London based artist Cam Deas presents a revelatory new stage in his practice. Following in the footsteps of the likes of David Tudor's Rainforest works, Cam studies in the liminal space between the natural world & synthesis, conjuring deep, meditative and beguiling sound worlds. Some of his most singular and focussed work to date, following on from a series of impressive releases on Death of Rave and Alter.   "I wanted to make something which reflected a scene of nature, outside of the city, somewhere which has become more and more attractive to be over the last few months... So I made these synthesised percussion sounds to be almost real and wooden, which are weaving in and out across different tempos, playing patterns that are somewhat regular, but always changing slightly. This is meant to be analogous with the dawn chorus, or any scene of nature where lots of different small events are happening, layered, at once... But I only had the dawn chorus, so I recorded that at 4am on Monday morning. These individual bird songs weaving in and out, repeating, different birds joining and leaving throughout. So it's meant to be 3 different sound environments, or imaginary frames of an environment at 3 different moments." - Cam Deas

A rare solo set from composer, percussionist and sound artist Susie Ibarra. Using the full breadth of a unique set up, Ibarra takes a meditative journey across her kit, taking time to find familiar rhythms and knots and allowing them to offer up new space and sound. Delicate, dynamic and extremely focused, Ibarra finds expressive harmonics in gongs and brushes alike, with refreshingly melodic, even pastoral, results.  "Rhythm Cycles is a drum solo that I consider as a performance meditation. I love to perform this piece as it is possible to always arrive at new places while returning to familiar cycles that make so much sense to me. This piece is constructed to weave through certain tempos and hit points during a solo performance that arrive at melodies and textures and phrases grounded in specific rhythms and polyrhythms. The piece cycles through each of these sections and allows me to improvise through a flexible structure, sometimes returning to a section at moments and other times moving forward to create a new rhythmic environment.” - Susie Ibarra. --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Thursday 7th November 2019 by Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. “Rhythm Cycles” by Susie Ibarra is a commissioned solo performance by the Bagri Foundation for their series " At the Cutting Edge" performed at Cafe OTO. Many thanks to the Bagri Foundation for the support of this release.  About Bagri Foundation The Bagri Foundation is a UK registered charity, inspired by unique and unexpected ideas that weave the traditional and the contemporary of Asian culture. The Foundation, with its roots in education, is driven by curiosity and a desire to learn, and aims for each project to challenge, engage and inspire. Through a diverse programme of film, visual arts, music, dance, literature and talks, the Bagri Foundation gives artists and experts from across Asia and the diaspora, wider visibility on the global stage. Recent projects include At Home in the World, a series of digital commissions; Tantra: enlightenment to revolution at the British Museum; Object, Story, Wonder: Museum Collections Revealed; and From Here to Eternity: Sunil Gupta, A Retrospective at The Photographer’s Gallery, London. www.bagrifoundation.org   

With the tools of field recordings, cello, whip and tape manipulation in hand, Lia Mazzari and Tom White tease the temporality and geography of domestic and outdoor spaces during various parts of 2020 lock-down, rupturing a sonic space where they are both passive and active subjects. Rather than relishing in the new found silence of lock-down, Lia and Tom amplify sounds that are normally drowned out by the buzz of everyday life and activity. On 'The Unending Attraction of Crowd', they delve their curiosity into aural events during the initial lockdown phase in spring 2020. In it, the clatter of industrial work and manufacturing in London is processed alongside the snap of Lia's whip and recordings at a football match, where they captured the artificial crowd noise piped into the field, as well as the chants of fans watching from the side of the stadium before they were dispersed by police. On Lettura di un’ onda (reading a wave) they explore the duality between city and countryside in post-lockdown summer, both juxtaposing and transmuting aural components in a fizzing aural mesh. On Lia's trip to France, scurrying cicadas, covid-19 safety announcements and cello drones elapse in and out of the frame, meeting Tom's domestic rumblings in a slow panning organic and synthetic sound world. Together and apart, they form a hybridised sonic ecology, exploring the beauty, alienation and acute loneliness of their own lives and others locked down. -- Lia Mazzari - whip, cello, field recordings Tom White - field recordings, digital manipulation, tape manipulation -- Mastered by Oliver Barrett

Inclusive music ensemble JAMAICA! send a sonic missive from London's underbelly. Swelling drones, ghostly mutterings and crumbling electronics fade in and out of one another in a cauldron of organic and synthetic sound, made from a mixture of traditional and home-made instruments. Fans of early AMM and Wolf Eyes' more stripped back work will relish here in this extended zoned jam, where no intensity is lost while each aural gesture is given space to breath, explode, implode and fade into silence.  The piece is bookended by a sudden dub soundsystem workout, seeing the group emerge out of their insular domesticity and party on the streets.  The music presented here heavily features and is dedicated to Leon, one of the mainstays of JAMAICA! who passed away earlier this year. -- All music by JAMAICA! -- Artwork design by Oliver Barrett The artwork features Leon's bass. RIP.

