For those not following Bill Orcutt's drift into increasingly ear-friendly orbits in his recent live sets, Bill Orcutt -- his first solo electric studio album -- shocks with its space and sensitivity. On this eponymous record, Orcutt mines the expansiveness and sustain possible on the electric guitar, letting notes spin out and decay at the edge of feedback. His pachinko-parlor pacing, marked by unraveling clockspring accelerandos crashing into unexpectedly suspended tones, is still in evidence. But here, his developing melodicism maps a near-contemplative mental realm, orbiting St. Joan-era Loren Connors more than the cascading treble clatter of his duo LPs with Chris Corsano and others. From the first notes of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman", there's a lucidity and slow-burning lyricism that make Orcutt's plunges into barbed-wire fingerpicking all the more striking. While no one's about to mistake Orcutt for Jim Hall, you could probably play this for your jazzbo friends (should you be unlucky enough to have them) without raising any eyebrows. Orcutt's track selection mirrors his obsession with American popular song in its most banal manifestations, as radically reimagined via acoustic guitar on a variety of releases, including 2013's exhaustive Twenty Five Songs 7" box set, and the Editions Mego album A History of Every One (EMEGO 173CD/LP, 2013). Many of the songs from those two releases are here -- but stretched into new arrangements that explore the upper regions of the guitar neck (hitherto unexplorable on his shakily-intonated acoustic Kay), and lighting up new corners of each arrangement with a sensitivity born from years of reinterpretation. The result is a languid, freeform drift through Orcutt's internal cosmos into galaxies unknown to their original interpreters -- and occasionally, Orcutt himself. Most striking is "White Christmas", its careening low-register melodies crashing into complex chords that transcend Orcutt's primitive four-string fretboard. Orcutt's original compositions are equally striking. One of them -- "The World Without Me" -- is unique to this album, and notable for its trebly flurry of Clapton-esque 12th-fret drizzle. "O Platitudes!" by contrast, spins ever-faster in the cadence of a hand-cranked music box, before grinding to a near halt, its higher-key electricity standing in for the moaning vocalizations on Orcutt's acoustic rendition as heard on his 2014 VDSQ LP. With its deep-space beauty, harmonic complexity, and dark dissonance, Bill Orcutt is a stunning landmark in Orcutt's form-destroying trajectory.

"John Coltrane transformed the inner architecture of jazz, throughout the mid-1950s and 1960s and long after his premature death at age 40 in 1967. No other American musician could be said to be at the spiritual center of the '60s musical universe as Trane influenced Albert Ayler, La Monte Young, Jimi Hendrix and everybody in between. Cosmic Music, originally self-released by Alice Coltrane in 1968 and later issued by Impulse!, features two tracks ('Manifestation' and 'Rev. King') by John Coltrane's legendary final quintet that were recorded in San Francisco on February 2nd, 1966 and two more ('Lord Help Me To Be' and 'The Sun') from Alice Coltrane's very first session as a bandleader, recorded six months after her husband's passing. 'Manifestation' opens with the group already in mid-flight: Trane's fierce tenor leads the way with Pharoah Sanders' blistering sax and Alice's powerful chords hearing his call. On 'Rev. King,' Trane introduces a lyrical theme and then the composition erupts into fiery incantations, while Jimmy Garrison's bass throbs alongside the propulsive, gravity-defying drumming of Rashied Ali. Foreshadowing her majestic debut, A Monastic Trio, 'Lord Help Me To Be' brings Alice's celestial piano playing and inspired improvisations to the foreground with Sanders, Garrison and drummer Ben Riley rumbling in tow. 'The Sun,' a meditative ballad with subtle urgency, perfectly closes the album's contemplative circle. As John Coltrane recites on the final track, 'May there be peace and love and perfection throughout all creation.' "

"Borbetomagus: A Pollock of Sound is the first feature-length documentary about the legendary improv/noise group Borbetomagus. Filmmaker Jef Mertens brings a raw, urgent, and unpolished vision focusing on a band that has spent almost four decades defining and redefining not just their music, but the boundaries of music itself. Band members Don Dietrich, Donald Miller, and Jim Sauter tell their story with the help of artists, writers, photographers, and filmmakers that include noted critic Byron Coley, drummer Chris Corsano, guitarist Thurston Moore, groundbreaking Japanese noise unit Hijokaidan, and Switzerland's masters of 'cracked electronics,' Voice Crack. Includes never-before-seen archival footage, amazing photographic finds, and previously unreleased recordings."

Black Truffle presents a new issue of Annea Lockwood's classic 1970 tape piece "Tiger Balm", unavailable on vinyl for over thirty years, accompanied by two exquisite unreleased works for percussion and voice. "Created while Lockwood was living in the UK, the side-long 'Tiger Balm' is a singular work within the cannon of tape music. Inspired by research into the ritual function of music, the piece explores the possibility of evoking ancient communal memories through sound. Breaking entirely with the dynamic language of the musique concrète tradition, Lockwood uses a select palette of mainly unprocessed sonic elements chosen for their mysterious and erotic characteristics (a purring cat, a heartbeat, gongs, slowed down jaw harp, a tiger, a woman's breath, a plane passing overhead), presenting at most two sounds at once. As one sound flows organically into the next, their shared characteristics are highlighted, opening a space of dream logic and mysterious associations between nature and culture, the ancient and the modern. The B side presents two pieces for percussion recorded here for the first time. 'Amazonia Dreaming' (1987), performed by Dominic Donato, uses unaccompanied snare drum and voice to evoke the nocturnal soundscape of the Amazon rainforest. Unorthodox techniques and materials (marbles, chopsticks, a plastic jar lid) transform the snare into a resonant field of sensual textures. 'Immersion' (1998), performed by Donato and Frank Cassara, is a slow-moving exploration of gentle beating tones, performed on marimba, tam tams, and gong. Like the other two works presented on this LP, it provides captivating proof of Lockwood's belief in the complexity that deep listening can reveal within seemingly simple sounds." --Francis Plagne Comes in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with archival pictures and liner notes by Annea Lockwood; Includes the score to "Amazonia Dreaming"; LP design by Stephen O'Malley; Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

Live set from new and extremely good London band who create huge strung-out tracks with minimal kit. Their newest self released 12” should be in your top ten. Recorded in front of about forty people, a bass pawl thrums as the guitar ratchets the room up up up up, before a solo escapes that unzips the atmosphere completely.  “...A bass / drums / guitar trio that play somewhere between DNA de-tuning their instruments before practice or Sightings with the PA system and all their effects turned off.” – Yellow Green Red --- --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Simon Holliday. Mixed by James Dunn and Clive Phillips. Mastered by James Dunn.

