MUSIC

During the last half-decade Joe Westerlund became engrossed in studying the clave, the metric pattern that first defined so much Afro-Cuban and Latin music and then drifted into almost every corner of jazz and rock. What did it mean for an idea to be so flexible, for it to fit so many forms while retaining its own essence? The result is aleap into the unknown for Westerlund: Curiosities from the Shift, a 12-track playground of endlessly interwoven beats and melodies, where Westerlund’s clave enthusiasm collides with his textural experimentalism, where his rhythmic symphony of one shakes hands with friends decorating this space alongside him.The three-piece suite that holds Curiosities’ first half begins with the junkyard percussion and delightful bass splashes that frame “Tem” and ends with the surrealistic boom-bap of thumb pianos and shakers on “Can Tangle.” There is a hard-won joy to these numbers, as if Westerlund is delighting in real time in spotting a potential dead end but finding his own way forward, anyway. Those songs became a kind of working roadmap for the terrain that Westerlund explores across Curiosities, from the call-and-response glory of opener “Nu Male Uno” to the uncanny amorphousness of closer “Felt Like Floating.” All of these songs are defined by an identifiable rhythm, like the loping strut at the center of “Midpoint” and the head-nodding pulse that winds through “Persurverance,” winkingly misspelled to suit his North Carolina-via-Wisconsin pronunciation. But those are springboards for other textures, moods, and notions, like the New Age references—shimmering metallophones, chattering birds, retiring flutes—that circle through “Midpoint” or the dub-indebted delays and gamelan hymns that bubble up through “Persurverance.” This is deeply multivalent music, each number’s propulsive core counterbalanced by a series of surprising choices. Bittersweetness and joy, grief and liberation, sighs and smiles: It all exists here, tangling toward infinity.In the months after the initial sessions were done, Westerlund reached out to friends—Califone’s Tim Rutilli, saxophonist Sam Gendel, trumpeter Trever Hagen, and violinists Libby Rodenbough and Chris Jusell among them. These were his most thoroughly composed and precisely built works ever, but he wanted to hear what happened when his pals responded in real time. They delivered grace, depth, and feeling, with their parts pulling back curtains on hidden recesses of rhythmic worlds.Westerlund readily admits he is surprised by the album’s insistence on groove and meter rather than drifting abstraction. Having lived and worked so long with bands, he assumed he was done functioning within basic meter. These 12 songs fuse so many of Westerlund’s loves into pieces that are endlessly fascinating, using familiar elements to render his adventures into the unknown. Playful but tender, wistful but wondrous, driven by beats but not bound by them, this is Westerlund’s definitive statement so far, the solo drummer record that opens wide to reveal a musical and emotional landscape richer than perhaps even he imagined he might find.

Khadim is a stunning reconfiguration of the Ndagga Rhythm Force sound. The instrumentation is radically pared down. The guitar is gone; the concatenation of sabars; the drum-kit. Each of the four tracks hones in on just one or two drummers; otherwise the sole recorded element is the singing; everything else is programmed. Synths are dialogically locked into the drumming. Tellingly, Ernestus has reached for his beloved Prophet-5, a signature go-to since Basic Channel days, thirty years ago. Texturally, the sound is more dubwise; prickling with effects. There is a new spaciousness, announced at the start by the ambient sounds of Dakar street-life. At the microphone, Mbene Diatta Seck revels in this new openness: mbalax diva, she feelingly turns each of the four songs into a discrete dramatic episode, using different sets of rhetorical techniques. The music throughout is taut, grooving, complex, like before; but more volatile, intuitive and reaching, with turbulent emotional and spiritual expressivity.

Not that Khadim represents any kind of break. Its transformativeness is rooted in the hundreds upon hundreds of hours the Rhythm Force has played together. Nearly a decade has passed since Yermande, the unit’s previous album. Every year throughout that period — barring lockdowns — the group has toured extensively, in Europe, the US, and Japan. With improvisation at the core of its music-making, each performance has been evolutionary, as it turns out heading towards Khadim. “I didn’t want to simply continue with the same formula, says Ernestus. “I preferred to wait for a new approach. Playing live so many times, I wanted to capture some of the energy and freedom of those performances.” Though several members of the touring ensemble sit out this recording — sabar drummers, kit-drummer, synth-player — their presence abides in the structure and swing of the music here.

Lamp Fall is a homage to Cheikh Ibra Fall, founder of the Baye Fall spiritual community. The mosque in the city of Touba is known as Lamp Fall, because the main tower resembles a lantern. Soy duggu Touba, moom guey séen / When you enter Touba, he is the one who greets you. After a swift, incantatory start Mbene sings with reflective seriousness. Her voice swirls with reverb, over a tight, funky, propulsive interplay between synth and drums, threaded with one- two jabs of bass. Cheikh Ibra Fall mi may way, mo diayndiou ré, la mu jëndé ko taalibe… Cheikh Ibra Fall amo morome, aboridial / Cheikh Ibra Fall shows the way forward, he gives us strength, he gathers his disciples… Overflowing with grace, Cheikh Ibra Fall has no equal.

