MUSIC

Los Angeles-based saxophonist Sam Gendel ends 2023 with a remarkable run of releases, this time in collaboration with Ugnė Uma to bring us the mind-boggling Tam tikri objektai erdvėje (Lithuanian for Some Particular Objects in Space). Each track on the album is simply titled as a letter from the word "Saturn", and is conceptually cosmic, touching on both inner and outer space. Through improvisation they conjure a genuinely alien soundworld from strange musical instruments, sampling their own music and electronics. Incredibly far-out hybrid forms echo the peculiar mutant images on the cover art. Sam Gendel and Ugnė Uma's Tam Tikri Objektai Erdvėje album sketches a layered, melismatic and intertextual view on what both performers define as a lightness of being. Ugnė Uma's musical stance is influenced by experimental poetry and Lithuania's 20th century underground music scene - jazz and folk, resulting from the liberation of the country's independence movements. Sam Gendel, from Los Angeles, is a saxophonist and producer, proficient on more instruments than the saxophone alone, whose recorded work both solo and collaborative has brought him acclaim as a vital new voice in modern jazz and beyond. Tam Tikri Objektai Erdvėje is Lithuanian and translates as Some Particular Objects in Space. The six tracks on the album stand for every letter of the word Saturn. They sketch out a sound palette both fragile and full of forward momentum. With hints of improv, sampling their own recorded work and sounds of a childhood's Yamaha Portasound PSS-290 synth into abstractions of pop and r&b, some of these tracks reach an almost balearic feel, the more contemplative end of it. With lyrics delving into cosmic phenomena, Tam Tikri Objektai Erdvėje is an album about space, whether cosmic or inward or the one in between. It easily surpasses the sum of its influences and the materials and tactics used to produce it.

In 2021 Nijs and Smolders started a series of free improvisations. Each came from a different background (see bio’s) and wanted to explore musical horizons that they were not used to. As a next step they decided to record an album of composed tracks. The experimental platform shifted from long improv sessions to composition and structure, with the work of Delaere as a source of inspiration. The material of his work, the unevenness, the detail of pigments clashing, superimposing on the canvas served as a metaphor and inspiration for sonic canvases that they constructed. The result has become a record full of surprises. Rhythm, drone, dynamics, timbre, notes, tones, all have been thrown in the tumble dryer and during the process many times led the two musicians towards an outcome they couldn’t have possibly foreseen. But here we are. Our own experience is that the music works best when it’s played loud. Crank up the level of your amp and dive into these 35 minutes of colorful sounds.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first-ever vinyl reissue of Alvin Curran’s classic Fiori Chiari, Fiori Oscuri, originally issued in 1978 on Ananda, the cooperative label run by Curran, Roberto Laneri, and Giacinto Scelsi. Fiori Chiari, Fiori Oscuri (Light Flowers Dark Flowers) – its title inspired by an intersection in Milan – is the second in the series of four solo recordings Alvin Curran issued in the 1970s and early 1980s, preceded by Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden (1975), followed by The Works (1980) and Canti Illuminati (1982).

Each of these solo works combines field recordings with performances on synthesiser, various acoustic instruments, and voice, arranged in languorously paced, dreamy sequences. Far from the bracing pointillism of much musique concrete, the elements encountered on the meandering course followed by Fiori Chiari, Fiori Oscuri – whether a frenetic piano improvisation, dense layers of Serge synthesiser and ocarina, or a monologue from Frederic Rzewski’s five-year old son, Alexis – often occupy the foreground of our attention for minutes at a time. As Curran explains, his approach is like that of a filmmaker in the editing process, working with “whole blocks of recorded time”.   The purring of a cat, toy piano, a child counting, plaintive synthesiser tones, the cacophony of exotic birds at the London Zoo – each disappears into the next, until, on the LP’s second side, a solo piano performance takes centre stage, moving unexpectedly from percussive minimalist permutations to a halting rendition of Georgia on My Mind. A subtle yet stunning work that more than forty years on still seems charged with possibility, Fiori Chiari, Fiori Oscuri arrives in a loving reproduction of the original sleeve, featuring Edith Schloss’ beautiful cover painting, remastered audio and with new liner notes by Alvin Curran and Francis Plagne.

A popular cassette work that has been evaluated among core listeners at our shop, is now available in a limited edition of 300 copies! A very mysterious work released in 2021 from the underground label in London, UK, whose details are completely unknown, and there is a lot of information trouble. "Untitled tape - Untitled work" is a must-see work that boasts a cult-like popularity, whose cassette version was out of print instantly even in the second press. It reminds me of the US underground noise/drones from the late 2000s to the early 2010s, when Kosmische madness swirled around Emeralds. Komische Ambient/Drone Music. Limited pressing with numbering.

