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Brazilian avant-jazz vanguardists Grupo Um celebrate their 50th anniversary, sharing a second previously lost 1970s album from the vaults. Nineteen Seventy Seven (titled after the year it was recorded) is another rip-roaring instrumental fusion treasure from the band which spawned from within Hermeto Pascoal’s famed mid-1970s São Paulo collective.
Like their debut album Starting Point, Grupo Um’s Nineteen Seventy Seven was recorded when Brazil's military dictatorship was at its most repressive. “There were no open doors to those who dreamt to be protagonists in creative instrumental music”, remembers drummer Zé Eduardo Nazario, “even popular composers and singers had to submit their songs to censors and many records were banned and confiscated from the stores.”
Just like Hermeto Pascoal's Viajando Com O Som (1977) and Grupo Um's previous album Starting Point (1975), both of which remained unreleased until the 21st century, Zé Eduardo asserts that the 1977 album was flatly 'without any chance to be released at that time."
Recorded at Rogério Duprat’s Vice-Versa Studios in São Paulo, the group were under both time and space restraints, “we chose the small Studio B,” Lelo Nazario recalls, “which had a Tascam (TE AC) 12x8 console and a 4-channel AMPEX AG 440 machine. Therefore, we had to record without overdubs, everything straight to tape.”
Expanding from a trio to a quintet, original Grupo Um members Lelo Nazario (keys), Zé Eduardo Nazario (drums), and Zeca Assumpção (bass) were joined by saxophonist Roberto Sion and percussionist Carlinhos Gonçalves. Carlinhos, Zé and Zeca had already played together in the group Mandala, while brothers Lelo and Zé had just finished a stint backing Hermeto Pascoal during his years in São Paulo.
Lelo was deeply immersed in modular synthesizer experimentation during this period, working extensively with the ARP2600 and EMS Synthi AKS. These electroacoustic explorations formed the sonic foundation for "Mobile/Stabile," one of his first compositions to merge modular synthesis with Brazilian music, a fusion that would ripple throughout the Brazilian jazz scene. The piece premiered at the first São Paulo International Jazz Festival in 1978, performed by Grupo Um with guest trumpeter Márcio Montarroyos. In a shocking moment, festival organizers interrupted the show mid-performance, sparking fierce backlash from both audience members and journalists who denounced the incident as artistic censorship during Brazil's era of political and cultural repression. The version on Nineteen Seventy Seven is the first recording of the composition.
Nineteen Seventy Seven combines Afro-Brazilian rhythm, modular synthesis and a plethora of whistles, percussion and effects pedals. Album opener “Absurdo Mudo” - so titled for the absurd difficulty it poses to the musicians performing it - starts out in a cloud of mysterious dissonance, before the haze breaks for a glorious keyboard and saxophone interplay atop an uptempo samba groove. “Cortejo dos Reis Negros (Version 2)” (Procession of the Black Kings), based on the maracatu rhythm, inverts the traditional jazz song structure by beginning with improvisations, which are followed by the theme and a final coda. “The studio also had two Parasound electronic reverb units,” Lelo notes, “and the timbre is very audible on the soprano sax and percussion.”
Grupo Um’s daring music represents a manifesto of resistance during the dictatorship years, but it’s one which remains just as relevant today. As Lelo puts it: “For me, the aesthetic issue has always been about combining contemporary avant-garde languages with Brazilian music, independent of categories and commercial interests. The result of this fusion takes music to a new level.”
Nineteen Seventy Seven will be released for the first time on vinyl LP, CD and digitally on 23rd January 2026 via Far Out Recordings.
In the pantheon of classic free jazz, Noah Howard's The Black Ark looms large. Recorded at Bell Sound Studios in New York City in 1969 - just prior to the alto saxophonist's relocation to Europe - the album was eventually released in 1972 on Alan Bates's Freedom label, and has since acquired near-mythical status among collectors and devotees of the music. Now, Superior Viaduct presents the definitive remastered edition on vinyl, restoring this landmark to the visibility it has always deserved. Born in New Orleans in 1943, Howard grew up saturated in gospel and the deep traditions of the Crescent City before making his way west to Los Angeles, where he studied with Dewey Johnson, and eventually to New York, where he fell into the orbit of Sun Ra. By the mid-1960s he had already cut two remarkable records for ESP-Disk - Noah Howard Quartet and At Judson Hall - but The Black Ark was something else entirely: a quantum leap, the moment when everything locked into place.
The Black Ark exhibits not only the power and imagination of Howard's playing, but also his breadth as a composer and bandleader. Listeners expecting unrelenting blasts of "energy music" might be surprised to find a cohesion atypical of free jazz; amidst the wild, impassioned solos, Howard weaves in Latin rhythms and fat-bottomed grooves. The first side, consisting of Domiabra and Ole Negro, sets the album's tone - both tracks sound as if they could have appeared on some of Blue Note's proto-spiritual jazz, groove-heavy releases, evoking the likes of Horace Silver or Bobby Hutcherson, before ceding the floor to the horn players' anarchic firepower. Mount Fuji, the extended centerpiece, builds from a spare, almost Japanese-inflected melody into fifteen minutes of breathtaking interplay, while Queen Anne closes the record as a ballad of devastating lyricism - proof that Howard's command of his alto was as refined in whisper as it was in fury.
