MUSIC

The studio at 122 West Loveland Avenue was not an unfamiliar space for Steve Okonski, the leader of his eponymous trio Okonski. Ever since the Colemine label set up shop in Loveland, Ohio it has been a host to a number of groups passing through town, including Durand Jones and the Indications who all of this trio’s members have connections to. After setting aside some time in winter of 2020, Okonski, trained initially as a classical pianist, invited Michael Isvara “Ish” Montgomery and Aaron Frazer to work on an album that was initially planned to be beat driven and fully composed trio instrumentals. After finishing this first session with some improvisations, a second week was booked in the summer of 2021 to try and capture some more of that spontaneous energy. During this session, the tracks were all improvised and recorded live to a Tascam 388 during several late nights at the Colemine HQ. They were structured to allow the group’s collective intuition to fully shape the melodies and arcs of the music. The album opens with Runner Up, where a triumphant yet melancholic melody in the piano leads to a more reserved B-section driven by the drums and bass of Frazer and Montgomery. As you journey through the remainder of the album you are met with a plethora of evoked and explored emotions. The calmness one has walking down a moonlit street after midnight, the connection one has for a person who comes into their world for just a moment or a lifetime, and the nerves and catharsis one feels when starting upon a new, unknown journey. Magnolia closes with Sunday, a track that was recorded late into the night at the close of their first recording session. Without the spontaneity of Sunday, the remainder of Magnolia would likely have never come to fruition. Magnolia was composed from the heart and from the spirit of those in the studio those late nights in Loveland. It is the culmination of an emotional and artistic release that was not afforded or recognized before the band sat at their instruments, and because of that it is introspective, meditative, spiritual, and new.

Ellen Arkbro’s fourth album, Nightclouds, collects five improvisations for solo organ, recorded across Central Europe in 2023–24.

"Nightclouds is more unabashedly Romantic and introspective than her previous efforts, though it remains firmly rooted in the rigor and precision that have come to define Arkbro’s concept. Extending her previous explorations of spatialized harmony, tactility, and texture,

Arkbro draws equally on sacred music, ECM–style jazz, and downtown minimalism, conjuring a cool intimacy and tone. Her decelerationist chordal improvisations envelop the listener in dirge-like washes, while her close miking reveals the rough haptic grain of the reeds, bringing the listener both inside and outside the sound. Evoking Kjell Johnsen and Jan Garbarek’s duets, or La Monte Young and Tony Conrad’s take on Euringer and Harmer’s cowboy song “Oh Bury Me Not,” Nightclouds channels spiritual pathos through a rigorously restrained architecture.

Following up on last year’s Sounds While Waiting (W.25TH, 2024), a selection of stereo mixes documenting Arkbro’s spatial organ installations, Nightclouds shifts direction, focusing on instant composition and improvisation. Elegant, simple chordal scaffolds support rich, ever-shifting textures; listening closely necessitates surrender to sustained irresolution. Bookending a collection of short pieces are two variations on the titular composition, “Nightclouds,” which is a sly nod to British jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth: The first take slows down and stretches out a continuously modulated harmonic progression, while the short closing version simply loops three chords. Situated between these tracks are “Still Life” and “Chordalities,” two short works recorded at the Temple de La-Tour-de-Peilz in Vevey, Switzerland. The second half of the album is given to “Morningclouds,” a sprawling work recorded in the reconstructed Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) in Berlin. Arkbro’s concise musical vocabulary and formal architecture evoke a sense of emotional ambivalence, simultaneously uplifting and mournful, guiding the listener through a spectrum of feeling with a cool and distant beauty. Nightclouds stands as a profound statement in Arkbro’s evolving body of work, at once introspective and expansive, the album reaffirms her singular ability to transform harmonic simplicity into deeply affecting sonic landscapes, inviting listeners into a space of contemplation and emotional depth.

Ellen Arkbro’s fourth album, Nightclouds, collects five improvisations for solo organ, recorded across Central Europe in 2023–24.

"Nightclouds is more unabashedly Romantic and introspective than her previous efforts, though it remains firmly rooted in the rigor and precision that have come to define Arkbro’s concept. Extending her previous explorations of spatialized harmony, tactility, and texture,

Arkbro draws equally on sacred music, ECM–style jazz, and downtown minimalism, conjuring a cool intimacy and tone. Her decelerationist chordal improvisations envelop the listener in dirge-like washes, while her close miking reveals the rough haptic grain of the reeds, bringing the listener both inside and outside the sound. Evoking Kjell Johnsen and Jan Garbarek’s duets, or La Monte Young and Tony Conrad’s take on Euringer and Harmer’s cowboy song “Oh Bury Me Not,” Nightclouds channels spiritual pathos through a rigorously restrained architecture.

