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In late 1965, Billy Klüver, a research engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, arranged for ten New York artists -- John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Öyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor and Robert Whitman -- to meet with a group of his fellow engineers and scientists from Bell Laboratories to work together to develop technical equipment to be used as an integral part of the artists’ performances. 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering took place at the 69th Regiment Armory at 25th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City, October 13 to 23, 1966. More than 10,000 people attended the performances over the nine evenings, where each artist presented his or her work twice. 9 Evenings is recognized as a major event of the 1960s. It was the culmination of extraordinary activity in art, dance and music in New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as the beginning of a new era in which artists in these fields explored the use of technology in their work. Variations VII was the next to last of Cage’s Variations, a series of indeterminate compositions begun in 1958, for a variety of instruments and performers which in the mid-1960s made increasing use of electronic equipment and systems. Cage described the work in the 9 Evenings program: "It is a piece of music, Variations VII, indeterminate in form and detail, making use of the sound system which has been devised collectively for this festival, further making use of modulation means organized by David Tudor, using as sound sources only those sounds which are in the air at the moment of performance, picked up via the communication bands, telephone lines, microphones together with, instead of musical instruments, a variety of household appliances, and frequency generators." For the performance, these sources were from radio stations, Geiger counters, and contact microphones placed on household appliances like a food blender, juicer, fan, and toaster, as well as sensors attached to one of the performers to pick up body sounds. In addition, Cage had ten open telephone lines to bring sound from places in New York City, like the restaurant Luchow’s, The New York Times press room, the ASPCA stray dog holding pound, the 14th Street Con Edison electric power station, choreographer Merce Cunningham’s dance studio, and the turtle tank in composer Terry Riley’s apartment. The mechanical and electronic components were placed on two long tables facing each other. The four performers, David Behrman, John Cage, Anthony Gnazzo and David Tudor, worked in a free and unscripted manner connecting, activating, and modulating the various sound sources. Photocells were mounted on the performance tables aimed at lights placed at ankle level under the facing tables. As the four performers moved along the aisle between the tables, the light beams were broken and different sound sources were triggered and sent to speakers around the Armory. The shadows cast by these lights created what Cage later described as “enlargement of activities” as “inside composers picked up outside sources... Fishing.” For the second performance of Variations VII, Cage invited the audience to leave their seats, and they approached the performance tables, wandered around the Armory space, or sat on the floor listening to the performance. A sound recording of Variations VII was made on 7" reel-to-reel audio tape. TOPOS proposed making vinyl records of the full recording of the performance; and they worked to prepare this master recording to fit the requirements of the vinyl medium: dividing it into four roughly equal parts, but preserving the integrity of the composition by making breaks where there was a transition happening in the sound, for example when one sustained sound would die out and another begin. - Julie Martin, New Jersey, 2019

A 4-disc box-set with Apartment House playing all of John Cage's 'number pieces' for mid-size ensembles (from 'Five' to 'Fourteen', with 'Four5' as an added extra, along with alternative versions of three of the pieces). These extraordinarily beautiful works were all composed in the last 5 years of the composer's life, as Cage approached his 80th birthday. These recordings by Apartment House are the first recordings for 15 years of almost all of the pieces. An essential release of wonderful but somewhat neglected music. Downloads include a pdf of the 44-page booklet with extensive notes about Cage's number pieces, and the cover artwork