The ensemble Howard assembled is nothing short of extraordinary. As John Corbett writes in the liner notes: "Two players stand out. Bassist Norris Jones - who would soon consolidate his name into a one-word reversed amalgamation/permutation of the two, Sirone - is given ample room, largely unaccompanied; his corporal approach foreshadows later work with the Revolutionary Ensemble. But the secret weapon on The Black Ark is Arthur Doyle. Straight from basement rehearsal sessions with Milford Graves, whose ensemble he had joined and who remained a favorite of the drummer for decades, Doyle is a human flamethrower." Trumpeter Earl Cross's guttural, vocal effects complement Doyle's take-no-prisoners approach, while the estimable combination of Muhammad Ali (Rashied's brother) on drums and Juma Sultan on congas adds an ever-shifting propulsion. The septet is rounded out by the enigmatic pianist Leslie Waldron, who anchors the group with imaginative accompaniment and occasional boppish flourishes.
Noah Howard would go on to record prolifically through the 1970s and 80s, founding his own AltSax label and living between Paris, Nairobi, and Brussels before his death in 2010. But The Black Ark remains the burning heart of his legacy - every bit worthy of its reputation as an "out-jazz" holy grail, a record that only sounds better with age. It remains the ideal album to convert the remaining free-jazz skeptics.
“If I have anything to contribute to this art form . . . It’s a voice of our culture. This is a voice right out of them cotton fields—this ain’t out of the conservatory. This is out of the neighborhood. And that’s where my impetus comes from . . . I have seen it from the bottom up.”.—Julius Hemphill
“Throughout my years of talking with Julius, the desire on his part to reach a directness of expression, to communicate in a direct way, was an ongoing imperative in his thoughts. The Dogon A.D. recording session introduces him to the world as a protean composer, as a singular and passionate improviser and instrumentalist, and as a cultural thinker. In this striving toward transcendence, he brings in a sense of celebration and high spirits, of tough loss and sadness, and of proud resistance and survival. This recording, made on a cold February day in St. Louis in a studio with little heat, has lit up the musical world for so many for so long. It is wonderful to have it available again in this iteration for a new generation of listeners.” -- (from the liner notes)
Meticulously remastered & includes a 28-page booklet with new notes by Marty Ehrlich, complemented by several stills from a 30-minute film of an early ’70s dance performance featuring complete performances of Dogon A.D. and Rites with Hemphill, Baikida Carroll, Phillip Wilson, and John Hicks.
This, at long last, is the definitive edition of this seminal jazz masterwork.
“Children Of The Fire” is a monumental spiritual‑jazz suite from 1974, led by trumpeter Hannibal Marvin Peterson and his Sunrise Orchestra. The album explores themes of war and prayer, anger and hope, unfolding as a powerful, large‑scale work of deep emotional and spiritual intensity.
Rare private press Jazz-Funk with breaks and some spiritual influences reminiscent of Brother Ahh at times. They cover Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” plus play originals that include “Sweet Heritage,” “Free Will,” “One of a Kind (Love Affair),” “Serene Beauty,” and “In the Fall of the Year.” This is a beautiful sounding record with elements of straight Jazz, Soul/Jazz, and some funky stuff including some Free and Afro-centric influences.
The main man is Jaman himself (J.E. Manuel) on keyboards, who in the past had worked with R&B bands and many people in the Jazz world (Turrentines, Bostic, Stitt, Joe Farrell, Lenny Welch, Ethel Ennis).
Tara Clerkin Trio present their self titled debut LP on Laura Lies In. Similar to that directorial effect of filming at double speed and then slowing down for playback, the record ambles with assurance, expertly paced.
Opening with a jovial cacophony before the beatific ‘in the room’ confidently relieves, washing away any unease with an innately alien familiarity.
Coming to with the padded percussive patterns of 'Helenica', taking a moment to remember where you are in this temporal smudge. The serene contemplation of 'Any of these' signals we're homeward with a dependable afterglow, a friend you don’t need to thank for a good weekend.
A record existing disconnected from the daily getyadowns, a holiday from life, optimism as resistance against mundanity, something extraordinary amongst the ordinary, positively grey.
Recorded and produced by Dominic Mitchison. Mastered by Rupert Clervaux.
Announcing Perseverance Flow, the latest album from acclaimed Chicago-based ensemble Natural Information Society (NIS), release date 2024-10-24. After a trilogy of double LPs by expanded manifestations of the band that began in 2018 with Mandatory Reality & continued through Since Time Is Gravity (a Pitchfork Best Jazz & Experimental Album of the Year selection & Mojo’s #1 Underground Album of 2023), NIS returns to its core formation of Lisa Alvarado on harmonium, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, & composer/multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams on guimbri for one continuous 37 minute composition across a single LP. As the rocket boosters on spaceship earth sputter closer to burnout, lower your stylus into a soundfield that grows stronger the deeper you travel into it; a dose of the medicine many of us look to music to deliver awaits you inside.