Following up on last year’s Sounds While Waiting (W.25TH, 2024), a selection of stereo mixes documenting Arkbro’s spatial organ installations, Nightclouds shifts direction, focusing on instant composition and improvisation. Elegant, simple chordal scaffolds support rich, ever-shifting textures; listening closely necessitates surrender to sustained irresolution. Bookending a collection of short pieces are two variations on the titular composition, “Nightclouds,” which is a sly nod to British jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth: The first take slows down and stretches out a continuously modulated harmonic progression, while the short closing version simply loops three chords. Situated between these tracks are “Still Life” and “Chordalities,” two short works recorded at the Temple de La-Tour-de-Peilz in Vevey, Switzerland. The second half of the album is given to “Morningclouds,” a sprawling work recorded in the reconstructed Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) in Berlin. Arkbro’s concise musical vocabulary and formal architecture evoke a sense of emotional ambivalence, simultaneously uplifting and mournful, guiding the listener through a spectrum of feeling with a cool and distant beauty. Nightclouds stands as a profound statement in Arkbro’s evolving body of work, at once introspective and expansive, the album reaffirms her singular ability to transform harmonic simplicity into deeply affecting sonic landscapes, inviting listeners into a space of contemplation and emotional depth.

Endlessness is a deep dive into the cycle of existence. The 45-minute album delicately spans 10 tracks with a continuous arpeggio playing throughout, creating an expansive, mesmerising celebration of life cycles and rebirth. Following Sinephro’s critically acclaimed 2021 debut album Space 1.8, Endlessness further elevates her as a transcendent and multi-dimensional composer, beautifully morphing jazz, orchestral, and electronic music.

The album was composed, produced, arranged, and engineered by Sinephro. Performing on the album are Sheila Maurice-Grey, Morgan Simpson, James Mollison, Lyle Barton, Nubya Garcia, Natcyet Wakili, and Dwayne Kilvington, joined by Orchestrate’s 21 string players.

Gilles Peterson presents International Anthem is a Deluxe Double LP compilation chronicling the infamous London-based radio host, DJ, label head, curator and cultural impresario's long-standing affinity for and interaction with artists and music from the Chicago-born record label International Anthem. The tracks on this compilation were chosen by Peterson via an extensive review of track lists from his broadcasts on BBC 6 Music, Worldwide FM, and various syndicated radio programs. The compilation also includes a previously unreleased track recorded live on the Peterson-founded online radio station Worldwide FM. The RSD exclusive 2LP is on "Frozen Lake Michigan" colored vinyl. This album is released via International Anthem as part of their "IA11" series of releases and events – where the label celebrates their eleventh year of existence by looking back on their first ten years while establishing new standards for the next ten years.

Pressed for Record Store Day 2025 for "Frozen Lake Michigan" Color 140g 2 x LP, in a heavyweight UV-Gloss jacket, with 12"x12" insert booklet, with IA OBI Strip & printed poly-lined inner sleeves.

Join the Kyle Shepherd Trio on “A Dance More Sweetly Played” as they explore, collaborate and improvise on the ‘songs we like to play’. The album’s title is a dedication to the celebrated South African artist William Kentridge, with whom Shepherd collaborated on a joint-work “Waiting for Sybil” that has toured world-wide. In addition to ten Shepherd originals, perhaps most unexpected is the inclusion of an exquisite reading of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ and a deconstructed take of Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, a favourite rock anthem that Shepherd describes as a ‘guilty pleasure’. ‘The inclusion of the Massive Attack and Journey tunes – that’s something out of character to me,’ observes Shepherd. The selection rests well within the grand jazz tradition of repurposing popular songs as vehicles for improvisation, thought, and pleasure. ‘It just came down to playing some tunes that we like and we can flow with, so that we can be inspired and express ourselves in a very natural organic way,’ he says. ‘We walked away from the from the studio feeling like – you know, we actually really enjoyed playing this record!’ ‘With this record, I felt less attached to any sort of predetermined concepts except that we would play some music that I wrote that we like – a selection of things that we like to play. It felt like a bit of a tonic – every musician gets a chance to breathe through the music, and the music just flows and moves as organically as we could make it.’ To hear one of South Africa’s foremost pianists play with intention, freedom and enjoyment, in the tradition and beyond it, is above all a gift to the listener, and Matsuli Music is proud to be able to share the Trio’s first album in a decade, A Dance More Sweetly Played. "… it’s in his linking of international influences with his own local traditions that his strength lies." Peter Bacon, The Jazz Breakfast

An addendum to Makaya McCraven's critically-acclaimed 2018 release Universal Beings, which The New York Times said "affirms the drummer and beatsmith's position as a major figure in creative music," Universal Beings E&F Sides presents fourteen new pieces of organic beat music cut from the original sessions, prepared and produced by Makaya as a soundtrack to the Universal Beings documentary film.