In October 1962 John Cage and his great interpreter/co-visionary David Tudor visited Japan, performing seven concerts and exposing listeners to new musical worlds. This legendary "John Cage Shock", as it was dubbed by the critic Hidekazu Yoshida, is the source of this series of releases, three CDs and a "best hits" double LP compilation. Recorded primarily at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo on October 24, 1962 (with two performances from October 17 at Mido-Kaikan in Osaka), all recordings in this series are previously unreleased. A major historical trove, unearthed. The performances on this tour featured Cage and Tudor with some noteworthy Japanese musicians playing pieces by Cage and a number of other composers. Volume 1 begins with Toru Takemitsu's Corona for Pianists (1962), played by Tudor and Yuji Takahashi, an indeterminate piece scored using transparencies, a sign of Cage's influence on younger Japanese composers of the era. Following this is Duo for Violinist and Pianist (1961) by Christian Wolff, written specifically for David Tudor and violinist Kenji Kobayashi. The final piece, a near-twenty-minute realization of Variations II (1961), is a rare example of the rougher side of Cage, work that presaged much of the live electronic music and noise of the following decades, an aspect of his oeuvre which is woefully under-represented on CD. Cage and Tudor, using well-amplified contact microphones on a piano, deliver an electrifying performance, alternating distorted stretches of harsh 60s reality with bountiful silences. Volume 2 lifts off with a fiery example of Tudor's piano virtuosity, his mastery of dynamics well evident in a performance of Klavierstück X (1961) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The titular shock of this series is delivered even more forcefully with the next piece, Cage's 26'55.988" for 2 Pianists and a String Player (1961), which was first performed the year before in Darmstadt by Tudor and Kobayashi, a combination of two of Cage's solo pieces. The performance here, from Osaka, has a slightly altered title and the composition becomes a seismic quartet with the addition of Toshi Ichiyanagi and Yoko Ono, with the four performers providing acutely-angled blasts of sound. The final CD of the series features Cage's 0'00" (1962), also referred to as 4'33" No.2, performed by the composer, with daily activities such as writing and drinking coffee amplified by contact microphones into sonic abstraction, following the score's directions: "with maximum amplification (no feedback), perform a disciplined action". Next is Composition II for 2 Pianos (1960/61) by Michael von Biel, lovely and sparse, performed by Tudor and Ichiyanagi. The disc closes with Ichiyanagi's Piano Music #7 (1961), performed also by Tudor and Ichiyanagi, beds of silence disrupted by pianistic stabs, music box madness, traffic recordings, percussive thumps, tape manipulations and more. The "John Cage Shock" series features truly historical recordings, all previously unreleased, of compositions by an amazing roster of international composers. The intensity of these performances by Cage, Tudor, Ichiyanagi, Kobayashi, Ono and Takahashi has remained hidden and unheard for half a century, but remains undiminished. These three CDs, as well as the special double LP (including a vinyl only bonus track), feature rare photos plus Japanese and English liner notes.

So excited and honored to finally release the vinyl document of my realization of JOHN CAGE’s ROZART MIX. Back in the extremely strange year of 2020, I was approached by Wave Farm and John Cage Trust to stage a performance of this seldomly performed piece that Cage wrote for Alvin Lucier. The piece is comprised of 88 tape loops (one for each key of a piano), spliced together with multiple non-musical sounds played back on 12 reel to reel machines.

In January of 2021 I spent a wonderful and intense week researching ROZART MIX at John Cage Trust at Bard College. It was the first place I had visited during the pandemic. On October 23, 2021, with the assistance of Rose Actor-Engel, Twig Harper, C. Lavender, Quintron, Robert Turman, and John Wiese, I presented a 6 hour performance of ROZART MIX at John Cage Trust. Six hours of 12 individually amplified reel to reel tape machines, placed around multiple floors of a house, playing 88 tape loops spliced together by 5 to 175 splices, created an overwhelming and joyous environment of cacophonous sound. The performance culminated with John Wiese touching a frog for the first time as the final sound croaked through the speakers. The frog contact was just one of many magical moments that occurred during the preparation and presentation of the piece. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed performing it. Special thanks to Galen Joseph-Hunter of Wave Farm and Laura Kuhn & Emy Martin of John Cage Trust for trusting me with this material.

Artist, producer, composer, and keyboardist John Carroll Kirby presents Blowout, his new album out June 30th with his latest song “Oropendola.” The record is inspired by a period in Costa Rica spent playing with local musicians while Kirby imagined “failed utopias.”

In 2021, Kirby visited Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica to film an episode of his Kirby’s Gold travelogue series with the Kawe Calypso Band. Here, Kirby wrote the majority of Blowout between the early-morning wake-up calls from the local oropendola birds and psychedelic sunsets. Kirby says, “The oropendola is a very cool bird that lives in a sac-like hanging nest. There was a tree full of them outside where I stayed that woke me up every morning at 5 am, so I had to write a song about them.” The album was finished upon Kirby’s return to Los Angeles with a stripped-down band at 64 Sound Studios.

Blowout sways between the title’s two definitions – a moment of destruction and one big party. While writing the album, Kirby thought of episodes of collective madness or delusion, like Fyre Festival and the Heaven’s Gate cult. The album imagines “a festival where everyone gets beamed up to utopia or heaven instead of starving or dying unfulfilled.” Kirby says, “I’m trying to use imagination in music to create my own myths, and keep things playful and funny and not too sanctimonious.”

