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In May 1984 I appeared at a German festival called Pro
Musica Nova, organized by Radio Bremen. I then travelled to
Berlin by car with Rolf Langebertels, the owner of Galerie
Giannozzo who had driven to Bremen to hear me perform. I still
remember very vividly the experience of passing through the
checkpoint to enter West Berlin, a city that floated like an island
in the middle of the still socialist GDR. I had previously visited
Berlin in 1982 to perform at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien at an event
that Rolf had organized. This time too Rolf had organized a
concert for me at the Technische Universitat. Playing off the title
of the piece (“Study Time”) I had performed at Pro Musica
Nova, I titled the piece for this concert “Zeitstudie”.

I owe Rolf a great deal of gratitude, as it was him who
encouraged me by releasing my very first cassette tape,
“Zeitstudie von Akio Suzuki”. In recent years it has become
difficult for me to carry heavy instruments around with me, and
I have started to do simpler performances with objects
assembled on site. So it feels wonderful to have the sound of
the battery of instruments I used back then to be returned to the
light of day.

On “Zeitstudie von A.S.” I used an ANALAPOS, the echo
instrument I invented in 1970, and the Suzuki-type glass
harmonica that I created in 1975. The ANALAPOS resembles the
tin-can telephone that children used to play with: two metal
cans, open at one end and connected by a coil spring. You
play it by stretching out the spring horizonally and then
projecting your voice into the open end of one of the
cylinders. The second piece features a variation, where I
would suspend several ANALAPOS vertically and play them like
a percussion instrument.

The Suzuki-type glass harmonica is in a simpler form than the
pre-existing glass harmonica, and consists of five long glass
tubes of varying diameters suspended horizontally in a metal
frame. As well as rubbing the tubes with wet hands, I developed
my own style of playing it using sticks. Once when I was
practicing with it in the Netherlands, outside the window I was
surprised to hear a bird imitating my sounds. However, later I
discovered that the bird always sang that way, and as a token
of my regret for having ever doubted it, I borrowed the bird’s
Dutch name, De Koolmees, and I s till use it for my instrument.
Recently, as I listened back to the cassette of “Zeitstudie von
A.S.”, one of Hiromi Miyakita’s drawings was lying in front of me.
There was a sympathetic resonance between the sounds and the
drawing, so I decided to use it on the cover. This is a joyful music. 

Atmosphere and gravity lean into each other. They are simultaneously expansive, and anchoring. They hold us, and lend a sense of perspective. They provide a stability and a knowingness which is essential in the absolute, and yet we can't help but find ourselves gazing upward, outward and reaching towards that which sits outside those things and ways we know. Selene is a record about that this lingering desire for that which sits beyond. It is work that seeks new perspectives snatched from familiar vistas, and it meditates on that sense of anchor and perspective. The work is also a speculative hymn to the visions of the celestial zones that spill ever outward. These visions, once merely what we could perceive with the naked eye are now so much more. Our minds eye is fed in equal parts by radio telecopy, filmic dreams and fiction renders of a place most of us will never know first-hand. This recording ties into a linage that reaches back, while stretching forward. It is just one story of so many, told across places, across cultures, across generations. It sits in the in-between of before and after, and in that moment invites us to situate ourselves and lean into it.