Interwoven with Wolof proverbs, Dieuw Bakhul is a recriminatory song about treachery, lies, and back-biting. Over moody, roiling synths and ominous, lean bass, Mbene throws out fluttering scraps of vocal, as if re-running old conversations in her head. The music shadows her despair to the verge of breakdown, at one moment seemingly so lost in thought and memories, that it threatens to disintegrate. Bayilene di wor seen xarit ak seen an da ndo… Dieuw bakhul, dieuw ñaw na / Stop judging your friends and companions… A lie is no good, a lie is ugly.

Khadim is a show-stopper; currently the centrepiece of Ndagga Rhythm Force live performances. The song is dedicated to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, aka Khadim, founder of the Mouride Sufi order. Serigne Bamba mi may wayeu / Serigne Bamba is the one who makes me sing. The verses name-check revered members of his family and brotherhood, like Sokhna Diarra, Mame Thierno, and Serigne Bara. Though Islam has been practised in Senegal for a millennium, it wasn’t until the start of the twentieth century that it began to thoroughly permeate ordinary Senegalese society, hand-in-hand with anti-colonialism. The verses here recall Bamba’s banishment by the French to Gabon, and later to Mauritania, in those foundational times. During exile, his captors once introduced a lion to his cell: gaïnde gua waf, dieba lu ci Cheikhoul Khadim / the lion doesn’t budge, it gives itself over to Cheikh Khadim. Deep, surging bass, steady kick-drum, and simple, reverbed chords on the off-beat lend the feel and impetus of steppers reggae. A reed plays snatches of a traditional Baye Fall melody; the dazzling polyrhythmic drumming is by Serigne Mamoune Seck. Mbene compellingly blends percussive vocalese, narrative suspense, exultant praise, introspection, and grievance.

Nimzat is a devotional tribute to Cheikh Sadbou, a contemporary of Bamba, buried in a mausoleum in Nizmat, in southern Mauritania. Way nala, kagne nala… souma danana fata dale / I call upon you and wonder about you… If I am overwhelmed, come to my aid. The town holds special significance for Khadr Sufism. An annual pilgrimage there is conducted to this day. The rhythm is buoyantly funky; the mood is sombre, reined-in, foreboding. Punctuated by peals of thunder, Mbene sings with restrained, intense reverence; huskily confidential, steadfast. Nanu dem ba Nimzat, dé ba sali khina / Let us go to Nimzat, to seal our devotion.

Primordial Mind forms the mysteries and intensity of inner life into eight mandalic instrumentals where Mas Aya and Khôra, artists who share 15 years of music making, orchestrate an inspired, prismatic palette of percussive and melodic sources. Each composition presented stages a vigorous meshwork of colours and textures, contrasting riveting polyrhythms with towering arrangements for flutes, synths, and processed acoustic instruments. Tendencies which the artists trace in their solo practices are amplified, blended, and refracted sublimely in unison, serving as energetic portals to collective awareness. Combining trans-ethnic scaling alongside a heady brew of rhythmic influences and advanced electronic processing, the recordings on this album operate with a tactility that vaults between free jazz, dub, raga, ambient, and ritual music. Assimilated powers of primal drum patterning and psychoactive, ceremonial melodies, invoke fourth world adjacencies with the work of Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh et al. There is an alchemical, Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu inflection that guides the record’s narrative, formed through dialogue between the artists over lifelong shared interest in spiritual modalities generally and the tantric approaches of the global east in particular. The album title is derived from an unexcelled esoteric work known as the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time or Time Cycles) Tantra and its associated commentary the Ornament of Stainless Light which detail forms of inner and outer transubstantiation within its complex cosmology and metaphysiology. Mas Aya is the moniker of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician whose electronic and jazz inspired works creatively interlace Colombian, Cuban, and a wide array of traditional music. Khôra is the name of the occult entity that uses multi-instrumentalist, producer, and writer Matthew Ramolo to pronounce itself. Returning to Marionette following 2024's monumental Gestures of Perception, Primordial Mind reinforces the rigorous and magical approach to creation which defines Khôra’s two decades of sonic output. Brandon and Matthew met back in 2011 and the pair toured around eastern Europe with Toronto band Picastro in 2013, also performing as a duo with Brandon contributing drums to Khôra's opening sets. After a short spate composing and playing in the ensemble Bespoken together, they continued to discover shared inspiration in psych/art rock, jazz, experimental and electronic music, providing a fertile soil for friendship and collaboration resulting in their collaged, field-recorded album Tangled Roots in 2017. Mythic and talismanic, the duo's Marionette debut weaves a luminous tapestry of organic pulses, offering itself as a support for resonant meditation and a motor for lucid action and intuition.

Following June's brilliant 'Rhythm Archives', Holy Tongue's Al Wootton continues his hot streak, landing on Sähkö with half an hour of hazed, immersive rhythmic experiments, tracking from vintage dub(step) to minimal techno and confidently striding thru percussive forms that echo from the Balkans to North Africa. RIYL Shackleton, Azu Tiwaline, Muslimgauze, T++, Deena Abdelwahed.

