Jazz /
Apura!
It is intended with the utmost respect that this album is entitled Apura!, which in the Filipino language Tagalog translates to “Very Urgent” (the name of an epochal record by the Blue Notes, the pioneering South African jazz sextet of which drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo was the heartbeat). The musicians of Louis and Trevor Watts’s generation cast a tremendous shadow over the legacy of improvised music. It’s not difficult to romanticize the era in which these musicians first made their marks, exer…
Exultations
If Brandon Seabrook’s previous trio album, Convulsionaries, was quietly pummeled by a modified chamber jazz vibe, Exultations, featuring the ever-versatile drummer Gerald Cleaver and the inimitable Cooper-Moore on diddley-bow, leaves no holds barred. A makeover doesn’t even begin to describe what has happened to Seabrook with the shift in personnel, now a vehicle in full flight; while the faint of heart had better clear out, everyone else should buckle up!
For those unfamiliar with Cooper-Moore’…
Nothing but the Music
The sounds of late '70s and '80s east coast avant-garde jazz, soul, and punk rock are well documented, but in Nothing but the Music Thulani Davis gives us something beyond, delivering a collection of synesthetic, transportive documentary poems that breathe anecdotal and impressionistic life into a sonic-social history about which most can only speculate. Davis' verse takes free flight with its muses, scatting and leaping off the page and the shoulders of the musicians, nightclubs, and choreograp…
Complete Recordings
Deluxe, spot gloss-printed, massive three-hour box set collecting the full work of Herbert Joos (one of the most celebrated musicians in Lithuania’s avant-garde scene) 1968-1973 units, the Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe and Four Men Only
The Sea is Rough
The Sea Is Rough is only a single (released as a 12’’ EP, played in 45 rpm) that features 2 pieces, recorded by the Russian power-pree jazz outfit Brom (Бром) with Japanese legendary trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, known for his collaborations with innovative improvisers around the globe like Peter Brötzmann, Han Bennink, Henry Kaiser, Bill Laswell and Paal Nilssen-Love. This promising meeting of Brom and Kondo was recorded at Orange Studio, Moscow in March 2019. The first version of the title-piece…
Eastern Saga: Live at Tusk
Turkish free jazzers Konstrukt continue their series of exciting collaborations with Otomo Yoshihide, highly repudiated multi-instrumentalist and composer in the experimental world. #4 in the continuing series of Konstrukt collaborations on Karlrecords is a live document of the concert by the Turkish freeform group with the Japanese experimental musician Otomo Yoshihide from the TUSK Festival 2018. Konstrukt, the Istanbul based free jazz/freeform group founded and led by Umut Çağlar and Korhan F…
Axis/Another Revolvable Thing
Axis / Another Revolvable Thing is the second installment of Blank Forms’ archival reissues of the music of Japan’s eternal revolutionary Masayuki Takayanagi, following April Is the Cruellest Month, a 1975 studio record by his New Direction Unit.
The Shape of Jazz to Come
Zeitkratzer keeps on being good for a surprise and finally goes jazz! Looking at the line-up of the "modern composition supergroup" (The Wire) it seems astonishing that it took so long: Saxophonists Frank Gratkowski and Hayden Chisholm both won independently the German radio SWR Jazz award, the French horn virtuoso Hild Sofie Tafjord grew up with jazz, as her father and uncle are members of Norwegian jazz group Brazz Brothers, Hilary Jeffery toured with numerous jazz musicians, as did drummer Ma…
Calenture and Light Leaks
“a brisk but free-flowing dialogue with phrases and ideas being batted back and forth between them ... in effect, they are soloing simultaneously with each being aware of the other's playing and responsive to it. Even when Parker gets locked into one of his protracted, circular-breathing solos, Smyth is still there with him, responding with an impressively gargantuan solo of his own. The two obviously understand and complement each other well.” — John Eyles, All About Jazz
“Parker and Smyth use …
Proprioception
"'Proprioception' initially focuses on his acoustic improvisations, studio recordings with a startlingly vivid and intimate sound, so near that one feels like an occupant of the clarinet itself. When he adds amplification to the clarinet he presses it into the sonic territory of an electric guitar." — The New York City Jazz Record
"Not only London's, but probably the UK's finest exponent of free, extended technique improv on clarinet is also a gripping solo performer, as he proves here." — Jazzw…
Tongue in a Bell
**CD Edition** “Peter Brötzmann has made no secret of the fact he doesn’t especially dig playing with pianists, citing a few notable exceptions including Fred Van Hove, Pat Thomas and Masahiko Satoh. Recorded in Dublin in 2015, this adventurous set extends the honour to Irish pianist Paul G Smyth. As Brötzmann locks into a characteristically savage mutter, Smyth responds with hyperkinetic leaps up the keyboard but, when the tenor briefly drops out, he’s able to employ a more deft touch, generati…
Psychic Armour
"Operating at an extremely high level, Smyth and Corsano share a special connection. One can almost see their thoughts syncing together and their bodies merging into one four-armed monster. Several moments are reminiscent of the best work from Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley, while still managing to sound like Smyth and Corsano." — Burning Ambulance
“With the energy and focus on display, it is tempting to compare the meeting to two heavyweights coming toe-to-toe, prepared to slug it out… but that wo…
Mopomoso Tour 2013 - Making Rooms
4-disc boxset with 20-page booklet documenting Mopomoso's triumphant UK tour in 2013.