Perennially bewildering polymath Akira Rabelais unveils the most impressive durational work of his career thus far with a 4 hour smudge of classical works by the musical zeitgeist of the late 19th and early 20th century Belle Époque. It’s a highly enigmatic erosion x sublimation of the familiar in a way that's by now etched into modern canon thanks to works by The Caretaker, but Rabelais has been weaving his own uncanny shroud of infidelity over our collective memory for over two decades now, with this extended set somehow managing to play like a homage to the mixtape, to the novel, to French pre-war culture and to the modern malaise all at once. Deeply immersive, stunning work that’s essential listening if yr into works by The Caretaker x William Basinski. The focus of the set covers the time period and culture around Proust’s 'À la recherche du temps perdu’ novels, and attempts to unravel his fascination with the illusive qualities of memory - most famously identified in his notion of “Proust’s madelaines”, outlined in the eponymous novels that inspired this release. Taking fifty-one works by Bartók, Bellini, Berg, Brahms, Caccini, Chausson, Chopin, Debussy, Delibes, Donizetti, Franck, Hahn, Jungmann, Lully, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Satie, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Scriabin, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner, and Weber, Rabelais uses his Argeïphontes Lyre software, as well as specially commissioned new recordings (Bartók's String Quartet No. 2 was recorded specifically for this album at half speed with minimal dynamics) to play with our perception of time via a prism of distortions and subliminal refractions. In an attempt to breathe in the same creative air as the French author, Rabelais’ distils the creative potential of sound in relation to our cultural fabric; everyone knows these pieces, despite precious few of us having lived in Paris in the 1920s. They're the background sound and building blocks of our culture, from cinema to advertising, but secreted in the music’s play of decaying reverbs, you get an uneasy sense of some unknown spectre floating thru the mists of time. Stunning, multidimensional work from a master of the artform.

The term cruising refers to the practice of seeking and obtaining instant, no-strings-attached sexual gratification with strangers. Akira Umeda was well-acquainted with this term, but his practice of it was not restricted to the aforementioned context. Rather it extended into all spheres of his life and work. A historian by training, he later became a ceramicist, a photographer, a visual artist, a draftsman, a graphic designer, a DJ, a musician, an audio technician, a writer, a researcher... He made forays into a myriad of artistic and academic fields – with a single intention: to achieve a specific objective and promptly exit stage left, as it were. Restless, and easily bored, Akira moved seamlessly from one activity to another – he was a little bit of everything (and nothing at all). Such people usually go unnoticed and unrecognized, something which Umeda found perfectly acceptable. Nevertheless, unlike most people, he had no right to see himself in this light – in the light of ephemerality and anonymity –, for in everything he tried his hand at, he inevitably left an impressive and distinctive mark. In this album, Akira Umeda mixes 42 recordings, dated between 1988 and 2018, which, in a sense, reflect the incredible range of his creative work: from songs, to ambient music; from field recordings to prank calls. The cassette tapes, whose contents make up this double-LP, had been stored in Umeda’s house in São José dos Campos, in São Paulo, Brazil.

Written and recorded in 1980-83 by (Aksak Maboul & Crammed Discs founder) Marc Hollander and (Honeymoon Killers/Aksak Maboul vocalist) Véronique Vincent, this trailblazing avant-pop album album predated certain hybrid musical trends which may have emerged later on (think pop meets proto-techno, with African, Middle-Eastern, dub, jazz & cinematic French flavours…)

The album remained unfinished and unreleased for 30 years, and finally came out for the first time in Oct 2014.

In the spring of 1977, two young Belgian musicians who call themselves Aksak Maboul (aka Marc Hollander & Vincent Kenis) set out to record an album, "Onze danses pour combattre la migraine", in which they playfully fused and deconstructed all kinds of genres to create their own musical world. Three years later, Hollander founded the Crammed label. Many ingredients came in and out of the Aksak blender : fake jazz, electronics, imaginary African & Balkan music, minimalism... there were even pre-techno aspects such in as Saure Gurke and its characteristic keyboard stab pattern which will mysteriously find its way into many classic Detroit techno tracks some ten years later. Onze Danses became a cult album, and seems retrospectively to have mapped out the way for the various directions which have been explored by Crammed during the next two decades.

Originally released in January 1980, the second album from (Crammed founder) Marc Hollander’s band was more intense and experimental than Aksak Maboul’s debut album, yet often as playful. Containing complex written sections, free improv, and a wild variety of elements, Bandits was recorded with a band comprising revered UK musicians Fred Frith & Chris Cutler, and is described by All Music Guide as “a pinnacle of the RIO movement” (RIO being Rock In Opposition, the late-‘70s radical, pan-European coalition of bands, of which Aksak Maboul was part). The album reached #3 in the NME’s top ten European albums of 1980 (after Yello and The Nits, before Steve Reich and Faust!).

