MUSIC

This is a previously unreleased 1966 live club performance from Yusef Lateef, the brilliant multi-instrumentalist whose mixing of jazz and Eastern music was a great influence on some of the finest musicians of the era including John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders.

Accompanied at Ronnie Scott’s by the house band of pianist Stan Tracey, double bassist Rick Laird and drummer Bill Eyden, most of the repertoire played comes from Lateef’s earlier recordings for Savoy and Prestige such as Jazz Moods and Eastern Sounds. Lateef plays flute on The Dreamer and Last Night Blues (it was the last night of the run). He plays the shenai - a kind of oboe - on Blues for The Orient, the xun - a Chinese flute - on Song of Delilah, and tenor saxophone on Yusef’s Mood.

The evening’s performance was recorded by Les Tomkins at the request of Ronnie Scott. The musicians were unaware they were being recorded as Scott believed they would be at their best and most unselfconscious this way. This record was mastered at Gearbox Records directly from the original 1/4” tapes.

Cut on Haeco Scully lathe with Westrex RA1700 series amps, Westrex 3DIIA cutting head and Telefunken U73B tube limiter; Maselec master control and equalisation.

“People don’t like Abdullah Ibrahim, they adore him, bestowing on him the devotion normally reserved for Nina Simone. When he plays, melodies tumble out effortlessly, as he slides from theme to theme like a laid-back South African reincarnation of Thelonious Monk.” - The Guardian

Taken from Abdullah Ibrahim’s summer 2023 sold-out headline date at London’s Barbican Centre, the new album “3” follows suit and is spread across two performances – the first is recorded without an audience ahead of the concert straight to analogue on a 1” Scully tape machine, which had previously been used by Elvis at the famous Memphis-based Sun Studios.

The second recording is taken from the evening’s performance itself with Ibrahim performing in a unique trio which includes Cleave Guyton (flute, piccolo, saxophone) who has performed alongside the likes of Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, and Joe Henderson, as well as lauded bassist and cellist Noah Jackson, both of which are members of EKAYA and featured on Ibrahim’s Top 3 Billboard Jazz album “The Balance”

Wondrously uninhibited, and liberated from the added pressure of either a studio or a planned live recording, there is true magic, sparkling energy, and no lowering of intensity in this never-before-released unearthed gem. The night before Ella Fitzgerald walked into Konserthuset in Stockholm and recorded what became The Stockholm Concert, 1966, the Pablo Records live album now considered among the essential documents of her late career, she played two concerts at Falkoner Theatre in Copenhagen. Like many other Black American jazz musicians of her era, Denmark felt like home to Ella. It was a country where Black American jazz musicians found a degree of respect that the United States too often denied them. Ella's ease in her adopted home was palpable when she walked onto the Falkoner Theatre stage that Sunday. And, now the results are released on record for the first time, and with the full blessing of Ella’s estate, we are treated to an irrepressible, unexpectedly vital addition to her canon Track two has been attributed on the CD and LP per the tape box and the Danish radio printer Borge Roger Henrichsen’s introduction at the time, who erroneously announced the track as Hey Little Girl (Otis Blackwell, Booby Stevenson). In fact is is Wives and Lovers (Burt Bacharach, Hal David). We decided to keep the reference as a historical record of the original recording though subsequent issues will be corrected.

Keith Freund’s music occupies a space where careful musicianship and homebrewed experimentation meet and shake hands. On “Window Left Open,” spacious melodies drift through dense fields of electronic activity: saxophone lines rise above buzzing circuitry, percussion flickers at the edges of the frame, and clustered glitch textures dart through the music like insects in tall summer grass. Every sound feels vividly animated, a charged part of the same mercurial ecosystem. Freund’s talent lies in balancing warmth and unpredictability with remarkable ease. Patient motifs recall the exploratory spirit of early folktronica, while bit-reduced textures, degraded loops, and idiosyncratic synthesis techniques continually reshape the terrain beneath them. Rather than treating acoustic and electronic elements as opposing forces, Freund allows them to intermingle until distinctions dissolve, creating compositions that reward close listening while retaining immediate warmth. This record finds Freund working with a fully formed vocabulary that is truly his own, transforming glitch, melody, improvisation, and atmosphere into songs that are both fundamentally curious and disarmingly engaging.

