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From beginning to end, sometimes chanting Hindu mantras, attack with heavy percussion frenzy Indian funk with a mix of Western, Latin and Arabic music. According to the credit notation, there are a total of 16 musicians. Western electric instruments such as electric guitars and electric basses, Indian percussion instruments, whistle, organ, electronic musical instruments like Moog (!), Men's and women's chorus and yelling, the song bursts with high tension. Trips to Kathmanz, Calcutta hymns, let's go dancing with me, etc. are included in the songs, and all songs are short, thick and thick like Ramones. The more I listen to it, the more my head feels numb, but I don't know what I played for. The youthfulness of Indian people, all eight songs recorded in 1978! !!

- An electrifying, previously unreleased studio album from the late South African genius of jazz, recorded in 2003 
- The first new material by the artist to have emerged in nearly two decades 
- Liner notes by Blue Note recording artist Nduduzo Makhathini, and by music educator and poet Eugene Skeef, producer of the original session 
- Photographs by Siphiwe Mhlambi, Rashid Lombard and Cedric Nunn 
- Fully licensed, 180g 3-sided double-vinyl edition of 500 copies, presented as the first release on Tapestry Works, plus digital release 

‘A divine summary of his life story’ – Nduduzo Makhathini 

Self-taught multi-instrumentalist and composer Bhekumuzi Hyacinth Mseleku (1955-2008), known as Bheki Mseleku, is widely considered to have been the most richly gifted South African jazz musician of his generation. Born in Durban, he moved to Johannesburg in the mid-1970s and played with groups including Spirits Rejoice, The Drive and Philip Tabane’s Malombo. In 1980, he left apartheid South Africa for exile in Europe, travelling with his close friend Eugene Skeef. (A percussionist, educator, poet and former close comrade of Steve Biko, Skeef originally produced the Beyond The Stars session, and contributes liner notes to this release.) 

Bheki spent six difficult years in Stockholm before moving to London. After a triumphant debut at Ronnie Scott’s, in 1992 he would release his now classic debut album Celebration for World Circuit, before signing with Verve. He would go on to achieve worldwide recognition, recording and touring with jazz luminaries including Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson and Abbey Lincoln. 

Throughout his life, Bheki struggled with both his physical and mental health. He was, as Eugene Skeef puts it, ‘a conduit for the healing energy of music to flow into the world’, a gift that came at a cost. At the start of the new century, Bheki returned to live in South Africa, but just a few years later he found himself in compound difficulties: life at home had proved too hard, and he was not well. He had also lost his imported Steinway upright piano in an unwise business deal and had not been able to play. In 2003, Skeef helped him return to London, where they hoped to realign his health and rekindle his career. Through his work with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Skeef arranged for Bheki to have access to the Steinway concert grand pianos held at Henry Wood Hall. After Bheki had spent a few weeks recuperating, Skeef booked a studio session at Gateway Studios. 

Beyond The Stars was the result: a stunning, solo piano suite which condenses Mseleku’s visionary overstanding of South African music into a flowing, pulsing statement in six parts. With jazzwise echoes of marabi, amahubo, maskanda and Nguni song forms binding it to the deep music of Mseleku’s Zulu heritage, Beyond The Stars provides what Blue Note recording artist Nduduzo Makhathini describes in his liner notes as ‘a divine summary’ of Bheki’s life story: ‘a sonic pilgrimage from the beautiful and organic landscapes of Durban, to the vibrant energy of London and ultimately toward the inner dimensions of one’s being.’ 

But releasing the album proved impossible at the time, and so the session has remained unheard. Bheki sadly passed on in 2008, without having released a new album for five years; almost two decades have now passed since any new music by him has emerged. Working with Eugene Skeef, Tapestry Works is proud to break the silence with a first issue for Bheki Mseleku’s visionary masterpiece, Beyond The Stars.

Exemplum Rhythmicus is Bi Nostalgia’s minimal wonder from 1990 (originally released under the artist’s name Luca Rigato on the Veronese cassette label Diagrapho).