This is the first official vinyl reissue from Superior Viaduct of the 1975 historical masterpiece by Takehisa Kosugi (1938-2018), Japan's leading figure in sound art known for his work with Group Ongaku, The Taj Mahal Travellers, Fluxus, and others. This is the first official vinyl reissue from the prestigious Superior Viaduct label. The psychedelic and meditative musicianship with electric violins and voices drifting comfortably in the space is still unique even after 30 years. The sound quality is perfect with the reliable Superior Viaduct. For fans of La Monte Young and Yoshi Wada, this is a must have on vinyl.

A forward thinking collaboration between electronic music pioneer Jon Appleton and trumpet great Don Cherry, that explores the relationship between the humanity and the manufactured robotic future. Using the techniques associated with Musique Concrete the ensuing improvisations create a unique entry into the great trumpeter's discography. It was an in vogue attempt to render the music of tomorrow, and today sounds more like the soundtrack to a truly great sci-fi movie Reissued in a fascimile of the original gatefold sleeve, and remastered from new 24/96 transfers, this is part of Ace's HiQ LP series

In 1972, trumpeter Baikida Carroll and some of his colleagues from the Black Artists Group (more precisely saxophonist/flutist Oliver Lake, trombonist Joseph Bowie, drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw and trumpeter Floyd LeFlore) took the advice of their friends in the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and left their native Missouri to come and discover the bright lights of Paris for themselves. The following year they would even get the chance to record their only album which would rapidly attain mythical status and a collector’s item: “In Paris, Aries 1973”. Therefore, it was not surprising that they crossed paths with Jef Gilson in the capital. He was always on the lookout for new artists for his recently formed Palm label and had been active on many fronts in jazz since the end of the 50s. The French bandleader/pianist/composer/sound engineer had already recorded, in the preceding months other American musicians who would go on to have great careers: Byard Lancaster, Keno Speller, Clint Jackson III, Khan Jamal… Gilson therefore offered Baikida Carroll the chance to record his first album under his own name, which would be the 13th release on the label. Carroll logically asked Oliver Lake to join him. He also recruited Manuel Villaroel, a young Franco-Chilien pianist from the group Matchi-Oul, who had already released an album on Futura in 1971 and would release another on Palm in 1976. The group was completed with the addition of Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos, who had just released a well-received album on the Saravah label. They were ready to enter the studio for the 3rd, 4th and 5th June 1974. The first side of the album is divided into two long tracks which send free jazz back to its long-lost African roots. The opener “Orange Fish Tears” indeed rolls out a jungle of percussion of all sorts and sizes -the whole group is involved- which weave and mix together reaching a point where all bearings are lost, lending a sense of wonder to the majestic entry of the brass and woodwinds, flying suddenly out from the undergrowth. “Forest Scorpion” (sic) is a real voodoo ceremony where a venomous percussive groove backs the fiery solos from keyboards and saxophone in a furious trance. A warning; after these two tracks listeners are physically and emotionally wiped out! The other side is more introspective. Deliberately using dissonance and repetition, “Rue Roger” -the only composition by Oliver Lake- in a long dialogue between trumpet and saxophone, could almost remind us of Terry Riley in his favourite ballpark. “Porte D'Orléans”, the fourth and final track on the album, has the group back to their old tricks in a long hallucinatory jam which owes as much to the contemporary music of György Ligeti as to the most angst-ridden Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack music (remember the heavy chords which beat through “Planet of the Apes»). With these two sides, and in under 45m, Baikida Carroll and his musicians show just what they can do, from cerebral to charnel without ever simplifying things. This is an indispensable album if you are a fan of free-wheeling avant-garde music from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to Sonic Youth and including Shabaka Hutchings and Rob Mazurek. For those with good taste, in other words.