First vinyl reissue of the 1979 holy grail private press debut by Californian vibes and marimba player Rickey Kelly, leading a classy ensemble from Latinate, subtropical jazz to Afro-rooted spiritual styles and blissed cool. ""Rickey, I know these are your friends, the guys you went to school with, but if you wanna record an album, you record with musicians who have been playing their whole life; whatever you write, they'll put their whole life into it. You play with your friends; they may not even play in tune." These are the words of Slave guitarist Kevin Johnson, and they were to change the course of young Rickey Kelly's life. It was 1978, and music student Kelly had approached Johnson with a tape of rough demos of some songs he'd written. A San Francisco native, Kelly had recently moved the short distance south to study music at LA City College in East Hollywood. He was a member of E.W. Wainwright Jr.'s African Roots of Jazz, and was spending up to 10 hours a day in practice on both vibes and marimba. He also played with Horace Tapscott, and had his own band made up of fellow students, but it was his ambition to make an album that led to the conversation with Johnson. It was a turning point in his education, and a decision was looming. The next thing Johnson said was "You call the best jazz musicians. How'd you like to play with Billy Higgins?", a line that would seal it for anyone; for a youngster like Rickey just starting out in the business, you just don't turn down the opportunity to play with the likes of highly accomplished musicians, especially those of the calibre of legendary jazz drummer Billy Higgins. Some calls were made and the date was set to record at Studio Masters on Beverly Blvd, a studio set up just a few years previous in 1973, owned and operated by Dot Records founder Randy Wood with his son John. Some of the other music professionals set to record with Kelley that day were flautist Adele Sebastian, bass player Tony Dumas, saxophonist Charles Owens and vocalist Diane Reeves, none of whom had previously played with Kelly before. Kelly was impressed with the studio, with the gold records displayed on the walls and the famous musicians hanging out. 'It took a lot of humility for me to record with them, I mean I was nobody, nothing, and for not a lot of money either' remembers Rickey in a later interview with Calvin Lincoln, 'It taught me a lot, to practice hard, and study for the rest of your life, to give your all, and there's a lot of all to give'. As the recording session took place, John Wood was listening in. He was impressed. Kelly didn't have the funds to manufacture and release the album himself, so Wood suggested it was pressed up on his in-house studio label, Los Angeles Phonograph Records, and thus the LP 'My Kind of Music' was released early in 1979. The album also saw a subsequent pressing soon afterwards on Dennis Sullivan's New Note label. Kelly remains humble and proud of his debut album to this day. 'I was still a beginner' he says, 'These masters walked in, smiling, and gave me something worth gold'."

First vinyl reissue of the 1979 holy grail private press debut by Californian vibes and marimba player Rickey Kelly, leading a classy ensemble from Latinate, subtropical jazz to Afro-rooted spiritual styles and blissed cool. ""Rickey, I know these are your friends, the guys you went to school with, but if you wanna record an album, you record with musicians who have been playing their whole life; whatever you write, they'll put their whole life into it. You play with your friends; they may not even play in tune." These are the words of Slave guitarist Kevin Johnson, and they were to change the course of young Rickey Kelly's life. It was 1978, and music student Kelly had approached Johnson with a tape of rough demos of some songs he'd written. A San Francisco native, Kelly had recently moved the short distance south to study music at LA City College in East Hollywood. He was a member of E.W. Wainwright Jr.'s African Roots of Jazz, and was spending up to 10 hours a day in practice on both vibes and marimba. He also played with Horace Tapscott, and had his own band made up of fellow students, but it was his ambition to make an album that led to the conversation with Johnson. It was a turning point in his education, and a decision was looming. The next thing Johnson said was "You call the best jazz musicians. How'd you like to play with Billy Higgins?", a line that would seal it for anyone; for a youngster like Rickey just starting out in the business, you just don't turn down the opportunity to play with the likes of highly accomplished musicians, especially those of the calibre of legendary jazz drummer Billy Higgins. Some calls were made and the date was set to record at Studio Masters on Beverly Blvd, a studio set up just a few years previous in 1973, owned and operated by Dot Records founder Randy Wood with his son John. Some of the other music professionals set to record with Kelley that day were flautist Adele Sebastian, bass player Tony Dumas, saxophonist Charles Owens and vocalist Diane Reeves, none of whom had previously played with Kelly before. Kelly was impressed with the studio, with the gold records displayed on the walls and the famous musicians hanging out. 'It took a lot of humility for me to record with them, I mean I was nobody, nothing, and for not a lot of money either' remembers Rickey in a later interview with Calvin Lincoln, 'It taught me a lot, to practice hard, and study for the rest of your life, to give your all, and there's a lot of all to give'. As the recording session took place, John Wood was listening in. He was impressed. Kelly didn't have the funds to manufacture and release the album himself, so Wood suggested it was pressed up on his in-house studio label, Los Angeles Phonograph Records, and thus the LP 'My Kind of Music' was released early in 1979. The album also saw a subsequent pressing soon afterwards on Dennis Sullivan's New Note label. Kelly remains humble and proud of his debut album to this day. 'I was still a beginner' he says, 'These masters walked in, smiling, and gave me something worth gold'."

