MUSIC

2022年度リプレス。アメリカのインディ・ロック・バンド、Bedheadが1998年2月10日に〈Trance Syndicate Records〉に残した3枚目のスタジオ・アルバムが〈Numero〉からアナログ・リイシュー。Steve Albiniがエンジニアを務めた本バンド唯一のレコードであり、前作よりもアップテンポで激しく歪んだサウンドを披露したスロウコア/オルタナティヴ・ロックの傑作！

Jim Kirchstein founded Cuca Records in 1959 to capture the undocumented musical talent of rural Wisconsin. Originally a tiny recording studio in the corner of a record store, the independent label quickly expanded in response to the success of its early releases. Despite its remote location in the hills of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, the label’s growing popularity attracted a diverse group of artists and performers from Wisconsin, Michigan, and the Chicago area. The combination of the label’s remote location and the area’s cultural diversity created a unique catalogue that was often divergent from the current music trends. The country music that Kirchstein recorded is best described as “outsider country”—lo-fi, dreamy, and just a little too weird to make the charts. Driftless Dreamers tells the story of these artists and their takes on the term “country.” Driftless Dreamers takes its name after the Driftless Area, a geological region of the American Midwest untouched by the last continental glacial movement. The majority of the Driftless Area lies in southwest Wisconsin, but extends into the corners of Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. The area’s lack of glacial drift is what preserved the land’s rugged terrain of forested ridges, inhabited caves, carved river valleys, and some of North America’s last true prairies. As a preserved area, the Driftless is home to many species of rare wildlife species, unknown to the rest of the country. The area’s black, fertile earth is also very suitable for farming. In the 19th century European immigrants poured into Wisconsin and began to farm. Small agrarian communities dotted the hills of the Wisconsin Driftless. Agriculture was, and still is, the lifeblood of these communities, as is music. The mainly German and Irish immigrants established community bands to carry on the musical traditions that they carried with them from their homelands. The domination of farming as the main industry in the Driftless area encouraged these musical styles to develop into the country music that Jim Kirchstein would record in the 1960s. After a stint in the Navy, Jim Kirchstein returned home to the Driftless Area to pursue an electrical engineering degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kirchstein lived on the eastern boundary of the Driftless in the sleepy town of Sauk City, close to his school in Madison. To support his new family, Kirchstein started selling records out of the basement of his brother’s hobby shop, located next to their family’s grocery store. Through his work at the record store Kirchstein soon recognized a need for a recording studio for the area’s local musicians. In 1959 Kirchstein founded the original Cuca recording studio in his basement record shop. Despite its remote location, the studio drew in a variety of artists from across the Midwest. The studio was also popular with local communities, whose mixed heritages produced a variety of folk and country genres. Jim Kirchstein intended for his recording studio to serve the local population’s need for both a creative outlet and historical documentation of their music traditions. As the label grew, Kirchstein created genre-specific sublabels, including Top Gun Country. The Driftless Dreamers series is a glimpse into this trove of recordings, focusing on the isolated interpretations of popular country music and the lonesome twang of outsiders. Driftless Dreamers in Cuca Country Volume 1 is a survey of the range of Wisconsin’s country music. This volume starts with a regional hit and ends with an echoing ballad from an untrained voice. Along the way we visit some family band bluegrass, teenage Nashville sound, rockabilly, and improvised bar tunes.

Who do we become when we live our dreams? It's all here - the high hairdos, the dreams and schemes, the tender camp, the wedding bell fantasias and chaste tragedies. Sister acts, studio receptionists, classmates, angelic voices of the 1960s; some legendary, many hidden in the basement of expired rainbows.

The third installment of Numero’s ode to lowrider souldies, Rust Side Story compiles highly sought after sweet soul singles from the Buck Eye State. Prepare for a low and slow ride from Youngstown to Dayton, Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, all soundtracked with silky falsettos and dreamy harmonies.

In the wake of their acclaimed comeback album 'Figures' (2020), Aksak Maboul took a playful sideways step to create this total work, a 63-minute, continuous suite of fifteen pieces, which could be described as an experimental audio play.

The thread running through 'Une aventure de VV (Songspiel)' is Véronique Vincent’s text, an enigmatic philosophical-poetical tale unfolding through monologues and dialogues, spoken and sung by a series of characters, played by Alig Fodder, Laetitia Sadier, Audrey & Benjamin from Aquaserge, Don The Tiger, Blaine L. Reininger, and the members of Aksak Maboul’s current live band: Faustine Hollander, Lucien Fraipont & Erik Heestermans.