For this reissue, the album was remastered from original analogue tapes, and includes a booklet with abundant liner notes, documents, and recollections by all the participants.

Also included in the LP is a bonus album entitled "Before and After Bandits" (CD+download), containing previously-unreleased live and demo recordings featuring seventeen of the band’s successive members and guests. Over the course of ten tracks and 78 minutes of music, this collection charts the sinuous evolution of the ever-morphing Aksak Maboul sound, from the 1977 debut "Onze danses pour combattre la migraine" through the "Bandits" album, a little-documented avant-No Wave phase in 1980, the atypical, eclectic electropop of "Ex-Futur Album", and until the project’s current live incarnation, which started in 2015 after a hiatus of some 30 years.

According to US writer Mikey IQ Jones (who penned the liner notes):

"Aksak Maboul are a brilliant, covert unit that managed to absorb the operations and thoughtforms of many seemingly oppositional aesthetics, fusing them into a sound that few really managed to extend or even emulate.

Each of Aksak Maboul’s three LPs stands as a sibling to the others, each with very distinct personalities and physical characteristics, yet sharing a very foundational chemical and aesthetic makeup– listening to their entire oeuvre, one recognizes melodies or polyrhythmic patterns from a song on one album subtly integrated into the body of one elsewhere.

The roots of Aksak Maboul’s appeal and longevity lie within the collective’s shapeshifting lineup and their chameleonic aesthetic abilities; the group’s ever-mutating sound is akin to a sonic möbius strip, always digesting and recontextualizing itself, where seams and edges show but continually fold in upon themselves as the madness evolves. The best part? That evolution hasn’t yet ceased."

Indeed… following the acclaimed 2014 release of its long-delayed 3rd opus Ex-Futur Album (assembled from unfinished material dating back to the early '80s, and issued under the name Véronique Vincent & Aksak Maboul), Aksak Maboul has taken to the stage in 2015 with a new line-up, and a fourth album is currently in the works. 

In the wake of their acclaimed comeback album 'Figures' (2020), Aksak Maboul took a playful sideways step to create this total work, a 63-minute, continuous suite of fifteen pieces, which could be described as an experimental audio play.

The thread running through 'Une aventure de VV (Songspiel)' is Véronique Vincent’s text, an enigmatic philosophical-poetical tale unfolding through monologues and dialogues, spoken and sung by a series of characters, played by Alig Fodder, Laetitia Sadier, Audrey & Benjamin from Aquaserge, Don The Tiger, Blaine L. Reininger, and the members of Aksak Maboul’s current live band: Faustine Hollander, Lucien Fraipont & Erik Heestermans.

The music was written & arranged by Marc Hollander and features his characteristic genre-hopping tendencies: strands of electronica, pop, jazz, collage, techno, ambient, improv, krautrock, contemporary classical & systems music are merrily woven together, in the inimitable Aksak Maboul style.

The album’s subtitle, 'Songspiel', highlights its theatrical/musical aspect: the work pays oblique homage to the those experimental radio plays that once emerged from the creative workshops of the BBC, the RTF and the RAI, and especially to those German Hörspiels which, at their best, might combine spoken word, instrumental or electronic music, songs and sonic research.

Une aventure de VV also modestly alludes to certain stage works written by adventurous composers during the first half of the 20th century, which embraced singing, spoken dialogues and elements inspired by popular music. Those composers sometimes invented genre names to describe their pieces: fantaisie lyrique, mimodrama, or... songspiel). 

This would have been the Brazilian post-punk supergroup. It would have, because bassist and singer Sandra Coutinho moved to Germany, leaving these recordings behind – only two songs were released, in an independent compilation (Enquanto Isso).

Sandra (Bass, As Mercenárias) along with Denise Camargo (keyboards and voice, BruhaháBabélico and Dequinha e Zaba), Biba Meira (drums, De Falla) and Karla Xavier (guitar, R. Mutt), expressive musicians in expressive bands, were AKT. And this powerful repertoire, composed and recorded in the short period of the group's existence, recorded and produced by R.H. Jackson (Caracol) the complete session remained unheard until now.