Directed by Mark Pallman, the Universal Beings documentary follows Makaya to Los Angeles, Chicago, London and New York City for a behind the scenes look into the making of the artists breakthrough album, taking the viewer through the story of Makaya's life, his process and the community of musicians that helped bring this project to life. The Universal Beings documentary and Universal Beings E&F Sides album release July 31st 2020.

Named one of the best albums of 2018 by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, Stereogum, Billboard, SPIN, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, and more, Universal Beings was recorded at four sessions in New York, Chicago, London and Los Angeles, and features some of the best "new" jazz players from those hot bed cities: Brandee Younger, Tomeka Reid, Dezron Douglas, Joel Ross, Shabaka Hutchings, Junius Paul, Nubya Garcia, Daniel Casimir, Ashley Henry, Josh Johnson, Jeff Parker, Anna Butters, Carlos Niño and Miguel-Atwood Ferguson - all of whom feature on Universal Beings E&F Sides.

To mark 50-years since a 22 year old Michael Gregory Jackson recorded his groundbreaking first release, "CLARITY / CIRCLE / TRIANGLE / SQUARE", recorded with the mind blowing group of his contemporaries Oliver Lake, David Murray and Leo Smith. This album is like no other I know, a new world, finding a perfect balance between multiple genres. Moved-By- Sound is very excited and honored to be involved in releasing the first reissue authorized by Michael Gregory Jackson since the original release in 1976. Remastered and restored, it is a perfect album in which to lose and/or find yourself in these complicated times.

To mark 50-years since a 22 year old Michael Gregory Jackson recorded his groundbreaking first release, "CLARITY / CIRCLE / TRIANGLE / SQUARE", recorded with the mind blowing group of his contemporaries Oliver Lake, David Murray and Leo Smith. This album is like no other I know, a new world, finding a perfect balance between multiple genres. Moved-By- Sound is very excited and honored to be involved in releasing the first reissue authorized by Michael Gregory Jackson since the original release in 1976. Remastered and restored, it is a perfect album in which to lose and/or find yourself in these complicated times.

Chicago-based composer, improviser, multi-media artist and underground legend, Rob Mazurek, joins forces with modular-synth maestro and light magician, Alberto Novello for a blacklight invocation that hurls us out into new and uncharted sound-dimensions.Born of a chance encounter, Alberto Novello and Rob Mazurek's improvised collaboration, Sun Eaters, was recorded in a single afternoon at Dobialab, an experimental artist run space in Northern Italy. Alberto provided a loose rhythmic and timbral bedrock over which Rob Mazurek sketched and weaved delicate harmonies with trumpets, adding atmosphere with bells and sampler.Sun Eaters is a dizzying space ritual, a totally out exercise in telepathic collaboration and psychedelic sound.

London based Caribbean-Belgian composer, producer, and musician Nala Sinephro steps out on her own with a deeply personal debut album and her first release with Warp Records.

Adroit jazz guitar, prog rock fantasia, and Japanese environmental music all rest comfortably behind Leo Takami's Next Door. The follow up to the acclaimed Felis Catus & Silence, Next Door finds Takami ruminating on passages — of time, seasons, consciousness. Through music, Leo contemplates daily events and finds beauty in ordinary moments. He also seems to be questioning the value of being stuck in the world, allowing his mind to wander towards something beyond it. His music is earnest, deeply personal and introspective, and is sort of akin to Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker or Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad. On “As If Listening” Takami takes inspiration from a Van Gogh art show organized chronologically, articulating the sense of “enlightened resignation” that is intrinsic in the act of creativity. “Beyond” is a dream of otherworldly nostalgia, a watercolor of past lives. His music is a hazy cinema of memory, the soundtrack to a cherished memory that may have never really happened, but still radiates in the mind like the sun on an unusually warm winter day.

