MUSIC

it was recorded live at my first concert in new york city in the summer of 2022, right before i recorded iiyo iiyo iiyo and right after i recorded the doober with sam gendel and then Nothing with Louis Cole.

i think it is my most grooving record.

オリジナルは10万円以上で取引される事もある骨董的な希少盤！Wolfgang Daunerの某作に負けず劣らず凄いジャケをしています。Eberhard WeberやWolfgang Daunerといった実に豪華な面々を起用したJoki Freund Sextetが1964年に〈CBS〉に残した欧州コンテンポラリー・ジャズ/ポスト・バップの幻の名盤『Yogi Jazz』が〈Tiger Bay〉よりアナログ・リイシュー。Eberhard WeberとKarl Theodor Geierをベースに、Peter Baumeisterをドラムに、Wolfgang Daunerをピアノに迎え、1963年11月20日にフランクフルトで録音された、欧州ジャズ作品でも人気の高い一枚にして長く失われていた金字塔的名作！

Recommended for fans of modern classical music like Another Timbre and Elsewhere! Okkyung Lee is a Korean cellist and improviser who has collaborated with Christian Marclay, Steve Beresford, Phil Minton and many other big names. is out now on Shelter Press! It's from a rather unexpected label. A dreamy chamber music ensemble featuring Okkyung Lee (cello), Eivind Opsvik (bass), Maeve Gilchrist (harp) and Jacob Sacks (piano). The avalanche of sentimental melodies and gentle, melancholic touches, wrapped in a myriad of aspects from chamber to spiritual jazz and folk music, also evoke the beauty of the pull and the aesthetics of "pause" that are common to Japanese environmental music/ambient music by Satoshi Ashikawa and Hiroshi Yoshimura. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

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.

Svaneborg Kardyb are Nikolaj Svaneborg – Wurlitzer, Juno, piano and Jonas Kardyb – drums, percussion a multi award winning duo from Denmark, where they won two “grammys” at the Danish Music Awards Jazz 2019: New artist of the year and Composer of the year.
Drawing on Danish folk music and Scandinavian jazz influences, including Nils Frahm, Esbjörn Svennson and Jan Johansson’s landmark recording Jazz På Svenska, their music is an exquisite and joyful melding of beautiful melodies, delicate minimalism, catchy grooves, subtle electronica vibes, Nordic atmospheres and organic interplay, all underwritten by the sheer joy of playing together. Following on from their Gondwana Records debut 'Over Tage', 'Superkilen' their forthcoming album, is named after a public park in the ethnically diverse Nørrebro district of Copenhagen. This erstwhile strip of waste ground was repurposed by the Superflex art group in the early 2010’s to bring together immigrants and locals in a mood of tolerance and unity. Its title feels emblematic of their music, which, equally inventively, creates space and serenity as a tonic within the tense and cluttered environment of 2020’s living. In the same way that the regeneration project has transformed that neighbourhood, Svaneborg Kardyb have drawn on that positive energy to help instigate changes in their own music.

This album was released in 1970 as one of the Victor “Jazz in Japan” series. We are Japanese, so I think we have to make something that only Japanese can do. These were the words of Akira Miyazawa during this period. It was inevitable that Miyazawa would choose his hometown, the place where he was born and raised, as the motif for his work, which only a Japanese person could create.

Kind Regards is the second duo release from guitarist Oren Ambarchi and drummer Eric Thielemans, out via AD 93 on the 21st February 2025.

The record captures an expansive performance in Poitiers, France in November 2023. First working together in an unpredictable trio with minimalist legend and eccentric extraordinaire Charlemagne Palestine, Ambarchi and Thielemans quickly established a remarkable musical chemistry that led to an ongoing series of duo concerts, including the performance documented on their LP Double Consciousness (Matière Mémorie, 2023).

Kind Regards finds the duo refining their shared language while continuing to take risks, allowing the music’s gravitational pull to lead them from meditative calm to unexpectedly expressive passages of melodic invention and rhythmic drive. Recorded in sparkling fidelity and carefully mixed by Ambarchi’s longtime collaborator Joe Talia, the LP contains a single unbroken performance, stretching out for over 45 minutes. Guitar and drums weave together into a symbiotic whole that nevertheless affords us ample opportunity to marvel at the highly personal approaches these two musicians have developed to their chosen instruments through decades of diverse collaboration and prolific performance.

