Jazz /
Carte Blanche
It took more than just some time and imagination to believe that 'Carte Blanche' , this piece of astonishing contemporary music by some of the most talented and able musicians of the international avant-circuit, could be realized. Karkhana, a highly explosive mostly Middle Eastern / Mediterranean ensemble - Sam Shalabi Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect, Dwarfs of East Agouza), Sharif Sehnaoui (“A” Trio), Michael Zerang (Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Jaap Blonk, Vandermark, etc.) Mazen Kerbaj (“A” Tri…
Aamm
Back in August of 2015, the legendary London Grand Seigneurs of improve pioneers, AMM (John Tilbury and Eddie Prévost) joined forces with Lebanese electro-acoustic-free-jazz outfit "A" Trio (Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui & Raed Yassin). Two generations of improvisers with a very differing approach to work, captured dancing slowly along a very thin line of fine tuned, both, clear and crackling improvised sounds. Harsh at times with magic mellow moments of intense, fragile, broken noises. No overd…
Burj Al Imam - Extended Version
**2019 stock** 140-gram LP in gatefold sleeve with a special drawing by Mazen Kerbaj + bonus 7". Mastered for vinyl by Harris Newman. Edition of 500. 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 Sun City Girls track "The Imam", and a cover of traditional Americana song "Gently Johnny" (a highlight of Alan Bishop's live Alvarius B. shows). True to their habits, the Lebanese trio of trump…
Lubok
**100 copies** Blend 3 is an organism made up of three different but similar personalities. The group explores the diverse sonorities of a trio that, without a predetermined set, utilizes composition and improvisation as its only resources. By means of this combination of composition and improvisation, what is already written is proposed in an original and revisited way time after time. Concurrently, improvisation as an actual practice rather than as a genre is developed with a deep compositiona…
Down at the Docks
"This dialogue between the two musicians sounds both genuine and profound; a sort of four-handed diary, reflecting throughout the natural moods, signs, colours, and spaces. Allusions, rips, bursts of humour and sudden gusts of poetry flow into each other in an unusual animation based on strings, wood, breaths and brass. Musical stories that linger with you." (Fabrizio Spera) Luca Tilli: celloSebi Tramontana: trombone
Stereo
**300 copies** "Stereo" is the latest studio recording by Berlin based duo of Tony Buck and Magda Mayas. Conceived as rendering of a live concept the two have been developing over the last year or so, featuring multi-speaker and multi-layered audio, the essence of "Stereo" sees Spill performing in the studio, improvising and reacting to previously recorded improvisations and pre-structured, pre-recorded elements. The result creates a music with a sense of space and depth and an internal logic no…
The Complete Remastered Recordings, vol 2
The story of the founding of AACM is repeated often enough that it’s
codified into legend: pianists Muhal Richard Abrams and Jodie Christian,
drummer Steve McCall and trumpeter Phil Cohran, having come together in
Abrams’ Experimental Band, met to lay the groundwork for what would be
an independent organization for the production and promotion of creative
jazz on Chicago’s South Side. As an organization committed to
egalitarianism and self-determination, Abrams’ clear role as the
spiritua…
Keith Rowe: The Room Extended
In London, in the fall of 1965, a group of four musicians dissatisfied with the constrictions they had encountered in the British jazz scene, came together with a highly thought-out agenda to revolutionize the way music was created, rejecting rules firmly in place then (and still today) among even the most forward-looking of musicians: no repertoire, no solos, no regular rhythms, no melodies, no fear of silence, 100% improvised. Keith Rowe was one of the founding members. They called themselves …
Brace Up!
