Iskra 1903
Paul Rutherford formed Iskra 1903 in 1970 with Derek Bailey and Barry Guy. All three musicians had worked together in larger groups, starting off with the 1966/7 edition of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. However, they had a strong desire to work as a percussionless trio. It's not that they were or are anti-percussion - each of them have subsequently worked in various settings with numerous percussionists - it’s just that they felt a need for this sort of instrumentation. Rutherford named the group after 'Iskra' (the Russian word for spark) which was the paper that Lenin edited before the Russian Revolution. The '19' indicates 20th century music, and the '03' is the number of performers.
Paul Rutherford formed Iskra 1903 in 1970 with Derek Bailey and Barry Guy. All three musicians had worked together in larger groups, starting off with the 1966/7 edition of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. However, they had a strong desire to work as a percussionless trio. It's not that they were or are anti-percussion - each of them have subsequently worked in various settings with numerous percussionists - it’s just that they felt a need for this sort of instrumentation. Rutherford named the group after 'Iskra' (the Russian word for spark) which was the paper that Lenin edited before the Russian Revolution. The '19' indicates 20th century music, and the '03' is the number of performers.
Cyro
When Cyro Baptista moved to New York in 1980 from his home city of São Paulo, he brought with him an arsenal of percussion instruments, including the cuica (friction drum), surdo (the booming bass drum associated with samba), berimbau (single-string bow with resonating gourd), and cabasas galore, in the next few years deploying them most notably in numerous ensembles curated by John Zorn, who helped set up this studio session in 1982.As you might expect from someone whose infectious grooves have…
Company Week
In May 1977 Derek Bailey gave me a press ticket for Company Week - a series of concerts of improvised music in London. I made some notes at the time, but there seemed to be nowhere suitable to publish the extended commentary I eventually produced. So I wrote it into a dummy book and it to Derek. Most of it is reproduced here." Peter RileyOriginal copies of this rare and invaluable document, published in 350 copies
Luminous
Two giants of improvised music Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway joining pianist/composer Simon Nabatov, for a concert recorded live in Loft, Cologne, Germany on 30-31st October. Simon Nabatov - piano, Barry Guy - double bass Gerry Hemingway - drums, marimba
Groupcomposing
Corbett vs. Dempsey presents a reissue of Misha Mengelberg's Groupcomposing, recorded in 1970 and originally released in 1978. Comprised of a one-time international free music supergroup, and originally released as the sixth production on pianist Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink's ICP label, Groupcomposing has been largely absent from the history books. This is the case because the record has been so unavailable, certainly not as a comment on the magnitude and magnificence of the music. With i…
Louisiana Variations
"Torben Snekkestad and Barry Guy first worked together on 2015’s impressive Slip, Slide and Collide - that recording, with its labyrinthine improvisations and near-feverish eruptions, proved the duo to be fiercely attuned to one another. Now, on Louisiana Variations, another voice is drawn into the fold - that of Spanish pianist Agustí Fernández, a long-time collaborator with Barry Guy and an excellent composer/improviser in his own right. On this release, the trio lose none of the intensity pre…
Aida
Continuing their ongoing series of reissues of music by Derek Bailey, Honest Jon's Records present a first vinyl reissue of Aida, originally released on the guitarist's own Incus label in 1980. Expanded for this release, the present version of this masterwork adds two hitherto unreleased gems recorded solo for Charles Fox's Radio 3 program Jazz in Britain, in the same few months of 1980 as the stunning original performances. The phrase "in the moment" is often bandied about with reference to fre…
Without Borders
Note from Barry Guy: Zlatko Kaučič invited Maya Homburger and myself to perform a concert in Ljubljana. This meeting (2016) proved to be convivial and communicative on many levels. Other than making music we discussed our individual situations and general views including the many pressing events that continue to accumulate in the world. Zlatko himself lives close to one of the “corridors” where displaced refugees make their agonisingly slow walk to a more hopeful future. It is to these people t…
Dart Drug
Percussionist Jamie Muir was a member of King Crimson during the recording of Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, in 1973. Staying less than a year with Robert Fripp, the Scot had already cut his teeth with another master guitarist, Derek Bailey, as part of the Music Improvisation Company, along with Evan Parker, Hugh Davies and Christine Jeffrey, whose eponymous 1970 album was one of the first releases on ECM. Muir and Bailey recorded Dart Drug eleven years later, in 1981.There’s no shortage of great perc…
Good Cop Bad Cop