The third release on the Henning Christiansen Archive features a previously unreleased work from 1991. The Wandering Human Being – The Wandering Voice, as the title suggest is a piece for voice and featurues Carlo Quartucci, Carla Tatò, Ursula Reuter Christiansen and Henning Christiansen. Ursula and Henning met the couple Carlo Quartucci and Carla Tatò through the curator Johannes Gachnang on a visit to Genazzano in Italy 1983 and became close friends, collaborating on a variety of projects, most notably on Carlo and Carla’s epic adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s play Penthesilea (forthcoming on The Henning Christiansen archive). The Wandering Human Being – The Wandering Voice came about from a conversation between the four of them whilst on a beach on the island of Møn in the eastern sea in Denmark, looking south. Here they all laughed at the realisation that on the other ide of Europe in this direction was Sicily where Carlo and Carla lived. The island Sicily, The island Møn. As Henning says “The human-being was wandering from sea to sea”. Henning saw no difference in their way over life ‘over there’ and mused on the means of which we cross over oceans and move around facilitating awareness of the same family of human being. People from islands meet people from islands and they can all look across vast waters and laugh together. Human-basic-technology This conversation and collective realisation of the simplicity of it all lead to this work which is one of the finest in Henning’s vast catalogue. L´essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando is a mantra for four voices, the sound of the ocean, a pvc tube, effects and wind instument. The piece moves in an organic hypnotic fashion lulling and rolling, ebbing and flowing over the two sides of the record. Rudimentary phrases in various languages interlope and weave a mystical music, as primitive as it is ‘contemporary’. The Wind, The Stars, etc are repeated over in random untrained fashion. The two couples from different countries weave voices, words and language into a common sonic fabric which eradicates identity, the idea of ‘national’, the idea of country, the idea of difference. Unlike anything else in Henning’s output L´essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando is a calm and meditative work which rolls along two sides wrapping the listener in a random melancholic meditative mantra. Only Henning Christiansen could summon such haunting, beautiful, gothic music carved from political hope. Limited LP in an edition of 500 copies with:  Large bespoke fold out sleeve on grey board with white reverse Printed inner sleeve 195 x 280 booklet Front Cover drawing by Ursula Reuter Christiansen Design and Concept by Maja Larsson Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi

Lament in Three Parts was improvised and recorded on April 30th in the quiet bunker-esque venue, Ausland, just 20 doors down from where I live in Berlin. Additional processes and editing were completed on May 1st 2020. Special thanks to Cafe Oto, Ausland, Billy Steiger and Petter Eldh for their part in the making of this release, and especially to Sophie Fetokaki for her generous writing in response to the music. Her foreword and Billy Steiger's artwork accompany this release. I would also like to acknowledge Catherine Lamb, Rebecca Lane and Johnny Chang whose music, playing and friendship has made a significant mark on my own meanderings in to new musical territories in recent years. Extract from the foreword, 'Thoughts for Lucy: a foreword to Lament in Three Parts' - by Sophie Fetokaki: "...What is it about the telling that provides comfort or consolation? Perhaps it's partly in the curative power of naming, an act that can bring our experience into relief and ward off the depressive forces of nothingness, formlessness, and monstrous plasticity. There are also other forms of telling that are not lexical, and our too-easy separation of sound and speech, music and words, belies the existence of something deeply healing and transformational that grounds and unifies them both." - read the full text here (pdf). www.lucyrailton.comwww.sophiefetokaki.comwww.billysteiger.com