Long coveted and hunted by collectors, it falls among the strange and definition resistant artefacts of Italy’s remarkable avant-garde music scene of the 1980s. An emblem of sonic diversity rendered through electronic sound, distilling a daunting number of traditions and ideas, while sculpting its own world of creative singularity, standing apart from the rest.

While a great many of Italy’s avant-garde and experimental music practitioners began within the spectrums of popular music, slowly pushing into more explicitly ambitious and challenging realms as the years wore on, Bi Nostalgia represented a change in the directional tide.

Exemplum Rhythmicus was part of a movement towards the incorporation of popular forms within avant-garde music which swept across the globe during the 1980’s.

As challenging and complex as it is seductive and inviting, Exemplum Rhythmicus weaves a world without boundary, of collision and harmony. A vision of possible futures rendered in its present day. A melodic realm almost entirely constructed through the use of synthesizer, with subtle interventions of electronic rhythm, piano and bells.

Exemplum bridges the metronomic territories explored by American minimalists and the highly cultivated harmonics of Balinese percussion, with the adventurous spirit of the avant-garde.

Available for the first time on vinyl and produced in cooperation with Luca Rigato for chOOn!!, a label specialising in obscure, archival and forgotten releases.

Remastered for vinyl and digital by Josh Bonati with artwork by Luke Bird and liner notes by the artist.

The full digital release is accompanied by two bonus tracks - radio edits, mastered and mixed by Bi Nostalgia (in Verona, Italy, August 2020). 

Delphine Dora is a prolific composer, improviser and musician who has released on a plethora of labels including Recital, Morc, Sloow Tapes, Feeding Tube, Okraïna and more, and ‘Le Grand Passage’ is her Modern Love debut, a stunning set of songs for piano and voice, recorded in one take without overdubs or edits. We don’t think theres much, if anything, quite like it, but if you’ve been snagged by transcendent, advanced and amateur music by Andrew Chalk, Virginia Astley, Dominique Lawalrée, or Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, we think this one might just be for you. In an act of pure expression, Delphine Dora recorded the 8 songs of ‘The Great Passage’ in a single take, succumbing to a whirlwind of inspiration that transported her beyond the material world. Baroque paradigms bleed into fragile, introspective mantras, expressed through a made up language of existential yearning and channeled through piano and voice. It’s music that caresses the sublime, made without any premeditation. Delphine was nearing the end of a three-day prepared piano residency when an technician stepped in to tune her grand piano for her final performance. He removed the objects from the strings and fixed the pitch, leaving Dora with a freshly tuned instrument. Mesmerised by its new sound, she proceeded to switch on her recorder and pour out her soul, channeling, in her own words, "something greater than myself". The result is some of the most unusual but elevated material the prolific composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist has ever recorded, rooted in a deep understanding of European musical history but willing to push at its boundaries, questioning the earthly logic of life and death, asceticism and impiety. Glistening imperfections lash 'The Great Passage' to the physical world, but Dora - seemingly possessed as she quivers in a fictional dialect - lets her fantasies intensify her spirit, lifting the music towards the heavens. It's not sacred music, per se, but it is unashamedly mystical. On the luxurious, languid opening, Dora dissolves eerily familiar romantic piano motifs into an attentive ceremony, singing with charged emotion. Her words aren't really decipherable, but their resonance vibrates beyond language; it's striking to hear how confident she is in vulnerability. She lets the piano wrap into her voice, connecting us directly to a unique mode of emotional expression by urging us - the listener - to project our own meaning onto her abstracted words. Dora refers to the act of improvisation itself as a way to indicate "the fragility of being”, and as her words blur in and out of focus, dipping from a hoarse croak to a choking wail, she places herself at the very edge of musical formality, questioning strictures put in place to suffocate self-expression. Her music has often been labeled "outsider", but here she sounds intimate and interconnected, more self-consciously candid than anything traditional might have allowed. She conjures affecting, plainspoken poetry, like a bedside diary written in a hypnagogic, delirious state: a stream-of-unconsciousness, channelling the beyond. The album title connects to a book dedicated to French philosopher and activist Simone Weil, who famously pored over global religions to ascertain spiritual truths. To Weil, meditation was a passage to access mystical experience, or a bridge between humanity and divinity. In Dora's hands, this idea is a corridor between herself and the listener, a liminal place where she's able to address feelings without making anything explicit. The title, of course, also refers to life, its impermanence, finitude, and fragility, presenting the complex, multi-dimensionality of being through one of the most undiluted, unbridled set of songs imaginable.

