★Cuneiform Records
Emissaries
Radio Massacre International is a British trio of Steve Dinsdale (keyboards, electronics), Duncan Goddard (keyboards, electronics) and Gary Houghton (guitar, keyboards). These three musicians have worked together in various configurations since the early 1980's and formed R.M.I. in 1993. They released their first album in 1995 and since that time have released dozens and dozens of albums. Appealing to fans of classic era work by Ashra/Manuel Gottsching, Heldon, Pink Floyd, Popol Vuh, Steve Roach…
New Moon In The Evil Age
Hugely influential and appearing nearly everywhere within Washington D.C.'s contemporary music scene as bandleaders and contributing artistic voices, cellist and vocalist Janel Leppin and guitarist Anthony Pirog have long been creative partners as well as life partners. Their Cuneiform Records debut Where is Home (2012) is considered a crucial modern recording from the region. Following that release, the two have crafted a double-LP opus which crosses genres and mirrors their exploratory and dia…
To March Is To Love
If cellist/composer Janel Leppin’s wonderful and widely celebrated 2022 solo debut album Ensemble Volcanic Ash was a creative eruption, her follow up To March Is to Love is a glowing magma flow that greatly expands her singular band’s sonic terrain. The project thrums with immediacy as Leppin and her all-star sextet honor their musical ancestors and reflect on disquieting times. Bandcamp Daily declared “There’s no end to the melodic intensity of Ensemble Volcanic Ash. Even at its lushest and mo…
Travelling Somewhere
South African born and raised pianist/bandleader Chris McGregor formed the racially mixed Blue Notes in the early 1960's, touring and trying to get by in extremely difficult political circumstances as best they could. By 1964, facing continuous government harassment, Chris & the Blue Notes fled their South African homeland, finally settling in London in 1966. They made a huge impact on London's jazz scene and befriended many in London's emerging avant-garde jazz community. By 1969, the Blue Note…
Univers Zero
Expanded reissue of the Univers Zero's 1977 debut album, reissued as a CD with a bonus track "La Faulx". Long-running Belgian chamber rockers and avant-garde pioneers led by drummer and composer Daniel Denis, Univers Zero formed in 1974 with co-composer and guitarist Roger Trigaux (who left the band in 1980). This is their first album, recorded between August 2 and 5, 1977. "The rhythmic energy and dissonant riffs, the distinctive sound of the bassoon and strings, and the tricky, fragmented time…
Høvikodden 1971
Tip! This well recorded and carefully mastered set captures the most famous version of the band (the ‘classic quartet') on their final European tour on two consecutive nights on February 27 and 28, 1971. While the two sets from the second night (February 28, 1971) have been released before, this is the first time that the entire two-night stand has been released. So half of this is previously completely unreleased.
This is a excellent, stereo recording of the band performing in a relatively smal…
3+3
Much has happened to Tomeka Reid, who was already one of jazz's definitive figures in the 21st century, in the 4½ years since her last album by this all-star quintet. Most notably, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022, one of the most prestigious awards in the creative arts field in the USA. The same year, she also won the DownBeat Critics Poll for miscellaneous instrument (despite many deserving talents emerging on the instrument, the jazz polls don't have cello as a category for reco…
This Is Not The End
Despite it’s title, This is not the end, is, indeed, the final release by the legendary Rock In Opposition band Present, as founder and composer Roger Trigaux died during its recording. The final result is blindingly precise works of syncopated instruments, all seemingly coming from different angles but ultimately working together as a cohesive, if powerfully overwhelming whole.