n 1972, trumpeter Baikida Carroll and some of his colleagues from the Black Artists Group (more precisely saxophonist/flutist Oliver Lake, trombonist Joseph Bowie, drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw and trumpeter Floyd LeFlore) took the advice of their friends in the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and left their native Missouri to come and discover the bright lights of Paris for themselves. The following year they would even get the chance to record their only album which would rapidly attain mythical status and a collector’s item: “In Paris, Aries 1973”. Therefore, it was not surprising that they crossed paths with Jef Gilson in the capital. He was always on the lookout for new artists for his recently formed Palm label and had been active on many fronts in jazz since the end of the 50s. The French bandleader/pianist/composer/sound engineer had already recorded, in the preceding months other American musicians who would go on to have great careers: Byard Lancaster, Keno Speller, Clint Jackson III, Khan Jamal… Gilson therefore offered Baikida Carroll the chance to record his first album under his own name, which would be the 13th release on the label. Carroll logically asked Oliver Lake to join him. He also recruited Manuel Villaroel, a young Franco-Chilien pianist from the group Matchi-Oul, who had already released an album on Futura in 1971 and would release another on Palm in 1976. The group was completed with the addition of Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos, who had just released a well-received album on the Saravah label. They were ready to enter the studio for the 3rd, 4th and 5th June 1974. The first side of the album is divided into two long tracks which send free jazz back to its long-lost African roots. The opener “Orange Fish Tears” indeed rolls out a jungle of percussion of all sorts and sizes -the whole group is involved- which weave and mix together reaching a point where all bearings are lost, lending a sense of wonder to the majestic entry of the brass and woodwinds, flying suddenly out from the undergrowth. “Forest Scorpion” (sic) is a real voodoo ceremony where a venomous percussive groove backs the fiery solos from keyboards and saxophone in a furious trance. A warning; after these two tracks listeners are physically and emotionally wiped out! The other side is more introspective. Deliberately using dissonance and repetition, “Rue Roger” -the only composition by Oliver Lake- in a long dialogue between trumpet and saxophone, could almost remind us of Terry Riley in his favourite ballpark. “Porte D'Orléans”, the fourth and final track on the album, has the group back to their old tricks in a long hallucinatory jam which owes as much to the contemporary music of György Ligeti as to the most angst-ridden Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack music (remember the heavy chords which beat through “Planet of the Apes»). With these two sides, and in under 45m, Baikida Carroll and his musicians show just what they can do, from cerebral to charnel without ever simplifying things. This is an indispensable album if you are a fan of free-wheeling avant-garde music from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to Sonic Youth and including Shabaka Hutchings and Rob Mazurek. For those with good taste, in other words.

Dai Sayozoku (大サヨ族) is Sayozoku Septet avant-garde, free music, improvisational ensemble. live at Namba BEARS ,Osaka on 2021 August19th. イエレキルピネン Jere Kilpinen ..Shakuhachi, Drums 向井千惠 Chie Mukai ...Voice, Recorder, Percussions 佐藤史 Fumi Sato ...El-guitar 沼 タカハシシカロ Shicaro Takahashi ...Recorder, Toys, Percussions, Voice 　 染谷藍 Ai Sometani ... Recorder, Toys, Percussions サ 天神さやか Sayaka Tenjin ...Gopichand, Recorder, Percussion, Voice ヨ 宮岡永樹 Yonju Miyaoka ....Recorder, El-guitar, Hichiriki 族 Recorded by Yonju Miyaoka Mastered by Masami Baba Special thanks to Satoru Higashiseto (Forever Records), Naomi Kurimoto (Bears)

"Busts Love" is the debut work by Hekura, the duo formed by Ernest Pipó and Edu Pons, both from Barcelona's impro music scene. The songs in this LP serve as a voyage that evokes daydreams inspired by the everyday. Daydreams that change in surprising ways, as if they were old slides reflecting long-forgotten objects that once carried significance. Everything begins with "the single petal of a rose" by D. Ellington in a choral rendition that emulates a dialogue between wind instruments, from which fantasy and memories flourish, starting with the ethereal "vane" and the dampness of "frogs". The first stage comes to an intense climax with a gripping gathering in the desert in "runes". "Mound" takes us on a beautiful descent into the darkest depths of "calf", from which we emerge with life, but tinged with nostalgia in "wine". The book's cover is sealed with a guitar epilogue, where once again, "the single petal of a rose" brings the journey full circle.

Since 2005, Chicago-based experimentalists Haptic have explored the intersection between composition and improvisation in concerts, site-specific installations, and critically acclaimed recordings. Often engaging in ambitious cross-genre collaborations, Haptic has worked closely with composers such as Michael Pisaro-Liu and Olivia Block and musicians such as Tony Buck (The Necks) and Tim Barnes (Text of Light), as well as with dancers, filmmakers, and artists from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds. Residencies and installations have included Triptych at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2009) and Abeyance at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Conservatory (2015), in addition to numerous festival performances and commissioned works. Individually, members of the group have recorded for a multitude of labels including Editions Mego, Relapse, Touch, Thrill Jockey, Kranky, and Another Timbre, among others.