The music was written & arranged by Marc Hollander and features his characteristic genre-hopping tendencies: strands of electronica, pop, jazz, collage, techno, ambient, improv, krautrock, contemporary classical & systems music are merrily woven together, in the inimitable Aksak Maboul style.

The album’s subtitle, 'Songspiel', highlights its theatrical/musical aspect: the work pays oblique homage to the those experimental radio plays that once emerged from the creative workshops of the BBC, the RTF and the RAI, and especially to those German Hörspiels which, at their best, might combine spoken word, instrumental or electronic music, songs and sonic research.

Une aventure de VV also modestly alludes to certain stage works written by adventurous composers during the first half of the 20th century, which embraced singing, spoken dialogues and elements inspired by popular music. Those composers sometimes invented genre names to describe their pieces: fantaisie lyrique, mimodrama, or... songspiel). 

'Single' isn't just a reissue of Pub's similarly-titled 2002 set, it properly rounds up the Glaswegian dub techno reductionist's first three 12"s and adds a couple of vinyl exclusives. Long-form blunted dancefloor haziness never sounded so lovely: imagine Various Artists/T++, The Black Dog, BoC and Manuel Göttsching locked in a room wth some synths, drum machines and echo boxes. Hot on the heels of last year's much needed 'Do You Ever Regret Pantomime?' reissue comes this equally levitational set of Caledonian miasma, remastered at Berlin's Dubplates & Mastering. It's the best way to widen yer appreciation of the Ampoule boss's early work, especially if you've only come across his debut album and the 'Summer' EP. 'Single' is basically a photo album of Pub's earliest experiments, and kicks off fittingly with 'Lunch', from his 1999-released 12" "Lick/Lunch". When that record originally dropped, Pub was only 18 years old and was penning his extended dub-phoric jams on a single synthesizer/workstation. The rudimentary DIY methodology adds to the raw emotionality of the material. It sounds as if Pub is very slowly conducting the loose, trance-influenced arpeggios and dusty rhythms and shifting them carefully in-and-out of frame on the fly almost like Manuel Göttsching on the Biblical "E2-E4". There's a physicality to the music that sounds alien in an era where DAWs are practically unavoidable, and it's sobering to recall. 'Springing Daisy's' is a truncated version of the "Springing Daisy's Mix" of 'Film' (from 2002's "Derail" 12"), turning up on "Single" again to close the collection, shortened from almost 15 minutes to 10 and aptly renamed 'Short Film'. Both versions center around Pub's innate ability to take basic ingredients - in this case a single melodic loop and a distorted T++ style rhythm - and sublime them into gaseous traces of their constituent parts. 'Springing Daisy's' is the "pop" version - short, sharp, beat heavy - and 'Short Film' (a vinyl exclusive) is the abstracted, Basic Channel-influenced inversion, detuning the melody and torching the rhythm into an acidic fizz. 'Derail' is included too, and has never sounded better, showcasing Pub at his most dissociated and melancholy with a distant BoC hum couched in a thick fog of reverberating resonance. 2003's 'Surgery' rounds up the early run, and displays Pub's artistic progression, moving a few steps out of the murk and allowing the drums to push into near-dancefloor territory on the title track. And the new edition is finished off with the trancey 'Kamikazi', a track from the original "> Single" that's never made it to vinyl before.

The Smile have today confirmed details of a limited edition, vinyl only live EP, titled Europe: Live Recordings 2022, out 10th March via XL Recordings. True to its title, the EP is comprised of live recordings of fan favourites from The Smile’s widely acclaimed debut album, A Light For Attracting Attention, as well as the band’s rendition of Thom’s 2009 solo track FeelingPulledApartByHorses. Europe: Live Recordings 2022 was recorded in various cities over the course of The Smile's first ever tour last summer.

Full tracklist here:
A1. The Opposite
A2. Thin Thing
A3. FeelingPulledApartByHorses
B1. The Same
B2. Waving A White Flag
B3. Free In The Knowledge

In 2021, we started the Mdou Moctar mixtape series. These releases compiled field recordings, cell phone voice memos, interview clips, conversations captured in the tour van, and blown-out board recordings from shows all over the world. As a continuation of those mixtapes, we present the Niger EPs, which examine the roots of the Mdou Moctar band. Early Mdou recordings were contained on cassettes, though the humble tape was soon replaced by the quick and easy facility of cell phone technology. 

