"One of the most haunting, beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard this year." - Monorail Four pieces by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, a pioneer of “holy minimalism.” The album centers around a never-before-released rendition of “Silentium,” the second movement of Pärt’s most famous concerto, Tabula Rasa, performed by Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry. The group plays “Silentium” at nearly half the speed of the best-known version, released on ECM in 1984. The piece, known for its healing properties for the dying and often used in palliative care facilities (one patient famously called it “angel music”), is breathtaking at half speed, seemingly stilling time itself. The album compiles some of the most stunning renditions of Pärt’s music ever recorded. “Vater Unser (Arr. for trombone & string ensemble)” is somehow warm and austere at once. A miniature epic. Pianist Marcel Worm’s solo version of “Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka” is as beautiful as anything we’ve ever heard. “Fratres for Strings and Percussion” is one of Arvo Pärt’s most celebrated works. The Hungarian State Opera Orchestra’s version is iconic, filled with emotional playing right on the verge of overly romantic, but never tipping over. Pärt’s approach to both music and life is as sparse as the compositions he creates. He once said, “I have nothing to say… Music says what I need to say. And it is dangerous to say anything, because if I’ve said it already in words there might be nothing left for my music.” Silentium continues Mississippi Records’ fascination with this great contemporary composer. 

GONDOLAS Graham Lambkin/James Rushford CD 1: Through Clouds or Something You Know What Mountain Silver Rain Wild Rainbows A Leaf Under Our Control Rise of the Machines CD 2: Playbit Traditional Noise Wall Gondolas recorded/mixed at LHSH, London with additional recording at OTO Project Space, London and Neues Schloss, Stuttgart 2019-2023

Look Out! is a new anthology of graphic and narrative art from Glasgow (and her satellites). Old Hair Comix has been initiated as a holding cell in which to gather the work of mavrick artists that draw the non-idiomatic, psychedelic, folk, rap, techno, ambient, pop, free moods typically dispersed through an overlapping and undulating art/music scene. Often congealed into the form of posters, album art, t-shirts, pamphlets and phone ephemera their works are now available bound and portable for your pleasure. Sixty pages of colour risograph and digital printing by Sunday's Print Service, published by Old Hair Comix; a division of OLD HAIR CORPS.   Your Look Out! artists are: Marc Baines, Rob Churm, Jim Colquhoun, Malcy Duff, Aki Hassan, Jamie Johnson, Peter 'Suds' McKenna, Metaphrog, Julian Dicken, Hardeep Pandhal, Verity Pease, Mick Peter, Oliver Pitt, Sue Tompkins, Nat Walpole, Fritz Welch, Al White

A mesmerising, chimerical set from Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist, Patrick Shiroishi, recorded at OTO on a bill with Alex Zhang Hungtai in November 2024. Starting with plain, unadorned saxophone tones, Shiroishi immediately sets about drawing the listener into his own distinctive sonic landscape. Looped refrains slowly build between voice and instrument as Shiroishi weaves a wonderfully lyrical tangle of saxophone lines in the gaps, before drawing out a weighty swell of bass tones which only serve to let the rest swirl ever higher. From this point, Shiroishi doesn't look back, covering a remarkable amount of ground in the set's 35 minute duration. Circular breathing runs spiral around jagged little stabs of melody, blurring into samples of recorded speech which hiss and fracture before falling away completely. For a while, all that remains are the ebbing waves of Shiroishi's breath through the reeds, as a languid saxophone melody swoops and darts amongst the leavings of the low tide. The waters will soon return though, this time not so much a swell as a raging torrent. Shiroishi's wonderfully stark, plaintive voice calls forth the flood. Layering with fragments of saxophone and electronics, the currents soon become a swirling cataract that the speakers seem barely able to contain, until finally the entire deluge is itself washed away. From those first few simple notes, the distance covered is no small thing, for artists and audience alike. -- Recorded by Shaun CrookMixed by Patrick ShiroishiMastered by Oli BarrettCover photo by Jordan Reyes

For his last solo record ‘Through a Room’, Bill Nace shifted his usual saturated guitar sound and added tapes, hurdy gurdy, doughnut pipe, bird calls and the mysterious Japanese taishōgoto. Setting up for the final night of his three day residency at OTO with only the taishōgoto soundchecked, Nace hoped that Parker would arrive with his small soprano as its opposite. “I’ve been interested in state change, you know, playing until there’s a shift in time.” Known for his development of multiphonics to produce a constantly shifting pattern, Evan Parker has evolved an instantly recognizable sound - his work the soprano most distinct. Happily, it was the soprano Evan brought with him and as soon as the two start to play they entwine - taking off in a double helix of keys and reed primed for endless reconfiguration. Space warps under the velocity of playing, the pitch rising unrelentingly. It felt like unending lift off in the room, sheer energy until the last note makes remember your feet have been on the floor the whole time. Total time bending shredding.  --- Bill Nace / electric two string taishōgotoEvan Parker / soprano saxophone --- Arrives in a tip on sleeve with artwork by Bill Nace. Edition of 500 released as a split with Bill Nace's Open Mouth Records. If you're in the USA we advise you buy locally.  Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Friday 25th May, 2024 by Billy Steiger. Mixed and mastered by Brian Haran. Cover art by Bill Nace. Photo by Dawid Laskowski. Layout by Neil Burker & Bill Nace. 

To celebrate our 17th birthday, we're delighted to offer a free recording of the phenomenal first meeting between Theodora Laird (voice), John McGrath (guitar) and Douglas Benford (harmonium). Recorded at OTO as part of Phil Durrant's 'Combinations' event in January 2025, the set may only be 10 minutes long, but contains so many layers that we'll be unravelling it for a long time to come. Laird's remarkable voice swoops and flutters with a stark, intimate quality that feels almost confessional, conjuring an atmosphere all its own. McGrath's guitar blurs the lines between acoustic and synthetic as clusters of notes fizz and sputter, refracting and evolving with a granular intensity as distinctive as it is complex. Ebbing and flowing through the fragments, Benford's juddering, yearning reeds pitch and yaw, sometimes swelling like a spring tide, sometimes sharp and fractured like splinters of ice. All too soon, the myriad swirling strands settle, but their reverberations linger for a long while. Representing three great improvising musicians fully in the moment, and embodying so much of what we want OTO to provide a home for, this is something very special indeed. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover photo by Stuart Wilding

OTOroku is delighted to present 'not bad', an intricate and intensely galvanizing release from Breathing Heavy, the saxophone and sampler duo of Sam Andreae and Ciaran Mackle. Careening straight out of the blocks with a wildly invigorating immediacy, the duo scarcely seem to take a breath over the next thirty electrifying minutes. Myriad interweaving woodwind lines whirl and reel in convulsive fashion, overlapping patterns weave and dance like reflected light from water, and a dizzying array of motifs are conjured and discarded as if the pair were concerned about leaving any scrap of energy unspent. All the listener need do is to simply bask in the joyful tumult. Andreae's alto saxophone playing ranges widely from fluttering trills and an almost whinnying lyricism, to hefty squalls that seem to revel in a raw physicality. Alongside this (around, over, under, through), Mackle creates a densely swirling cataract of stuttering, tumbling sonic fragments that continuously reflect the entire entity back on itself like a collapsing hall of mirrors. There is obviously a level of deeply attuned interplay at work here that seems long-honed, but any attempt to discern the source of any given sound is rendered utterly moot. A duo performance this may be, but the end result is an undeniably symbiotic, fully-realised whole. -- Sam Andreae: alto saxophoneCiaran Mackle: sampler Recorded by Breathing HeavyMixed by Rory SalterMastered by Oli BarrettArtwork by Mio Ebisu  Thanks to Ash and Flora, Mio and Suzume and to Rory!