Michael J. Blood executes a stunning volte-face from rugged house and soul to more intuitive, introspective, world-building ambient jazz and electroacoustic dub realms under a new moniker SEES, signifying a newfound psychoactive frisson to his work that lands him somewhere in the spiritual vicinity of Vangelis, Moodymann, Ron Trent, Pendant, Terre Thaemlitz. ‘Ampersand Curve’ initiates a brilliant new phase of work by North Manchester’s most elusive artist, best known as Michael J. Blood. His string of ruffkut club bangers as well as jams with Rat Heart & Samizdat over the past seven years, have made his records a true cult property, and now find him signed to one of the UK’s most foundational techno imprints - more of which later this year. But under the SEES aegis, he swims in very different waters, following his instincts to use the studio-as-instrument to produce his most impressive, deep-minded work, made from - and for - the heart. Where MJB was all about off-the-cuff club jams cooked for immediacy, his new stylistic switch reveals myriad worlds of influence swirling under the hood, where interrelated spheres of spiritual jazz, dub, ambient and concrète more clearly light up his rich inner world. As the story goes, MJB was burgled a few years back, and lost most of his studio just as the project was hitting its stride. It prompted a personal review of his practice, re-learning new kit, allowing him to bend the rules. Adopting a sort of first thought, best thought approach to composition, the new methodology fuelled a renewed imagination in flux, or what he identifies as SEES: a personalised way of conveying complex emotions. That un-doing of musical and mental conditioning opens the walls of his music to vast new horizons. Opener ‘Ithaca’ fathoms sonorous midnight jazz with 10 mins of a plangent, searching sax solo in HD widescreen, like some alternate version to the Blade Runner Love Theme, while a resonant vocoder soliloquy ‘Unseem’ reaches into space harmonised between Alvin Lucier and Ron Trent, and ‘Sheer’ chases the devil out of labyrinthine dub dimensions. The floating dream architecture of ‘Caprices’ caps the LP’s underlying narrative and painterly qualities with a romantic conclusion of blushing pads and shivered, metallic echoes of the subtropical that suggest a coming-to-terms with worries, refreshed and good to go again. A huge, heartfelt tip for a 2026 stunner.

nujabes passed away suddenly in February 2010 due to an accident, and this "metaphorical music" is the first album he put all his energy into after releasing mainly analog singles until then. It is a masterpiece that continues to be loved by many even now, and is the core of nujabes and hydeout productions. It is a historical masterpiece that contains many of the great songs that defined his presence. The first chapter of his miraculous mental landscape music, in which a piece of his soul that burned briefly but fiercely resides, has been released on cassette tape after a lapse of 20 years.

Paris, 1978. Don Cherry walks into a French studio with a suitcase full of instruments nobody expected and meets Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan for the first time. No rehearsal, no plan, just two musicians who recognize each other immediately as kindred spirits. What happens next is one of Cherry's best efforts - an album only hardcore fans know about, recorded in Paris, released only in France in 1981, disappeared, and now back again in a special edition that demands attention. This is what "world music" should have been before the term got watered down into airport lounge background noise.