Marginal Consort is a Japanese avant-garde improvisational group comprised of sound artists Kazuo Imai (a student of Japanese free jazz linchpin Masayuki Takayanagi and occasional performer in both Taj Mahal Travellers and Takayanagi’s New Direction Unit), Tomonao Koshikawa, Kei Shii, and Masami Tada (also in group GAP). Formed in 1997, the four members of Marginal Consort attended Takehisa Kosugi’s music classes at the Bigakkō art school in Tokyo in the mid-1970s, where they teamed up with other students to record East Bionic Symphonia’s debut album “Recorded Live” in 1976. Since its inception, each year Marginal Consort holds one (or more when invited) annual concert at spacious venues in which they perform continuously, without interruption, for over three hours. Their extended set explores forms of sound and ways of playing that never coalesce into music but create a group dynamic of ebb and flow, exploration and fluidity. Their performance, which is completely free from abstract, political or sometimes mystical ideas about improvisation, neither contraposes the immediacy of action or anonymousness of sound against music nor dramatises the dialectics between the individual and the whole. Even the general idea of the words “collective”, “improvisation” and “project” do not really tell the way they work. Marginal Consort performed at South London Gallery; St. Elisabeth Kirche, Berlin; Asahi Square, Tokyo; Kotoku Morishita Bunka Center, Tokyo; Mikawadai Junior High School, Tokyo; Super Deluxe, Tokyo; Tokyo Arts and Space, Tokyo; Macao, Milan; Instal 08, The Arches, Glasgow; St. John at Hackney Church (33-33), London; The Substation, Melbourne; Carriageworks, Sydney; Third Edition Festival, Stockholm; nyMusikk, Bergen; Borderline Festival, Athens; On the Boards, Seattle; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art; PuSh Festival, Vancouver; Zebulon, Los Angeles; Pioneer Works, New York. ​​​​​​​“A form of sound that does not turn into music and a group that does not produce harmony; individual concepts and group fluidity; individuals who are at once independent entities and components of the whole; coexisting time frames and intersecting rhythms – these are among the images of group improvisation that have occupied my mind since the ’70s. These images neither presuppose specific elements nor regulate the entire process. There always remain, however, the fundamental premises that sounds are separately produced phenomena and that their accumulation forms the whole”. – Kazuo Imai

A masterpiece of avant pop chamber music! The composer / pianist "Blue" Gene Tyranny, who has been nominated for the Grammy Award and is known for his participation in numerous masterpieces and The Stooges works left in the prestigious Lovely Music of the US avant-garde music, and his allies. , Arthur Russell and The Flying Lizards are also involved in the works of New York avant-garde writer / multiplayer Peter Gordon's 1976 live recording at the Berkeley Art Museum. Plenty of avant-garde charm that can be said to be one of the answers to German rock from the bay area! A minimal rock jam with a clavinet, an electronic piano, a saxophone, a woodwind instrument, an RMI Synthesizer, etc., and a dense psychedelic groove with a focus on odd time signatures and repetitions. It is a mysterious piece that brings a kind of omnipotence with a mixture of lo-fi atmosphere, strange uplifting feeling, and unique humor. Recording & mixing by Maggi Payne. Taylor Deupree is in charge of mastering. Gatefold mini LP sleeve specification. Includes a 23-page booklet with new interviews and gorgeous photos of both parties.

Riki Hidaka + Jim O' Rourke + Eiko Ishibashi, a rare combination of musicians who represent the current domestic scene, present a delicate and bold music. The musical work "Oki Oishi" by Riki Hidaka, Jim O' Rourke, and Eiko Ishibashi consists of two 20-minute pieces based on studio sessions by the three artists.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce The Leisure Principle, a new solo LP from London-based bassist and sound artist Otto Willberg. A key player in the London underground, Willberg is often heard on acoustic and electric bass in free improv settings and bands with Laurie Tompkins (Yes Indeed) and Charles Hayward (Abstract Concrete), as well as the fractured No Wave unit Historically Fucked. His previous solo releases have ranged from extended technique double bass to explorations of the acoustics of a 19th century artillery fort. But nothing Willberg has committed to wax so far prepares a listener for The Leisure Principle, six unashamedly melodic improvisational workouts created almost entirely with heavily filtered bass harmonica and electric bass. On the opening ‘Reap What Thou Sow’, a single-note bass harmonica loop pulses along underneath a roaming bass solo, the side-chained envelope filtering (where the dynamic behaviour of the bass determines the filter for both bass and harmonica) fusing the two instruments into a single stream of burbling shifts in resonance. After several minutes of patient exploration of this low-end landscape, the music suddenly opens up in widescreen with the entrance of Sam Andreae’s graceful melodica chords, spreading out across the stereo field. From this epic opener, each of the remaining pieces goes on to explore a slightly different aspect of the terrain. On ‘Shadow Came into the Eyes as Earth Turned on its Axis’, a similarly buoyant harmonica bass line provides the foundation, but this time playing a soulful descending riff, its almost R&B feel abstracted and half-obscured by the filtering. On ‘Mollusk’, echoed bass arpeggios skitter between elegiac chords somewhat reminiscent of the opening of John Abercrombie’s ‘Timeless’, before settling into a hypnotic groove. On the record’s second half, Willberg pushes further into the possibilities of his idiosyncratic instrumentation. On ‘Wetter’, bass and harmonica come together into a monstrous, growling jaw harp; on ‘Had we but world enough and more time’, the subtly shifting pulsating patterns start to feel almost like a kind of evaporated, drum-less dub techno until an eruption of wheezing bass harmonica gives the piece a comically folkish turn. Willberg’s melodically inventive and virtuosic bass performance calls to mind any number of fusion touchstones, from Jaco Pastorius to Mark Egan’s singing tone in the early Pat Metheny Group—even Anthony Jackson’s work with Steve Kahn. But with its radically reduced instrumentation, The Leisure Principle is also an exercise in minimalism, and the absence of percussion gives even its funkiest moments a strangely abstracted quality. At times, its uncanny blend of the abstruse and the immediate suggests the fried pop experiments of David Rosenboom or the skewed but deeply musical DIY of 80s underground groups like De Fabriek. Both easy on the ear and profoundly strange, The Leisure Principle proudly takes its place among the most eccentric offerings on the Black Truffle menu.