Captivating and deeply felt new audio work by Blanc Sceol, aka the duo of Stephen Shiell and Hannah White. Originally commissioned for broadcast on the deep sea 'Radio Amnion' sound project, the piece is written for and performed on the bespoke, one-of-a-kind Orbit instrument, designed and made by Stephen and Hannah in collaboration with master luthier Kai Tönjes. Over the course of thirty minutes the piece drifts and unfurls in an entrancing, enveloping flow, utilising the instrument's unique sonic qualities to create something truly special. This recording is Blanc Sceol's response to a commission from Jol Thoms to create a new audio work for the June edition of his deep sea sound project 'Radio Amnion', where, each month at the time of the full moon, the abyssal waters of Cascadia Basin resonate with the deep frequencies and voices of invited artists, relayed in the sea through a submerged neutrino telescope experiment’s calibration system. Through the duo's sound and ecology work with Surge Cooperative on the Channelsea river they have found connection to Abbey Mills pumping station, Joseph Bazalgette’s Victorian ‘cathedral of sewage’, his overground homage to the underground network of pipes, an operational site that still moves water and humanure beneath the city today. This audio work captures the spinning frequencies of the Orbit, recorded in the chambers of the sewer substation, to be played out to the depths of the deep sea, creating a poetic resonance between these sounds and spaces, a spell of connection between the clear, linear, progressive features of our engineered water networks and the dark, wet, yielding, cyclical unknowns of the deep sea, where the sub station searches for neutrinos and on the full moon translates human-made frequencies into light and vibration for the seafloor. The words in the piece are a series of ‘one word poems’ created by participants from Blanc Sceol's ‘Sonic Meditations with the Full Moon’ sessions over the last year. Working with moon time through our deep listening practice, and the tidal phases of the Channelsea river, Orbit coordinates these cyclical flows in celebration of the fullness of the cosmic body that holds the tension between the earth and its inhabitants, and gives us all rhythm. Orbit the instrument:The Orbit consists of a red cedar decagon body, the resonating chamber, which is spun by one set of hands, bringing rhythm and flow with the changing pace of the orbit, as the other hands hold a bow to the ten strings, seeking out the varying chords and harmonic frequencies. As the two work together so the orbit begins to sing and soar, a myriad of changing, whirling pitch shifting drones. In 2017 Stephen created a prototype instrument, inspired by Uakti’s ‘torre’ and Walter Smetak’s ‘Ronda’, a plastic barrel strung with ten strings and played by two people - one who turns the barrel, and one who holds a bow to the strings. Many years and many tweaks later, in early 2023 we finally collaborated with master luthier Kai Tönjes to create an upgraded version, and ‘Orbit’ was born. -- Mixed and mastered by Ian ThompsonCover design by Oli Barrett from photos by Joe Thoms Originally commissioned by and broadcast on Radio Anion: https://radioamnion.net/

Due to a production delay these will now not ship until 7th March. We apologise for the inconvience and thank you for your patience.  It is a huge honour to publish Peter Brotzmann’s final concerts on OTOROKU. When we invited Peter to do a residency at Cafe OTO back in February 2023 we had no idea these would be his last ever shows and he played with such power it would have been hard for anyone present to believe he would never play publicly again. Recorded over two nights this grouping of Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, John Edwards on bass and Steve Noble on drums feels especially resonant and personal to Cafe OTO. The first time Peter performed at the venue back in 2010 it was in a trio with John and Steve, (released as The Worse The Better kick starting our in-house record label) so it feels fitting that the last shows he ever played here should also have that trio at its core. The quartet last played together at OTO back in 2013, (released as Mental Shake on OTOROKU), and Brotzmann humbly opened the return of the group saying, "it's a pleasure to be back” before launching straight into a long blast on the alto sax, swiftly met by the relentless energy and engagement of Adasiewicz, Edwards and Noble. There are moments of tenderness to Brotzmann’s playing that feels specific to this small group - one that cuts across three generations - and in a space that’s come to feel like home. Of course, there is dizzying, forceful, singleminded playing, but even amongst a relentless chorus of cymbal splashes and busy vibraphone clusters the lyrical, spacious moments are savoured and held onto. As he remarked after at the end of the group's first visit to OTO, “the Quartet is, for us, a great adventure.” Peter clearly wanted to play to the end. Did he know these might be his last shows? We will never know. What is clear is he wanted to go out in style and on his terms. For anyone in the room at the time or listening to these recordings it’s clear he achieved that. It was Peter’s wish that these recordings should be made public and he was due to finalise the cover design on the week he passed away. We would like to thank Peter’s family for working with us to fulfil Peter’s wishes to release this material but more than anything we would like to thank Peter for all the extraordinary memories, his generosity and all he has given the music. On a personal level for us, like so many, he meant a huge amount and we miss him deeply. --- Peter Brotzmann / reeds John Edwards / double bass Steve Noble / drums Jason Adasiewicz / vibraphone  --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Billy Steiger on 10th and 11th February 2023. Mixed by James Dunn. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielesi. Photos by Dawid Laskowski. Pressed in the UK by Vinyl Press. Artwork by Peter Brötzmann. Design by Untiet.  

Otoroku presents "cracked breath folds", a heady, labyrinthine release from Nantes-based artist, David Papapostolou. Mixing phone recordings, percussion, saxophone, and voice, the album blurs the boundaries between found and composed, hi-fi and lo-fi, vocalisation and meaning, performer and place; with the outside world never far from encroaching upon the performed elements, sometime adjacent, often seemingly a willing accomplice. In David's own words: "I wanted to find some form of immediacy in the process of making the music happen. I explored creating material using means that I would have with me at all or most of the time: my voice, my phone, outdoor space. Finding a sense of freedom in voicing sounds outside, on the street, in an underpass. To reach that tipping point in pushing a musical situation towards something happening, It often feels like taking a bold step had been necessary." The bold steps of the undertaking are hard to refute. Opener, babnacrabni, sets the tone for the album, with disassociated spectral voices merging with the muted natural sounds, whilst a spasmodic saxophone line punctuates the crepuscular murk. Second track, crrrrrrrtttttttii runs on its own internal logic, each rising vocal refrain leading to the next in a ceaselessly yearning chorus that builds inexorably before seemingly interrupting itself, leaving the disparate threads to fray freely at the edge of the weave. Elsewhere, grrgles seems to eavesdrop upon an urgent undertaking whose purpose remains tantalisingly opaque; mlzaamlzfcrx's initial pastoral idyll gradually takes a turn into the eerie, with a tentative choir underpinned by cymbals sighing into the gloaming; and closer mmsmmsmsmmmm knots an intricate tangle of voice tones which gradually glitch and distort into new assemblages that slowly rise up out of the throat until only the breath remains. Drawing concrete meaning from the album's five pieces might be akin to seeing shapes in smoke; such a conspicuously personal creative approach must surely yield an equally unique response in each listener. Immerse yourself in its patterns however, and your own forms and visions will surely come. -- Recorded and put together between April and June 2024

This recording from the earlier years of Cafe Oto documents the impossible pairing of four contemporary giants. Its one of those miraculous one off groupings that reminds us why the venue opened in the first place.’ “The magic of the first minutes – an alto solo by Joe McPhee of true purity – soft-spoken, masterful and accomplished – brought back to mind the blissful Coleman/Haden duet last year at the Royal Festival Hall. ‘Ornette gave me freedom to move in a certain way,’ said McPhee. He searched hesitantly and carefully for his words, all the more surprising from such an articulate musical (or, as he might say ‘muse-ical’) practitioner and campaigner. Coleman’s 80th birthday coincided with McPhee’s stint at Cafe Oto. McPhee and his co-musicians delivered an intense performance which was both creative and restrained. With Evan Parker ‘s tenor in tow – a collaboration going back to the late 70s – and Lol Coxhill, sitting with head bowed intently, a soprano master – it could have gone anywhere, yet they worked off each other, often in the higher registers, building up almost bird-call like interactions and trills. Earlier, Chris Corsano‘s drumming presented a dense bedrock for McPhee to play against, and his solo spell was a crisp exercise in sonic curiosity. McPhee picked up his soprano mid-way through the second set, heightening the lyricism of the three saxophones. Then, being a devotee of Don Cherry, he switched to pocket trumpet, allowing him to interject, and punctuate the concentrated sound layers built up by the quartet, and lead the music out through a different door”- Geoff Winston (londonjazznews.com) Recorded 10th March 2010, this is also a document of the only time Lol Coxhill and Joe Mcphee shared the stage. The recording is a little rough, but hey, so was your birth! Limited to 500 copies packaged in mini gatefold sleeve.

