Jazz /
Zeuhl Jazz
**250 copies, 2020 stock** Sonata Islands is a cultural association, born from an idea of Emilio Galante, that promotes and performs new music and jazz. They organized many concerts and festivals in Italy. After Sonata Islands goes RIO (dedicated to the music of Univers Zero, Fred Frith and Thinking Plague) and Nippon Eldorado Kabarett (with the same musicians, dedicated to Japanese RIO music of the '80s with pieces by After Dinner, Wha Ha Ha, Kiyohiko Semba and Haniwa All Stars), here they pay …
Actions
CD version. Original score by Krzysztof Penderecki. New reading and conduction by Mats Gustafsson. The first (and until now only?) recorded interpretation of Krzysztof Penderecki's Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra took place in 1971 at Donaueschingen and featured the New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra, assembled by Don Cherry for the occasion and conducted by the great Polish composer. That orchestra also consisted of 14 musicians, including international jazz heavyweights such as Kenny Wheeler, Peter…
The Swiftest Traveler
An exciting new international trio initiated by Scandinavian saxophonist Torben Snekkestad, accompanied by two esteemed international players in the field of improvised music – the Spanish pianist Agusti Fernández and the British double bass player Barry Guy. The music they create together is situated somewhere between free improvisation, free jazz, and contemporary classical music and executed with lightning fast interaction and explorative, innovative sounds and textures. Recorded by Stefan De…
Air Time
Vinyl repressing of a classic '70s jazz recording - one of the first recordings led by Pulitzer winner Henry Threadgill with bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall. This edition is limited to 550 copies pressed by QRP, the vinyl manufacturing division of Acoustic Sounds. These are 150 gram discs in 'rice paper' sleeves.Saxophonist Henry Threadgill, bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall originally came together in 1971 as a group designed to play the music of Scott Joplin for a Chi…
Felis Catus and Silence
Felis Catus and Silence is a breakthrough release for Tokyo composer-guitarist Leo Takami, following the milestone albums Children’s Song (2012) and Tree of Life (2017). Takami counterpoints the soothing aesthetics of prime-era Windham Hill New Age guitar-heroism with meditative, intellectual compositions comprised of ambitious, process-oriented arrangements. While Takami largely wears his genre influences on his sleeve -- jazz, classical, Japanese gagaku -- the influence of ambient music is a t…
Cassiopeia
**250 copies** Two unreleased tracks from the critically acclaimed album sessions, limited 10 inch! Two groovy tracks from reed player Ville Vannemaa's Cassiopeia album, with him on this date is vibraphonist Panu Savolainen, Kasperi Sarikoski on trombone, Heikko Remmel on bass and Jaska Lukkarinen on drums. First time on vinyl.“… it’s the new album by Finnish saxophonist Ville Vannemaa, Cassiopeia, that has us swooning and reaching for the replay button.”- UKVibe
Aleksi Heinola Quintet
**250 copies** Three additional songs from the celebrated debut session, limited 10 inch! The talented drummer continues to explore the hard-bop sound of today with three more tracks; Bouncing at the S.U.P., Chasing the Spirit – two songs composed by the drummer and the quintet’s own hip rendition of Book’s Bossa by Walter Booker.“Heinola skilfully demonstrates the full range of his arsenal, skipping through his cherished hard bop style of jazz while interweaving subtle nods to Latin and Afro st…
Goshu Ondo Suite
"Eri Yamamoto transcended jazz, classical and folk forms in creating her new work for jazz trio and 50-member choir. She has seamlessly melded biography, group improvisation and far-ranging compositional vocabularies in a momentous seven-part suite, featuring her longstanding trio in collaboration with New York-based Choral Chameleon, directed by its award-winning founder, Vince Peterson. The suite is based off of the Goshu Ondo, a traditional circle dance song from Shiga, Japan, where it was su…
Topology
BBE Music presents the fourth release in their acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series: Topology by Makoto Terashita and Harold Land. Originally released in 1984 on the cult Aketa’s Disk label, Topology captures a surprising yet fascinating and engaging collaboration between a young Japanese jazz pianist and an elder American statesman of jazz.Reissued by BBE Music for the first time since original release 36 years ago, Topology showcases the extraordinary compositional and playing skill of Makoto T…
Animals Garden
The fifth release in the BBE Music J Jazz Masterclass Series has the perfect combination of rarity and exceptional musicality that inspires seasoned collectors to break out in a sweat. Animals Garden by Miyasaka + 5 was originally issued in 1979 on the cult private Japanese label ALM and is reissued for the first time in a 180Gram 2LP edition.Animals Garden was a one-off project led by master drummer Takashi ‘Bear’ Miyasaka and features a powerful and progressive jazz group including saxophonist…
Unexpected Alchemy
