MUSIC

In 1975, spiritual jazz pioneer Brother Ah (aka Robert Northern) ventured into a more worldly sound on his second album, incorporating robust African and Asian influences. Its eight eclectic tracks feature vocals from artists Dara, Aiisha, Kwesi Gilbert Northern and Ayida Tengemana, along with cacaphonous percussion, flute and stringed instrument flourishes.

The expansive American experience Lonnie Holley quilts together across his astounding new album, MITH, is both multitudinous and finely detailed. Holley’s self-taught piano improvisations and stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach have only gained purpose and power since he introduced the musical side of his art in 2012 with Just Before Music, followed by 2013’s Keeping a Record of It. But whereas his previous material seemed to dwell in the Eternal-Internal, MITH lives very much in our world — the one of concrete and tears; of dirt and blood; of injustice and hope. Across these songs, in an impressionistic poetry all his own, Holley touches on Black Lives Matter (“I’m a Suspect”), Standing Rock (“Copying the Rock”) and contemporary American politics (“I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America”). A storyteller of the highest order, he commands a personal and universal mythology in his songs of which few songwriters are capable — names like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and Gil Scott-Heron come to mind. MITH was recorded over five years in locations such as Porto, Portugal; Cottage Grove, Oregon; New York City and Holley’s adopted hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. These 10 songs feature contributions from fellow cosmic musician Laraaji, jazz duo Nelson Patton, visionary producer Richard Swift, saxophonist Sam Gendel and producer/musician Shahzad Ismaily.

Pharoah ‘Farrell’ Sanders (born 1940) is a leading figure in the world of jazz and one of the last living legends with connections to players like Sun Ra and John Coltrane. His tenor saxophone playing has earned him royal status amongst free jazz players, critics and collectors. Originally Sanders was interested in urban blues music, but his high school teacher exposed him to jazz and this took Farrell in an entirely new direction. Once completing high school Sanders quickly packed his belongings and headed to Oakland, where he got a chance to work with musicians of high caliber such as saxophone players Sonny Simmons and Dewey Redman (who were both later to be major forces in new jazz and free jazz). Soon the young Pharoah would meet John Coltrane and would feel being attracted to the life as a professional musician. By the early sixties Sanders moved to New York where the major jazz scene was happening. Here he’d spent most his time honing his skills at rehearsals with Sun Ra….sadly he was not making much money with the Arkestra and soon found himself living on the streets, trying to stay up all night playing and then scrounging for money during the day, often selling blood to eat. Sanders recorded his debut album for ESP soon after, but it wasn’t until he started playing with his old friend John Coltrane that he would fully unleash the fury of his saxophone on the world of free jazz. The records Pharoah Sanders played on for Coltrane laid the foundation of what was to come for both the world of free jazz and for Sanders as a musician. After Coltrane’s tragic death Sanders would record further with Alice Coltrane, John’s widow, on the album Karma (1969 – Impulse!), which is universally accepted as Sanders’ masterpiece. Along with musicians Alice Coltrane and singer Leon Thomas, Sanders helped to create the genre of spiritual jazz. On the album we are presenting you today (Africa from 1987) Sanders plays with an all-star line-up consisting of Idris Muhammad, John Hicks and Curtis Lundy. Muhammad brings his trademark tight sense of timekeeping, but with a looseness that we love – and Lundy’s warm soulful bass does more than enough to give the set a sound bottom- all this while Hick’s free lyrical piano works nicely with Sander’s spiritual horn. The brilliant ‘Africa sessions’ features the quartet at their best…soulful but also searching for a strong groove at the same time. The music here is less ornamented than on most of Sanders’ studio recordings, where sextets, septets or larger lineups have been the norm, but this brilliant effort here remains every bit as compelling. Pharoah and his crew play with the utmost sensitivity and give a demonstration that shows us the full extent of their skills. Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents: the official reissue of this fantastic album, back available on vinyl for the first time since 1987. Available as a deluxe 180g 2XLP set, with TWO bonus tracks from the same session that were not featured on the original vinyl release. This album is limited to 500 copies worldwide and comes with an obi strip + liner notes by American jazz critic & author Kevin Whitehead.