Two sides of experimental music from the SWANA (South West Asia & North Africa) region and diaspora, co-released in a limited run of 50 cassettes with collaborators Another Sky Festival. Side A mixed by Zeynep Ağcabay. Side B mixed by Dakn داكنْ. Proceeds from this release will go to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Recorded at OTO and Bishopsgate Institute at the first edition of the festival, from 29 September-1 October 2023. Over three days and nights Another Sky brought together 26 artists whose heritage spans Armenia, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Türkiye, eliding genre and category through beats, improv, ambient soundscapes, pieces composed for classical and non-western instruments, moving image and more. Side A - Mixed by Zeynep Ağcabay: Sampled artists: AZADI.mp3.آزادی /// Jad Atoui جاد عطوي, Vibrant Pools (2023), co-commission by Another Sky & Irtijal Festival, performed by Atoui with Distractfold Ensemble (Daniel Brew, Alice Purton) /// Mariam Rezaei, SING (2023) /// Sam Salem أسامة سالم, The Way Up & The Way Down (2023), performed by Noam Bierstone /// Nour Mobarak نور مبارك, Subliminal Lambada (2023), co-commission by Another Sky & Counterflows Festival Side B - Mixed by Dakn داكنْ: Curse لا نعترف Deeds مش ارقام Dues غرب إحلم Had هون Feels ك لا شيء Needs إطفي خلص Sampled from Zeynep Toraman, An emotional rollercoaster just for you (2018), performed by Distractfold Ensemble (Rocío Bolaños, Daniel Brew, Linda Jankowska, Alice Purton, Kasia Ziminska) /// Sam Salem أسامة سالم, The Way Up & The Way Down /// AZADI.mp3.آزادی --- Recordings from Another Sky Festival at Bishopsgate Institute, 29 September 2023, and Cafe Oto, 30 September and 1 October 2023, London. Audio technical director Dan Ehrlich, sound technician & recordings for Cafe Oto Billy Steiger, mastering Oli Barrett, side B tracks 1-5 mixed by Muqata’a مُقاطعة. Side A mix © Zeynep Ağcabay. Side B mix © Dakn داكنْ. All sampled recordings © the composer. Logo by 40MUSTAQEL 

We have collaborated with long term Cafe OTO friend Han Bennink to design the first ever OTO t-shirt just in time for xmas. We'll ship these Monday 16th onwards, and have them in hand for the OTO fair on the 15th December if you'd rather try it on in the loos first. These are made on good quaity fair trade Stanley/Stella tees - more info under the design detail.  Celebrating his 82nd birthday this year, the Dutch drummer and multi-instrumentalist has had a colossal impact and influence in the fields of free jazz and improvised music - not just as a percussionist but also as an organiser, designer and visual artist. Bennink trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterda and was strongly influenced by the anti-art of Dada. Out of what he calls 'a kind of involvement with things', Bennink reuses seemingly worthless objects from his immediate environment, such as broken drum skins and sticks. They are given a second life in his sculptures and installations. For his drawings and collages, Bennink draws on his personal memories and intuition. Birds and airplanes often return in these, symbols of the same freedom that he personifies during his performances. His artwork graces the covers of several corner stone recordings released on FMP, ICP, Incus, hat ART, psi and more. "It simply has to be beautiful and preferably appeal to an emotion as well. In [Bennink's] case that emotion doesn't have to be very dramatic or deeply hidden. You could rather call his art, his visual art anyway, light-footed, the way poems by Rutget Copland and Hans Verhagen can be." - Hans Sizoo, Jazzwereld nr 16. Photo by Corral

NEW OTO tote, designed by Han Bennink and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Available in natural or black. Only done 100 each of these!  100% heavy cotton canvas10oz / 283gsm canvas420mm x 370mm x 110mm / 16.5in x 14.5in x 4.3inLong Handles: 600mm / 24in

NEW OTO tote, designed by Han Bennink and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Available in natural or black. Only done 100 each of these!  100% heavy cotton canvas10oz / 283gsm canvas420mm x 370mm x 110mm / 16.5in x 14.5in x 4.3inLong Handles: 600mm / 24in 

Restocked ! Very special OTO tote, designed by Adam Bohman and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Edition of 200.

Limited run of 100 very special Adam Bohman designed tea towels - perfect for serving dinner and managing spillages.  8oz heavyweight 100% cotton tea towel w/ hanging loop. Printed in the UK.  For those ordering xmas gifts, these will arrive by the 9th December and ship 1st Class the next working day.    

Very special OTO tote, designed by Adam Bohman and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Available in natural or black & white. Edition of 200.

Joseba Irazoki - Onomatopeikoa II Very happy to finally have Joseba’s work become part of Hegoa’s family. A versatile and restless Basque musician who has an extensive discography with almost 20 albums released. Born in 1974 and based in Bera, Nafarroa, Joseba has been leaving his mark on a heterogeneous amalgam of projects and adventures leaving his most introspective and personal self in the works in which he has dared to sign with his first name. “Onomatopeikoa II” follows on from Irazoki's 2017 Gitarra Onomatopeikoa release, and that album's sense of untethered, questing curiosity is not only carried over but expanded upon even further here. Combining a fully committed approach to the guitar with an almost egoless lightness of touch, this album builds upon the already impressively scopious range of Gitarra Onomatopeikoa to dizzying effect. Irazoki makes full use of an impressively broad palette. Yet nothing feels forced, nothing is for show – there’s just a sense of open-hearted generosity. In lesser hands such a whirlwind tour of style and form might risk failing to get its hooks in deep enough, yet not only does Irazoki have the imaginative scope to tackle these varying approaches to the instrument, he has the technical chops to pull it off. Each composition seems to have an openness of intent that is utterly disarming; all cards are on the table and nothing is held back, resulting in a creative tour de force that builds, piece by piece, to a unifying cohesiveness that makes the whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Featuring contributions from long-time OTO favourites Rhodri Davies and Raphael Roginski, “Onomatopeikoa II” is nevertheless unmistakably a work of singular craft and vision.

Reinvigorated by months of shutdown woodshedding, David developed new works for guitar, as well as a piano piece and an exceptionally eerie bit of musique concrète. Inspired by the deep dive into Gastr del Sol’s duo magic that facilitated last year’s compilation box, David opened his deeply personal solo pieces for engaging conversational gambits with modern masters Rhodri Davies, Andrea Belfi, Nikos Veliotis, Nate Wooley, and Cleek Schrey

Colonia Dignidad was the settlement of a German evangelical sect.After being prosecuted for child abuse in Germany, the group fled to Chile in 1961. Like similar religious sects, it was characterized by the outward appearance of a unified, godly community with well-tempered cultural activities and social welfare, but inwardly and in its environment by oppression, sexual abuse, and exploitation. In the 1970s, it unquestioningly inserted itself into Pinochet's regime of terror, aiding in the imprisonment and torture of political prisoners, weapons production, etc. Since the end of the 1980s, there has been a legal reappraisal of the C.D.'s crimes in Chile.Its successor organization makes a living from tourism.The C.D. project uses, on the one hand, a series of documentary recordings of contemporary witnesses, and on the other, a set of melodic improvisations (MIDI files), improvised in the spirit of the impressions of terror, tension, claustrophobia and fear associated with the Colonia. CD 2 (Knochenstückchen) directly reflects this atmosphere. CD 1 (Reue?) on the other hand, is characterized by the contradictory breadth of the statements found after the dissolution of the sect: Denial of atrocities to glorification of the C.D. by leaders who returned to Germany against the professed traumas of formerly abused inmates and exploited community workers.For this purpose, the eyewitness recordings were sound-modified to a considerable extent. The MIDI files were played back with a variety of virtual instruments (piano, guitar, sax, turntable, lung machine, barrel organ, synths, etc.) in a multitude of modifications (speed, pitches, loops, harmonic and tonal variations), so that the 11 pieces from CD 1 and the 16 pieces from CD 2 each represent a closely interwoven overall composition.Ralf Wehowsky is one of the most respected practitioners of radical music of our day. He was the founding member of the seminal German group P16.D4 and ran the legendary experimental label Selektion whose ground-breaking releases influenced many working in today's experimental music scene. Previous releases have seen him collaborate with such well known and diverse artists such as Merzbow, Andrew Chalk, Jim O'Rourke, Achim Wollscheid, Lionel Marchetti, Kevin Drumm, Kouhei Matsunaga and Bruce Russell. 

Maths Balance Volumes follow up their acclaimed 2020 release A Year Closer with a further and sturdier bucket of songs scraped from the dust of being. Haunted, fragile and beautiful, this is music that explores the ghostly zones of its own creation. The loneliness and vulnerability that unfolds with the opening cut Stay lays the way for exploration of sound and song with simple melodic guitar and organ whilst the subsequent Janet’s Song weaves mirror elements alongside the sound of pebbles on water.This is evocative music made thoroughly by humans with the most basic of tools. Unafraid to step away from their screens Maths Balance Volumes stroll with breezy resistance to the current thread of platform regurgitation.Tonight flips the song on its side as a barnstorming melange of concrete hustle made from shakers, animals, humans and beelzebub knows what. Egyptian Wedding sounds like they operated off the depths of a rotating well. Forming a round is a dusty scratchy heartbreaker that encapsulates the hybrid Smithsonian Folkways label approach that only MBV do.There is something enormously human about Maths Balance Volumes take on underground experimental music, one far more so than the human pitched music made in the mainstream today. In the 20th Century it was the other way around. What has happened ? I will let you contemplate that. But for me, in this case explicitly this press scribe is chuffed at the consequence of this reversal. Very happy indeed. 