“The real world appears in the image as it were between parentheses” - Emmanuel Levinas Tesserae interprets Indian Classical music at the intersection and interstices of cultures to imagine a trans-cultural musical space that reflects the contemporary migratory world. It draws from Western Classical music, Western experimental music tradition, and electronic music making techniques to imagine new possibilities for Indian Classical music, and creates a liminal space where such categories enter into a conversation with themselves and each other to be constantly challenged, negotiated with, modified, and reinscribed with new meanings. The works are mosaics of generative patterns where numerous recorded vocal phrases intersect and glide over one another to form colourful images of a multidimensional musical space unbounded by traditional, cultural, geographical, or categorical borders. Anudhatthamudhatthassvaritham is a compound word formed from Anudhattham, Udhattham, and Svaritham, the three notes from which Indian Classical music is believed to have originated. Oscillators generate new notes and sounds from these originary notes by modulating each other in a partially controlled environment, which in turn feed into an artistic imagination leading to their assembly into the Carnatic raga Sindhubhairavi. The artistic and electronic interpretations are in conversation with each other throughout the process of conception, construction, and production to fashion hybrid formations that reimagine and renew the past in a space of cultural hybridity. The vocal phrases that constitute Ten Thousand Dancing Shivas and the singing style can neither be conveniently classified as Hindustani nor Carnatic. However, as in the artforms, gamakas, or the movements between notes, become as important as the notes themselves to form hybrid entities that are in perpetual motion through pitch-space and time. These entities gradually begin to intersect and glide over one another in a partially controlled chance-based environment where harmonies are no longer fixed or stable, but fluid and malleable. The intersecting vocal phrases and the harmonies they form conjure a musical space that reflects the intimacy of cultures in the contemporary migratory world and celebrates the possibilities afforded by cultural hybridity in enriching our traditions and modes of thought. -- All vocals by Nakul Krishnamurthy. -- Track 1 uses Tom Mudd's Gutter Synth.Vocals in track 2 recorded at Crescendo Studios, Palakkad.Special thanks to: Jimmy Bunch, Alasdair Campbell, Santhosh Chirackal, Fayez Fazil, Mark Fell, Adam Greig, Tom Knapp, Namita Krishnamurthy, Oliver Pitt, Rohini Rajan, Rian Treanor, and Jeremy Woodruff.Artwork design & mastering by Oliver Barrett

Whether solo, as part of Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides and White Death, or in her other collaborations, Manchester-based artist Kelly Jayne Jones work has always brought a distinct otherworldly flavour to proceedings - one that reaches for both individual and collective solace in the abstract. Side-stepping any potentially reductive spritualism or exoticsm, Kelly has built a multi-faceted practice over the years, engaging with quantum fictions, animist ideology and music as a site for transformation. With that, she has expanded her tools from flute, contact mics and tape works to include dance, gesture, sonic drawings, stone sculpture and film. 'The Reed Flute is Fire' is the most distinct rendering of her practice thus far, confidently embracing electroacoustic composition with a deft and gentle touch. Elements of field recordings, synthesis, instrumentation and voice are brought together in rich oneiric technicolour, like iridescent streams of flowing, dripping and splashing water soaking an imaginary landscape. Sliding bass tones and thick drones add both tonal hues and reframe the musical narrative - pushing and pulling the journey in new directions. While a tryst with nature and technology is suggestive within the albums' aesthetics, Kelly makes clear that such a symbiosis is never reached without constant exploration and points of arduous upheaval. A 4-dimensional sonic journey over land, city, air and water in worlds both real and unreal. -- Kelly Jayne Jones - voice, flute, electronics -- Mastered by Oliver Barrett Mixing and additonal processing by Guillaume Dujat

"São Paulo, the city where I live, entered quarantine in March 2020. Around that time, demonstrations started to break out nationwide against a leader who was accused of having total disregard for human life as he downplayed the severity of the pandemic and failed to take prompt measures to slow the spread of Covid-19. These demonstrations, whose forms might seem unusual to those not familiar with South American culture, are called “panelaço” in Portuguese. Panelaço is a kind of ‘political performance’ where people spontaneously start banging pots and pans and shouting together slogans in the streets. However, this time, due to Covid restrictions, panelaço was performed from balconies and windows. Over this period of strict quarantine rules, people could not go outside and have a normal social life. Therefore, the loud banging was also a way for people to express their feelings, political views, and share a common space through sound. In a way, panelaço can be considered as a social act which gives shape to a new type of collectiveness, in a creative manner. In the context of Latin American countries such as Argentina and Chile (where panelaço is called, in Spanish, “cacerolazo”), and Brazil, such practice of banging pans as a form of protest has become quite common nowadays. It is an extremely simple act in which anyone can participate; it is indeed a DIY kind of demonstration. In addition, since pots and pans obviously relate to food, such acts can also be interpreted as a strive for survival in times of crisis. Yet, in this era of social distancing and community containment, this practice has come to hold a new meaning for people: a way of coping with a new reality and connect with others through sound. In panelaço, sound reveals itself in its sociality as it operates as a medium for political discourse, going beyond the physical and aesthetic level. This is why it inspired me on a fundamental level. While listening to the multitude of spontaneous banging and shouting coming from outside the window, I decided to participate in their angry and euphoric demand for change in my own way, through an improvisation with my modular synthesizer. Then, original sounds of Brazilian panelaço were collected from the Internet and added to create a polyphonic composition in which each sound fragment would respond and communicate with each other in an improvised fashion. This is how and why these three tracks “Movimento 1”, “Movimento 2”, “Movimento 3” came about." - Yama Yuki -- Sampled, performed ,recorded, and edited by Yama Yuki -- Mastered at Casa Metaesquema  Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