"The classical musicians have a foot in improv; the jazz players get Indian music."
The Guardian, contemporary album of the month

"A record that transcends generic assumptions of the lazily termed “Eastern style”..."
The Vinyl Factory

"A truly enriching listen."
Songlines, ★★★★★

Off the back of Sarathy Korwar's much lauded Day To Day album comes the live album My East Is Your West - a performance that takes the fusion of Indian classical music with the jazz tradition further than its ever been before. Recorded live at London's Church Of Sound, the album is a homage to the great musicians of the 60s and 70s spiritual jazz movement, covering the likes of Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, and Joe Henderson. Korwar plays alongside the UPAJ Collective, a group of highly-versatile musicians who share Sarathy's passion for jazz and Indian music and who have together managed to rebalance the cross-cultural relationship between 'Western' and 'Eastern' music.


With every record Sarathy releases his music becomes more exploratory and insightful, delving into his personal influences, which also inspire much of the music in the jazz scene that surrounds him. At a time where UK jazz is being heralded for its progression, innovation and far-reaching appeal to people from varying backgrounds, ‘My East Is Your West’ is an essential record that explores cultural and musical diversity in way that will continue to be relevant for years to come.

Umeko Ando (1932-2004) was a folk singer from Japan. She was a representative of the Ainu culture on the Hokkaido Island in the north of Japan. “Ihunke” is her first album which was recorded with the Ainu musician and dub producer Oki Kano in 2000. It was released on CD in Japan only and is finally available on vinyl (2LP + linernotes, DL included). “Ihunke” is following last year’s single “Iuta Upopo” [Pingipung 58, incl. M.RUX Remix] which had been received with overwhelming enthusiasm and was quickly sold out. The 16 Ainu songs on “Ihunke” are delicate, natural gems. They are built on Oki Kano’s Tonkori patterns (a 5-string harp), over which Umeko Ando develops her repetitive, mantric vocals, often in a call-response manner. Oki Kano is one of very few professional Tonkori players who performs worldwide with his Oki Dub Ainu Band. The songs possess a mystical energy – when crows call accurately with Ando’s brittle voice in the first song, it seems like natural powers join in with her music. Her voice sounds like animals of the sky and the forest. Oki Kano: “It was a lot of fun to record with Umeko Ando. Many Ainu hesitate to break from tradition - if Umeko hadn’t been so flexible to work with the younger generation and recording technology, this album would never have happened. Our sessions were intense, and we were proud and happy about making such beautiful music.” Upcoming in autumn: remixes of “Ihunke” by Tolouse Lowtrax, M.Rux, DJ Ground, El Buho Mark Peters, Gama, Andi Otto, and Dreems.

Historical background: Only recently (in 2008) have the Ainu officially been acknowledged as indigenous people who are culturally independent from Japan. This record is an example of how their music has been passed on through generations in the underground Ainu communities while it was oppressed by the Japanese hegemony. It deserves a huge audience.

The musician and spiritual seeker Alice Coltrane was much more than just John Coltrane's second wife. One of the few harpists to feature prominently in jazz, she was also a renowned pianist and composer and her interest in spiritual matters greatly helped steer her husband deeper into Krishna consciousness, which had significant bearing on his music, most notably evident on A Love Supreme (1965). This mesmerizing performance, held at Carnegie Hall four years after John's untimely passing as part of a benefit event for Swami Satchidananda's Integral Yoga Institute, comprised a stunning and largely improvised rendition of Coltrane's "Africa," with Alice's subtle piano and harp expressions excellently framed by the wailing saxes of Pharaoh Sanders and Archie Shepp, Cecil McBee and Jimmy Garrison trading non-standard bass lines, a dual drum onslaught from Clifford Jarvis and Ed Blackwell, along with members of the Institute on harmonium and tamboura.

180-gram vinyl reissue. The epochal album released by Impulse ! in 1966 with a lineup enhanced by the addition of Rashied Ali on second drums and Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax.

The expansive American experience Lonnie Holley quilts together across his astounding new album, MITH, is both multitudinous and finely detailed. Holley’s self-taught piano improvisations and stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach have only gained purpose and power since he introduced the musical side of his art in 2012 with Just Before Music, followed by 2013’s Keeping a Record of It. But whereas his previous material seemed to dwell in the Eternal-Internal, MITH lives very much in our world — the one of concrete and tears; of dirt and blood; of injustice and hope. Across these songs, in an impressionistic poetry all his own, Holley touches on Black Lives Matter (“I’m a Suspect”), Standing Rock (“Copying the Rock”) and contemporary American politics (“I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America”). A storyteller of the highest order, he commands a personal and universal mythology in his songs of which few songwriters are capable — names like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and Gil Scott-Heron come to mind. MITH was recorded over five years in locations such as Porto, Portugal; Cottage Grove, Oregon; New York City and Holley’s adopted hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. These 10 songs feature contributions from fellow cosmic musician Laraaji, jazz duo Nelson Patton, visionary producer Richard Swift, saxophonist Sam Gendel and producer/musician Shahzad Ismaily.

