MUSIC

A thrilling collaboration between major experimental maestros from slightly different sound worlds. Don Cherry, in the middle of a very free-ranging phase, plays his majestic trumpet over the shimmering organ tones of Terry Riley, while Karl Berger adds vibraphone. Heady stuff. Reissue of a rare concert recording from 1975, in an edition of just 500. On Modern Silence.

By the early '70s, Milford Graves had more or less stopped gigging. Having learned his lesson the hard way in multiple-night runs like a legendary Slugs' residency with Albert Ayler, he knew that the level of energy that he put out during a performance would be difficult to sustain over the long haul. A concert was a kind of absolute ritual for him, after which he would be totally spent, emotionally and physically. Graves rarely left anything on the table. Any musical performance was an opportunity to present an amalgamated version of all the things he had learned. He was an innovator and a teacher at his core, and the concert venue was one of his first classroom settings. In March 1976, Verna Gillis invited Graves to perform on WBAI's Free Music Store radio show. For the date, he chose to present a trio lineup which he had been occasionally playing – featuring two saxophonists who were dedicated to the drummer's vision. Hugh Glover is almost exclusively known for his work with Graves, while Arthur Doyle would gain exposure later for an obscure record that he made two years later, Alabama Feeling, which would become a highly collectable item among free jazz enthusiasts. Originally released in 1977, Bäbi remains one of Graves' most seminal recordings. The music played by the trio was ecstatic. Extreme energy music, buoyant and joyful. It relied on Graves' new way of approaching the drum kit, in which he had opened up the bottoms of his skin-slackened toms and eliminated the snare. Graves' art was always unblemished by commercial interests, and this album is its finest mission statement. First-time vinyl reissue. Sourced from the original master tapes.

Few copies available. Exclusive translucent red vinyl. Limited to 500 numbered copies. Includes In Concert At Yale University and Nommo with reproduction of hand-painted sleeve and historical inserts. The late percussionist Milford Graves was one of the most unique artists the world has ever seen. Born in Jamaica, Queens in 1941, he began his career in the early '60s as a part of New York's vibrant Latin jazz scene. His focus quickly turned inward, shifting towards a practice that explored the very nature of self. From his work in the New York Art Quartet and collaborations with Albert Ayler, Sonny Sharrock and more to his important contributions during NYC's loft era – he is, simply put, free jazz royalty. In April 1966, the duo of Graves and pianist Don Pullen played at Yale University. As John Corbett writes in the liner notes, "This performance was something of a turning point for Graves. Until then he had been working in other people's bands or collective ensembles. He was phenomenally busy. In 1965 alone, he recorded with NYAQ (two LPs), Giuseppi Logan Quartet, Paul Bley Quintet and Lowell Davidson Trio, and he made his first recording released under his own name, Percussion Ensemble. Every one of these is important in its own way, but none of them quite anticipate how radical was the music that he and Pullen would unleash that evening in New Haven." Originally released on the artists' own Self-Reliance Program label, this legendary one-night performance would be split into two volumes: In Concert At Yale University and Nommo. While rooted in African rhythms, Graves' music has its own sense of time. As the drummer stated in a 1966 DownBeat interview, "Time was always there, and the time I see is not the same as what man says time is. It works by impulsion."