Long bus rides are common in West Africa. On one of these rides, you might be seated next to a stranger and ask ‘what are you listening to?’, then a song exchange would begin over Bluetooth. This is a very real way artists found their music distributed far from home. In that vein, the Niger EP series features solely recordings taped in Mdou Moctar’s home country of Niger. Volume 1 begins the series with a mix of recordings from 2017- 2020, documenting the band at weddings, picnics, rehearsals, and even impromptu house concerts. A must have for any Mdou Moctar fan!” 

- Mdou Moctar bassist Mikey Coltun

Originally released as an obscure private-press LP by the Florida trio of Ben Champion, Ken Burkhart and Danny Burger. Special guest on this super rare funky jazz outing is Mike Longo who says a few words on behalf of the group on the back cover, and sure enough he contributes scorching Rhodes in the style of his early 70s Greasy Groove sides for Groove Merchant and Mainstream. Also on board are Kelton Champion on guitar, Gary Champion on Bass, Mickey McGann on keys and David Winters on Congas and Percussion: (Just what we love to see on these kind of grooves. Added Phat Funkiness!) The 20 minute title number weaves, bobs, and scorches with a sound that has been described as a "Headhunters Headspace" the groove never dropping for an instant with a Fender Rhodes meets Hammond B3 Prestige Style Scene with an added flavouring of some chunky Moog Synthesizer. This has gotten a lot of chatter on the underground Jazz Vibes lately, copies changing hands for $300 and more. The track "These Are My Friends " regularly sells for upwards of $500 and is one of the most hard to find singles on the Rare Soul circuit. The band are from South Florida, a well known melting pot of culture and music.This area has produced an impressive number of Super Star Jazz Musicians. Among them Cannonball Adderly, Blue Mitchell, Jaco Pastorius, and Mike Longo and a multitude of others. Jazzberry Patch can now be added to that roster with this fantastic re-issue from Jazz Room Records.

版元完売。90年代後半、Torsten Pröfrock（Dynamo）が立ち上げた聖地〈DIN〉からリリースを始動、MonolakeやPoleらと並び、ドイツから発信されるIDM/グリッチ・サウンドの質の高さを世界へと知らしめた才傑Arovane。60年代半ばに生まれたミュージシャンでありサウンド・デザイナーである彼がフランスのアンビエント系名門レーベル〈LAAPS〉から2023年にリリースした最新アルバム『Sinter』のCD/LP版をストックしました。 Boards of Canada や Autechreと並んで言及されることの多いArovaneのサウンドは、彼の固有のメランコリックなメロディー、高度なテクスチャー、複雑なポリリズムによって今も数多くのリスナーに愛され続けています。Taylor Deupreeによるマスタリング仕様。LP版は限定300部。

Since 2008, "438Hz As It Is, As You Are" is "only" the third solo release from Tomoyoshi Date. The last one dates from 2011. Less is more. In parallel, from 2013 to 2021, he has recorded some releases in collaborations with Toshimaru Nakamura, Ken Ikeda, Stijn Hüwels, Asuna and Federico Durand. "This record was recorded on Diapason's upright piano made in the 1950s at the house of his maternal grandmother's sister (*). The piano has moved and tuned many times, and now it has arrived at my living room. It was a pre-mass production piano with a thick board and good sound, but I couldn't tune it without replacing the screws and the weakened base. After consulting with the tuner, I decided to tune the whole tune to the sound of the strings wound around the loosest and most inseparable screws. "As it is" * Mikiko Yamada: A performer who formed a Japanese music group of contemporary Japanese music in 1964 and made Biwa the first five-line score. She also had a samisen, so I called her "Aunt Pen Pen". Her husband was a shakuhachi player, so she was "Uncle Boo Boo". When I tuned in the summer, I tried to tune at 442kHz, but I changed the tune in the winter to 438kHz. From now on, the pitch of this piano will decrease year by year as the material ages. I will play the decaying piano and continue to record music that can only be done at that time. When you drop a needle on a record, a sound is produced on the spot, and the sound constantly changes depending on the air, temperature, and humidity around the needle. The sound also affects all of the listener's life, affecting the frequency of the person's body and mind. The effect of the sound once generated will last forever. This work was created with the intention of having the listener adjust the pitch at the desired speed according to the mood and frequency of the listener at that time. With a little faster 45 turns, you can listen to this dilapidated piano at 440kHz or 442kHz. You can slow it down, or adjust the number of rotations as you like, whether it is 33 rotations early or late. I really like the stretched sound of the recorded piano. When you want to relax, use slow music to adjust the pitch of the space around you, the creatures, and your own body and mind. "As You Are" Tomoyoshi Date