Filterbeds was Jim Whelan, Natalie Williams and Mark Courtney. I have typed this first sentence out so many times in my mind and broken down. Left wondering the incomprehensible fate of friendships; the loneliness of death; the staggering shock of grief. And then there’s the sheer marvel of sharing, caring, crying with laughter, revelatory joy, smiles, dancing, hugs, trips and….and….creating something from ordinary nothing.This release comes with the heaviest of hearts. The exhilaration matched by agony.If Mutualism can tell us anything, it says ‘whatever you have planned, do it NOW’. We couldn’t have done this without Jim and now we must do without him.Mutualism is where sounds bend, blur and bind. Melody is whispered like a secret, Rhythm broken and unrepentant. These pieces are singular but derive from a mutual assent.In Loving Memory of Jim Whelan 1963-2024Special thanks to Carim Clasmann for Mastering (The Fishtank, Cologne) and Test Pressing approval (Real Leyton Library, London)Released March 2025

Edition of 250 copies, remastered from the original master tapes ** Real Time is an extraordinary example of interaction between musicians coming from different worlds of new music. I had the chance to perform with those two great musicians on other occasions: in duo with Alvin Curran and in duo, trio and sextet with Evan Parker. Alvin came from the American school, full of minimalist references, melodic structures and open to all kinds of contamination. Evan had left jazz to accomplish his own instrumental language, aiming at total improvisation. The idea of getting them to put together a trio that would perform several concerts and recording was one of the most exciting moments of my career. Our three languages found a common ground of expression where different musical backgrounds came together and created a unique blend for that period of time. (Andrea Centazzo) Andrea Centazzo percussion, percussion synthesizerAlvin Curran synthesizer, piano, trumpetEvan Parker soprano & tenor saxophones Recorded live in concert Rome, Italy December 13, 1977Engineer: Nicola BernardiniRemastered from the original tapes by Matt Bordin at Outside Inside Studio

Experimental electronic artist Kirk Barley unveils a split release between his two different monikers. Utilising a similar set of tools and reduced sound palette for each, he bridges the gap between the two approaches, while also allowing room for each to flourish in their own distinct forms. Under his own name, Kirk embraces floating four world motifs. Juiced-up keys spurt and twinkle in an algorithmic maze, sprouting swirling motifs and melodies before dissolving in a synthetic water bath. On the 'Church Andrews' flip he lets these tools slip out of free motion and lock themselves into distinct percussive patterns. Similar to the approach of the likes of SND, Kirk teases the temporality in house and footwork styles to scribe his own skittering dancefloor style. Over both sides Kirk's improvised approach to sound energises each note, bass and snare clap and wandering phrase. Listening to his music is like watching plant life blossom, winding itself in and around towering city concrete in real time. -- Written & recorded by Kirk Barley / Church Andrews -- Cover by Oli Barrett

False Self* works are electronic music compositions that explore identity, authorship and the delineation between self and other. The series so far, comprises of three albums: False Self plays music for six pianos (2021) A false memory of a sports party (2018) False Self (2016) The first two albums were created in collaboration, and sometimes antagonization, with a self authored SuperCollider algorithm — that I named False Self. I envision this algorithm as a fractured version of myself. False Self plays music for six pianos was composed whilst undertaking lessons with Jim Denizen Simm. Jim kindly indoctrinated me into his own working methods and some of the methods of his friends, many of whom are ex-Scratch Orchestra members; such as Michael Parsons, John White, Christopher Hobbs and Howard Skempton. These lessons led me to abandon SuperCollider in favour of working with more flexible, and to my mind, more interesting systems designed on paper. The compositions are experimental, system based works for six pianos. They deploy integer tables to arrange cells of slow, jazzy piano music. Each piano has eight cells of music and one silent cell. The cells mobilize as hypnotic cyclones of repetition, that move in and out of sync, to create complexity from simplicity. As the compositions progress, the cells extinguish themselves in a languid, stuttering fashion — before the process begins anew. Rudi Arapahoe 2021 Composed, recorded and mixed by Rudi ArapahoePerformed by False SelfProduced by Jim Denizen Simm Artwork by Oli Barrett *The term False Self is lifted from the psychiatrist Ronald David Laing's writing. I use the term to imply that there is another self working on the compositions with me.

Following on from his preposterous 'MUJZIK MONSTRØSA SPEEDRUN', which was released in 2020 on Takuroku, Goodiepal returns with an all new radio-based experimental sound work. On 'The Pole Imposter & The Databar' he embraces his ongoing audio-based crypto-academic documentation of the strange sides of European computer music. As ever with Goodiepal's work, it's best for words to pare back and let the piece speak for itself. --- Cover design by Oli Barrett

A feature length film, directed by Tori Kudo (Mahar Shalal Hash Baz) This film is made by digital images from the early 00s to 2019, when I started taking pictures with cellular phones. You can see that upgrades in resolution have drastically changed "l'imaginaire" , as we move to smartphones. Most of the images are taken by myself, but my portraits are taken by others. I can't name all of them exactly. But if I had to name who, among them, are working as photographers in their honor, it would be Seiichi Sugita and Maki Abe.- Tori Kudo -- The cover of this release was selected from one of six images sent to us by Tori of a sculpture incorporating layered photographs made by his mother. Tori wrote to us saying: "These six photographs are almost like my mother’s posthumous work. The photographs show a Mobius ring of sheet iron onto which she sticked old photographs on top of each other. My mother’s father, my grandfather, was a painter who lived in Paris before the war. His style of painting was that he would layer paint very thickly. Georges Rouault scraped off layers of paint so he could create flat paintings. My grandfather’s paintings have 1cm thickness but they seemed more like 3D works rather than the perspective paintings. My mother piles up photographs on top of each other. So in a way her style resembles my grandfather’s technique from that point of view. It is quite interesting that I was doing something similar to my mother with the film I made for TakuRoku during lockdown. However in my case I displayed my photos side by side not on top of each other. All is shown, no layering, nothing hidden underneath. It may mean that I still have an attachment to this life. Archiving seems to be a theme of this time. The thing is what do we archive from history. “You could see the movement of power in the erased history “- I think Jacques Derrida was talking about something like that… Freud on the other hand, hated the idea of archiving…he said “it’s the end of one’s life once one started making their own autobiographical anthology.. that kind of wrapping up one’s life while you are still alive.” Yet recently I had an idea of looking into archiving from the perspective of a dead person looking back at their life. And this could fit into this time of pandemic as everyone is facing more or less this issue so I made this film. The first half of this year since the lock down I had done nothing as I received a state grant but the offer from TakuRoku label encouraged me to finish this work. It has been a good practice for me." -- Tori Kudo - film & direction -- Kota Takeuchi - Font for the title at the endhttp://kota-takeuchi.net/ Tori Kudo - The song "archive" that plays in the end roll. Recorded in March 2020. Oliver Barrett - artwork design

Italian duo Rosso Polare treat us to their 2nd album, following the wonderful 'Lettere Animali' album, which was one of our highlights of 2020.   Cani Lenti is a collection of duels, some may say. As the two minds of Cesare Lopopolo and Annna Vezzosi converge, a dichotomy of harmonious and contrasting sounds ebb, swirl and clatter in and amongst themselves. Using techniques from call and response improvisation, tape manipulation, experimental music and free-form folk, their approach to music making feels both atypical and familiar, organised and free-flowing, rooted and landless. Like the films of fellow Italian film-maker Alice Rohrwacher, Rosso Polare's music feels grounded in the earth, but sprouts and spreads in strange and often anachronistic ways.   The duo describe this album as it’s a struggle – a skirmish – that strives to resemble filmic sonorisations and forgotten sounds. Together they lead us on a journey into the depths of Chthonian Music. Fans of the likes of Sun Araw, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and General Strike - dive in!   --   Written and performed by Cesare Lopopolo & Anna Vezzosi --   Recorded between Milan and Brescia in 2020-2021 Mixed and produced by Cesare Lopopolo Mastered by Alexander Pustynsky Album art by Anna Vezzosi