"Minimalism meets rave pentatonics"
★★★★ – The Guardian - Experimental Contemporary Album of the Month

"A fiercely focused electro-acoustic masterclass, full of life-affirming zeal." ★★★★ – MOJO

"Akusmi crafts an often-jubilant, forward-thinking sound from a vocabulary of past futures" – The Quietus

"Delightful pointillist songs from this London artist where sound appears in short tonal bursts to create musical constellations." – New and Notable, Bandcamp

Akusmi is the new project moniker of French-born, London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau, who signs to the new Tonal Union imprint for the release of his album ‘Fleeting Future.’ With its hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences, and in its quest for optimism in the face of unknown and limitless possibility. ‘Fleeting Future’ stands apart as an inventive and inspirational debut.

The creation of the album’s richly colourful and multi-layered sound world was originally inspired by Bideau’s journey to Indonesia, where he immersed himself in traditional Gamelan and gong music. Many of the themes, motifs and melodies on ‘Fleeting Future’ seed from the ‘Slendro’ scale, one of the essential tuning systems used in Gamelan. However it is not musical scales, but scales as in the size or extent of things that most fascinates Bideau, specifically he explains; “the compelling way things dramatically change when you shift from any given scale to another.”

The album connects directly to nature and the wider world in its evocation of perceptive shifts and transitions from microscopic to macro scale, as evidenced by the opening title track ‘Fleeting Future’, on which a simple dotted saxophone line morphs and billows into synths, brass and strings, indicating the musical voyage that lies ahead. Like the start of a journey or adventure it is full of anticipation, its arborescent growth conveying the optimism of the unknown and of limitless possibility. The album centrepiece ‘Neo Tokyo’ is a vibrating, ebullient mass of colliding elements which feels like zooming in to the electron level, as it teeters on the edge of chaos. The title is a reference to Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, a dizzying work of art set in a sprawling futuristic metropolis.

‘Yurikamome’, meanwhile, is an imaginary soundtrack inspired by Bideau’s yearning to visit Japan which he fuels by watching Youtube videos of drives and rides through Japanese landscapes and cities. “It’s amazing” he adds, “that we have the ability to access almost anywhere in the world and see what it’s like, that people document it and upload it. It’s never going to be any replacement for the real thing, but with places that really touch you, it works.” The track is named after a Japanese monorail train line which rides from Shinbashi to Toyosu, a last journey that feels like a new beginning.


‘Fleeting Future’ was composed and recorded by Bideau between 2017 and 2019 in his North London studio and features additional contributions recorded in Berlin by Florian Juncker (trombone), Ruth Velten (saxophone) and regular collaborator Daniel Brandt of Brandt Brauer Frick (drums / electronic percussion). Having been living through uncertain times, one thing that keeps spiralling into the unknown is the future, about which Bideau leaves us with a final thought:

“The future is fascinating: It is constantly readjusting to new events. I feel we left a linear approach to the future to enter an arborescent one where all the data and information we have about what could happen is exponentially ever-growing. Following a branch might allow you to glimpse into what it may become, but the evolution of the whole picture might very well render the prediction totally obsolete, and even meaningless. In that sense, there is not one future but innumerable ones all cancelling each other. That’s what makes it fleeting.”

‘Fleeting Future’ will be the first release on the new London/Berlin based Tonal Union imprint, founded by Art director and curator Adam Heron.

Akusmi — ‘Fleeting Future’ is released on Tonal Union Records on June 24th 

London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Akusmi announces »Lines«, an exhilarating new collection of works born from the desire to take where the acclaimed debut album »Fleeting Future« left off - in search of new forms. Formed with a sense of urgency and a reductive approach »Lines« is almost entirely comprised of alto saxophone, clarinet and piano with embellishments of ambience and minimal percussive elements. Recorded in full at his home studio in London, Pascal Bideau speaks about the process: »I wanted to go a bit more a bit more horizontal and ambient, work with layers of lines, might they be dotted or straight, and leave them to unfold and see where they would take me.« Akusmi uniquely finds the spaces in between experimental jazz, crossover classical and ambient music.

