MUSIC

Los Angeles-based vocalist, composer, and producer Sharada Shashidhar has a deep awareness of the cosmos. There's a distinct tug-of-war in her music, an understanding that scanning the heavens to answer existential queries isn't quite enough; there are internal depths to plumb as well. Shashidhar's first album, 2020's Rahu, found her voice billowing out of smoky, post-beat-scene soundscapes, meditating on the collective unconscious and the energy exchange between all living things. Her newest work, Soft Echoes, is a bold step forward, echewing her work's hip-hop tilt for expansive compositions that blend jazz and Indian classical influences into a swirling, spiritual whole. Though she has an extensive resume as a collaborator in LA's previous experimental jazz scene, notching work with the likes of Carlos Niño, Zeroh, and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Soft Echoes marks Shashidhar's first outing as a bandleader. Gathering an ensemble that includes Anna Butters on bass, Julius Rodriguez on keys, Devin Daniels on saxophone, and Timothy Angulo on drums, Shashidhar sought to create a band that ostensibly functioned as an extension of herself. Her primary goals in writing these songs were to “let [her] body do what it wanted to do,” to trust her intuition, and “play without judgment.” Through that process, making Soft Echoes became a practice of presence and exploration, a chance to unlearn rigid structures and rediscover the joy of creating for oneself. Recording took place over three brief, distinct sessions at Altamira Sound in Alhambra, California. Though the full band wasn't ever present at the same time, Soft Echoes sounds like the work of a group in complete, mind-meld focus. Splashy drums nudge up against skronkingsaxophone on “Canyon Song,” while mushrooming synth tones stack up behind rippling Rhodes piano on “Luckiest.” Shashidhar's elegant voice is the anchor for each of these tracks, sometimes gracefully stretching between instruments like a lithe dancer's limbs, other times scattering through psychedelic delay. She describes the album as having “two poles, ” illustrated by the whimsical, buoyant opener “Soft Echoes” and the darker, more anxiety-ridden closer, “New Echoes.” The songs in between may come from different emotional spaces, but “it's all really reflective,” she explains. album can play like a loop, with Shashidhar entering a portal “into the endlessness” during “New Echoes,” only to be transported back to the beginning, full of gratitude and pondering “how strange it is to be alive.” On Soft Echoes , Shashidhar leads us on a journey through her mind, traversing its peaks and canyons in search of greater connection. “I want to take people places,” she says, pausing thoughtfully. “I can’t always guarantee that they’re good places, [but] hopefully you’ll feel something.”

all music by G. Di Domenico (SIAE/SABAM) E. Ishibashi (Jasrac/Space Shower Network) J. O’Rourke (Field Code Music/BMI) J. TaliA (APRA) T. Yamamoto recorded in studio W (Brussels) Atelier Eiko, Steamroom Completamente TAZ (Tokyo) Good Mixture (Berlin) mixed by Jim O’Rourke at Steamroom (side A & B) Joe Talia at Good Mixture (side C) Tatsuhisa Yamamoto at Completamente TAZ (side D) mastering & cut by Frédéric Alstadt AT Ångström MASTERING, Brussels Cover photo by François Moret «Between Deauville and La Rochelle» Courtesy Of Spazio Nobile Gallery, Brussels Graphics & layout by Cedric D’hondt

Easily one of the most coveted and sought-after of all jazz LPs is the elusive Holy Grail that is Roy Brooks' Ethnic Expressions. It's not just rarity that makes a record of this nature so desirable, nor is it the compelling music within -- sometimes, like a Van Gogh or a Picasso, it's the personality of the artist himself that's inexorably entwined with the record itself that lends a fascinating, mesmeric and mythical quality that simply can't be contrived. The sixth release in Jazzman's Holy Grail series is an attentive reissue of one of Detroit drummer Roy Brooks' two LPs for the tiny Im-Hotep label out of New York. This Jazzman release is in conjunction with P-Vine Records of Tokyo, whose Japanese reissue has already vanished with only a handful having reached these shores late in 2009. Ethnic Expressions was recorded live in NYC in 1973, and exhibits a powerful message of black consciousness and spiritual freedom. This is post-Coltrane progressive jazz of the highest order! With a cry to his African roots, Brooks' music combines modal, rhythmic and Afro-centric jazz with politics, spirituality and positive vibes. The result is deep, esoteric spiritual jazz that any fan into real-deal, vibrant jazz will require as essential listening.

