Chicago Underground Quartet
Sun Eaters
"Chicago-based composer, improviser, multi-media artist and underground legend, Rob Mazurek, joins forces with modular-synth maestro and light magician, Alberto Novello for a blacklight invocation that hurls us out into new and uncharted sound-dimensions.
Born of a chance encounter, Alberto Novello and Rob Mazurek's improvised collaboration, Sun Eaters, was recorded in a single afternoon at Dobialab, an experimental artist run space in Northern Italy. Alberto provided a loose rythmic and timbral…
Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes
'Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes' is the debut album from Gregory Uhlmann (SML, Anna Butterss, Duffy x Uhlmann, Perfume Genius), Josh Johnson (SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet & New Breed, Meshell Ndegeocello, Anna Butterss, Leon Bridges), and Sam Wilkes (Sam Gendel, Louis Cole, Chaka Khan). The three improviser/arranger/producers’ impressive individual credits encompass such a wide stylistic pendulum swing that a collection of group music from the trio could mine any number of musical territories with masterf…
Alternate Moon Cycles
Rob Mazurek’s 'Alternate Moon Cycles' was International Anthem's first release. The incredibly spare single-note-centered cornet, bass and organ chant was recorded to tape at pint-sized Chicago bar Curio as part of a performance series that predates any notion of our label’s existence. Documenting this performance – highly unique even within the depths of Mazurek’s vast catalog – stirred those notions, and soon talks began of releasing the recording on a fresh imprint. Performed by Mazurek with …
Color Systems
Rob Mazurek’s creations, dedicated to these six artists offered to Tomeka Reid, Angelica Sanchez, and Chad Taylor, to interpret freely. A foundation laid for these improvisations in the foursome’s forays into Mazurek’s music with the larger ensemble. Here something becomes distilled. Interaction is direct. The unit is unitary, the dynamics are gently modulated, the sounds are tendered with deliberation love and inter-ensemble generosity.
Mondays At The Enfield Tennis Academy
2024 repress. "Mondays at The 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 …
Nestor's Nest
Rob Mazurek graces the Keroxen Records waves with a genre defying album of field recordings, modular electronics, trumpet harmonies and spirit call chants.
An unstoppable force his first recordings in the early 90’s Rob Mazurek has been at the forefront of experimentation and adventurous improvised music for most of the last 4 decades. The American composer, cornetist, and visual artist has been developing his own style of improvisational music with a myriad of collaborators, too many to list bu…
C6Fe2RN6
*300 copies limited edition* Excited to unveil the self-titled debut record from a new duo of Rob Mazurek & Nick Terry - C6Fe2RN6! The Marfa-based duo's music sprouted from a mutual admiration for each other's visual art (Nick Terry primarily being known for his visual art, but get ready to hear more of his musical work) and eventually turned into regular get togethers to chat and play music. What you hear in C6Fe2RN6 is what happened in Mazurek's Marfa Experimental Studio, haunting and ephemera…
The Recursive Tree
"The Recursive Tree features a rather remarkable trio consisting of John Blum on piano, tenor-saxophonist David Murray, and Chad Taylor on drums. Although the three musicians had never before recorded together, they sound very much like a working trio. The title is inspired by a concept in mathematics that explains the architecture in nature arising from systematic growth over time. This algorithmic expression also illustrates the growth of Jazz through the art form’s incremental expansion of id…
Medea
Duo in the mirror that, in a continuous game of doubling and multiplication, ventures into another world, dense with unexpectedness and vital thrills. Sun Ra and post-rock, as well as Chicago experimentation and echoes of the world of Suzanne Ciani and minimal music, are the hints one can sense while listening to Medea, a journey to the edge and beyond. Star Splitter's new album comes five years after the debut album, a period in which the two artists experimented with the infinite possibilities…
Spectral Fiction
For the first time, a compact version of Rob Mazurek's magisterial Exploding Star Orchestra – Exploding Star Orchestra/Small Unit – commits its music to CD.