One of the deep contemplations of this natural information (thanks Bill Callahan) is the wide range of source materials Abrams draws from over the band’s more than 15 year history: Ideas from minimalism, modal jazz & traditional musics are regularly reimagined in these compositions. The 2021 double LP descension (Out of Our Constrictions), with guest soloist Evan Parker, reflected aspects of Abrams’ love of party music, Chicago house, & John Coltrane. *But even veteran travelers with the NIS best brace themselves for the Perseverance Flow.
Speaking to the history & the inspirations behind the album, Abrams offers: “We played the piece for a year in concert before the recording. At Electrical (Audio Studios, Chicago) we went in at 11 & were done in time to pick our kids up from school.” Abrams continues: "In a reference world, I imagine Perseverance Flow like a live extended realization of a Jaylib lost instrumental as remixed by Kevin Shields. Or vice versa. I also think it has sympathies to some of the more rhythmically intricate dance musics out of Chicago & Lisbon.”
The core NIS ensemble heard on Perseverance Flow always address Abrams’ writing with the discipline of orchestra musicians & the creativity of improvisers. But this time around, instead of inviting living legend status musicians Evan or William Parker or Ari Brown as honored guests to solo freely over the composed materials, Abrams’ invited guest collaborator was the medium of the recording studio itself. Situated at the board with engineer Greg Norman, Abrams pushed post production techniques found only sporadically on earlier NIS records deep into the heart of the music, distorting & reshaping instruments to subtly &, at times, aggressively mutate timbre & texture, color & time.
Refracting the band’s signature mesmerizing chains of overlapping rhythmic patterns through the sonic funhouse of dub makes Perseverance Flow the most formally experimental NIS album to date. Now a soundworld fully unique to itself is listening to itself, consoling & humoring itself, & consoling & humoring you. A destruction myth & a creation myth of a soundworld together at once —”energetically nutritious” (October 2025 Issue 500 The Wire) supernatural information society.
“Perseverance Flow is skipping rope in slo-mo. A dance of co-operation to rally guts & humors & keep marching through pouring tears” (Abrams).
Release date 2025-10-24. 1st eremite edition pressed on premium audiophile-quality 140 gram vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing from Kevin Gray/Cohearent Audio lacquers. Mastered by Helge Sten (Deathprod). 1st 300 direct order copies include eremite’s signature retro-audiophile inner-sleeves, hand screen-printed by Siwa Studios, Northern New Mexico. CD & EU vinyl edition available from our partner Aguirre Records.
"An outstanding Chicago bassist, Joshua Abrams regularly contributes to a host of bands, drawing on roots from hip-hop to free jazz. He also leads a singular project, Natural Information Society (NIS), a band that stretches across time, origins, technologies and sources, and one which has mutated significantly in its 15-year history, documented on a series of Eremite LP releases. Abrams also plays guembri, the bass lute of the Gnawa people of North Africa, introduced to free jazz circles by Moroccan master Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, who in the ’90s stepped outside traditional circles to play with saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Peter Brötzmann and percussionist Hamid Drake, the latter an occasional member of NIS. Recent NIS recordings include two double-LP sets, Since Time Is Gravity, by an 11-member Community Edition and descension (Out of Our Constrictions) by the current core quartet of Abrams, Lisa Alvarado (harmonium), Mikel Patrick Avery (drums) and Jason Stein (bass clarinet), with Evan Parker (soprano) joining them on a single 75-minute piece.
With Perseverance Flow, Abrams, as composer and producer, takes NIS in another direction, composing a piece for the quartet’s distinctive members and instruments, then editing and processing the results into a serene, pulsing, repeating work with regular shifts and time markers, transforming instrumental identities into novel sounds and short modular phrases. There’s a melody that’s regularly an extended and shifting ostinato, there’s another that’s a high-pitched soprano, more minimal still and not readily traceable to an originating sound, though the bass clarinet may be the likeliest contender. These alterations are such that only percussion and guembri are frequently identifiable. Stein’s bass clarinet only becomes strongly evident as itself nine minutes in. A certain repeating jump-start suggests a grand piano’s bass figure or the clicking of an MRI machine, yet this technological dream with its resonating soprano melody remains so fiercely human and fundamentally American that the album forms loose affiliations with music as far flung as Santo & Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” and Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Furies. The submerged instrumental identities contribute to the dream-like state, as if original sonic personalities have gone to sleep, and the results suggest a sustained techno-lullaby, a kind of mechanized bliss, a harbinger, perhaps, of the music currently most needed". --Stuart Broomer, New York City Jazz Record
"Joshua Abrams leads the Natural Information Society quartet into battle, or at least toward it, on the joyfully meandering instrumental album Perseverance Flow. Proceeding in a march of trancelike, intoxicating repetition, Abrams and his bandmates embark on a 35-minute pilgrimage to the place where jazz, contemporary classical, and multinational folk convene, achieving singularity in a state of ritual rhythm." --Pitchfork