For the past 20 years Nostalgia 77 has become a catch all for the musical life of Benedic Lamdin. His schizophrenic offerings range from songwriting sessions, soundtracks, excursions into Soul and in this case Jazz. The Loneliest Flower in the Village is an album that sees Lamdin reunited with longtime collaborator and arranger Riaan Vosloo and experienced veterans from a host of Nostalgia 77 projects. 'It had been a long time since we'd gigged or recorded so the idea was as much a little reunion in the studio as any grand plan to record an album' says Lamdin. 'The idea wasn't to do anything new (the material is both a few originals and a few covers), more just hear these players and their easy familiarity with each other after the disruption of Covid'. Playing a clutch of originals by Riaan Vosloo and James Allsopp and covers by long term influences from South Africa such as Chris MacGregor and Abdullah Ibrahim, the emphasis is on strong melodies and open reaches for the soloists. The title track draws upon the song written by South African bassist Johnny Dyani and the result is spectacular; British jazz at heart but awash with references to South Africa and its strong jazz heritage. 'I'm pleased to say that I think this record is the best account of how the band (playing in this lineup since about 2010 ) sounds live. Full of energy and ranging from serene to firing on all cylinders.'

The Well & The Gentle, two of the major works of Pauline Oliveros, are presented here in a first time reissue on double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with extensive liner notes. If Oliveros had followed a more conventional path she may have, all social obstacles aside, been considered among the major composers of her time. However, Oliveros approached composition in a more egalitarian manner. She wrote music for musicians to interact with or, in the composers words, she wished to create "an inclusive and interdependent and unfolding world of relationships." Oliveros' propensity towards inclusion is part of what makes this work so remarkably distinctive. The Well & The Gentle is carefully crafted, allowing performers to participate in the creation of the work. Players are asked to collaborate, focus, react and make imaginative choices. Only then can the performers "pass through stages of awakening to the possibilities inherent in making music, working together, leading to the essence of what can shape musical impulses and individual freedom simultaneously." Unlike most major composers of the era, Oliveros' work focuses on collaboration and improvisation. For Oliveros, the processes involved in making music are as fundamental as the music itself. Oliveros creates, as Arthur Sabatini put it so eloquently in the liner notes, "A world in which sound and the practices entailed in making music merge; become, at once, source and atmosphere, energy and essence, presence and dynamic." Pauline Oliveros was an electronic music pioneer, accordionist, composer and educator who resided in Kingston, New York. Her instrument was tuned in Just Intonation and she often included it in her meditative improvisational music. Her music is not meditative in the sense that it is intended for listening to while meditating, rather each piece is a form of meditation, such as her aptly titled Sonic Meditations. A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. West coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvised with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed, in her performances and recordings.

Carlos Aguirre's solo piano work released in 2006, featuring many of his classic and popular songs, is now available in a long-awaited analog vinyl edition in a completely limited edition.
The album contains 13 pieces that depict rich mental landscapes spreading from the keyboard with beautiful melodies and deep reverberations. This is an important work that is indispensable to the career of Carlos Aguirre, who is now entering his mature period as a musician.

The album includes three masterpieces under the name Carlos Aguirre Grupo, "Crema" (2000), "Rojo" (2004), and "Violator" (2008); "Orijânia" (2012) and "La Musica del Agua - Water Music" (2006) under his solo name; "Karma" (2005) under his trio name; and the five-member group Carlos Aguirre is reaching maturity as a musician, breaking new ground with each album, from "Ba Ciendo Tiempo" (2010) with his guitar quintet, to "La Música del Agua - Water Music" (2012), "Karma" (2005) as a trio, and even "Ba Ciendo Tiempo" (2010) with his guitar quintet. The album "Caminos" was released in 2006, and is a solo piano album that Carlos Aguirre has wanted to make since he was 17 years old when he started composing music.