Ever since he dispatched with the Deadboy moniker a few years back and reached into dubbier, more percussive spaces, Wootton's been figuring out exactly where his dexterous productions fit in.He's been most at home on his own Trule imprint, operating at his own pace and shaping the aesthetics as he goes, and 'Rhythm Archives' felt like a mark in the sand, a record that matched his interest in vintage gear and classic production methods with his dedication to wide-eyed, punkish experimentation. 'CRUX', his first record for legendary Finnish label Sähkö, follows that lead, assembling four long percussive jams that sound as if they've toppled off the timeline - if someone told us it was material rescued from a forgotten reel-to-reel, we'd believe it.

There's an outline of dubstep visible in the background on opener 'Essene' that's enhanced by the Skull Disco-esque sub-undulations and wormhole-splitting tape echoes, but the hollow hand drum runs and hallucinatory effects shuttle the composition into darker, more reflective landscapes. Similarly, the busted drum machine intro of 'Per Incanto' might reference Sähkö royalty Mika Vainio and Hertsi, but the track veers leftwards, muddling the mix with psychedelic African Head Charge-style reverberations and trapped, timestretched string loops. It's gear that's intended for deep, intentional listening; the tracks don't contain too much melodic content by design - Wootton's rhythms are layered and hypnotic, and anything else is there to reinforce the general spirit.

Just check 'Cloister', the EP's low-key stand-out, where the lead line is literally just tuned feedback, placed to disorient even the most abstinent listener, or 'Armen', that distorts its sputtering Bruce Haack-in-dub atmosphere with ghosted groans and faint remnants of a trip-hop undercurrent that never fully reached optimal pressure. If you've ingested all the psilocybin from Shackleton's recent run, this is yr next drop.

consciousness through ecstatic dance. Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors were a world unto themselves.

Despite featuring an extraordinary cast of musicians (with credits including Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, Santana, Stevie Wonder, Milton Nascimento and much more) and selling hundreds of thousands of albums, the music of Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors remains largely unheard beyond their sphere. Conceived as live, improvised soundtracks to Roth’s transcendental dance workshops, musical acclaim was never on the agenda.

Instead, for a passionate dancer and spiritual polyglot like Gabrielle Roth, movement was a means through which to channel a wide spectrum of teaching, from experimental psychology to psychedelic counter-culture. It was from this heady mix that she devised a movement meditation known as 5Rhythms, which came to define her life’s work.

As “guide and catalyst”, Roth would dance to inspire the percussion-led instrumentals that would in turn fuel her 5Rhythms workshops, stimulating a secular form of ecstatic dance with roots in Native American shamanic traditions, Afro-Brazilian Candomblé and Yoruba drumming.

Using anything from a Sioux pony drum to East African kihembe and Japanese Kabuki drums, Gabrielle’s lawyer-turned-drummer husband Robert Ansell set the foundational rhythms for The Mirrors’ recordings, each of which would then feature a rotating cast of friends and professional musicians.

“The secret of everything we’ve done is that we never told anybody what to play,” Robert shares. “Instead of our albums being a musical vision of one person like me or Gabrielle, they were the musical vision of a whole bunch of people.”

At times the recordings have a Middle Eastern flair, at others, West African and spiritual jazz modes come to the fore. Hints of kosmische musik, proto-house and electronic ambience are laced like LSD through the organic rhythmic structures. This was kaleidoscopic ambient music to stir the body and free the mind.

In practice, the task of synthesising these different elements fell to Scott Ansell, Robert’s son and a recording engineer whose credits now include Nile Rogers, Duran Duran, Grace Jones. With meticulous attention to detail he captured and translated the dynamic energy of each drum onto record. Their sessions became legendary, and with access to the best studios in the NYC, The Mirrors sparkled.

Despite being initially overlooked by the burgeoning ‘80s New Age market, which preferred pipes and gongs to The Mirrors’ heavy-grooving drums, Robert Ansell set up Raven Recording to self-release the music, creating a vast sonic archive of sixteen albums over almost forty years.

The breadth of Raven’s catalogue is such that curator Pol Valls had to cut an initial selection of sixty-six tracks down to the eleven featured here. What crystallises is a stunning, mind-altering collection which spans, in Pol’s words, “a variety of genres, styles, and vibes within their catalogue, whether it is emotional, esoteric, spiritual, melancholic, hypnotic, dark, or at times a combination of these elements together.”