Recorded in Liverpool back in 2003, this improvised performance unites two of the UK's foremost improv exponents (Tony Bevan and Paul Hession) with two pioneers of modern free music, the multi-talented guitarist, turntablist and noise artist Otomo Yoshihide and the late, great Derek Bailey.The performance shuffles into first gear during the speculative, tentative first throes of "No Hiding Place/Softly Softly", establishing a ruthlessly abstract sound world from the outset, only to tighten up sl…
Royal
2018 small repress. Honest Jon's Records present a reissue of Derek Bailey and Anthony Braxton's Royal, expanded to include both intended volumes. Volume 1 was originally released in 1984; the second volume was never issued. The second release in a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: three double-LPs of the legendary free-improvising guitarist Derek Bailey, solo (HJR 200LP) and in duos with Anthony Braxton and Han Bennink (HJR 202LP), augmenting the original releases…
The London Concert
Following on from the re-issue of Topography of the Lungs, Otoroku is proud to follow up with another legendary free-improvised document, this one from the duo of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, originally released on the INCUS label in 1975. "The London Concert is one of those rare recordings that capture musicians at a special moment of confluence, a moment when procedures are proving fruitful and before practice has hardened into dogma, when different visions are not yet turned into position pa…
Derek Bailey & Han Bennink
**small repress available** Honest Jon's Records present a reissue of Derek Bailey & Han Bennink, originally released in 1972. The third release in a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: three double-LPs of the legendary free-improvising guitarist Derek Bailey, solo (HJR 200LP) and in duos with Anthony Braxton (HJR 201LP) and Han Bennink, augmenting the original releases with marvelous, previously unissued music. The tussling vegetables in Mal Dean's cover-sketch some…
Klinker
Factory pressed double CD in printed triple panel Ekopack cardboard sleeve. Derek Bailey : guitar. Simon H. Fell : double bass. Will Gaines : tap dance. Mark Wastell : violoncello. Recorded live at The Klinker, London on Thursday 24th August 2000. Compèred by Matt Scott. Original DAT recording by Tim Fletcher.Mixed and mastered by Simon H. Fell. Produced by Mark Wastell. One of the special qualities of improvisation is the array of responses musicians and performers have to the environment …
Lot 74 Solo Improvisations
Reissue of Derek Bailey's 2nd Incus LP from 1974, fully remastered to bring Derek Bailey's uniquely personal improvisation style clearly into the 21st century. "In 1974, when Derek Bailey was planning his second solo LP on Incus, he decided to include a side-long solo using his stereo electro-acoustic set-up. Unfortunately, he never seemed to have a 20-minute stretch of time free of interruptions in his home, so he asked if he could record it at my place. After a fairly lengthy drive across Lond…
Duo
Continuing the series of collaborations between Honest Jon’s and Incus. As throughout the series, the recordings are newly transferred from tape at Abbey Road, and re-mastered by Rashad Becker. And here we have this incredible duo from underrated cellist Tristan Honsinger and Derek Bailey, originally released on Incus in 1976. There are parralels between this record and fellow sometime Parisian string pkayer Joelle Leandre's Taxi, but really, Honsinger's voice is like no other - there's less rev…
Solo Guitar Volume 1
**small repress available**Honest Jon's Records present Solo Guitar Volume 1, a reissue of Derek Bailey's Solo Guitar release on Incus in 1971, with additional tracks included on previous reissues and a performance at York University in 1972. Kicking off a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: three double-LPs of the legendary free-improvising guitarist Derek Bailey, solo and in duos with Anthony Braxton (HJR 201LP) and Han Bennink (HJR 202LP), augmenting the original …
In Backward Times (1979-2007)
Unreleased material by Paul Rutherford, one of the greatest trombone improvisers in jazz – heard here on four very long tracks pulled from the vaults of Emanem Records! As label founder Martin Davidson says in the notes, the music of Rutherford was one of the reasons he created the company – and hearing him here, there's no doubt that even lesser-known work by the trombonist is still every bit as great as the rest of his legacy – and only serves to cement his reputation for one of the most creat…
Solo Guitar Volume 2
Derek Bailey, solo guitar. Recorded on 22 June 1991 at approximately the times indicated.
Mining The Seam - The Rest Of The Spotlite Sessions
Alto Saxophone – Trevor WattsBass – Barry GuyDrums – John StevensRecorded at Riverside Studios, London, May 1977. Previously unissued.
Frogs (Ep)
7" picture disc for Barry Guy's 70th birthday. Interspecies personnel: Laubfrosch (Hyla Arborea) - acoustic sounds; Wasserfrosch (Rana Esculenta) - acoustic sounds; Barry Guy - acoustic sounds. Recorded May 30th, 2011 by Maya Homburger in Oberstammheim, Switzerland; Edited and mastered by Mikael Werliin at Studio Oodion Göteborg; Photos by Maya Homburger; Graphic design by Lasse Marhaug; Produced by Mats Gustafsson. Limited edition of 300 (numbered).