Beautiful gatefold LP with original artwork by rubber stamp maker 'Nervous' Stephen Fowler. Each image was individually carved from a block of rubber and the prints then added to the artwork. The artwork was inspired by the theme of the album - Daniel Defoe's Diary of a Plague Year - and the images based on 17th century ballad broadside images. For many years Evan Parker, one of the greatest post-Coltrane saxophonists, has played a monthly gig at the London club The Vortex. These gigs in part illustrate Evan’s close ties with the fragile ecosystem of clubs that support the jazz world; the small venues that allow an intimate and powerful connection between the artist and audience that is at the heart of jazz creativity. Evan called these events his ‘jazz’ gigs, the knowing hyphenation an indication of the problematic use of the J word, an acceptance of the Vortex as a ‘jazz’ club, and a nod to his origins in jazz history. I took a friend there one time and it seemed to me that the trio’s performance (Evan, John Edwards and the great and sadly departed Tony Marsh) came close to seeing Coltrane or Ayler playing at the 5 Spot or one of the other legendary New York venues. When we asked Evan if he would record an album for Cadillac, it was this aspect of his multifaceted talents that we had in mind. The quartet you hear on this album (with Paul Lytton, John Edwards and Alexander Hawkins) came together for a gig at the Vortex in Evan’s regular slot on June 20th 2019, and what a fine gig it was! Then the next day we relocated to the beautiful barn-like studio of Rimshot, deep in the Kent countryside to record the album. The location, close to Evan’s home, had other resonances which Chris Searle has described in his sleevenote. The subsequent (and over long) process of mastering and producing the album coincided with the first Covid lockdown and the coincidence of Evan and I both reading Defoe's "Journal of the Plague Year", which provided context and some track titles. This put me in mind of Stephen Fowler’s brilliant rubber stamp artwork, and he has created a visual representation that expresses many of the themes of the album.

OTOROKU is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of Blue Notes for Mongezi, one of the most passionate celebrations of a life in music ever laid to tape. Recorded in late 1975 by Blue Notes, then reduced to a quartet - Dudu Pukwana on  alto sax, whistle, percussion, and vocals; Johnny Dyani on bass, bells, and vocals; Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums, percussion, and vocals; and Chris McGregor on piano, and percussion - and issued the following year by Ogun, the album is a kairos; the first commercial release by one of free jazz’s seminal ensembles, captured them 13 years after their founding - at the height of their powers - delivering an explosive dirge dedicated to Mongezi Feza, their former bandmate and friend.  Blue Notes were founded in Cape Town in 1962 and stand among the most important ensembles in the history of jazz. Artistically brilliant and groundbreaking - gathering, within a few short years, a devoted following that included Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew,Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, John Stevens, and numerous others - they were also the first widely visible multiracial band in South Africa. As a mixed race band under South African apartheid; this group of friends and like-minded artists - Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo-Moholo -  existed within a context that viewed their mere existence as a dangerous and subversive act. In 1964, as the pressure mounted, they joined an exodus of musicians leaving for Europe, eventually settling in London during the following year. Sadly, not long after arriving and facing continued economic peril, the group buckled. Johnny Dyani left to join Don Cherry’s band. Moholo-Moholo and Dyani followed suit and joined Steve Lacy on tour, and the remaining members morphed into a number of ensembles that eventually grew to become Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath. In late 1975 however, Mongezi Feza - in the midst of a fruitful period collaborating with Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani, and Okay Temiz - suddenly passed away at the age of thirty from pneumonia. Nine days later, on the 23rd December, following the memorial service to their friend, Pukwana, Dyani, McGregor, and Moholo-Moholo gathered in a rehearsal room in London and set out to play. Fittingly, no discussion took place before or during the session. The music was left to say it all.   The resulting double LP coalesced into four long-form movements that occupy a side each, collectively unleashing an onslaught of free jazz fire, fluidly covering a remarkable range of moods and tactical approaches across it’s length. For anyone encountering the Blue Notes for the first time, the album must have felt like being blindsided by a brick, adding a profound sense of credence to Moholo-Moholo’s belief that free improvisation was intrinsically linked to the Pan-African temperament. In the band’s hands, the idiom sounds like nothing else and exactly as it should.  A frenzied funeral dirge, a cry, and catharsis, the record rises and falls between playful and joyous movements of deconstructed song, rhythmic and vocal tribalism, and churning, instrumental free expression. It indicates not only a possible future for musical expression - as all truly avant-garde music does - but also the very roots of music itself, illuminating, through abstraction, the far-flung, ancient roots currently carried by the New Orleans “first line” march to the grave. It is a decidedly African vision of free jazz, coalescing as a collective expression of celebration and loss on a cold London day. It is a masterpiece unfolding in real time - out on a limb and laden with risk - created by four of the most talented voices the idiom has known.   --- DUDU PUKWANA / alto sax, whistle, percussion, vocals CHRIS McGREGOR / piano, percussion LOUIS MOHOLO / drums, percussion, vocals JOHNNY DYANI / bass, bell, vocals and most of the words --- This 2022 re-issue has been made with permission and in association with Ogun records. Transferred from the original masters and featuring an exact reproduction of the original artwork. Remastered by Giuseppe Ilelasi and packaged in a high gloss sleeve. All music by the Blue Notes. All music published by Ogun Publishing Co. Cover design by Ogun.  Front cover photograph and photograph of Mongezi Feza by Geroge Hallet. Blue Notes photograph by Jurg. Back cover photograph by George Hallet and Peter Sinclair. Xhosa translation by Z. Pallo Jordan. Produced by Keith Beal and Chris McGregor. Ogun Recording would like to thank John Martyn for his assistance in making this album possible. Reissue for OTOROKU produced by Abby Thomas. Transferred from the original masters by Shaun Crook at Lockdown Studios. Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Layout for reissue by Maja Larrson.