In process of restock. Brace Up! is the first ever studio release from the duo of Chris Corsano (drums) and Bill Orcutt (guitar). Recorded in Brussels at Les Ateliers Claus by Christophe Albertijn on March 19th and 20th, 2018. Stage dive photograph by Jason Penner. "Over the past six years or so, drummer Chris Corsano has proven to be one of Bill Orcutt's most reliably flexible collusionists. Regardless of whether Bill is cluster-busting electric guitar strings, weaseling around with cracked ele…
So Far
Between 1961 and 1965 Eje Thelin formed his first own group with which he toured across Europe. In 1964 he performed in Copenhagen with George Russell; from the late 60s to the mid-70s he played with Joachim Kühn and John Surman and turned to Free Jazz. This quintet is famous for the cooperation with Belgian Joel Vandrooogenbroeck, who had played with big names such as Barney Wilen and Zoot Sims. In 1968 Vandroogenbroeck formed the experimental rockband Brainticket.This 1963 session features the…
Eje Thelin At The German Jazz Festival
An amazing set from Swedish trombonist Eje Thelin – a live date, but a totally excellent session that stands as one of the best demonstration of his talents in the 60s! On the European scene at the time, Thelin was easily one of the most inventive players on the trombone – one of the few who could hit the soulful swing of American musicians like Curtis Fuller or JJ Johnson, but also an artist who was starting to stretch out into new realms too – just a touch of Grachan Moncur and Roswell Rudd, w…
Visionary Fantasies
The 100th record released by Matchless! A series of inspired solo and duo performances from AMM founder, percussionist Eddie Prevost and free improvising saxophonist John Butcher, captured live at London's Iklectik in 2018, splitting the album between solo and duo work as the two morph their instruments into incredible sonic devices, with intense concentration and dialog nothing short of fantastic."Although Eddie Prévost and John Butcher shared the stage at Derek Bailey's 1990 London Company Wee…
A Philosophy Warping (Live) LP
Second album by Turkish free jazzers Konstrukt and the Japanese avant-garde/noise icon Keiji Haino, this time recorded live in concert. Celebrating their tenth anniversary these days, Konstrukt have since been creating an impressive catalog including collaborations/performances with significant musicians like Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Akira Sakata, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Michael Zerang, Alfred Harth, or Alexander Hawkins that gained them an ever growing a…
Noth
Seminal NYC ensemble Zs present their first release on Social Noise: the label dedicated to documenting a career in telepathic collaboration. Noth was recorded live at Cafe Oto in London in April 2017 and, in their usual maximalist (un)convention, features Sam Hillmer on tenor sax, Patrick Higgins on guitar and electronics, Greg Fox on drums and electronics, and Michael Beharie on electronics. Frenetic, impassioned, intentional and above-all connective improv explorations intended to cause neuro…
Odyssey
**A labor of love, this marvelous self-produced six-disc set collects trumpeter Bill Dixon's previously unreleased solo recordings since the 1970s.** 2001 release. Odyssey is the definitive compendium of solo trumpet music by Bill Dixon, as compiled by the artist. Dixon (1925-2010) was known primarily for his small and large ensemble masterpieces of the decades between Intents and Purposes (1967) and Tapestries (2009). While he appeared infrequently in solo performances, he was continually evolv…
machine gun
Cien Fuegos present a reissue of the Peter Brötzmann Octet's Machine Gun, originally released in 1968. One of the most important albums of European free jazz, finally in the Cien Fuegos series. Recorded May 1968 at "Lila Eule", Bremen. Recorded with a whiff of revolution in the air back in May '68, this landmark Brotzmann LP taps into the spirit of its time with a robust garage rock sensibility, lending a considerable urgency to the session, with the highest volume passages taking up far more ai…
Machine Gun - Alternate Takes
Alternate versions, never before released on vinyl from Peter Brötzmann Octet's Machine Gun (1968). As Brötzmann has said: 'It was the feeling, the very naive feeling that we could take a little part in changing the world.' Adopting its title from Don Cherry's nickname for Brötzmann, 'Machine Gun' drew on the huge horn section of Lionel Hampton's 'Flying Home' for inspiration, translating the hilarious saxophonic power of the jump blues and Illinois Jacquet's booting and hollering into an abstra…
Again
Recorded July 2nd and 3rd, 2017 by Øyvind Gundersen at Studio Paradiso, Oslo Mixed October 2017, by Andreas Werliin at Repeat Until Death, Stockholm Mastered by Lupo at Calyx mastering, Berlin Liner notes by Brian Morto. Mats Gustafsson (saxes), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b) and Paal Nilssen-Love (dr) have followed an interesting concept with The Thing. They take the power of blues and heavy rock and mix it with the freedom of improvised music using the riff as the foundation of their pieces.Mats G…
Baby Talk
LP version. Live at Molde International Jazz Festival 2015. All music by James Blood Ulmer. Viking jazz band The Thing team up with one of the legendary men of jazz and blues. Guitarist and singer Ulmer combines (free) jazz, blues, funk, and rock -- always on the edge, melting it to some kind of free funk... In 1980, Ulmer recorded the genre milestone No Wave with John Zorn and Pharoah Sanders. Personnel: James Blood Ulmer - guitar; Mats Gustafsson - tenor and baritone saxophones; Ingebrigt H…
More Intra Musique
When glancing over the history of indigenous French free improvised music, there tends to be two observable categories of musicians - those who worked and collaborated with their counterparts from abroad, and those who worked independently. The former is generally more celebrated, and among those the drummer Jacques Thollot, who worked with Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Sonny Sharrock, Sam Rivers, Joachim Kühn, and numerous others, as well as with French pioneers like Barney Wilen and Jef Gilson, rank…