Originally released on the tiny Sonet label, Live Ankara captures Don Cherry's concert at the American embassy in Turkey on November 23, 1969. Cherry performs with an entirely Turkish rhythm section that includes drummer Okay Temiz, bassist Selcuk Sun, and percussionist/tenor saxophonist Irfan Sumer. The repertoire balances original Cherry themes with Turkish folk melodies arranged by Turkish jazz trumpeter Maffy Falay; there are also a couple of Ornette Coleman themes and a take on Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan." Nothing is really explored for too long; the music is played as two continuous suites, and they usually shift to new material fairly quickly (only three of the 15 tracks are significantly longer than three minutes). The ensemble has a pretty sparse sound, with Cherry the sole lead voice (on trumpet, piano, flute, and trumpetzurna) for much of the concert. All of this serves to emphasize the melodicism of Cherry's playing here, and the Turkish material sits pretty comfortably alongside the jazz compositions. It's not quite essential, but it is very intriguing, and Cherry's more devoted fans will find it more than worth their time. [Live Ankara was reissued in full as part of the two-disc set The Sonet Recordings.] ~ Steve Huey

"The trio takes you on an intense, meditative and spiritual musical journey that embodies the spirit of freedom. Based around hypnotic grooves laid down by Brichard’s unswervingly solid bass lines, drummer Skinner plays around artfully with the beats, grooving hard in constantly shifting, unexpected turns of rhythmic play. Rahman’s contributions range from subtle conversational interplay to loudly expressed angry passion to the most delicate of whispers, conveying a depth of emotion and a deep sense of musical structure withIn an ever changing sea of musical conversation. Using simple, arresting melodies as a starting point, the trio create freely improvised waves of emotion ranging from powerful climaxes to hauntingly beautiful breath-like passages and everything in-between, creating unique forms and structures that react to the acoustics and the atmosphere of the situation. Taking inspiration from the spiritual jazz pioneers such as John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef and Sun Ra, compositional influences range from Gnawa music to modal jazz to Bengali folk music but the scope is wider still and the important unifying factor is the spontaneous communication and interplay between the three musicians. Rather than having a tight rigid structure, the tunes are allowed to breathe and develop into new unexplored forms, allowing fresh interpretations that make each performance a unique experience. The album is a collection of live and studio recordings that have been recorded and mixed by the band."

Enter Demi-Monde: A “half world” of botanical sounds and surreal impressions assembled as four tracks for Munjebel’s first release on Mesma Records. Oscillating between Ambient, Fourth world and Environmental Music, Demi-Monde is a peaceful yet captivating promenade into organic and percussive synth scapes — melancholic, escapist and contemplative. Munjebel is the joint project of Royer (Lobster Theremin, Closer) and Aurèle (Demi-Monde, Rinse, Cracki).

Freestyle Records are proud to reissue Ambiance II Fusion's mid-80s fusion rarity "Come Touch Tomorrow" - originally recorded in Hollywood CA October/November 1984 and released in 1985. Following a yearly run of 4 albums self-released between 1979 and 1982, Nigerian-born saxophonist, flutist, and clarinettist Daoud Abubakar Balewa then took a few years off before returning with 1985's "Come Touch Tomorrow", the first of two albums issued under the updated name of Ambiance II Fusion. Combining the afro-spiritual jazz & be-bop inflected fusion of his earlier work as Ambiance, this record took the project into more modern & distinctly cosmic planes with the introduction of spacey pads and drum machines working alongside somewhat tighter arrangements and solid rhythm sections. Of particular note here is the B1 track "Boy What a Joy" on which a sublimely funky synth & drum machine throwdown is presented in prophetically lo-fi fashion - recalling recent stylistic approaches from the likes of Dâm-Funk among others.