Originally released in 2017, PHANTOM BRICKWORKS is an ongoing ambient/drone project by Stephen James Wilkinson a.k.a. Bibio. The work explores the human echoes still present in various sites around Britain. Wilkinson has visited these locations, observed their gradual decline, and responded with improvised and composed music. New in 2024, a sequel titled PHANTOM BRICKWORKS (LP II) is a 10-track LP, mastered by Guy Davie and vinyl cut by Hendrik Pauler. The new record draws attention to new sites - some are intriguing, vast scars on the natural landscape, others survive only in local memories, historic clips and photographs. A few remain submerged from ordinary sights, while some exist purely as legends and stories.

The legendary first full-length album "Atomizer" is being reissued on vinyl! It is a monumental work that is as popular as the second album, and is still loved by many listeners as a holy book of noise rock and post-hardcore.

Big Black was started by Steve Albini in 1982 while he was attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Lungs, the first Big Black release was recorded by Steve on a borrowed 4-track. He played everything on the EP himself - except the sax bleating courtesy of pal John Bohnen and the drums courtesy of Roland. Soon after, Steve recruited Jeff Pezzati (Naked Raygun) on bass, and Santiago Durango (also Naked Raygun) joined them on guitar. In 1983, together with live drummer Pat Byrne, they recorded the Bulldozer EP. By 1984, the band had done some touring and recorded the Racer X EP and the start of the Il Duce 7". After that, Jeff returned to Naked Raygun and was replaced by Dave Riley. In 1985, Big Black recorded their first full-length, Atomizer, as well as finishing the Il Duce 7". Atomizer was released in 1986 along with the release of the Hammer Party compilation CD. In 1987, the Headache EP and Heartbeat 7" were released. That same year, the band recorded and released the 7" of The Model/He's A Whore as well as their second full-length album, Songs About Fucking. They toured extensively (for Big Black). And they broke up.

The Vulgarity Of Snow is Ottomani’s woozy, lilting soundwalk through techno, experimental electronics and scorched earth acid. The untitled tracks are less like distinct entities and give way to a larger, conjoined pair of triptychs spread out over two sides of wax. They feel like a paean to the format, which no doubt comes from Ottomani’s time spent working at one of London’s most revered record shops. As a longer, more probing piece, it’s anathema to talk about The Vulgarity Of Snow in terms of bpms and sub-genres, and arguably it owes as much to free jazz and psych-rock as it does to more leaden styles such as dub and roots. At times it pays tribute to the work of acts like Basic Channel and Random Trio, deploying dub electronics in novel ways, but it is also broader in its choice of sounds. On B2, for example, Mino Carbone, the artist’s uncle and an Italian anarchist from the same lineage as artists like Dario Fo, plays a song from that tradition. It’s not a chaotic piece, but it’s not heavily constrained.

The recording date of this solo outing by pianist Bill Evans has been listed as both September 1968 and December 1969; the latter seems the more logical entry. This is Evans' final Verve album. He plays five long solos (including a fourteen-and-a-half -minute exploration of "Never Let Me Go"). The repertoire includes "Here's That Rainy Day," "A Time for Love," "Midnight Mood," and "On a Clear Day." This set is recommended to Bill Evans completists who already have many of his other recordings.

180g heavy vinyl. Recorded in 1958, exactly one year before the legendary 'Portrait in Jazz' album, this is Bill Evans' second album as a leader. With Sam Jones on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, the cover features endorsements and signatures from Miles Davis, George Shearing, Ahmad Jamal, and "Cannonball" Adderley, four of the biggest jazz players of all time. Peace Piece', which is described as "quieter than silence", is Evans' quintessential masterpiece, expressing deep lyricism and life in a beautiful silence.