Recorded live at Corbett vs. Dempsey's Chicago gallery space in March, 2023, the six-piece band featured Mazurek on trumpet, Tomeka Reid on cello, Damon Locks on voice and electronics, Angélica Sánchez on Wurlitzer, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Chad Taylor on drums. Spectral Fiction consists of two tracks, the deeply exploratory "Equ…
Music for Piano and Modular Synthesizer
Music for Piano and Modular Synthesizer is a suite of compositions utilizing piano, modular synthesizer, piccolo trumpet, launeddas and various other sound devices in order to express certain emotions clear and bright. Resonant Stacks of Energy in shattered Time sent through a specific modular synth patch, emitting sound… corresponding to my own innate qualities of hearing, seeing and feeling. A kind of time Travel Device towards a more Utopian future. I approach the piano and composition in …
Slight Freedom
2023 restock. The long awaited repress of Slight Freedom, acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's first solo album & a New York Times' best albums of 2016 selection, is here. Pressed on premium 120-gram audiophile-quality vinyl by RTI from lacquers cut at sterling sound by Steve Fallone, presented in a retro flipback jacket. Second edition of 1,399 copies. What we said in 2016: "Slight Freedom, Jeff Parker's first ever solo record, presents the first opportunity to hear the guitarist in ful…
New Future City Radio
New Future City Radio is the first duo collaboration of longtime creative partners Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek. In a hyperactive 40-minute, 18-track suite that runs like a boombox mixtape, the two prolific multi-media artists contemplate community, transformation, and the future through the programmatic format of a pirate radio station for the people. These two artists have worked together from the peak days of the late 90s / early 00s Chicago music scene up through the present day, which has seen…
Lightning Dreamers
Lightning Dreamers is new work by composer, trumpeter, interdisciplinary abstractivist and modern music mogul Rob Mazurek, who wrote the music for a compacted version of his long-running Exploding Star Orchestra. A follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 Mazurek/ESO release Dimensional Stardust, the album features guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Damon Locks, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn, among others. It was recorded mostly at the remote Sonic Ranch studios in W…
Forfolks
"It's a particular thing to hear Jeff play solo. He is an unusually selfless improviser, often times laying out and highlighting the contributions of his band mates. He's never been one to play three notes where none would suffice. On this recording however he is by himself, joined only by his own ideas, looped or frozen, to flesh out the music he's creating in his mind. Hearing him craft entire sound worlds on these eight selections gives us an opportunity to really see how Parker orders sound.…
Instant Opaque Evening (2LP)
An epic second installment from the trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs, Rob Mazurek, nearly 90 minutes of intense live performances from January 2020. They converge here on a wide swath of sounds: expansive free improvs, full-tilt electronics, alt-universe chamber music and spontaneous arrangements of three previously released Grubbs’ songs.
Mind Maintenance (LP)
Meditative moods from the Chicago duo of bassist Josh Abrams and percussionist Chad Taylor. With Taylor on mbira and Abrams on guimbri, instruments from diverse African states, finding a new pairing that moves past world music and jazz into something new, to do with dance, meditation, listening and convergence. Natural Information Society's Abrams has been using the guimbri, a lute-style bass, for years, but it's rarely sounded better than it does here, alongside Taylor's resonant mbira. Taylor …
JP's Myspace Beats
* Edition of 777. Vinyl only! Limited edition! No digital, no represses * Two *limited edition* 160-gram TOM BLUE color vinyl LPs (pressed by Smashed Plastic in Chicago) inside a heavyweight reverse-board single-pocket jacket with poly-lined inner-sleeves."Jeff Parker's a man with many talents – not just a fantastic jazz guitarist, but a musician who's had his hands in many pies over the years – as you'll hear with this very enigmatic set! The music is dated a bit by the Myspace reference in the…
In a Perpetual Now of Instantaneous Visibility
Artist and musician Rosa Barba paired up with drummer Chad Taylor for their first duo record, In a Perpetual Now of Instantaneous Visibility. Documenting a September 2019 performance and installation at New York's Park Avenue Armory, part of an invitation by pianist Jason Moran, the CD's two mesmerizing tracks clock in at over 30-minutes each. Patiently built as collaborative soundscapes, they feature Barba's unorthodox conjoining of cello and film projector in which she uses the celluloid as an…
Some Jellyfish Live Forever
** 2021 Repress ** A great reunion of the Jeff Parker/Rob Mazurek duo – a pair who've only continued to grow strongly in the years since their Chicago Underground classics – and who bring all that sense of energy to play in their music! The sounds here represent the deeper, more mature styles that both musicians have hit – a way of almost being more powerful by being less aggressive – especially from Mazurek, who's got this wonderfully gentle touch on his horn at times – wrapped up in these wave…