A spiritual soul inspired by nature, life and her experience living as an Afrikan woman, listening to muva of Earth is like planting your feet in rich warm soil; blending spiritual mantras and conscious lyricism, her music fusing afro-futurism, jazz, classical and more is truly transformative. Today, muva of Earth returns to announce her forthcoming debut project align with Nature’s Intelligence out 15th September via Brownswood Recordings and shares the gorgeous first single “heaven hear me above”. A soft and celestial spell lush with playful keys, delicate sparkling chimes and the harp expertly played by muva, this single explores her deep appreciation of being a unique and divine being. A meditative project centred around vulnerability, healing and an evolved way of thinking, on the forthcoming project across 8-tracks (also known as affirmations and chants) muva of Earth encourages empowerment and self expression.

Born as Davina Adeosun-Bright (Davina, which originates from the word ‘divinity’, Adeosun pronounced A-de-o-shu is yoruba tongue and means ‘Crown of Ọṣun’ which is a dedication to the orisha and goddess of the river, Ọṣun), muva of Earth was raised by Nigerian parents to be strong and independent. Making an impact early in her career, her live experience has already led her to open for Erykah Badu and Pink Siifu , as well as previous headline shows and plays at We Out Here, SuperSonicJazz , Cross The Tracks, XJazz! Festival and more. Previous singles including last year's “High” have garnered support from The Guardian, COLORS, Clash, Loud and Quiet, Hunger, RinseNotion, BBC 6Music, BBC Radio 1, NTS, and more.

Speaking on the single, muva of Earth says:

‘I wrote this song about what it means to be proud of what makes you unique,
A statement to the heavenly realms asking for understanding.
I may have hurt you in the past but I didn’t mean to,
I tried my best with the experience that i have,

Know my intentions are pure and that I am learning.
Love’ 

Compilation, previously unreleased work from Finis Africae together with the reissue of their first album "Prima Travesía". A deep trip of the roots of organic ambient with the seminal Spanish band. "Pulso de la Madera" comes as the definitive official reissue of the first album by the legendary band, along with previously unreleased remastered material, on a double LP with extensive liner notes and previously unseen pictures of the band. Essential to revisit the work of a band that inspired fourth world and organic ambient as we know it today; these tunes sound immersive and still contemporary. On their short but influential career, Finis Africae proposed an informal and decentralized model of creativity that was decades ahead of current practices linked to technological advances; they explored unknown worlds and imagined landscapes of the “fourth world” apart from their present; they neither affirmed nor denied any of the labels they were to assign to them (“New Age”, “ethnic music”, “world music”, etc.); they recreated, used, and nourished foreign cultures without fear. And most importantly - they shaped a sound “finis”. Your own space. Where there were no rules. A dimension in which the collective was submerged in long sessions of improvisation; where they could be goblins and magical entities; a place where they could imagine scales and structures unreal; where they could play any instrument in the known world; where they could tour the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Middle East in a blink of an eye; where they could be themselves without caring about anything that happened outside. The unreleased tracks come as a careful selection of a deep-dive over hundred tracks and demos, compiled by Urba and Glossy Mario. The license comes from Juan Alberto Arteche's family. Double LP and digital release scheduled for June 21st.

Strut revives a lost recording from the archives in January with a 2002 collaboration between acclaimed South African folk singer Vusi Mahlasela, singer songwriter Norman Zulu and Swedish jazz / soul collective Jive Connection. The links between South Africa and Sweden have long been strong with Sweden one of the most supportive European nations in the struggle against apartheid; the government helped to fund the ANC for decades and Mandela visited the country on one of his first European stops following his release from prison in 1990. Sotho folk singer Vusi Mahlasela, dubbed “The Voice” Of South Africa, performed at Mandela’s inauguration in 1994 and has enjoyed his own long relationship with Sweden, regularly embarking on cultural exchanges and forging a strong bond with the Jive Connection band, featuring guitarist / bassist Stefan Bergman and Little Dragon drummer Erik Bodin within its line-up. Although touring regularly, the collaboration has rarely been documented beyond a lone studio album in 1994. This “lost” recording, discovered in the archives of producer Torsten Larsson, also features songwriter / vocalist Norman Zulu and showcases their natural musical chemistry together. Vusi’s songs have traditionally addressed the struggle for freedom and the need for reconciliation and, here, his lyrics are as powerful as ever, ranging from parables (‘Prodigal Son’) to an unflinching lament on child abuse (‘Faceless People’). Jive Connection vary the soundtrack, bringing in hints of reggae, jazz and post-punk alongside traditional township arrangements. Face To Face is mastered by The Carvery. Artwork features unseen photos from the album sessions along with full lyrics. Produced in association with Torsten Larsson.