Don Cherry - the man who stood next to Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles and New York, playing trumpet and cornet through the birth of Free Jazz, that final structural revolution of American improvisation based on melody rather than harmony. But Cherry never stopped there. He had a voracious musical appetite and boundless imagination that pulled him toward India, Brazil, Africa, Indonesia, China - not as a tourist collecting sounds, but with deep personal engagement. His commitment ran deeper than novelty. This wasn't about exotic decoration. This was about a global vision of art and the human condition.

Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan - Delhi gharana lineage, new generation tabla master who extended what his predecessors had built, gained recognition as a soloist, ventured onto the international scene. Irregular rhythmic patterns, highly syncopated, rich in variety and originality. The kind of percussionist who could grasp Cherry's intentions immediately, warm up his fingers at astonishing speed, tune Cherry's entire diverse instrument collection - concert piano, Hammond B3 organ, chromatic orchestral timpani - with perfect pitch and no hesitation.

They had never met before the recording session. But they recognized each other immediately. Calm, focused, full of laughter. Cherry knew what he wanted to create. Latif posed no challenge - he was the answer. The result is an incredible mixture of jazz and Indian music that doesn't feel like mixture at all - it feels like the music that was always supposed to exist when these two worlds met at the right moment with the right people. Not fusion for fusion's sake. Not "exotic instruments" as decoration. This is two masters speaking the same language for the first time and realizing they'd been having the same conversation in different rooms for years.

Recorded 1978 in Paris. Released only in France in 1981. Disappeared. Forgotten except by those who knew. First reissued by Honest Jon's years ago. Now back in special edition format because some records refuse to stay buried.

Essential for anyone who thinks Don Cherry's best work ended with Ornette, or that "world music" has to choose between authenticity and imagination. This is both. This is neither. This is what happens when boundaries dissolve because they were never really there.

Paris, 1978. Don Cherry walks into a French studio with a suitcase full of instruments nobody expected and meets Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan for the first time. No rehearsal, no plan, just two musicians who recognize each other immediately as kindred spirits. What happens next is one of Cherry's best efforts - an album only hardcore fans know about, recorded in Paris, released only in France in 1981, disappeared, and now back again in a special edition that demands attention. This is what "world music" should have been before the term got watered down into airport lounge background noise.

Don Cherry - the man who stood next to Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles and New York, playing trumpet and cornet through the birth of Free Jazz, that final structural revolution of American improvisation based on melody rather than harmony. But Cherry never stopped there. He had a voracious musical appetite and boundless imagination that pulled him toward India, Brazil, Africa, Indonesia, China - not as a tourist collecting sounds, but with deep personal engagement. His commitment ran deeper than novelty. This wasn't about exotic decoration. This was about a global vision of art and the human condition.

Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan - Delhi gharana lineage, new generation tabla master who extended what his predecessors had built, gained recognition as a soloist, ventured onto the international scene. Irregular rhythmic patterns, highly syncopated, rich in variety and originality. The kind of percussionist who could grasp Cherry's intentions immediately, warm up his fingers at astonishing speed, tune Cherry's entire diverse instrument collection - concert piano, Hammond B3 organ, chromatic orchestral timpani - with perfect pitch and no hesitation.

They had never met before the recording session. But they recognized each other immediately. Calm, focused, full of laughter. Cherry knew what he wanted to create. Latif posed no challenge - he was the answer. The result is an incredible mixture of jazz and Indian music that doesn't feel like mixture at all - it feels like the music that was always supposed to exist when these two worlds met at the right moment with the right people. Not fusion for fusion's sake. Not "exotic instruments" as decoration. This is two masters speaking the same language for the first time and realizing they'd been having the same conversation in different rooms for years.

Recorded 1978 in Paris. Released only in France in 1981. Disappeared. Forgotten except by those who knew. First reissued by Honest Jon's years ago. Now back in special edition format because some records refuse to stay buried.

Essential for anyone who thinks Don Cherry's best work ended with Ornette, or that "world music" has to choose between authenticity and imagination. This is both. This is neither. This is what happens when boundaries dissolve because they were never really there.

