Matthew Wright’s album Cracked Glaze is performed by virtuoso vocalist Sofia Jernberg, Ensemble Klang (Michiel van Dijk, Erik-Jan de With, Anton van Houten, Pete Harden, Saskia Lankhoorn and Joey Marijs) and Wright’s improv/electronic group Spheric Totemic (Mandhira de Saram, Neil Charles, Alexander Hawkins, Stephen Davis and Matthew Wright).The 46-minute piece was performed live, and is built around a ‘spine’ of one long, descending scale which takes nineteen minutes to unfurl, and which then repeats with variations. Other layers of notation provide supporting roles. Superimposed against this notated ‘glaze’ are time-brackets (essentially start and stop times) for the improvisors to play solo or in groups. Wright also sampled, processed and sculpted the live sound design from the stage, and made significant post-production enhancements for the album release.From Matthew Wright’s sleeve notes: “In ceramics, a cracked glaze can occur during the firing process, when intense heat creates fractures, resulting in a tension between a smooth form and a tarnished surface. With Cracked Glaze I’m interested in how the elements of musical notation, improvisation and technology collide and ‘crack’ each other to produce catalytic results.”From Nate Wooley’s sleeve notes: “… this whole recording is rare and wonderful … Wright’s deft handling of the piece’s form and balance, the joy of hearing great improvisors at the top of their game, a murderers’ row new music ensemble, and a near flawless recorded document—but ultimately, the question that should be asked of this and all recordings is whether it leaves us wanting to return to it, demanding to know more … This is up to you, but repeated trips down this path will be rewarded.” --- Commissioned by Ensemble Klang for Musical Utopias 2024Premiered 12 January 2024 at Korzo Theatre, The Hague, NetherlandsLive sound engineering and recording by Micha de KanterPost-production, sound design and mastering by Matthew Wright

" ... as vital and immediate as anything already in the extended canon of Canadian-born, UK-based jazz master Kenny Wheeler."— Paris-MoveThe first release of a 1995 studio session, produced by Evan Parker. The Kenny Wheeler Sextet includes Ray Warleigh, Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence and Tony Levin.Evan Parker instigated four recording sessions with Kenny Wheeler and members of this sextet between 1995 and 2003, with a compilation of Wheeler’s compositions from these sessions issued on 'Dream Sequence' (2003); the only sextet track on 'Dream Sequence', “Kind Folk”, was taken from the 1995 session which is presented in full here for the first time. 'What Was' includes compositions by Wheeler, Ray Warleigh, Stan Sulzmann, Mike Pyne and Lee Konitz.From Nick Smart’s sleevenotes:“Any previously unreleased studio session from a great artist is an exciting prospect, especially an artist sadly no longer with us but one whose legacy is still being cared for and curated by many of the musicians with whom they were closest. Such is the case with this outstanding recording from Kenny Wheeler’s sextet at Gateway Studio in late 1995, capturing a special period in his life with a special group of colleagues.On 'What Was' we hear Kenny at 65 years old and still at the height of his musical powers, but with the mature finesse and refinement consistent with all his playing during the nineties and particularly on his most successful recording of all time, made just a few months after this session in February 1996, 'Angel Song' (ECM).This period is perhaps a kind of ‘second chapter’ in the evolution of his playing; after the fiery Wheeler of the 1970s we hear him now still full of passion and every bit as assured, but with the more reflective, glass-like quality that refined itself into his sound and self-expression around this time. In addition to that, this new release also brings together many of the people deeply connected with Kenny and his musical world throughout his entire career.It’s another treasure in the important legacy of a much missed, and irreplaceable musician.” --- Kenny Wheeler, flugelhornRay Warleigh, alto saxophone and fluteStan Sulzmann, tenor saxophoneJohn Parricelli, guitarChris Laurence, bassTony Levin, drumsRecorded September 29, 1995Gateway Studio, KingstonEngineer: Steve LoweProducer: Evan ParkerMastering, 2025: Filipe Gomes at Arco Barco, RamsgatePhotographs: Caroline ForbesSleevenotes by Nick Smart, Stan Sulzmann, Chris Laurence, John Parricelli & Evan Parker