Produced by Matthew Halsall, Gondwana Records is delighted to announce Horizons the debut album by Leeds-based saxophonist, composer and band-leader Jasmine Myra Jasmine Myra is a saxophonist, composer and band leader, based in Leeds. Part of the bustling, creative, cross-genre music scene in Leeds (she attended Leeds Conservatoire) Jasmine has surrounded herself with some of the best young talent in the city. Her original instrumental music has a euphoric and uplifting sound, influenced by artists as diverse as Kenny Wheeler, Bonobo, Olafur Arnalds and Moses Sumney – artists whose music shares an emotive quality that you can also hear in Myra’s compositions. Her first break came in 2018, when just one year after graduating she was selected to take part in Jazz North Introduces, a scheme that supports emerging jazz artists in the North of England. Shortly afterwards her music came to the attention of Gondwana Records boss Matthew Halsall, whose keen ear for talent helped bring the music of GoGo Penguin, Mammal Hands and Hania Rani to the wider world. Halsall explains: “I was immediately drawn to Jasmine’s music. I could hear jazz, electronica in her music but with a deep, honest, emotional quality. I was really impressed with her skills as a composer and bandleader, that she is open and intelligent enough to bring all those influences together, to make something fresh and original. We were also delighted to work with a young artist from the North of England. London is often seen as the place to be, but cities like Manchester and Leeds are full of creative musicians too, and that sense of local community is at the heart of our values as a label.” Beautifully produced by Matthew Halsall and mixed by Portico Quartet collaborator Greg Freeman, the music for Horizons started to come together during lockdown. It was a hard time for a lot of people, and initially Myra struggled mentally, deprived of shows and the connections of making music with her band and friends, and cut-off from loved ones she felt emotionally and mentally stranded. But she also realised what she wanted as an artist and the result is heard on Horizons. “I realised that my aim was to start writing music that made people feel happy and uplifted. Writing is one of my biggest passions, but I also love performing. Playing live and seeing the audience connect with my music and have a positive experience brings me so much joy”. This sense of elevation is at the heart of Horizons, together with the feeling of a journey, of reaching new ground. Prologue and Horizons were originally composed as one piece as they encapsulate Myra’s own personal development as she worked on the album - taking the listener on a journey, especially Prologue; and then Horizons is that moment of release when you've reached the end goal. 1000 Miles takes inspiration from the music of Shabaka and the Ancestors. Whereas Words Left Unspoken was written after Myra’s grandmother unexpectedly passed away in June, and due to Covid restrictions she was unable to visit her before she passed and say how much she loved her. Morningtide is a nod to Kenny Wheeler, particularly the track Opening from Sweet Time Suite on Music for Large and Small Ensembles but Myra also puts her own spin on it as she also does with Promise, another track influenced by Wheeler. Awakening has a calm and euphoric quality and represents that sense of problems lifting, or of reaching the other side, and New Beginnings finishes the album with a positive vibe and a sense of moving forward from darkness This then is Horizons. A soulful, emotional and up-lifting debut from a major new voice. A snapshot of a young artist at the beginning of her journey - drawing on jazz and electronica influences to create something fresh and new. But also a celebration of her home town Leeds, and a record built on a sense of support and community before looking out to wider Horizons.

Saxophonist, flautist Chip Wickham takes us to Cloud 10 with his most soulful and lyrical album to date Chip Wickham is a jazz musician and producer who divides his time between Spain, UK and the Middle-East and who has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard swinging spiritual jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahih Shihab, alongside the music of British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more contemporary sounds of Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Robert Glasper. Originally from Brighton, Chip studied in Manchester and became involved in the 00's UK jazz, soul. trip-hop and funk scenes, working with the likes of The Pharcyde, The New Mastersounds and Nightmares On Wax as well as playing with Matthew Halsall's Gondwana Orchestra. And his relationship with Gondwana Records goes right back to the very beginning as he played on Halsall's 2008 debut Sending My Love. Cloud 10 is his debut album for Gondwana Records (following a 12" of Lonnie Liston Smith covers in May) and it is a wonderful, timeless, lyrical, slice of hard-hitting, soulful, spiritual jazz and modal hard-bop with a distinctly UK flavour - driven by Chip's deftly funky flute work and hard-hitting tenor. Underpinned by Chip's restless energy and driven by his desire to connect with the listener on a deeper level. "My albums are my legacy. Each one is a statement to the world of music and my contribution to its growth, its energy and ultimately it's history." Cloud 10 features pianist Phil Wilkinson, vibes player Ton Risco, bassist Sneaky and drummer Jon Scott (all veterans of previous albums) together with harpist Amanda Whiting and percussionist Jack McCarthy whom Chip met touring in the Gondwana Orchestra, and rising star Irish trumpeter Eoin Grace who also doubles on flugel horn. The album was recorded at the legendary all analogue Estudios Brazil in Madrid, with the band spending a week at Chip's house in the mountains just outside the city, eating and drinking together, listening to music till the small hours and recording all day. It was a magical time and the positivity seeped into the recording. "It was a beautiful week of pure music and joy, I think you can hear it in the recording and that's the inspiration for the title: Cloud 10 is a place of a great happiness, way out beyond Cloud 9!" And it is that purity, energy and joy, that makes Cloud 10 such a life-affirming recording and makes Chip the perfect addition to the Gondwana Records family. Lean in, you'll be on Cloud 10 too!