"Tens of millions of people have seen these films. nobody knows who made them. Curled up on our couches in the wee hours of the morning, in reruns, and nostalgic You Tube forwards, filmmaker Al Jarnow has touched our lives and changed the way we look at the world without us ever knowing. Beginning with his work for a certain public television show that featured a big yellow bird, Al Jarnow captured life's scientific minutia and boiled it down for easy consumption between cookie eating monsters and counting vampires. Coupling time-lapse, stop motion, and cell animation with simple objects found in every day life, Jarnow deconstructed the world for an entire generation. From the third floor of his Long Island gingerbread home, his mind wandered beyond the confines of educational programming. Delving into New York's avant-garde film scene alongside Harry Smith, Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, Jarnow created a body of awe-inspiring films that remain in the collections of MOMA and Pompideau Center. Employing the archival skills honed during the excavation of over 40 full-length albums, Celestial Navigations marks The Numero Group's first foray into the world of cinema. The 45 films collected have been transferred and color corrected from the original 16mm prints, along with fully remastered sound. Special features include a 30-minute documentary on Jarnow's creative process, as well as film playlists designed for both children and adults alike. The deluxe package includes a 60-page book loaded to the gills with essays, ephemera, storyboards, photos, and a complete film index, all housed in the iconic Numero slipcase." Region 0; color and B&W; full screen; total running time: 110 minutes. Includes a 60-page full color book.

One of the ‘holy grails’ of 1960s Cuban music was not recorded, produced or released in Havana or New York; in fact it was made in Lima, Peru and sounds like a long lost record by Cachao and Tito Puente if they led an orchestra with Charlie Palmieri on piano and Tito Rodríguez on vocals. Always an extremely rare collector’s item, Gozando!! will now be able to reach a wider vinyl-loving audience with this first-time ever faithfully reproduced reissue.

The third and final part of a trilogy of EPs from Al Wootton of deep, textural, off kilter techno, influenced by the forest. Sparse, rolling, minimal percussive tracks, dubbed out and primed for soundsystems.

Kalita are proud to unveil the Greenville, South Carolina-based Al-Dos Band’s unreleased 1976 gospel soul and disco album ‘Doing Our Thing With Pride’. Featuring one of the most beautiful, sought-after and expensive gospel soul singles in existence (from which the album title takes its name), as well as seven unreleased gospel soul, funk and disco gems such as ‘Confusion’, ‘Look To The Sky’ and ‘Love Jones Coming Down’, Kalita deliver the goods once again. Taken from the original analogue master tapes and released in partnership with band founders Mary and William Robinson. Accompanied by never-before-seen archival photos and extensive interview-based liner notes, this truly is a no-brainer.

Amazingly bare and graceful. Ala.Ni, a former session singer from Grenada who was born in West London and is based in Paris. Reissue. An artist who is positioned between Judy Garland and Julee Cruise, this work is based on the theme of her fateful love. Acoustic minimal soul album with exquisite vocals that can be heard from the other side!