OTOROKU is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of Blue Notes for Johnny - a defining statement by one of the greatest ensembles in the history of jazz. Recorded in mid-1987 by Blue Notes - then reduced to the trio of Dudu Pukwana on alto sax, Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums and Chris McGregor on piano - it encounters the band 25 years after their founding embarking on an inward meditation through collective music making dedicated to Johnny Dyani, their former bandmate and friend.  Blue Notes were founded in Cape Town in 1962, and stand among the most important ensembles in the history of jazz. Artistically brilliant and groundbreaking - gathering, within a few short years, a devoted following that included Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, John Stevens and numerous others - they were also the first widely visible multiracial band in South Africa. As a mixed race band under apartheid, this group of friends and like-minded artists - Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo-Moholo -  existed within a context that viewed their mere existence as a dangerous and subversive act. In 1964 they joined an exodus of musicians leaving for Europe and eventually settled in London the following year. Sadly, not long after arriving and facing continued economic peril, the group buckled. Johnny Dyani left to join Don Cherry’s band. Moholo-Moholo and Dyani followed suit and joined Steve Lacy on tour, and the remaining members morphed into a number of ensembles that eventually grew to become Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath.    Following the death of Mongezi Feza in 1975 the remaining members of the group had come back together to record Blue Notes For Mongezi, reigniting a sporadic period of activity over the coming years. Following the untimely passing of Johnny Dyani in late 1986, the last three members of the original line-up - McGregor, Pukwana and Moholo-Moholo - reformed to pay tribute to yet another of their fallen brothers.  Blue Notes for Johnny, the group’s second musical memorial to a band member, incorporates a considerably broader range of touchstone and practices than its predecessor, nodding toward the band’s foundations in be-bop and post-bop without abandoning where they had journeyed along the way. Internalising equal elements of hard-bop, modalism, and free improvisation, it is a startling creative statement, imbued with a tension that renders an equally radical and sophisticated challenge; a furious tide - slow in pace and it slow to reveal itself - masquerading in gentler forms.  A celebration and a memorial. Joyous and tragic. A real time resurrection of personal experience, Blue Notes for Johnny dodges, dances, and transforms across its two sides, refusing to be nailed down. As the trio pushes against each other, bristling tonal and rhythmic collisions leave the impression that something is bound to explode, without ever fully letting go.  Blue Notes for Johnny’s memorialisation is unwittingly doubled by capturing the final time that the Blue Notes would come together in the studio. Both Dudu Pukwana and Chris McGregor would pass away three years later in 1990, leaving Moholo-Moholo - who continues to carve a groundbreaking trajectory across the world of jazz - as the last surviving member. The album remains as a journey between an imaged future and the beginning of it all. Six friends meeting and communing through sound. Six friends who had triumphed against the odds, becoming some of the greatest creative voices of their generation. Six friends who were five, then four, and then three, before they were done. Friends who never failed, in whatever form, to come together and play. It is a story begun 60 years ago that remains just as prescient today. --- DUDU PUKWANA / alto sax CHRIS McGREGOR / piano LOUIS MOHOLO / drums  --- This 2022 re-issue has been made with permission and in association with Ogun records. Transferred from the original masters and featuring an exact reproduction of the original artwork. Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. All music by the Blue Notes. All music published by Ogun Publishing Co. Cover design by Ogun.