Street Druid merges acoustic, manipulated and electronic sound using saxophone, synth, voice, guitars & drum machine, and features drum kit from Mercury-nominated artist, Moses Boyd.

It features artwork by Byzantia Harlow. It is at once tender, psychedelic and fierce. It is not interested in genre or category. It lasts just under 45 minutes.

A prelude for the future, hands join to cast a peace spell. Consciousness is vast water seeking divine essence and meaning where colours merge and refract. The street druid walks through the night, a benevolence in the darkness, guiding you home. Immersed in noise, life can feel empty, like hollow vessels, a sentient interlude. At times we are found in Gaia's rhythm, kinetic and rebuilt, transcending through the impact of sound on the body. Every moment is a new change, a new challenge, a new life, we must ride the wave if we are not to be caught adrift or drown. Trying to keep hope intact, we must not retreat into fear, recognise we all live here in Longville and stop the fire before it engulfs us all.

Spiritual flute jazz by the mastermind Antti Vauhkonen. Limited edition lathe-cut 10'', 20 copies exist. Cover art silkscreened on recycled cardboard-sleeves. Artwork by Arsi Keva. Mastered by Samuli Tanner. ”Wow where did this come from??!? Raw and essential outsider jazz which will be whispered about for years to come…” -Matti Nives / We Jazz Linernotes: ”On Working Alone The first person to create something one may classify as instrumental music was probably alone. The mind tingles when imagining the prehistoric moment when, for the very first time, a member of what then was the human race grabbed something and used it to make a purposeless series of sounds. Even if some of his fellow beings had been present at the time, would they have understood anything of it? Would they have taken interest in it and stopped to listen, or would they have demanded something easier to dance to? The leap from vocalizing or clapping to a form of expression produced with instruments may have taken a long time, perhaps even a thousand years. The same goes for the fabrication of such instruments. Human communities were small, and influences spread slowly. We do know, however, that the first discovered instruments date back to 43,000 years ago and took the form of flutes made from the bones of mammoths and birds. Researchers believe they played a role in religion and in entertainment – in this sense, very little has changed. The wildest theories claim that music was one of the factors that gave us, the Homo sapiens, a competitive edge over the Neanderthal: music helped foster deeper cooperation between individuals. In any case, however, the ones who decided to hollow out that bone and find out what kind of sound you could get out of it were individuals, and this brings us back to our theme of working alone. The modern solo musician enjoys a much greater sense of liberty than our distant forefathers. Multi-track and recording technology freed us from our physical constraints and allowed us to imagine ourselves as a multiplicity. Everyone could, in the comfort of his home, be his own one-man band without having to strap an array of instruments onto his body like carnival musicians or Rahsaan Roland Kirk used to. This is the frame from which A. E. Vauhkonen and Oiro Pena spring from. Vauhkonen’s hands simultaneously summon up brass, flutes, keyboards, drums, stringed instruments and all sorts of percussion. The sound is firm and slightly cosmic, like early Sun Ra Arkestra at its heartiest. But that’s enough about the music, listen for yourself.” – Markus Karlqvist

On “Cold Sweat,” James Brown famously called to “give the drummer some.” In 1974, Philadelphia vibraphonist Khan Jamal called to Give the Vibes Some, with superb results. Pianist and composer Jef Gilson’s PALM label gave Jamal the platform he needed to deliver a thorough exploration of contemporary vibraphone. After launching PALM in 1973, Gilson quickly demonstrated that he would only produce records not found anywhere else. Give the Vibes Some, PALM number 10, was another confirmation of this guiding principle.

Raised and based in Philadelphia, Khan Jamal took up the vibes in 1968, after two years in the army during which he was stationed in France and Germany. Decisively drawn to the instrument by the work of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s Milt Jackson, Jamal studied under Philadelphia vibraphone legend Bill Lewis and soon made his debuts in the local underground.

Early in 1972, Jamal made his first recording, with the Sounds of Liberation. The band attempted an original fusion of conga-heavy grooves with avant-garde jazz soloing. Saxophonist Byard Lancaster, an important figure in Jamal’s development, contributed much of the solo work. Later in 1972, Jamal made his leader debut with Drum Dance to the Motherland, a reverb-drenched, never-to-be-replicated experiment with live sound processing. Both albums appeared on the tiny musician-run Dogtown label.