disc 1 – Evan Parker / John Russell / John Edwards – Chasing The Peripanjandra
disc 2 – Pat Thomas – Naqsh
disc 3 – Alison Blunt / Benedict Taylor / David Leahy – Knottings
disc 4 – Kay Grant / Alex Ward – Seven Cities
"On this evidence, 'Making Rooms' already seems certain to feature prominently in many an end-of-year list of best releases. Yes, a future classic." — All About Jazz
"'Making Rooms' has a connect…
Zebulon
Peter Evans on trumpet and compositions, John Hébert on bass and Kassa Overall on drums. Recorded live at the Zebulon Cafe in March of 2012. Debut album by this rare trumpet - bass- drums trio. A review from Gapplegate Music Review: "Peter Evans was and is a trumpet player who never ceases to surprise me. When I first heard the solo album he did for Evan Parker a number of years ago I thought, "huh?" And it's been that way ever since, whether it's with MOPDTK, with others or on his own. He is a …
Destination : Void
The long awaited second release from the Peter Evans Quintet. Four new compositions commissioned by the Jerome Foundation's Emerging Artist Grant and recorded at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, New York. The album is named after a novel by Frank Herbert concerning a mission into space to create an artificial consciousness, a mission designed to use planned failure as a springboard to new levels of creativity. Destination: Void is an epic, cinematic synthesis of eccentr…
Rocket Science
The eponymous debut recording from the quartet Rocket Science, recorded live at the Vortex in London. Rocket Science brings together four virtuosic instrumentalists: Evan Parker (tenor and soprano saxophones), Craig Taborn (piano), Sam Pluta (live electronics) and Peter Evans (trumpet and piccolo trumpet).
Together they perform an hour of highly detailed, dynamic and surprisingly beautiful improvised electro-acoustic chamber music. Each member of the group is widely recognized as having pushed t…
Being & Becoming
The first release from Evans' new group Being & Becoming, featuring some of the leading lights from the next generation of creative musicians: Joel Ross, Nick Joziwak, and Savannah Harris. This debut album features a set of new compositions from Evans, moving between notated chamber music textures, free improvisations, deep grooves and telepathic ensemble playing.
Being & Becoming represents a new chapter in Evans' commitment to composition and improvisation in a small-group format. After workin…
The Empty Foxhole
Ornette Coleman's most controversial album back on vinyl. Originally from 1966, 'The empty foxhole' also marking the recording debut of his son Denardo, who was ten years of age at the time of the recording. " Ornette Coleman's brief tenure at Blue Note was neither as seminal as his Atlantic output nor as brazenly ambitious as his early-'70s work for Columbia and later with Prime Time. Still, the period did produce some quality music, and The Empty Foxhole is one of his most intriguing efforts. …
New Grass
Albert Ayler's 1969 album New Grass has been misunderstood from the day of its release. The album finds Ayler experimenting with soul music and digging back into his R&B roots (he started his career playing saxophone with Chicago bluesman Little Walter), fusing it with the avant-garde free jazz (the one element of the record which garnered consistent praise) and adding the vocals of Rose Marie McCoy, The Soul Singers and Ayler himself. As if predicting the divisiveness of the record to follow, A…
Armitage Road
**Seminal Spiritual Jazz from South Africa, 1970. Officially licensed and remastered re-issue**. With a unique sound founded on a persuasive mix of American and African jazz, Armitage Road, originally released in 1970, was the only studio recording released by South Africa’s Heshoo Beshoo Group. As a highly prized collector’s item, a re-issue and re-appraisal of this lost gem from the apartheid era has been long overdue. Heshoo Beshoo loosely translates from the inter-tribal lingo of the townshi…