Trigaux admits that “I use lengthy repetition and polyrhythmics to push not only the listener but myself to a paroxysm…
Damaged Goods
Listen to Location Location Location’s debut, Damaged Goods, and it’s easy to visualize the three musicians sweating it out in the recording studio, locking in on a groove and just jamming. With, it should be noted, occasional breaks to contemplate the basics, then add subtle overdubs: some bit-crunched guitar here, a marimba there, perhaps a harmonized line or a spacey reverb effect. But essentially live, essentially just three guys in a room, giving their all. But that’s not how it went down a…
The Dutch Lesson
By 1973 Soft Machine already had a long history of playing in Rotterdam, appearing at major festivals such as Hippy Hippy Fair (1967), Kralingen (1970) and AHOY (1971, Phil Howard’s debut), and no less than four times at the city’s most prestigious venue, De Doelen, most recently (in September 1972) on a double bill with Robert Wyatt’s Matching Mole. This time, however, they were booked in a smaller venue, which they filled to capacity at around 400. Part of an arts complex originally known as O…
Tabligh
This is the third album by Wadada Leo Smith’s all-star Golden Quartet. Recorded live, the sound on Tabligh veers from a sound akin to early electric jazz ala "In A Silent Way" and especially 'the lost quintet' of Miles in late 1969/early 1970, to both more sparse and modern jazz fare, all of it informed by the distinctive personalities of these four players and their leader's musical concepts. Wadada Leo Smith is a well-respected trumpeter and composer working in avant-garde jazz and improvisati…
'68
** 2022 Stock ** LP edition. For over 45 years, Robert Wyatt has been a major, creative force in music, having had a major impact on the beginnings of both psychedelic rock and jazz/rock in the UK with Soft Machine, to his eventual long solo career as a unique singer/songwriter. In September 1968, the Soft Machine had just finished their second, exhaustive tour of the USA supporting the Jimi Hendrix Experience. At the conclusion of the tour, vocalist/drummer/multi-instrumentalist Robert stayed,…
Middle Earth Masters
*2022 stock* The Soft Machine were one of England's original and best psychedelic bands, emerging out of the same "UFO Club" London scene at the same time as Pink Floyd. While the band would always undergo constant personnel and stylistic change, their best known lineup in their psychedelic days was the trio of Kevin Ayers-bass, guitar, vocals, Mike Ratledge-organ and Robert Wyatt-drums, vocals. They played many shows and built an audience in “swinging London” and beyond. A link with Jimi Hendri…
Hoarded Dreams
*2022 stock* Graham Collier is one of the best known and most important British jazz composers and over a 40 year career, his list of compositions and commissions has grown to encompass ensembles around the world. He is well-known as an author and educator, having written seven books on jazz. Hoarded Dreams is a previously unreleased long-form composition heard here in a powerful live performance from 1983 by an international all-star band that includes Tomasz Stanko, Conny Bauer, Malcolm Griffi…
Workpoints
*2022 stock* Called "A pioneer...a true British jazz original." by The Times, "An inventive and underrated jazz figure" by Jazziz and "Britain's most original jazz talent." by The Financial Times, Graham Collier was one of the best known British jazz composers, and over a 40 year career, his list of compositions and commissions grew to encompass ensembles around the world. He was well known as an author and educator, having written seven books on jazz. He was born in Tynemouth, England in 1937. …
A Love Supreme & Meditations
*2022 stock* Some records tell you what’s what. That’s not a bad thing: there’s a place in music for reportage, for commentary, for what’s going on. But A Love Supreme Electric, the collaborative project between Vinny Golia, John Hanrahan, Henry Kaiser, Wayne Peet, Mike Watt, and John Coltrane’s immortal spirit, starts from a different place. “What if?” it asks. In fact, ALSE asks “What if?” over and over again, joyously interrogating the twin templates of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Meditatio…
Baker's Dozen
Big Tip! Box set of all previously unreleased materials by US avant / progressive rock band The Muffins. "The finest progressive band that America produced." - Fred Frith. It is an all-too-rare occurrence for a band, throughout its career, to create music that continually pushes the envelope and transforms the landscape. It is an even rarer occurrence for such a band to reunite after a long separation, and embark on a second musical career that proves as innovative as the first. The Maryland-bas…
Facelift (France & Holland)
From their beginnings as a psychedelic rock band in 1966, sharing stages with Pink Floyd and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, to being one of the originators of electric jazz/rock by early 1969, Britain’s Soft Machine were restlessly creative. Facelift France and Holland captures them at a pivotal moment in the first quarter of 1970 as a short-lived quintet, just before they recorded and released their breakthrough album, Third. As broadcast on the French TV programme Pop 2, the film of Soft Machin…
Bremen To Bridgwater (2CD)
This release, Bremen to Bridgewater, contains two albums worth of previously unreleased live recordings made in Germany and England during two very different periods of the band’s career. The German radio recordings were made on June 20th, 1971 at Lila Eule (Lilac Owl), a well known jazz club in Bremen. The English recordings were made at the Bridgewater Arts Center, during two tours that the band made with different lineups in February and November of 1975, and feature some of the very last rec…
44½ : Live + Unreleased Works
Art Zoyd - 44 1/2 : Live and Unreleased Works 12 x CDs + 2 x DVDs box set with book. 'Art Zoyd is a quartet, but their instrumental arsenal produces the sound of a mighty orchestra.' – The New York Times Originally founded as a psychedelic / progressive rock band in France in 1969, with the arrival of soon-to-be co-leaders Gerard Hourbette and Thierry Zaboitzeff in 1971 and then with the departure of the band's founder, the group radically changed direction. By 1975 they were no longer a ‘rock'…