The set begins with Thielemans’ hypnotic tom patterns, around which Ambarchi’s wavering, shimmering guitar tones—achieved with the help of the rotating speaker of a Leslie cabinet—flurry and swirl. Thielemans’ drums play subtle tricks with time and perception, adding and dropping beats within repeated patterns to create an effect at once rhythmically insistent and liquified. Growing at first into a rapidly pulsing texture of brushed drums and flickering harmonics, the music builds momentum into an irregular groove over which Ambarchi’s guitar is transformed into haunting, monumental electric organ chords, strikingly recalling the Wurlitzer work of Alice Coltrane, before settling into a section of gentle portamento melody embedded into the tactile clicks and clangs of Thielemans’ percussion.
When Thielemans adopts a more traditional jazz approach to the kit in some of the set’s second half, the results are stunning, demonstrating a feel for shifting accents and sensibility to the touch of the stick on the drum or cymbal that recalls greats like Jack De Johnette or Billy Hart (one of Thielemans’ mentors). And when Ambarchi turns up the heat, he does so in an unexpected and delightful way, letting loose a swarm of jittering delayed tones straight out of Henry Kaiser’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life, with a more active use of the guitar’s fretboard than his usual approach to the instrument allows. As the performance draws to a close after a climactic episode of distorted harmonic groans and crashing cymbals that manages to be at once thunderous and carefully attuned to detail, it is clearer than ever that, for these two serial collaborators, this is a very special pairing.

Kind Regards shows us the kind of magic that can happen when two masters who have dedicated decades to reimagining their instruments simply begin to play, following the music wherever it goes. 

Phi-Psonics is a meditative, deeply soulful, immersive instrumental group from Los Angeles, led by bassist Seth Ford-Young and featuring Sylvain Carton on woodwinds, Mitchell Yoshida on electric piano, and Josh Collazo on drums. Their beautiful music draws on jazz and classical influences together with Ford-Young’s own musical experiences, relationships, and his introduction to spirituality, yoga and philosophy at a young age. Along the way they create something uniquely their own, sharing beautiful landscapes for your spirit to roam freely within. Octava is their second album and like their debut The Cradle, it’s emotional, introspective, and unusual approach to meditative jazz offers us a beautiful space for uplifting contemplation and wields a quiet power to create a spiritually inspiring world of timeless, warm melodies and instrumental exploration for the deep listener and thoughtful voyager. Seth explains: “This album is about change and evolution to a higher version of ourselves. Understanding this journey through the idea of ascending a musical scale and arriving at a new, higher octave is natural especially for a musician. We move, struggle, and work through the various steps or tones and arrive at the octave a new version of ourselves, still the same person, but vibrating at a higher frequency.”