MAGAZINE is the inaugural issue of Blank Forms’ journal, bringing together a combination of never-before published, lost, and new materials that supplement our live programs. It is envisioned as a platform for critical reflection and extended dialogue between scholars, artists, and other figures working within the world of experimental music and art. Following “Let Freedom Fry”—a short statement by Joe McPhee drawing out the contemporary political climate in relation to his practice as a creative improviser—the magazine is bookended by four texts surrounding the practice of pioneering sound artist Maryanne Amacher; an essay by Bill Dietz on his collaborations with Amacher and his work with her archive; an unpublished 1988 interview highlighting Amacher’s ideas around her Long Distance Music and Mini Sound Series; a conversation between Marianne Schroeder, Stefan Tcherepnin, and Lawrence Kumpfrevealing the archival questions raised by Amacher’s work; and science fiction writer Greg Bear’sshort story Petra, a tale of gargoyles coming to life and breeding with humans in a post-apocalyptic Notre Dame, from which Amacher’s 1991 piece got its name. This issue also includes Branden Joseph’s interview with The Dead C’s Bruce Russell, accompanied by Russell’s essay exploring the Situationist tradition of ‘mis-competence’ in New Zealand electronic music. Charles Curtis contributed notes on the interpretive challenges posed by a posthumous performance of Terry Jennings‘ minimalist classic Piece For Cello And Saxophone. Shelley Hirsch, Richard Skidmore, and Dennis Hermanson provide a series of writings on and remembrances of the late Ralston Farina, whose scarcely documented “visual poetry” was an important precursor to what we now call “performance.” And from her own 2016 performances at the Emily Harvey Foundation, Dawn Kasper supplies her original proposal document and score notes for an improvisational interpretation. MAGAZINE features two new French-translations: an excerpt from François Bonnet’s book of phenomenology, The Infra-World, translated by Robin Mackay, and a Christophe Broquainterview with enigmatic huntress of sounds Anne Gillis, translated by Adrian Rew. Ian Nagoski’s rare 1998 conversation with Éliane Radigue, conducted and largely ignored at a time when there was little interest in her music, provides one of the clearest overviews of the visionary composer’s early work and life. Supplementing the texts are numerous archival photos and documents, plus “Dark Matters,” a poem by Joe McPhee. Edited by Lawrence Kumpf and Joe Bucciero with contributions by Greg Bear, François Bonnet, Bill Dietz, Dennis Hermanson, Shelley Hirsch, Branden W. Joseph, Dawn Kasper, Joe McPhee, Ian Nagoski, Adrian Rew, Bruce Russell, and Richard C. Skidmore

Live set from new and extremely good London band who create huge strung-out tracks with minimal kit. Their newest self released 12” should be in your top ten. Recorded in front of about forty people, a bass pawl thrums as the guitar ratchets the room up up up up, before a solo escapes that unzips the atmosphere completely.  “...A bass / drums / guitar trio that play somewhere between DNA de-tuning their instruments before practice or Sightings with the PA system and all their effects turned off.” – Yellow Green Red --- --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Simon Holliday. Mixed by James Dunn and Clive Phillips. Mastered by James Dunn.

A deeply enigmatic duo of trumpet and drums augmented by live electronics and an expanded percussive array (tam-tam, multiple high hats etc.), Stonecipher is a mesmerising work that operates in the blurred regions between the electronic and acoustic. Dörner's electronics have never been more effective, creating viscous clouds of sound which are illuminated by Sanders' sparse, precise formations, producing a dense fabric of insidious extended tones, gradual inclines and sudden drops, and sounds that slowly fold back into themselves or abruptly open onto unexpected plateaus. There's something wonderfully unhurried about the way that Stonecipher develops, but there's a real quickness bubbling under this apparent slowness that prevents the music from ever completely solidifying: just when you think you're on firm ground something moves and the whole landscape is reshaped. "Understated throughout, the pair fold together softly muted sounds – hissing, breathy escapes of air and their digitally transformed, equally subtle cousins from Dörner, and a masterfully restrained, widely varied palette of soft tones and brief peaking flurries from Sanders. The end result is a slow, naturally fermenting but never boiling-over landscape of beautiful, surprisingly restrained music formed with remarkable understanding." - Richard Pinnell, The Wire  --- Axel Dörner / trumpet, electronics Mark Sanders / drums, percussion  --- Recorded by Rick Campion on 19 June 2011 at City University Music Studios. Mixed by Axel Dörner. Artwork by Jane Millican (detail of Scene, 2010, pencil on paper) Music by Axel Dörner (GEMA) & Mark Sanders (PRS) 

Myriad interwoven textural fractures from Grace & Delete - aka no-screen laptop wizard James Dunn and bass clarinet boss Chris Cundy. In The Screwtape Letters C.S Lewis defines music as a "meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience," but it can also be a sped up inferno complete with the alien cries of the damned. Either way, the cat cannot get enough. She rolls on her back and flashes her claws in the air when this music plays. She is blown away by the concept of a bass clarinet; the longer a note lasts, the more she purrs; it seems to stretch her actual perception of time. She wriggles with pleasure; she twists and switches her tail; she forgets to close her mouth over her thirsty pink tongue. "Tinnitus!" she mews, "I have it! Come closer!" "Dunn’s electronics are a masterclass in the resources of outdated technology. After being exposed to so much laptop texturing, the ear appreciates its limits. The electronics give Cundy’s contributions a jagged starkness, like coming upon a crude screenprint in an exhibition of digital printouts. The musicians are fully in control of their pitches and the music often proceeds by finding a harmony and then forcing it into crisis, unbearable tensions resolved into rhythmic exchange. Cundy also uses a Tinnitus Analyser to detect noises and elevate them into audibility. This provides the musicians with a stimulating randomness - the difference between the unexpected shapes generated by looking and drawing rather than simply doodling and reproducing habit, the eversame." - Ben Watson  --- Chris Cundy / bass clarinet, alien toy James Dunn / electronics, tinnitus analyser ---   --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Paul Skinner on Friday 9th June. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. Words by Patricia Lockwood - Priestdaddy

Metaphoric, historical but also just as easily enjoyed without any context at all, Laura Cannell's approach to fiddle and recorder has echoes of medieval tradition with a folk vernacular. Recorded on the first night of her series ‘Modern Ritual’, her set framed an evening which evoked both real and fictional landscapes and explored ideas of ritual through music and words. Singling out tracks from her first and third records (Quick Sparrows Over The Black Earth and Simultaneous Flight Movement respectively), Cannell draws a chapter from her work based on ritual - both natural and supernatural. Overbowing the fiddle and dual blowing recorder, she blurs fiction with history and conjures a new kind of Black Hour - a melodic two tone drone which is both tame and wild, and the image of a Sacristan drowned in his own font. --- Laura Cannell / fiddle, recorders --- Tracklisting: 1. Simultaneous Flight Movement - 1:48 2. Winter Saltings - 3:09 3. A New Theory of Eclipse - 3:52 4. The Happiness of Both Worldes Part 1 - 2:58 5. The Drowned Sacristan - 3:10 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Friday 17th March 2017. Mixed by James Dunn & Laura Cannell. Mstered by James Dunn. Lino print by Laura Cannell. 