A sublime set of roots, vocal and dubbed out instrumental magic, Close Encounters Of The Third World is a real lost gem in the treasure-filled Creation Rebel back catalogue. A true cross-atlantic collaboration - initial rhythm tracks were laid down in London in 1978, with horns and vocals overdubbed at Channel One in Jamaica, before bandleader Crucial Tony returned to London with the tapes for the album to be mixed by a visiting Prince Jammy.

Originally released on pre-On-U Sound label Hitrun, and the second album released by the group chronologically. Unavailable for 45 years, it has been carefully pieced back together, for this new edition featuring extended 12” discomix versions of “Beware” and “Natty Conscience Free”, re-cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery. Includes new sleevenotes by reggae scholar David Katz that tells the story of the album in full.

These sounds came to me in a stage of my life when i was learning to seek nothing...to be nothing.....Grasp the formless form and the world comes to you....All come to you unharmed for peace, security & rest.

With the release of this seminal album, Veloso would become the leading voice of Tropicalia. The songs on this album immediately connected with people. Alegria, Algeria was his breakout hit that gained traction as a hymn for liberty advocates, juxtaposing images of Coca Cola, guerrilla groups, bombs and Brigitte Bardot as part of the everyday experience. The album's first song Tropicalia was an anthem for the whole movement; it's a fragmented allegory, a structure borrowed from friends in the concrete poetry scene, touching on divergent cultural symbols, events, allusions and idioms, nimbly representing and critiquing the many contradictions in the new Brazilian dictatorship. Superbacana (translated as 'Supergroovy') follows a hyperbolic superhero's use of technology to fight a gang of cowboys led by the money-hungry Uncle Scrooge, serving as allusions to American imperialism and greed felt in their country, all in the rapid-fi re structure of a comic book. The subtext in all these songs, which the dictatorship would not immediately catch, were that these repressed but glaring contradictions, not the bountiful sunny paradise that the military regime was pushing, were the true national identity. Unfortunately, these cleverly veiled jabs in Veloso and his contemporaries' bodies of work gained greater and greater exposure as the movement became more and more popular, leading to the arrest, imprisonment and forced exile of Veloso and many of his cohort.

Preview tracks

 

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Begging the Moon is a collection focused upon an early-to-mid 20th century style of Thai popular song, commonly named Phleng Thai sakon (meaning "song which is both Thai and universal"). With recordings taken from the end of WWII until the start of the 1960s, many of these tracks may also be referred to as Luk krung (meaning "child of the city") a more urbanised style of popular song that is in contrast to the Thai country music known as Luk thung ("child of the field"). Following the Thai cultural revolution of the 1930s and the following reign of west-leaning premier Plaek Phibunsongkhram, Thai culture began to adopt more and more western influences - with Thai traditional and classical music starting to incorporate western notation and particularly Jazz-orientated themes. Thai folk melodies were also adapted to create "ramwong" - a merging of popular western dance music styles such as the tango or rumba, spear-headed at the time by the pioneering Suntaraporn band. In the years following the end of WWII, the Phleng Thai sakon began to gradually develop sub-genres such as phleng talad (market songs) or phleng chiwit (life songs) focused on rural topics, and sung with rural accents. A little while later this would lead to a formal demarcation in the music - with the polished and western ballad-orientated music known as Luk krung, and the more traditional/country style now dubbed Luk thung. The gap between the two would then widen, both musically and culturally, right up to the present day. The recordings compiled here can broadly be categorised as being in the former Luk krung style, though some tracks may touch on rural subjects and motifs. However that is not to say they are overpowered by western musical influence - many of these tracks display potent aspects of traditional Thai music within their beguiling and romantic arrangements. Thanks to Peter Doolan/Monrakplengthai.