When Festival de Frue’s organizers asked Sam Wilkes to put together an ensemble for their 2022 festival, they initially asked for the band he created for his 2021 album “One Theme & Subsequent Improvisation.” With keyboardist Chris Fishman (Pat Metheny, Louis Cole) the only member of that group who was available, Wilkes asked that the organizers select one of two groups as an alternative: a Trio featuring drummer Craig Weinrib (Henry Threadgill, Amen Dunes) and guitarist Dylan Day (Jenny Lewis, Jackson Browne)—with whom Wilkes recently released a trio album—or a Quartet featuring Weinrib, Fishman, and keyboardist and guitarist Thom Gill (KNOWER, Joseph Shabason). “I couldn’t make the decision on which band I should bring, I felt very confused about it,” he says. Through a strange series of miscommunications—or simply a bit of serendipity—both Wilkes and the Frue organizers thought the other had suggested combining the ensembles into a Quintet including members of both groups. An idea that neither side voiced somehow became the obvious choice. The combined Quintet represents what Wilkes calls “two disparate worlds in my community,” that of the “virtuosic, fast-paced grid” of music played with Fishman and Gill, “and this other thing with Dylan that’s coming from different elements of traditional American music.” Luckily, Weinrib fits seamlessly into both worlds. While all members of the group played on Wilkes’ 2023 album Driving, they’d never all played together. They had one five-hour rehearsal in Tokyo, but, Wilkes says, “It was impossible for me to predict how this music was going to sound.” His strategy, after showing them the arrangements of several of his own compositions and a few covers, was to “allow everyone to blossom fully” with the hope that “what I’ll get is everyone’s personality being expressed unfettered.” iiyo iiyo iiyo is Sam Wilkes’ fifth album as bandleader and arranger, and the atmosphere is so rich it spills out of the speakers. The album, a document of the Quintet’s meeting, was recorded live at Festival de Frue in Kakegawa and at WWWX in Tokyo, where they played headlining sets for hundreds of people. Not that you’d know it from the intimate interplay between the players or the small-room feel of the recording. In opener “Descending,” which made its debut on Wilkes’ 2018 self-titled album, the mood is so cozy you’d swear the sound of kids at play in the back of the hall had been sampled in—another perfect bit of serendipity. For Wilkes, setting the right tone for a performance or a recording is paramount, and it’s inseparable from how he understands his role as a bassist. “My entryway into understanding my thing, what I care about the most in music, was through accompaniment; focusing on time, feel, tone, form, and most importantly, listening.” he says. “There are things that are ineffable about that, which is the energy. But there are also conscious and subconscious decisions, where I’m arranging and orchestrating to create the ultimate environment for, say, Dylan to play his melody over, or Thom to play his. Those are choices as much as reactions, combining in equal parts in-depth preparation and total improvisation” The title iiyo iiyo iiyo is a Japanese expression used in response to an outpouring of gratitude, a cheeky way of brushing the accolades off of oneself. Accordingly, the record is full of charming, homespun personality. In a gorgeous version of the standard “I Wanna Be Loved,” Day plays the melody in a way that moves between washed-out ambient gauze and a traditionally beautiful run of lines that echoes the Dinah Washington original. While the band circulates the mantric melody in “Descending,” Fishman dots around it on his Moog One, opening a new seam in a song that’s quickly become a Wilkes standard. Weinrib’s patient, impressionistic brush strokes seem to swirl beneath the melody, while Gill fogs the room with thick, reverb-heavy accompaniment from his keys. And where is Wilkes in all this? He’s guiding his friends, helping them decorate a room that he himself built, drawing them deeper into the song’s wistful, hopeful, grounded atmosphere. His polyphonic voicings—a signature of his playing—sets out the song’s boundaries and acts as both its musical and emotional anchor. It’s the approach Wilkes takes across the album, using his phrasing as both the music’s gravitational center and its heart, and he does it to perfection in the opening minute or so of “Girl.” The song originally appeared on Sam Wilkes “Sings” (2014–2016)” in what he calls a “psychotically different arrangement.” On stage in Kakegawa, he slows the song to a crawl and isolates its central chords. He plays them gently, patiently; he voices the chords with the clarity of a person who’s just cried out all of their confusion. As Wilkes says, his role as a bassist means that he’s the foundation of these songs, and foundations by their very nature tend to be obscured. Here, for one lovely moment, he strips everything back to the studs, revealing the lush architecture that holds this miraculous music together.