"Having brought together two entirely independent solo improvisations like this, one from near the start of the lockdown and the other very recent, and finding that they fit together so well that I must have been  following the same pattern albeit on two very different instruments, what does that tell me? Have I merely folded time on itself without any corresponding fold in space and thereby gone precisely nowhere? Have those intervening months vanished in the attempt? And what can I call the fruits of that attempt? An imaginary duo between present me and early-lockdown me, made real by a stray thought taken too far (because I hadn't intended to put the two together when I recorded them). Have I learned nothing? By themselves, each is both an attempt to reach beyond time in itself, by touching the infinite variability of the reality beyond illusion and, by that very variability (and unpredictability) a blow struck against the homogenising forces of consumerism, a wrench thrown in the gears of the satanic mill. But when combined, then, the variability is multiplied. Not by dialogue (since each was blind to the other) but the stark fact of their separation in time and the events that they book-end. 50,000 dead, give or take. Have we learned nothing? Must the same battles be fought over and over again every single time? Will we still follow the same pattern, when this is all over?" - Massimo Magee, London, 11 May 2020 Cover image: '144 Pills' by MiHee Kim Magee

RHODRI DAVIES: WYTH TREM OVER SHADOWS WOUND RESPONSE AN AIR SWEPT CLEAN OF ALL DISTANCE TELYN RAWN FOR SIMON H. FELL DWA DNI TELYN WRACHÏOD AMGEN 011

Jean-Luc Guionnet DYSLEXIC HARP (DECIPHERED IN THE DARK) For pedal harp solo / Pour harpe de concert solo Dedicated to / dédicacé à Rhodri Davies     Rhodri Davies: pedal harp / harpe de concert   Recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Jean-Luc Guionnet / Enregistré, monté, mixé et masterisé par Jean-Luc Guionnet. Recorded 17th and 18th of January 2010 at q-02, Brussels / Enregistré les 17 et 18 janvier 2010 au q-02, Bruxelles. Design by / Concu par Anna Peaker. Etchings by / Gravures de Jean-Luc Guionnet.

Telyn Wrachïod Urquhart gan Ardival / Urquhart bray harp by Ardival. Recordiwyd gan Jethro Chaplin ar y 24ain o Awst 2023, yn Stiwdios Mwnci, Dolwilym. Recorded by Jethro Chaplin on the 24th of August 2023, at Mwnci Studios, Dolwilym. Ôl-gynhyrchwyd gan / Mastered by Sam Grant. Dylunio gan / Design by Anna Peaker. Darlun gan / Drawing by Jean-Luc Guionnet. Mae Cildraeth Sienco yn fyrfyfyriad sy’n seiliedig ar gyfuniad o nodiant a strwythur y darn Brandy Cove gan Angharad Jenkins â thiwnio tannau amgen ‘Cywair yn Nghywair y Wrach’ o lawysgrif Robert ap Huw. Cildraeth Sienco is an improvisation based on an amalgamation of the notation and structure of Angharad Jenkins’ Brandy Cove with the alternative string tuning of ‘Cywair yn Nghywair y Wrach’ from Robert ap Huw’s manuscript. Diolch i / Thank you to: Nia Daniel, Richard Dawson, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Angharad Jenkins, Dafydd Roberts, Catrin Rowlands, Soundtrips NRW, Bill Taylor, Fern Thomas, Amy Treharne, Daniel G. Williams.

Rhodri Davies self reissue of fantastic acoustic lap harp solo record. First released on LP with Alt Vinyl, av057 (2014) alongside the amplified 'Wound Response', 'An Air Swept Clean of All Distance' sees the harp tuned to a different set of fixed pitches and played without preperation or distortion.  "...hearing An Air Swept Clean of All Distance I think also of Cy Twombly, burning a path to the ancient classical world through a mess of rough scribble, vivid marks, smears and graffiti. There is a static character to the playing here, rising and falling, arrested and stuttering, rolling and tumbling...returning compulsively to the same passage as if caught in that same tangled web of strings once violently cut, now reconstituted into a set of revenant problems." - David Toop, 2020.  “Davies settles obsessively on tumbling phrases, arpeggios and articulate rhythms, turning them over and over, letting them develop only within strict limits, as though this fine, prolific adventurous musician is freshly discovering a harp that has been there all along.” - Julian Cowley, Wire Magazine, 2014 --- Rhodri Davies / telyn benglin (lap harp) --- I / For Elliw & Brychan Recordiwyd ar Ionawr 31, 2014 yn Stiwdios Blank, Newcastle upon Tyne / Recorded on 31st of January 2014 at Blank Studios, Newcastle upon Tyne. Cynhyrchwyr gweithredol / Executive producrs: Richard Dawson, Graham Thrower. Recordiwyd, cymysgwyd a meistrolwyd gan / Recorded, mixed and mastered by Sam Grant. Dylunio gan / Design by Anna Peaker. Darlun gan / Drawing by Jean-Luc Guionnet. Benthycwyd y teitlau o weithiau / Titles borrowed from the works of Carlos Castaneda, Kate Fagan, Alec Finlay, Nathaniel Mackey, Redell Olsen, James Purdy, Sun Ra, Nick Thurston, Sue Tompkins. Rhyddhawyd An Air Swept Clean of All Distance yn gyntaf ar finyl gan Alt Vinyl, av057 (2014) / An Air Swept Clean of All Distance was first released on LP with Alt Vinyl, av057 (2014). Diolch i / Thank you to John Bisset, John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Ann Davies, John Davies, Richard Dawson, Angharad Closs Stephens and Graham Thrower. AMGEN CD003

Rhodri Davies: Over Shadows I / For ACS Telyn lifer a bwâu electroneg / Lever harp and EBows Recordiwyd Gorffennaf 26 2004 yn yr Hen Ysgol, Bracon Ash, Norfolk. Source material recorded on 26th of July 2004 at the Old School, Bracon Ash, Norfolk. Cyfansoddwyd Mawrth 2006 / Composed in March 2006. Recordiwyd gan / Recorded by Graham Halliwell. Golygwyd gan / Edited by Benedict Drew and John Wall. Ail-feistrolwyd gan / Re-mastered by Sam Grant. Dylunio gan / Design by Anna Peaker. Darlun gan / Drawing by Jean-Luc Guionnet.

Dating back to the 13th century in Wales, the Telyn Rawn is a nearly forgotten horsehair harp; UK improvising harpist Rhodri Davies researched the instrument and its unique sound, commissioning the construction of a harp on which he performs 18 improvisations of impressive technique and sonority, launching his new Amgen Records label with this album named for the instrument. Harp design by Rhodri Davies, body of harp by Alun Thomas, leather work by Gaynor Davies-Howell, pegs turned by Alan and Milissa Dewey, horse hide supplied by Barrhead Leather, plaited and wound horse hair strings supplied by Simon Chadwick. The building of the harp was made possible through a Creative Wales Award. Recorded, edited and mastered by Sam Grant.Recorded 22nd and 23rd of January 2020 at Blank Studios, Newcastle upon Tyne.Drawing by Jean-Luc Guionnet.Design by Anna Peaker. Diolch i / Thank you to: John Butcher, Richard Dawson, Audrey Evans, Delyth Evans, Robert Evans, Ann Griffiths, O’r Pedwar Gwynt, Robert Hadaway, Huw Ceiriog Jones, Michał Poręba, Llio Rhydderch, Gorwel Roberts, Sioned Puw Rowlands, Elan Closs Stephens, David Sylvian, Sesiwn Werin Tŷ Tawe, Bill Taylor.

  "This book, the only history of free jazz in Japan, has been reprinted many times in Japan and is finally available to readers overseas in English translation. From its earliest stirrings in the 1960s until it reached international recognition in the 1970s and after, free jazz in Japan is a unique music that has found its perfect scribe. Teruto Soejima was a writer who fell in love with a music and devoted his life to it as promoter, critic, label owner, tour organiser, and much more. "If you like jazz at all, if you like the unique voices of Japan at all, this book will open your ears to many sounds you haven't heard, or heard of, before. "Introduction by Otomo Yoshihide. All new photos in this edition, none used from the original Japanese volume." - Publisher Public Bath "Soejima Teruta was a legend on the scene of jazz and improvised music in Japan ... Much more than a critical observer, Soejima-san was a tireless supporter of music and musicians, and will always be remembered for his brilliant mind and gentle soul."- John Zorn 

After diagnosis, the fact was that Austin Gross lived in his home country. He sat on the porch squinting like a potato and it was a comforting thing to imagine: rock-climbing with a blindfold. ‘Can swim, eyes open,’ he jotted and covered his eyes again. Sun, centrifuge, prognosis, bird-listening. The collision shaped genres like tectonic ripples. Windows open, a story while forgetting. ‘I am a memory eater.’Aras was furloughed from prison that summer. Five years before, she’d missed their movie plan, and the fact was that since then, she lived in her home country. Furlough, Aras wrote, was ‘no-time.’ They investigated the situation together. Austin Gross is an essayist and collaborator in elliptical orbit. His home discipline is philosophy and language English, on one condition: having left home. Trans-disciplinarity gives us a chance to be hosts and guests.