"Joe McPhee's first international release, Black Magic Man, was issued on the newly formed Hat Hut imprint in 1975. It was a watershed moment for the 35-year-old musician. Based in Poughkeepsie, New York, he was too far away from Manhattan to have participated extensively in the Loft Jazz happenings of the decade. European exposure, however, would give McPhee an alternative circuit, something of an escape route from the trappings of American cultural myopia. "In support of the new record for this Swiss label, McPhee invited John Snyder on a European tour in October 1975. Snyder was a synthesizer player with whom McPhee had made the duet LP Pieces Of Light, released a year earlier on CjR. The two musicians developed an extensive repertoire, playing diverse spaces in the Hudson Valley. Geographically close gigs were a plus, since it took extra energy to hoist Snyder's ARP 2600.

For five decades, Harold Budd stood on the forefront of the West Coast avant-garde. Born in Los Angeles, he studied with Schoenberg-pupil Gerald Strang and began teaching at CalArts in 1970. While searching for his own voice, he was influenced as much by abstract expressionist painters as by John Cage and Morton Feldman. In his work, Budd brought delicate, slowing-moving melodies to the foreground – creating a new musical language based on "eternally pretty music" and smooth surfaces. In the early '70s, Budd started an extended cycle of compositions that would comprise The Pavilion Of Dreams. For Budd, the album was a signpost for a new direction in thinking about music: "The Pavilion Of Dreams erased my past. I consider that to be the birth of myself as a serious artist. It was like my Magna Carta." Produced by Brian Eno in 1978, The Pavilion Of Dreams stands toe-to-toe with another minimalist masterpiece also released that year, Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians. Budd's gorgeous pieces reveal a lightness of touch that draws the listener in, while sublime voices float in and out as if in a recurring dream. Featuring saxophonist Marion Brown and multi-instrumentalists Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman, The Pavilion Of Dreams remains a master class in exquisite timbre and shimmering texture. The Pavilion Of Dreams was both the final release on Eno's Obscure imprint and a transition point towards his seminal ambient series. This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell and Mark Hollis.

Gavin Bryars was born in Yorkshire, England in 1943. His first musical forays were as a jazz bassist working in the early 1960s with improvisors Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. Bryars later worked with composers John Cage and Cornelius Cardew, founded the Portsmouth Sinfonia and collaborated with Brian Eno on his famed Obscure imprint. The Sinking of the Titanic, Bryars' first major composition, was inspired by the tragic event of the British passenger liner's cross-Atlantic maiden voyage. Bryars eloquently reconstructs the passengers' experience – at once forlorn and eerily calming – through assemblages of understated strings and indeterminate elements. A core principle of the piece is that the ship's band continued to play as the vessel went down. One of the most sublime works in the modern classical canon, Titanic remains Bryars' magnum opus. Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, the album's second sidelong track, is based on a tape loop of a London street singer captured in the early 1970s. Featuring Derek Bailey, Michael Nyman and John White, Bryars' composition gradually builds around the cripplingly poignant voice until its emotional force is almost too much to bear. It's no surprise that Jesus' Blood is known as Tom Waits' all-time favorite piece of music. Produced by Brian Eno in 1975 as the inaugural release on Obscure, The Sinking of the Titanic draws the listener in to a majestic world. While these exquisite, hymn-like recordings have not changed in nearly 50 years, their deeply personal nature and the audience's attention to their subtlety have only strengthened over time.

Yoshi Wada's Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile, originally released in 1982 on India Navigation, remains one of the most remarkable flowers to grow in the rarefied air of American minimalism – akin to Terry Riley's Reed Streams and Pauline Oliveros' Accordion & Voice, yet with a wild, liberated energy all of its own. After graduating from Kyoto University of Fine Arts with a degree in sculpture, Wada moved to New York City in 1967 and quickly fell in with the community of artists known as Fluxus. In the early '70s, he began building his own instruments and writing musical compositions, studying with La Monte Young and Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Recorded during an epic three-day session in an empty swimming pool in upstate New York, Wada's first album brings together two of the oldest drone instruments – the human voice and bagpipes – to simple and glorious effect. A visit to the Scottish Highlands spurred Wada's interest in bagpipes, which the composer integrated into these sparse, otherworldly sounds heard on Lament. "That swimming pool was quite hallucinatory," recalls Wada. “It was another world. I felt it in terms of resonance. I slept in the pool, and whenever I moved, I woke up because of the reverberations.... The piece itself is an experiment with reeds and improvisational singing within the modal structure." This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 750 numbered copies. Comes with poster.