When Festival de Frue’s organizers asked Sam Wilkes to put together an ensemble for their 2022 festival, they initially asked for the band he created for his 2021 album “One Theme & Subsequent Improvisation.” With keyboardist Chris Fishman (Pat Metheny, Louis Cole) the only member of that group who was available, Wilkes asked that the organizers select one of two groups as an alternative: a Trio featuring drummer Craig Weinrib (Henry Threadgill, Amen Dunes) and guitarist Dylan Day (Jenny Lewis, Jackson Browne)—with whom Wilkes recently released a trio album—or a Quartet featuring Weinrib, Fishman, and keyboardist and guitarist Thom Gill (KNOWER, Joseph Shabason). “I couldn’t make the decision on which band I should bring, I felt very confused about it,” he says. Through a strange series of miscommunications—or simply a bit of serendipity—both Wilkes and the Frue organizers thought the other had suggested combining the ensembles into a Quintet including members of both groups. An idea that neither side voiced somehow became the obvious choice. The combined Quintet represents what Wilkes calls “two disparate worlds in my community,” that of the “virtuosic, fast-paced grid” of music played with Fishman and Gill, “and this other thing with Dylan that’s coming from different elements of traditional American music.” Luckily, Weinrib fits seamlessly into both worlds. While all members of the group played on Wilkes’ 2023 album Driving, they’d never all played together. They had one five-hour rehearsal in Tokyo, but, Wilkes says, “It was impossible for me to predict how this music was going to sound.” His strategy, after showing them the arrangements of several of his own compositions and a few covers, was to “allow everyone to blossom fully” with the hope that “what I’ll get is everyone’s personality being expressed unfettered.” iiyo iiyo iiyo is Sam Wilkes’ fifth album as bandleader and arranger, and the atmosphere is so rich it spills out of the speakers. The album, a document of the Quintet’s meeting, was recorded live at Festival de Frue in Kakegawa and at WWWX in Tokyo, where they played headlining sets for hundreds of people. Not that you’d know it from the intimate interplay between the players or the small-room feel of the recording. In opener “Descending,” which made its debut on Wilkes’ 2018 self-titled album, the mood is so cozy you’d swear the sound of kids at play in the back of the hall had been sampled in—another perfect bit of serendipity. For Wilkes, setting the right tone for a performance or a recording is paramount, and it’s inseparable from how he understands his role as a bassist. “My entryway into understanding my thing, what I care about the most in music, was through accompaniment; focusing on time, feel, tone, form, and most importantly, listening.” he says. “There are things that are ineffable about that, which is the energy. But there are also conscious and subconscious decisions, where I’m arranging and orchestrating to create the ultimate environment for, say, Dylan to play his melody over, or Thom to play his. Those are choices as much as reactions, combining in equal parts in-depth preparation and total improvisation” The title iiyo iiyo iiyo is a Japanese expression used in response to an outpouring of gratitude, a cheeky way of brushing the accolades off of oneself. Accordingly, the record is full of charming, homespun personality. In a gorgeous version of the standard “I Wanna Be Loved,” Day plays the melody in a way that moves between washed-out ambient gauze and a traditionally beautiful run of lines that echoes the Dinah Washington original. While the band circulates the mantric melody in “Descending,” Fishman dots around it on his Moog One, opening a new seam in a song that’s quickly become a Wilkes standard. Weinrib’s patient, impressionistic brush strokes seem to swirl beneath the melody, while Gill fogs the room with thick, reverb-heavy accompaniment from his keys. And where is Wilkes in all this? He’s guiding his friends, helping them decorate a room that he himself built, drawing them deeper into the song’s wistful, hopeful, grounded atmosphere. His polyphonic voicings—a signature of his playing—sets out the song’s boundaries and acts as both its musical and emotional anchor. It’s the approach Wilkes takes across the album, using his phrasing as both the music’s gravitational center and its heart, and he does it to perfection in the opening minute or so of “Girl.” The song originally appeared on Sam Wilkes “Sings” (2014–2016)” in what he calls a “psychotically different arrangement.” On stage in Kakegawa, he slows the song to a crawl and isolates its central chords. He plays them gently, patiently; he voices the chords with the clarity of a person who’s just cried out all of their confusion. As Wilkes says, his role as a bassist means that he’s the foundation of these songs, and foundations by their very nature tend to be obscured. Here, for one lovely moment, he strips everything back to the studs, revealing the lush architecture that holds this miraculous music together.

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. 

Organic, electric, freeform. Pete Jolly's Seasons is comprised of melodies and textures composed live and without pretense—its grooves contain a complete and divine listening experience that surpasses all others of the era in which it was originally released, coming as close to transcendent musical meditation incarnate as one could possibly imagine. Seasons is an unsung masterpiece of ensemble groove and stellar musicianship, equally unsurpassed and inspired in its quiet excellence. While Seasons never had significant commercial success upon its release, it has since amassed a cult following, leading collectors to pay top dollar for copies of the rare record. Out of print since 1971, it has only been reissued once on CD. In his liner notes accompanying this release, Dave Segal puts the album’s massive demand in perspective: “British label owner Jonny Trunk put up an original pressing of the LP for sale for an undisclosed but large sum on Instagram in January 2023, and it sold in five minutes. With Seasons back in circulation, maybe Pete Jolly will finally gain the broader audience that his phenomenal skills merit,” writes Segal. “If nothing else, it serves as a valuable lesson to artists: venturing outside of your comfort zone can bring the most interesting, enduring results.” Remastered from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray at Coherent Mastering, this record not only foreshadows the roots of hip-hop but manages to embody the richness of a full album listening experience that few records can offer. Its timeless appeal is rare—and its dynamic range sets it apart as an album that straddles both the jazz and pop worlds in a way that almost no others can. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the changing and complex colors of Seasons for the first time ever since its initial release.

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

Gondwana Records are proud to announce Morning Sun / Arrival, a limited two track 12” release from the sublimely beautiful and immersive LA instrumental project Phi-Psonics Phi-Psonics is a meditative, deeply soulful jazz group from Los Angeles, led by bassist Seth Ford-Young and featuring Sylvain Carton on woodwinds, Mitchell Yoshida on electric piano, and Josh Collazo on drums. Their beautiful music draws on jazz and classical influences together with Ford-Young’s own musical experiences, relationships, and his introduction to spirituality, yoga and philosophy at a young age. Along the way they create something uniquely their own, sharing beautiful landscapes for your spirit to roam freely within. Morning Sun / Arrival was recorded from the same sessions that formed Phi-Psonics second album Octava - it’s an emotional, introspective, and unusual approach to meditative jazz that offers us a beautiful space for uplifting contemplation and wields a quiet power to create a spiritually inspiring world of timeless, warm melodies and instrumental exploration for the deep listener and thoughtful voyager. Pressed on high quality black BioVinyl at Optimal in Germany for maximum sound quality.