Hidden away amidst the bustle of Rio de Janeiro’s Catete neighbourhood is a small alleyway behind a cast iron gate. At its end is Bairro Saavedra, the courtyard surrounded by Neo-colonial houses where Brazilian guitar virtuoso Fabiano do Nascimento spent much of his childhood. Built in 1928, this secluded neighbourhood with its wooden shutters, tiled floors and tranquil benches, provides the inspiration for the title of Do Nascimento’s new album Vila, a collaborative project with a sixteen piece orchestra led by trombonist and arranger Vittor Santos. Recorded between Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles, Vila is grand, tender, warm, playful and nostalgic. On this stunningly ambitious work, the delicate compositions led by Nascimento's guitar, which sits central in the mix, are surrounded by Santos’ breathtaking orchestral arrangements which swirl in all directions: complimenting, questioning, responding; in constant conversation. Like the eclecticism of the architecture Do Nascimento grew up surrounded by, his music straddles many worlds at once. He is known as a Brazilian acoustic guitar master and as such has collaborated with Arthur Verocai, Airto Moreira and Itibere Zwarg. But equally at home in Los Angeles's jazz and experimental music scenes, Do Nascimento is also known for his work with artists like Sam Gendel and Carlos Nino. Vittor Santos is an arranger and Trombonist who has worked extensively with many of the greats of Brazilian music, including João Donato, Marcos Valle, Toninho Horta, and Elza Soares.

Jazz-fusion, disco-funk, Latin jazz and batucada rhythms get the Filipino treatment onAfter Midnight, the sublime second album from keyboardist Boy Katindig. Originally released in 1980, After Midnight draws heavy influence from soul and funk contemporaries in the US as well as Latin America, in particular the famed Brazilian percussionist Paulinho da Costa. It’s a testament to his musical prowess that Katindig weaves effortlessly between styles and tempos. His reverence for Paulinho da Costa extends far, with covers of several songs from the latter’s 1979 Happy People album. This includes slow-burner ‘Déjà Vu’ written by Isaac Hayes originally for Dionne Warwick; on the Filipino instrumental version, local legends Jun Regalado and Roger Herrera (from Regalado’s ‘Pinoy Funk’ single) are reunited on drums and bass respectively. But Katindig’s original compositions hold just as much weight and unique personality: title track ‘After Midnight’ opens with a sultry funk serenade reminiscent of The Isley Brothers, and quickly transforms into a catchy, blistering, saxophone chorus that brims with swagger. Hidden B-side gem ‘Got The Need’ is an uptempo tribute to batucada that would not be out of place in a jazzy house set, and boasts increasingly elaborate and psychedelic solos from Katindig on keys and Ben Concepcion on soprano sax. Meanwhile, ‘Love Till the End of Time’ is a masterclass in instrumental disco funk, penned by the prolific Greg Phillanganes who at that same time was writing for many of the greats including Chaka Khan, George Benson, Stevie Wonder, The Jacksons and Cheryl Lynn. This album is lovingly reissued by Sama Sama Records, a boutique label from DJ and collector Norsicaa, who ran the esteemed Soundway Records for 8 years and released the compilation Ayo Ke Disco in late 2024.

Dae Han is the unsung backbone behind progressive Honolulu acts and international artists. He’s the go-to drummer whenever Japanese rapper Shing02 tours the US and Asia with a full band. In 2019, Takuya Kuroda tapped Dae to organize a band to support the Brooklyn-based trumpeter’s gig at Blue Note Hawaii. Dae also recently teamed up with guitarist Gilbert Batangan and bassist Mark Tanouye to open for Khruangbin. And every year he organizes an always impressive jazz-forward tribute to the late J Dilla. On the drums, Dae’s swift, technical style compliments every situation, from jazz and funk to R&B, reggae, and hip hop. Much the same, Dae has approached the compositions and arrangements for his debut with craft and purpose. BLUE, coming in February 2020, came to fruition over the past 12 months with the help of Nelson Cho, the musician and recording engineer behind Lightworks Recordings in Wahiawa, Oahu. Together, the two spent countless hours honing a sound that travels across hip hop, jazz, and house. The resulting songs act as a diary of the artist’s fateful journey from Washington D.C. through New York to Honolulu, where he resides today. Reflecting on joyful highs and the lowest lows, Dae creates a collage for the listener to hear, appreciate, and understand the path he’s traveled thus far.