Polish label Not Two presents a massive 7CD set of unreleased recordings by Ken Vandermark in various combinations, featuring duo, trios and quartets with John Butcher, Joe McPhee and Mette Rasmussen on reeds and brass, Nate Wooley on trumpet, John Tilbury on piano, Ikue Mori on laptop, Kent Kessler on contrabass and Hamid Drake, Eddie Prevost and Steve Noble on drums and percussion.Disk One:Ken Vandermark / Nate Wooley duo1. Deeply Discounted 16:072. Sequences of Snow 19:17Steve Noble solo3. Pa…
Ism
"Head-spinning and heavily arresting free jazz cyclones and meditative downstrokes from American jazz bassist Junius Paul, following from Angel Bat Dawit’s incredible LP The Oracle on Chicago’s International Anthem Recording Company.“Polychromatic low tone poems, free form funk flight & Great Black Music turn the page to a brand new chapter in the Chicago sound.” Ism opens audaciously with the spiritual mic-check You Are Free To Choose, a track that features Junius Paul alongside Vincent Davis (…
Fly Or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise
Fly or Die II. Bird Dogs of Paradise is the much-anticipated follow-up to composer, trumpeter, and (now) singer Jaimie Branch's debut Fly or Die, which was dubbed one of the “Best Albums of 2017” by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR Music, WIRE, Stereogum, Aquarium Drunkard, and more. Written (mostly) while on her first European tour with Fly or Die in November 2018; and recorded (mostly) in studio at Total Refreshment Centre and live at Café OTO in London UK at the end of that tour, Bi…
Volume 1
**500 copies** The debut release from the long-running Chicago based collaboration of Quin Kirchner, Daniel Van Duerm and Matthew Lux aka KVL. Also featuring super special guest Jaimie Branch on Peaceable. KVL sits nicely in the same headspace as recent modern improv that eschews a more traditional "jazz" label. Think Matthew Lux's Contra/Fact, Jaimie Branch's Fly or Die, Shabaka Hutching's Sons of Kemet or The Comet Is Coming, Ben Lamar Gaye, Rob Mazurek and others. Of course, many folks will p…
Segment Tones
**300 copies** "Tonus is a group that always contains Dirk Serries and his wife Martina Verhoeven, but otherwise seems to be an open membership group. Today, on Segment Tones, it is a trio. Serries plays accordion and soprano melodica (the latter I would believe for the first time), Verhoven is on concertina and cello and Colin Webster on clarinet and alto saxophone. Whatever the line-up of Tonus might be, I do believe they play slow and quiet music; music that is not in any way, shape or form, …
Close | Quarters
**300 copies** "Close | Quarters is a seven-track slice of often compacted and angular improv for viola and prepared chamber. The two players here are Benedict Taylor and Anton Mobin. Taylor is a British improviser / avant musician who has been active in the scene since the early 2000s releasing a good body of work, as well as becoming a respected name, and Frenchman Mobin has once again been active since the early 2000’s making a name for himself as both an improviser and sound artists.The albu…
Ear Duration
**300 copies** "Overall, especially on the over 35-minute Set 1, which perversely in placed last on the CD, the improvisations’ mooring is supplied by the brief, repetative but distinctive patterning of Belgian pianist Martina Verhoeven. Much like John Tilbury’s program with AMM, these continuous motifs are the reassuring signposts for the puffs, scratches, strums and plops contributed by Britons, flutist / alto saxophonist Colin Webster, violist Benedict Taylor and Graham Dunning using a snare …
Zeitweise Leitcher Schneefall
**300 copies** "One aim of improvised music is to create unprecedented sounds. And by specializing in the textures that can be extracted from the spinet, the piano’s 18th Century ancestor, keyboardist Christoph Schiller, who now divides his time between Basel and Weil am Rhein is firmly involved in this trope. On this hushed, microtonal CD, Schiller applies his tweaking of the traditional keyboard to responsive sounds from an instrument as venerable as his, Anouck Genthon’s violin on Zeitweise L…
Cagean Morphology
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "The Serries-Verhoeven acoustic, chamber duo – Serries on the acoustic guitar and Verhoeven on the piano – is actually the last one to be recorded in the Tonus series but the duo distills the very essence of the series serves as a fitting introduction to this series. Cagean Morphology was recorded, mixed and mastered at the Sunny Side Studio at Anderlecht, Belgium on March 10th 2018. The minimalist layout of the Tonus series, was designed by Rutger Zuydervelt, aka Mach…
Texture Point
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "Minimal art is often presented as an act of simplification, a field in which nothing much happens and lesser (or even lazy) artists can have a field day. However, it is both in the visual arts and in music, perhaps one of the most misunderstood movements. Minimal artists not only sought out a certain core essence, but leading artists and theorists, such as Donald Judd, also offered a reaction against the extravagant focus on the subjective by the abstract expressionis…