The Medicine Singers groundbreaking debut LP on Stone Tapes, produced by Yonatan Gat, embodies decades of musical genres influenced by Native American music, offering what Pitchfork called a "vivid new context for the sound of the powwow drum, highlighting the debt that rock music owes to Native American music." This monumental album connects experimental music and traditional powwow in previously unheard ways, acting as a guided tour de force, taking listeners through the many different musical styles with roots (still being discovered) in Native American music. From psychedelic punk to spiritual jazz, from minimalism to electronic music. Their live show is the stuff of legend – the Medicine Singers set up, often in-the-round with the audience encircling the band, and go into a trance-inducing set where the walls between band and spectator, as well as between psychedelic rock and shamanic chants, are blurred. Or in the words of Canada’s Exclaim Magazine “the border between audience and performer had all but been dissolved by the sheer power of music. By letting the audience in on the action, [Medicine Singers] evoked a type of bodily experience that transcended mere observation.” Bridging multiple dimensions of sound, on their debut LP Medicine Singers expanded into a remarkable supergroup that also includes ambient music pioneer Laraaji, Thor Harris and Christopher Pravdica of Swans, “No Wave” icon and former DNA drummer Ikue Mori, trumpet player jaimie branch and guitarist/producer Yonatan Gat. Half a decade after the spur-of-the-moment story of how the musicians first met and unraveled their sound on an unsuspecting audience during SXSW 2017 when Gat saw Eastern Medicine Singers play on the street and invited the band to spontaneously join his show – the collaboration between the musicians reaches a climax with this breathtaking debut album as Medicine Singers, helping pave the way to this year’s rising wave of Native contributions to experimental music – shining a spotlight on guest vocalists representing indigenous nations from outside of the Northeastern Woodland tribal area. “Where else can you get all these different native people singing together on an album?” Jamieson asked. “On this album you have east, west, north and south all coming together. That’s why we say it’s medicine.” iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 472px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3001077196/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless>Medicine Singers by Medicine Singers

Available on vinyl for the first time in 40 years, Outernational Sounds proudly presents a crucial document from the Los Angeles jazz underground - the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra at their most together, stretching out on home turf in 1979, with the legendary Horace Tapscott at the helm.

Horace Tapscott is one of the unsung giants of jazz music. A gifted composer and arranger, a boldly original pianist, and above all a visionary bandleader, Tapscott's recorded footprint is small, but his legacy continues to vibrate through the Los Angeles music underground. From Freestyle Fellowship to Build An Ark, Kamasi Washington and Dwight Trible, it all traces back to Tapscott. The pianist was an organiser, and instead of chasing a successful recording career, he wanted to build a community band that would act as 'a cultural safe house for the music.' 'I wanted to say, 'This is your music. This is black music, and I want to present a panorama of the whole thing right here'' said Tapscott in the late 1990s. 'We would preserve the music on our ark, the mothership...' That mothership was the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra - the Ark. As a culturally radical, communal big band with a visionary approach to American Black music, Tapscott's group is second only to the other famous Arkestra, that of Sun Ra.

Tapscott had founded the group in 1961 as the Underground Musicians Association (UGMA). It changed its name to the Pan African Peoples Arkestra in 1971, and through the seventies the players lived, played and worked together. Community work and political consciousness were at the heart of the project, and for two decades they played in street, park and coffee house. With Tapscott as their guide and mentor, the Arkestra worked with theatre groups, poets and revolutionaries, ran music workshops and teaching sessions for children and adults, and played fundraisers, benefits and rallies for political and social causes both global and local.

From 1973 to 1981 their main rehearsal and concert space was the Immanuel United Church of Christ (I.U.C.C.) on 85th St and Holmes Ave. The Arkestra played there every second Sunday, developing their sound and hipping new audiences to their vision. Live At I.U.C.C., recorded in early 1979, was the only live recording the band released. In full flow, and at the height iof their powers, the group recorded here features original 1961 UGMA members Linda Hill, David Bryant and Alan Hines, alongside the powerful voices of a new generation including Jesse Sharps, Sabir Mateen, and Adele Sebastian.

Showcasing spiritualised classics from Arkestra's songbook, including the heavy modal groovers 'Desert Fairy Princess' and 'Macrame', Live At I.U.C.C. is a rare chance to hear one of the most important, foundational bands in the music stretching out on their own thing. With the great Horace Tapscott at the piano, this is the rarely captured sound of the mothership in full flight!