Kuwait-based SONDUKE Magazine, an independent digital platform for regional and global artists launched at Focal Point in 2024, their first printed publication and fifth issue, comprising a range of experimental artists and musicians from the SWANA region and beyond, provides a glimpse into the magazine’s creative process and inspirations.   SONDUKE (Arabic for crate, vault or safe) spotlights experimental and industrial art and sound. The ‘interiority’ signalled by the name SONDUKE evokes the formation of a counter space for art otherwise delineated as marginal. They support both under-represented and impactful artists, providing a platform to showcase their craft. In doing so, SONDUKE fosters creative and counter-cultural dialogue.   

“In August 2016 I received an email from Jeff Rosen, Bob Dylan’s majordomo. I had been getting occasional writing assignments from Bob through Jeff for years, and they were extremely various: speeches, press kits, prefaces, a Buick commercial. Now he explained that he and Bob had been discussing a film project, to focus on his ‘Gospel Years,’ 1979-1980. They had some great footage—not the rather stiff performances intended for an unmade TV special, but the rougher takes made for pick-ups. Bob had the thought that he’d like to interrupt the footage with sermons delivered by an actor. Would I consider writing the sermons?I gulped, but I said yes. What did I know about sermons? Barring the occasional funeral I hadn’t been to church since age thirteen, and what I could recall of the priests of my past was not exactly inspiring. I searched sermons online but found mostly dull plodding slabs of Midwestern mainstream-Protestant reasonableness. I searched my bookshelves for anything relevant and came up with Perry Miller's 1956 anthology The American Puritans, but their elegant plain seventeenth-century Dissenter prose did not suit the music. I also found Saved: The Gospel Speeches, transcriptions of the sermons Bob had actually issued from the stage in those years, edited by Clinton Heylin and published in Raymond Foye’s palm-sized Hanuman editions. They weren’t prose at all, but spontaneous exhortations and rambling homilies, full of doom and repentance, blood and thunder. I checked with Jeff, but no, Bob did not want those as a stylistic model. Finally I realized what I should have known in the first place if it weren’t for my print bias: my sources had to be recorded sermons. After all, I had dozens on my iPod (RIP): Rev. J. M. Gates, Rev. D. C. Rice, Rev. A. W. Nix. These were Black, mostly Southern preachers of the 1920s and ‘30s, whose recorded sermons, often unaccompanied, handily outsold the blues issued on the same labels. I had never seriously listened to them one after the other. I remembered some of the more sensational bits, such as Rev. Gates’s ‘Death Might Be Your Santa Claus,’ or his ‘Atlanta gets her styles from New York, and New York gets her styles from Paris, and Paris gets her styles from Hell!’But when I listened to the sermons one after another, the thing that struck me was their earnestness, their neighborliness. The secret of their success was that the preachers seemed to be addressing specific people, and that included you.”(From Sante’s foreword to these texts.) 

Volcanic Tongue presents the first ever collection of multi-award-winning author David Keenan's music writings. Keenan has been writing about music since publishing his first fanzine, inspired by The Pastels and by Glasgow (and Airdrie's) DIY music scene, in 1988. Since then, he has written about music for Melody Maker, NME, Uncut, Mojo, The New York Times, Ugly Things, The Literary Review, The Social and, most consistently, The Wire. Volcanic Tongue was also the name of the record shop and mail order that Keenan ran with his partner, Heather Leigh, in Glasgow from 2005-2015.Volcanic Tongue features the best of his reviews, interviews and think pieces, with exclusive in-depth conversations between Keenan and Nick Cave, members of legendary industrial bands Coil and Throbbing Gristle, krautrock legends like Faust, Shirley Collins, the first lady of English folk, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, German auto-destructives Einstürzende Neubauten, as well as discographical analysis of the back catalogues of groups like Sonic Youth and musicians like John Fahey, extensive writings on free jazz and obsessive in-depth digs into favourites like Pere Ubu, Metal Box-era Public Image Ltd, Sun Ra, guitarist and vocalist John Martyn and many more. It is an essential addition to any music fan's bookshelf.This first collection of his legendary criticism functions as an extended love letter to the revolutionary music of the 20th century and the incredible culture that sustained it.

Sight and Sound continues to celebrate the work of the greatest auteur directors in history by returning to our archives to revisit the cinema of the Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, director of Jeanne Dielman, named the greatest film of all time by Sight and Sound voters in 2022. Alongside in-depth features, reviews and behind-the-scenes images of Akerman at work are new critical assessments of her films, interviews with her collaborators including Claire Atherton, Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Eric De Kuyper and writing by filmmakers Céline Sciamma and Lukas Dhont. Also in this special publication is exclusive material from The Fondation Chantal Akerman archive, including a previously unpublished interview with Akerman, where she discusses Jeanne Dielman and a scenario Akerman wrote for her first feature, Hotel Monterey. This celebration of Akerman's work is presented to coincide with the BFI retrospective Chantal Akerman: Adventures in Perception

A2 screenprint for our four-day residency with harpist Rhodri Davies, an artist immersed in the worlds of improvisation, musical experimentation, composition and contemporary classical performance. He plays harp, bray harp, horse-hair harp, electric harp, and builds wind, water, ice, dry ice and fire harp installations and has released eight solo albums. Designed by Sally Pilkington and printed on 175gsm colorplan paper by Tartaruga. 

Edition of 200 two colour screenprints.Artwork by Peter Brötzmann.Printed with high quality 175 gsm paper by www.tartaruga.co.ukSize: A2 Artwork by Peter Brötzmann. Design by Untiet.

Edition of 200 hand numbered two colour screenprints. Artwork by Peter BrötzmannPrinted with black and white ink on high quality GF Smith Pale Grey Colorplan 175 gsm paper by : www.tartaruga.co.ukSize A2

Two color screenprint for our Music and Other Living Creatures series, designed by Silja Strøm and printed on 175gsm colorplan natural paper by Tartaruga. 

A2 screenprinted poster for our shows with the great Arto Lindsay on 14th October 2023. Design by Oli Barrett. Printed by Tartaruga Press on high quality, 175gm claret colorplan paper. Edition of 100.

A2 screenprinted poster to mark this June's very special residency with The Dead C! Printed by Tartaruga on high quality, wild black paper. Edition of 100. Design by Oli Barrett

'Soothers' collects two long-form pieces from Russell Walker, walking the line between melancholy and disquiet firmly rooted in the doldrums of British suburbia.'It'll Be Fine, Rob', a debut collaboration between Russell and Malvern Brume, presents the story of a hire-a-van journey from mundane hell rich with bitterness, cynicism and delusions of grandeur. A darkly humorous tale which drifts from bowels of unnerving drones that ebb to keys of tender melancholy at the deft hands of Malvern Brume's instrumentation. The piece, a clear foreshadow of a man's evening destined to collapse into pitiful stupor throwing chips at pigeons with fervent spite and sorrow, is a natural pairing between two stalwarts of contemporary British experimental music.The B-side presents a 2018 live performance mixed live by John Hannon, offering another excursion through bleak landscapes with peculiar stillness. Nightmarish qualities decorate the playful half-hour performance; audible croaks and screeches collide with nursery rhymes wittered by Russell's young son whilst caustic keyboard burns forward. An utterly distinct, one-of-a-kind performance exploring corners where, typical of Russell's touch, darkness sits confidently alongside glimmers of humour and solace.