Portico Quartet announce Monument, the electronic driven follow-up to their acclaimed ambient-minimalist suite Terrain, presenting the band at their most direct. It's rare that a band releases two albums within six months of each other, rarer too that while both are so different, they are both as epochal in terms of the band's output as Terrain and Monument are to Portico Quartet. The irony is that Monument, a stripped-back, intentionally direct album, was the album that the band set out to write in May 2020, before the dream like long-form Terrain came into focus. Briefly they were two halves of the same record, but the band ended up developing these two distinct bodies of work concurrently. And although they were written side-by-side and recorded at the same sessions, they are records best understood as distinct from each other, each with opposing ideas and forms. Monument is one of Portico Quartet's most accessible, direct records to date. If Terrain addressed the darker side of how Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie made sense of the pandemic, then Monument resonates as an ode to better times. If not quite a dance record, it nonetheless pulses with an energy, radiance and a scalpel sharp focus. Jack Wyllie explains: "It's possibly our most direct album to date. It's melodic, structured and there's an economy to it that is very efficient. There's not much searching or wastage within the music itself, it is all finalised ideas, precisely sculpted and presented as a polished artefact." Bellamy expands "Monument sits somewhere between our albums Portico Quartet and Art in the Age of Automation. It has perhaps a more overtly electronic edge to its sound – there are more synthesisers and electronic elements than we have used before and the music is often streamlined and rhythmic". After the ethereal, stage-setting of Opening, the album kicks into overdrive with Impressions, a short energetic track that pairs a club influenced groove with hang drum and close, delicate saxophone. It's the balance between these elements that push and pull the track through a selection of melodic and rhythmic re-configurations, contrasting human touch with a machine-like focus. Ultraviolet is a kaleidoscopic, krautrock inspired track with a haunting introduction and an insistent pulse. The wistful Ever Present builds from a simple piano refrain; a nostalgic melody line floats over the top as drums and bass groove insistently underneath, before reaching a euphoric peak. The title track Monument builds around a looping vocal sample, drums and an enigmatic melody, the ending giving way to a gauzy, weaving synth line. The power here is in its economy and luminosity. AOE flips back and forth, like a dial that's been switched. Mining the tension between a pastoral inflected cello and saxophone melody, with an abrupt shift to jilted live drums, wailing delayed saxophone and a flickering synth line. Warm Data comes straight from the same Portico Quartet tradition as older tracks like Current History and Laker-Boo. It's a marriage of instrumental minimalism with drum machines and synths. Finally, the album closes with On The Light, a track that transmits a sense of suspense and freedom, driven by the twitching drums of Bellamy and evocative sax of Wyllie. It offers the perfect bitter-sweet and evocative ending to Portico Quartet's latest Monument. Mastered by John Davis at Metropolis. Artwork by Duncan Bellamy for Veils Project.

