New Arrivals

Foraging for mushrooms with John Cage: writing, art, photography and ephemera from an idiosyncratic chapter in the composer's life. Imagined as an extended mushroom-foraging expedition, John Cage: A Mycological Foray gathers together Cage’s mushroom-themed compositions, photographs, illustrations and ephemera. Indeterminacy Stories and other writings by Cage are interwoven throughout the first volume within a central essay examining Cage’s enduring relationship with mycology. Also included is a …

*2023 stock. In process of stocking* Double LP version. Full title: In the past only geniuses were capable of staging the perfect crime (also known as a revolution) Today anybody can accomplish their aims with the push of the button. For its 50th release, Black Truffle presents the ninth album from one of the label's core ensembles, the power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi. Drawn from a November 2015 performance at Tokyo's now-defunct SuperDeluxe, the record's opening piece…

Coloured Deluxe LP + State-of-the-art CD bundle. The discovery of a previously unreleased recording of “Non chiedermi più” – the only duet ever recorded by Piero Ciampi – through the work of Journalist Lucilla Chiodi, has given way to the reissue of this expanded and fully remastered version of the album “Lucia Rango Show”. Recorded by the singer in 1967 with the full involvement and supervision of Ciampi himself in the recording studio, the album was arranged and conducted by Maestro Elvio Mont…

*2023 stock* "I met Joëlle Léandre when she was a visiting professor at Mills college in 2002. This was very exciting, as I had been collecting her albums since I started to play the double bass and she was an important influence on my work. I had a bass lesson scheduled with her the day we lost Maestro Kowald. She was very close to him and it was devastating to her. For me, it meant losing a role model; for her, it was losing a close friend and supporter. We had a long phone conversation and sh…

*2023 stock* "There are some people who are very singular in their conception of improvisation. People whose music embodies them as much as they embody the music. People who take from their life experience and put it into their sonic practice. People who search every crevice of their instrument to find sonic potential. These practices are beyond what may or may not be learned at a conservatory, no matter how deep the teaching goes. Listening to these improvised moments between Sarah Ruth Alexand…

"Sights and sounds move from place to place with promiscuous gesture. Ships, airplanes, and churning whirlpools appeal more to mechanical economies than street feet sharing pulse rate interiorities. The people twist on metric rails. Oxygen converters reflect swinging diatonics. Blackouts resound. Triggers blackout pots, pans, tin cans, and appropriate Lydian roots, talking tanks, and time-sliced wildlife. By 1950, modernist cultural curdling sacrificed aesthetic convenience for intuitive product…

*2023 stock* "From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Jerome & I toured & recorded with the great Wolfgang Fuchs. It was a formative experience for both of us. All titles are quotes by Fuchs. He was a constant source of wisdom and humor." - Damon Smith

"Applying to their utmost the timbres, textures and tessitura from the double bass and percussion, veteran drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses, and younger bassist Damon Smith play up the instruments' orchestral as well as rhythmic functions. Moses, whose career began in the 1960s, and Smith who has partnered numerous international improvisers have played together in larger groups. But as a duo none of the 14 tracks sound reductionist. That's because each uses his instrument to its utmost. Moses, as he d…

*2023 stock* The unbelievably prolific Haruomi Hosono is one of the major architects of modern Japanese pop music. With his encyclopedic knowledge of music and boundless curiosity for new sounds, Hosono has put his unmistakable stamp on hundreds of recordings as a session player, producer, and auteur of his own idiosyncratic musical world. Born and raised in central Tokyo, his adolescent obsession with American pop culture informed his early forays into country music, which he would revisit late…

This album is an intimate and historical dive into the work of Laurence Vanay. The titles on this album were carefully chosen by her daughter, Marine Thibault, in order to help us rediscover the sensitive repertoire of a little-known artist who was nevertheless at the forefront of her era.

From the great cache of tapes recorded at Seattle's storied Penthouse nightclub comes The Gary McFarland Quintet, recorded live in the summer of 1965. McFarland could usually be found in the recording studios of New York arranging for everyone from Stan Getz to Lena Horne, but his 1964 bossa-jazz classic LP Soft Samba was such an unexpected hit that it afforded McFarland the opportunity to hit the road with fellow Berklee School of Music alumni Gabor Szabo on guitar and Sadao Watanabe on flute a…

Gordon Micky Mfandu was the original leader of “The Clan”, founded as a sixteen-piece band by trombonist Reuben Boy Radise in 1970. This 1973 recording was made following the untimely murder of Mfandu outside his home in Pimville, Soweto. The last track written by Peter Segona and Dimpi Tshabalala is dedicated to Mfandu. Mfandu was also the drummer for the Soul Giants’ “I Remember Nick”, recorded in 1968.  According to the band, their music is no carbon copy of somebody’s. ‘We’re trying to be ou…