Properly transcendent deep-dream jazz fantasy from prolific trumpet virtuoso Arve Henriksen (Supersilent) and Norwegian pianist Kjetil Husebø, together shaping an album that’s much, much more than the not so inconsiderable sum of its parts. Like a fever-dream comedown, it takes us from insanely rich sounding 4th world topographies to fizzing, electric ambience and fluttering prepared piano, perfectly soundtracking the humid un-reality we’re living through. If you’re into Jon Hassell, Miles Davis, Don Cherry/Codona, David Sylvian - read on. We’ve been snagged on Henriksen’s work since his ‘Chiaroscuro' album appeared back in 2004 - it’s 'Opening Image’ often cited here as basically the last word in cinematic framing. But It's his work alongside Helge Sten (Deathprod) and Ståle Storløkken in Supersilent that’s perhaps thrown us furthest down the Henriksen rabit hole in the years since, his distinctive shakuhachi-style playing often accenting their finest recordings. 'Sequential Stream' is Henriksen’s first collaboration with pianist Kjetil Husebø, the pair assembling the album remotely from their respective studios in Gothenburg, Sweden and Oslo, Norway over the course of 2019 and 2020. Henriksen plays Trumpet alongside synths, various electronics and - on ‘Single Sentence’ - a striking vocal delivery that eschews his usual wordless/soprano in favour of a more dense Tenor. Husebø plays grand piano, synths and samplers, and veers from cascading to more abstracted styles as the album progresses. In one sense the album functions in a traditional mode of Jazz reflection, aided considerably by a beautifully pristine recording and subsequent mastering by Helge Sten. Every note skips and shimmers with abundant clarity and depth - like the most affecting Jazz, played on the most luxurious systems; it just sounds rich and impossibly clear on even the most modest setup. At the same time, the pair’s avant garde instincts gradually make an indelible mark - be it through the prepared piano backbone on the remarkable 'Slow Fragments’ or the percolating, Conjoint-esque electronics on 'Sonic Binoculars’, piping in atmospheric depth and disjointed detail like some seismic event rippling through the ocean. Not usually drawn to the Jazz orthodoxy, 'Sequential Stream' presents us with something of a paradox - it feels like Henriksen’s most approachable work in years, but also his most complex and multi-faceted. If you’re looking for a late night soundtrack to the most celluloid moments of your life - it works on that level. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll discover much more ambiguous, subterranean delights.

The trio is made up of three trios and one vocalist: Yosuke Yamashita Trio, Itaru Oki Trio, Yuji Ohno Trio, and Kimiko Kasai, Trio by Trio Plus One. The original was released as one of the Victor “Jazz in Japan” series. Just by looking at the lineup of musicians, one can feel an extraordinary atmosphere in this special work. Yamashita, who was leading the scene as the darling of the times, and Oki, who came to Tokyo from Osaka in the mid-1960s and attracted a great deal of attention. Oki, who moved to Tokyo from Osaka in the mid-1960s and attracted much attention, and Ohno, whose supple musicality covered a wide range of genres from modern jazz to new jazz. And Kasai, who is just now blossoming. It goes without saying that each of their performances is powerful and attractive, but it is important to note that this album contains a performance by a seven-piece band consisting of the Oki Trio, Ohno Trio, and Kasai, which has never been recorded before or since.

Absolute K.O. bout of free jazz poetry by a spry, 85 year old Joe McPhee, adapting his renowned improvised practice to words - juxtaposed with Mats Gustafson’s sparing brass and electric gestures. It’s an utterly timeless and transfixing salvo, another shiny notch for Smalltown Supersound’s brilliant Le Jazz Non Series.
*300 copies limited edition* As a common ligature to the OG free jazz scene of ‘60s NYC, with formative binds to its European offshoots and the experimental avant garde, Joe McPhee is a true force of nature who has represented jazz at its freest over a remarkable lifetime. In duo with Swedish free jazz and noise standard bearer Mats Gustafson, he upends expectations with an astonishingly vivid and upfront example of his enduring contribution to freely improvised music. In 11 parts he variously reflects on everything from the neon sleaze and scuzz of NYC to contemporary US politicians and laugh out loud imitations of his previous sparring partners such as Peter Brötzmann, with a head-slapping immediacy that leaves you reeling, spellbound. 

McPhee’s flow of rare, organic cadence, ranging from urgent to contemplative and dreamlike, is blessed with a unique turn-of-phrase that surely mirrors his decades of instrumental work. Gustafsson, meanwhile, dextrously takes up the mantle with a multi-instrumental spectrum of sounds, leaving McPhee unbound and able to float and sting on the mic. There’s obvious wisdom in his perceptively penetrative observations, as derived from a rich cultural life well spent, but also a playful naivety and levity in his ability to veer from almost melodic speech to explosive aggression and a knowing, bathetic wit. It’s perhaps hard to believe that McPhee only started incorporating and performing spoken word in his work in the past ten years, a half century since his declaration of “What Time Is It‽” announced his arrival on a legendary debut ‘Nation Time’ (1971), ushering in one of free jazz’s most singular characters in the process. 