Music for immersive and intimate environments, Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors were born from the dance. In the hands of the right DJ, at the right time, in the right place, they might just return there.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce a tenth anniversary reissue of Oren Ambarchi’s Quixotism, originally released on Editions Mego in 2014. Recorded with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA, Quixotism presents the fruit of two years of work in the form of a single, LP-length piece in five parts. Quixotism takes the driving rhythmic aspect of works such as Sagittarian Domain to new levels, with the entirety of this long-form work built on a foundation of pulsing double-time electronic percussion provided by Thomas Brinkmann. Beginning as almost subliminal propulsion behind cavernous orchestral textures and John Tilbury’s delicate piano interjections, the percussive elements (elaborated on by Ambarchi and Matt Chamberlain) slowly inch into the foreground of the piece before suddenly breaking out into a polyrhythmic shuffle around the halfway mark, and joined by master Japanese tabla player U-zhaan for the piece’s final, beautiful passages. The pulse acts as thread leading the listener through a heterogeneous variety of acoustic spaces, from the concert hall in which the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra were recorded to the intimacy of crys cole’s contact-mic textures. Ambarchi’s guitar itself ranges over this wide variety of acoustic spaces, from airless, clipped tones to swirling, reverberated fog. Within the complex web Ambarchi spins over the piece’s steadily pulsing foundation, elements approach and recede in a non-linear fashion, even as the piece plots an overall course from the grey, almost Nono-esque reverberated space of its opening section to the crisp foreground presence of Jim O’Rourke’s synth and Evyind Kang’s strings in its final moments. Formally indebted to the side-long workouts of classic Cologne techno, the long-form works of composers such as Éliane Radigue and the organic push and pull of improvised performance, Quixotism is constantly in motion, yet its transitions happen slowly and steadily, often nearly imperceptible, the diverse elements which make up the piece succeeding one another with the logic of a dream. At the time of its first release, Quixotism was clearly a summation of Ambarchi’s work in the years leading up to it. Now, listening back a decade later, it also seems like an arrow pointing to the future, suggesting paths that would be explored further in works to come: the pulsating guitar layers of Hubris, the album-length collaboration with Jim O’Rourke and U-zhaan on Hence, Shebang’s joyous layering and percussive drive. Now sounding better than ever in a new remaster by Joe Talia, the time is ripe to rediscover its quixotic charms.

A sunrise is a return, yet each day dawns but once. Emergent sounds are born from nothingness and everythingness; the hand touches the drum, breath vibrates the reed, fingers caress the ivory. Echoes of Paleolithic music vibrate into each moment, each musical gesture. Each a return, each a new dawn. — AR

Terrific session just released in 1974 on influential independent Muse. A modal masterpiece verging on spiritual jazz with a series of excellent players: from Richard Davis and Cecil McBee on bass to Ray Mantilla on congas and percussion, through Harold Vick distinctive flute and tenor sax. The major voice on this record belongs to the traps of Joe Chambers. The enormous potency combined with complete authority and tonal clarity that Chambers brings to the drums has made him one of the more distinctive percussive voices in jazz.

A shiver of mischievous vocal snippets, disorienting rhythms and collapsing sonic architectures, upsammy and Valentina Magaletti’s first collaborative album prioritizes motion, modulation and variance. The seeds of ‘Seismo’ were sown following a commission from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum to soundtrack an exhibition of work from the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the duo didn’t want to approach their collaboration flippantly. So, wandering the museum’s maze of rooms, they recorded various improvised percussive sounds with their arsenal of microphones, using the space to inform various rhythms and textures that were sculpted later into electroacoustic vignettes. This was just the starting point, though; as Magaletti and upsammy began performing together, the project evolved and ‘Seismo’ began to take shape. The duo had struck on a salient aesthetic concept, using mostly digital and acoustic mallet instruments to blur the boundary between their roles and create friction between the synthetic and the authentic. And the finished record is a phantasmagoric push-and-pull between its various conflicting elements: harmony and dissonance, randomness and predictability, openness and constraint. ‘Seismo’ isn’t the first time that upsammy has studied her environment in search of revelation. On her acclaimed second album, 2024’s ‘Germ in a Population of Buildings’, the Amsterdam-based DJ, producer and multidisciplinary artist erected her complex, unorthodox rhythms and eerie melodies around a modernist frame of field recordings collected in various cityscapes, countering heavyweight basslines with subtle, microscopic sounds. London-based Italian vanguard Magaletti, meanwhile, has applied her unique logic to innumerable projects at this point, working with everyone from batida icon Nídia and hardcore-dub outfit Moin to French writer Fanny Chiarello and British bass scientist Shackleton. For years she’s approached the drums with criticism, attempting to challenge any preconceptions, something that’s most visible on 2020’s ‘A Queer Anthology of Drums’. And both artists’ thoughtful perspectives are welded together seamlessly on ‘Seismo’, a dizzying suite of eight eccentric statements that’s fragile but never insecure, gauzy but not indistinct. An unnerving sense of space characterizes ‘It Comes to an End’ as Magaletti’s in situ improvisations herald for upsammy’s microscopic glitches and chiming pitch-bent melodies. It’s almost unbalancing to witness the track’s impossible dimensionality, the interplay between reverberant marimba hits and bone-dry synths, or percussion that’s been recorded and processed in consciously different settings. A new architecture emerges in the sound itself that the two artists scan and explore meticulously, testing its boundaries with undulating hybridized rhythms on the invigorating ‘Superimposed’ and offsetting the powdery drums with liquified smacks and alien voices. The duo’s vibrations are knotted with piano flourishes on ‘Hyperlocalize’, balanced with artificial clanks and clangs that disappear into the track’s sonorous atmosphere, replaced by whispers and half-hallucinated insectoid chirps. ‘Seismo’ is an album that feeds off the energy generated by its juxtapositions: the tension and anticipation that’s melted by rapid, hyperactive movement and the finely drawn rhythms disrupted by a layer of indistinct, barely perceptible microsounds. It’s a collaboration that sounds like two minds challenging each other but not wrestling, each peering from their own distinct vantage point and imagining a third landscape shaped by optimistic, queer vibrations.