“We couldn’t get no play from nowhere. No gigs or recording sessions or anything. So I took off for Paris,” Jamal recalled in a Cadence interview with Ken Weiss. “Within a few weeks, I had a few articles and I did a record date. It didn’t make me feel good about America.” That was in 1974, while Byard Lancaster was recording the music gathered on Souffle Continu’s recent The Complete PALM Recordings, 1973-1974.

Jamal’s record date delivered Give the Vibes Some. At its core, it was an exploratory solo vibraphone album, even if two tracks added (through technological resourcefulness?) a très célèbre French drummer very much into Elvin Jones appearing under pseudonym for contractual reasons. Another track, for which Jamal switched to the vibes’s wooden ancestor, the marimba, added young Texan trumpeter Clint Jackson III. The most notable article published on Jamal during this stay in France was a Jazz Magazine interview. Jamal’s last word there were “The Creator has a master plan/drum dance to the motherland.” “Give the vibes some” could be added to this programmatic statement.

Saxophonist, flautist and producer Chip Wickham casts a formidable shadow across the UK jazz landscape. Originally from Brighton, Chip Wickham first came to prominence in the UK breakbeat scene playing with the likes of Nightmares On Wax and Graham Massey. But at heart Chip has always been a jazz musician (he played on Matthew Halsall’s debut album 'Sending My Love' in 2008 beginning a relationship with Gondwana Records that now spans 17 years) and now dividing his time between the UK, Spain and the Middle-East, he has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on hard swinging spiritual jazz, the classic sounds of 60s British jazz and the more contemporary sounds of artists such as Jazzanova, The Cinematic Orchestra, and Nicola Conte.

'The Eternal Now’ is Chip’s most progressive recording to date and represents a heartfelt ode to submitting oneself to the practice of creating art, and the freedom that’s derived from letting go.

Co-produced by Matthew Halsall, 'The Eternal Now' features two mainstays of the Manchester scene, legendary drummer Luke Flowers of The Cinematic Orchestra and well-loved bass-player Sneaky who played on Mr Scruff’s classic Keep it Unreal. Largely flute-led it’s his most rhythm heavy offering to date taking the listener on an expansive journey that touches on the influences of Lonnie Liston Smith, Sven Wunder, David Axelrod and even library music as Chip pushes his sound into exciting new spaces without ever losing the soulful groove and heartfelt melodies that make his music so loved.

Recording Personnel

Chip Wickham: alto flute, flute, soprano saxophone & tenor saxophone

Peach: vocals

Eoin Grace: trumpet & flugelhorn

George Cooper: Fender Rhodes

Simon ‘Sneaky’ Houghton: double bass

Luke Flowers: drums

Christophe Leroux: cello

Snowboy: congas & percussion

Mohamed Oweda: violin

Lia Wickham: vocals

Gondwana Records

By no means a secret, (and in steady demand,) but certainly in the category of IYKYK, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Shaw is one of Los Angeles’s brightest young Composers, Producers, Arrangers, Band Leaders, and Music Directors. In his Home Studio that he shares with his older Brother, Lawrence (together making up the group Black Nile), Shaw can be found playing Saxophones, Clarinets, Flutes, Keyboards, Drum Machines, and also Engineering Sessions. A frequent fixture at The World Stage in Leimert Park, Shaw has collaborated with everyone from Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Phil Ranelin, Herbie Hancock, and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, to Mary J. Blige, Dave Chapelle, Tyler, The Creator, Anderson .Paak, Nightmares on Wax and many more less well known OG, established, emerging, and underground Artists in the LA Jazz, Hip-Hop, Rap, Electronic, and Experimental Music scenes. Born and raised in Ladera Heights, he cut his teeth at the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center and the LA County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) before eventually entering the tutelage of Kamasi Washington, who he is featured with in tandem Musical conversation on the entirety of the 2025 release Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople. After years of study, dedication, and gig-work, the path to his first full-length release proved to be a perilous one. And So It Is, out February 13th on Leaving Records, documents the physical, musical, and spiritual transformation thrust upon an already extraordinary talent. In 2023, at age 27, and after months of troubling symptoms and medical dead-ends, Shaw was diagnosed with bone marrow failure—a state of affairs he succinctly describes as “grim.” To say nothing of the alienation, exhaustion, and fear that accompanies such a diagnosis—the endless testing and treatment protocols—Shaw’s very capacity to play music, the craft to which he had consciously dedicated his life since the sixth grade, was suddenly, radically altered. The key matter was Shaw’s red blood cell count, and his incapacity to produce sufficient oxygen. Breath, the activating force of the wind instrument, was now in short supply. A once-normal gig became a medical gamble. How many stairs to the stage? Could he play in Idyllwild’s higher altitude? The subsequent process of acceptance was fraught and non-linear (as major health journeys tend to be), characterized by periods of emotional exhaustion (crying spells, social isolation), as well as brave attempts to troubleshoot his limitations (experimenting with new mouthpieces and reeds, changing his posture). Initially frustrated by the resultant changes to his sound, Shaw pushed through. Playing music was still his primary source of solace. Through this self-therapy, and within the constraints of a new playing style, songs began to coalesce. “And So It Is,” a saying Shaw traces back to a childhood immersed in church music, became the mantra for this creative period, and eventually the collection’s title. Under the nurturing eye of Leaving Record’s affiliate Carlos Niño (percussionist and, notably, the Producer for Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun) And So It Is slowly took shape—An eight song cycle that plums the depths of despair and isolation, as well as the strange clarity that comes from confronting one’s mortality. The aptly-titled first track, “Soul Journey” orients the listener. An initially off-kilter, ruminative, almost rainswept movement gives way to a more focused and propulsive mid-section (one senses grit here, a desire for forward momentum), before gradually laying down to a bed of cello and harp. And So It Is retains an inward focus throughout, and there are moments of transcendence, when the individual concerns plaguing Shaw seem to give way to pure delight in the discovery and expression of musical forms. Shaw carefully selected his collaborators for this project, numerous and talented, including Lawrence Shaw and elder statesman Dwight Trible, among others. That track three, “Windows to the Soul,” is an interpretation of a Chick Corea composition, and that track eight, “Never Catch Me Out Of Alignment,” is sort of a cover of a Kendrick and Flylo collab, will intrigue and entertain old and new heads alike. And So It Is is a lovingly produced collaborative document of an artist at a crossroads who has chosen to proceed. Was it ever really a choice, even? While the future remains forever uncertain, for all of us, there is an infinite well-spring of hope and freedom and joy in doing what we do, and doing it well.