This masterpiece album, featuring a live performance by jazz pianist legend Bill Evans, bassist Eddie Gómez, and drummer Marty Morell at the former Tokyo Postal Savings Hall in Tokyo on January 20, 1973, has been reissued on vinyl. This is his first recording on the Fantasy label. It includes a variety of songs, from quirky tunes to overlooked classics and familiar standards, but it is a unique album with only one of Evans' own songs, "T.T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune Two)."

180g vinyl. Recorded live at the Village Vanguard, this set rounded out what became known as an early "full" portrait of Bill Evans by following Sunday at the Village Vanguard with most of the rest of the music he played on June 25, 1961. Very little in the annals of piano-trio jazz ever reached the clarity of execution that Evans made his own with the recordings from this single date. With bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, Evans reached a rapport that sounded whisper-intimate, rolling into gentle cascades and then rhythmically pouncing juts. On the keys, Evans sounds at once completely walled-off and nakedly open as he takes on "My Foolish Heart" and the title melody. The chords are voiced ever so oddly, as are the bass and drums. Coming as it did several months in the wake of the successful first episode in Evans's Vanguard, Waltz for Debby just made it all the more obvious what a wonder the world had in this trio and its leader. --Andrew Bartlett

Bill Fay is one of English music’s best kept secrets. At the dawn of the 1970s, he was a one-man song factory, with a piano that spilled liquid gold and a voice every bit the equal of Ray Davies, John Lennon, early Bowie, or Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker. He made two solo albums but his contract wasn’t renewed, which left his LPs and his reputation to become cult items. But he never stopped writing, the music kept on coming. Now, in his late sixties, he has produced Life Is People, a brand new studio album that shows his profoundly humanist vision is as strong as it ever was.

Scheduled to arrive in late February, reservations are being accepted. The editorial board released on CD from in 2010 by British singer-songwriter Bill Fay has been re-released in analog form from . He left two great works on Deram, 1970's Bill Fay and 1971's Time Of The Last Persecution, but little was known at the time. In the 1990s, his work gained cult popularity, and when it was reissued in 2005, his secular folk and pop hymns gained new fans and his career began. Re-evaluated. This work is a collection of 1970s demos and home recordings released in 2010. In addition to these songs, this reissue includes rework by contemporary artists who were heavily influenced by Bill Fay's music such as Kevin Morby, Mary Lattimore, Julia Jacklin, and Steve Gunn.

Bill Fay has always sung about attempting to understand the most universal questions: those of nature, spirituality, humanity. His songs are “calming hymns for another chaotic time”, he says. His influence can be traced through many artist’s work, and so it only seemed right to celebrate this with a collection of newer voices interpreting his timeless tracks. Originally released in 2010 by David Tibet (Current 93), Still Some Light was released as a double CD, made up of 70’s album demos (Disc One) and 2009 home recordings (Disc Two). This year, for the first time, this collection of recordings will be pressed to vinyl and released digitally, presented alongside contemporary reimaginings of the tracks by Kevin Morby, Steve Gunn, Julia Jacklin and Mary Lattimore. Bill Fay’s words and melodies remain unaffected by the passing of time and changing trends; and here alongside the original recordings, these reinvented versions still calmly guide us through another moment of chaos.