A mutant beat manifesto from Miami luminaries Jonathan Trujillo (Jonny from Space) and Pablo Arrangoiz (El Gusano, DJ Fitness, Baüzer Vep), Crespi Drum Syndicate’s Colada Talk follows the duo’s debut on Sonido Isla with a freshly freaked collection of percussive oddities. Rooted in foundational clave rhythms and avant-garde experimentation, Crespi Drum Syndicate emerges from the amphibious underbelly of Miami’s Latin-infused club scene with their singular electro-acoustic vision. Extensive live recording sessions, free improvisation, and a ritualistic studio practice — countless hours spent twisting and rearranging sounds from found objects and Buchla modular systems — coalesce into new rhythmic forms. Atonal saxophone, bass clarinet, and slide whistle further expand upon Trujillo and Arrangoiz’s ever-evolving sonic palette, while NYC’s AceMo lends a hand on the heavily syncopated “Siu,” and closer “Boubow” might be the duo’s most hook-driven production to date with its mangled pop vocal and lewd drum-line bounce. Landing somewhere between Steve Reich’s polyrhythmic “Six Marimbas,” Moebius & Plank’s industrial Krautrock sessions, and Ricardo Villalobos’ hypnotic techno minimalism, Colada Talk delivers on a world of subtropical rhythmic futurism and experimental body music that’s as heady as it is culo-shaking. -Phil Cho

Al Wootton’s Trule hosts a truly outstanding session of needlepoint techno steppers dub by Đ.K. - absolutely required listening for fans of Muslimgauze, Shackleton, Raime and Carrier.

Long admired for a percussive sleight of hand and hypnotic atmospheric levity to his music, Parisian producer Dang-Khoa Chau made a decisive switch from downbeat pressure to up-stepping momentum on his ‘Signals from the Stars’ 12” for Midgar in ’24. He now sustains that effortless feel for steppers chronics into ‘Realm of Symbols’, coaxing a signature palette of S.E. Asian-accented drums and spectral electronics into sub-propelled, spring-heeled rhythms holding among the deadliest in his contemporary field.

Seriously we’re shocked at the levels of his shadowboxing tekkerz here, from the sort of tip-toed, Tyson-esque peek-a-boo pivots and humid Ballardian atmosphere to ‘High Rise’, thru the kind of scaly, reticulated intricacies we’d expect from Photek, Raime or Carrier in ’Stepping Stone’, to the laser-etched spatial sound design harnessing his mercurial flow in the title piece, and pendulous swivel of his industrial-strength conga-clonks synced to coiled subbass torque on ‘Rough Dub’.

No doubt it’s some of the sickest, deep-end ‘floor tackle we’ve heard in a hot minute. No brainer!

Interstitial Spaces is Martin Brandlmayr’s debut release on Faitiche. In this award-winning radio collage, the well-known drummer and composer (Radian, Polwechsel) explores the quiet moments in music and film recordings.

The last notes of a piece of music fade out in the space. The pianist and the violinist remain frozen in place, holding their breath. The sound engineer sits silently at the desk. Once he has switched off his tape machine, the dull drone of a ship’s horn is heard in the distance. Otherwise, not a sound. Or was there something else hidden in the white noise?

Interstitial Spaces is based on short excerpts from music recordings, films, TV adverts and field recordings. Brandlmayr takes these quiet scenes, intervals in which nothing seems to happen, and brings them into the foreground, subjecting them to a microscopic spotlight. Moments in which one hears only the space itself, or the subtle presence of someone in the space: faint breathing, footsteps and the soft creak of a chair. We also hear preparations for an orchestra rehearsal: the musicians are all busy tuning their instruments, talking to each other, the concert has not yet begun.

This leads to a shift in perception: incidental details hidden in the hubbub of voices or in the silence suddenly take on a leading role. In the empty spaces, we discover various shades of noise, sharpening our awareness of sonic peculiarities. In a gentle rhythm, Brandlmayr’s radio collage offers a sequence of strange, not immediately identifiable sounds that are woven in the second part into a dense structure. At the end, the carefully captured sounds are released back into the empty space. Interstitial Spaces is a bold spectacle that celebrates the eventful uneventfulness.