"Spacemen 3 used to promote their music as being for the 'fucked up children of the world,' in addition to the more famous part about taking drugs to make music, etc. Natural Information Society could be described in a similar fashion, except they make music for the fucked up adults of the world, the kind who still take drugs and are baffled by their peers bending over backwards to make 'the kids' think they’re cool by slobbering over music clearly made for children. If you count yourselves among the former, the Chicago band’s latest is made for you: sophisticated psychedelia pulsing with rhythmic intensity and rich with droney waves of harmonium. Made up of a single slow-burning, 37-minute long jam, the movement here is subtle yet in its own way aggressive and sharply focused, carefully drawing the listener into the widening gyre at the center of the band’s humane, organic trance." --Mariana Timony, Bandcamp Daily Essential Releases
"The piece, called “Perseverance Flow,” began slowly, with Abrams playing rhythmically on a gimbri—a Sub-Saharan, three-stringed, skin-covered box—in his lap. Alvarado, on hand-pumped harmonium, let the reeds make chords that filled the room. Mikel Patrick Avery, on a drum kit, launched a bass drum’s beat through mists of percussion, and on bass clarinet, Jason Stein made sounds like swells and piercing winds. It was rhythms intersecting rhythms, and the room felt like an ocean, the seas shifting, tide coming in. But then, after an hour that felt like minutes, Alvarado’s chords led us home safe, the sounds calming, the room still vibrating, the chords resolved, the world a different place." --Robert Sullivan, Vogue
Anyone who’s studied meditation or watched a Formula 1 race knows you can travel great distances without going anywhere at all—and enjoy the process of not getting there. There’s pleasure in following a circuit so frequently and so closely that everyday bits of the landscape become landmarks (we always pass that bullet-holed stop sign on this route) and a pang when those landmarks change (they replaced the stop sign!). Natural Information Society’s music operates on similar principles, drawing together the thrum of Moroccan gnawa, the austere profundity of Philip Glass, and the circular structures of John Coltrane at his most spiritual into a sound that doesn’t progress so much as it rotates. Its pleasures come from the steady accumulation of repetitions and all the little tweaks and evolutions and devolutions that composer Joshua Abrams and his band have built into their music.
Perseverance Flow is Natural Information Society’s first non-collaborative record since 2023’s jazz-fractaled Since Time Is Gravity. That album presented a more relaxed version of the group, unfurling its music as though rolling out a dusty Turkish carpet. Perseverance Flow’s tight focus—one theme looped ceaselessly, with modest embellishment, for 35 minutes—feels like a microscopic view of that same rug. The phrase is initially tight and loping: a two-note harmonium riff, a lightly heraldic bass clarinet, Abrams’ clip-clopping guembri, a little one-two drumbeat, all of it held together as tightly as pencils bundled by a rubber band. The group performed the piece live for a year before recording, which gives the album a warm and lived-in feel despite its formal constriction; imagine the Sun Ra Arkestra in big-band mode, playing a single bar over and over until achieving liftoff. Taking equal inspiration from Jamaican dub and Chicago dance music, Abrams edited the one-take performance in post-production, dropping in tonal tweaks and rhythmic inversions with a jeweler’s eye for detail.
In the same way that a diamond’s symmetrical shine is both easy to admire and requires an eyepiece to appreciate in full, Perseverance Flow’s charm is shaped by the tiny variations built into the score. Once the theme is established and allowed to settle, harmonium player Lisa Alvarado flips her pattern, playing a palindrome of the simple rise-and-fall melody. The shift is so smooth it can take a moment to notice it’s happened, and even then you might second-guess the extent of the change. Drummer Mikel Patrick Avery loosens his percussion a few minutes later, playing something that sounds like pebbles sloshing in a plastic bucket. The soft shuffle is soon absorbed—whether actually or just by a kind of aural illusion—into the original pattern. Abrams anchors the sound with his Moroccan guembri, occasionally halting the steady limp of the primary line to tie a fluid knot without losing a step.
While it’s not unusual for repetition to turn a musical phrase inside out, similar to the way a word loses its meaning once you’ve said it a few times, Perseverance Flow’s emotional register stays constant. The phrases gradually begin to lengthen—at one point, Alvarado’s harmonium sounds more like an accordion playing a Cajun song in slow-mo—which gives the piece enough momentum to stay grounded. At no point does it even glance in the direction of chaos; you could probably thread a needle with the sound wave. Around the 19-minute mark, the entire ensemble pulls up together in a way that suggests a vamp, then immediately falls back into the pattern without anyone losing their place. It’s such a weird little thrill that, if you’re properly locked in, it feels like peaking in sync with a 2 a.m. bass drop.
While the instrumentation wouldn’t be out of place at your local roots festival, the dance music influence on Perseverance Flow is undeniable. Abrams’ frequent switches and intertwined notes mimic the braided bass hits and glitchy rhythms of footwork without ever leaving the aesthetic context of gnawa. Little clap-back rhythms pop up occasionally. At one point, something that sounds like a bag of shells being dropped on a snare drum introduces a new back-and-forth to the theme that matches the harmonium and brings the piece’s shuffle closer to something like hip-hop. It’s a canny way of making sure the listener’s body stays tuned in to what could easily become cerebral; you will not nod your head more insistently to a piece of experimental music this year.
Two-thirds of the way through, Avery pounds what sounds like a heavily padded kick drum in double time, just off-beat and distant enough to make it feel like the thump of a poorly insulated club. Abrams picks up the new rhythm and follows it, and for a few moments, the band seems to be playing both the main Perseverance Flow theme and a separate dance song at the same time, though the theoretical line between the two is impossible to find. Eventually, that intervention fades, too, revealing that each of the musicians is off doing their own thing, and despite that, feeling more like an ensemble than ever.