The album contains many masterpieces that project the vibrancy of life, magnificent natural scenery, and childhood memories, opening with "Pampa" (1), which many people remember as the first song Carlos always played on his first Japan tour in 2011 (in other words, the first song he played in Japan), followed by the serene "Um The simple melody of "Um pueblo de paso" (2) evokes nostalgia, while "Romanza" (3) strikes the heart with its vital touch and romantic phrasing. After the middle part of the concert, which features Carlos' unique fusion of modern harmonies and folklore rhythms on the piano, the audience was treated to the simple and moving small piece "Mai" (9), "Zamba para no morir" (11), an Aguirre-style interpretation of a famous Argentine samba song (Zamba), and "Mai" (12), a piece that was performed to great acclaim during a concert tour in Japan. The overwhelming performance of "Milonga gris" (⑫), which received a huge ovation at a concert in Japan, is a masterpiece that has been covered by many artists. The album ends with "Canción de cuna costera" (⑬), a soothing lullaby like the shimmering sunset on the surface of the magnificent Paraná River, leaving an emotional aftertaste like the end roll of a movie.

First solo album by the most acclaimed Italian drummer! Originally released in 1974, this record has become the holy grail in the drum-breaks library field, a true cult among DJs and producers all around the world! Now available again in a faithful replica of the original gatefold sleeve and of the original master tapes The holy grail of all the drum-breaks library LP, a true "cult" among DJ and producers, is availab …

Eric Ghost is well named as he is indeed a mystery man. A contemporary (and best friend) of 1960's Funky Jazzman Jeremy Steig his self published Private Press albums are much coveted and difficult to obtain and command high prices. This Psychedelic Jazz masterpiece was recorded in 1975 and features Dave Valentin bassist Lincoln Goines in his studio debut as well as Jim McGilveray who went on to record with Paul Horn and The Cult. If you're a fan of The Blues Project "Flute Thing", Paul Horn's more esoteric offerings or indeed the aforementioned Jeremy Steig then this album is for you. The music is intense and demands your attention, it's both Funky and Spiritual from the first note of "Orangeland" to the last notes of the Eastern influenced "Bizarre Bazaar". Eric was involved with the Counter Culture from his time in Morocco in the early 1960's (while serving in the US Army, kind of like a Hip Elvis) until shortly after this album was recorded when under his real name, Richard Barth Sanders he was convicted of LSD Manufacture (he invented the blotting paper method of LSD distribution so could be entitled to say he was the world's first Acid Jazzer) and sentenced to 7 years in a Federal Prison. The album is re-issued with the original cover artwork with the correct track order for the first time.

"I’ve started to work on this album before I knew it. During June 2018 I was in Japan for a month to release my previous album "Cairn" as well as my first solo exhibition of drawings in Tokyo. Everyday on my way to the gallery I passed in front of the same building, its name kept haunting me : Rogue Hill. Back then I was digging for cheap 80’s Japanese CD’s (Balearic, New Age, Ambient,...) in second hand stores. Most of them set the tone of this album and the direction I wanted to follow. I feel there’s a direct connection between these original sources and the sound I pursue by their meditative aspect. Most of the demo songs were done before my daughter’s birth on August 2019 and were finalized since then. Many of the titles refer to this main event and relate to how it changed my position in life : being a link through time by becoming a father."

Gondwana Records and Portico Quartet announce a strictly limited edition collectors-item Featuring an expanded version of their long-form composition Terrain and re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble and recorded live in Studio One Terrain (Extended) features an expanded version of the composition re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble – a subtle re-configuration of the band that features a string quartet - and which allowed for the composition's deeper textures and resonances to be fully explored, along the way expanding the dialogue between tranquillity and a subtly unsettling melancholy, that makes Terrain such a beautiful, powerful piece. 9th November 2021 was a very special session. The band (who had first recorded at Abbey Road for their second album Isla back in 2009), brought long-term collaborator, recording and mix engineer, Greg Freeman over from Berlin to work with Abbey Road’s Chris Bolster and the resulting concert film Terrain (Extended) - Live in Studio One An Abbey Road 90th Session received it’s world premiere broadcast on the Gondwana Youtube channel on Thursday 20th October. Now Gondwana Records is super proud to announce the ultimate collector’s edition of this special recording. Limited to just 1500 individually numbered and stamped LPs and 1000 CDs. Recorded live at Abbey Road Studio One. Mixed in Berlin by the band’s longterm collaborator Greg Freeman. Audio mastered by John Davis at Metropolis Studios. Vinyl cut by John Davis at Metropolis Studios Available only on beautiful transparent clear two disc vinyl pressed at Optimal in Germany or on limited edition CD or digital download LP and CD are presented in an uncoated gatefold sleeve printed in Pantone Cool Gray 4 with release details sticker. In addition, the LP features a 12 page booklet with a half front page and translucent paper overlay, glued into a gatefold and the CD features 12-page booklet, glued into a gatefold. Designed by veil projects. Each LP and CD are hand stamped and the LP comes packed in reusable 'Japanese style’ polyprop sleeves - with sealable flap - for protection