While neighbouring city Glasgow prides itself with the self-endowed banner 'People Make Glasgow', the cobbled street capital of Edinburgh lives under the cursed aphorism of 'Inspiring Capital'.  The biggest financial accumulator the city has each year, the Edinburgh Festival, is representative of this apparent 'inspiration': tourists arrive in their droves, Air B'n'b prices sky-rocket, corporate pop-up bars & restaurants lace the streets and the overwhelming majority of local residents get understandably disgruntled.Tucked in a spot in Lochend End Park, 2 of the usually disgruntled locals -  Ali Robertson (fae OTO favourites, Usurper) & Firas Khnaisser - relish in the festival's covid-induced absence over the course of two days, engaging in a delectable jumble of scrape, rattle, pop, twang and whizz. The park is just 0.4 miles from Ali's house and 0.7 miles from Firas's , and it's clear they picked a space for comfy communion. Firas gently plucks shards of melodies and sheets of detuned wonder, while Ali creates tactile moments of intrigue and mischief with his menagerie of objects. Conversations are shared with chip-thieving feathered friends, who hover over the tumbling sound world, clearly intrigued with whatever its ardent creators are serving up. Who needs the Edinburgh festival when you can have a musical picnic with your pals instead?  -- Firas Khnaisser - classical guitar, drum and objects Ali Robertson - amplified objects -- Record live on zoom with almost no edits 0.4 Miles was recorded on 20.07.20, and 0.7 Miles on 24.07.20

Neil Charles has long been one of the key figures in our local community, presenting group projects with the likes of Elaine Mitchener, Alexander Hawkins and more, not to mention an unforgettable 3 days residency in collaboration with Anthony Braxton. Neil's own work on the double bass is rarely brought to the fore, so we're delighted that he's shared with us this new set of recordings made in his studio during lock-down. These 9 tracks are filled with searching passages, bowed refrains and rough and dexterous exploration, embracing the full physical possibilities of his instrument. Neil's style lands somewhere between Gary Peacock, William Parker and Fernando Grillo to our ears, but heralds its own unvarnished poeticism.  - Neil Charles - double bass -- Recorded by Neil Charles Photography by George Nelson Mastering & artwork design by Oliver Barrett

The debut release by Slovenian musical polymath Iztok Koren, best known for his work in avantefolk outfits Širom, Škm banda and Hexenbrutal. Made in the heat of 2020’s lockdown, Iztok transmutes the intensity of the period into 6 pieces that sensitively unfurl over time. With various stringed instruments and field recordings in hand, he weaves his interests in Slovenian mysticism, ancient Chinese divination texts, his family and his new found love of nature, revealing an intimate snapshot of life up-close. -- All compositions by Iztok Koren: banjo, prepared 3-string banjo, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, field recordings -- Recorded and mixed by Chris Eckman, 15th august 2020Mastered by Dejan Lapanja Cover art by Tina KonecDesign Oli BarrettNovember, 2020Iztok Koren website Iztok Koren Facebook 

OTOROKU is extremely proud to present a reissue of Evan Parker's legendary boxset "Collected Solos".  Originally issued in 1989 and long ago sold out, "Collected Solos" brings Evan Parker's first four solo LPs issued on Incus - "Saxophone Solos", "The Snake Decides", "Monoceros" and "Six of One" together, alongside a cassette featuring extra cuts from the sessions at FMP studios which didnt make it onto "Saxophone Solos" and an accompanying booklet written by the late writer, Paul Haines. Housed in a specially made and screenprinted box, and numbered in an edition of 250, the collection celebrates Evan Parker's remarkable commitment to a creative life and work. 