Music like this sometimes gets called “durational,” or likened to the theoretical impermanence of Zeno’s Arrow—an object that appears constant yet is recomposing itself in every moment. It is hard, listening to Perseverance Flow, not to think of the Buddhist notion of becoming, or something like philosopher Henri Bergson’s conception of the élan. Both of which are fair descriptions and logical reactions to a music that seems to do nothing but go in circles with academic confidence. But merry-go-rounds go in circles, too. As do pinwheels. You want durational? Major League Baseball teams play 162 games every season, usually for the same few thousand people. Despite the weight of the intellectual concepts and the elegance of the score, despite the band’s association with the cream of Chicago’s always-rich avant-garde scene, this record is no less approachable than an afternoon Cubs game. Appropriately enough, it gets better with each spin, too. --Sadie Sartini Garner, Pitchfork
Vinyl only, no digital.
The Meditation Singers - Let Them Talk
Charlie Brown - The Whole World Is Watching
Martha Bass - Since I've Been Born Again
The Williams Singers - So Good To Be Alive
The Faithful Wonders - Ol' John (Behold Thy Mother)
The Salem Travelers - Crying Pity And A Shame
The East St. Louis Gospelettes - Soon I Will Be Done
Power And Light Choral Ensemble - Stand Up America, Don't Be Afraid
The Masonic Wonders - Just To Behold His Face
The Majestic Choir & The Soul Stirrers - Why Am I Treated So Bad
The Jordan Singers - My Life Will Be Sweeter
Lucy Rodgers - I'm Fighting For My Rights
The East St. Louis Gospelettes - I'll Take Care of You
The Williams Singers - Don't Give Up
The Soul Stirrers - Don’t You Worry
The Meditation Singers - I've Done Wrong
The Jordan Singers - Lord Have Mercy,
The Kindly Shepherds - Lend Me Your Hand
The Violinaires - Groovin' With Jesus
Cleo Jackson Randle - Life In Heaven Is Free
The Violinaires - Mother’s Last Prayer,
The Inspirational Singers - Bless Me
The Bells Of Joy - Give An Account At The Judgement
Stevie Hawkins - Same Old Bag
The Soul Stirrers - Striving <br></p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e0ir310Wgjg?si=BLxdm50wxY4bUb1c" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cwieVtLLXjo?si=T3fhiTPfFsWdQ2e1" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fdnj8mrVfXY?si=XNVcgoqS7a-8J4sG" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Be With Records proudly presents this limited-edition 140g LP (just 750 copies worldwide), remastered by Simon Francis from the original Music De Wolfe tapes. Originally released on Rouge—a subsidiary of the esteemed British library label—the album features the in-house talents of composers Chris Rae and Frank McDonald under the Soul City Orchestra moniker. Pressed at Record Industry in Holland with restored iconic artwork, it captures driving instrumental funk-rock enhanced by dramatic strings.
This is that absolute stank-face filth: hard, espionage drama-soul and tough, jazzy street-funk. Hogan, The Hawk & Dirty John Crown sounds like the soundtrack of a blaxploitation movie from the early 70s and, packed with funky fusion and smoother orchestral numbers, it is basically that.
Featuring a veritable who's who of killer library break snakes - Alan Parker, Alan Hawkshaw (under sneaky alias William Parrish), Simon Haseley, Reg Tilsley and Gordon Grant - it's not hard to see how this commands over £350 on secondary markets.
This beautifully presented reissue, part of Be With's fresh campaign with the legendary library label Music De Wolfe, is well overdue.
Great Day is one of the very best albums on the Music De Wolfe label and certainly one of the most sought after library records, full stop.
It's been sampled by such heavyweights as Madlib, LTJ Bukem, El-P and The Alchemist (among many others). You likely already know all this. If you don't, get to know. One listen through and the £350 asking price for a VG copy starts to all make sense...
Originally released in 1972, it's credited to Music De Wolfe legends Simon Haseley (real name Simon Park) and "Peter Reno" (a collaborative alias used by composers Clifford "Cliff" Twemlow and Peter Taylor)
Confused? No matter. It's one of the most consistent libraries you'll ever hear, packed with heavy blaxploitation-esque drama-funk break themes.
At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler.
In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of… Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again.
On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib.
“Us”, the first of the four records was recorded on November 24th, 1973 with Sylvin Marc on electric bass (a Fender… Lancaster?) and the evergreen Steve McCall on drums.
On the album, the trio works from the John Coltrane model; free jazz shook up by the timely contributions of the bassist, followed by a mesmerizing atmospheric music. Then, Lancaster delivers a sinuous solo path, which is a reminder of his unique tone. On the album’s companion single, the trio launches into great black music of a
different genre which would lead the clairvoyant François Tusques to claim that Byard Lancaster is an “authentic representative of soul/free jazz”, to sum up this is Great Black Music!
Groggy, engrossing new work from Ulla under their newly minted U.e. tag, riffing to the sublime on a set of (mostly) acoustic reveries that tap into the kind of smokey vapours favoured by the likes of Vincent Gallo, Voice Actor, Jonnine. Oh aye, it’s a special one.