“Portico Quartet stake claims to territory occupied by Radiohead, Cinematic Orchestra and Efterklang”. The Guardian ***** Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet has always been an impossible band to pin down. Sending out echoes of jazz, electronica, ambient music and minimalism, the group created their own singular, cinematic sound over the course of three studio albums, from their 2007 breakthrough ‘Knee-Deep in the North Sea’, and 2010 John Leckie produced ‘Isla’, to the self titled record ‘Portico Quartet’ in 2012. Now rebooted as Portico Quartet after a brief spell as the three-piece Portico, the group are set to release their fourth studio album Art In The Age Of Automation this August on Manchester’s forward thinking indy jazz and electronica label Gondwana Records. It’s an eagerly anticipated return, with the band teasing both a return to their mesmeric signature sound and fresh new sonic departures in their new music. So much so that their four-night run at Archspace E8 (June 22-25) sold out in less than an hour as fans from around the world scrambled for tickets to hear the return of Portico Quartet. Recorded at Fish Factory Studios in London at the beginning of the year and mixed at Vox studios, Berlin, Art In The Age Of Automation finds the band building on the sound world they first explored with their eponymous 2012 release Portico Quartet, mixing the cinematic minimalism, that first made their name, with electronic and ambient textures alongside a welcome return for Jack’s ethereal saxophone and Duncan’s unique mixture of live and electronic drums as well of course as the band’s signature sound, the chiming other worldy tones of the hang drum. It’s hard music to define, as Jack acknowledges. “Our sound falls between many genres, jazz, electronic music even minimalism in places, but naturally it’s an amalgamation of everything we’ve listened to”. And as you would expect from a band that have evolved with each recording, this is no barren retread of the past, instead it represents another step forward sonically and musically in the band’s ongoing evolution, as Jack explains. “We’ve really gone into detail with the sounds and production, building dense layers and textures but retaining a live, organic feel to it. We wanted to use acoustic instruments but find ways in which they could interact with more modern production techniques and technologies to create something that was identifiably us but sounded fresh and exciting, futuristic even.” Its an ethos that also informs the album’s title and the distinctive artwork by Duncan Bellamy (under his Veils Project identity) that adorns the album’s cover “The artwork came about when I started to explore the idea of scanning moving images. The resulting image is exactly that - a film playing on a tablet whilst the scan is in action. So the image is something created by the scanner itself, and in this way it establishes a relationship with the title of the album”. And it’s the mix between the human and the electronic that makes the music on AITAOA so fresh and exciting as Portico Quartet one again evolve their music into the future. The album opens with insistent, catchy Endless, which references the classic Portico Quartet sound, but expands outwards into a hypnotic, blissful collage of strings, hangs, electronics, saxophones and Bellamy’s unique drumming. It’s a sound that permeates the whole record, feeling both familiarly Portico Quartet, but transformed into something bold and new, sounding somehow bigger than ever but even more detailed. Elsewhere Rushing draws on the bands love of minimalist music, a repeated piano motif merges with a contorted vocal sample that twists its way through juxtaposed spaces to reach an uplifting resolve. Meanwhile the title track offers a moment of down-tempo respite: the hang drum is joined by a full horns and string section, culminating in a orchestral outro where cellos and violins blend with saxophones and hang drum to form a densely layered blanket of sound. The sound of strings are prevalent on much of the record, and as Jack explains they add an extra layer of humanity to the music “It’s exciting working with a string section and to hear the ideas you sketch on a computer being played on acoustic instruments, then being able to direct them in a way in which is just not possible on a computer, it brings a real emotional depth and nuance to the record”. On A Luminous Beam an infectious drum grove drives the piece while synths, flutes and strings are layered with the saxophone floating freely over the top. Beyond Dialogue is classic Portico Quartet, exploiting the ethereal, otherworldly timbre of the hang drums and Jack’s saxophone to create a hypnotic track that references minimalism and ambient music to create something beautiful and new. Current History has nods towards more electronic and urban music as drum machines underpin a collage of hang drums and saxophones. The album finishes on the aptly tilted Lines Glow, the saxophone weaving its melody over an organ and string section culminating in an epic, euphoric moment of release. It’s a fittingly uplifting way to end an album that announces the return of one of the UK’s most singular, and influential bands, one that a decade from their founding are still pushing the boundaries of their music into the future and still sound like nothing you ever heard before.

By 1980 when this was originally released Pharoah Sanders was solidly entrenched with his own voice on tenor. The passing of John Coltrane and Sanders’s fruitful years of playing with the prolific saxophone genius resulted with an unmistakable influence on his sound and explorations of the instrument. Beginning with “Greetings to Idris” the structure of the music is one that follows tradition yet opens up for the musicians to improvise within the arrangements. “Greetings to Idris” is in reference to the featured drummer Idris Muhammad who also played with Coltrane during his late period. Naturally Sanders is featured as the main instrument and his horn can be bold and demanding of your full attention. Always interested in other instruments from other cultures, much like Trane, he incorporates the Japanese instrument the koto, a beautifully harmonic stringed instrument to counter his soft rich blowing on tenor with only wind chimes and a harmonium for a delicious peaceful bit of music on “Kazuko”(Peace Child) that has the qualities of a meditative offering. Most of the music, eight tracks, is composed and arranged by Sanders and demonstrates his leadership. There is one John Coltrane composition entitled “After The Rain” that gets the Tranesque treatment by Sanders that makes it hard for even the most discerning listener to distinguish between the original version and Sanders impression. It is a bluesy duet featuring only sax and piano and leaves you wanting to hear it over and over again because of it’s simple and haunting melodies. Another song that Coltrane recorded entitled “Easy To Remember” has a gentle swing to it built around a classic quartet (drums, bass, piano, sax) like that employed by Coltrane that results in a superb standard.