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Isaiah Collier connects with the divine ancestors on a transcendent Direct-To-Disc session, Parallel Universe Chicago-based innovator and educator Isaiah Collier is opening up new dimensions in the jazzwise continuum. A saxophonist by trade whose multi-instrumental talents and compositional prowess have stretched the limits of the form, Parallel Universe represents a new chapter in Collier’s musical journey. Having already performed with a diverse range of musicians such as Chance The Rapper, Waddada Leo Smith, Chicago jazz royalty Angel Bat Dawid and his own band The Chosen Few, Collier’s latest work as a bandleader explores the shared musical heritage of the African diaspora with a sense of grace and assurance that belies his years. Embracing the risk and vulnerability that comes with the live process, Collier and his band tapped into the frequencies of improvisation that fired up so many of the most timeless jazz recordings. “Recording direct-to-disc gave me a really fortunate opportunity to experience what our musical predecessors almost a hundred years ago were dealing with,” he explains. Name-checking Sun Ra, Ras G, J Dilla, Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Gil Scott-Heron, Whitney Huston, Aaliyah and Frankie Knuckles, the opening of track of Parallel Universe imagines a genreless musical lineage that resonates with the polyphony of stories his band bring to the table, from Chicago and beyond. Featuring gospel soul singer Jimetta Rose, AACM and former Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpet player Corey Wilkes, blues-rooted guitarist Michael Damani, regular collaborators Julian Davis Reid, James Russell Sims and Micah Collier, the 8-track album bristles with a sense of love and understanding between players at the top of their game. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s 13-minute centrepiece, ‘Village Song’, in which Collier evokes the spiritual, psychological and emotional home of the African diaspora in song. “I want to speak to everybody of the African diaspora, truly in its entirety,” he explains, “from all the way of being back in the motherland, to the new lands we’ve come to.” Rooted in the percussion of Sonny Daze and the kalimba of Radius, ‘Village Song’ is a joyous and affirmative celebration of that unity. Picking up the flute, Collier explains, was also a part of that narrative: “The saxophone was not made in Africa so the concept of going back into the village we have to go back to our village instruments and dialect.” With vocals sung in Yoruba - inspired by a gift from legendary saxophonist Kenny Garrett - ‘Village Song’ soars between rhythms and references, from Afro-Cuban syncopation to the deep triplet swing of mid-‘60s Coltrane. Laying the foundations for the album as a whole, the result is truly exhilarating, “Give me that feeling that makes me feel like I’m alive,” Collier enthuses. “People can tell when you’re taking chances. I know that’s what everybody is looking for.”

MESTIZX is Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly's debut album as co-composers, arrangers and musicians. Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices. Rosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice to all of us that live in-between.” Ferragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.” The album was produced and recorded primarily at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, where Ferragutti and Rosaly were joined by a community of musicians and beloved friends including Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, and Mikel Patrick Avery, with addditional contributions from Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens and Fredy Velásquez. The music creatively infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk. A wholly original but undeniably universal sound – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic - MESTIZX contains points of reference and resonance for fans of Juana Molina, Café Tacvba, Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln, Liquid Liquid, Arto Lindsay, As Mercenarias, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular... It’s a vast, vibrant and encompassing spectrum of sounds, but at its core MESTIZX is a lucidly conscious collection of auto-biographical statements from Ferragutti & Rosaly on the deeply personalized effects of colonialism on geography, history, and identity. Despite its heavy subject matter, however, MESTIZX finds a lifeline in communal, celebratory, soul-bearing and movement-inducing music.