This is an official release presented as a five-LP Box-Set Record Store Day exclusive by Elemental Music Records in partnership with the Albert Ayler Estate & INA France. Deluxe limited-edition of 180g hand-numbered 5 LP-set mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, directly from the original ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française) stereo tape reels, including over 2 hours of previously unreleased music. Includes a 16-page insert for the 5-LP set and a massive 100-page booklet for the 4-CD edition with previously unpublished photos from the actual concerts; essays by jazz historian/radio host Ben Young, co-producers Zev Feldman and Jeffrey Lederer, and Pascal Rozat from Ina; plus words by Sonny Rollins, Archie Shepp, David Murray, Carlos Santana, Joe Lovano, Carla Bley, John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Reggie Workman, James Brandon Lewis, Patty Waters, Carla Bley, Annette Peacock, Marc Ribot, Thurston Moore and Zoh Amba.

 

The trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi return to Black Truffle with their 10th release, recorded live in Tokyo in February, 2017. While many of the trio’s recent works have seen them focussing primarily on their core guitar/bass/drums power trio format, on Each side has a depth of 5 seconds A polka dot pattern in horizontal array A flickering that moves vertically these three multi-instrumentalists strike into new territory, utilising an almost entirely electronic set-up, with Haino on electronics, drum machine and suona (a Chinese double-reed horn), O’Rourke on synth, and Ambarchi on pedal steel and electronics. 

Dedicated to the memory of legendary Tokyo underground figure Hideo Ikeezumi, founder of PSF Records and the Modern Music shop and a long-term collaborator with Haino, the LP, (recorded the night Ikeezumi passed away), begins in a sombre, meditative space of rippling, burbling electronics and distant jets of white noise. Though much of the ‘Introduction’ that occupies the record’s first side is spacious and at times almost hushed, the performance is full of unexpected twists and turns, momentary events, and fleeting impressions. The trio conjures up a free-flowing surge of sound in which individual contributions are often difficult to distinguish, calling up echoes of vintage live-electronic sizzle like It’s Viaje or the cavernous expanse of David Behrman’s Wave Train. 

The LP’s second side opens in a similarly reflective realm, before Haino’s suona enters, taking the music in a more austere, hieratic direction, as the reed’s piercing tones are accompanied by O’Rourke’s uneasy, sliding synth figures and Ambarchi’s shimmering Leslie cabinet tones. On the side’s second piece, Haino’s signature hand-played drum machine takes centre-stage, at first sounding out massive, isolated strikes, before eventually building to a tumbling, Milford Graves-esque wall of thunder. As O’Rourke’s synth squelches and stutters and Ambarchi’s heavily effected pedal steel somehow begins to sound like a kind of hellish blues harmonica, this passage offers up one of the most electrifying and bizarre moments in the trio’s catalogue to date. 

Containing some of the most abstract music the trio have waxed since their very first collaboration over a decade ago (Tima Formosa, BT04), this new missive from underground experimental music’s preeminent power trio shows them restless and risk-taking, clearly enjoying their remarkable improvisational chemistry while also continuing to push themselves into new directions. 

Presented in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with artwork and design by Lasse Marhaug and an inner sleeve with live pics by Ujin Matsuo. 