A major work in François Bayle’s repertoire, Jeîta ou murmure des eaux provides a journey and an immersion into a world of unleashed energies, with the Jeîta cave serving both as a backdrop and a particle accelerator. Here, the cave indeed stands for the concrete source of the composer’s inspiration as much as the mind space where metamorphoses occur. By combining such figurative spaces and immaterial sound projections, François Bayle evokes another subject, an inhabitant of the multiple and symbolic cave: the listening subject, who always reveals himself, implicitly, at the heart of François Bayle’s musical concerns and the path he has always defended: the acousmatic approach. LP housed in printed inner and outersleeve• Embossed outer sleeve• First pressing of 1000 copies

Sparkling or Silent, by the duo composed of crys cole and Oren Ambarchi, is a moment apart in their respective artistic approaches, taking a step aside and marking a point of fixation around an electroacoustic method which, while always latent in both of their works, here asserts itself as a central compositional modality. However, the electroacoustic approach is not called upon here for its formal reasons, or even less as an aesthetic line to follow. On the contrary, it is seen as a writing tool, open to all possible sonic possibilities, a tool that allows the artist to draw, within the sound itself, an intertwined space where reminiscences, impressions and sensations weave a narrative on the edge of the imagination and the moments experienced together, a narrative in which a complex and sensitive layer of sound is embedded, blurring the boundaries between artistic project, intimate journey and shared dreams.—Derived from a live performance, unfamiliar music (paris) reveals the essence of the obsessions and sonic universe of Giuseppe Ielasi, a musician whose discretion is matched only by his talent and boundless dedication to musical creation over almost 30 years. unfamiliar music (paris) is a remarkable manifestation of Ielasi’s approach, an approach in which delicacy, sometimes nostalgia, and emotions know how, with discretion, to infuse a sound universe built around polyphony and reminiscence, around textures and motifs that intertwine, combine and drive each other with grace and inspiration.François J. Bonnet

Field recordings of Lobi traditional xylophone (gyil) music recorded by Hisham Mayet on location in Ghana's Upper West Region, West Africa in 2019. Featuring Aaron Bebe Sukura, considered one of the gyil's master musicians from this area. Long form trance music with acoustic instruments sounding like several minimalist orchestras getting to maximalist sonic peaks. The gyil music of the Dagara is a complex multi-dimensional symphony of notes, bringing to life an animist expression that reveals a cultural dialogue between the spirits, the deceased, musicians, dancers, and audience alike. The intensity of this recording reaches a level of complexity that rivals techno music. It is in essence an acoustic techno music, utilizing organic instruments made of wood, leather and gourds filled with spider egg sacs for resonance and played by master musicians creating a sonic wanderlust of mesmerizing sound.

Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike. In Toliara and its surrounding region, funerals, weddings, circumcisions and other rites of passage have been celebrated for decades in ceremonies called mandriampototse. During these celebrations – which last between three and seven days – cigarettes, beer and toaky gasy (artisanal rum) are passed around while electric orchestras play on the same dirt floor as the dancing crowds and zebus. The music, tsapiky, defies any classification. This compilation showcases the diversity of contemporary tsapiky music. Locally and even nationally renowned bands played their own songs on makeshift instruments, blaring through patched-up amps and horn speakers hung in tamarind trees, projecting the music kilometers away. Lead guitarists and female lead singers are the central figures of tsapiky. Driven as much by their creative impulses as by the need to stand out in a competitive market, the artists distinguish themselves stylistically through their lyrics, rhythms or guitar riffs. They must also master a wide repertoire of current tsapiky hits, which the families that attend inevitably request before parading in front of the orchestra with their offerings.This work, a constant push and pull between distinction and imitation, is nourished by fertile exchanges between various groups: acoustic and electric, rural and urban, coastal or inland. What results during these ceremonies is a music of astonishing intensity and creativity, played by artists carving out their own path, indifferent to the standards of any other music industry: Malagasy, African or global.