In order to record the compositions in his critically-acclaimed 2022 release GOLD, Alabaster DePlume instilled a culture of creativity by leading his ensembles in spontaneous composition and development. To allow them to be present, he kept the musicians constantly creating across several weeks of sessions at London creative hub Total Refreshment Centre. This process resulted in an abundance of material, much more than he could fit onto the initial double LP. After spending most of 2022 touring in support of GOLD, Alabaster spent much of early 2023 revisiting the additional material from those Total Refreshment Centre sessions – adding, subtracting, producing and arranging – resulting in an entirely new album, Come With Fierce Grace. Come With Fierce Grace is an album made of authentic and unstipulated – yet welcomed – human interaction. It is for the most part an album of instrumentals, with exception of a few vocal features by Momoko Gill (aka MettaShiba), Falle Nioke, and Donna Thompson. However the instrumentals on this album are much more embryonic and unfiltered than the lush orchestrations heard on Alabaster’s breakout 2020 album To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1. Come With Fierce Grace is perhaps the most raw and candid portrait of Alabaster’s creative compositional process we’ve yet to hear, as he’s captured vividly in the room with his collaborators – stretching, exploring, working to deepen and expand the emotions underlying his melodic and poetic frameworks. Regarding the process, Alabaster cites a similarity to how elements in nature contribute to shared work and beauty without a collective motive – a bee’s own motives result in the delivery of pollen. As he says: “The great thing wants to happen, let us allow it to happen.” Regarding the origin of the album’s name: On his first trip to perform in the US in March 2022, Alabaster collected messages from individuals, as he asked them if there is anything they would like him to share with his audiences. One message (from a person who preferred to remain anonymous) asked Alabaster to encourage people to “come with fierce grace.”

First ever reissue of highly sought after french jazz funk fusion nugget from Alain Bellaïche featuring, Jerry Goodman (Mahavishnu Orchestra), John Hicks (Strata-East) & Fabiano (Fabiano Orchestra).
Remastered from the master tapes.
Restored artwork + 12 page booklet.
Licensed from Alain Bellaïche.

A Frenchman who is returning (but who we seem to discover!) from the USA is something unusual. Everything seemed to start out well for Alain Bellaïche: Born in Tunis, childhood in Cannes, studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, his first folk concerts folk in youngsters’ houses and clubs where everyone was well behaved …

Then, in 1973, he left for the States. Bellaïche would settled for around ten years, with, as a soundtrack, the two albums that he would record there. Metropolitain, which was the fruit of his collaboration with the Heldon guitarist Alain Renaud, and Sea Fluorescent. In the catalogue of Asylum, David Geffen’s first label, Bellaïche’s music was listed alongside that of the Byrds, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan.

In a Rock & Folk, interview Bellaïche expressed his regrets as to the prudence of French musicians: “I never had a group… perhaps the guys here are not motivated to play this kind of music”. We should note that the influences of our expatriate were, for example, Led Zeppelin, John McLaughlin, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, The Spencer Davis Group…

Bellaïche, a multi-faceted and iconoclastic musician, composed Sea Fluorescent just following his desires: from a cosmic ballad (St Andrea), to West Coast funk (California), dreamlike Spanish influences (Spanish Roots), optimistic blues (Foolin’ Myself), a solar track (I’m Angry, Sun Blues) … And the Frenchman was in good company: Jean-François Fabiano (from Fabiano Orchestra) on drums and percussions, Jerry Mahavishnu Goodman on violin on Got My Place In That Country, Wornell Jones on bass or John Hicks whose cascades of notes bring Reggae & Western closer to the ‘reassembled’ jazz that the pianist was playing at the time…

When, finally, after the fabulous declinations of the title track of the album, we hear a bonus on which Bellaïche sings in French, it is time for a Chacha émotionnel on which offers this horrible confession: “I’m not from around here, I come from a backward country”. Thanks to Souffle Continu, France is finally catching up.

In 1975, the New York City alto saxophonist Alan Braufman released his debut album, Valley of Search on the India Navigation label. Recorded at the now legendary 501 Canal St. loft, the album was heralded by Village Voice jazz critic Gray Giddins, who wrote, "These are the musicians who are taking the chances today and their gifts and commitment ought to be attended." Braufman went on to record and tour with everyone from Carla Bley to The Psychedelic Furs, and didn't release another album under his name until 2020's The Fire Still Burns. Fire featured Braufman's longtime collaborator, Cooper-Moore, and a then up-and-coming James Brandon Lewis, and received rave reviews from The WIRE, Downbeat, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NPR, and many others. Infinite Love Infinite Tears emerged from Braufman’s near-constant mental soundtrack shortly before convening with his band. Rarely does he sit down at the piano or assemble his horn to compose, instead singing tunes to himself and whatever sticks after a few days ends up in his composition book. The result is a surprisingly catchy program of free jazz. The sounds you hear across his discography are richly detailed and forthright, embodying a range of emotions and circumstances that convey individuality, collectivity and hope. There is much history and love in this band, and in Alan Braufman’s art overall. Fifty-odd years after debuting on record, his sound-world is as vital and inviting as ever.