For more than a decade, Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke, and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto have been coming together in various combinations - duos, trios, and larger ensembles - slowly becoming one of the most noteworthy, understated collaborations in the landscape of experimental sound. In 2015, the trio recorded a brilliant LP entitled “Delivery Health” ‎for Silent Water, laying the groundwork for an enduring project that adopted that album’s title as its name, debuting properly in 2017 with the stunner “Hard Off”. Over the years since, we’ve encountered Di Domenico, O'Rourke, and Yamamoto playing together in Bonjintan, their project with Akira Sakata, and in further collaborations with Eiko Ishibashi and Joe Talia, not to mention O'Rourke and Di Domenico’s prolific work as a duo. A bit more than five years on from “Hard Off”, Delivery Health finally return with “SuperDeluxe!”, a stunning new double LP on Holidays Records. Comprising roughly four years of early activity from the trio that rests at a fascinating juncture of electroacoustic composition, free improvisation, and noise, it’s easily among the most engaging and intoxicating efforts we’ve yet to hear from one of the most dynamic bands working today. Even by the standards of experimental music - international and cross-cultural in its make-up - the collaborations of Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke, and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto have always seemed to defy the challenges of geography, coming together with surprising regularity between Europe and Japan. The three represent a remarkable joining of distinct artistic talent and creative vision, the like of which rarely occur. Like its predecessors, “SuperDeluxe!” rides a beautiful line between striking singular creative ambition and accomplishment, and simply feeling like a free-wheeling conversation between friends who have relinquished their egos and presumptions out of a deep sense of mutual respect. Ironically, as forward thinking as it feels, the album is a kind of retrospective rewind, comprising five live documents recorded, of course, at the legendary SuperDeluxe! in Tokyo between 2012 and 2016 across its four sides. Taking us deep into the very beginnings and previously unheard activities (at least for those who were there on these nights) of Di Domenico, O'Rourke, and Yamamoto, the trio weaves a knotted tapestry unfurling as sheets of sound, that sidesteps signifiers and the expectations that one might have of each of these artists on their own. Ranging from brisling ambient passages drawing on latent melodic flirtations, heavy jams on guitar, drums, electronics, and keyboards, and outright, full throttle noise, each moment represents a visionary excursion into the depths of experimental, improvised sound, revealing a shocking sense of real-time dexterity from each player, as much as the collective whole experiments in improvised sound. Absolutely thrilling from start to finish - not that we’d expect anything less from three masters of their art forms - “SuperDeluxe!” is an immersion into the joys of music making, collaboration, and ultimately listening. It’s an album that traverses a startling and unexpected range, new worlds emerge and evolve from within the fog - rippling textural ambiance, harsh interlocking atonality, subtle and delicate interplay - without losing a moment of coherency. Issued by Holidays as a beautiful produced double LP, this is contemporary improvised music at its absolute best.

Having made his mark on these pages over the last few years with appearances as part of Japan’s cult entities Goat and YPY, Koshiro Hino’s turn last year as KAKUHAN took things to a whole other level with an album that felt like some alchemical mix of elements borrowed from Autechre, Photek, Arthur Russell and Mica Levi - a complete stylistic futureshock that worked as well in the club as it did fuelling extended flights of the imagination. For 2023, Hino takes us into a completely different headspace, assembling a cast of 11 players - the mighty Joe Talia and KAKUHAN’s other half Yuki Nakagawa among them - for a suite of untamed field recordings, clanging percussion, brass and synthesis that are about as far removed from the diaristic ambient de jour as you could possibly imagine. Instead, the ensemble conjure vibrant sound ecologies teeming with detail, mirroring the natural world and communal traditions to form shapeshifting, organismic soundworlds. ‘Geist II’ was written for 20 speakers, referencing François Bayle's acousmatic music and David Tudor's electro-acoustic environments. It paints a richly detailed scene of a nocturnal rainforest, replete with avian hoots and a skin-crawling patina of insectoid chatter that moves around the soundfield, stealthily growing in density with a more “musical” presence of super low end drone and drums converging form the peripheries to a ritualistic climax. In the second part, focus shifts to remarkably pure percussion-like tropical rain, invaded by swarms of scuttling and winged invertebrates that give way to a water music-like polymetric slosh, resolving to ringing tones and more mellifluous gestures that hark back to GRM’s most poetic, romantic urges. It’s a deeply psychedelic experience that harmonises tiny electronic fluctuations with bird calls and scraped, resonant drones that phase in-and-out of the mix. It's sound you can practically chew, and another crucial despatch from the contemporary Japanese avant-garde