1st edition of 500 - no repress. Deluxe edition with two booklets. Originally released in 1974. Holidays Records: "Blending Native American references into a body of sonority that draws on free improvisation, experimental electronic music, and spiritual jazz, Pygmy Unit’s “Signals From Earth” - originally self-released by the band in 1974 - forges a singular and almost entirely unknown path, and stands almost entirely on its own in the history of west coast American jazz. First appearing on the San Francisco scene sometime during the early 1970s, almost nothing is know about the Pygmy Unit, a seven piece band steered by Darrel De Vore, who contributed flute, bass, percussion, piano, and vocals to the band's lone LP, first appeared with percussionist Terry Wilson within the psychedelic folk rock band, The Charlatans, who belonged to the legendary Family Dog scene. Jim Pepper, a Native American tenor saxophonist known for being a member of the Mal Waldron Quartet, played with Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, and numerous others, and produced the cult favourite, “Pepper's Pow Wow”, for Embryo Records in 1971. John Celona, who contributes parts on sax, synthesizer, and percussion, would later go on to be regarded as an electronic composer of some note. Of the remaining members, saxophonist Frank Albright, bassoonist Ron Grunn, and percussionist Marvin Kirkland, very little else is known. It seems this LP is more or less all they recorded. While undeniably jazz - riding a remarkable line between avant-garde electronic music, spiritual jazz, and free improvisation - the band was very much a product of the diverse creative ferment that developed in their hometown of San Francisco during the 1960s. Embodying the raw spirit of DIY (many of the instruments used in the recordings were made by DeVore himself, self-described as an “itinerant flute-maker”) the ensemble channels references - via passages of chanting and percussion, as well as conceptual underpinnings - from Jim Pepper’s Native American roots, intuiting them with the soulfulness of spiritual jazz, wild moments of avant-gardism centred around synths and electronic effects, and explosions of wild free improvisation. “Development of new music is a continuous path that grows directionally according to psychoacoustical phenomena available for unification. This record is evidence of that development, containing 12 performance pieces, at 12 separate times in different acoustical spaces with various combinations of musicians and instrumentation. The music is shaped by signals, received and sent by life forms on this planet. It is unwritten, unrehearsed, utilizing new and traditional approaches to energy, motion, and form. Eventually, music develops as a natural extension of the environment in which it exists. It is the aim of the traditions… to signal the universe from the Earth.”

150 copies on Crystal Red Vinyl, deluxe edition 3LP Box, silver print on deluxe Fedrigoni Ultra Black paper, released with the full approval of the Sun Ra Estate. * Since their founding during the early years of the new millennium, the Italian imprint, Holidays Records, has stood at the vanguard of forward thinking sound, building a carefully curated catalog of release that collectively build context and conversation across numerous avenues of exploration - contemporary and historical sitting side by side - within the wider field of experimental and improvised music, via stellar LPs by Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble, Jean-Yves Bosseur, James Rushford, Delivery Health, Henning Christiansen, Four Horsemen, Maria Monti, and whole lot more. With every subsequent release, Holidays has seemed to manage to up their game, and this is unquestionably the case with their latest, Sun Ra’s “Live in Rome 1980”, capturing the Arkestra in incredible form and arguably the label’s most ambitious endeavour to date. Issued as an astounding 3xLP vinyl box set, with a 24-page booklet loaded with stunning photos, in a very limited edition of 150 copies, it encounters Ra’s legendary band entering their fourth decade of activity (1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s) in a rollicking storm of spiritual jazz, free improvisation, heavy grooves, and their defining take on Afrofuturism. Simply put, it’s hard to think of a better live recording of the Arkestra than this. Born Herman Poole Blount in Alabama during 1914, Sun Ra first emerged on the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. One of the great avant-garde composers of his generation - leading the way on piano, organ, and (eventually) synthesizer - beginning in the mid-1950s and lasting until his death in 1993, led the Arkestra, a band through which a near countless number of important artists passed and collaborated with, and many remained for the duration of their careers, notably Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson. Known for their wild costumes and theatrics, Ra’s eccentric image and claims that he was from Saturn was deeply political, imagining an alternate social order, history, and future for African Americans that rests as a pioneering force in the Afro-Futurist movement. While Sun Ra and his Arkestra can best be located within the broader movements of avant-garde jazz of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s - particularly as innovators of free and spiritual jazz in their evolving forms - the composer was notoriously hard to pin down on creative terms. He was a visionary titan whose work traversed nearly half of the 20th Century, continuously pushing the idiom of jazz at every turn, ingesting and incorporating the entire history African American music - the blues, R&B, soul, gospel, ragtime, hot jazz, swing, bebop, free jazz, and fusion, etc. - into his work, without any division or hierarchy, producing roughly 100 full lengths bear his name, beginning with 1957’s “Jazz By Sun Ra Vol.1”, and stretching well beyond his death in 1993. Despite how much was captured and released, remarkably, rare and previously unheard recordings continue to emerge and amaze into the present day, notably Holidays’ latest, “Live in Rome 1980”, capturing the Arkestra in incredible form at the dawn of a new decade. Recorded live at Teatro Giulio Cesare on March 28, 1980, comprising an astounding 27 compositions, including the highly celebrated “Astro Black”, “Mr. Mystery”, “Romance of Two Planets”, “Space Is the Place”, “We Travel the Spaceways”, and “Calling Planet Earth”, over the collections of six vinyl sides. High among the greatest live gigs by the Arkestra captured on tape, carefully mastered by Matt Bordin at Outside Inside Studio, “Live in Rome 1980” is a near perfect snapshot of the band’s versatility and range, including many of their most notably and famous songs, as well as striking renditions of the Horace Henderson penned Benny Goodman number “Big John’s Special”, Fletcher Henderson’s “Yeah Man!”, and Django Reinhardt's "Limehouse Blues”, displaying Ra’s willingness to address and rework the entire, diverse history of jazz in a single go. Heard in its totality, perhaps what makes “Live in Rome 1980” most striking is the way in which the concert plays out. Roughly the first half encounters the band locked in some of the most out-there, free jazz fire that can be imagined, weaving a startling sense of interplay and furious energy into a brilliant tapestry of writhing sonority, the likes of which were only really achieved by this band. The second half, with only moments of exception that return to the furious energy of the first, is a very different affair, easy toward the vocal standards, led by June Tyson’s vocals and the joyous collective chanting of the band, for which they have become so widely celebrated, threading the sounds of off kilter big band swing with heavy grooves and imagines of outer space. Absolutely engrossing and creatively enthralling from the first sounding to the last,