*2023 stock* "This recording is a modern interpretation of sound poems written and performed by German Dadaist Hugo Ball more than a century ago. Those familiar with Ball know him as the author of these innovative works and founder of the Cabaret Voltaire, Dada’s Zurich birthplace. Despite the sound poems’ artistic legacy, they constitute only a small part of Ball’s creative output. The purpose of these liner notes, then, is to consider the complex life and work of the man behind the sound poems…

*In process of stocking* "A double album of electroacoustic improv sessions from Sommerville, MA, centered around electronic artist Andrew Neumann on the Buchla Music Easel--a complex additive analogue synth--heard in quartet and trio sessions with Forbes Graham (trumpet), Sandy Ewen (guitar & objects), Junko Fujiwara (cello), Damon Smith (double bass) and Eric Rosenthal (drums & percussion). Neumann, also an artist, sculptor and installation artist, can be heard on the Driff album Bathysphere w…

*In process of stocking. 2023 stock "Lady Band (of Various Fruit Names) is an all-female experimental music ensemble founded by Sandy Ewen in 2009. Performances are singular, often site-specific events, featuring a rotating lineup (and different fruit-themed name for each show), with members contributing graphic and text-based scores for structured improvisation. Drawing parallels between Ewen's group and Scratch Orchestra, the 1960s-70s London experimental music ensemble Rowe was involved in, S…

Tip! *In process of stocking* "Two distinct session, the first CD presenting free improv trio perfomances in St. Louis, MO between Paul Hartsaw on soprano & tenor saxophones, Damon Smith on double bass and Jerome Bryerton on percussion, the 2nd CD finding Hartsaw and Smith in the studio in Oakland CA for a more experimental session, Smith adding laptop & field recordings and both employing extended techniques." - Squidco

"In this 3-CD set each disc contains one duo session between the three musicians: trombone-bass, piano-bass and piano-trombone. Recorded over the course of Bishop's last year of residency in Boston and soon after Smith had moved to St. Louis, these recordings capture a glimpse of the city's creative music scene at a particularly active time between 2016-22, when, the three musicians interacted frequently in many settings in the Boston area. The Smith/Bishop disc consists of all improvised music,…

*2023 stock* "Explorative improvisation, from mysteriously quiet moments to scrabbling and determined conversation, configured as trios and quintets by Rebecca Novak on piano, cornet, radio & glassware, Danny Kamins on baritone saxophone, Sandy Ewen on guitar, Damon Smith on double bass and Jerome Bryerton on percussion, all bringing unique moments through extended techniques, objects & radio. "Groundwater recharge is an important water management practice in California. ... Recharge can also h…

Tip! A dream industrial work in which sticky corrosion electronic sounds by Amplified voice, drone sound, and electronics develop with a strange rhythm. Hiroshima-based electro/industrial duo, A.P.O.S. collaborates with SY on the electronics and Self Toxication on the amplified voice.

*108 copies limited edition* Glow World is Rod Modell's new project resulting from his collaboration with Taka Noda. The duo delivers what could be an example of perfect elegance and musical refinement, but the resulting sounds are once again dirtied, ruined and ravaged by a noise capable of deafening us, sounds that come from afar, that seem to fade away but suddenly illuminate the world around us, which lands on us and which no longer belongs to us, leaving us lost in an infinite melancholy. G…

Daytimes / Nighttimes is a manifesto detailing the sonic possibility of abstraction through culture. Both works combine Trombone and SP-404 to create peaceful yet emotionally charged landscapes that juxtapose each other in character. Zekkereya El-magharbel is an interdisciplinary artist currently living in Detroit. They have been a member of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (Los Angeles) for almost 10 years and have worked/studied with luminaries such as Angel Bat Dawid, Tyshawn Sorey, Corey Smy…

Entre Pliegos embarks on a quest through shared sonic ancestry to explore the immediacy of communication, invoking a mercurial, yet at times uplifting, musical environ. The drones and growls of low strings flow into explosive electronics, while ecstatic vocal spikes morph into rambunctious linear intertwinings that settle into an interminable, grating exhale. Chilean-based double bassist Amanda Irarrázabal and Brooklyn, NY-based pianist Eli Wallace crossed paths in the summer of 2019, where they…

Written and produced by Manfredas Bajelis and Marijus Aleksa from Lithuania. Driving Vladimir Tarasov influensed percussionist jazzfunk.

Lightning Dreamers is new work by composer, trumpeter, interdisciplinary abstractivist and modern music mogul Rob Mazurek, who wrote the music for a compacted version of his long-running Exploding Star Orchestra. A follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 Mazurek/ESO release Dimensional Stardust, the album features guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Damon Locks, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn, among others. It was recorded mostly at the remote Sonic Ranch studios in W…

*300 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* "'Workaday Strangeness: Gyrating Death Throes From a Void Axiom' is the new LP from Glasgow-based music originator Wormhook. The music therein, we understand, emerged for highly personal therapeutic reasons; nevertheless to describe it as ‘idiosyncratic’ would do a disservice both to Wormhook and to the concept of idiosyncrasy. While the record is certainly a profoundly unique, irreplicable creation, its music is nevertheless based on a viscer…

Seminal UK experimental composer Richard Skelton returns to Phantom Limb for new album selenodesy, interweaving his newfound love of electronics and synthesis with mastery of gritty organic texture.