Historically informed violin player, prize-winning street musician, new age experimentalist, chamber ensemble performer and conservatoire deviant. The career of Valentina Goncharova (b. Kyiv 1953) shares parallels with those associated with the broader new music movement of the 20th century and the dissemination of home recording technologies. Valentina’s was a youth spent immersed in the world of classical music study under soviet rule, first in Kyiv and later in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from the age of 16. With the supervision of professors M. Vayman and B. Gutnikov she learned concert violin and developed alternate playing styles alongside skilled pianists. A student of the Leningrad conservatoire during the years 1969 through to 1983, her repertoire included music for violin and later expanded to contemporary music composition. The improvisatory nature of free jazz and then budding experimental rock circles also intrigued Valentina during this period in Leningrad. Departing from the rules of the conservatoire, she briefly performed in underground rock clubs alongside future members of the industrial group Pop- Mechanika (Popular Mechanics). This perpetual state of flux is central to the variety found within ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, though as opposed to any degree of uncertainty Valentina’s practice is one in flux by way of earnest curiosity. Pushing further into an exploration of solo electro-acoustic sounds, she took to home taping on a modified Olimp reel to reel recorder. Intrigued by the manipulability of dubbing and the fresh sounds of DIY effects chains, Goncharova developed pickups alongside her husband Igor Zubkov. Her infatuation with the music of Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ganelin Trio and Pierre Boulez channels through considerations of space and erratic sound design, the three movements of ‘Metamorphoses’ embodying this textural approach to musique concrete. The compositional skills developed in Leningrad unfold in the romantic gestures of ‘Higher Frequencies’, whilst manipulated cello combines with synthesise keys across ‘Passageway To Eternity’. The slow, pulsating drone soundscapes recall the likes of Robert Rutman’s US Steel Cello Ensemble or even deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. The juxtaposition of written notation and improvisatory flare is central to Goncha- rova’s sound world. This period of home recording documents a confluence of minimalism, free form and flirtations with new age tropes (inc. bell chimes and cavernous vocal mantras). Experimenting with unusual performance techniques, such as shouting into amplified cello strings, Valentina’s home studio functioned as a place to foster full artistic and creative freedom away from any academic strictures. Relocating to Estonia in 1984, and in parallel to the deeply personal music of ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, Valentina performed at jazz festivals and gave classical concerts across Eastern Europe. In a sense, the recordings on these discs offer only a glimpse into her lifelong body of work. Over the past few decades she has taught at Tallinn Music College, expanded and updated post- Soviet popular music repertoire, collaborated with the Russian Philharmonic Society of Estonia and given concerts and charity events alongside the Catholic Church. Hers is a life dedicated to the exploration of sound, a career forged through careful study and ceaseless intrigue. In a time where technological interconnectedness has allowed for music of the past to be continually mined and evaluated through new lenses, Shukai present an artist whose tendency for private home-taping had allowed recordings to go unheard for thirty years.