“Conflict was an album I made during a years long dispute with a loved one. My desired outcome of the argument was that the other person would admit they’re wrong, but upon seeing that wasn’t going to happen, I tried to find a way to exist peacefully in the disagreement. The songs on Conflict try to find the space between right and wrong, winning and losing, etc.

Each song title presents a duality: The pain of a pilgrim’s journey vs. the reward of salvation, the star power of a charming boxer vs. his penchant for violence, the beauty of a battered painting vs. the fight that warped it. The music tries to stay balanced between the two opposites. Each composition starts as a 2 or 4 bar looping piano figure and usually only develops slightly, never changing key or tempo or dynamics. The flute accompaniment improvises on only 3 or 4 possible note choices per song.

This quote by MMA fighter Platinum Mike Perry was often in my head during the recording: ‘Absorb the pain and react smoothly… don’t become distracted by the white noise of possibilities…experience a flow-like state, even an Ultra Instinct.’ Funny enough, there is a bunch of white noise on this record from the DX7 synthesizer and cheap piano mics, but it doesn’t distract from the music.”

Cryptozoo is an animated feature-film drama, written and directed by Dash Shaw, featuring the voices of Lake Bell, Zoe Kazan, Michael Cera and Louisa Krause. The film won the NEXT Innovator Award at Sundance, and premiered internationally at the 2021 Berlinale. It will be released on August 20 in theaters and on demand. This is John Carroll Kirby’s first time bringing his talents as a composer and producer to film scoring. His score resists easy genre classification, melding together sounds from New Age, exotica, library music, and the sweeter side of electronic music, and makes for a perfect match with artist and filmmaker Dash Shaw’s vibrant animated feature.

Dance Ancestral is the latest addition to producer and keyboardist John Carroll Kirby’s fast-growing and distinctive body of work. Dance Ancestral sees the acclaimed solo artist teaming up with Canadian producer Yu Su for an album whose central theme is the “intuitive dance” we perform throughout our lives. More electronically focused than Kirby’s previous albums, the result is a vividly imagined yet eminently listenable instrumental record.

My Garden, a collection of songs written, recorded and produced entirely by Kirby, is a pure distillation of his sound — soulful, spiritual, and evocative. Demonstrating perfectly why Kirby is the go-to collaborator for artists ranging from experimental auteurs Bat for Lashes and Connan Mockasin to pop megastars Harry Styles and Kali Uchis, and R&B innovators Solange and Frank Ocean, My Garden is also a testament to the clarity and singularity of Kirby's vision.

Since his debut in 2018, keyboardist John Carroll Kirby has been consistently churning out masterpieces, and has collaborated with some of the biggest names in music, including Blood Orange, Solange, and The Avalanches. John Carroll Kirby, a keyboardist who has collaborated with superstars such as Blood Orange, Solange, and The Avalanches, is back with his latest live instrumental release on the hallowed Stones Throw label. This is the latest in a long line of live instrumentals from keyboardist John Carroll Kirby, who has broken new ground in his career, moving from fourth-world ambient, meditative new age, and modern classical styles to more exciting soul jazz and hip hop. It's a modern Afro-jazz album that embodies the freedom and dynamism of LA!

A1 Part I - Acknowledgement

A2 Part II - Resolution

B1 Part III - Pursuance

B2 Part IV – Psalm

The John Coltrane Quartet ushered a new jazz sound with their 1961 landmark, which was greeted with critical apathy at the time - judged on the basis of former works with Thelonious Monk & Miles Davis - but has since become appreciated, adored, for steering the big band sound into new terrain, tones, with unusual instrumentation; French horns and euphonium “Africa/Brass, released in 1961, was John Coltrane’s first album for Impulse! Records and a turning point in his recorded output. Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio and produced by Creed Taylor, the project expanded Coltrane’s working quartet into a large ensemble, pairing his searching tenor and soprano saxophone with dense, brass-heavy orchestrations by Cal Massey. Arrangements by Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner helped shape the album’s distinctive sound, weaving tuba, euphonium, French horns, and more into a powerful backdrop for Coltrane’s improvisations. With key contributions from trumpeters Booker Little and Freddie Hubbard, bassist Reggie Workman, drummer Elvin Jones, and others, Africa/Brass reframed the idea of a “big band.” One of the most important early Impulse! releases, Africa/Brass announced Coltrane’s arrival on the “house that Trane built” with radical clarity. Verve Acoustic Sounds Series is remastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl.”