Konstrukt's return to OTO after their killer show with regular London guest Alexander Hawkins back in 2015. This time around the band invited Alan Wilkinson and Daniel Spicer to join and form a seven piece ensemble who somehow crammed themselves in behind the monitors. Both multi-intrumentalists, Wilkinson and Spicer brought fresh textures and techniques to the group. From drum & bass and funk lines, to straight free jazz bursts and spiritual chantings, the range of sound in each set is incredible - and all given that classic dose of high energy by the Turkish free giants.  --- Korhan Futaci / alto & tenor saxophones, flutes, sipsi, kaba zurna, voiceUmut Çaglar / electric guitar, gralla, bamboo flutes, pocket drum machine, xylophones, percussion, tape echoBarlas Tan Özemek / electric bassEdiz Hafizoglu / drums, cymbals, bells, turkish hang drum+Alexander Hawkins / acoustic pianoAlan Wilkinson / baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, voiceDaniel Spicer / pocket trumpet, bugle, bamboo saxophone, shenai, recorder, pan pipe, whistle, cow bell, kalimba, voice --- Recorded live at Café OTO by Shaun Crook on September 12th, 2016, London. Mixed and mastered by Umut Çaglar in Istanbul, Turkey. Artwork by Oli Barrett. Original Photo by Dawid Laskowski. We wish to thank Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival for inviting Konstrukt to the UK, and to Omlott recordings for their enthusiasm putting out the physical version of the recording, which you can purchase here.

Totally brilliant set from local legends Pat Thomas & Orphy Robinson (Black Top). Scuzzy electronics, dub bass rhythms and Pat's perfectly timed acoustic interludes on keys fuse with heavy vocal samples to produce a truly diasporic sound. Sounds like a walk down Ridley Road market soundtracked by Thelonius Monk and Jamal Moss.  "When you arrive in England there should be a bus or a trainline you can catch to your hotel. Getting from one side of London to the other should cost you no more than your entire life savings or first born child. If possible, try not to eat the food. If you really must then your safest bet is battered swan, chicken pyramids or tea pie - which is a pie with tea in it. The English brain is divided into two hemispheres - the left which produces spheres of shame and self loathing, and the right, which produces spheres of shame and self loathing." --- Pat Thomas / piano, keyboard, iPad Orphy Robinson / vibes, xylosynth, cajon, iPad, laptop & effects --- samples from: 1/ 'Hugh Masekela in discussion "We're bad imitations of those who oppressed us..." 2/ Willie Williams- Stand Up (Jah Shaka)  3/ Exurb1a England a beginners guide... --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Tuesday, April 17th 2017 by Shaun Crook. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski. 

Please note this is a bundle price for the LP and a four-day pass to Pat's residency at Cafe OTO. For the standalone LP please click here. Recorded live at OTO in May 2015 and mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, the LP comprises four typically genre-defying and sonically dexterous pieces from one of the UK's most extraordinary pianists. In Pat's own words: The title for this Album, was inspired by the incredible automatic water clock invented by Badi' al-Zaman ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari. Al Jazari refers to the fact he was born in Al Jazira which lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates in what is now Northern Iraq. Badi al Zaman means prodigy of the age. He is known by historians of technology as the father of modern robotics. The Elephant Clock at seven metres high is a testament to his engineering genius, it utilizes Greek water raising technology, combined with an Indian elephant, Egyptian phoenix, Arabian figures, Persian carpet and Chinese Dragons celebrating the diversity of cultures in the world. This and other marvels of engineering can be found in his Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices translated by Donald Hill (Pakistan Hijra Council). Over 50 devices are mentioned. Amongst them the first analog computer, his remarkable Castle Clock, however, the debt the world owes this muslim genius is found in his remarkable water raising devices, particularly water raising device number 4 where for the first time a crank connecting rod system is used. The crank is considered to be the most important single mechanical device after the wheel, by 1206 this is found fully developed in Jazari`s machines predating Francesco di Giorgio Martini by 3 centuries. 'For Al Haytham' is dedicated to the great polymath genius who wrote the great book on vision, the first person to give us a true understanding of how we see. 'Lubb' is an Arabic word meaning innermost consciousness whilst to conclude proceedings 'Done' is loosely based on a well known standard. - Pat Thomas 26TH May 2017 Pat Thomas began playing  piano at the age of eight. He studied classical music and reggae was an early interest. Thomas was inspired to take up Jazz after seeing legendary pianist Oscar Peterson on television. By 1979, Thomas was performing seriously as an improviser. In 1980 he became a member of oxford based group Ghosts with Pete Mcphail and Matt Lewis. Has worked with Mike Cooper, Steve Beresford, Geoff Hawkins, Chuck Berry, Tim Hill, Alex Ward, Eugene Chadbourne, Steve Noble, Jimmy Carl Black, Thurston  Moore, Mats Gustafsson, Evan Parker, Oliver Lake, Alan Silva, Bill Dixon, Joe Gallivan, Alan Wilkinson, John Edwards, John Zorn, John Butcher, John Russell and a duo with Mark Sanders since 1986 a duo with Steve Noble (who first met in 1979).  Current activities include Black Top with Orphy Robinson, Valid Tractor with Lawrence Casserley and Dom Lash, About Group with Alexis Taylor and John Coxon, Albert Newton with Charles Haywood and the Founder Effect with John Coxon, a duo with Han Bennink and a trio with William Parker and Hamid Drake. Pat Thomas received Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers in 2014.

We're very pleased to announce Pat Thomas's ‘The Elephant Clock of Al Jazari’ on our in-house OTOROKU label. Recorded live at OTO in May 2015 and mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, the LP comprises four typically genre-defying and sonically dexterous pieces from one of the UK's most extraordinary pianists. In Pat's own words: The title for this Album, was inspired by the incredible automatic water clock invented by Badi' al-Zaman ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari. Al Jazari refers to the fact he was born in Al Jazira which lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates in what is now Northern Iraq. Badi al Zaman means prodigy of the age. He is known by historians of technology as the father of modern robotics. The Elephant Clock at seven metres high is a testament to his engineering genius, it utilizes Greek water raising technology, combined with an Indian elephant, Egyptian phoenix, Arabian figures, Persian carpet and Chinese Dragons celebrating the diversity of cultures in the world. This and other marvels of engineering can be found in his Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices translated by Donald Hill (Pakistan Hijra Council). Over 50 devices are mentioned. Amongst them the first analog computer, his remarkable Castle Clock, however, the debt the world owes this muslim genius is found in his remarkable water raising devices, particularly water raising device number 4 where for the first time a crank connecting rod system is used. The crank is considered to be the most important single mechanical device after the wheel, by 1206 this is found fully developed in Jazari`s machines predating Francesco di Giorgio Martini by 3 centuries. 'For Al Haytham' is dedicated to the great polymath genius who wrote the great book on vision, the first person to give us a true understanding of how we see. 'Lubb' is an Arabic word meaning innermost consciousness whilst to conclude proceedings 'Done' is loosely based on a well known standard. - Pat Thomas 26TH May 2017 Pat Thomas began playing  piano at the age of eight. He studied classical music and reggae was an early interest. Thomas was inspired to take up Jazz after seeing legendary pianist Oscar Peterson on television. By 1979, Thomas was performing seriously as an improviser. In 1980 he became a member of oxford based group Ghosts with Pete Mcphail and Matt Lewis. Has worked with Mike Cooper, Steve Beresford, Geoff Hawkins, Chuck Berry, Tim Hill, Alex Ward, Eugene Chadbourne, Steve Noble, Jimmy Carl Black, Thurston  Moore, Mats Gustafsson, Evan Parker, Oliver Lake, Alan Silva, Bill Dixon, Joe Gallivan, Alan Wilkinson, John Edwards, John Zorn, John Butcher, John Russell and a duo with Mark Sanders since 1986 a duo with Steve Noble (who first met in 1979).  Current activities include Black Top with Orphy Robinson, Valid Tractor with Lawrence Casserley and Dom Lash, About Group with Alexis Taylor and John Coxon, Albert Newton with Charles Haywood and the Founder Effect with John Coxon, a duo with Han Bennink and a trio with William Parker and Hamid Drake. Pat Thomas received Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers in 2014.