'DOG FM is the debut release by the London-based duo of field recordist Oliver Chapman and poet Phoebe Eccles. Combining Chapman’s seemingly banal snapshots of a family car journey with Eccles’ fantastic, reflective spoken verse, DOG FM deftly transports the listener through a series of uncanny and oft-times bizarre audio travelogs where tension and expanse alternate to disorientating effect. By exploring the dynamics of a typical close-quarters family exchange, and with repeated use of ‘canine’ annotation, Chapman reimagines the car as both a confine and a means of escape, with Eccles’ verse acting as thematic glue, bonding memory, dream and textural reference to the road map. DOG FM brings a multifaceted lens over a commonplace event, exploding our expectations, and allowing us to surrender the wheel —and our fate— to kismet outcomes.' Graham Lambkin 2025

Sparse downer stuff from the great People Skills aka Jesse  from Eyes of the amaryllis 

The duo of Samantha Flowers and Tyler Hicks have been perfecting their dulcet tones for over ten years now. Combining, as if in a cauldron, blender, or analogous mixing device equal parts Detroit basement blues, Wackie's style studio murk magic and an old hard drive packed to the brim with Mutant Sounds downloads, they have managed something truly rare in this most dismal of decades: sonics recognizably their own. These Kosmischen Kuriere also excel at another uncommon trait given time/place, restraint, the release in question being their first transmission since the 2021's excellent Obe Ready on Easy Listening. Zep Tepi finds our heroes in fine, dare I even say refined form, graduating from the same Berlin School that counts J.D. Emmanuel, Didier Bocquet, Osidarta &c. among its esteemed alumni. This is no mere retro voyage to yoga studios or Emeralds gigs of yore though, there is something deeply unwell, the surface sheen cracking up somewhere along the tape's third track, as swirling dread electronics bore a hole straight to Hades. What begins as celestial junket veers towards a grotesque hall of mirrors, your regret-laden past and bleak future joining forces in mocking salute (this could simply be projection though, astral or otherwise). Backmasked synth patches, muted analog gurgle and the buzzing from a disconnected rotary dial serve as lubricant to pry open the listener's third eye, and the contents therein will please anyone who's wantlist has ever featured its share of guys who look like (and very well may have been) pre dot-com crash computer programmers and/or gatefold sleeve art depicting chess boards floating in deep space. By the final crystalline (both in terms of shimmering acoustic character and resemblance to SAB's 1978 album on Vanity, obviously) pulses of the seventh untitled mini-epic the event horizon has been breached, full ego death attained. Grade A head music from stem to stern. -- Thomas D'Angelo, Feb. '25 Regional Bears, March 2025

Looking for something out on the Chilterns, Philadelphian Christian Mirande persuaded Loiners Kieron Piercy and Anna Peaker to join him on the search. Guided by a hallucination of a Victorian cave full of grape lights, three friends venture into the heart of Tory weekend wreckage and found Pimms fueled madness and bunting choking out the working class. It produced 8 tracks of concrete, processed field recordings and acoustic flourish tracked in a cottage; glued with vari-mu compression and deep friendship.Go Birds!Regional Bears, March 2025 released March 11, 2025

Gently lay your palm on the warmed belly of a flat stone, and skim your humming thoughts across the murmuring divide. The opposite shore is a shadowed encampment of slowly stirring shingle. Autumn effervesces and spreads in a calm blanket of diffused musk, looping around two shallow mouthfuls of sunshine. A stave is transcribed along the tilted stasis of shoreline - silence holds a seance in the clay and the river intones its folly in electric bursts, ingesting the fretted, lemony light, and unspooling in currents of slow memory. In autumn 2024, Anthony Guerra and Mark Anderson sat on the banks of the Tukituki Awa - flanked on one side by the sleepy Haumoana beachside township, and on the other the local landfill. Aided by the slow imbibing of a bottle of wine, they set about recording this album directly to tape.

This deluxe CD/DVD is packaged in a heavy duty tip-on style gatefold sleeve with a glued in 12 page accordion style booklet. Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture of Harry Bertoia is a deluxe CD/DVD package containing historic recordings made in Harry Bertoia's Sonambient barn.The DVD, a film titled Sonambients: The Sound Sculpture of Harry Bertoia, by Jeffrey & Miriam Eger, was shot in 1971 and follows Harry Bertoia in performance and interview throughout his Sonambient barn deep in the Pennsylvania woods. This film offers a rare opportunity to follow the artist in practice, listening carefully as he moves contemplatively through his sculptures and gongs. Interview footage offers rare insight into Bertoia's inspiration and process.A separate CD contains four exclusive, recently discovered audio recordings. Included are the two earliest known collaborative tapes from Harry and brother Oreste, morning and evening sessions dated October 12, 1969, as well as a collaboration between the Bertoia brothers and their sister Ave who sings in careful unison with the overtones being produced by the sculptures. With the passing of Oreste Bertoia in 1972, these recordings mark the last meeting of all three Bertoia siblings.A 16-page booklet includes many never before seen production stills shot by Jeffrey Eger. These iconic images capture the essence of the artist in practice. All of this is packaged in a heavy duty, tip-on style, gatefold sleeve printed with metallic inks at Stoughton Printing in California.

2xLP; DVD, libretto, large 16p Booklet in printed cardboard box A music drama composed by Sven-Åke Johansson and Alexander von Schlippenbach, performed and recorded at Hebbel Theater, Berlin, 12.11.1994 In the programme, Johansson describes his observations of construction workers who "spend a good part of their lives – when it rains or snows, while changing clothes and so on – in these so-called construction wagons, usually set up in the immediate vicinity of the construction sites." The drama thus at the core employs an approach very typical of him: observing everyday activities and reinterpreting them artistically. What makes it unique is the combination of art forms: (absurd) theatre, dance, song and free jazz all are equal parts. Never, one of these becomes a simple accompaniment of the other. They alternate and mix, eventually leading to a Babylonian confusion that becomes meaningful in itself. Despite or maybe even because of its uniqueness, this opera is one of Johansson's key works. "... Über Ursache ..." was performed three times between 1986 and 1994. The audio recording of the premiere at the Stuttgart State Opera was released by FMP as a standard double LP in 1989. The 1994 audio and video recordings from the Hebbel Theatre in Berlin are presented here for the first time, packaged as a lavish box set with two LPs, a DVD, a 16-page booklet with photos and liner notes by Johansson, Konrad Heidkamp and Peter Ablinger, plus 20-page libretto – an edition that this spectacular work has deserved for a long time.  Cello – Tristan Honsinger Harp – Anne Le Baron Percussion, Drums – Paul Lovens Piano – Alexander von Schlippenbach Saxophone, Clarinet – Wolfgang Fuchs Saxophone - Dietmar Diesner Vocals – Shelley Hirsch Vocals, Accordion – Sven Åke Johansson Libretto-text by Sven-Åke Johansson & Shelley Hirsch Design by Teresa Iten Cover and Drawings by Sven-Ake Johansson

Recording of Otomo Yoshihide's set at B10 Live, Shenzhen. --- 大友良英 Otomo Yoshihide / 吉他 Guitar / 人声 Vocals --- 录制于2014年4月28日，深圳B10现场. Recorded April 28, 2014 at B10 Live, Shenzhen

Arthur Is Fantastic is a b/w Fluxus film that portraits Arthur Indenbaum and turns him into a work of art by obliterating the boundaries between art and life. Arthur Indenbaum was the son of an American diamond dealer who had come to Antwerp in the late 1960s to be trained in his father’s business. Soon, however, Arthur found his way into the lively art and music scene of Antwerp of the period where he liked to get high, hang out with friends and play music with his band ‘Live’. At the time Gallery Vacuum was an art space run by artists and musicians Luc Deleu, Filip Francis and George Smits, who were an integral part of Antwerp’s alternative scene. On 6 May 1970 Arthur, with his extraordinarily big physical build and fuzzy hair, was exhibited as a live sculpture in Gallery Vacuum during a one-night show in which Ludo Mich took part as well. Ludo’s film Arthur Is Fantastic not only documents this gallery event but also shows fragments of a day in the life of Arthur: we see him get up, take a shower, smoke his first joint of the day, have a huge breakfast, play the guitar and walk the streets of Antwerp before arriving at Gallery Vacuum. Apart from being a strong and humorous Fluxus work of art this film is in hindsight a loving document of the early 1970s.

A BRIGHT NOWHERE – Journeying into Improvisation is an important audio-visual record of a landmark series of four concerts staged in London in 2022 when more than 30 musicians joined improviser, percussionist and animateur Eddie Prévost to mark his 80th birthday. The film takes a close look at improvisers who create music in the moment, free from the authority of a composer, score or conductor. Ranging from profound delicacy to subversive atonality, the “awkward wealth” of this music raises vital questions about artistic freedom, individual responsibility and what it means for people to make music together in the 21st Century. Featuring performances by John Butcher, Sue Lynch, Ute Kanngiesser, Marjolaine Charbin, Nathan Moore, Seymour Wright, Veryan Weston, Alan Wilkinson, John Tilbury and Eddie Prévost amongst others. Plus readings by musician and author David Toop. The film includes the last ever concert by AMM, the pioneering improvising group co-founded by Eddie Prévost in the mid-1960s.