The temptation to mythologize Bill Fay can be overwhelming; Fay was, for decades, as prolific as he was under-appreciated. Fay’s unsung-hero status has changed slowly, steadily, on the order of almost twenty-five years. With each new album comes new hosannas and evangelizers — Jeff Tweedy, Kevin Morby, Adam Granduciel and Julia Jacklin, to name just a few. The Bill Fay Group, in particular, is Fay’s most significant collaborative work; he records as a member of a larger group here, and the result summons a grander sonic scale, an elegant counterweight to Fay’s instincts for the understated. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow brings to bear the galactic qualities of early rock, the intricacy of jazz improv, and Fay’s earthy folk magic. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow has a patchy release history: recorded between 1978 and 1981, it was not released until 2005, when it appeared on CD with limited streaming and no vinyl companion. A 2006 reissue brought the album onto vinyl but with a truncated sequence and nine songs missing. Now, finally, Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow arrives in full worldwide. Available on streaming services worldwide and pressed to a double-album vinyl edition, it features the album’s original 22 songs and includes rare and previously unseen photographs from Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow’s original recording session. In the words of Gary Smith and Rauf Galip, missing Bill Stratton, and abbreviated from the forthcoming album notes: We chose five songs to record as finished pieces: Life, Spiritual Mansions, Cosmic Boxer, Strange Stairway, Isles of Sleep, all recorded in two studio sessions. We sent them out to try and get a record deal. There were few really independent labels back then and Punk was in the record labels’ ears. No deal. And now, Dead Oceans who have a lot of faith in Bill’s music wants to re- release the ‘Tomorrow’ album. A double vinyl package. Is there any more unreleased music for the fourth side? Of course. So, we’ve been opening old boxes, finding CDRs, cassettes, a musical archaeological dig. This is our choice from all the music we found. Fly Like a Bird.

Billie Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall performance, which has been called the best of Billie Holiday's later years, is reprinted on 180g heavyweight vinyl!
A live album containing the 1956 Carnegie Hall performance, which is often called the best of Billie Holiday's later years. The gig was held to promote Billy's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, interspersed with readings by Gilbert Milstein. The original was released in 1961, about two years after Billy died on July 17, 1959 at the age of 44.

The tragic tale of Billie Holiday involves a fractured childhood, a seemingly endless series of abusive men, and addictions to heroin and alcohol, all played out in the public eye after targeting by the FBI. Nevertheless, her huskily expressive voice is timeless and the way she brought blues phrasing into jazz was hugely influential. The 1956 release Lady Sings The Blues took its name from her shocking autobiography and the disc finds her on fine form throughout, the landmarks including the immortal "Strange Fruit," the defiant "God Bless The Child," the mournful "No Good Man" and the great title track. Classic Lady Day all the way!

Billy Bultheel's debut solo album is an ambitious distillation of the composer's,' sprawling litany of influences and his unique approach to site-specific composition. A compilation of pieces created between 2016 and 2023, the album is a forceful testament to Bultheel's expansive performance practice and collaborations with cutting-edge visual artists like Anne Imhof and James Richards. Drawing inspiration from industrial music and metal as well as medieval and baroque polyphony, Bultheel devised a way to present this collection of works side-by-side. The record is split into two distinct cycles: the Snow Cycle, which collects Bultheel's electro-acoustic and compositional work, and the Game Cycle, which assembles his electronic productions. These two suites have unmistakable symmetry; Bultheel's traditional compositions are bolstered by his understanding of electronic production, while his electronic pieces are moulded by his knowledge of classical and traditional music. "Two Cycles" is an album that exhibits duality, embodying the dichotomy of Bultheel's roles as both an ensemble composer and an electronic producer. While 'Two Cycles' is his inaugural solo endeavor, it's not Bultheel's first foray into PAN’s extended universe. Since 2012, he has been an active collaborator alongside the German visual artist and choreographer Anne Imhof and US artist Eliza Douglas. Notably, their creative synergy bore fruit in the form of 'FAUST' in 2019 and 'SEX' in 2021, both of which were released on PAN. Last year, Bultheel joined forces with Alexander Iezzi, operating under the moniker '33,' where they skillfully amalgamated club music with the raw authenticity of DIY punk and the intricate charm of baroque harmonies on the C.A.N.V.A.S.-released album ’33-69’. However, Bultheel's true artistic sanctuary resides within the realm of live performance. From a very young age, he harbored an ardent desire to fuse the timeless elegance of renaissance music with the avant-garde allure of distorted electronics. His quest was further guided by a deep reverence for the ritualistic aspects of communal experiences. Inspired by pioneering composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis, and baroque masters like Claudio Monteverdi, Bultheel has undertaken a relentless mission to deconstruct the traditional confines of the concert hall and explore new territories for musical experiences. In doing so, he orchestrates performances in unconventional settings, compelling both musicians and spectators to approach his music as a geographic composition. The haunting opening track of the 'Snow Cycle', 'The Arcades Project', — named after the unfinished compendium of architectural contemplations penned by the eminent German philosopher, Walter Benjamin - places four tubas in strategic towers surrounding the audience, creating an immersive auditory experience. Conversely, 'The Snows of Venice' — named after Alexander Kluge and Ben Lerner collection of short stories and poems — was conceived for two flautists directed to intertwine their melodies as they traversed through knee-high water. The 'Game Cycle' meanwhile places a strong emphasis on rhythm, crafting a sonic landscape that resonates with overdriven metallic clanks and sharp stabs. Drawing upon his extensive experience in composing for choreography, Bultheel envisions a series of jittery dances that purposefully deviate from conventional timelines. 'Decreation' infuses techno with the visceral qualities of noise music and 'Game Theory' offers an unsettling skeletal barrage of saturated, precisely tuned percussive hits. Bultheel brings 'Two Cycles' to a close with 'Gigue,' a reference to the 6/8 baroque court dance that traditionally marked the conclusion of a dance suite; by merging marching rhythms performed by two percussionists on a single drum set with chaotic and evocative synth leads, he establishes a tantalizing counterpoint. 'Two Cycles' is a musical compilation that explores the themes of locale and landscape, elucidating the intricate dynamics that arise between the musicians and their audience, the ears and the architecture. Considering timbre, density and the psycho-acoustic qualities of communal spaces, from the warehouse to the cathedral, Bultheel draws indelible lines between seemingly distant concepts, merging the celestial with the terrestrial. The double album cover, one for each side and cycle on the record, features a collage created by the Welsh video artist James Richards that merges medieval iconography with snippets of queer memorabilia.