NOTE: The LP And CD have different audio from the same recordings. Outside of the 2CD release ‘Never Too Late But Always Too Early’ (Eremite, 2003) there has been scant documentation of one of the most dynamic pairings in all free jazz. Featuring unique material on each format Song Sentimentale rectifies this anomaly with a full blown audio account of the breathtaking communicative heights obtained by these three legends of the living. Over 3 nights in January 2015 the trio seduced a winter worn crowd with the kind of organic interplay only these three can conjure. Warm and urgent the material that covers both formats unveils a wide range of techniques and emotions. This is music on the edge of itself; a living, breathing and existing force documented for repeated visits. PETER BROETZMANN - TENOR SAX, B-FLAT-CL, TAROGATOWILLIAM PARKER - DOUBLE-BASS, GUEMBRI, SHAKUHACHI, SHENAIHAMID DRAKE - DRUMS, FRAME-DRUM, VOICE Recorded Live at Cafe Oto on the 27th, 28th and 29th January 2015 Recorded by James Dunn Mixed by John Chantler  Mastered by Andreas (Lupo) Lubich at Calax Photocollage by Dawid Laskowski Artwork by bro Design by Uniet/bro

2016 Re-Press. Pre-orders take now. Shipping 4.7.16 Recording of the stunning first set performed by the trio of Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble and John Edwards at Cafe OTO in January 2010 during Brotzmann's first residency at the venue. This was also the first time the trio had played together. Recorded at Cafe OTO by Shane Browne, mixed by John Edwards and Mastered by Andres [LUPO] Lupich at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. REVIEWS "On an east London side street, Café Oto hosts a programme of international experimental sounds to shame subsidised arts temples, drawing demographic-defying crowds of all ages through its doors. The first release on Oto's own label, available as an authentic vinyl slab or a slippery download, is a 40-minute splurge of sax, drums and bass skronk, live at the venue in 2010, from the German free-jazz giant Brötzmann and two stars of the London improv scene. Unrepeatable moments of collective inspiration and sudden sunlit shafts of modal near melody punctuate the continuing energy blur. Business as usual down Dalston Junction." Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times  "Since it opened in Dalston in April 2008, Café OTO has become London's new music venue of choice for the likes of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Joe McPhee, Mats Gustafsson – and Peter Brötzmann, whose first residency at the club in January 2010 yielded this inaugural release on OtoRoku, Café OTO’s new in-house label. The night in question was the first time Brötzmann had played with bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble, and the decision to team them up was inspired. With Alan Wilkinson, or in Decoy with Alex Hawkins and NEW with Alex Ward, Edwards and Noble have a deserved reputation as a thrilling high-energy rhythm section. And as Brötzmann is no slouch when it comes to high-energy playing, the combination is explosive. Right from the start of the set – the first that evening – it's obvious why this was selected to christen the label. All three players jump straight into top gear, with Brötzmann setting a cracking pace, his torrent of sound characterised by that hard-edged tone which makes him such compelling listening. ...the worse the better sets a high standard for subsequent releases to match. But, as every night at Café OTO is recorded and there's a wealth of fine music waiting in the wings, including quality recordings from Otomo Yoshihide and Wadada Leo Smith, OtoRoku looks like a label to watch." John Eyles, Paris Transatlantic "These two extended improvisations, recorded in January 2010 during Brötzmann’s first residency at OTO, finds the group attaining near-telepathic modes of interconnectedness, despite this being the trio’s first outing together. From the off, Brötzmann’s gills are gurning, throwing up torrents of molten roar, while Noble’s mule-kicking at the traps reels out ride hits like a baby sporting a bonnet of bees." - Spencer Grady, BBC Music "Does the world need another Brötzmann album? Probably not, but as the inaugural release on Cafe OTO's in-house high quality vinyl-only label, this one is cause for celebration. Recorded there - superbly well, too - during Brötzmann's residency in January 2012, this is no frills straight-up free jazz, solos and all, pitting the Firebreather of Wuppertal against the might local rhythm team (yes, they can and do swing hard) of John Edwards and Steve Noble. All three are on outstanding form, from the opening yelp - when it comes to Big Bang beginning, nobody does it better than Brötzmann - to Edwards's snarling drone 38 minutes later. Shame engineer Shane Browne slammed thos faders down so brutally: for once, you feel like joining in with the whoops and hollers of the punters." - Dan Warburton, The WIRE

2016 Re-Press. Pre-orders taken now. Shipping 4.7.16. Recording of the stunning first set performed by the trio of Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble and John Edwards at Cafe OTO in January 2010 during Brotzmann's first residency at the venue. This was also the first time the trio had played together. Recorded at Cafe OTO by Shane Browne, mixed by John Edwards and Mastered by Andres [LUPO] Lupich at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. REVIEWS "On an east London side street, Café Oto hosts a programme of international experimental sounds to shame subsidised arts temples, drawing demographic-defying crowds of all ages through its doors. The first release on Oto's own label, available as an authentic vinyl slab or a slippery download, is a 40-minute splurge of sax, drums and bass skronk, live at the venue in 2010, from the German free-jazz giant Brötzmann and two stars of the London improv scene. Unrepeatable moments of collective inspiration and sudden sunlit shafts of modal near melody punctuate the continuing energy blur. Business as usual down Dalston Junction." Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times  "Since it opened in Dalston in April 2008, Café OTO has become London's new music venue of choice for the likes of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Joe McPhee, Mats Gustafsson – and Peter Brötzmann, whose first residency at the club in January 2010 yielded this inaugural release on OtoRoku, Café OTO’s new in-house label. The night in question was the first time Brötzmann had played with bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble, and the decision to team them up was inspired. With Alan Wilkinson, or in Decoy with Alex Hawkins and NEW with Alex Ward, Edwards and Noble have a deserved reputation as a thrilling high-energy rhythm section. And as Brötzmann is no slouch when it comes to high-energy playing, the combination is explosive. Right from the start of the set – the first that evening – it's obvious why this was selected to christen the label. All three players jump straight into top gear, with Brötzmann setting a cracking pace, his torrent of sound characterised by that hard-edged tone which makes him such compelling listening. ...the worse the better sets a high standard for subsequent releases to match. But, as every night at Café OTO is recorded and there's a wealth of fine music waiting in the wings, including quality recordings from Otomo Yoshihide and Wadada Leo Smith, OtoRoku looks like a label to watch." John Eyles, Paris Transatlantic "These two extended improvisations, recorded in January 2010 during Brötzmann’s first residency at OTO, finds the group attaining near-telepathic modes of interconnectedness, despite this being the trio’s first outing together. From the off, Brötzmann’s gills are gurning, throwing up torrents of molten roar, while Noble’s mule-kicking at the traps reels out ride hits like a baby sporting a bonnet of bees." - Spencer Grady, BBC Music "Does the world need another Brötzmann album? Probably not, but as the inaugural release on Cafe OTO's in-house high quality vinyl-only label, this one is cause for celebration. Recorded there - superbly well, too - during Brötzmann's residency in January 2012, this is no frills straight-up free jazz, solos and all, pitting the Firebreather of Wuppertal against the might local rhythm team (yes, they can and do swing hard) of John Edwards and Steve Noble. All three are on outstanding form, from the opening yelp - when it comes to Big Bang beginning, nobody does it better than Brötzmann - to Edwards's snarling drone 38 minutes later. Shame engineer Shane Browne slammed thos faders down so brutally: for once, you feel like joining in with the whoops and hollers of the punters." - Dan Warburton, The WIRE