Dewa Alit, Bali’s master of contemporary Gamelan composition, returns to Black Truffle with Chasing the Phantom, presenting two recent works played by the composer’s Gamelan Salukat, a large ensemble that performs on instruments specially built to his designs, using a unique tuning system that combines notes from two traditional Balinese Gamelan scales. Alit explains that the ensemble’s name suggests “a place to fuse creative ideas to generate new, innovative works” and both compositions demonstrate the composer’s ability to wring stunning new possibilities from variations on the traditional Gamelan ensemble. While using familiar elements of Balinese Gamelan music, such as unison scalar melodies and stop-start dynamics, Alit’s music is overflowing with harmonic, rhythmic, and timbral inventions, the latter often facilitated by unorthodox playing techniques. “Ngejuk Memedi”, an English translation of which gives the LP its title, results from Alit’s reflection on the complex relationship between tradition and modernity in Balinese culture, particularly in the way that belief in the phantoms or spirits known as ‘memedi’ are shared through social media using digital technologies. Embodying this uncanny co-existence, the opening passages of the piece are at once immediately recognisable in their use of the metallophones of the Gamelan ensemble and strikingly reminiscent of electronics in their timbre and movement. At points, what we hear seems to have been fragmented with digital tools, or even to originate in some incessantly glitching DX7. Short melodic figures loop irregularly, with the ensemble splintering into polyrhythmic shards before unexpectedly recombining for intricate unison passages. After several minutes of this manically tinkling metallic sound world, the metallophones are joined by drums for a meditative passage of lower dynamics, as the uniformly high pitch range explored in the opening sections gradually opens up to include resonant low gong hits. Recovering some of the manic energy of the opening, but now enhanced with the full range of percussion, the piece weaves through a series of tempo changes to a stunning passage of rapid-fire melodies and ringing chords that sweep across the metallophones, their unorthodox tuning creating complex clouds of wavering harmonies. “Likad”, written during Covid-19 lockdowns, channels anxiety and uncertainty into musical form, resulting in a piece that, even by Alit’s standards, is stunning in its complexity and the virtuosity it demands of Gamelan Salukat. Its opening section is perhaps most remarkable for its mastery of texture, with rapid transitions between dry, muted strikes and metallic shimmers calling to mind the use of filters in electronic music. At points, the complex irregular repetitions of short melodic patterns, where the music seems to get stuck or be suddenly interrupted by a skip, recall the mad sampler works of Alvin Curran or the skittering surface of prime period Oval more than anything familiar from acoustic percussion music. Moving through a dizzying series of twists and turns, the piece ends with a majestic sequence of chords possessing an almost hieratic power. A major statement from a radical contemporary composer, one cannot help but agree with Alit when he sees Chasing the Phantom as an answer to the “question of the future of Gamelan music”.

In 1981, encouraged by Jac Berrocal, Axolotl (Etienne Brunet and Jacques Oger on saxophones and clarinet, Marc Dufourd on electric guitar) recorded an album of French-style free music as iconoclastic as it was unsettling: free improvisation, jazz, no wave, contemporary, punk… a dance of labels which leaves plenty of place for the direct expression of a monstrous trio of regenerated agitators! The axolotl is a species of salamander native to Mexico, living in a state of larva and having the capacity to regenerate damaged organs. This brief introduction doesn’t tell us if the axolotl sings. But, for the one that concerns us here: yes indeed. In Paris, at the end of the 1970s, Etienne Brunet and Marc Dufourd would improvise regularly, inspired by some other saxophone-guitar duos: Claude Bernard-Raymond Boni firstly, then Evan Parker-Derek Bailey. When Jacques Oger (a saxophonist whom Brunet had met at a workshop given by Steve Lacy at the Châteauvallon festival in 1977) joined the duo Brunet-Dufourd, Axolotl was born. Iconoclastic, the trio was bound to please Jac Berrocal, and he proposed to record their first album on the label ‘D’avantage’. In spring 1981 three days were just enough for Oger (tenor and barytone saxophones), Brunet (alto saxophone, bass clarinet and ‘things’) and Dufourd (electric guitar) to complete Axolotl, the first album by a group which would record … two. If there was a collective of iconoclasts, the trio would be there with some relatives: Alterations, Fred Frith, John Zorn, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet… and then because we mention a collective, Axolotl steps (considerably) beyond the domain of free improvisation to lean towards jazz (“Illusion”, “Paris, froissé”), No Wave (“Ombre pilée”, “Trottoirs défunts”), contemporary (“Oreiller”, “D’autres seuls”), and even what we could call … acid fun (“Dehors”). Above all, Axolotl wanted to really get to grips with sound via an expression as direct as it was liberating, as can be heard on “Ozone, flocon, torsion”, producing a noise that, even today pierces the brain. All we can hope is that now, thanks to this wonderful reissue, listeners will be able, like the axolotl, of regeneration.

теплота is the London-based duo of Grundik Kasyansky & Tom Wheatley. Their work interrogates the haptic, social and liberating relationships with technologies old and new; using feedback synthesizer and computer-acoustic bass, they fuse a spontaneous interplay orthogonally over cyclical structures, with techno as perpetual fulcrum. Following their debut HEAT/WORK on Cafe Oto’s TakuRoku label and the monthly ЭС research series, Skynned will be landing on Accidental Meetings. Half techno, half free jazz, the music is both hypnotic and open-ended, relentless and ephemeral.