Sam Gendel is known for his work with saxophones and wind controllers. Benny Bock is a keyboardist, composer, producer and sound designer from Oakland, California. Hans Kjorstad is a musician and composer in the field of contemporary microtonal music, informed by Norwegian traditional music and experimental improvised music.

This is the latest EP work by Kaoru Inoue, a DJ, musician, and music producer who has been internationally renowned for his activities under the name Chari Chari and Kaoru Inoue for 30 years since his debut in 1994.

After a limited self-release in 2022, Extravision, the deeply therapeutic musico-psychonautic offering from experimental guitarist Guy Blakeslee has received the Leaving Records “all genre” re-release treatment, with the understanding that more listeners should hear with this vulnerable and graceful document. The record is, in a word, a balm. Like a window flung open on a sweltering day, Extravision occasions the sudden awareness of space, of calm, of context, of possibility. The record also catalogs a musician’s search for meaning and healing in the wake of catastrophe. Since its initial run, Blakeslee has been bracingly open about Extravision’s genesis. On March 13th, 2020, while walking across the street, Blakeslee was struck by a car. Upon regaining consciousness the following day, the hospitalized Blakeslee found both the outer world and his inner world suddenly transformed. As lockdowns took effect, it was immediately clear that the brain injuries Blakeslee sustained had not only affected his vision but altered his very consciousness and would inevitably affect his music-making. From Los Angeles, to Virginia, to Baltimore, he pursued physical and spiritual recovery with music as his primary medicine. Sitting for hours at the piano, the man for whom guitar had always been the primary instrument now intuited the riddles and patterns laid out neatly before him in black and white. Armed with beginner’s mind and a cassette 4-track, Blakeslee began to experiment with wordless, impressionistic songcraft. Extravision is the transcendent result, an hour-plus compendium of humble and fiery dalliances with the musical and psychical unknown—a record from a lifelong musician rediscovering the joys and vexations of learning. Throughout Extravision, the guitar exists as both specter and reference. A majority of the album’s tracks notably do not feature any discernible guitar—the songs functioning as emotive, drone-based exercises in texture and duration. And yet, one never doubts the extent to which Blakeslee’s practice has been (and continues to be) informed by a uniquely American folk guitar idiom. We are, with Blakeslee as our guide, gladly charting the vast and newest horizons of so-called “American Primitive” music, now often referred to as “Cosmic American.” And when Blakeslee’s interdimensional guitar does eventually emerge — see the album’s fittingly final title track, “Extravision”— the sweetness, not untinged by loss, is palpable. Blakeslee has stated that his goal, with Extravision, is to induce in the listener a trance-like state, to inaugurate the conditions under which time might function “differently.” To be sure, the drones and gentle recurrent phrases that comprise much of Extravision are a welcome antidote to the now commonly felt acceleration of time. But it is the experience that Blakeslee is transmitting with and through and beyond these musical gestures—the experience of non-linear time, of total time-loss, of starting again, of retracing one’s steps and rerouting one’s journey—that challenges and rewards us.