Alga Marghen/Formalibera present the first of a series of released documenting the work of Danish composer and multi-instrumentalist John Tchicai. This new LP features two previously unpublished recordings, "Beautiful United Harmony Happening" with Don Cherry and "Education Of An Amphibian" with Sahib Shihab. Tchicai returned to his native Denmark in July 1966 after spending a remarkable four years in New York City. In that short span, he helped redefine and expand the relationship between soloing, collective improvisation, and composition in small free jazz ensembles such as the New York Art Quartet, the New York Contemporary Five, and on albums such as New York Eye and Ear Control with Albert Ayler and John Coltrane's Ascension. It certainly counts as one of the most fertile periods in any artist's career. Yet when he returned to Europe, Tchicai turned his attention primarily (although not exclusively) to large ensemble music. The breakthroughs made in New York were not lost, but transferred to a large group context, opening up further avenues of exploration. "The Education of an Amphibian" by the John Tchicai Octet represents a first try at "Komponist Udøver Ensemble," or "Composing Improvisers Orchestra," an approach that further blurred boundaries between improvisation and composition. Recorded in October 1966, the piece presents Tchicai as composer and guiding presence; an organizer of sounds; and an explorer of a widening musical vocabulary drawn from contemporary classical and African influences. "Beautiful United Harmony Happening" is something different -- an opportunity to embrace new modes of interdisciplinary performance. From the beginning of his return to Denmark, Tchicai sought out not only musicians, but artists in all artforms and began to organize happenings. Although rarely noted, ideas linked to Fluxus, performance art, and happenings were a large influence of Tchicai's thinking at this time. All these related movements sought to blur or erase boundaries between media and set up juxtapositions between styles and artforms that disrupted received ideas of "high" and "low" art. Participation by non-artists introduced elements that challenged ideas about virtuosity and legitimate expression. Random elements were embraced, and non-Western music and concepts were welcome. This performance, heard here in an excerpt from the full two-hour performance, is very much in this vein. It is one of the last performances involving members of Cadentia Nova Danica, but they are only one component (and hardly the focus) of an ensemble that included a five-member chorus of disciples of the Swami Narayanananda (Tchicai lived at the yogi's ashram and had organized the choir himself), the Diane Black Dance Theatre, and trumpeter Don Cherry. Includes insert.

 

This 1968 release mixes the free jazz of Albert Ayler with the catchy sounds of children's rhythms and brass band marches to create one of the best pieces of experimental jazz of the period.

Pharaoh Sanders' 1971 impulse! Adding groove to the spiritual, free jazz foundation explored on the previous album, the 37-minute rhythm-driven title track is full of piercing emotion, exploring African, Latin, Aboriginal, and Native American sounds.