Skyjack — the borderless five piece band spread across South Africa and Switzerland — announce their fourth studio album, Let The Sky Open Under Your Feet, out 3rd July. Recorded in December 2025 at a secluded studio outside Stellenbosch, South Africa, the album captures the vibrant live energy of the band at its most expansive — drawing together free improvisation, South African jazz traditions, chamber music, kinetic groove, and ecstatic collective interplay into a singular body of work. “This record is a very articulate representation of our sound, having grown deep roots into the earth with high branches reaching upward and outward”, says bassist Shane Cooper. “My desire is always to create sonic universes that can envelope the listener.” The album’s title comes from a line in a poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, reflecting the music’s balance between groundedness and transcendence. Here, Skyjack move fluidly between meditative improvisation and lush orchestration across twelve tracks of free-spirited, cosmic journeying. Inspired both by the cultural traditions and natural environments of South Africa, Let The Sky Open Under Your Feet is a testament to the band’s intuitive connection and innate musical curiosity. It arrives just over a year after Light Cycle (2024), a short gap that reflects the momentum built on tour. After exchanging sketches remotely across two continents, the band reunited in Johannesburg in late 2025, workshopped the new material onstage across South Africa, and then headed directly into the studio, where much of the album was recorded live in first takes — preserving the looseness and unpredictability central to Skyjack’s sound. Comprised of Kyle Shepherd (piano), Shane Cooper (bass), Jonno Sweetman (drums), Andreas Tschopp (trombone), and Marc Stucki (saxophones), Skyjack first formed in Cape Town in 2013 during a fertile moment in South African jazz, as a new generation of musicians pushed against rigid genre definitions and opened the music outward toward broader sonic possibilities. Over the past decade, the band has built a singular sound drawing equally on South African groove traditions and European improvisation. Individually, the members move between jazz, electronic music, film scoring, rock, hip-hop and experimental composition, with collaborations spanning artists including William Parker, Lionel Loueke, Zim Ngqawana, Ben LaMar Gay, Jorge Rossy, Shabaka Hutchings, William Kentridge, Makaya McCraven and Sylvie Courvoisier. Since their self-titled debut in 2015, followed by The Hunter (2019) and Light Cycle (2024), the group has developed a reputation for immersive live performances and music that continuously reshapes itself in motion — rooted in what they describe as “warm menacing African grooves,” while refusing fixed stylistic borders.

Music From Memory presents 'Spacious Heart', the debut solo album from Los Angeles-based musician Anthony Calonico. Known for his work as part of the trio Total Blue, Calonico steps forward here with a collection of songs and instrumentals that invite the listener into his lush, expansive and deeply personal world. Written and recorded gradually between 2020 and 2024, 'Spacious Heart' emerged through a slow and open process, allowing the music to develop without rigid expectations. The album’s sonic landscape sits in a somewhat similar zone to Total Blue, with warm keys, synthesizers and rich production creating spacious environments where melodies and textures open up naturally. ‘Spacious Heart’ effortlessly straddles the transcendental qualities of spiritual jazz, the restraint and space of minimal composers such as Harold Budd, and the quiet intensity and dynamics of songwriters like Mark Hollis and John Martyn, ultimately arriving at something wholly its own. Where ‘Spacious Heart’ diverges mostly clearly from Total Blue is through the presence of Calonico’s voice, the emotional anchor of the record. Smooth, luminous and quietly expressive, his singing carries a sense of earnestness and vulnerability while remaining delicately restrained. The album unfolds as a conversation between song and atmosphere, with vocal pieces drifting in and out of focus, intimate and inward-looking. The surrounding instrumentals open up space for these emotions to breathe, settle and expand, creating a world where feeling, texture and nuance move softly together. ‘Spacious Heart’ will be released digitally, on vinyl and CD through Music From Memory on May 21st. Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis.

Two rare recordings from the archives of legendary producer Richard Hewson. Rising Star (Cosmix) began life in 1984 as a vocal single performed by Debbie Sharp. Hewson reworked the original track into a percussive cosmic disco interpretation, aptly titled the “Cosmix”, experimenting with his newly acquired Bel Delay effects unit, which became central to his studio explorations at the time. Deep Song dates back even further, to the late-70s Richard Hewson Orchestra period - the creative blueprint that would later evolve into Hewson’s cult studio project, The RAH Band. Written, produced and assembled by Hewson in his home studio before additional strings and vocals were layered in, the track was inspired by his deep admiration for Miles Davis, particularly the landmark album Kind of Blue. Deep Song was originally released as a B-side under a mysterious alias in 1979.