Delight, Arushi Jain’s follow-up to 2021’s seminal Under the Lilac Sky, out March 29 2024 on Leaving, carries, at its core, the simple proposition that delight is accessible and that the practice of cultivating it is a necessary endeavor. Weaving together emotions, imagery, and a sense of yearning for beauty, Jain aims to instill belief in the ever-present nature of delight, asserting the need to actively seek it when not readily found. The enhanced perception of this elusive emotion, Jain asserts, comes through extended observation of the present - the longer we look, the more we see - an idea that serves as a guide in her quest for delight. The introduction of cello, classical guitar, marimba, flute, and saxophone plus rich Indian classical vocals, all layered with modular synthesis, expands her sonic vocabulary to a lush textural landscape and signals new areas of creative focus. Jain, for the uninitiated, is a multi-hyphenate artist/musician (composer, vocalist, engineer, modular synthesist) . As has been widely noted, Arushi Jain deploys the sounds and aesthetics of contemporary experimental electronic music to channel, celebrate, iterate upon, and interrogate traditional Indian idioms. Under the Lilac Sky, her first LP (also released on Leaving), constituted an offering of sorts: a six-song suite intended to accompany the listener as they watched the sun’s setting. But while Jain’s last record was concerned with time, space, and our outer environment, Delight is reflective, occasionally approaching the autobiographical—simultaneously a record of an artist’s inward journey, and an invitation/roadmap for the listener to embark on their own search for delight. Each of Delight's nine tracks were inspired by Raga Bageshri (a raga being a melodic framework particular to Indian classical music). Bageshri is said to convey the feeling of waiting to reunite with one’s beloved. It possesses an innate longing, colored by potent fantasies of reunion. “Bageshri embodies the realization that you have unknowingly fallen deeply in love. It triggers within me immense devotion, juxtaposed with a poignant acknowledgement of suffering; for love as immense is often challenging to reciprocate”, Jain writes. “We come into this world alone, and we leave alone. Despite this knowledge, the human capacity for love is without reservation, which I find generous.” She sings of connection to a past and future self, and the creative practice (see the meditation on intimacy, “Our Touching Tongues”), but her longing feels more expansive. The beloved Jain invokes throughout Delight is not a lover, as Bageshri calls for, but delight itself. Stirred by Raag Bageshri during a creative fallow, Jain decamped to Long Island, where she composed and recorded the core of her new album. She assembled a makeshift studio in an empty house on the seaside, a house suffused with light and art and surrounded by wildlife. This ambience has clearly seeped into the album, drenched as it is in the warm sun as it is in the cold October rain. In her self imposed isolation, Jain experimented with vocal compositions, building songs out of short sung phrases. Jain ended her solitary writing by entering a previously unexplored territory of collaboration, working with acoustic instrumentalists to incorporate classical guitar, cello, marimba, flute, and saxophone into her sonic vocabulary. The result is a collection of songs that are often slower and sparer than those featured on Under the Lilac Sky, yet audibly richer, embracing the transcendental potential of repetition and the nuance of sampling live instruments on her synthesizer. Phrases, lyrics, and notes recur, but the feelings they evoke are consistently novel; Delight is diverse and fluid. Each song documents, by Jain’s own account, a tussle with the void, a journey into the unknown. She has opened an unmarked door and returned with small things that bring delight, precious and unexpected; we catch their glimmer in each recording. Indeed, Delight serves as an abject reminder that, through attention, openness, and practice, we are all capable of tapping into this necessary human sensation.

This 1977 album was created in a new Afro-samba style, influenced by the disco and funk that he was exploring at the time, and is a sensual masterpiece that stands in stark contrast to his other works!

A singer-songwriter who wrote for the Turtles, Judee Sill -- in her early 1970s heyday -- was compared to Asylum label contemporaries like Joni Mitchell, though her music had stronger spiritual overtones. This nearly forgotten performance reveals a true talent that deserved so much more during her short lifetime. Judee Sill grew up in a very troubled home and came through it with some truly great music to tell so many stories that many of the more sentient listeners will appreciate.

A late '60s Japanese compilation investigating the so-called "group sound" movement. Includes early recordings by a series of musicians later to perform with legendary bands such as the Flower Travellin' Band, Speed Glue & Shinki, Les Rallizes Denudes, and Foodbrain. Featuring Golden Cups, Dynamite, Outcast, Carnabeats, Tempters, Beavers, Bunnys, Mops, Spiders, D'Swooners, Zoo Nee Woo, Fingers, Outcast, and Bunnys.

Active since the 1940s, Shungo Sawada laid the foundation of Japan's modern jazz scene by forming the famous combo Double Beats and presiding over the Mocambo sessions. Although he is a well-known and respected guitarist, he has produced surprisingly few albums as a leader. Among them, “Formation,” released in the Victor Japanese Jazz series, is Sawada's most ambitious work and is often called his masterpiece. It opens with “Footprints” by Wayne Shorter. It is dignified and neat, yet there is a certain naivete in its cool appearance, which is very tasteful. The explosive and fast “Formation” and the jazz-rock approach of “Unlucky Guy” are followed by “Chief Crazy Horse” by Shorter at the end of the album. The album is diverse, yet the overall tone is unified, and the album is extremely high in its degree of perfection. This is a special album that captures the image of the “New Mainstream” in Japan. text by Yusuke Ogawa (UNIVERSOUNDS / DEEP JAZZ REALITY)