Fans of Coltrane will certainly dig this historical 1970s spiritual jazz album from Argentina which left an everlasting imprint in the local jazz scene. From the eerie "Blues para un cosmonauta" —which could easily fit in the Twin Peaks soundtrack—, to the majestic "Líneas Torcidas" or the mid-tempo groove of "Mi amigo Tarzán", new landscapes in jazz are explored without hiding, at moments, the musicians' bebop pedigree. Venturing into uncharted dimensions, the album breaks with traditionalism and combines jazz and new electronic instruments into a contemporary concept that is both cosmic and sensual, a sound where timbre and space play a crucial role. Here, no track sounds like the other. The charismatic, multifaceted saxophone player Horacio "Chivo" Borraro is joined here most notably by Fernando Gelbard —who pioneered electronic keyboards and analog synths in Argentina, playing here Fender Rhodes and Minimoog— and Brazilian musician Stenio Mendes —who plays the 12-string craviola and contributes two tracks. Jorge González on bass and Néstor Astarita on drums —both part of Gato Barbieri's rhythm section in the early 60s— and Chino Rossi —responsible for much of the unusual percussion and special effects that give the album its unprejudiced aura— complete the line-up of Blues para un Cosmonauta.

One of the major statements in the history of Jazz and African American liberation movements. Originally released in 1960 on Candid Records, Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite consists of five original compositions and performances staging and celebrating different moments and aspects of the African American history and culture. Here is a wonderful cast of musicians reunited around Max Roach – drums and Abbey Lincoln – vocals. Throughout the album you can find great contributions from the likes of Booker Little – trumpet, Julian Priester – trombone, Walter Benton – tenor saxophones, James Schenk – bass and three percussionists Michael Olatunji, Raymond Mantilla and Tomas du Vall. Highlights include the highly intense triptych for Drum and Voice by Roach & Lincoln and a special appearance of tenor sax giant Coleman Hawkins on the opening Driva Man. Tracklist: A1 Driva' Man A2 Freedom Day A3 Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace B1 All Africa B2 Tears For Johannesburg

New quartet Sissoko Segal Parisien Peirani presents "Les Égarés" (The wandering), an album recorded by two virtuoso duos (Sissoko-Segal and Peirani-Parisien), who for years have excelled in the art of cross-fertilising sounds and transcending genres. Les Egarés is more than a record. It’s play space, a locus of musical life, a poetic asylum inhabited by two duos: Ballaké Sissoko (kora) and Vincent Segal (cello) on the one hand and Vincent Peirani (accordion) and Émile Parisien (sax) on the other. In the case of these magicians, 2 + 2 no longer makes 4, it makes 1. Because what they concoct is most definitely a unity of spirit, a single and fluid sound that disdains all forms of egotistical competitiveness and puts each participant at the service of a common musical good. Neither jazz, nor trad, nor chamber, nor avant-garde, but a bit of all of them, all at once, Les Egarés is the kind of album that makes the ear the king of all instruments, an album where virtuosity expresses itself in the art of complicity, where the simple and grandiose idea of listening to one another results in the birth of a splendid song with four parts. A record without solo voice that never stops singing. ‘You walk without knowing where you’re going, letting yourself drift and giving into the pleasure of being lost’ sums up Vincent Segal.

