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Life's Intense Mystery
**500 copies** Performing live at Lily Pad in Cambridge, MA, the trio of free jazz piano legend Burton Greene with bassist Damon Smith and drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses, in six collective improvisations, with impressive playing from all three as they segway through the three parts of Life's Intense Mystery, taking exploratory moments and even some Kid Play in between.
Quoniam facta sum vilis
**200 copies, 2019 stock** Quoniam facta sum vilis (For I have become vile in the eyes of the lord) is the newest solo album of the award winning composer and virtuoso bassist, Brandon Lopez. Created, in part, as an answer to the musical "reason" of the Bach cello suites, Lopez seeks to create the inverse of what's hailed as musical logic. To create something florid and beautiful from the violent and erratic and to deny the supremacy of the wrote in favor of the intuitive. Recorded mostly in the…
Old Growth Forest II
**300 copies** "This recording, a document of a live concert, was originally supposed to have taken place on February 12, 2017. We’d been on the road for a week in Canada and had had cold but clear weather the whole time. That couldn’t last. Sure enough, by the time we got to Kingston, Ontario on February 9, it was snowing peacefully. The snow ended up sticking. I remember sitting in my hotel room when Glenn Siegel, the presenter from Northampton, called. The forecast called for more and more sn…
Throw Tomatoes
**300 copies, 2019 stock** Contrary to the fabled image, they didn’t really throw rotten tomatoes during Shakespeare’s time at The Globe Theatre. Vegetables, yes, but there are no tomatoes on record in Britain for another seven-score years after Shakespeare. No matter. The title of this album by the Rempis / Piet / Daisy trio is my own flippant gesture to the listener: "Say what you will about this music; this is what we three offer you, unapologetically. If you are revolted by the madness of ou…
Laniakea
**150 copies** "Astral Spirits describes prolific Russian, Saint-Petersburg-based sax player Ilia Belorukov and Portuguese-Catalan, Barcelona-based drummer Vasco Trilla as “two under-sung heroes of free improv”. Both Belorukov and Trilla like to experiment with different objects and sounds in order to reinvent and enhance the sonic range and imagination of their respective instruments - the alto sax, fluteophone, Belorukov's electronics and Trilla's assorted percussion instruments. Laniakea was …
I Used To Sing So Lyrical
The debut recording of New York double bassist Sean Ali's improvising string trio with violist Joanna Mattrey and cellist Leila Bordreuil, having worked together since 2015, each brings impressive technique and a somewhat twisted approach to their strings in a diverse set of extended improvisation from pensive and spacious to formidable density.
Phase Eclipse
**200 copies** "Phase Eclipse is the debut of a duo featuring electronics musician Lea Bertucci and vocalist Amirtha Kidambi (both play other instruments, but not on this album). Even to say Bertucci’s on electronics is somewhat misleading, as her instrument on the album is, primarily, a reel-to-reel tape machine, which she uses to manipulate live recording of Kidambi’s vocals. The result is somewhat reminiscent of Peter Evans Quintet, where Sam Pluta plays a similar role as Bertucci does here. …
Ahead Of Two Thoughts
Melbourne's ExEk began as a studio project with frontman Albert Wolski before the 2014 formation of the four-piece line up with Andrew Brocchi (synthesizer), Henry Wilson (bass) and Sam Dixon (drums). With the addition of Nell Grant on saxophone, the group's sound entered another dimension that reveals EXEK to be conjuring the ghosts of PiL, This Heat and Swell Maps. Ahead Of Two Thoughts, EXEK's sophomore release, pushes headlong into haunted, post-punk territories. Opening track "U Mop"…
San Francisco's First And Only Rock 'N' Roll Band
Limited edition translucent blue vinyl. One of the most savagely cool and confrontational punk acts in history, Crime famously dubbed themselves "San Francisco's First and Only Rock 'N' Roll Band." This inflammatory claim was supported by unpredictable live shows that often ended in riots. In 1978, film producer Larry Larson captured Crime in their natural habitat, the dimly-lit nightclub Mabuhay Gardens. They looked and sounded more severe than anyone in San Francisco was ready for. The foota…
Pourtant Les Cimes Des Arbres
**2020 stock** I am not sure whether the French or English translation do credit to Japanese haiku master Bashō's original verse, yet the music on this fantastic album by the French trio Daunik Lazro on baritone saxophone, Benjamin Duboc on bass and Didier Lasserre on snare drums and cymbals manage to evocate the short poem's wonderful power. All three musicians understand the power of restraint, the value of less-is-more to create depth and tension and beauty, and they also manage to play in…
Nasca