Numbering less than 1000 people, the Dayak Benuaq from the Eastern Kalimantan region of Indonesian Borneo still practice many of their traditional ceremonial customs. This album of field recordings presents the music associated with the kwangkay, the secondary mortuary ritual celebrated by the Dayak Benuaq, recorded live on location by Vincenzo Della Ratta. According to the Benuaq belief system, upon death the soul of the human being is transformed into the liau, associated with the physical body, and the kelelungan, associated with the intellect or the head. Both the liau and the kelelungan temporarily reside in a sort of cosmic location, connected respectively with the bones and the skull of the deceased, who has entered a state of deep unconsciousness, as yet neither pertaining completely to the realm of the living, nor to that of the dead. Music plays a key role within the kwangkay, as it is crucial for guiding the liau and kelelungan spirits to their final destinations. It is also intended to please the spirits of the dead by providing them with entertainment. This ritual includes a night dance performed for the spirits and accompanied by a musical piece known as the ngerangkau. These rites and ceremonies are often dedicated to several deceased persons and are held within a house belonging to one of their family members. Featured here are two different versions of the ngerangkau, with their long, trance-inducing rhythmic gong patterns. There are two more tracks on the album which are not specifically related to the kwangkay. Titi mati is a gong piece commonly played to proclaim the recent death of a villager. And finally, the nocturnal soundscape of a village by the river Mahakam, a channel of transport and communication which is essential for the local people of the Benuaq territories.  This album was recorded live April 2011, in the districts (kecamatan) of Jempang and Melak of the West Kutai Regency (Kabupaten Kutai Barat), in the east Kalimantan Province (Provinsi Kalimatan Timur) of Indonesian Borneo.

Recorded at night by candlelight in the Temple of La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, Music for Intersecting Planes captures the immediacy of sound in space. Cellist Leila Bordreuil and organist Kali Malone join in a work of austere, ritualistic presence, where the granularity of air, the vibration of strings, feedback, and subdued sine waves intersect in sculptural form.Minimal in means yet expansive in effect, the music slowly unfolds like beads on a thread, punctuated by silence and deep breaths. Bellows whistle within feathered string harmonics, interference patterns pulsate throughout the chapel, and the environment itself becomes part of the composition, with ringing church bells and motorcycles passing in the distance.Performed live in single takes, the music balances patience and intensity, composure and chance. The collaboration reveals new terrain: more tonal and composed than Bordreuil’s work, more textural and raw than Malone’s.Music for Intersecting Planes is both severe and tender, an elemental convergence of cello and organ that resonates with the timeless intrigue of acoustic phenomena.Released by Ideologic Organ in collaboration with La Becque Editions.

Limited edition 10" vinylSum Variations is an e.p featuring two long form studies of Josephine’s song ‘The Sum Of Us All’ from 2013. These were recorded in Spain and Morocco, respectively, in collaboration with two different ensembles.These two variations offer a glimpse into the early exploration of the song, which Foster laterembedded in her electronic album song cycle, ‘Godmother’ (Fire Records, 2021).Side AThe Sum Of Us All (Joujouka)song written by Josephine Foster; instrumental coda theme by Victor HerreroRecorded live in the village of Joujouka, Ahl-Srif mountains, Morocco, 2012Mastered by Brian SulpizioJosephine Foster - guitar/voiceAbdellah Ziyat - liraAbdeslam Boukhzar - oud/voiceAbdeslam Rrtoubi - liraAhmed El Attar - farad/zowakKamanja - oud/voiceMichael Zerang – percussionMohamed El Attar -liraMustapha El Attar - farad/zowakPaz Lenchantin – violin/voiceShiekh Ahmed Talha - oud/voiceVictor Herrero – guitarSide BThe Sum Of Us All (Vejer)song written by Josephine FosterRecorded and mixed by Gyda ValtysdottirVejer de la Frontera, Spain, 2012Mastered by Brian SulpizioJosephine Foster – voice/guitar/harpGyda Valtysdottir – cello/voiceShahzad Ismaily – percussionVictor Herrero – Portuguese guitarand incorporating some sound samples from the Joujouka session.Artwork - Josephine Foster