Pat Thomas is one of the most extraordinary pianists of our time. In a first time duo with saxophonist Matana Roberts, the lyricism of his distinctly dexterous and curious approach to the piano paints pathways for Robert’s poignantly vocal saxophone. Together the two speak; locked grooves and neat switchbacks on the keys form dialogue with long deliberate lines on the alto, punctuated by Roberts’ ecstatic vocalisations.  The trio of improvised pieces which make up the record’s first side are rich phrases, pitched at each end of the piano and stretched and pulled by Pat. His simple, repetitive cycles yield space and colour for Robert’s song, then let sounds build to a flourish; an armed run on the keys and some wonderfully soft landings.    The second side, a whole part in itself, goes deeper - hammered armfuls of piano and torn top breath blasting from Roberts fall in a flutter of delicate keystrokes. Call and response halves collide in a wonderful thunder before finding the edge of another line to hang onto. There is a remarkable sense of purpose, precision and restraint at play, as well as a peaceful milieu, which no doubt stems from the two players' fierce individual intelligence, creativity and curiosity.  The record arrives housed in a screen printed Kraftboard sleeve, die cut to reveal photographs taken by Dawid Laskowski and Fabio Luguro. Mastered by Giuessepe Ielesi who also mastered Pat Thomas’ The Elephant Clock of Al Jazari, we pressed this on 180g black vinyl. You can’t press a work called ‘The Truth’ on much less, can you? --- Pat Thomas / piano Matana Roberts / saxophone --- Recorded by James Dunn live at Cafe OTO on the 8th December 2018. Mixed by James Dunn and mastered by Guiseppe Ielasi. Photographs by Dawid Laskowski and Fabio Lugaro. Design and layout by Maja Larrson. 

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

OTOROKU is proud to reissue Evan Parker's first solo LP "Saxophone Solos". Recorded by Martin Davidson in 1975 at the Unity Theatre in London, at that time the preferred concert venue of the Musicians' Co-operative, Parker's densely woven and often cyclical style has yet to form; instead throaty murmurs appear under rough hewn whistles and calls - the wildly energetic beginnings of an extraordinary career.  Reissued with liner notes from Seymour Wright in an edition of 500.  --- "The four pieces across the two sides of Saxophone Solos – Aerobatics 1 to 4 – are testing, pressured, bronchial spectaculars of innovation and invention and determination. Evan tells four stories of exploration and imagination without much obvious precedent. Abstract Beckettian cliff-hanging detection/logic/magic/mystery. The conic vessel of the soprano saxophone here recorded contains the ur-protagonists: seeds, characters, settings, forces, conflicts, motions, for new ideas, to delve, to tap and to draw from it story after story as he has on solo record after record for 45 years. ‘Aerobatics 1-3’ were recorded on 17 June 1975, by Martin Davidson at Parker’s first solo performance. This took place at London’s Unity Theatre in Camden. ‘Aerobatics 4’ was recorded on 9 September the same year, by Jost Gebers in the then FMP studio in Charlottenburg, Berlin. Music of balance and gravity, fulcra, effort, poise and enquiry. Sounds thrown and shaken into and out of air, metal and wood. It is – as the titles suggest – spectacular." - Seymour Wright, 2020.

OTOROKU is proud to present a re-press of our first ever vinyl re-issue of Evan Parker’s legendary recording "The Snake Decides". Featuring four solos recorded in 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford by the late Michael Gerzon, "The Snake Decides" is a groundbreaking example how far the language of a particular instrument can be taken. “The Snake Decides attracts a certain array of adjectives - intense, radical, fearsome, hypnotic, virtuosic – and occasionally allows a more ambitious reviewer to avoid platitude by talking more specifically about 32nd harmonics, circular breathing, multiphonics and Gerson's exact choice and placement of microphones. But this misses a point, too. Listening to this record, either for the first or the fortieth time, is an arousing experience.” - Brian Morton, 2018. Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and housed in a reverse board sleeve with new liner notes by Brian Morton this is the ultimate document of one of the most important recordings in all of Parker’s extensive and exploratory catalogue. Edition of 300 copies.