The out-of-this-world recordings of Dilson de Souza, leading a kind of tropical chamber jazz on leaves from a ficus tree. Dilson was from Barra do Pirai, in the Brazilian countryside; moving to Rio as a young man, where he worked in construction. He recorded his first record in 1954, for RCA Victor. He travelled to Quito around 1957, soon hooking up with Benitez & Valencia, who introduced him to the CAIFE label. Dilson played the leaf open, resting on his tongue, hands free, with his mouth as the resonator. Though a leaf can also be played rolled or folded in half, this method allowed for more precision, a tethered brilliance. A picked ficus leaf stays fresh, crisp and clean-toned for around ten hours. He could play eight compositions, four at each end, before it was spent. Biluka plays trills and vibratos effortlessly, with utterly pure pitch, acrobatically sliding into notes and changing tone on the fly. In Manuco, he leads Los Caníbales into a mysterious landscape on a rope pulled from an Andean spaghetti western, and corrals and teases them into a dialogue. A leaf, a harp, a xylophone, and a rondador — joined in Bailando Me Despido (Dancing As I Say Goodbye) by a saucy organ, doing sloshed call-and-response. In Anacu de Mi Guambra, Biluka shows his full range of antics, hiccuping melodically over a set of magic tricks. His expressiveness was boundless. The eucalyptus leaf is popular among Aboriginal Australians. In China, they’ve played leaves for 10,000 years. In Cambodia, people play the slek, a leaf plucked from either the sakrom or the khnoung tree. But ain’t nobody like Biluka, ever. Astounding music.

Substrata was the third studio album by the Norwegian electronic artist Biosphere, released 25 years ago by All Saints Records in London. In 2016, Pitchfork ranked it at number 38 on its list of the 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time. Here are ten alternative versions picked from the Substrata recordings sessions that took place between 1995 and 1996. David Stubbs´review of the original album in Melody Maker ,July 12th 1997: Biosphere, aka Norwegian Geir Jenssen, is transmitting from a cold, polar outpost of the imagination. "Substrata" is the best ambient album I've heard in an ice age, an album of terrifying, desolate and all-enveloping beauty, the music of a man who's stared too long and too hard at the Northern lights, a music of distant rumbles, tremors underfoot, stray radio signals, yawning chasms and indistinct, grainy images in the half-light when the mind begins to play tricks. "Poa Alpina" reminds me of recent, frightening TV footage of vast chunks of iceberg cracking and falling away into the sea under the duress of global warming. As for "The Things I Tell You", imagine what Oasis would have sounded like had they been born Eskimos. "Sphere Of No Form" is shot through with a frantic peal like the Mayday song of the world's last whale and, best of all, "Kobresia" looms with a vast, mournful, symphonic motif, like the ghost of the Titanic. Chill out has never been this chilling.