Kali Malone and Drew McDowall present Magnetism, their first collaborative album born from a decade-long friendship and ignited by a single day of creative synergy. When Malone stepped into McDowall’s Brooklyn home studio, a shared vision immediately took root and set the course for a remarkable collaboration between these two singular artists.On Magnetism, Malone’s poignant and evocative melodies manifest through McDowall’s signature timbral synthesis, creating a unified voice that soars freely and radiates with vitality. Technically, the duo employs an exquisite blend of Karplus-Strong synthesis, distortion and just intonation. Kali and Drew embrace these tools with refined grace while moving fluidly within their musical framework. Charged by the magnetic pull of repetition, saturation, and resonance, Magnetism pulses as a living music that captivates the senses and lingers long in the mind after the final notes fade.

LP is out-of-printCD includes two short duo sets originally available as digital-only bonus tracks. Download available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC. This recording gathers all of the music from the final night of Otomo and Sachiko's first residency in 2009 which saw the pair joined by the long running trio of Evan Parker, John Edwards and Tony Marsh and special guest John Butcher. Butcher played duos with both Otomo and Sachiko and joined the quintet for a rousing sextet: stunning twin saxophone interplay, the unparalleled open-ness of the Marsh/Edwards rhythm pairing, Sachiko's deft high frequency interventions and Otomo's guitar at the centre - moving between abrasive textural invention and suggestive single note runs of ever-shifting melody. REVIEWS "As for indicating a place in the curiously sculpted bridges between improvised music and sound art, well, the simple singularity of these daring and committed performances should bear out their significance." Clifford Allen, Tiny Mix Tapes "This Quintet/Sextet album is recorded beautifully and it needed to be to capture all the nuance involved ... These are musicians at the top of their craft." Free Jazz Blog "...fresh and inspired. The recording stands as a finely-honed classic of classically approached free improvisation: the players dance and flow smoothly and effortlessly with and around the sounds of their partners." - Henry Kuntz Point of Departure Review

Tracklisting: A1 The Solar Model - 13:51A2 The Laws of Motion - 03:28A3 For George Saliba - 03:42B1 The Oud of Ziryab - 04:46 B2 For Ibn Al Nafis - 04:17 B3 For Mansa Musa - 03:44 B4 The Birds are Singing - 06:01  Pat Thomas returns to OTOROKU for his fourth collection of solo piano improvisations, this time recorded in a studio setting at London’s Fish Factory.  For 25 years now, beginning with Nur (Emanem) and continuing through Al-Khwarizmi Variations (Fataka), The Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari (OTOROKU), and now The Solar Model of Ibn Al-Shatir, Pat Thomas has drawn on the Arabic world for titles for his solo piano work - specifically the long-standing Islamic tradition of astronomical invention. For Thomas, the work of the polymaths he dedicates his music to has been sidelined by Eurocentrism, just as the Arabic origin of “jass” and the scalar, intervallic and polyphonic contributions made by Arab musicians have been routinely overlooked. Islamic innovation is at the heart of Thomas’ solo projects and draws a direct link between his Sufi faith and a totally unique style of playing. Each of his solo piano records is a dedication - not just to the innovators Thomas names but to the beauty of the universe in all its complexities.    Starting standing up with one hand inside the piano and one on the keys, ‘The Solar Model’ begins with single staccato bass notes appearing like chondrites in the darkness, occasionally tumbling towards a rhythm and then falling out of it. Metallic string work starts to pull towards an unseen centre and eventually notes from the upper registers appear, clear and light. With both hands drawn to the keys, Thomas builds towards scintillating beauty, carried through “The Laws of Motion” and propelling us towards the A-side closer, “For George Saliba”. Notes fall rapidly, colliding to form a crowded core with a warped sort of bebop in its middle - distinctive Pat with a nod to the Duke’s groove. The whole landscape of the A side swings with this one movement, until its energy is spent on one last sweeping rotation.  On the B-side, “The Oud of Ziryab” notes to the instrument maker who added a 5th pair of strings to the Oud. The single bass notes of the first side are swapped for clusters, bursting together and decaying in space. Making use of the sustain pedal and the silence of a studio setting, it’s one of the most open, lush recordings of Thomas at the piano we’ve heard - more Muhal Richard Abrams than Monk, the lower end thundering under rapid, crystalline blues.  “For Mansa Musa” brings back a swing instantly recognisable as Pat, with a huge euphoric lift halfway that crowns the record but the album’s end title “The Birds are Singing” is more celestial, more chromatic - a reminder that the spiritual matters just as much as the physical for Thomas. --- Released in an edition of 500 LPs and 500 CDsRecorded at the Fish Factory, London on Wednesday 6th March, 2024 by Benedic LamdinMixed by Benedic Lamdin Mastered by Giuseppe Ielesi Photographs by Abby Thomas Pressed at Vinyl Press UK