Following the unpublished works of the Ukrainian/Estonian musician Valentina Goncharova, Volume 2 of Shukai’s archival project sits in direct contrast to the solo works of Vol. 1. Spending her youth studying classical music first in Kyiv and then in Leningrad, Valentina began her musical career with rigorous compositional study and concert violin performance. This long player of duets as such casts a light on Goncharova’s experiences with early free jazz, democratic improvisation and introductions to pure electronic sound. Where Vol. 1 explored her home studio experiments and flirtations with musique concrete and new age, this volume seeks to give audience to similarly DIY recordings developed in collaborative environments away from the conservatoire. Properly documenting sessions revolving around smoky jazz cafes, art galleries, salons and theatre venues across Riga and Tallinn, these seven pieces add to the historical narrative of the soviet era avant-garde and show the broader spectrum of Valentina’s work. We begin in Riga with an adapted score for a delicately unfolding violin drone, voice and saxophone performance produced by Valentina and Alexander Aksenov. Describing the nineties as temporarily narrowing the content of cultural life and thus nullifying the interest of free improvisation in both Tallinn and Riga, Valetina’s bond with the multi-instrumentalist and theatre director Aksenov led to decades of close friendship and several demo recordings such as ‘Reincarnation II’. Their initial chance meeting at a jam session set in motion various cross-country performances and experimental theatre works. With its focus on extended harmony, it is perhaps ‘Reincarnation II’ that most recognisably follows on from Shukai’s first volume. Across the rest of the disc are collaborative duets with Sergei Letov and Pekka Airaksinan respectively, the three tapes with Letov an example of recordings as a ‘rehearsal process’. These evenings spent in Moscow apartments and St. Petersburg art studios challenged Goncharova’s preconceptions of musical expression; “I was surprised by his (Letov’s) artistic language. He composed here and now music that was so intellectually advanced that it was quite comparable to the compositions of my fellow students. Only, to achieve such a result, it took months for them. So, for the first time, I took part in free jazz collective creativity” (2020). Atypical violin/saxophone techniques and light, difficult to place percussive textures interplay across the three duets with Letov, the sense of spatiality alluding to the very nature of the recordings. They strike ultimately as private, freeform experiments with sound, never intended for the listener but documenting a practice which explores the dichotomy of improv’s ‘non-professionalism’ and its potential freedom from trained performance. Just one curious corner of Valentina’s musical path, they are included as a deliberate variance to the tapes with Pekka Airaksinen, an already well-regarded composer, early synthesiser fanatic and Finnish radical. At their time of meeting, Pekka had diverted his attention from punk-indebted noise and free jazz groups to a pursuit of spiritualism via contemporary electronic technologies. Already familiar with the ‘Buddhas of Golden Light’ LP, Valentina found in his work an attraction to the sacred and, after an encounter at a 1988 Helsinki festival dedicated to futurist art and literature, she prepared to visit his studio. After a failed attempt to record a joint album, fragments of the tapes are presented here, highlighting Goncharova’s first real experience of electronic music making in a compositional sense. The result is a marriage of stunning organ tones, processed violin murmurs and progressive minimalism a la Terry Riley or La Monte Young. Fragmented guitar and additional keyboard patterns push and pull through delay units in unison with Valentina’s two violins, at times mimicking the howl of the wind or even the human voice. Once again, the duality of the indistinguishable unfamiliar vs. the harmonic familiar. Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2 completes Shukai’s dive into the sound world of an important yet overlooked artist working within Soviet era electroacoustics.

Darbuka, gongs, berimbaus, kalimbas, pandeiro, riqq, doholla, bendirs, udu,… These are just some of the instruments that make up the sound universe of Hands in Motion. This percussion trio brings together musicians Simon Leleux (Fabrizio Cassol / I Silenti, Refugees for Refugees), Robbe Kieckens (Lamekan Ensemble, Myrdinn De Cauter), Falk Schrauwen (Compro Oro, Echoes of Zoo) who create a sound universe that does not knows any limits. From Senegal to Eastern Europe, from Brazil to India, from the classical conservatory to nomadic people, it is nourished by all their influences that Hands in Motion juggles with the codes of tradition to create a new space of expression, resolutely current and innovative. Minimalist sound layers, captivating grooves, acoustic trance, their music is organic, contrasting, deep and subtle at the same time. They alternately create melodies and textures that might as well make you think of Philip Glass, Mammal Hands or Why the Eye ?. The atmospheres they create invite movement and sharing.