Substrata was the third studio album by the Norwegian electronic artist Biosphere, released 25 years ago by All Saints Records in London. In 2016, Pitchfork ranked it at number 38 on its list of the 50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time. Here are ten alternative versions picked from the Substrata recordings sessions that took place between 1995 and 1996. David Stubbs´review of the original album in Melody Maker ,July 12th 1997: Biosphere, aka Norwegian Geir Jenssen, is transmitting from a cold, polar outpost of the imagination. "Substrata" is the best ambient album I've heard in an ice age, an album of terrifying, desolate and all-enveloping beauty, the music of a man who's stared too long and too hard at the Northern lights, a music of distant rumbles, tremors underfoot, stray radio signals, yawning chasms and indistinct, grainy images in the half-light when the mind begins to play tricks. "Poa Alpina" reminds me of recent, frightening TV footage of vast chunks of iceberg cracking and falling away into the sea under the duress of global warming. As for "The Things I Tell You", imagine what Oasis would have sounded like had they been born Eskimos. "Sphere Of No Form" is shot through with a frantic peal like the Mayday song of the world's last whale and, best of all, "Kobresia" looms with a vast, mournful, symphonic motif, like the ghost of the Titanic. Chill out has never been this chilling.

Unbound opens with a single, trembling chord that rises and descends before meeting a warm, beguiling voice, a voice singing in a tradition that’s been heard in this northern river country for millennia. The music that follows is a soulful dialogue between the ancient tradition of powwow singing and a contemporary musical palette. On Unbound, the powwow style of singing is entwined with synthesized voice modulation, and hand drumming is accented with electronic samples and beats — the harmonies and resonances are equal parts cultural and musical. Geographically, Bizhiki is almost wholly a made-in-Wisconsin project, a collaboration between Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings, Joe Rainey and the multi-instrumentalist Sean Carey (S. Carey), who for years has been a secret weapon within the Bon Iver family. Bezhikiins Jennings grew up singing within the powwow tradition, around the Lac Du Flambeau and Lac Courte Oreilles reservations in Central Wisconsin. He now makes his home in Northern Wisconsin, on the Bad River reservation on the shores of Lake Superior. He’s joined on the album by his adopted brother, Rainey, a Red Lake Ojibwe powwow singer from Minneapolis who now makes his home within his wife’s Oneida Nation on the shores of Lake Michigan. The collaboration between these three musicians first began at the Eaux Claires festival in 2015. The festival was being organized on Ojibwe’s ancestral homelands, and the organizers didn’t feel right without the inclusion of the native communities who lived nearby. Bizhikiins Jennings remembers getting an invitation to play the festival and thinking “I wish more people would say this — that instead of reading from some land acknowledgement, that they would say ‘we're gonna give your people space and just invite you to do what you wanna do.’” The open-endedness of the initial invitation and the “let’s just do something together” spirit continues to inform Bizhiki’s process. Recording steadily over the course of years — and between several projects from Bizhiki’s members, including two solo albums (Joe Rainey's Niineta and S. Carey's Break Me Open) – the trio chipped away at an expansive, ambitious and unique record that sounds like no other music being made today. Unbound is a collaboration between a group of singers and musicians at a particular time and place, exchanging ideas in an open-ended dialogue deeply considering the resources that we’re trying to share, generations into the future.

For the second volume of Reflections, Black Decelerant, the duo of Khari Lucas, aka Contour, and Omari Jazz, explore improvisational jazz traditions through contemporary tone and texture, fostering sonic meditations on themes of Black being and nonbeing, life and mourning, expansion and limitation, and the individual and collective. The Black Decelerant collaboration, and intention, creates space for listeners to be still, while providing a basis for a movement beyond “the moment.”