Tracklisting: 1. Aoshi 2. Dany Boya 3. Ankotsubaki Gaiden 4. Taria 5. Kamome 6. Furusato 7. Narayamabushiko 8. Maronie 9. Shiroi Inu"Japanese bluesman Kan Mikami is nothing less than an unalloyed force of nature. A skin-shredding blast of frozen wind from the poor, rural north of Japan that he calls home. In the late 1960s, like thousands of other Japanese young people Mikami made his way to Tokyo in search of a life different from that of his parents. Since then he has forcefully carved out a space for himself in the culture as a modernist poet, a raging folk singer, an author, a actor, an engaging TV personality, and one of Japan’s most uniquely powerful performers. For most of Mikami’s career as a singer, he has performed solo. Just him and his electric guitar against the world, creating jagged A-minor vamps to drive along the surreal wisdom of his lyrics. But he’s equally at home in more demanding improvisational contexts such as those provided here by John Edwards on bass and Alex Neilson on drums. Their dense propulsive textures seem to spur on Mikami, his voice arcing powerfully into fragmented spaces, his guitar darting, colliding, shedding jagged and angular splinters of sound. A pulsing, raging maelstrom of serrated-edged energy. Gruff, rough, honest and very, very real." - Alan Cummings --- Kan Mikami / vocals, guitar John Edwards / bass Alex Neilson / percussion --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on 3rd April 2013 by James Dunn. Mixed by John Chantler. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi

2023 repress of the OTOROKU re-issue of the legendary English free improvisation LP 'The Topography of The Lungs' by Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and Han Bennink. This was Evan Parker’s first recording as a "leader" and was the first release on Incus, the label Parker founded with guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. This re-issue has been produced from an original vinyl pressing from Evan's archives - carefully transcribed and restored by Andreas [LUPO] Lubich at Calyx in Berlin and features the original liner notes from Parker along with updated notes penned in 2014. "To talk further of the music we play is difficult. It’s criteria for success exist, but are elusive and indefinable beyond the intuitive level. We operate without rules (pre-composed material) or well-defined code of behaviour (fixed tempi, tonalities, serial structures etc.), and yet are able to distinguish success from failure." - From Evan Parker’s original liner notes (1970) This pressing of The Topography of The Lungs comes in a limited edition of 500 copies.

LP reissue of Collective Calls, the first duo LP from Evan Parker and percussionist Paul Lytton. Mythically alluded to as ‘An Improvised Urban Psychodrama In Eight Parts”, Collective Calls utilises electronics, pre-records and homemade instruments to wryly in/act self investigation. Having just recorded the cliff jumping Music Improvisation Company with Derek Bailey, Christine Jeffrey, Hugh Davies and Jamie Muir, Parker was at the point where [he] was thinking, ‘what’s the next thing?’ On Collective Calls, only the 5th release to appear on the newly minted Incus label, percussionist Paul Lytton arrives with an arsenal of sound making sources to push Parker into ever new territory. Recorded in the loft of The Standard Essenco Co on Southwark Street by Bob Woolford (Topography of the Lungs, AMM The Crypt), Collective Calls has more in common with noise or music concrete than with jazz; sitting comfortably alongside Italian messrs Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza or the husband-wife duo of Anima Sound. According to Martin Davidson, it was a Folkways record called Sounds of the Junkyard that Lytton was obsessed with around the time of this release - its track titles like “Steel Saw Cutting Channel Iron in Two Places” working to give you a good idea of the atmosphere of Collective Calls. Paul Lytton had encountered the use of electronics in music in 1968 when he was invited to play drums on the recording of An Electric Storm by White Noise (along with David Vorhaus, Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson). He had seen Hugh Davies using contact mics in the Music Improvisation Company, and soon set about assembling a Dexion frame akin to drummer John Stevens’, except that his own was armed with several single-coil electric guitar pickups, long wires and strings with connected foot-pedals to modulate pitch. Influenced as much by Stockhausen, Cage and David Tudor as he was by Max Roach and Milford Graves, Lytton’s percussion is abstract, expressionist and at times totally mutant. Sometimes rolling extremely fast, then screeching almost backwards over feedback, Lytton gives Parker room to play some of his weirdest work. Parker is listed as performing both saxophones, his own homemade contraptions, and cassette recorder - regularly thickening the already murky brew by playing back previous recordings of the duo. Imagining their set up in a 70s loft, it’s an assemblage more akin to what today's free ears might see at a Sholto Dobie show, spread out on the floor of the Hundred Years Gallery, the shadow of Penultimate Press lurking in a corner. It’s a testament to Parker’s shape shifting sound - the ever present link to birdsong being at its most warped here - terrifically free and unfussy, wild and loose from any of the dogma that might come in later Brit-prov years.