Born in Tbilisi, Nargilə Mehtiyeva aka Aşıq Nargilə has been playing saz (long-neck lute) and singing since the age of 15. Fluent in Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Russian, Nargilə represents the cosmopolitan heritage of old Tbilisi, a city once known as a meeting point for multilingual aşıq bards who would travel through the region serving as conduits for news, ideas, music and culture. Nargilə is currently the only female aşıq living and performing in the ethnic Azeri region of Georgia, and has been teaching the art to new generations. This is a recording of Aşıq Nargilə's first concert in the UK. Recorded live at Cafe Oto on the 18th October 2014 by James Dunn. The pieces performed are named after the traditional saz aşıq havası (melodies) they are based on. Lyrics are taken from destan epics, regional poetry and Nargile’s own lyrics to match the rhyming patterns of these melodies. Yanıq Kerem (1) and Ruhani (7) are both instrumental pieces which depict their own stories without words. Ay Ceyranım (5) is a popular song performed at weddings across Azerbaijan. Aşıq Nargilə Mehtiyeva: Saz (long-necked lute) and Söz (vocals) --- Tracklisting: 1. Yaniq Keremi 2. Yurt Yeri 3. Ibrahimi 4. Dubeyti 5. Ay Ceyrani 6. Bas Saritel 7. Ruhani 8. Orta Saritel 

For those not following Bill Orcutt's drift into increasingly ear-friendly orbits in his recent live sets, Bill Orcutt -- his first solo electric studio album -- shocks with its space and sensitivity. On this eponymous record, Orcutt mines the expansiveness and sustain possible on the electric guitar, letting notes spin out and decay at the edge of feedback. His pachinko-parlor pacing, marked by unraveling clockspring accelerandos crashing into unexpectedly suspended tones, is still in evidence. But here, his developing melodicism maps a near-contemplative mental realm, orbiting St. Joan-era Loren Connors more than the cascading treble clatter of his duo LPs with Chris Corsano and others. From the first notes of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman", there's a lucidity and slow-burning lyricism that make Orcutt's plunges into barbed-wire fingerpicking all the more striking. While no one's about to mistake Orcutt for Jim Hall, you could probably play this for your jazzbo friends (should you be unlucky enough to have them) without raising any eyebrows. Orcutt's track selection mirrors his obsession with American popular song in its most banal manifestations, as radically reimagined via acoustic guitar on a variety of releases, including 2013's exhaustive Twenty Five Songs 7" box set, and the Editions Mego album A History of Every One (EMEGO 173CD/LP, 2013). Many of the songs from those two releases are here -- but stretched into new arrangements that explore the upper regions of the guitar neck (hitherto unexplorable on his shakily-intonated acoustic Kay), and lighting up new corners of each arrangement with a sensitivity born from years of reinterpretation. The result is a languid, freeform drift through Orcutt's internal cosmos into galaxies unknown to their original interpreters -- and occasionally, Orcutt himself. Most striking is "White Christmas", its careening low-register melodies crashing into complex chords that transcend Orcutt's primitive four-string fretboard. Orcutt's original compositions are equally striking. One of them -- "The World Without Me" -- is unique to this album, and notable for its trebly flurry of Clapton-esque 12th-fret drizzle. "O Platitudes!" by contrast, spins ever-faster in the cadence of a hand-cranked music box, before grinding to a near halt, its higher-key electricity standing in for the moaning vocalizations on Orcutt's acoustic rendition as heard on his 2014 VDSQ LP. With its deep-space beauty, harmonic complexity, and dark dissonance, Bill Orcutt is a stunning landmark in Orcutt's form-destroying trajectory.

"John Coltrane transformed the inner architecture of jazz, throughout the mid-1950s and 1960s and long after his premature death at age 40 in 1967. No other American musician could be said to be at the spiritual center of the '60s musical universe as Trane influenced Albert Ayler, La Monte Young, Jimi Hendrix and everybody in between. Cosmic Music, originally self-released by Alice Coltrane in 1968 and later issued by Impulse!, features two tracks ('Manifestation' and 'Rev. King') by John Coltrane's legendary final quintet that were recorded in San Francisco on February 2nd, 1966 and two more ('Lord Help Me To Be' and 'The Sun') from Alice Coltrane's very first session as a bandleader, recorded six months after her husband's passing. 'Manifestation' opens with the group already in mid-flight: Trane's fierce tenor leads the way with Pharoah Sanders' blistering sax and Alice's powerful chords hearing his call. On 'Rev. King,' Trane introduces a lyrical theme and then the composition erupts into fiery incantations, while Jimmy Garrison's bass throbs alongside the propulsive, gravity-defying drumming of Rashied Ali. Foreshadowing her majestic debut, A Monastic Trio, 'Lord Help Me To Be' brings Alice's celestial piano playing and inspired improvisations to the foreground with Sanders, Garrison and drummer Ben Riley rumbling in tow. 'The Sun,' a meditative ballad with subtle urgency, perfectly closes the album's contemplative circle. As John Coltrane recites on the final track, 'May there be peace and love and perfection throughout all creation.' "

Black Truffle presents a new issue of Annea Lockwood's classic 1970 tape piece "Tiger Balm", unavailable on vinyl for over thirty years, accompanied by two exquisite unreleased works for percussion and voice. "Created while Lockwood was living in the UK, the side-long 'Tiger Balm' is a singular work within the cannon of tape music. Inspired by research into the ritual function of music, the piece explores the possibility of evoking ancient communal memories through sound. Breaking entirely with the dynamic language of the musique concrète tradition, Lockwood uses a select palette of mainly unprocessed sonic elements chosen for their mysterious and erotic characteristics (a purring cat, a heartbeat, gongs, slowed down jaw harp, a tiger, a woman's breath, a plane passing overhead), presenting at most two sounds at once. As one sound flows organically into the next, their shared characteristics are highlighted, opening a space of dream logic and mysterious associations between nature and culture, the ancient and the modern. The B side presents two pieces for percussion recorded here for the first time. 'Amazonia Dreaming' (1987), performed by Dominic Donato, uses unaccompanied snare drum and voice to evoke the nocturnal soundscape of the Amazon rainforest. Unorthodox techniques and materials (marbles, chopsticks, a plastic jar lid) transform the snare into a resonant field of sensual textures. 'Immersion' (1998), performed by Donato and Frank Cassara, is a slow-moving exploration of gentle beating tones, performed on marimba, tam tams, and gong. Like the other two works presented on this LP, it provides captivating proof of Lockwood's belief in the complexity that deep listening can reveal within seemingly simple sounds." --Francis Plagne Comes in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with archival pictures and liner notes by Annea Lockwood; Includes the score to "Amazonia Dreaming"; LP design by Stephen O'Malley; Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