an "experimental live album" from Sam Wilkes

On November 15, 2018, Sam Wilkes filled the Highland Park Ebell Club with Astroturfto help deaden the acoustics of the large room, and to provide a shared space for the music and audience. Joining Him for the performance was Sam Gendel on alto saxophone, Jacob Mann on Roland Juno 106 and Korg Kronos, Christian Euman on drums, and Adam Ratner and Brian Green on electric guitars.

The set was engineered and recorded by Hans Bernhard, and mixed by Chris Sorem and Sam Wilkes.Set Design was done by James Watson and Sam Wilkes,advertisements for the show by Miles Witner, video artand installations by James Watson, tea and beverage by Thien-Anh Tu, floral arrangements by Peter Cameron,additional lighting by Angela Lin, soundboard providedby Joey Genetti, speakers and cabling provided by Stones Throw, Louis Cole, and Hans Bernhard, fruit from Cookbook (highland Park), AstroTurf provided by Pico Party Rentals, records selected by Bianca Lexis, and additional performances by Matthewdavid’s Mindflightand Jacob Mann. Two additional new studio recordings were made for this LP, the credits for which can be foundwithin the gatefold.

Please Enjoy Live on the Green…

The studio at 122 West Loveland Avenue was not an unfamiliar space for Steve Okonski, the leader of his eponymous trio Okonski. Ever since the Colemine label set up shop in Loveland, Ohio it has been a host to a number of groups passing through town, including Durand Jones and the Indications who all of this trio’s members have connections to. After setting aside some time in winter of 2020, Okonski, trained initially as a classical pianist, invited Michael Isvara “Ish” Montgomery and Aaron Frazer to work on an album that was initially planned to be beat driven and fully composed trio instrumentals. After finishing this first session with some improvisations, a second week was booked in the summer of 2021 to try and capture some more of that spontaneous energy. During this session, the tracks were all improvised and recorded live to a Tascam 388 during several late nights at the Colemine HQ. They were structured to allow the group’s collective intuition to fully shape the melodies and arcs of the music. The album opens with Runner Up, where a triumphant yet melancholic melody in the piano leads to a more reserved B-section driven by the drums and bass of Frazer and Montgomery. As you journey through the remainder of the album you are met with a plethora of evoked and explored emotions. The calmness one has walking down a moonlit street after midnight, the connection one has for a person who comes into their world for just a moment or a lifetime, and the nerves and catharsis one feels when starting upon a new, unknown journey. Magnolia closes with Sunday, a track that was recorded late into the night at the close of their first recording session. Without the spontaneity of Sunday, the remainder of Magnolia would likely have never come to fruition. Magnolia was composed from the heart and from the spirit of those in the studio those late nights in Loveland. It is the culmination of an emotional and artistic release that was not afforded or recognized before the band sat at their instruments, and because of that it is introspective, meditative, spiritual, and new.