After delivering one of this decade’s early classic LPs, Naarm’s brilliantly incomparable CS + Kreme morph into modal jazz electronic mutations on a deadly cool but restless new album exploring the fissures of Detroit beatdown, early ‘00s electronica, contemporary midnight jazz and ambient rituals, featuring contributions from Bridget St John and James Rushford. Adored around these parts since their 2016 debut 12” with Total Stasis, Conrad Standish & Sam Karmel’s duo really dominated our listening lives during the pandemic with ’Snoopy’, a heady elision of downbeat styles that crossed borders between lysergic Coil rites and illbient trip hop with a snug intimacy and emotive grip that rewarded deeper with every listen. One of their last live shows before the pandemic was held at The White Hotel in Salford, where the formative, physical experience of performing their music on a finely tuned sound system stuck with the duo as they caught one of the last flights back to Australia, where they endured one of the harshest lockdown protocols in the world; not allowed to travel more than 5 miles from home, and only for limited amounts of time. During lockdown the residual glow of the preceding months buoyed their spirits and prompted a new slant on CS + Kreme music, urging them to get deeper into it, with melody taking more of a backseat to texture and groove as the recordings manifested a more built-in, metaphoric and circular, organic quality that feels very much in-the-present, but also gently dissociative, evoking the interstitial states of mind of natural highs and nostalgic reminiscence ‘Orange’ arrives as the ideal sibling to ’Snoopy’, blessed with a touch-sensitive emotional intelligence and sensuality that oozes therapeutic vibes. The swirling energies of their first LP here feel settled into a quietly profound psychedelic experience, with longer track lengths allowing their feelings to grow and slosh over the senses with a groggier suspension of disbelief from the snaking rustle of ‘Baseline’ thru the extraordinary 20 minute depths of oily ambient invocation to ‘Storms Rips Banana Tree’ featuring James Rushford on portative organ, Wurlitzer and harpsichord. The spirit of Arthur Russell's "World of Echo" looms over 'Shred', as moody, viscous strings roll over reduced, machine-gun drum machine patterns and deranged lite-jazz electric piano. Any links the mind makes are inevitably blotted into surreal shapes almost immediately; just as you think you have an idea of where the track's coming from, bizarre vocals and unsettling flute blasts wrench you into a different locale. Even on the relatively austere 'Voice of the Spider', what starts as a baroque minimal techno slowly mutates into glassy FM modernism, with vocal chants and delirious, curvaceous instrumentation that plays like Kemetrix and Detroit Escalator Company on a dank one. If there's one element that lashes each disparate composition together, it's CS + Kreme's use of voices. On each track there's inevitably a wordless breathiness that roots us in the duo's sonic philosophy; their instrumentals might flutter between vastly different forms of expression, but their transient principles are moored by the most human expression of all. The whisper turns into a murmur (sung by legend Bridget St John) on 'Would You Like a Vampire', and lyrics form a near-song, sounding like Hood's rainy electro-indie variations supplanted into CS + Kreme's psychedelic headspace. It's as close as the duo get to pop, and they follow it by embarking on the album's most uncompromising moment, a 20-minute finale that lurches from transcendent ritual drone into jerky electronics, freeform doom jazz and growling basement noise. If you've made it this far then you've been initiated into Standish and Karmel's musical coterie, and this final mutated gesture feels like a gift from the duo to their most dedicated listeners.

To explore and absorb Planet Q, the new record by artists Kyoko Takenaka + Tomoki Sanders, is to become untethered from structural expectations, to reside in a realm where genre vanishes and a profound musical space remains, where the absence of gravity causes curious things to occur. It’s a spot where handclaps may not move in time, where sonic gurgles of unknown origin offer texture, where a deep, hooky rhythm can propel a groove into the stratosphere. At various times the tracks move like Dilla pieces, at others like Terry Riley explorations, like Flying Lotus or Milford Graves or Alice Coltrane meditations. But every time you think you’ve got the sound figured out, it hits from another angle. Though a brief missive at 30 minutes, you exit Planet Q as if leaving an utterly alien spot.

Free, Dancing . . . is the first release by a new trio with percussionist and producer Carlos Niño, luminary multi-instrumentalist Idris Ackamoor (of The Pyramids) and wizard guitarist, producer Nate Mercereau. They have been playing concerts together in California since June 2022, sharing a unique vibrant sound, findings and energetics...