On November 8, 2016, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Edley ODowd performed an intimate and dynamic set to a sold-out audience at Cafe OTO in London.  These multi-track recordings have been mixed by Psychic TV's Jeff Berner and Edley ODowd and was recently issued as a very limited to 300 copies 12” vinyl edition by Old Europa Cafe. Expect darkness, light and the occasional humor as these two collaborators glide through a set of improvisational words and sound.

Joe McPhee: B-flat and E-flat alto clarinet, Roland MC202 Micro Composer synthesizer Bryan Eubanks: Open-circuit electronics (sinetones) What constitutes an unidentified sighting, the rarely heard ‘alien’ clarinet playing of Joe McPhee and the ineffable electronics of McPhee and Bryan Eubanks? Penultimate Press is extremely proud to produce My Undocumented Alien Clarinet: a strange sensual addition to the ever inquisitive McPhee canon. My Undocumented Alien Clarinet is a beguiling document of a performance held at Alternative Books, Kingston, NY, Sunday, August 6, 2006 under the auspices of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation’s New Vanguard Series. My Undocumented Alien Clarinet captures a unique intimate improvisation exploring the outer reaches of the form. Joe McPhee, (b.1939 USA) is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, conceptualist and theoretician. He has collaborated with Pauline Oliveros, Graham Lambkin, Peter Brotzmann, Evan Parker, Raymond Boni among many others. With a career spanning nearly 50 years and over 100 recordings, he continues to tour internationally, forge new connections and reach for music’s outer limits. .. His magical take on avant-garde sax remains one of the wonders of the scene. He still has one of the most beautiful tones on the planet, even when he’s reaching for jazz’s outer limits.” – Time Out NY Bryan Eubanks (b. 1977, USA) is a musician composing electronic and acoustic works for small ensembles, solo instruments, and custom generative software; improvising in collaboration; and working with acoustic holography, a stereophonic recording and diffusion technique. Artwork by Jerry Starpoli Liner notes by Joe McPhee In memory of Jerry Starpoli  

Kye is proud to present Seattle Symphony, the new LP by Poughkeepsie’s Joe McPhee. “Seattle has become my home away from home, my second city, since first being invited to join trombonist Stuart Dempster for duets in 1984. When the opportunity for a solo concert arose, I learned of the passing of Bill Dixon and Fred Anderson and decided to make the focus of the performance a celebration of the lives, and music, of these two legendary heroes, who both passed away in June of 2010, within 8 days of each other.” (Joe McPhee). Seattle Symphony arrives in a full color high gloss sleeve in an edition of 300 copies.

Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain is the quintessential work of artist/filmmaker/composer Tony Conrad. Comprised of both film installation and minimalist score for amplified strings, Ten Years leaps across genre and medium to connect his revolutionary structural filmmaking with the experiments in long-duration sound that Conrad had begun in the 1960s as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music."Ten Years began with image before sound," writes Andrew Lampert, "a row of quadruple projections arranged side-by-side, all the shuffling stripes cascading into each other. Over the next two hours the music throbbed and the projectors incrementally shifted inwards, their beams gradually uniting to form one pulsating, overlapping picture."For its 1972 premiere at New York's The Kitchen, Ten Years included Conrad on violin as well as Rhys Chatham and Laurie Spiegel performing on instruments of the composer's own making. Chatham played the Long String Drone – a 6-foot long strip of wood with bass strings, electric pickup, tuning keys, tape, rubber band and metal hardware – while Spiegel carried out an arrhythmic bass pulse throughout.Superior Viaduct is honored to present this previously unreleased recording of Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain's breathtaking premier performance. As Chatham recounts in the liner notes, "When I first listened to this recording after not hearing it for over 40 years, it transported me back to the early Kitchen and the heyday of early minimalism, played outside the Dream Syndicate."Track Listing:Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain (1:28:18)

Joe McPhee and Ingebrigt Haker Flaten at the Sugar Maple/Okka Fest on Saturday, June 6th, 2015. Joe McPhee - tenor and soprano saxophone. Ingebrigt Haker Flaten - double bass. Recorded live by Dave Zuchowski. Mastered by Martin Siewert in July/August 2016.

Joe McPhee and Raymond Boni at Hulsey Recital Hall on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) campus on April 20, 1985. Joe McPhee - soprano saxophone, electronics and voice; Raymond Boni - electric guitar and electronics. The complete was concert inspired by the words of Eric Dolphy: "When you hear music, After it's over, It's gone, In the air, You can never capture it again."

Following the death of German trombonist Johannes Bauer in May 2016, Peter Brötzmann decided to pay tribute to the many years of comradery and collaboration he and Bauer shared, from Globe Unity in the '70s to the Peter Brötzmann Group and the Chicago Tentet. This disc presents a previously unreleased recording of a beautiful live duo performance from Osaka, 1997, which had been waiting in Brötzmann's archives for a release. Peter Brötzmann: tenor and alto saxophones, tárogató, B-flat clarinet; Johannes Bauer: trombone.

ohan Berthling: double bass; Martin Küchen: tenor and soprano saxophones, retardophone, flute; Steve Noble: drums and percussion. Recorded by David Carlsson at Gula Studion, Malmö, Sweden, November 1, 2015. Mixed by David Carlsson. Mastered by Martin Siewert. Cover photo by Donald Boström.

Is This Right? is Seymour Wright's third full solo record and comes as a 2 discs set in a beautiful oblong sleeve. 5 tracks recorded between 2014 and 2017 in Bologna, London and Paris. Is This Right?  continues where his last solo - Seymour Writes Back - finished, further developing a set of relationships between ideas, places, people and time, as Wright puts it, documenting 'learning about the saxophone - actual and potential - as rhthym, shadow and text'.