Sanders incorporates the use of another “foreign” instrument to jazz by working in a tabla and sitar on "Soledad " that takes center stage before Sanders joins in on the music. The result is a thing of genius as the East and West merge and interface for composition that is peaceful. Sanders music on this LP fluctuates between the tranquil sounds of his mellow horn to the outer limits where he left off with the explorations of Trane’s late period. What separates this LP from others is that it is a group playing under his leadership where he gives all others close to equal billing. The uptempo, “You’ve Got To Have freedom” is one such song where Sanders gets out there on some of his solos but works within the group structure as the other musicians, most notably Eddie Henderson on flugelhorn, bring the music back home. There is a chorus sung much of the time throughout where the the proclamation “Ya gotta have peace and love, ya gotta have freedom” is presented in Manhattan Transfer style but with much more soul. The use of vocalists is done again on the track entitled “Think About The One.” The chorus features vocalese specialist Bobby McFerrin. This LP shows the different sides of Pharoah Sanders, a man always willing to explore the music, explore his soul and share it with you. The closing track “Bedria” is a mellow exploration of the various ranges of the tenor. It is a ten minute song that displays all the grace of his being, a gentle giant who can manipulate the horn to do extraordinary things, reverberating out and back in undulating waves of harmonic bliss. Sanders on this LP is next to perfect. One of his best recording from his post Impulse career. It belongs in your jazz collection right next to John Coltrane.

Drifts and Surfaces is a three-piece set, with each work originating from commissions, and unified by shared themes: the flux between ephemeral movement and everyday stasis, the paradox of extraordinary and mundane beauty, and the ambition and idleness, that defines living in the 21st century. Saxl continues to utilize chamber-music ensemble alongside analog synth and digital experimentation, deeply tuning into textural emotion and the vivid details of small actions. While her 2021 breakthrough LP, The Blue of Distance, processed recordings from the Adirondacks and Lake Superior, Saxl’s source material here comes primarily from live percussion and other instrumentation. The project started in 2018 in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood at the practice space that Saxl’s band shares with the percussion trio Tigue. Later that year, they performed a residency together and captured the piece before the pandemic set in. In 2021, she began a new commission with Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion.Drifts shares its title with Kate Zambreno’s 2020 novel, where the protagonist becomes entranced by the work of Chantal Ackerman, which presents the typically female invisible forms of domestic labor as equally valuable to activities more commonly seen as productive. Saxl posits Drifts in the spirit of that feminist thesis: “It feels like there’s a little lineage here of women exploring this idea and celebrating small action that I hope I am continuing the work of.”The final piece, “Surfaces,” was commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum in conjunction with the Alex Katz retrospective in 2022. The group — comprised of Henry Solomon on baritone saxophone, Robby Bowen on glass marimba, and Saxl — leans into light, ruminative tones inspired by the pioneering painter’s present-minded approach. Katz's work deals with the optical perception of “quick things passing,” like the liminality of dusk when an object's outlines start to become unclear. “The ways in which our perception of things change not because they change but because we change,” explains Saxl. “I wanted to have these really minor changes feel dramatic, to mirror the imagined movement in his paintings.”Stepping back to view “Surfaces” within the set, Saxl finds the stream that runs throughout, the concept of the self as part of something greater. “Katz’s depiction of multiple generations of New York City artists inspired me to think about how there is no individual ‘me’ as an artist without both the artists who came before me and the community of artists I’ve grown alongside. The delineation between us blurs, and I feel as though I am carried on an interwoven surface formed by the community around me. At the same time, I know that eventually, I have to turn inwards and swim out alone.”

