Jazz /
Flashpoint_ NDR Jazz Workshop - April '69
The NDR Jazz Workshop was a weekly show featuring all manner of jazzmen of the day. The taping of this NDR show was around the same time as Surman was recording his second album as a leader, How Many Clouds Can You See, so this is a unique chance to get an expanded view of his formative work as a leader and also at the early work of his musical compatriots who appear with him here. For this occasion, Surman led a ten-piece ensemble featuring the cream of modern British jazz players: John Surman …
Ten Freedom Summers
Trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith’s Ten Freedom Summers is the work of a lifetime by one of jazz’s true visionaries, a kaleidoscopic, spiritually charged opus inspired by the struggle for African-American freedom and equality before the law. Triumphant and mournful, visceral and philosophical, searching, scathing and relentlessly humane, Smith’s music embraces the turbulent era’s milestones while celebrating the civil rights movement’s heroes and martyrs. This four-disc set documents a stunnin…
Smoke Signals
Smoke Signals compiles all previously unreleased performances - selected & sequenced by Robert Wyatt biographer Mike King - from the band's most intense gigging period. The set list is mostly drawn from Little Red Record, but the way the band performed the pieces live is quite different from the heavily overdubbed versions found on the studio disc. Despite their very short lifetime, Mole developed an individual sound based on the players idiosyncratic musical styles, that was a unique take on fu…
Looking For The Next One
The group toured widely and had a large body of work to draw from, but only released one, self-titled album on the Ogun label during their lifetime. Looking For The Next One, a compilation of rare and unissued studio sessions and live recordings, will not only rekindle discussions about S.O.S.’s innovative music among connoisseurs, but introduce their exciting, virtuosic music to a new generation of listeners. While the entire set is filled with striking music, the inclusion of the entirety of t…
Alto Saxophone 2
Masahide Tokunaga, born in 1982, is an alto sax player & improviser active on the Tokyo scene. This CD is his second solo album, and his first since the 2009 release of 'Alto Saxophone' on the Slub Music label five and a half years ago. Like that CD, these 7 tracks (recorded in January 2015) are made up entirely of subtly changing long tones played on the alto sax. This album is just as unique, but compared to the previous CD, which is made up entirely of soft playing, its sound is a great deal …
You Can Be Mine
* 200 copies. Black vinyl * Paal Nilssen-Love is at his powerful best on most of this record – showing that amazing command of the kit that's made him one of the most important drummers in free jazz over the past decade or so! And Fred Lonberg-Holm does plenty himself to keep up on both cello and electronics – working with an intensity that's quite a change from some of his more contemplative performances – surprisingly searing as Paal moves along like a nonstop locomotive!
Fmp 0130
* Very last copies * Pressed on 180-gram vinyl; presented in gatefold sleeve. Cien Fuegos presents a reissue of an untitled LP by Peter Brötzmann, Fred van Hove, and Han Bennink, originally released on FMP in 1973. Peter Brötzmann: clarinet; alto, tenor, baritone, bass saxophones. Fred van Hove: celesta, piano. Han Bennink: drums, khene, rhythm-box, selfmade clarinet, gachi, oe-oe, voice, tins, homemade junk, elong, dhung, kaffir piano, dhung-dkar. Recorded by Dietram Köster on February 25, 1973…
Burj Al Imam
Entirely recorded at Tunefork Studios on the outskirts of Beirut, Burj al Imam's five tracks include three largely improvised numbers, a loose reworking of early Sun City Girls track "The Imam," and a cover of traditional Americana song "Gently Johnny." The album displays remarkable coherence, for four musicians coming from such different backgrounds. True to their habits, the Lebanese trio of trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj, guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui, and bassist Raed Yassin create acoustic improvised d…
In The Moment
One venue, 28 shows and 48 hours of live, improvised music. These are the ingredients for Chicago-based drummer Makaya McCraven's album In the Moment. However, McCraven, as the producer he also is, has not just thrown some random sounds together. Instead, he has carefully culled, cut and remixed the music into a coherent whole and 19 complex and catchy compositions emerge from his hands. The meeting between completely fresh improvisations from some of Chicago's finest musicians and the shrewd se…
Alternate Moon Cycles