Another one of the albums that Prestige would issue several years after it was recorded, Bahia is drawn from a couple of sessions that the iconic tenor saxophonist recorded for the label in the late 1950s, during a time in which he was exploring different genres with various players, including pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, plus drummers Jimmy Cobb and Art Taylor. The album has plenty of Trane hallmarks in the saxophone lead, and there is noteworthy contribution from trumpeter Wilbur Harden on ‘My Ideal’ and Freddie Hubbard on ‘Something I Dreamed Last Night.’ This is simply a great Coltrane listening experience.

Limited Clear Vinyl edition, 500 copies! Recorded in NYC in 1958 and originally released in 1959 as "The Cecil Taylor Quintet - Hard Driving Jazz" this is in fact the only existing document of the meeting between John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor. Even if caught at an early stage in their career the two masters show great personality and deep respect for each other while trumpeter Kenny Dorham sticks more to his familiar bop idiom. Cordially backed up by Chuck Israel on bass and Louis Hayes, Coltrane swings madly on Taylor's dissonant comping producing a rare, fascinating friction between two worlds. A must for every Coltrane maniac out there.

180-gram vinyl reissue. The epochal album released by Impulse ! in 1966 with a lineup enhanced by the addition of Rashied Ali on second drums and Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax.

A towering figure in jazz history, John Coltrane reshaped the sound of the tenor sax much like Charlie Parker did for bebop—his influence still echoes today. Olé Coltrane, his ninth and final album for Atlantic, was recorded just two days after his first Impulse! session at Rudy Van Gelder’s legendary studio. With his working quintet and guest players from Africa/Brass, including Art Davis and Freddie Hubbard, Coltrane delivered a hypnotic, Spanish-tinged masterpiece that bridged eras and labels, marking the dawn of his most exploratory phase.

In 1958, John Coltrane had yet to take the modal post-bop plunge. He was still a hard bopper, although his "sheets of sound" solos were certainly among the most interesting, creative, and distinctive that bop had to offer in the late '50s. Stardust contains some highlights of two bop-oriented Coltrane dates from 1958: one is a July 11 session with trumpeter/flugelhornist Wilbur Harden, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb; the other is a December 26 session with Garland, Chambers, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, and drummer Art Taylor. At both sessions, Coltrane's playing is quite engaging. He is a lyrical, expressive ballad player on "Then I'll Be Tired of You," "Stardust," and "Time After Time," but he swings fast and aggressively on "Love Thy Neighbor" (the only track on this 39-minute program that isn't a ballad). At both sessions, Coltrane is well served by Garland's piano and Chambers' bass. When Coltrane was playing alongside those jazzmen in Miles Davis' 1955-1957 quintet, he enjoyed a strong rapport with both of them -- and that rapport wasn't any weaker in 1958. It is no coincidence that Prestige's A&R department united Coltrane with Garland and Chambers so often; Prestige knew how compatible all of them were. Although not quite essential, Stardust paints a consistently attractive picture of Coltrane's 1958 output. ~ Alex Henderson

In process of stocking* This release presents one of John Coltrane's last preserved live performances ever. Taped in Philadelphia with excellent sound quality, this set presents Coltrane playing probably the freest version of Naima, along with readings of two more of his compositions: Crescent and a powerful version of Leo. Coltrane died shortly after this performance at the age of 40 on July 11, 1967.

John Duncan's "SAXMIX" is one massive piece of contemporary experimental music, which lets noise collide with free jazz and extreme minimalism. Duncan is a master when it comes to these things, and he is an artists constantly evolving, mutating and challenging. The sax thing then? JD has invited some of his fav sax players to collaborate with him; Mats Gustafsson, Antoine Chessex, Martin Escalante, Dror Feiler and Ulrich Krieger. Did I say MASSIVE? Well, it is.

Scheintot is a new debuting trio consisting of Mats Gustafsson (sax/flute), Henrik Rylander (mixing desk) and myself on Korg MS20 which might be my fav synth ever, or right now at least. This is weird stuff. Not sure where this is going but I guess you will enjoy it if you are into stuff we have done before, but this sits comfortably in its own corner, and we are not smart enough to be ashamed over sounding so infected.