A new year, label, album and handle for Ulla, a multifaceted artist who has draped our pages with wonder, under numerous aliases and collabs, for almost a decade. On ‘Hometown Girl’ they distill transience and flux into a quiet set of chamber works subtly resembling the room recorded nuance of their ‘Jazz Plates’ side with Perila - here taken a step further into more elusive, low-lit dimensions.
In a mode that’s wistful and melancholic, listening to the album’s dozen discrete pieces feels like leafing thru a journal of hand-written notes, reflecting on the feelings that come with separation from loved ones and displacement from familiarity. Ulla performed and recorded all of the instruments themselves, lending a tangible tactility to layered arrangements of woodwind, keys, strings, drums and voice, lightly speckled with electronics and perfused with open window field recordings.
They locate a crackling frisson of personality in the voice notes and day-dreaminess of their mottled inscapes, gauzily demarcating lines between past and present selves. In that aesthetic and approach we can also hear similarities to Jonnine’s blue-skied ‘Southside Girl’ or crys cole’s poetic sensuality, often leaning into the domestic surreal.
A frayed, opening salutation ‘Good Morning’ signals a delirious half hour in Ulla’s company, variously swaying to the downstroked jazz swing of a ‘Lavender (NF)’ spritzed with clarinet, whilst ‘Froggy Explorer’ stirs the air like Jan Jelinek on a barely-there tip. The Basinski-esque fritz of degraded loops really snags the imagination along with a twinkling nightlight ‘Ball’, as the album opens out into its most fully resolved songs with a closing couplet of disarming wonders ‘Drawing of Me’, and a blurry ‘Mute’ that feels like Ulla 〜almost〜 reveals too much before retreating back into the shadows.
Extra Stars is a deeply beautiful expression of Gregory Uhlmann’s ever-evolving sound world, and comes at a pivotal juncture in the LA-based composer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist’s musical journey.
Following a long run of supporting work with artists like Perfume Genius, Tasha, and Hand Habits, alongside an eponymous recorded output largely focused on his more singer-songwriter oriented music, Uhlmann has spent the better part of the last couple years trotting out album after album of groundbreaking instrumental modern music. From the sparse melodies and hushed ambient soundscapes of Small Day, to his much-lauded duo outing Doubles with Meg Duffy, to his perhaps lesser-known but no-less-brilliant duo record Water Map with Dustin Wong, to the lush chamber-jazz interplay of his trio recording with saxophonist Josh Johnson and bassist Sam Wilkes, to the two genre-breaking albums he released as a co-leader of synth-laced trance-jazz quintet SML (2024’s Small Medium Large and 2025’s How You Been), Uhlmann has subtly, if not quietly, established himself as an essential presence in some of the most progressive recordings of our time.
Extra Stars encompasses all he’s learned through all the above. A radiant sidereal serenade, the album’s fourteen miniature infinities swirl serendipitous synthesis and measured, melody-rich song into a panoramic menagerie of sound. For a record that seldom incorporates percussion instruments, the music is distinctly rhythm-forward, while Uhlmann also leans heavily into swaths of pastoral beauty. Extra care was clearly poured into the kind of harmonic depth that’s often missing from vibe-only “ambient” music, making for a delightfully refreshing take on the electronic, processing-heavy 'quiet' sound.
The compositions and production techniques here reflect Uhlmann’s musicality perfectly, surely the result of him being as much a seasoned practitioner as he is an avid listener. If there is a middle ground between Cluster & Eno, Terry Riley’s Shri Camel, and Yo La Tengo’s There’s a Riot Going On, it’s somewhere nearby. Lofty comparisons aside, Extra Stars seems to look beyond reference or imitation. Even the album’s title indicates as much—inspired by a trip to California’s Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, where the reality of the night sky’s starry expanse stretches beyond the boundaries of belief.
We can feel Uhlmann’s gaze past the horizon line from the jump. Album opener “Pocket Snail” kicks off with a slow-ambling synth bass line before opening up into a richly processed, reverberating cacophony of beautiful sliding melodies. Eyes wide open, the small world of the pocket snail begins to burst with new color after a fresh injection of sunlight, but the tonality is more akin to something of a simple torch ballad. It’s an immense clash of big and small, and sets the stage nicely for the delightful vantage point shifting to come throughout the record.
“Lucia” is named after a quaint lodge nestled amongst the cliffside drama of Big Sur, and the tune’s musical rendering of an intimate yet expansive perspective perfectly fits its namesake. The steady thump and chime of Uhlmann’s guitar repetitions sit atop a field recording of the distant, heavy-winded ocean crash of the Cabrillo Highway coast, held even steadier by harbor bell metallic clank percussion and a firm yet pillowy cluster of electric organ chords and mellotron-like leads. Enter saxophonist Alabaster DePlume, the track's lone feature, with his signature breathy reed work. Here DePlume’s vibrato-heavy tenor sax wandering adds a secret-among-friends intimacy to a sonic scene that could go for miles. DePlume hums low in multitrack as Uhlmann leads the steady pulse on, encountering syncopated harmonic pings, fluttering recorder flourishes, and the little bustling sounds of the rural Pacific shoreline. Earworms must live in the ocean air, because it’s tough to get any element of “Lucia” unstuck once it’s in, and the whole thing is all tied up in a bow in just under three and a half minutes. Equally playful and introspective, “Lucia” is the potential soundtrack to a close reading or a thousand yard stare. If Jim Henson dreamt Link’s Awakening this would be the sound he heard.
