatively distorted into an alienating stream of gritty sounds. We also find it in pieces like 'Razbliuto', only here it …
I Want Some Water
**Edition of 500** Born in Mississippi in 1937 and beginning to play the saxophone at 14, Billie Harris relocated to Los Angeles in 1965 after a 4 year stint in the Air Force, becoming one of the great, unsung forces of underground jazz in the city for many years (he later relocated to the Mojave Desert, where, at last record, he still plays in a church band). A Venice Beach street musician and longtime member of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra - you can hear him playing on Live at I.U.C.C. and…