‘Cupo’ is the debut album of gothic folkways and dark jazz rituals enacted by prolific percussionist Valentina Magaletti and enigmatic spirit Laila Sakini, deploying an orchestra-sized ensemble of instruments into a 10-part movement spread over two seamless sides. Ghostly and completely transfixing material, it sounds like a pitch-black reduction of Talk Talk's ‘Spirit of Eden’ crumbling into Julee Cruise's ‘Floating into the Night’. An ode to DIY culture and improvisation, Cupo marks a turning point and coming together of two of London’s most imaginative figures. The project sprung to life after Magaletti, versatile drummer-composer for a myriad projects including Moin, Tomaga, Holy Tongue and CZN, asked singular singer-songwriter/art explorer Sakini to contribute to an album that quickly developed into a separate project in its own right. Initiated under a title meaning ‘dark’ in Italian, Sakini plays trumpet, flute, harmonica, recorder, vocals, bass, strings and piano, while Magaletti adds acoustic guitar, spoken word, bass, and drums, pitched down to match the sunken swag of Sakini’s voice. ‘Cupo’ oozes a sense of theatrical dramaturgy that feels like two players in a staged psychodrama. The pair’s exquisite twists of light and space enhance the sensation of peering in from the dark of the stalls, scenes mysteriously changing on stage. The opening hums with nervous energy, the vast sweep of possibility - things could go in so many different directions - concrète, free jazz, doom noise, forest folk, trip hop - who fucking knows. Magaletti's drums gain momentum, cutting into the void like a snare roll in the middle of a trapeze act, or the din from the orchestral pit in an old cinema. Staggered bass and pitched trumpet are thrown into the mix, the deep thrum of subs, a heartbeat, shapeless words, flute, lost fragments of chamber music, piano keys wafting in from outside. Just as things feel irrevocably shapeless, all the elements coalesce, Sakini’s voice and a recorder flip the mood. We’re in smokey, weird pop mode - just the thing we were hoping for. The spirit of post-prog/proto-shoegaze hangs in the air, but the music isn't quite so specific. Pop dissolves into jazz, ambient passages cut into rickety blues, then scuffed into DIY art noise. The linking thread is always the duo's creative energy, providing a space for each to explore, without overwhelming the other. Gentle, fierce music from two of the very best in the game right now.

The renowned trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi return to Black Truffle with their 11th release, “Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” Demonstrating once again their commitment to continual experimentation in instrumentation and approach, the record begins with a long-distance collaboration made in response to a commission from New York’s Issue Project Room in 2021 during widespread lockdowns and travel limitations. A unique piece in the trio’s extensive body of work, this side-long epic finds Haino performing on metal percussion, O’Rourke on electronics and Ambarchi on gongs and bells. Initially dominated by rapid patterns on resonant, high-pitched tuned percussion, the piece sets Haino’s dynamic and dramatic performance against a calm backdrop of cycling electronics, thrumming gong strikes and hanging bell tones. The performance develops a heightened, intensely concentrated atmosphere reminiscent of Haino’s classic Tenshi No Ginjinka or his Nijiumu project; when Haino moves to clashing hand cymbals in its second half, the piece’s ritualistic energy suggests aspects of the music of Tibetan Buddhism. The remainder of the double LP documents the trio live at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe (the location of all but their very first recording) in a wide-ranging set recorded in December 2017. The concert opens, in another first for the trio, with Haino on drums, O’Rourke on Hammond organ and Ambarchi on his signature Leslie cabinet guitar tones. Haino’s explosively untutored approach to the drumkit will be familiar to some listeners from the radical duo iteration of Fushitsusha heard on Origin’s Hesitation. Setting flurries of rapid activity against moments of silence, his drumming here at times suggests Milford Graves in its tumbling toms and thudding kick-drum propulsion. Accompanied by O’Rourke’s organ and Ambarchi’s guitar, which in their shared use of long tones and shifting modulation speeds almost blend into a single voice, the opening sections of this performance are some of the most magical music the trio has committed to tape thus far. After an interlude of spoken vocals in both Japanese and English, Haino makes a dramatic entrance on guitar. Against O’Rourke and Ambarchi’s increasingly intense electronic backdrop, Haino unleashes a stunning passage of slowly moving chromatic melodies and sudden shrieking explosions bathed in distortion and reverb. By the time we reach the third side, the guitar/bass/drums power trio is established and lurches into a passage of massive, lumbering rock that threatens to fall apart at every beat, O’Rourke’s strummed chordal work on six string bass creating a harmonic density equivalent to a second guitar. An abrupt edit throws the listener in media res into a frantic locked groove grounded by fuzzed out bass patterns and caveman drums. As Haino moves through a variety of approaches, from massive edifices of stuttering fuzz to ominous swarms of feedback, the trio eventually stumble into a kind of Harmolodic military tattoo, Haino’s guitar weaving and slashing across the rhythm section’s irregular accents. Moving through an epic opening duet for O’Rourke on Hammond and Haino’s wailing guitar, the fourth side eventually ramps up into a frenetic finale of mad bass riffing, crackling snare hits and guitar squall.“Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” is a testament to the continuing power and invention of this trio, who continue to seek out new terrain after over a decade working together. 2LP set presented in a lavish gatefold sleeve on heavy stock along with inner sleeves containing live pics by Tsuyoshi Kamaike. Photography by Jim O’Rourke, design by Lasse Marhaug and translation by Alan Cummings.