“Burnt Toast” is an essential example of Uhlmann’s penchant for using the guitar to make non-guitar sounds. That’s not to say that what is occurring here is a simple act of processing. Rather, Uhlmann has a distinct and instantly recognizable ability to play the instrument itself in a way that lends to drastic and realtime tonal transformation. Clocking in at a lean 1:25, it’s a quick and lively skip through a blend of complimentary and warring syncopations—another hallmark of Uhlmann’s style—topped with synthetic glissandos and stereo-image warbles placed just so. What really makes it gel, though, is the harmonic simplicity that the transformative madness is serving. At the end of the day, the basic structure of “Burnt Toast” is an uncomplicated chord progression.
That essential simplicity, leaning into tonal expressions of quiet joy and deep longing, could be the most relevant throughline in Uhlmann’s work. On Extra Stars it’s likely best exemplified on “Days,” a serene 7+ minute track born in the nerve shattering confusion of 2020. “It was made in my old apartment and felt like a way of self soothing by playing the same chords over and over again,” says Uhlmann. The result is a wisping, languid, near free-time drift through a progression that manages to maintain its directness despite its slow-building reverberated accompaniment. Like a Harold Budd take on the somber fingerpicked elegance of Frantz Casseus, “Days” wanders through the speakers with an almost nostalgic air. A grandmotherly wall organ melody sings around dancing piano notes as chattering synthesis renders itself percussive amongst the steel string comfort of Uhlmann’s electric guitar. It’s the kind of recording that could go on forever and maybe, somewhere, it’s doing just that. On Extra Stars, though, it acts as a spiritual centerpiece, rejuvenating the listener as it fades out slowly, cleansing and leaving us ready for more.
“Back Scratch” is collage-cut from a series of piano improvisations and post-composed with pitch-shifted percussion contributions from Uhlmann’s SML bandmate Booker Stardrum. Uneven loops syncopate in chance mode while the barrage of high-register notes conflate with Stardrum’s stickwork to cement a rhythm dense enough to nearly become a drone. The impulsive comparison to the intensely rhythmic zither dance of Laraaji would be understandable, but mostly inaccurate. “Back Scratch” is produced in a markedly raw, un-reverberated manner—and it’s precisely that stark wonkiness that separates it from something like Day Of Radiance and makes it more akin to a basement DIY crack at Reich’s Drumming. That said, its brevity and singularity among the wildly diverse Extra Stars tracklist means that it might be (just maybe) more actual fun to listen to than both of those records.
The guitarless moments on Extra Stars shine as brightly as those that highlight Uhlmann’s primary instrument, but even those departures display themselves distinctively, especially when he invites and directs a collaborator. The labcoat synth silliness and percussive b-ball bounce of “Dottie,” for instance, contrasts sharply from the unbridled beeswarm rhythm composite of “Worms Eye” despite the implementation of the same tools and techniques—likely due to the co-production presence of synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (another SML bandmate) on the latter. Regardless, there’s no mistaking an Uhlmann composition and there’s no mistaking when he’s at the helm. For instance, while Chiu’s presence can certainly be felt on “Voice Exchange,” its outlandish rhythm focused take on the pitch-shifted vocals of longtime Uhlmann collaborator Tasha couldn’t be further from the other Chiu co-productions on Extra Stars.
The ability to maintain a recognizable voice across vast stylistic shifts, while employing the talents of those who also possess singularly recognizable voices, is not something that is heard often and it’s Uhlmann’s ability to recognize what makes each collaborator unique that makes it work here. A great example is “Bristlecone,” which finds him directing the powerful low-end command of Anna Butterss’s bass and the multiphonic mystery of Josh Johnson’s processed alto. The composition and arrangement are supported at every turn by Uhlmann’s SML bandmates without the result ever wandering away from something we can hear as distinctly his. Like David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, or Miles Davis, Uhlmann uses collaboration to both support and transform. To reinforce and evolve. With Extra Stars he has delivered such a promising collection of instrumental concepts following an extended period of vast, high-level artistic output. There’s no doubt that it will continue to be a joy to experience that evolution in real time.
A landmark debut released in 1976, Jaco Pastorius’s first solo album forever changed the history of the electric bass. Featuring an all‑star lineup including Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, and Don Alias, it remains a timeless masterpiece that continues to be regarded as the ultimate bass bible.
“Phi-Psonics is a spiritual exploration of being together and connecting,” says acoustic bassist Seth Ford-Young of the immersive project he initiated in East Los Angeles in 2016. For his third long-player under the Phi-Psonics banner, Ford-Young marshalled a series of live recordings at Healing Force Of The Universe records in Pasadena, sculpting fourteen tracks, largely composed in the moment with a fluctuating cast of players, which wonderfully transmit his ideals of community and inner peace.
Ford-Young says of Expanding to One..."We live in increasingly dark times and while I intend our music to be a balm to those who connect with it, I also want the context of our musical conversations to include the outer as much as our inner worlds. The music we make doesn’t exist in a vacuum and the backdrop of injustice and tragedy in our world has to be part of our music.”