Dog’s light, dog’s light… a product of the fog itself. Illuminated mists flicker in the fog, swallowed by bells, skin torsion and finger squeaks. Here, mud made a rhapsody of distortion and sand. Dunes, where raised magnets at the dusk hour, receive textures and hints of country melodies, melodies mostly generated by limbs. Anon mists form a curtain hovering above the suburb of sand.

fully remastered from the original tapes** A mysterious sound aurora on the magical paths of the infinite universe of percussion, originally released in 1985 and then almost completley lost. Moon On The Water were a trio of percussionists based in Italy - David Searcy and Jonathan Scully, both American tympani players in the Scala Philarmonic Orchestra, with the legendary Italian jazz drummer Tiziano Tononi, who worked with everyone from Roberto Musci, to Muhal Richard Abrams, Pierre Favre (who later joined the group), Andrew Cyrille, Barre Phillips, and Steve Lacy. Drawing on a diversity of experience, joined collectively by a unified love of rhythm and sound, they assembled a percussion record of the highest order - an unclassifiable work which should be legendary, and leaves you confounded that it’s not.

Within the history of efforts dedicated to percussion, Moon On The Water’s debut stands apart. A singular work, made remarkable by the diversity and range of its sonorities and structures. The scope of its ambition is startling. Utilizing the full intellect, experience, and talent of its creators, it employs field recording against a stunning array of instrumentation - seemingly everything from which rhythm and resonant tone could be drawn. The result renders a remarkable effect. From the delicate pulse of nature, deep resonances and carefully placed tone, intricate structures and tempos as slow as they go, across its movements the album rewrites how composition for percussion should be understood, before giving way to consuming and ecstatic rhythms which reference the Brazilian tradition of Batucada, various trance and ritual traditions of Africa, and drum solos from Free Jazz and Rock. This is as good as percussion records get. A lost marvel - accessible while distinctly avant-garde. The throbbing pulse of creative joy, distilled onto two sides of wax.

Ecstatic elements of Japan ambient minimalism dialogue with contemporary music solutions (Varèse, Ligeti), in the stream of a harmonious fusion of ancient and modern. It’s a propitiatory ceremony of supernatural things that open portals of blissfulness, tribal and shamanic darkness, timeless jungles. Between amazon fires and African safaris, we float in the Asian rivers of meditation, lost in water games, echoes of caves and rocks in the night, synergies of frogs, birds, snakes, marimbas, chimes, gongs, and tubular woods.

The album also includes one of the sickest percussion jam we’ve heard from 1980’s Italy: the mystically-named In the Land of the Boo - Bam. Exploring a wide range of percussions, from mallet instruments to drums, the band tightly builds a hypnotic jam with a strong Mediterranean feeling, maybe partly provided by the «Tullio de Piscopo-esque» drumming pattern. As the song goes by, the vibe gets more and more shamanic, often changing directions before climaxing in an epic final. True uplifting trance music!

Makaya McCraven, a leading drummer, composer, and producer in contemporary jazz.

Having gained prominence through his works released by International Anthem, as well as reimagined versions of Gil Scott-Heron and Blue Note recordings, this leading drummer, composer, and producer in contemporary jazz has released a compilation of four EPs titled ‘Off the Record’ through XL Recordings, International Anthem, and Nonesuch. The album features recordings of pure improvisation captured during live performances, with the space and presence of the audience reflected in the sound. It is composed of four EPs—‘Techno Logic,’ 'The People’s Mixtape,‘ 'Hidden Out!,’ and ‘PopUp Shop’—that are independent yet organically interconnected.

This work follows his 2022 masterpiece ‘In These Times,’ which the GRAMMY Awards described as “the most ambitious work in Makavely's career.” It revisits the essence of “organic beat music” that Makaya established in his 2015 debut album ‘In the Moment,’ and further developed in ‘Highly Rare’ (2017), 'Where We Come From' (2018), and ‘Universal Beings’ (2018). Makaya reconstructs his live recordings into his unique sound world through editing, overdubbing, and post-production at his home studio in Chicago. The compilation of these four EPs, ‘Off the Record,’ is not merely a collection of tracks but a documentary work celebrating the creative and collaborative moments of music that could only have been born from being present in that space.

Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff is the sprawling drum collective tearing up Dakar’s nightlife scene. Senegalese poet Djiby Ly (Wau Wau Collectif) is backed by fourteen different percussive instruments plus horns, winds, balafon, and the occasional accordion, combining Count Ossie’s spiritually elevated polyrhythms with Fela Kuti’s orchestra and Tony Allen’s groove. Based in the impoverished neighborhood of Grand Yoff and operating as a mutual aid group for the larger community, the band builds its songs on ancient rhythms passed on from Senegal, Cameroon, and the infamous Gorée Island. In both Wolof and French, Djiby preaches a message of uplift and cooperation rooted in the Sufi teachings of the Mouride Brotherhood, as well as Christianity and animist religions. “Senegal, my life my joy” is the call and response chanted over cascading, infinitely layered drum patterns on opener “La Musique Du Cœur.” “We build our own country” the band proclaims in Wolof on “Xarritt.” For twenty years and across three generations of band members, Assiko have played raucous all-night jams at weddings, secret parties, and political rallies. Grainy cellphone footage of their live shows has spread online. But this is their first album, the result of a collaboration with Swedish musician and archivist Karl-Jonas Winqvist (Sing A Song Fighter), who met the band in Dakar in 2018 and facilitated recording sessions and overdubs via Whatsapp (no small feat with so many musicians). This is vital, exciting, and innovative music, alive with energy and purpose, a band rooted in a very specific community but speaking to the world. 11月上旬入荷予定。セネガルの首都ダカールのナイトライフ・シーンを引き裂く広大なドラム集団Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoffのファースト・アルバム『Magg Tekki』が〈Mississippi Records〉よりアナログで登場！彼らは20年間、実に3世代にも渡り、結婚式、秘密裏のパーティー、政治集会などで徹夜ジャムを演奏。そのライヴ映像は携帯電話を通じてネット上で拡散されていながらも、今回初めての録音！〈Sahel Sounds〉から作品を送り出していたWau Wau Collectifのメンバーでセネガル人の詩人Djiby Lyも参加。14種類のパーカッシヴな楽器にホーン、管楽器、バラフォン、時折アコーディオンが加わり、スピリチュアルかつ高揚したポリリズムとフェラ・クティのオーケストラ、トニー・アレンのグルーヴが融合した画期的な一枚に仕上げられています。

“Alle Sorgenti Delle Civiltà Vol. 3 - Africa, Australia, Nuova Zelanda” (1971) is the third and final chapter of a triptych of folk-based sound recordings released by Folkmusic. The album contains a total of fourteen tracks by Braen and Raskovich, i.e. the a formidable multi-instrumentalists Alessandro Alessandroni and Giuliano Sorgini, each grappling with seven different compositions characterised by a tribal mood. Among the grooves of this record, repressed on vinyl for the first time by Musica Per Immagini, it is possible to discern an in-depth study of one of those forms of popular culture referring to a specific geographic area, comprising the types of traditions often handed down orally and concerning knowledge, beliefs, fairy tales, legends, myths, narratives linked to the dimension of the fantastic, customs and traditions, namely music. Festivals and propitiatory rites, fights and dances, magical and sacred representations were all expressions of life whose sound and rhythm contributed to an appropriate description of the environment. Alessandro Alessandroni and Giuliano Sorgini have chosen some of the most significant musical characters that even belong to specific ethnic realities scattered across two distant continents, where the use of some of the typical instruments has favoured the realisation of sonorities of considerable interest.

Athens-based percussionist and sound artist Yorgos Stavridis makes a stark, physical debut for Heat Crimes with Solo Percussion, a set of one-take improvisations that approach percussion as a field of friction between body, objects, space, and sound. Working with membranes, metals, found objects and feedback systems, Stavridis foregrounds timbre, texture and spatial presence, collapsing distinctions between instrument, environment and recording apparatus. Microphones and speakers are treated as unstable instruments in their own right, introducing opaqueness, resistance, and feedback into the performative chain. Scrapes, low-end pressure, brittle metallic chatter, and sudden bursts of resonance emerge through close bodily engagement with surfaces and materials, each piece documenting a specific configuration of objects, gestures, and acoustic conditions. Performed and recorded live, Solo Percussion captures sound in its most contingent state; situational, physical and irreducibly present. Eschewing narrative, pulse or formal development, the record sits squarely in Heat Crimes’ lineage of process-led, uncompromising sonic research, where listening becomes an active, tactile act and sound itself is the primary event.Eschewing narrative, pulse or formal development, the work reframes listening as a tactile encounter, foregrounding sound as contingent material rather than structured musical form.

Henri Guédon is an artistic legend from Martinique. Musician, painter, sculptor and one of the main architects of modern Caribbean/Antilles music. Taking the music to truly new and progressive territory from the late 1960’s onward. Karma, his 2nd album is one of the holy grails of the Caribbean cosmic Latin/Jazz scene, near impossible to find in this day and age. Released in 1975 on a small Parisian label, La Voix Du Globe, a label releasing Algerian, Moroccan and Egyptian records, the album was an anomalous release in their catalog. Karma was a convincing and unswerving statement following his stunning landmark debut LP (Cosmozouk Percussion). Incorporating African, Latin and West Indies styles (Gwoka, Mazouk, Biguine, Bel-Air, Bomba...) with cosmic synths swirling all over intense roots percussion. The songs are propelled with a spiritual Jazz vibe mixing with deep ethno-folk music from Martinique and Guadeloupe. The LP belongs to the same vein as as Marius Cultier, Louis Xavier or William Onyeabor for its totally original take on a hybrid music.