MAGAZINE is the inaugural issue of Blank Forms’ journal, bringing together a combination of never-before published, lost, and new materials that supplement our live programs. It is envisioned as a platform for critical reflection and extended dialogue between scholars, artists, and other figures working within the world of experimental music and art. Following “Let Freedom Fry”—a short statement by Joe McPhee drawing out the contemporary political climate in relation to his practice as a creative improviser—the magazine is bookended by four texts surrounding the practice of pioneering sound artist Maryanne Amacher; an essay by Bill Dietz on his collaborations with Amacher and his work with her archive; an unpublished 1988 interview highlighting Amacher’s ideas around her Long Distance Music and Mini Sound Series; a conversation between Marianne Schroeder, Stefan Tcherepnin, and Lawrence Kumpfrevealing the archival questions raised by Amacher’s work; and science fiction writer Greg Bear’sshort story Petra, a tale of gargoyles coming to life and breeding with humans in a post-apocalyptic Notre Dame, from which Amacher’s 1991 piece got its name. This issue also includes Branden Joseph’s interview with The Dead C’s Bruce Russell, accompanied by Russell’s essay exploring the Situationist tradition of ‘mis-competence’ in New Zealand electronic music. Charles Curtis contributed notes on the interpretive challenges posed by a posthumous performance of Terry Jennings‘ minimalist classic Piece For Cello And Saxophone. Shelley Hirsch, Richard Skidmore, and Dennis Hermanson provide a series of writings on and remembrances of the late Ralston Farina, whose scarcely documented “visual poetry” was an important precursor to what we now call “performance.” And from her own 2016 performances at the Emily Harvey Foundation, Dawn Kasper supplies her original proposal document and score notes for an improvisational interpretation. MAGAZINE features two new French-translations: an excerpt from François Bonnet’s book of phenomenology, The Infra-World, translated by Robin Mackay, and a Christophe Broquainterview with enigmatic huntress of sounds Anne Gillis, translated by Adrian Rew. Ian Nagoski’s rare 1998 conversation with Éliane Radigue, conducted and largely ignored at a time when there was little interest in her music, provides one of the clearest overviews of the visionary composer’s early work and life. Supplementing the texts are numerous archival photos and documents, plus “Dark Matters,” a poem by Joe McPhee. Edited by Lawrence Kumpf and Joe Bucciero with contributions by Greg Bear, François Bonnet, Bill Dietz, Dennis Hermanson, Shelley Hirsch, Branden W. Joseph, Dawn Kasper, Joe McPhee, Ian Nagoski, Adrian Rew, Bruce Russell, and Richard C. Skidmore

Issue 2 of the Cesura//Acceso, journal of music, politics and poetics. Featuring work by Paul Abbott, Larne Abse Gogarty, Kim O'Neil, Danny Hayward, David Morris, Nathaniel Mackey, Federica Frabetti and Mark Fell, Irene Revell and Annea Lockwood, ESW, Abject Subject Ensemble, Sophie Hoyle, Hannah Black, Naroder Bourniki, Paul Rekret, Clair Potter, Sacha Kahir, Byron Peters and Tyler Coburn, Pil and Galia Kollectiv and Verity Spott.

* This book is a monster. It's huge. Hence price and postage. So you know...  free improvisation: what goes on? how does it work?                                                                      how can you write about it? Musicswas published, from 1975 to 1979, by musicians and artists on the London scene of free improvisation, focusing on the most innovative participants of their generation. Steve Beresford, David Toop,  Annabel Nicholson, Evan Parker, David Cunningham, Lindsay Cooper, Eddie Prevost, John Russell, Derek Bailey, Hugh Davies, Peter Riley and many, many others contributed to the writing, graphics and photography. Musicswas a blueprint for the interdisciplinary activities of sound art, field recording, free improvisation, live electronics, 20th century composition & audio culture. It came out six times a year and ran for twenty-three hand-assembled issues. The journal covered improvised and non-western music alongside performance art, reflecting the broad interests of the so-called “second generation” of London’s improvisers, and provided a convivial focus point.  Overlapping with thelondon musicians’ collective (lmc), the publication first launched in Spring of 1975, with the tagline:an impromental experivisation arts magazineand a manifesto that proposed the destruction of artificial boundaries, and linked Free Jazz, the academic ministrations of John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and K. Stockhausen and indigenous and non-European music.Musicswas significant in the discussion of traditional Asian instruments as paths of equal value for the performance of musics. Produced by what was effectively an anarchist collective with few publishing skills and no support, the magazine’s roughness, marginality and scarcity has kept it from those who are active, even prominent in the field.  Musicsis an entree to the arcane world of the 1970s London improviser’s scene and presents scores, dialogues, debates, positioning, arguments, accolades, critiques, absurdist/dada notions, and a bit of pranksterism - all with collective enthusiasm. Founding Editor David Toop: “with rose-tinted affection I recall mass paste-up sessions with spray mount… a page of reviews of electronic music by women, written by Lily Greenham in 1978… in the same issue are five beautifully written and illustrated pages about listening in Greece. An Aural Sketchbook by Dave Veres was just one example of pieces about listening practice and field recording; others include Found Sounds by Michael Leggett, Sounds in Kyōdo by Kazuko Hohki, New York Sounds by Fred Frith and Sounds Heard at La Sainte-Baume by Hugh Davies. There are also invaluable accounts of groups such as The People Band, Feminist Improvising Group, CCMC, Los Angeles Free Music Society, MEV and the Dutch musicians associated with Instant Composers Pool. Interspersed among all this loamy archival material are a few essays of grinding tedium, snarky barbs of wit, barely decipherable photographs…” Musics Introduction: Steve Beresford / Foreword: David Toop isbn: 978-0-9972850-5-5 / Publisher:ecstatic peace library Pub date: 1 September 2016 Flexi-bound cover, Swiss-bound, 800 pages

Expanded and revised hardback 2nd edition of this legendary Ra artefact. All will be shipped immediately on receipt of stock late-November.   Twenty years after its first publication, ART YARD are proud to present the fully revised 2nd edition of Hartmut Geerken’s long unobtainable Omniverse – Sun Ra, a definitive hitch-hiker’s guide to the Sun Ra galaxy. The new, completely revised edition features: -       unpublished photographs of Sun Ra and the Arkestra by Hartmut Geerken and Val Wilmer-       a fully revised discography by Chris Trent, co-author of The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra-       articles by Geerken, Amiri Baraka, Chris Cutler, Robert L. Campbell, Salah Ragab, Gabi Geist and others-       new full colour images of hundreds of Sun Ra album covers, posters, handbills and ephemera, including reproductions of rare hand drawn and coloured LP sleevesFor five decades, Sun Ra brightened planet Earth with his unique, provocative and esoteric musical philosophy. Touring the world with his formidable Arkestra, he represented and affirmed a new vision of Black history and culture, embodied and spread a new and powerfully influential Black philosophy, and revolutionised music with sounds from beyond the purple star zone.  Ra accepted no limitation imposed on him by earthly powers: his vista was the universe, his travel was interplanetary, his music borne along the spaceways as he delivered messages of light to a sleeping world. Now more than ever, the value and radicalism of his protean musical inventiveness, his socially collective self-determination, and his philosophical and poetic profundity can be seen. Where Ra went, we are slowly going, and we will find his message for us waiting there. The new edition of Omniverse – Sun Ra is a major contribution to Sun Ra studies, and a dazzling overview of its subjects astonishingly productive career on Earth - the definitive companion to the many worlds of Sun Ra.  