Nice cover by Tochnit Aleph boss Daniel Löwenbrück.

Hot stuff, basically!

Blind Joe Death is the first album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey. There are three different versions of the album, and the original self-released edition of fewer than 100 copies is extremely rare.

180-gram reissue of John Fahey's 1972 major-label debut. "In the liner notes for this wonderful disc, sideman Chris Darrow comments, 'I remember the first time I ever heard him, I thought they'd turned the record from 45 to 33 or something, 'cause I couldn't believe how slow he played.' One of the (many) great beauties in Fahey's approach is just that: he takes his time and savors every last resonance he can wring from his guitar. This 1972 release was his first for a major label (originally on Reprise) after more than a decade of issuing work privately or on small imprints, and also the first instance of Fahey having access to a large ensemble of musicians, including a brass and string section. Still, the extra players don't come close to swamping the session; Fahey is very much in the foreground and a number of the pieces read, essentially, as solo performances. It opens with 'Steamboat Gwine 'Round de Bend,' as gorgeous an example of Fahey's slide guitar work as he ever recorded, languid, soulful, and profound. Similarly, his medley of 'Deep River' and 'Ol' Man River' is steeped in Delta humidity, lazily floating downstream. The tracks with the brass band raise the ghosts of Dixieland, while some of the string accompaniment may recall Van Morrison. In any event, Fahey, major label or not, is simply himself, leisurely rolling along, sharply perceptive in his observations and sumptuously gorgeous in his evocations. A fine effort and certainly something that belongs on the shelves of any fan of the late, very great guitarist." --Brian Olewnick, AllMusic

Recorded circa 1995/96, mostly in John Fahey’s room at a Salem, Oregon boardinghouse, the performances on Proofs and Refutations prefigure the ornery turn of the page that marked Fahey’s final years, drawing another enigmatic rabbit from his seemingly bottomless musical hat, making confoundingly delightful demands upon your listening (and thinking) ears.

Niandra LaDes And Usually Just A T-Shirt is the first solo record by John Frusciante. Between 1990 and 1992 the guitarist made a series of 4-track recordings, which at the time were not intended for commercial release. After leaving the band Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1992, Frusciante was encouraged by friends to release the material that he wrote in his spare time during the Blood Sugar Sex Magik sessions.

Originally released on Rick Rubin's American Recordings label in 1994, Niandra LaDes is a mystifying work of tortured beauty. Frusciante plays various acoustic and electric guitars, experimenting with layers of vocals, piano and reverse tape effects. Channeling the ghosts of Syd Barrett and Skip Spence, his lyrics are at once utterly personal and willfully opaque.

Frusciante's rapidfire, angular playing shows how key he was in the Chili Peppers' evolution away from their funk-rock roots. His cover of "Big Takeover" perfectly deconstructs the Bad Brains original with laid-back tempo, twelve-string guitar and a fierce handle on melody.

The album's second part – thirteen untitled tracks that Frusciante defines as one complete piece, Usually Just A T-Shirt – contains several instrumentals featuring his signature guitar style. Sparse phrasing, delicate counterpoint and ethereal textures recall Neu/Harmonia's Michael Rother or The Durutti Column's Vini Reilly.

On the front cover, Frusciante appears in 1920s drag – a nod to Marcel Duchamp's alter-ego Rrose Sélavy – which comes from Toni Oswald's film Desert in the Shape.

This first-time vinyl release has been carefully remastered and approved by the artist. The double LP set is packaged with gatefold jacket and printed inner sleeves.

London rapper, poet, and producer John Glacier releases his long-awaited debut album, Like A Ribbon, on . The album chronicles Glacier's life from a simple upbringing in Hackney, in the northeast corner of the capital's central London, to growing up at a phenomenal rate, with the lead single, “Found,” a floaty sound with a powerful message of overcoming daily struggles. Participating artists include Kwes Darko, the producer of the film, as well as Flume, Andrew Aged, Eartheater, Sampha, and others, all of whom complement John Glacier's unique musical style. John Glacier's sound, which combines contemporary yet dreamlike electronic tones with subtle beats, has the ability to draw out the listener's emotional depths and draw them in.