An Obscure Sound Documentary from Sado Island — A Compilation Capturing the Present Through 10 Artists Living Within Its Environment

Sado Island, located in the Sea of Japan, is a place where ancient traditions continue to thrive amidst rich natural landscapes. Noh stages still remain across local villages, and practices such as Noh theater and Ondeko drumming are woven into the daily lives of its residents. Surrounded by sea and mountains, the island offers a unique cultural and environmental context for contemporary creativity to emerge. This compilation album, produced in 2025, serves as a sonic documentary capturing the music and people of Sado as they exist today. While rooted in the island’s deep cultural heritage, the album also presents a fresh wave of expression and imagination, offering new perspectives shaped by place, tradition, and personal vision. The album features ten creative units, each contributing original works that reflect the atmosphere and rhythms of life on the island. Included are solo pieces by Yuta Sumiyoshi and Masayasu Maeda, both key members of Kodo—the internationally acclaimed taiko performing arts ensemble known for transcending tradition through innovation. Sadrum brings a raw, organic groove through the use of handmade bamboo drums, crafted from moso bamboo that grows naturally on Sado. Composer Nozomu Sato presents his project Plantar, which showcases a wide-ranging musical language from pop to the avant-garde. Gilles Stassart, a chef and artist who runs the Sado-based restaurant La Pagode, explores the fusion of gastronomy and art in his contribution. Charles Munka, a comtemporary artist recognized for turning scribbled notes from around the world into abstract artworks, offers an ambient mix inspired by the spirit of Noh. Contemporary artist Morito Yoshida, a central figure in the Sado Island Galaxy Art Festival, contributes a piece reflecting his pioneering vision across art and community. Kota Aoki, known for his experimental paintings and sound works, adds a composition grounded in a personal and deeply aesthetic approach. Miyuki Fukunishi, active in music since the 1990s, explores new possibilities in composition through laptop-based production techniques. The album also features The Fugu Plan?, a collaborative unit led by ukulele player Yuka and bassist Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, whose work is widely recognized through his association with John Zorn’s Tzadik label. Their piece brings a cross-cultural resonance that connects Sado to a broader global soundscape. Beyond the music, the project is also deeply rooted in the island. The album cover features NAMI (“wave”), a photograph by Syoin Kajii—a Sado-based photographer and Buddhist monk—capturing the living rhythm of the sea. The liner notes are written by Noi Sawaragi, an influential art critic and advisor to the Sado Island Galaxy Art Festival, adding critical depth to the project’s cultural context. A work that captures the very essence of Sado’s present—every element of the album has been created by individuals uniquely connected to the island.

Goja means “chaotic” or “nonsensical” in various Japanese regional dialects.

This new work is packed with freely rambling music that leaps over the boundaries of orthodox musical instruments, homemade ones, and random objects. Listen out for taiko, drums, bits of wood, and a piano, marimba, accordion, rhythm machine, effector, wooden washtub, pot, impact screwdriver, power tool charger, and more…

Features 8 tracks. Download code available.

0on Zero-on, a label run by the percussion group "Kodo 鼓童" which has its roots on Sado Island, has released a cassette recording of a solo performance by percussionist Yuta Sumiyoshi, a member of the "Kodo" group. 

KENTATAKU YUTATAKU’s 3rd album “Zero On” is the eponymous first release on Kodo’s new label 0on.
Featuring four improvisational tracks, ranging from large ensemble works without musical instruments to vast sound collages, KENTATAKU YUTATAKU’s latest work is packed full of heart, soul, and fresh new sound.
Limited release of 200 cassettes + download code. 

LP reissue, originally released as Eternal Now on Sonet Records in 1973. Don was living in Sweden at the time and made 2 great spaced-out records (in the freeform "Universal Music" style) for Sonet (Live Ankara being the other) -- the prior CD reissue of this material has seemingly disappeared into the wind. If this album had been made by some Vietnam vet living in a windowless cove in Northern California -- with a picture of leaves on the cover, no less -- it would have made the NWW list and originals would be fetching more than a used car, today. As an unfortunate aside, this LP reissue features the vastly inferior American cover as used by Picc-a-dilly, compared to the screaming ethno-psychedelic visuals favored by Sonet. The fact that he is shown wearing a suite that he certainly wasn't wearing during this recording, playing an instrument that he certainly wasn't playing during this recording -- apparently these details fazed no one. "Piano and percussion dominate this rare recording from sessions in April of 1973. No cornet or trumpet. Cherry sings and plays piano, gamelan, harmonium, and assorted percussion. The other musicians are: Christer Bothen (piano, etc.), Bernt Rosengren (taragot, a Swedish wooden soprano saxophone), Agneta Ernstrom (Tibetan bell, etc.), Bengt Berger (piano, mridangam, etc.)."

Taikuh Jikang, the one-of-a-kind music unit that reinterprets the mystical music of the South Seas, “Gamelan,” within a contemporary context, forging new musical horizons.

Their 5th Album LP, released with the strongest lineup in Taikuh Jikang history featuring new member Makoto Kakudo and guest musician Takako Minekawa in 2024, is now available. (Double LP heavyweight pressing)

The concept features “birds” freely soaring beyond genres, categories, countries, and lands.

A masterpiece featuring cutting engineer Shigeru Takezawa (Nippon Columbia) and sound engineer Naoyuki Uchida.

Includes three additional tracks from their previous 4th album “Majo”.