In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively. Kalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' had been released just a few months earlier. An invitation was sent to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. The essential structure of the Late Junction collaboration was that the artists would work together to create around twenty minutes of music. They began passing music back and forth, some that Kalma had started, and some that Honer & Chiu had started, with each adding to or editing the track before returning it to the other. The music would only go back and forth a few times before being finalized. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” The Closest Thing To Silence is an album-length collaboration between fourth-world music icon Ariel Kalma and the recording duo Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer, which evolved from a twenty-minute selection pieces they recorded in 2022 for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’ program as part of a scheme that places together artists who have never worked together before. Chiu and Honer, who both cite Kalma as a huge influence on their work, beautifully fit into Kalma’s vision.

On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained unreleased. Lados B is a deep dive into the high-level spontaneous music made by Villarreal, Parker, and Butterss across those two days in 2020. Villarreal is heard leading the group through various rhythmic modes and structures for improvisation – flow as informed by the Latin funk of Fania Records as it is by the otherworldly humanity trance of Brain Records – while Parker and Butterss draw on their extensive experience playing free together (as heard on Parker's recently-released Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, and the LA side of Makaya McCraven's 2018 LP Universal Beings) to build harmonic buoys for their spontaneous melodicism. The result is a beautifully vivid illustration of context, creativity, and collective composition from a particularly rich moment in history.

SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their debut album 'Small Medium Large' began as a collection of long form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park, Los Angeles venue ETA. Unfortunately, this major development site for the burgeoning new West Coast jazz & improvised music sound closed its doors permanently at the end of 2023. The venue, perhaps best known outside of LA for Jeff Parker's 2022 album 'Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy', was the perfect location for the start of SML, especially given that both bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson are part of Parker's quartet that held down a regular gig at ETA since the venue's early days (and hence thoroughly documented, heard on Parker's album). 'Small Medium Large' was engineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales and compiled, arranged, and edited with additional production, recording, and studio composition by SML across their various home studios. While editing, chopping, and rearranging stereo mixed improvisations is hardly a new idea (for a modern and relevant example we can look to Makaya McCraven's output on IARC) these results are a stunning expansion of the Teo Macero / Miles Davis editing concept explored on classics like 'In a Silent Way', 'On The Corner', and 'Get Up With It'. Stylistically though, these recordings have more in common with the proto-trance repetitions of Harmonia, and with Holgar Czukay's re-assembly technique used in his work with Can. Throw in a supremely intuitive utilization of polyrhythmic floating patterns (a la Susumu Yokota), and the result is a truly innovative take on time-clocked electronic rhythms augmented with live instrumentation that never loses that elusive human sway. 'Small Medium Large' is a sublime assemblage of circulatory grooves and textural anomalies, at different moments recalling the synth-laced improvisations of Herbie Hancock's Sextant, the jagged dance punk of Essential Logic, the rhythmic revelry of Fela Kuti, the low-end elasticity of Parliament/Funkadelic, or the glitchy dub techno of Pole. Taken in totality, the album captures a euphoric creative synchronicity between some of today's most exciting musicians.

'Mita Koyama-cho' offers a fresh perspective on today’s ambient music scene, blending acoustic and electronic elements into a rich, evocative soundscape. Murakami, a multi-instrumentalist, weaves together acoustic and jazz guitar, saxophone, fretless bass, and an array of keyboards—including vintage synthesizers, Mellotron, and acoustic piano. The result is a fusion of jazz, new age, folk, Brazilian music, and even 1970s progressive rock.

With an intuitive sense of melody and arrangement, Murakami layers warm cassette textures, vintage amp tones, and intricate string and saxophone orchestrations. 'Mita Koyama-cho' is a deeply personal tribute to the musician’s family and the Tokyo neighborhood they once called home—demolished in 2024 due to corporate redevelopment.

Originally released in 1982, Kakashi is another high water mark in the 80s Japanese underground. This album, which has gathered cult status in recent years, is the project of musical visionary Yasuaki Shimizu, and considered to be a highlight of his solo career. Shimizu was the bandleader of Mariah, who also saw their album Utakata No Hibi reissued by Palto Flats in 2015. Kakashi offers a similar blend of saxophone experimentations, jazz fusion and ambient dub excursions.