THE HOLY MOTHER – MADHUVANTI PAL PLAYS THE RUDRA VEENA This is the first Vinyl LP ever released featuring a woman playing the Rudra Veena. Madhuvanti Pal is from Kolkata India, teaches the Rudra Veena and builds her own instruments. The name rudra veena derives from two Sanskrit roots: Rudra, which is a name for Shiva, and veena, which means ‘instrument.’ According to Hindu mythology, the Rudra Veena has a unique origin. It is said that Shiva saw his beautiful wife Parvati sleeping, with her arm over her breasts, and decided to build an instrument in her form. It is a stick zither, with two large gourds attached to a hollowed neck. The first historical accounts of the instrument are given in the Vedas, and then the Puranas. Dhrupad is the oldest form of North Indian classical music that is still performed today. During the Mughal period, the rudra veena was a popular Dhrupad instrument, and was often played in courts throughout north India. Dhrupad musicians, including rudra veena artists, enjoyed the patronage of various Kings and Princes. In recent years the rudra veena has gained some popularity, in part thanks to interest from musicians outside of India. Madhuvanti Pal is one of the new generation of rudra veena artists who is teaching students in India and abroad. Early documentation of the rudra veena suggests that women played the instrument. This can be seen in sculptures in Hindu temples—some dating back more than 2000 years—which depict only women playing the rudra veena, and miniature paintings from the 15th - 17th centuries often depict a woman playing the rudra veena. However, in more recent times there has been significant stigma around women playing the instrument. Some earlier texts went as far as to suggest that women could not play the instrument, lest they be subject to a “curse.” Jyoti Hegde, who is perhaps the most famous female rudra veena artist, broke this barrier; her courage enabled younger musicians like Madhuvanti Pal to learn. However, while Jyoti Hegde plays the so-called traditional rudra veena, Madhuvanti plays a modified Dagar-style instrument. Very few recordings of the rudra veena have been released; most current recordings are of Ustad Asad Ali Khan, Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and his son, Bahauddin Dagar. This is for a number of reasons, including that the rudra veena is notoriously difficult to capture in recorded form. Instead of traveling to a studio and availing technicians more accustomed to modern instrument needs, these recordings have been made in Madhuvanti’s apartment. In preparing the album, she has used her own equipment to record, mix, and master each raga. (Limited Edition Double LP spanning over 90 minutes in length, full-color Gatefold with extensive liner notes inside.) ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

Few artists have left behind a legacy as enigmatic and captivating as Shizuka Miura. Amidst the Tokyo underground, she was a spectral figure, creating ghostly, childlike dolls and writing haunting, other-worldly songs. She formed Shizuka in 1992 with Maki Miura, known for his staggering guitar work in legendary groups Fushitsusha and Les Rallizes Dénudés. Their music bloomed with a fragile, yet explosive mystical power; an atmospheric alchemy of psychedelic rock, folk and noise with Shizuka’s ethereal vocals invoking loneliness, yearning and dark providence. Since her passing in 2010, the group has steadily gathered a cult following. Black Editions presents their sole studio album, 1994’s Heavenly Persona, a monumental, transcendent work originally issued by P.S.F. Japan on CD in 1994; Now newly remastered and in its first ever vinyl edition on double LP with a laser etched fourth side. Presented in a deluxe tip-on tri-fold jacket with ink pigment foil stamping, gloss film laminate finish and printed inner sleeves and mounted booklet. It includes her extensive, heart wrenching final interview, translated for the first time to English alongside high-resolution archival images.

Rezzett come hungry for the club with a volley of thizzing ghetto-tech and breakbeat hardcore hot on the heels of their debut album For the DJs, dancers, and anyone needing to extend the pleasures of their eponymous LP, ‘Boshly’ sees Lukid & Tapes’ razz out from a corkscrewing mutation of jungle tekno in the title tune, to thee most febrile takes on ’93 hardcore gnash in the delirious ‘Dots’ and the free-handed jungle of ‘Kermit’, with an appropriate come down in ‘Extra Redundant’, each treated to their patented, astringent tekkerz.