Performers:
Seth Ford-Young - acoustic bass, percussion
Sylvain Carton - tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, flute, alto flute, bamboo flute, percussion
Randal Fisher - tenor saxophone, flute
Mitchell Yoshida - Wurlitzer 140b electric piano
Zach Tenorio - Wurlitzer 200a electric piano
Gary Fukushima - Wurlitzer 140b electric piano
Dylan Day - guitar
Dave Harrington - guitar
Rocco DeLuca - pedal steel guitar
Minta Spencer - harp
Sheila Govindarajan - Voice
Spencer Zahn - acoustic bass
Josh Collazo - drums
Jay Bellerose - drums, percussion
Mathias Künzli - percussion
Produced by Seth Ford-Young
Recorded February 7, 21 March 6, 20, April 3,17 - 2024
Live at Healing Force of the Universe Records, Pasadena California
Engineered by Seth Ford-Young
Mixed by Seth Ford-Young
Imagine it’s late afternoon, you’re outside by the lake, and there’s sunlight on the water. This is the peaceful and contemplative scene that Matt Gold and Resavoir set on their collaborative LP Horizon. Across 10 lush and exploratory tracks, it’s the product of two Chicago-based musicians—Will Miller, the acclaimed trumpeter, composer, and producer who’s worked with SZA, Whitney, and more, and Gold, a seasoned multi-instrumentalist and accomplished guitarist—effortlessly combining their distinct sensibilities for something hypnotic and tangibly inviting. What started as a love letter to their shared admiration for ‘60s and ‘70s Brazilian music evolved into a dynamic and sprawling body of work. These sunny and expansive tunes are as immersive as they are endlessly replayable.
Both Miller and Gold attended Oberlin College’s Conservatory of Music together and in the years after graduating, they orbited each other around Chicago’s music communities. “We were showing up for each other as friends and taking an interest in each other's projects, noticing a lot of resonances and similarities working within in our music,” says Gold, who’s collaborated with artists like Makaya McCraven and Jamila Woods and stretched the bounds of jazz and Americana on solo albums Imagined Sky and Midnight Choir. “We had talked so much about eventually working together that it was almost like an ongoing bit at a certain point,” says Miller. Though they had known each other for over a decade, they first had their chance on “Inside Minds,” the breezy lead single on 2023’s Resavoir. While those sessions were remote, two had palpable chemistry.
It wasn’t until Miller left the touring band of the Chicago group Whitney in 2023 that their plans to make music together in person came to fruition. “When I first started Resavoir, I was chasing the desire to produce records and now that I had time to focus exclusively on that, Matt was the first person I called to come to the studio,” says Miller. The two had bonded over an admiration for the Brazilian guitarist Luis Bonfa and songwriter Milton Nascimento, especially the latter’s work with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, so they decided to use nylon string guitar as a starting point for these early sessions. “Canopy,” which opens Horizon, was the earliest track. Kicking off with bright acoustic chords, the song slowly unfurls into a slinking groove, samples, and fluttering leads from soprano saxophonist Tim Bennett.
As these initial experiments proved successful, Gold and Miller felt they could broaden the scope of their vision. “We were initially conceiving of it as this acoustic guitar driven record but eventually we wanted to frame it orchestrally and see how many shades and colors we can bring in around that sound,” says Gold. “Dewy” thrives within this orchestral palette of woozy synths, strings from Macie Stewart, Claire Chenette’s oboe, flautist Wills McKenna, and French horns from Lloyd Billingham. “We discovered that our multi-instrumentalist mentalities—using piano and bass, samplers, drum grooves, guitar ideas all as starting points— nurtured the broad orchestration across this record,” says Miller.
“The LP took about a year with on-and-off sessions,” says Miller. “The songs benefit from letting them ferment for a couple months, coming back to it, and seeing what sort of new flavors have developed.” Co-produced by Miller and Gold (and mixed by Dave Vettraino), Horizon proudly reflects the artists’ vast artistic community and musical network in Chicago and beyond. Along with Gold, Eddie Burns (Clairo), Peter Mannheim (Tony Glausi), and Carter Lang (SZA, Lil Nas X) provide drums and percussion throughout. On the dreamlike single “Diversey Beach,” New York songwriter Mei Semones lends vocals and along with her band members Noah Leong and Claudius Agrippa, collaborated on a mesmerizingly conversational string arrangement. “We wrote "Diversey Beach" on the coldest day of the year watching a blizzard coming down out of the window, where the sounds of the cars driving by sounded like waves crashing on a beach,” says Miller. “I sent it to Mei Semones, who I’ve been a fan of for a long time. She's absolutely incredible and it’s amazing what she did with it.”
Horizon is a testament to the feeling of endless possibilities that come from collaboration. It’s a remarkable synthesis of two artists who share musical community and an artist lineage but have carved their own paths in unique ways. Nowhere is this more evident than “Hazel Canyon,” which boasts Gold’s silky pedal steel and a subtly enveloping arrangement that evokes Erasmo Carlos. “Musically, we're always trying to capture a fleeting moment of infinite expanse, feeling the vastness of things while knowing they'll always change,” says Gold. “This record keeps the light reflecting on the water just a little longer -- our collaborative process running through the backbone of these songs and rippling out in so many beautiful directions..”