2026 repress; clear with red color vinyl. "Standards, the fourth full-length recording from Chicago's Tortoise, boldly announces their return following 1998's TNT. Tortoise spent the bulk of 1998 and a portion of 1999 touring the world. Following tours of the U.S., Europe, South America, Japan, Brazil, and Australia, Tortoise members worked on other projects that occupied them until the spring of 2000 when they began to record Standards. In 1999 members of the band toured the US as the backing band for legendary Brazilian composer/singer Tom Zé's. Musically, Standards is their most concise statement of purpose thus far. The tunes are direct and immediate, yet they maintain the exploratory edge that has always characterized the group's output. The fusion of instrumental sounds (electric, acoustic, and synthesized) is subtle and subversive. Similarly, the group's fluency within the studio environment gives the finished work a quality that alternates between artifice and reality. Whilst TNT was constructed in the studio using segments recorded, improvised or altered electronically, the 'Standards' sessions began after a period of rehearsal and composition. The contrast, simply stated, is that the studio was used extensively as a compositional tool for TNT, whereas with Standards it was used predominantly as tool to realize and enhance the existing new compositions. The studio does not impose itself on the recording to the same degree listeners witnessed on TNT, and the resulting record is in many ways reminiscent of their unadorned self-titled debut. Sounds, notes and rhythms are manipulated but in general, processing is spare. Tortoise's highly lyrical melodies, rich and varied tonal palette and high level of musicianship were recorded in a studio designed by McEntire. The resulting record is the clearest demonstration of the band's many skills and strengths."

This Record Store Day 2026, Strut proudly presents Nuclear War, a powerful collaboration between UK collective The Heliocentrics, Sun Ra Arkestra legends Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott, and vocalist Bilal - issued on limited-edition “hazardous” orange and yellow vinyl.

The Nuclear War recordings stem from a rare session at Malcolm Catto’s Quatermass Sound Lab in January 2015. The group had assembled in London to rehearse for their performance at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards, where Allen received the Lifetime Achievement Award and Catto the John Peel Award. With The Heliocentrics’ trademark raw, psychedelic energy as the backbone, the ensemble captured a series of reimagined Sun Ra classics in a spontaneous, one-off studio moment, and these tapes that have remained unheard in Catto’s archive until now.

The 4-track EP features a sinuous take on Ronnie Boykins’ ‘Angels And Demons At Play’ , originally recorded in 1960, a strident version of ‘Where Pathways Meet’ which was originally created for the much- loved Sun Ra Lanquidity album in 1978, and a dense and deep re- work of 1972’s ‘Astro Black’ featuring Bilal’s incredible otherworldly vocals. The title track ‘Nuclear War’ is re-worked into a cavernous groove featuring Heliocentrics vocalist Barbora Patkova.

 

The third in Strut’s Inspiration Information studio collaboration series brings together an intriguing pairing between one of Africa’s great bandleaders, Mulatu Astatke, with the next level musicianship of The Heliocentrics collective from the mighty roster of Stones Throw / Now Again.

Known primarily through the successful ‘Ethiopiques’ album series and the film soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Broken Flowers’, Mulatu Astatke is one of Ethiopia’s foremost musical ambassadors. Informed by spells living and studying in the UK and the USA, his self-styled Ethio-jazz sound flourished during the “Swinging Addis” era of the late ‘60s as he successfully fused Western jazz and funk with traditional Ethiopian folk melodies, five tone scale arrangements and elements from music of the ancient Coptic church.

The Heliocentrics have become known as one of the UK’s foremost free-thinking collectives of musicians, inspired by a wide palette covering Sun Ra, James Brown, David Axelrod and all manner of psych, Afro and Eastern sounds. Now a fixture within the Stones Throw / Now Again roster, they forged their own genre-breaking directions in the astral analogue groove on their 2007 debut album, ‘Out There’.

“ It’s like going back to the feel of the ‘60s, it really feels like that,” explains Mulatu. “There’s a new composition, ‘Cha Cha’, and ‘Dewel’, heavily influenced by an Ethiopian Coptic Church composer called Yard. The band took it and added what they feel. It’s a nice experiment.”