First time release on vinyl of the breathtaking songs Patty Waters recorded with engineer Steve Atkins in 1970 at the Coast Recordings studio, together with the unreleased single ‘My One And Only Love’ and a recorded live session at Lone Mountain College in 1974. The album ‘You Loved Me’ is the missing link between her two groundbreaking pioneering and highly acclaimed ESP-Disk records from the end of the 60’s and her post 90’s releases. The missing link between the radical ingenue of the 1960s and her late 90’s songs wherein she expressed the resolution of all of her life’s moments through mature readings of traditional songs and jazz standards. This album aims to provide that missing link and to finally complete the picture of her storied recording career. In what would have been her third LP, the ‘You Loved Me’ album serves as the inverse of Patty’s debut. While her debut “Sings” concerned itself with themes of heartbreak, loneliness and yearning, there’s an abundance of love, joy and togetherness on “You Loved Me”. Or in Patty’s own words: “I was a young girl alone at age 19, I was longing for love and dreaming of how wonderful love could be“ On ‘You Loved Me’ Patty Waters velvet voice captures this longing for love, straight from her soul to your heart. Crossing the border of avant garde jazz entering a strange zone, somewhere between spiritual jazz, early folk vibes on the songs on the A-side while the 14 minute composition ‘Touched By Rodin In A Paris Museum’ on the B-side is (dixit David Stubbs for Uncut in 2004) a brilliant extended showcase for the uneasy Cageian minimalism of her piano playing. 'You Loved Me’ proves also again why Albert Ayler introduced her to ESP-Disk president Bernard Stollman, why Miles Davis was impressed by her and why she can count Patti Smith and Yoko Ono (to name a few) amongst her fans.

After Black Clouds Above The Bows (IMPREC 507CD), Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the second entry of their trilogy for Important Records, which is dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe. For this album the artists incorporated the sound of a dying organ, fatally wounded in a climate related event. All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea consists of electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe. Wailing odes tell the story of the catastrophic activity of eroding waves and winds shaping the land that are enhanced by the climate crisis. Firsthand experiences and meetings with local maritime experts on the subject of these receding coastlines inspired Wanderwelle to compose these albums. During their travels, the artists stumbled upon a small church in a town on the east coast of Scotland. The building was quite damaged, the roof was being stabilized and the ancient walls showed great tears running vertically down the structure. The damage had been caused by a nearby cliff that collapsed in the sea, an event increasingly common in the region. The church organ was ruined in such a way that it was deemed unplayable, as most of the pipes were gravely damaged and in dire need of restoration. Despite the damage, the artists were allowed to record a few tones of the instrument with their equipment, which was actually meant to be used for field recordings later that day. In Black Clouds Above The Bows, antique cavalry trumpets were recorded and manipulated. Similar processing was used on the recordings of the dying organ, resulting in spectral, deconstructed tones beyond recognition. In addition to the damaged organ, the artists recorded piano, cello, and synthesizers in later stages of the composition process, manipulating these sounds to mimic the sea shaping the land. Furthermore, a great deal of inspiration was found in maritime superstition, lore, and mythology. As told in the legend of Aspidochelone, a legendary sea creature of enormous size, was once mistaken for an island. After sailors docked and lit a fire, the beast submerged resembling a land mass sliding into the sea. The album's title is derived from the saying "All Hands Bury The Dead", a maritime burial phrase, as the duo likes to think "All Hands" refers to all of mankind since we are all responsible for these impending catastrophes.

Solaire, Siegfried Kessler, that is the least we can say! Aged 4: learns piano. Aged 6: his first concert. After this: studies classical music like everyone else... until the jazz of Jack Diévaland Stan Kenton turned everything upside down. So it was goodbye to Bach... ...And hello to Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Ted Curson and Archie Shepp (who he would accompany over a long period). In 1969, with Yochk’o Seffer, Didier Levallet and Jean-My Truong, he formed a group which would mark history and create a sensation: Perception. If French free jazz exists, its thanks to Kessler (and company). The following year, the pianist recorded his first album: Live at the Gill’s Club. On this one-night concert date can also be heard Barre Phillips and Steve McCall. But it was in 1971 that Kessler would record his greatest album; still in a trio setting, but this time with bassist Gus Nemeth and percussionist Stu Martin: Solaire. Five tracks of extraordinary music, moving back and forth between modal jazz and contemporary music. Let’s begin at the end, with the title track Solaire, on which Kessler plays a melody on flute and piano which resists all onslaughts. It sends out powerful waves, Kessler’s jazz, bubbling like hot oil (Persécution, Drum), shaking modal jazz to its roots (De l’Orient à Orion) or upsetting the memory of a cantata (Bach Hcab). The piano is an instrument which can provide a tendency towards, demonstrative technique; with Kessler, it is something else: a joyful persecution!