"Just want to emphasize that Detroit is my heart. That’s the environment of my imagination. From the beginning." Gerald Cleaver Drummer-Turned-Techno Manipulator Gerald Cleaver Transforms the Evolution of Detroit’s Music Scene into Infectious Electronic Music in Fourth Album with 577 Records and Positive Elevation The electronic album you’ve all been waiting for has arrived! Detroit-born drum slayer Gerald Cleaver is making this summer even better with the upcoming release of a new, mysterious electronic ensemble that takes us to the next level of his unique avant-garde approach. The Process is brought to you by 577 Records and its sub-label, Positive Elevation, which is focused exclusively on electronic experimentation and avant soul. It marks his fourth collaboration with the companies. Known for his ability to use the unpredictability of improvisation to deliver an unbelievable experience, Cleaver explains that the theme of The Process is the “celebration of the freedom and power of the Black American male.” Its very name bears the idea of persisting, of becoming everlasting. He likens The Process (both the album and his methods) to the evolution of Detroit’s robust music scene, highlighting the importance of reaching a younger audience to keep its “Electrifying Mojo” alive and thriving. “I want this record heard like a long mix because this inspiration came from my song, ‘El Permanente’, which you hear near the end,” the musical genius says. “The joy in it ([and in] every electronic album) for me is it plays off of my heart’s passion: improvising. I create an inspiring sound, then I start improvising. That’s the legacy of Roscoe Mitchell. For me, it’s one of the most profound lessons (musical and otherwise).” The son of beloved drummer John Cleaver, Gerald picked up percussion effortlessly at an early age. You may recognize him from his involvement in projects like Welcome Adventure (also featuring Daniel Carter, Matthew Shipp, and William Parker) and Into the Wilderness (with Hprizm a.k.a High Priest and Brandon Lopez). He’s performed and collaborated with diverse artists, including Roscoe Mitchell, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Harris, and many others. He introduced the world to his mesmerizing electronic creations as a composer and producer in 2020. Every note on The Process weaves together Gerald’s deep love and appreciation for the city that shaped him, its rich culture, and his relentless passion for creating transcendent yet relatable music that is to be felt (not only heard). Enjoy it on LP, CD, and digital download beginning August 16, 2024.

2024 repress with a new cover art.

Mustapha Skandrani. Besides having an excellent name, this man, a luminary of Algerian music, possessed a unique musical sense, able to transcend the borders of musical cultures to create a distinctive fusion of Arabo-Andalusian and European styles.

"Istikhbars and Improvisations", recorded in 1965 in Paris, is a solo piano album presenting a trans-Mediterranean crossover based on traditional Algerian vocal pieces known as Istikhbars. Playing these istikhbars (which have roots in the Islamic Arabo-Andalusian culture which flourished in Spain) on the piano, that quintessentially European instrument, Skandrani was greeted with derision by some purists. Skandrani's powerful musical vision, however, perceives the European element involved in Arabo-Andalusian musical culture, a world of exchange and co-existence, and his decision to play this music on the piano reminds us of this European influence.

Skandrani's modus operandi on this release is to present each istikhbar, modal in nature, then to play an improvisation based on the istikhbar and its attendant mode. This A/B alternation continues throughout. The pellucid clarity of Skandrani's playing on this album may remind the listener of a modal Goldberg Variations, Bach and Glenn Gould transplanted to Andalucia. Other ears will hear the Arabic/Maghreb elements more strongly. Skandrani's precise touch and clear, symmetrical rhythmic sense links both worlds, assuring us that the Mediterranean is not a barrier, but a unifier, and that the differences between the cultures are not vast. This is an admirable acheivement, resulting in beautiful music of a rare charm.

Mustapha Skandrani was born in Algiers in 1920, and died there in 2005. He mastered a number of instruments at an early age, and his musical prowess led him to work with the great singers and ensembles of his day, in live performances, recordings, and radio broadcasts. Later in his life, he devoted much energy to education.

TRACKS:
1. Mode: Raml Maya + Improvisations
2. Mode: Moual + Improvisations
3. Mode: Sika + Improvisations
4. Mode: Araq + Improvisations
5. Mode: Mezmoum + Improvisations
6. Mode: Sahli + Improvisations
7. Mode: Ghrib + Improvisations
8. Mode: Zidane + Improvisations (Vinyl edition only)
9. Mode: Kourdi + Improvisations (Vinyl edition only)