In 1975, the New York City alto saxophonist Alan Braufman released his debut album, Valley of Search on the India Navigation label. Recorded at the now legendary 501 Canal St. loft, the album was heralded by Village Voice jazz critic Gray Giddins, who wrote, "These are the musicians who are taking the chances today and their gifts and commitment ought to be attended." Braufman went on to record and tour with everyone from Carla Bley to The Psychedelic Furs, and didn't release another album under his name until 2020's The Fire Still Burns. Fire featured Braufman's longtime collaborator, Cooper-Moore, and a then up-and-coming James Brandon Lewis, and received rave reviews from The WIRE, Downbeat, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NPR, and many others. Infinite Love Infinite Tears emerged from Braufman’s near-constant mental soundtrack shortly before convening with his band. Rarely does he sit down at the piano or assemble his horn to compose, instead singing tunes to himself and whatever sticks after a few days ends up in his composition book. The result is a surprisingly catchy program of free jazz. The sounds you hear across his discography are richly detailed and forthright, embodying a range of emotions and circumstances that convey individuality, collectivity and hope. There is much history and love in this band, and in Alan Braufman’s art overall. Fifty-odd years after debuting on record, his sound-world is as vital and inviting as ever.

Psychedelic music all began with the tiniest possible bang: a minuscule pressing of a self-produced LP by Zen Buddhist scholar Alan Watts. In one cosmic flash of inspiration and group improvisation, the next two decades of musical innovation was pre-supposed: psychedelic rock, spiritual jazz, and even new age. As this micro pressing barely made it out of the ashram, it was his writings that actually spread his ideas, usually through osmosis: he was profoundly influential on the beat poets and the subsequent counter-culture. He became the forebear of '60s counter-culture's spirituality, much as William Burroughs was the forebear of its hedonism. Released in 1962, This Is It is an imaginative cacophony of percussion, non-verbal chanting, and free-flowing expression, punctuated occasionally by leisurely passes at a terrestrial piano, marimba, or french horn. It is at once, experimental, intellectual, and experiential. Three years before Ken Kesey's inaugural Acid Test, This Is It! constitutes the first transmission for a tuned-in counterculture of hippies, beats, and psychedelic revolutionaries of all stripes.

1967年から69年にかけて、アヴァンギャルド・ジャズの革新者Albert Aylerは名門〈Impulse! Records〉に一連のアルバムを録音。1967年にリリースされたこのアルバム『In Greenwich Village』は、アイラーにとって同レーベルからの最初のLPとなった作品であり、間違いなくこのレーベルでのベスト盤と言える内容に仕上げられています。

180g heavy vinyl. The voice of a soul that has gone through loneliness and despair. A masterpiece recorded in 1967, representing the free jazz of Impulse.

This is an official release presented as a five-LP Box-Set Record Store Day exclusive by Elemental Music Records in partnership with the Albert Ayler Estate & INA France. Deluxe limited-edition of 180g hand-numbered 5 LP-set mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, directly from the original ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française) stereo tape reels, including over 2 hours of previously unreleased music. Includes a 16-page insert for the 5-LP set and a massive 100-page booklet for the 4-CD edition with previously unpublished photos from the actual concerts; essays by jazz historian/radio host Ben Young, co-producers Zev Feldman and Jeffrey Lederer, and Pascal Rozat from Ina; plus words by Sonny Rollins, Archie Shepp, David Murray, Carlos Santana, Joe Lovano, Carla Bley, John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Reggie Workman, James Brandon Lewis, Patty Waters, Carla Bley, Annette Peacock, Marc Ribot, Thurston Moore and Zoh Amba.