Chìsake [Algonquin]: to chant; to conjure; to cast a spell; this generally involves a shake-house, or shaking tent, in which the conjurer goes into a trance; the conjurer then has an out-of-body experience, going into the future to predict coming events, or into the past; as well as going into any locality in the universe to seek out someone or something generally practiced for ancestral divination. The unaccompanied flute pieces within this album are adaptations of Anishinaabeg shaking tent chants. The Anishinaabeg also known as Anishinaabe are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples that reside in areas now called Canada and the United States. They include the Odawa, Saulteaux, Ojibwe (including Mississaugas), Potawatomi, Oji-Cree and Algonquin peoples. The word Anishinaabeg translates to “people from whence lowered”. The Anishinaabeg origin myths describe their people originating by divine breath. The shaking tent or conjuring lodge was the setting for a divinatory rite performed by specially trained shamans otherwise known as Chìsakewininì. During the shaking tent ceremony the Chìsakewininì would construct a special cylindrical framework typically of birch or spruce uprights planted in the ground with respective wood hoops to bind it together. This created a tensile structure of which birch bark, deer skin, or cloth was used as a covering. Rattles of caribou and deer hooves, or cups of lead shot, were tied to the frame. The floor was usually softened with freshly cut spruce boughs. The vertical axis of the shaking tent represents the realm of mediating beings, while the horizontal axis the earth or world of humans. The Chìsakewininì would enter the shaking tent at night and once inside would not be visible from onlookers. The singing of chants and drumming would summon the Chìsakewininì’s spirit helpers, whose arrival was signified by animal cries and erratic tent shaking. During this transcendent state, the Chìsakewininì could dispatch these spirit helpers or Manidò to distant regions to answer questions from the onlookers about the most auspicious places to hunt, the well-being of a distant relative, and what would happen in the future. The chants were usually sung using vocables before, during, and after the Chìsakewininì entered the shaking tent. Like many other similar divination ceremonies, singular or collective, the opening chants begin lyrically. They gradually turn to more reductive abstract structures midway and then end in lyrical chants. This symbolizes the performer and listener leaving the external literal world, entering a more abstract state of mind, and then returning. Traditionally all songs were carved on birch bark for record-keeping with mnemonic pictographs or other marks for future use. Tally mark clustering, sometimes used for song-keeping throughout the Anishinaabeg, is used for this album’s track titles and numerical sequence. The album intro begins with the shaking of a necklace of otter penis bone, fish spine, bear teeth, elk teeth and deer hide, gifted from Algonquin Elder Ajawajawesi. It is meant to focus the listener’s attention before the flute pieces begin. The warble or multi-phonic oscillation prevalent in the middle tracks traditionally represented the “throat rattling” vocalization of the tonic note or sometimes known as the horizon of which the melody floats off of. Due to the repetition of multi-phonic oscillation the performer will breathe erratically creating an altered state correlating with the Chìsakewininì ceremonial actions. All songs are repeated seven times to signify the seven sacred directions: east, south, west, north, above/sky, below/earth, and center. -Timothy Archambault

"Hip as hell" - The Wire

"Their output doesn’t suggest an incendiary avant-garde so much as an extended post-bop language, cool-tempered and abidingly hip." - WBGO

"It captures a really interesting period in his career... This is my favorite sound. It is just so chill and smart and just cool."
- Robin Hilton, NPR Music

After having released Don Cherry's Cherry Jam as a limited Record Store Day title in the Autumn of 2020, Gearbox presents this essential release on specialist Japanese Edition vinyl and CD as well as digitally.

‘Cherry Jam’ sets the scene in 60s Copenhagen, a city which at the time proved instrumental in the hosting and development of jazz musicians both local and American. Cherry had performed and recorded there with Archie Shepp in 1963, toured with Albert Ayler in the autumn of 1964, and would go on to have a residency at the hip Cafe Montmartre in 1966.

Our recording is taken from the original tape of a 1965 radio broadcast, programmed by Denmark’s national radio station (Danmarks Radio.) It was in this same year that Cherry
 would record his landmark Blue Note recording, ‘Complete Communion’, with Leandro 'Gato' Barbieri on tenor saxophone, Henry Grimes on double bass, and Edward Blackwell on drums, as well as feature on fellow American expatriate George Russell’s live album ‘George Russell Sextet at Beethoven Hall’. This particular line-up however, consisting of Danish musicians, has never been heard after its original broadcast date, and neither have the three original Don Cherry compositions that are featured on the recording credits.

These four pieces show Don Cherry in the midst of his transformation from pivotal sideman in New York’s avant-garde jazz scene to leader of his own groups and world traveller. His endless curiosity, free-thinking openness to different cultures, and rejection of musical boundaries paved the way for future creators in jazz, world music, and beyond.

Byard Lancaster was a composer/multi-instrumentalist born in Philadelphia in 1942. He started playing alto saxophone at an early age and later took up flute and bass clarinet. While attending Berklee College of Music, Lancaster and pianist Dave Burrell organized late-night jam sessions with fellow students and touring musicians. In 1965, he moved to New York and quickly became part of the city's burgeoning scene – playing with jazz luminaries such as Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray, Bill Dixon and Marzette Watts. It's Not Up To Us, Lancaster's 1968 debut as a leader, was originally released on Vortex, a subsidiary of Atlantic responsible for first albums by Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Sonny Sharrock. Featuring guitarist Sharrock (another Berklee alum), It's Not Up To Us is true fire music – fusing elements of free jazz, soul/R&B and traditional folk song. On the opening title track, Lancaster's luminous flute draws the listener in, while bassist Jerome Hunter grounds the tune with a simple descending theme over Keno Speller and Eric Gravatt's syncopated rhythms. "John's Children," a reference to the group's status as post-Coltrane players, showcases the modal strumming of Sharrock's steady drones as Lancaster cries into the void. After repeated listens, Lancaster's original compositions become visceral aural memories ingrained in the ear, while the standards ("Misty" and "Over The Rainbow") sound the most avant-garde pieces on the album. This first-time vinyl reissue is recommended for fans of Albert Ayler, Don Cherry and Pharoah Sanders.