X4 CD + DVD + Book edtion of this amazing collection! Long out of print. One copy onely The year 2007 saw one of the most remarkable findings in the long treasure-hunting history of Die Schachtel: the complete set of recordings of the early manifestation (1967-1969) of one of the most legendary improv group of all time, the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. Rescued by the private archives of Walter Branchi, one of the original founding members -- alongside Franco Evangelisti, Ennio Morricone, Ivan Vandor, Roland Kayn, Egisto Macchi, Mario Bertoncini, and John Heineman -- the tapes were then restored in their entirety. Only a part of them were published in a CD-only boxset in an edition of 500, titled Azioni 1967-1969, which also featured a DVD with the original film Nuova Consonanza shot by Theo Gallher during the rehearsal and concert that the group held on March 19th and 20th, 1967, at the Galleria darte Moderna in Rome. Spanning from free-jazz to total abstract noise to wild electronic sounds, their music was -- and remains -- one of the most dynamic, original, and uncompromising expression of a period defined by intense experimentation and musical bravery, anticipating experiments to come in years following. Or, to put it simple, They were utterly unique," as per the words that John Zorn, who expressively wrote for this edition. To mark the ten-year anniversary of its original release, Die Schachtel present Azioni/Reazioni 1967-1969, the complete cycle of improvisations -- which includes thirteen additional, never before published pieces -- taken from the original tapes. Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.

First meeting of guitarist Tashi Dorji and drummer Steve Noble, recorded at OTO in June 2023. The set begins with a deceptive sparseness, Dorji picking out jagged clusters of guitar notes as Noble’s cymbals swirl around them like a deep inhalation. You might want to take that breath too, you’re going to need it. Dorji soon ratchets up the distortion as Noble circles around the kit with an unflagging momentum and the pair of them are soon hurtling along in a whirling, tumbling barrage of sound and fury. But cathartic as it is, this is no aimless blowout. For all the rapturous chaos, there are moments of delicate beauty that ring out all the clearer amidst the surrounding storm. Aside from anything else it’s the sheer amount of ground covered here. Two masters of their respective instruments seemingly bringing all of their skills to bear across the set’s 35-minute running time. Dorji has a way of playing the guitar that is all his own; coruscating jabs of distortion giving way to skittering, stop-start harmonics, muted strings that clip and yammer, yearning single notes escalating into a bewitching, howling maelstrom. Needless to say, Noble matches him every step of the way, expanding upon the intricacies of Dorji’s playing to reveal new and unexpected shapes in the cataclysm. Rhythms and textures emerge, evolve, and fracture with a ceaselessly propulsive drive. With such synergetic complexity, it’s hard to believe that this was their first time playing together. We can only hope it won’t be the last. And breathe. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed by Tashi DorjiMastered by Oli BarrettCover design by Oli Barrett

In 2011 we were lucky enough to welcome Loren Connors to OTO for a sold out show. With the room suitably hushed, Connors' elongated washes build and then evaporate - leaving behind fragile notes which sit and linger in soltude. Dreamy and ethereal, abstract and atmospheric, it's like reading Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse' and waiting for the sun to come up. One to shut your eyes to.     "These were Connors 'Airs', played with a softness that meant they floated in the breeze, merging into the night. It was so fragile, barely even there in fact: the notes only just made it above the level of the amp hiss. Like a selection of old photographs, you had to study hard to pick out the detail of those memories being lost amongst paper grain and colour fade. These ghosts of songs felt as much about the passing of time, about loss and heartbreak, as Langille’s vocal set did earlier." - Scott McMillan --- Loren Connors / electric guitar --- Recorded on Saturday 14th of May by John Chantler. Mixed by John Chantler. Mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Andy Newcombe. ---

Selvhenter draw their influence from everywhere they've been - free jazz, noise, punk, heavy metal, field recordings from the local recycling centre - it's all there to see. Their live performance at OTO sloshes in New Age and drone jazz in too, creating hypnotic rhythms you don't even realise you've started dancing to. In your face and a bit bonkey-tonks, make sure to turn this one up.  --- Anja Jacobsen / drums Jaleh Negari / drums, vocals Maria Bertel / trombone Maria Diekmann / violin Sonja Labianca / saxophone --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Friday 12th June 2015 by James Dunn. Mixed by John Chantler. Mastered by Rupert Clervaux. 

"马木尔 Mamer meets Ruins Alone (Tatsuya Yoshida) 吉田" for an improvisation after a solo set from Tatsuya Yoshida at the first Tomorrow Festival,  2014." --- 吉田达也 Tatsuya Yoshida / 人声 vocals, 鼓 drums, 采样器 sampler 马木尔 Mamer - 贝斯 bass, 人声 vocals / 口弦 mouth harp --- Tracklisting:  1. Hyderomastgroningem 01:28 2. Schvostess 01:46 3. DAGDAD 00:51 4. Korromda Peimm 01:19 5. Jallamjikko 01:17 6. Obthecklomtz 02:21 7. Pallaschtom 01:58 8. Skhanddravisa 04:03 9. Shofetim 02:50 10. Nivaftopoftz 01:11 11. Zurna Taksim 00:33 12. Snare 01:16 13. Classical Music Medley 01:17 14. Progressive Music Medley 02:16 15. Lockssomblez 01:16 16. Glaschzenck 03:03 17. Equesspaldho 01:43 18. Komnigriss 01:44 19. Becttem Pollt 02:42 20. Laiptchig 01:57 21. Improvisation 1 (Tatsuya Yoshida × Mamer) 10:32 22. Improvisation 2 (Tatsuya Yoshida × Mamer 06:46 ---   Recorded May 10, 2014 at the 1st Tomorrow Festival, Shenzhen. Released April 10, 2017

Camilo Ángeles and Joanna Mattrey present a striking set of pieces culled from an improvised live set at Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City, recorded and filmed February 2022, with a dual recording and video release presented here as “Hailstone Temple”. Both musicians have fascinated Notice Recordings for quite a while, and both exhibit deep relationships with their instruments: flute and viola, respectively. Ángeles originally caught our attention via the TVL REC label, which he co-directs with Violeta García and Carlos Quebrada. Originally from Peru and now based in Mexico City, his non-traditional approach to flute involves extended techniques, electronic alterations, and microtonal textures. Working also as composer and producer for film, dance, and theatre, curator of music festivals, playing in various ensembles, and collaborating with such artists as Ka Baird, Anaïs Maviel, and Mabe Fratti, it is truly rewarding to hear a such a raw and cathartic set with NYC's Joanna Mattrey, a Notice Recordings alum, having been involved in two past releases (her third solo album, "Soulcaster", was released earlier this year). We’ve been following Mattrey’s viola explorations for years now, and her honest, playful, intense, unpretentious, and dedicated solo and collaborative performances have consistently floored us. A 2021 ISSUE Project Room and 2022 Roulette resident, and graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, Mattrey continues to exist in both established music worlds and also on the very fringes of outsider art, with her heart clearly in the avant-garde. This recording exemplifies that: Ángeles and Mattrey perform in the former Santa Teresa la Antigua church and monastery complex which is now home to the Ex Teresa Arte Actual contemporary art space, a venue dedicated to contemporary performance and installation. The contrast of their unconventional, strange, and often cutting playing reverberating throughout the towering 17th century building is indeed poignant. 

"4CD homage to 4 drummers who have been a constant inspiration since the day I bought my first drum set back in 1972 - they are H = Han Bennink, E = Ed Blackwell, M = Milford Graves, P = Phil Seamen. It is a series of solos and duos with Alex Ward, Gabriel Wonck, Alan Wilkinson and James Allsopp." "My homage to the four drummers I came across on the day I bought my first drum kit and who have remained a constant source of inspiration to this day.  I am not trying to be them - just trying to convey what they have inspired in me over the last five decades. For each I have put together a specific drum and cymbal set up, attempting to get close to the sound I associate with each of them, and likewise chose the musicians for the duets accordingly.  The photgraphs are the first images I saw of them - hearing them came later.  I saw Blackwell and Graves live a couple of times, Bennink many times (and played with him on four occasions). Seamen? Not live - he passed away on Friday 13th October 1972 - but one of the first concerts I attended in London was the Phil Seamen Tribute concert at 100 Club on 31st May 1976 (when I saw John Stevens, Ginger Baker and Brian Spring for the first time).  Thanks to Alan, Alex, Gabriel and James and to all at OTO for their support in helping me realise this project. And especially to Shaun Crook who recorded, mixed and mastered all the material."