Pharoah ‘Farrell’ Sanders (born 1940) is a leading figure in the world of jazz and one of the last living legends with connections to players like Sun Ra and John Coltrane. His tenor saxophone playing has earned him royal status amongst free jazz players, critics and collectors. Originally Sanders was interested in urban blues music, but his high school teacher exposed him to jazz and this took Farrell in an entirely new direction. Once completing high school Sanders quickly packed his belongings and headed to Oakland, where he got a chance to work with musicians of high caliber such as saxophone players Sonny Simmons and Dewey Redman (who were both later to be major forces in new jazz and free jazz). Soon the young Pharoah would meet John Coltrane and would feel being attracted to the life as a professional musician. By the early sixties Sanders moved to New York where the major jazz scene was happening. Here he’d spent most his time honing his skills at rehearsals with Sun Ra….sadly he was not making much money with the Arkestra and soon found himself living on the streets, trying to stay up all night playing and then scrounging for money during the day, often selling blood to eat. Sanders recorded his debut album for ESP soon after, but it wasn’t until he started playing with his old friend John Coltrane that he would fully unleash the fury of his saxophone on the world of free jazz. The records Pharoah Sanders played on for Coltrane laid the foundation of what was to come for both the world of free jazz and for Sanders as a musician. After Coltrane’s tragic death Sanders would record further with Alice Coltrane, John’s widow, on the album Karma (1969 – Impulse!), which is universally accepted as Sanders’ masterpiece. Along with musicians Alice Coltrane and singer Leon Thomas, Sanders helped to create the genre of spiritual jazz. By this point in his career & on the album we are presenting you today (Moon Child, recorded in 1989), Sanders had largely withdrawn from the kind of screeching avant-gardism on which he at first staked his reputation. Here Sanders plays with an all-star line-up consisting of Stafford James (Sun Ra) on bass, William Henderson (Roy Ayers) on piano, & Eddie Moore (Sonny Rollins) on drums. Moon Child, with its attractively spacy vocals, is reminiscent of the days of “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” and this mood is kept throughout the album and in the choice of cosmic tunes represented on it. On this album the legendary saxophonist clearly reinvented himself as a more traditional improviser, capable of thoughtful and pensive deliberations. Catchy mystical New Age vocals, astrological references… Pharoah may remain an acquired taste, but few jazzmen can equal his unique formula of mastering the ‘groove’. Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents: the official reissue of this fantastic album containing these rare 1989 French sessions, back available on vinyl for the first time since 1990. This edition comes packaged as a deluxe 180g LP and is limited to 500 copies worldwide (with obi strip).

NM/NM Original deadstock. Italian obscure new wave gems!

Wildflower (Leon Brichard, Tom Skinner, Idris Rahman) continue to explore areas of groove-based improvised jazz on their 2nd album. Taking a slightly freer approach to the writing process, simple but effective melodies and bass motifs are explored to to create fully realised pieces with dynamic extremes that bring a full range of emotion. Recorded over a two day session at Fishmarket Studios in London, the band sounds relaxed and at ease, giving space to explore intricate improvised interplay and dialogue fully whilst at the same time building to fiery powerful climaxes and emotional peaks. Skinner is on fire here whilst Rahman and Brichard trade riffs and push the harmonic and rhythmic boundaries. Rahman’s use of clarinet and bamboo flute plus additional layers of woodwinds, Skinner’s unique approach to stripped-down use of his very personalised kit, and Brichard’s use of both acoustic and electric basses make for a sonic landscape that is both unique and highly approachable. Touching on heavy spiritual vibes whilst taking in dark alternative grooves and delicate folk-like tunes, the overall sound remains instantly accessible.

Dear reader & listener, After being out of print for several years, Duval Timothy’s phenomenal ‘Brown Loop’ has finally been reissued. Recorded in New York in the winter months of 2016, this brand new edition features a slightly adjusted track listing. The release date is 2nd of October 2020, which happens to be the multidisciplinary artist’s birthday. Duval has asked me to write a few words about his record. I often find myself listening to Duval’s music when travelling. On an aeroplane for example, where the comforting piano pieces are set starkly against the sound of the world passing by, the constant engine humming, air conditioning running. Or when I’m walking through a city I’ve not been to before, the music blending into the continuous noise of cars and motorbikes, anchoring me when I find myself in unknown surroundings. Grounding me, one note at a time, in contrast to a city that does the exact opposite. Duval’s compositions bring a sense of comfort where there is detachment. It’s the soundtrack for an immigrant (such as myself), alienated from wherever he came, but someone who also doesn’t fully belong to the place he set off to. I heard Duval describe the music of Brown Loop as ascending a mountain, and after you reached the top you come down to the other end. Through rhythmic repetitive patterns, the music builds. Within the pieces, melodies stray away from the theme, into unknown territories, but always find their way back to a comfortable home. Most elaborately this happens on my favourite piece, Hairs. The patterns and melodies on pieces such as Through The Night and (recently added to the vinyl version) G are stripped down to their very essence. It is not just jazz, it’s pure hip hop, as the hooks are reminiscent of the shards of melancholy legends like Dilla, Pete Rock and Havoc used in their best work. In terms of repetition, the music is also very techno. And like in all good techno, the patterns (perhaps contrary to popular belief) ooze humanity and emotion. But most of all Duval’s Brown Loop is a very personal record. it takes courage to expose your inner self like that in the most minimal of compositions. But once you find the right notes, the right pattern, music is the most beautiful thing in the world. Martyn Deykers