CD 1, Unitarian Chapel, Warwick, 1994 and 2023:“Andy Isham organised a concert in the Unitarian Chapel, Warwick on 29 June 1994. As part of a longer concert I played a solo piece on soprano which is the first track on CD 1.  It was not long enough to issue on its own and things moved on. Since then I have kept coming back to it because I think it is some of the best solo playing I have ever done. The idea came to me that I should go back to the chapel and see what it was about the space which drew that playing out. As the idea took shape, the saying of Heraclitus about not being able to step in the same river twice started swirling around too. And there it was – I had the title. The “concept”, even – or at least, the conceit … ”CDs 2-4, a sequence of solo recordings made at Arco Barco, Ramsgate, 2018-24:“I was introduced by Matt Wright, the other half of Trance Map, to Filipe Gomes and his Arco Barco studio in Ramsgate on the Kent coast. The studio is located in the upper floors of one of the former chandlers’ work spaces overlooking the harbour. A loft space with control room, a live main room and a smaller, less reverberant room. The acoustic response of the live room and Fil’s passion for sound recording has made Arco Barco my favourite studio and I have recorded there as often as possible.
 Over the many visits Fil has tested various microphones and their positioning. The variation means that some recordings are noticeably “dryer” and/or “closer” than others. Much of the thinking was inspired by the work of the late Michael Gerzon and his pioneering ambisonics. What I brought to the occasions was variability in reed behaviour and embouchure and perhaps most importantly my state of mind.”
THE HERACLITEAN TWO-STEP, etc.
BOOK CONTENTS:-- Writing by John Corbett (writer, curator, producer; Corbett vs Dempsey Gallery, Chicago), Filipe Gomes (Arco Barco, Ramsgate), Richard Leigh (writer), Stephen C. Middleton (writer/poet) and Robert Stillman (musician).-- An extended interview with Evan Parker by Martin Davidson (Emanem label).-- An email exchange between Evan Parker and Hans Falb (Konfrontationen Festival, Nickelsdorf).-- Writing and visual artwork by Evan Parker. 

Helping to mark Evan Parker’s 80th birthday in 2024, the book compiles both historical and contemporary perspectives on Evan’s work, by a range of contributors as well as Evan himself. The book also includes a selection of Evan’s visual collages, which are shared publicly for the first time.

Play Monk arrives in a gatefold, reverse board 2CD designed by Maja Larrson. Cover photograph of Thelonius Monk at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco in 1968 by Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter. Inside photographs of حمد [Ahmed] by Stefan Lacandler. Recorded and mixed by Benedic Lamdin on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd March, 2025 at Fish Factory Studios, London. Mastered by Andreas LUPO Lubich. Produced by Seymour Wright/OTOROKU. After 6 albums re-imagining the work of Ahmed Abdul-Malik, أحمد [Ahmed] turn to the material of Malik’s bandmate Thelonious Monk in the group's ongoing search for future music.  Before going on to develop his own groundbreaking approach to jazz, Ahmed Abdul-Malik worked in Thelonious Monk’s late 1950’s quartets - appearing on seminal Monk recordings: Thelonious In Action (1958) and Misterioso (1958), and the more recently unearthed Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (2005). Abdul-Malik and Monk share a critical engagement with time - specifically in challenging its linear trajectory and offering sites and modes of synthesis and rupture instead. In their music, fragments of time are scattered and re-arranged in the present, an idea central too to the project of أحمد [Ahmed]. Over several decades, all four members of أحمد [Ahmed] have engaged with Monk’s standards in various individual and collective ways, but Play Monk, recorded in the same three-day London studio sessions as Sama’a (Audition), is the first released documentation of the group's versions of Monk’s music which began with a spontaneous interpretation of ‘Evidence’ in Novara, Italy, 2023.   Across 2CDs, أحمد [Ahmed] atomize Monk’s ‘standards’ - transforming each composition into a shifting quantum time artifact. The melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and spatial gestures of each piece become complex vernacular forms, creating a dialogue in time and a (red)shifting lens through which to view our material present. Into the fissures of Monk’s form, أحمد [Ahmed]  pour their own play - colliding and dancing with Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, Caribbean diasporic music, European improvisation and Jah Shaka in their pursuit of future music. “Monk’s music is not played so much as grasped, condensed and catapulted through the vagaries of time,” writes Fielding Hope. “Monk famously used to dance in circles. In flight from the numerical bind, أحمد [Ahmed] make music that sounds like it could float on forever.”

A masterfully expressive solo Oud set from improviser and composer, Kareem Samara, recorded at Cafe OTO in February 2026 as part of a bill with Abdullah Miniawy Trio. Starting with a deceptively stark cluster of notes, Samara lays out his palette before leading us on. Gentle, probing motifs are intertwined with lyrical flourishes, conjuring a quiet, irresistible momentum. He weaves these threads together in an intricate, spiralling pattern whose lines seem to shift and recombine with every subsequent listen. There is a generosity to Samara's approach; nothing is hidden or overly adorned. He moves unhurriedly from one facet of the Oud to the next, presenting each in turn with a transparency that cannot help but draw you in. But, like a clear body of water, it takes a little while to adjust to this clarity before you can perceive the layers of depth below. When you do, you realise that there's a whole other world here, stretching out beneath the surface. Two thirds of the way into the set, the expanse of this world stretches out further still, with a sudden trilling of high-pitched notes, sounding like nothing so much as a flock of Blaise Bontems' singing-bird automata. But in this "birdsong" we can also hear echoes of the Oud and its amplification, both; its sound expanded and refracted into something new. So deftly does Samara incorporate the technological augmentation of the instrument that it's almost a shock when the unprocessed Oud is reintroduced. But it is immediately apparent that this is a dialogue not only between the instrument and itself, but with past and present also. In such a way Samara honours the traditions of the instrument whilst also giving us a brief glimpse of the future. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

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