Already a multi award-winning and established artist, with a growing global reputation, Bokani Dyer’s newest record provides an intimate view into South Africa’s multifaceted people - and an opportunity for global connection through music.

Titled Radio Sechaba, the album continues Dyer’s creative journey of making rich and immersive music which places him amongst the new wave of South African jazz artists, including the likes of Siya Makuzeni and Nduduzo Makhathini. Throughout the 15-tracks, Dyer’s multi-faceted influences permeate the set of original songs, resulting in a rewarding listening experience..

“This is the first album of mine that is really drawing on all my influences and putting them into one thing,” says Dyer of the music on Radio Sechaba. “So from song to song you get different types of sounds and music and different approaches, and there is some quiet stuff and there is some loud stuff too.”

This array of influences takes the jazz music that Dyer has built his career on and extends it into new areas – already gestured to by his work with Sakhile Moleshe, as part of the groove-based Soul Housing Project, and his abiding interest in the sonic possibilities of electronic music. “When I was recording the album, I didn’t block my inspirations,” Dyer explains. “So the music on it draws on African music, American music and, really, whatever sounds great to me.”

Alongside this, Dyer has thought deeply about what he wants the music of Radio Sechaba to say. “The name of the project is Radio Sechaba and Sechaba means nation,” says the pianist, songwriter and producer. “It is something I have been thinking a great deal about - how I can use my music to reflect the current moment in South Africa and where we’re at, as a people.”

In particular, Dyer honed in on the related topics of nation building and unity. “This is pretty much the central theme of the project. Radio Sechaba is about what this nation – South Africa - is and thinking about a soundtrack that could go along with that theme.” This is no ordinary topic for the artist: Dyer was born in 1986 in Gaborone, Botswana, where many artists from South Africa, including his father, musician Steve Dyer, were living in exile. It was, he says, “an exciting musical time when I was born into a community in exile from apartheid”.

So it’s no coincidence that Dyer – who moved back to South Africa as a child in 1993 – gives his nation-building album a name that echoes that of Radio Freedom, the voice in exile of the African National Congress. For around three decades, from 1963 when it was created, Radio Freedom provided inspiration to those in the movement against apartheid and was an important ongoing link between exiles and those resisting within the country.

Consistently thoughtful about the role music can play in connecting, Dyer’s nation-building narrative finds expression in tracks like the reverential “Ho Tla Loka”, “Mogaetsho” (in which he addresses the big theme of betrayal) and the moving and powerful “State of the Nation”.

Radio Sechaba might be built around the bigger project of nation building but it also contains a number of songs that focus on the value of individual introspectiveness. There’s a call for presence on “Move On” (“Just breathe and let it go/stuck in past and future all we’ve got is present/Just breathe and let it go”) and a West-African influence instrumentally - call for self-liberation on “Resonance of Truth” (“Where do we go to find some serenity/Stop looking out too far/Try listening within”).

Radio Sechaba also features “Ke Nako” – which is the opening track on the critically acclaimed Johannesburg scene jazz compilation, Indaba Is which was released in early 2021 on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood label. Meaning ‘Now’s the Time’, the track was included in a 2022 live concert at the Claude Lévi-Strauss theater as part of the Sons d'hiver festival in France. That show placed Dyer’s piano playing centrestage and it’s a gift that has been described by acclaimed South African trumpeter Feya Faku as nothing short of “beautiful”. “His sense of rhythm, his articulation on acoustic piano addresses the piano,” says Faku who has included Dyer in his Feya Faku Quintet shows.

Radio Sechaba is interspersed with short musical interludes - like “Amogelang” and “Spirit People” - that serve as sonic signposts to our collective past, present and future. The album sounds a hopeful note with “You are Home”, a gorgeous, layered piece that recalls West African blues in its eloquent call to all of us: “Know your truth/Let it guide you/From the unknown/It will lead you home”.