Most of this recording was made during a single early evening in Southern California, outdoors, with the San Bernardino Mountains in view. Sam Wilkes played bass guitar, Craig Weinrib played trap drums, and Dylan Day played electric guitar. Eight months after that dusk recording session, the trio reconvened to capture a few more pieces. Wilkes wanted to hear Dylan play a Jobim melody (How Insensitive), Dylan wanted to hear Craig play a funeral march (When I Can Read My Titles Clear), and Craig wanted to play nice and gentle. The resulting record, a document of an initial and seemingly fated musical encounter, conveys the ease and the intensity of the trio’s chemistry. Their shared sonic affinities, while essential to the record’s sound, feel secondary to the integrity, confidence, and mutual regard that suffuse each note and every beat. Atop standards, folk songs, and hymns, Wilkes, Weinrib, and Day unfurl a series of cascading improvisations. Joyful and precise music. Sam Wilkes is from Westport, Connecticut and lives in Los Angeles, California. Craig Weinrib is from New York and lives in New York. Dylan Day is from Fletcher, Vermont and lives in Los Angeles, California.

"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.

Carrying Colour presents 'Sen Am', the third album by Duval Timothy. The album is the product of Duval spending the last two years living between London, UK and Freetown, Sierra Leone. 'Sen Am' is a Krio phrase that means 'send it' or 'send him/her Throughout the record friends and family from Sierra Leone appear through Whatsapp voice notes that speak over solo piano and layered instrumental compositions. Also featuring: 6pac, Aminata, Aruna, Emmerson & Sydney. The LP was recorded in London (UK), Bath (UK), Freetown (SL), Tokyo (JP), Kyoto (JP). Recorded and engineered by Duval Timothy Copyright Duval Timothy

After releasing Undefined, Kazufumi Kodama and Babe Roots, the 4th release from a Japanese experimental dub label newdubhall welcomes the ever-evolving pioneer of minimal dub and dub techno Deadbeat, a solo project of Scott Monteith hailing from Canada. Side A 'Things Fall Apart' will feature a beatless dub ambient which shares a perspective of free jazz and 'Adieu Chez Cherie,’ an absolute knockdown four on the floor dub techno on the flip side. Though simple, both sides are layered with complexity, let yourself experience the profundity of newdubhall with this masterpiece.