Originally recorded and released in 1980, "Six of One" beautifully captures the detail in Evan Parker's high frequency split tones for which he is now perhaps better known. Five years on from "Saxophone Solos" and with circular breathing and polyphonics well worn into his live performances, Parker's experimentations here produce sustained passages of brilliant flight. Set into the echoes and resonances of a St Judes On The Hill church, the results are stunning.  "The recital commences with a split tone line of twining sine waves that expand and contract in telepathic collusion. Pitch dynamics narrow and redefine themselves more emphatically on the second piece where sliding legato rivulets born of Parker’s compartmentalized tonguing create the sonic semblance of up to three separate voices emanating from the single reed speech center. It’s a feat he’s accomplished innumerable times since, but every fresh hearing never fails to open an aperture into a style of improvisatory expression that is at once wholly alien and intensely mesmerizing. There’s also something strangely subterranean about the flood of sounds, like the rush percolating water through an underground aquifer system enroute to unknown tributaries. The third piece trades tightly braided tones for leaner and more linear phrases, but a vaporous trail of phantom notes still clings to the central line. And so it goes, with the illusion of repetition guiding the momentum, though Parker never explicitly repeats himself." - Derek Taylor, All About Jazz Transferred from the original master tapes and released in an edition of 500.

Download will be avaliable on release day - 17th November. First vinyl re-issue of Evan Parker’s duo with George Lewis. Transferred from the original masters, we discovered that the original Incus LP was cut at the wrong speed - and so, we present the first vinyl issue of the correct masters, or ‘mastas’ as Adam Skeaping, legendary engineer who is also responsible for Six of One and Compatibles, fondly calls them.  Skeaping, always working with the latest in recording technology for the time, has a knack for gaining access to remarkable spaces. Good spaces that were cheap because no one else had discovered them. The Art Workers Guild is a Georgian Hall in Bloomsbury, London, with lofty ceilings and hard wooden floors. It’s the perfect room to exercise an instrument to its full length, to ‘run the full length of the staircase’ in Parker's words. Two bells to ring off the floor and remain in dextrous, airy resonance. Recorded at 30ips on enormous reels, the recording captures all the fine filigree detail so celebrated on Parker’s later ‘Six of One’, though here we are treated to tenor as well as soprano, plus, of course, George Lewis’ trombone. Parker and Lewis first met at Moers festival, Lewis having just played excerpts of Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ with Anthony Braxton. Living in Paris, it wasn’t so hard for a young Parker to invite him for a session on his new imprint, Incus. Though having been part of the AACM, toured with Count Basie and made records for Black Saint, this would be Lewis’ first foray into British improv, excited by the idea the Bailey and Parker were attempting to open up the notion of improvisation to include “the freshness of the immediate encounter”.  Lewis had not long recorded his solo LP, which mixes lively hints of Ellington and tender lyricism with total experimentation in three part overdubbed trombone. From Saxophone to Trombone veers towards his wilder end of technicality, and features some of Lewis’ rarer, starker improv - all avant garde burbles and bubbles, breath control and scalar flights. It’s a recording of two young masters, documented beautifully, and released for the first time on vinyl at its intended speed.