An excellent glimpse into one of the more poorly lit corners of Swedish experimental sound. This CD collects some of the earliest solo recordings of Joachim Nordwall, under the moniker A.B.O. Our ears catch whiffs of Francois Douris and the likes, but any definite reference eludes us. “Growing up in the remote south East of Sweden was great for anyone into having a bad start in life. In my early teens I was exposed through my friend Zwarre to suitable music like Throbbing Gristle, Brainbombs and…

Cross-generational titans of noise and sound experiments, John Duncan, Joachim Nordwall & Henrik Ryland supply a proper drone zoner hashed from shortwave radio, no-input mixer and analogue synths on the iDEAL powerhouse.

*70 copies limited edition. 2023 stock* "I'm not sure if its the usual narrative when people speaks about Giovanni Donadini musical alter ego Ottaven, but at leats for me its important to mention his past which is tied to italian hardcore punk band called With Love. Its undeniable that the punk DIY approach has pretty clear feel in whatever art Giovanni does, no matter if its building minimal furniture walls, making electronic music or designing his fashion pieces as Caned Icoda. About twenty ye…

West Coast Power Outage V CD - The power trio of Chris Dodge, Mason Jones and William Rage return to Absurd Exposition with another dose of psychedelic circuit overload.

*In process of stocking. 200 copies limited edition* Absurd Exposition presents H2T by Knurl. Unreleased material from 2001, recorded at the Hotel 2 Tango studios in Montreal by Howard Bilerman, July 7/01. Design by Chris Gibson.

Absurd Exposition presents CD reissue of Rusalka's LP Base Waters. Using a theremin as a centerpiece, Kate Rissiek leads us straight into a harsh noise odyssey of oceanic depths. Mastered by Pentti Dassum.

*200 copies limited edition.* To Favour the Occurrence CD - Knurl's harsh noise is formulated by the give-and-take of restraint and control. With his alter-ego as Pholde, Alan Bloor uses these same techniques to create ambient soundscapes rich with the tactility of their found metal sources.

Gerogerigegege's full-volume collection CD, including many unreleased and precious past sound sources, different mixes and uncensored versions taken from their infamous "Tokyo Anal Dynamite". To quote All Music Guide brilliant review "Either 40 minutes of absolutely unlistenable noise, or the greatest rock & roll record recorded -- or both. Tokyo Anal Dynamite is a live recording consisting of a frontman announcing a song (Japanese or Western rock classics), giving a count ("onetwothreefour!"), …

*In process of stocking* Gilberto Gil’s second album is packed with some of the best songs of his career; jubilant pop extravaganzas like “Domingo No Parque”, “Pega a Voga, Cabeludo”, and “Frevo Rasgado” that were equally inspired by the irresistible, brassy bombast of Carnaval and intelligent rock & roll from America and Britain. Even more than the other Tropicalistas, though, Gil blends his rock and native influences seamlessly, resulting in songs like “Ele Falava Nisso Todo Dia”, which chart …

Zake's fruitful contributions as an artist to his own Past Inside The Present label continues on this new album Deep Into The Unknown We Shall Endlessly Roam. It is an assemblage of arrangements made using archaic tape machines such as a Sony M-570V microcassette voice recorder and obsolete VSC Soundpacer, all on analogue tape. Of course that lends the music a misty, grainy quality that defines much of Zake's ambient. Here his loops and found sounds meld and melt to create vast open spaces that …

Psycho 2000 - A dark but funky theme that begins with an occulting Italian echo-oscillator drone that is soon followed by pulsating bass and breakbeat drums, leads to tremolo guitars, an ostinato on electric mandolas, strings climbing eloquent ladders, otherworldly electronics, and a cinematic finale. An evocation of a parade of wooden nutcracker soldiers elaborately dressed in gold-trimmed black uniforms down a wide avenue decorated with mardi gras beads and animal skulls upon golden cobbleston…

Union Editions presents Polysick's Sleep Driving. Recorded in Rome, September 2022.

Travelogue [Bali] is the second in an ongoing series of collected international audio diaries. The premise is quite simple: the two meet at a mutually agreed upon destination along with the facilitation of something to record audio of these experiences on. The intent is to capture and augment these sonic documentaries of their travels which then are sculpted into soundtracks. This is done by sourcing the culture, environment, persons or events that make their voices available. In February 2020, …

*In process of stocking* Austrian based collaborators of free jazz, improvisation and sound experiments releasing the long awaited debut album of Dry Thrust - the new project by the trio of German pianist and composer Georg Graewe, Martin Siewert (Radian, Trapist, Also) and Dieter Kern (DEK Trio, Bulbul, Fuckhead). Graewe, has since been leading a variety of ensembles since the early 80s - ranging from trio to chamber orchestra formats - which have involved some of the leading instrumentalists i…