Souffle Continu records is thrilled to present Byard Lancaster – The Complete Palm Recordings 1973-1974, the definitive 7 LP’s deluxe package of Philadelphia born jazz wizard Byard Lancaster including his 4 legendary albums released on Jef Gilson’s Palm Records in the 1970s, Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib, along with the first ever standalone edition of Love Always, a fifteen minute modal jazz beauty plus a 20 page booklet with rare photos and in-depth article about Byard Lancaster’s Parisian years by Pierre Crépon. 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! A few months after recording “Us”, Lancaster recorded “Mother Africa” along with Clint Jackson III, a trumpeter, partner of Khan Jamal or Noah Howard on other recordings. On march 8th, 1974, Lancaster and Jackson headed up a group composed of Jean-François Catoire (electric and double bass), Keno Speller (percussion) and Jonathan Dickinson (drums). Together, they create an immediate impression. From the first seconds of “We The Blessed”, they develop a free jazz which rapidly abandons any virulence under the effect of blues and soul based interventions. When Gilson’s composition “Mother Africa” begins, listeners are transported into the studio, listening to the musicians setting up: chatting and joking… Then comes the melody: a dozen or so notes of a repeated theme which is accelerated and deformed according to their whims… The jazz played by the association Byard Lancaster / Clint Jackson III is rare: creative AND recreational. “We the blessed”, is apt listening to this again today! The recording of “Exactement” required two sessions in the studio: February 1st and May 18th 1974 – in between the two dates, Lancaster recorded, alongside Clint Jackson, the excellent Mother Africa. Two names appear on the cover of “Exactement”: Lancaster (Byard) and Speller (Keno). Byard Lancaster wanted to be precise, moving regularly from one instrument to another: first on piano, which was the first instrument he learned. On “Sweet Evil Miss Kisianga”, his inspiration is first and foremost Coltrane (even if leaning more towards Alice than John), this announces the storm to follow. It is Lancaster’s horn-playing which really stands out: on alto (the sound of which is transformed by an octavoice on one track, "Dr. Oliver W. Lancaster") or soprano saxophones, as well as on flute or bass clarinet, the musician walks a tightrope making the most of all the risks he takes. Using the full register of his instruments, he has fun with the possibilities. Then, Lancaster invokes or evokes Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and even Prokofiev, before going into a danse alongside Keno Speller on percussion. Above all, he has a unique sound. Byard Lancaster, on whatever instrument he plays and by continually seeking, always ends up hitting the right note… ends up by playing exactement the note he had to play. “Funny Funky Rib Crib” is an unforgettable recording (made up of several sessions dating from the middle of 1974) of creative jazz overwhelmed by funk and soul. If Lancaster had already made successful albums in the same genre – notably New Horizons, under the name Sounds Of Liberation which he co-led with Khan Jamal –, this one is an homage to James Brown and Sammy Davis enjoying the company of a host of guests including François Tusques (electric piano), Clint Jackson III (trumpet), François Nyombo (guitar), Joseph Traindl (trombone)… Funny Funky Rib Crib’s cover is a three-quarter profile portrait of the saxophonist (who can also be heard on flute, piano and even vocals), however, on the record, it is the whole group, inspired and frenetic, that tests the melodies of “Just Test”, “Dogtown” or “Rib Crib” – the two versions of which display leader Lancaster’s art of nuance. On both sides of the album, the group also moves into a calmer groove, infused by blues and soul, “Work And Pray” and “Loving Kindness” are meditative tracks where listeners can lay back and relax before asking for more: Funny Funky Rib Crib!!! The magnificent “Love Always” was originally released on the fourth (and last) volume of the Jef Gilson Anthology series released in 1975. Recorded on 8th March 1974, it is a beautiful 15-minute-long modal jazz piece. Four notes from the bass (the relentless Jean-François Catoire, who makes up the rhythm section alongside drummer Jonathan Dickinson and percussionist Keno Speller), and the group is up and running! On piano, Gilson shows the subtle tact of a sideman, leaving the lions’ share of the place to the horns. This allows us to hear the trumpet of Clint Jackson III and the alto (which sometimes sounds almost flute-like) of Byard Lancaster each staking their claim in a long hallucinatory march which moves from moments of direct exaltation to profoundly sensitive collective playing. And if further proof was required of the confidence that Byard Lancaster and Jef Gilson inspire, “Love Always” provides it on this one sided release exclusive to the box set.

In the Summer of 2023, we recorded our first studio album onboard a Lightship in the docklands of East London. Sculpted through long form improvisations, this music reflects our personal transformations as well as the rapidly evolving world in which we live. With its gradually unveiling intricacies and soundscapes rich in colour and depth, we sincerely hope this album can provide some moments of calm and joy. "Some of the most exciting jazz currently lighting up the London scene, right here. Moody, gliding, ranging improvisations, fronted by the closely-knit harmonies and melodies of woodwind duo Idris Rahman and Tamar Osbourne, and under-pinned by the propulsive, layered rhythms of Yusuf Ahmed’s drums and Jihad Darwish’s sitar and bass. Very warmly recommended." - Honest Jons Records

Nothing innocent about this record – because the groove is hard and heavy, wild and trippy – a really heady brew of funky jazz and more psychedelic influences – all recorded with some weird sounds in the background too! The album's a great one from Japanese groove pioneer Takeshi Inomata – and it's almost a fusion of earlier 60s funky band jazz with some of the more tripped-out modes of the jazz rock era. Vamping rhythms and full-on organs are undercut by wiggy guitar parts and soaring organ lines – all augmented by spoken Japanese passages, sound effects, and production styles that abstract out some instruments into very unusual modes.

''The bass-clarinetist Ville Lahteenmäki's raucous, ruggedly braying style makes him a notable addition to the Dolphy-Murray-Mahall lineage that produces maximum excitement with every outpouring of notes. His accompanists, drummer Nicolas Leirtre and bassist Trym Saugstad Karlsen, are like himself, students at the renowned Trondheim Conservatory, an institution whose impact on European jazz has been significant in modern times.'' - Kevin Le Gendre / Jazzwise