Jazz /
Go Home and Go to Bed!!!
*250 copies limited edition* Tenor saxophone player Junji Hirose and guitarist Kazuo Imai, both Tokyo residents born in 1955, are two of Japan’s representative improvisers. Revered musicians who have long been leading Japan’s improvised music scene, they continue to carry out a wide range of performance activities with tireless energy. Their collaborative recording "Be Quiet!!!," a trio CD with drummer Darren Moore, was released on the Meenna label in April 2023. One year later, their new duo al…
Vulnerability
Flesh and Bones is the latest release from drummer, composer, and poet William Hooker. The album marks his third full length effort for Org Music, following “Big Moon” (2021) and “Symphonie of Flowers” (2019). Hooker has also referred to the new work as his “Black Lives Suite”, a multi-disciplinary event which uses music and poetry to address the social issues of the times. Recorded at NYU Steinhart Studios, the recording features fellow New York based players Ras Moshe, Charles Burnham, On Davi…
Doppelgänger ga boku wo
LP ltd to 315 copies. An’archives is proud to present the latest album by Japanese free saxophonist and vocalist Harutaka Mochizuki, Doppelgänger ga boku wo. Since the early 2000s, Harutaka has quietly, yet steadily, released a string of solo and collaborative releases that have allowed multiple perspectives on one of the most singular voices in modern music. In collaboration, he seems to prefer the duo format, and digging through his discography, you’ll find releases where he pairs with Tomoyuk…
Bromio
*2024 reissue. 300 copies limited edition* In January 1999, after years of continuous daily rehearsals, Zu entered the studio to record Bromio. The album was released in October of the same year to immediate and enthusiastic feedback from the press and the public, and a few months later Zu began to play on stages all over Europe. But the band's inexperience in recording work weighed on them, because the impact they had live was not present in the sound of the CD at all. So it was that during the…
The Lost Demo
*300 copies limited edition* Since 1995, orphaned by their previous project, the three founding members of Zu (Jacopo Battaglia, Luca Mai and Massimo Pupillo) had been hanging out in the historic small room in Piazza Degli Zingari in Rome, every day, all day long, working nights and sometimes sleeping directly in the basement so as not to waste time. Looking for their own voice, without excluding any direction: electronics, tapes, sequencer (Film Nero) cello (played by their friend Francesco Chi…
Glimmers of Quintessence
2024 stock. Claude & Ola return to the Steep Gloss label with Immara. Recorded from autumn of 2021 into 2022, this collaboration introduces new sounds and textures into each artist's catalog, while retaining and amplifying the varying degrees of abstraction inherent in their unique approaches. Claude and Ola Aldous are experimental musicians residing in the northern reaches of New York state in the US. They have previously released music on the Steep Gloss, TQN-Aut, Tone Burst, and Noise á Noise…
GNASH
"This overdue duo record by longtime colleagues Tashi Dorji (guitar) and Dave Rempis (saxophones) is a monument to the endless musical curiosity that links them. These two come at it from remarkably different backgrounds – Dorji combining his Bhutanese ethnicity with a love for metal, punk, American blues and folk, and anarchist political theory, with Rempis riding the outer edges of the jazz world throughout his career, while also inspired by his Greek ethnicity and a longstanding interest in f…
Eleven Tension
A duo of irony, smoke, and mirrors, computer musician Tom Mudd and percussionist/violist Áron Porteleki operate at either side of the same see-saw, teetering between realms of digital and tangible soundscapes. Mudd's artistic voyage is anchored in the realm of physical modelling synthesis, an exploration of the nuanced interplay between software and improvised music, delving deep into the multifaceted realms of algorithmic composition and digital sonic artistry. Meanwhile, Porteleki's expansive…
Pajazzo
The Finnish/Italian improvisational collective makes a comeback after the acclaim of 'Gan-Ri-La.' This time, they grace Pelto Studio with their presence, offering a groovy free jazz encounter filled with unexpected twist
Nightcap