Foreword by Sonny Rollins. Henry Grimes recorded and toured with some of the most imaginative American jazz musicians including Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor, and Albert Ayler. This book examines the bassist’s long but turbulent musical career, recounting his continuously creative artistic life as bassist, violinist and poet. Henry’s a giant. – Cecil Taylor, 2000. On the records he was on, he stood out. He had a big sound, and it really punched out whatever ensemble he was in. – William Parker, 2003. I am so happy to hear that Henry is playing again. He is one of the great individualists, and his absence left a space that nobody else could fill. – Dave Holland, 2003. Henry has always been a serious, intense, and fearless musician whose personal life reflected those exceptional qualities. I admire him greatly. – Sonny Rollins, 2007. Henry Grimes is among the greatest improvisers living in the world today. His playing is exquisite. – Roscoe Mitchell, Mills College, 2010. Barbara Ina Frenz, born in 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland, is a German historian, author and copywriter living in Frankfurt am Main. Frenz grew up in a jazz-loving family, studied history, philosophy, and art history in Frankfurt, and gained her PhD with a study on equality in the Middle Ages. Frenz was a research associate at the Universities of Frankfurt and Würzburg from1989 to ’99 undertaking historical studies sponsored by various foundations. Since 2001, after further education in creative writing, she has worked in the creative areas of advertising and as a writer of poetry, texts in history and culture, and contributions to the German jazz magazine Jazzpodium.

“Far to the North. past the towns, beyond the forests, and more distant than most have dared to go, there lies a small group of islands that against all the odds survive amongst the rocks and brine at the very edge of everything.” The Nuckelavee is a fresh re-telling of an old Orcadian folk story, written and illustrated by Oliver Barrett in this new edition from Tartaruga Press. Set across one stormy island night, The Nuckelavee follows Tammas Kelpy as he braves the wild elements and fearsome terrain, whilst something terrifying and ancient awaits him in the darkness... .Featuring stunning hand-drawn ink and pencil illustrations throughout and a hand-screenprinted dust jacket, The Nuckelavee is available in an edition of 250 numbered copies. .Oliver Barrett is a musician and illustrator whose work has featured on various prints, posters and records (both his own as Petrels as well as numerous others). This is his first book.

Screenprinted on thick, quality paper printed by Tartaruga. Design by Han Bennink Limited to 100 numbered copies  “Han Bennink is an international treasure, a towering catalyst bringing sparkle, humour and character to an art form that too often is dull.” – London Jazz News In the fields of experimental and outsider music, the word "legendary" can be applied far too liberally, but for Han Bennink no other word will do. Celebrating a three-quarter century this year, the Dutch drummer and percussionist has had a colossal impact and influence in the fields of free jazz and improvised music, from his seminal and varied work with the likes of John Tchicai, Peter Brötzmann and Derek Bailey in the 60s and 70s, to a still restlessly inventive collaborative output with artists as wide-ranging as The Ex, Pat Thomas and Eugene Chadbourne in more recent years. Cafe OTO has had the privilege of playing host to many of the greats of improvised music since its inception in 2008, but one artist who never seems to have performed here enough is Han Bennink. This residency – his first shows here since 2013 – aims to go some way in redressing that balance, with a packed line-up of duo and trio performances alongside collaborators old and new. Combining equal parts virtuosity and anarchic irreverence, Bennink has never rested on his laurels, and this should be an enthralling and thrillingly unpredictable three days “What ultimately makes Bennink special is his manifest love for the music, a love that inclines him to tear down the cardboard walls that too often separate different schools of jazz. At his best, with colleagues who share his all-encompassing stylistic embrace, Bennink plays the continuum of jazz as an instrument unto itself.” – Drummerworld

Screenprinted on thick, quality paper printed by Tartaruga. Design by Maja Larsson / Organ studio. We're delighted to present a four-day residency with one of the greatest living UK-based improvisers - Pat Thomas. Criminally unheralded, Pat is a fearless and uncompromising player who – despite coming from a background of free improvisation and new music – can feel as close to the worlds of noise and experimental music. His performances range in approach and texture from fearsome cacophony that can sound like a piano having its guts ripped out, with Pat thumping discordant clusters of keys with his fists or rattling the exterior wooden frame; to delicately soothing passages where his fingers glide over the keys, creating microscopic tones and resonant melodies that can hold an entire sonic landscape. The residency coincides with the release of Pat's new LP - The Elephant Clock of Al Jazari - on our own in-house OTOROKU label, which comprises four typically genre-defying and sonically dexterous pieces from one of the UK's most extraordinary pianists. "I can't quite think of anyone else who sounds quite like this: it is in a class of its own." - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery "Thomas runs the gamut of techniques, splashing clusters, weaving contrapuntal lines and building elaborate structures from the inside out. Despite their variety, they share a fundamental quality – they truly sound like spur of the moment creations, not the final draft of ideas mulled over for weeks, if not months on end." - Bill Shoemaker, Point of Departure 

Screenprinted on thick, quality paper and printed in flourescent colours by Tartaruga. Design by Maja Larsson / Organ studio. On our wishlist from the day OTO opened, we're over the moon to finally host one of the greatest free-music groups of all time – The Art Ensemble of Chicago! An extremely rare opportunity to see this legendary group, the impact and influence that The Art Ensemble of Chicago have had over the past five decades cannot be overstated. At turns soulful, chaotic, ennergising and transcendant – playful yet attentive, generous but untethered – the AEC helped redefine what jazz music could be and continue to seek out its future. “A legendary band that created new standards not only for improvisation but for performance as well” – All Music “One of the most enduring units dedicated to free improvisation and modern jazz composition in existence.” – Pitchfork

Screenprinted on thick, quality paper and printed on beautiful 'camel' paperstock by Tartaruga. Design by Maja Larsson / Organ studio. We are very pleased to have the legendary Peter Hammill play at Cafe Oto and have had this exquisited limited poster (100 copies) made up to celebrate.  From original listing: A very special three-day residency from the utterly distinctive and ceaselessly inventive songwriter and Van Der Graaf Generator founder, Peter Hammill. Making a mockery of genre boundaries and consistently confounding expectations, Hammill's work spans numerous styles and approaches whilst always maintaining his own unique sound. Now, nearly five decades on from the debut VDGG release, Hammill's creative spark shows no sign of abating and we're very excited to host him performing solo across three nights at OTO.

Special poster bundle from our archive – three randomly selected posters/prints for just £10 (£8 members)! Pictured is just a small selection from our poster archive, stretching right back to some of the first shows at OTO in 2008. Screenprints, risographs and high quality prints for shows from the likes of Sun Ra Arkestra, Jandek, Konono No.1, Matthew Shipp, The Necks, Okkyung Lee, Tenniscoats, Awesome Tapes From Africa, John Butcher, Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore and many, many more. Posters will be randomly selected and we'll try to include a good range of prints in each package.

Special poster bundle from our archive – five randomly selected posters/prints for just £15 (£12 members)! Pictured is just a small selection from our poster archive, stretching right back to some of the first shows at OTO in 2008. Screenprints, risographs and high quality prints for shows from the likes of Sun Ra Arkestra, Jandek, Konono No.1, Matthew Shipp, The Necks, Okkyung Lee, Tenniscoats, Awesome Tapes From Africa, John Butcher, Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore and many, many more. Posters will be randomly selected and we'll try to include a good range of prints in each package.