The first half of the decade has seen cornet virtuoso and composer Rob Mazurek through significant achievements and personal losses, often linked inextricably through his creative processes. In and around the passing of his mentor and colleague, the trumpeter Bill Dixon in 2010 and his mother in 2013, Mazurek has found inspirations that are unique even for an innovator of his caliber. Mazurek and Dixon worked closely in achieving a deeper understanding of the pure tone of the trumpet (or cornet,…
Live at Heine Onstad Kunstsenter
Thurston Moore’s résumé is monolithic – with his band Sonic Youth and as a solo artist few people has had the same impact on music in the last 35 years. Moore has been instrumental is building bridges between the mainstream and underground experimental music.Coming out from the jazz scene, Mats Gustafsson holds a similar position, with endless projects, collaborations and three decades of non-stop touring, recording and performing.The duo have collaborated several times before, starting with Son…
Septet//2013
A new release on Hideaki Shimada (Agencement) label. It is new title after 13 years! Double CD of subtle-Tokyo Group improvisations by Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar), Junji Hirose (tenor sax), Hideo Ikegami (contrabass), Ko Ishikawa (sho), Kazushige Kinoshita (violin), Toshihiro Koike (trombone), Madoka Kouno (tape recorders), Maresuke (contraviola), Kenichi Matsumoto (tenor sax), Hideaki Shimada (violin)Manabu Suzuki (electronics), and Daysuke Takaoka (tuba).Recorded two concerts with septet of differ…
Featuring John Zorn - New York
Recorded at Tonic, Norfolk St., New York, 17 & 19 April 2001Alto Saxophone – John Zorn (tracks: 6)Cello [Violoncello] – Mark WastellDouble Bass – Simon H. FellHarp – Rhodri Davies
Ulrichsberg
Concert recording from Jazzatelier, Ulrichsberg, Austria - 12 June 2009. In co-operation with Linz09 - European Capital of Culture 2009.
Membrane
This marvellous release from Mark Wastell’s Confront label documents a meeting of these three heavy hitters convened at Dalston’s Cafe Oto, last March. This was the first time all three had played together, although, as John Eyles remarks in his liner notes, they had all worked with each other, before, in outfits such as Powelchsel (Butcher and Beins), The Sealed Knot (Beins and Wastell) and Chris Burn’s Ensemble (Wastell and Butcher).
This familiarity, combined with rigour and expertise o…
Kew. Rhone.
The classic restored. No extra tracks, just this legendary release as it was originally conceived. Kew Rhone was made soon after Peter and John left Henry Cow, at Carla Bley and Mike Mantler’s Grog Kill studio in New York (they both appear on the CD). Fellow conspirators included singer Lisa Herman and drummer Andrew Cyrille. It’s one of those records which sums up a moment; a creative moment in which ideas have come into clear focus, and just need to be got down; an historical moment at which a…
Live At Stone
The trio of Chris Corsano (drums), Okkyung Lee (cello) and Bill Nace (guitar) performing live at John Zorn's NYC improv club The Stone in 2014, three free improvising titans of the modern age in a very limited LP
Tibet
Grey-area LP reissue, originally released as Eternal Now on Sonet Records in 1973. Don was living in Sweden at the time and made 2 great spaced-out records (in the freeform "Universal Music" style) for Sonet (Live Ankara being the other) -- the prior CD reissue of this material has seemingly disappeared into the wind. If this album had been made by some Vietnam vet living in a windowless cove in Northern California -- with a picture of leaves on the cover, no less -- it would have made the NWW l…
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
Heralded by many as Charles Mingus' masterwork, "Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" stands as one of his most powerful and difficult compositions. Recorded during his brief tenure on Impulse! (1963, during which Mingus turned out three of his best works), "Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" is a suite for a ballet, perhaps a representation of the tortured psyche of the composer. It is dark, haunting, and probably the most difficult work Mingus has ever done-- drawing as much from contemporary classi…
Mingus Plays Piano
Superior Viaduct's second Mingus reissue shows a more introspective side of the composer with Mingus Plays Piano. One of his most straightforwardly beautiful recordings, there is a meditative calm found in Mingus' piano work, touching on shades of Debussy, Satie, Bill Evans, and Duke Ellington. There's no showboating, and not an ounce of amateurism considering Mingus was primarily known as a bassist. Making its way through standards, original compositions, and the blues, Mingus Plays Piano is a …