Tip! *300 copies limited edition* {scope} came to life in 2020, when musicians Laura Agnusdei, Matteo Pennesi and Luca Sguera got selected for Holydays Festival, an artist residency in Scopoli, a small village in Umbria, central Italy. Despite having never played together before, the musicians found a common musical language which emerged in their first album "A week from Monday", recorded during the residency and released by ViaIndustriae and Rous Records. At the start of 2022 a new opportunity…
Threnody for the KhoiSan
Garth Erasmus is an artist and musician based in Cape Town, South Africa. 'Threnody for the KhoiSan' is his first album under his own name. Since 1985 his artistic interests have broadened to include music-making, designing and making his own instruments based on indigenous KhoiSan knowledge. From 1999 to 2012 he was a member of the South African First Nation activist group Khoi Khonnexion. In the past couple of years Garth Erasmus has also been a pivotal part of various international performanc…
Real Jazz
Bomb! Another "The Disintegration of the Sympathetic". Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe's 1970 studio live recording, 40 minutes of miracle! Miraculous discovery of Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe's live studio recordings from 1970! A live studio performance of Masayuki Takayanagi's New Direction in 1970, which began to be oriented toward immediate improvisation without setting up any notated thematic motifs. 40 minutes of continuous performance.This work is based on sound reproduction of Tak…
Projection: The Complete Inspiration and Power Live at Shinjuku Art Theater
Bomb! A miraculous discovery! The complete live performance at "Inspiration & Power 14" at Shinjuku Art Theater in 1973. Uncut live performance of Masayuki Takayanagi's New Direction For The Arts Discography at "Inspiration & Power 14" held at the Shinjuku Art Theater in 1973. This CD contains all the performances of the day, although only the last part of the concert was included in the album of the same title.Recently, a cassette tape was discovered among the belongings of Masayuki Takayanagi,…
Francesco Massaro Per Dei Suoni
*150 copeis limited edition* Recorded at "Dei Suoni" event, as unique track, splitted in two parts for the cassette release. Limited edition of 150 hand-numbered copies. Comes with an original polaroid.
Mattia Abballe Per Dei Suoni
*150 copeis limited edition* Recorded at "Dei Suoni" event, as unique track, splitted in two parts for the cassette release. Limited edition of 150 hand-numbered copies. Comes with an original polaroid.
Voices of Bishara Live at "Mu"
In January 2023, Tom Skinner and his ensemble performed material from his recently-released album 'Voices of Bishara' (Brownswood, IARC & Nonesuch, 2022) at London club “mu”— a venue founded by the curators at Brilliant Corners and named after the seminal Don Cherry live album. Their performance was augmented by three pieces by Abdul Wadud, whose 1977 self-released solo cello album, By Myself, was a primary inspiration for Voices of Bishara. The woodwinds featured on Skinner's original Voices of…
Live At Kraak Fest 2011
25 copies limited edition. 2024 stock. Lo-fi but still fantastic documentation of a 2011 concert by Arthur Doyle in a duo with drummer Steve Noble. Doyle sounds pretty great to me here. The top end of his sax playing is less powerful than it once was, but a lot of his magic was always derived from his sheer otherness, and there's enough of that here to go around. Noble works hard to provide the right rhythmic racket for whatever's going down, and this is some swank soundtrackery for long drives.…
Monster
*2024 stock* Collaborators for years, here is the first shared record release by two of the leading figures in contemporary improvisation, here grappling with trombone, cello, bass, electronics. A disc for explorers of less frequented and predictable sounds, full of unexpected cues and solutions.
Three Incredible Ideas
*2024 stock* "Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore has been exploring this kind of radical free improvisation since the 1990s. The three pieces on the record feature the guitarist with two highly compatible veterans of the avant-garde scene: cellist and electronic manipulator Walter Prati and trombonist and electronics guru Giancarlo Schiaffini. The three pieces arise from spontaneous improvisation but there is such energy between the musicians that the flow of ideas is uninterrupted." - S. Loew…