An unusual detour in the Robert Wyatt catalogue, Radio Experiment Rome was recorded in February 1981, when the ex-Soft Machine drummer had been invited to record some material in-progress for a radio broadcast. The tone of these sessions is characterised by a free-roaming experimentation, laying down eight-track recordings of vocals, piano, hi-hat, jaw harp and a variety of analogue tape effects. This is Wyatt unhinged and completely let loose from the agenda of proper album recording: there's no eye on a finished, commercially viable product here, and the scope of the project takes in jazzy soundscapes like 'Heathens Have No Souls', exquisitely melodic piano pieces like 'L'Albero Degli Zoccoli', vaudevillian vocal tuning experiment 'Billie's Bounce' and the politicised rant-poem 'Born Again Cretin', about the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.

The Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra was created in 1971 by an “old hand” of French free jazz, François Tusques. Free Jazz, was also the name of the recording made by the pianist and other like-minded Frenchmen (Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais) in 1965. But, six years later Tusques had had his fill of free jazz. After having wondered, together with Barney Wilen (Le Nouveau Jazz) or even solo (Piano Dazibao and Dazibao N°2), if free jazz wasn’t a bit of a dead end, Tusques formed the Inter Communal, an association under the banner of which the different communities of the country would come together and compose, quite simply. If at first the structure was made up of professional musicians from the jazz scene it would rapidly seek out talent in the lively world of the MPF (Musique Populaire Française).{French Popular Music, ndlt} As with L’Inter Communal a few years earlier, Le Musichien follows on from the group of varying musicians that Tusques had conceived as a “people’s jazz workshop”. In 1981, at the then famous Paris address, 28 rue Dunois, the pianist sang with his partner Carlos Andreu an “afro-Catalan tale”. Over a slow bass line (exceptional work from Jean-Jacques Avenel) backed by percussion from Kilikus, saxophones (Sylvain Kassap and Yebga Likoba) and trombone (Ramadolf) which presented a myriad of constellations. The sky has no limits, let’s make the most of it. The following year, at the ‘Tombées de la Nuit’ festival in Rennes, bassist Tanguy Le Doré would weave with Tusques the fabric on which would evolve an explosive “brotherhood of breath”: Bernard Vitet on trumpet, Danièle Dumas and Sylvain Kassap on saxophones, Jean-Louis Le Vallegant and Philippe Le Strat on… bombards. With hints of modal jazz inspired by Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders, the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra is an ecumenical project which speaks to the whole world.

On “Cold Sweat,” James Brown famously called to “give the drummer some.” In 1974, Philadelphia vibraphonist Khan Jamal called to Give the Vibes Some, with superb results. Pianist and composer Jef Gilson’s PALM label gave Jamal the platform he needed to deliver a thorough exploration of contemporary vibraphone. After launching PALM in 1973, Gilson quickly demonstrated that he would only produce records not found anywhere else. Give the Vibes Some, PALM number 10, was another confirmation of this guiding principle.

Raised and based in Philadelphia, Khan Jamal took up the vibes in 1968, after two years in the army during which he was stationed in France and Germany. Decisively drawn to the instrument by the work of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s Milt Jackson, Jamal studied under Philadelphia vibraphone legend Bill Lewis and soon made his debuts in the local underground.

Early in 1972, Jamal made his first recording, with the Sounds of Liberation. The band attempted an original fusion of conga-heavy grooves with avant-garde jazz soloing. Saxophonist Byard Lancaster, an important figure in Jamal’s development, contributed much of the solo work. Later in 1972, Jamal made his leader debut with Drum Dance to the Motherland, a reverb-drenched, never-to-be-replicated experiment with live sound processing. Both albums appeared on the tiny musician-run Dogtown label.

“We couldn’t get no play from nowhere. No gigs or recording sessions or anything. So I took off for Paris,” Jamal recalled in a Cadence interview with Ken Weiss. “Within a few weeks, I had a few articles and I did a record date. It didn’t make me feel good about America.” That was in 1974, while Byard Lancaster was recording the music gathered on Souffle Continu’s recent The Complete PALM Recordings, 1973-1974.

Jamal’s record date delivered Give the Vibes Some. At its core, it was an exploratory solo vibraphone album, even if two tracks added (through technological resourcefulness?) a très célèbre French drummer very much into Elvin Jones appearing under pseudonym for contractual reasons. Another track, for which Jamal switched to the vibes’s wooden ancestor, the marimba, added young Texan trumpeter Clint Jackson III. The most notable article published on Jamal during this stay in France was a Jazz Magazine interview. Jamal’s last word there were “The Creator has a master plan/drum dance to the motherland.” “Give the vibes some” could be added to this programmatic statement.