Most of the October nights in 1987 you could find Gerry Vergult (Aroma Di Amore, Fred A., Adult Fantasies) and Gerrit Valckenaers (Adult Fantasies, The Colorist Orchestra) in a desolated top studio in Ghent. At that time and place they sneakily crafted and shaped this Nasca record while they were supposed to finish a new Fred A. record. They created an abstract universe where minimal post-punk basslines blend together with radio sounds in "Nothing Toulouse", tropical tribal vibes oscillates betw…
Ayîk Adhîsta, Adhîsta Ayîk
**300 copies** Razen celebrate their 10th anniversary with Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk, an album that takes a paragraph from Cael Gustav Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections as a reference point to set off a journey that goes from light to dark, from day to night, from life to death, and back. As much a reflection of primal imagery and rituals of knowledge as a way of coming to terms with anxieties about the chaos of the night, the album concerns itself with the question: who - or what - are we in…
Anna Högberg Attack
**CD version** Swedish sax player Anna Högberg's all-female sextet Attack's debut album is one of the most expected releases this year. Attack premiered in the 2013 edition of the Stockholm Jazz Festival and since then its performances gained praises all over, including a heartfelt endorsement from Högberg role-model, sax-titan Mats Gustafsson, who promises that Högberg’s Attack will “melt your brain as we know it”.Attack features Högberg (who plays also on Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra, guested …
Orpheus Variations
Orpheus Variations is a new composition by Alvin Lucier for solo cello and seven wind instruments. It is based on a particular sonority from the first movement of Igor Stravinsky's ballet score, Orpheus; a sonority that has haunted Lucier for decades. Orpheus Variations is one of eight large-scale compositions made expressly for Charles Curtis by Alvin Lucier in the last 15 years. This performance was conducted by Petr Kotik, with Charles Curtis playing solo cello alongside members of the SEM En…
Shasta Cults
Shasta Cults is the musical project of Canadian electronics technician Richard Smith. For almost two decades, Smith was the official Buchla & Associates go-to repair person for studios, collectors, and musicians around the world, having worked with artists such as Aphex Twin, Suzanne Ciani, Mort Subotnick, and institutions such as The Library of Congress and Mills College, Smith has had the unique experience of restoring and interacting with nearly every model of Buchla instrument constructed ov…
Raft
Mike Cooper's output of the past half century has been described as "post-everything". It's a fitting phrase really when you consider he has been at the beating heart of so many critical musical moments; from the development of the blues touring circuit in the UK, through the growth of the folk scene and into the explosion of free improvisation that came to define a generation of UK musicians. Amidst it all, working at stitching these disparate forms into some kind of de-territorialized z…
Je Est un Autre
"This recording is not a 'best of', it is a reflection of Tori Kudo's evolution as a composer, from playing with seasoned musicians, to playing with people just starting out, from playing with meticulous scores, to playing call & response melodies written down, to the songs here on Je est un Autre: instant improvisations based on keyboard compositions that Tori plays for the group. Yes, that is it. He plays a recording of himself on the keyboard, with singing or humming sometimes and he leaves i…
Live At The Rock In Opposition Festival 1978 - New London Theatr
Beatufil live LP by the French avant-rock band founded in 1973 by actor and saxophonist Chris Chanet. They were one of only four bands invited by Henry Cow to perform at 1978’s Rock In Opposition festival. This, their third album, was recorded live while on tour in the United States. Recorded in public at the Squat Club, New York City, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. in November 1979, “En public aux états-unis d'amérique” is the perfect introduction to the group’s avant-rock mayhem. Reissued on…
En Public Aux Etats-Unis D'Amerique
Etron Fou Leloublan were a French avant-rock band founded in 1973 by actor and saxophonist Chris Chanet. They were one of only four bands invited by Henry Cow to perform at 1978’s Rock In Opposition festival. This, their third album, was recorded live while on tour in the United States. Recorded in public at the Squat Club, New York City, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. in November 1979, “En public aux états-unis d'amérique” is the perfect introduction to the group’s avant-rock mayhem. Reissued…
Batelages
Ferdinand Richard, strings, vocals. Chris Chanet (alias Eulalie Ruynat), horns, vocals. Guigou 'Samba Scout' Chenevier, percussions, choir. A French avant-rock band founded in 1973 by actor and saxophonist Chris Chanet. They were best known as one of the original Rock in Opposition (RIO) bands. Etron Fou Leloublan's music has been described as a blend of punk rock, jazz, French music hall, comedy satire and 'avant-garde mayhem'. Batelages was recorded in November 1976, and its centered around Gu…