Vi Är Alla Guds Slavar is the latest missive from the long-running duo pairing of Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, etc) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth, Chelsea Light Moving, Dream/Aktion Unit, etc). Thurston had first come across Mats' playing on a duo disc with Barry Guy and had assumed he was one of those older beardy European improv guys - Remember this was before the internet and everyone knew everything. Their first actual meeting goes back to the early 90s at Blue Tower Records in Stockholm (now Andra Jazz - arguably the greatest jazz record store in the world) on one of Thurston's frequent soundcheck-skipping discaholic binges. The young guy behind the counter was blowing his mind with side after side of crazy rare jazz, test pressings, acetates and more. Running late, he offered Thurston a lift to the gig and en route asked if there was any particular records he was looking for. "There is this sax player - Mats Gustafsson - I'm looking for some of his stuff" "That's me" says the young guy - and there started an intense friendship that has manifested intself in music through their discaholics anonymous trio (with Jim O'Rourke), Gustafsson's large scale HIDROS 3 composition for Sonic Youth and much more besides… You can watch a video interview with Thurston where he tells the story of their first meeting here:

Following his first record on Rekem (Fullness of Harmony... Rekem 08), Panos Charalambous returns with a double vinyl collection that compiles a wide amount of sound and material within its four sides of vinyl. On top of recordings of his performances -where existing records are brought alive using objects from nature as cartridges- this album collects field recordings, performance and installation documentations. In addition, Charalambous has included a number of contributions from other artists, which he uses to compliment and contrast his own material and actions. Bringing together –amongst others- Mike Cooper & Tasos Stamou’s London Taximi, midnight recordings of jackals captured on Greece’s Mount Athos, Aggelos Krallis’ raw take on Misirlou, a rhythmic dance on glass cups under the distant sounds of a country festival, as well as voice-o-graph records containing voices and immigrant stories from the 50s, Charalambous pieces together a rich and manifold sound mosaic, reinstating neglected or unknown voices from the Balkan peninsula. Focusing both on content and sonic atmosphere, he manages once more to bring together the disparate and distant elements of the land, and to draw out a parallel ethnography and rapprochement of the local aural tradition. Building upon this aspect, the physical edition includes, amongst others, a pamphlet featuring an essay by Thanasis Moutsopoulos on the secret post-war history of folk music in Greece.

Back in the early 2000s, after locating those first Moondog 78s, and adding them to the mix at Honest Jons, assembling the compilation that became The Viking of Sixth Avenue, was a kind of musical cloud nine - a voyage of discovery, attempting to chart the worlds that Moondog had created. Now it's Spring again - as winter encroaches - and Mississippi expose us to some never before heard material. It's killer grade, recorded by yet another genius, Tony Schwartz, the pioneering Folkways field recordist, the first man to record Louis Hardin, aka Moondog, who in the 1950s also recorded a day in the life of a dog [canine variety] and a New York cab driver, among many others.Behold! A survey of Moondog’s earliest recorded works - many of them unreleased until now - through a collaboration by Mississippi Records and Lucia Records. From 1954 - 1962 field recordist Tony Schwartz frequently checked in with Moondog, his favorite street musician. Tony Schwartz made recordings of Moondog’s earliest compositions as they were coming into focus. Sometimes these recordings were made right on the street as Moondog busked, sometimes they were made in Schwartz’s studio, and sometimes they were made on NYC rooftops. The resulting recordings, many of which had never been released, were deposited at the Library Of Congress as part of the Tony Schwartz Collection in 2006 when Schwartz passed away, and this record was culled straight from these original tapes.Side one kicks off with an unreleased version of Moondog’s classic composition “Why Spend The Dark Night With You?” followed by the first ever complete recording of his “Nocturne Suite,” a beautiful piece of classical music performed with members of the Royal Philharmonic. The side ends with the complete “On The Streets Of New York” 7” EP, which was released on Mars records in 1955 and subsequently re-released by Honest Jon’s Records in 2004 on their excellent Moondog anthology. Side B features sketches of Moondog compositions never released, many with the man himself howling and chanting over his homemade percussion set.Moondog’s music is as universal as it gets - part classical music, part Native American, part European folk, and part something completely unique. Moondog is one of the towering figures of 20th century music. This record comes with liner notes featuring never before released interviews with Moodog by Tony Schwartz and is housed in an old school “tip on” cover. All tracks fully licensed from the Library of Congress.

Originally released in 2001. A killer set from melodica maestro Augustus Pablo. Dubbing with the Don features a storming dubwise selection of rare B-sides and previously-unreleased dubplates and session recordings from the mid-to-late-'70s.Recorded in 1974 with an all star line up, produced by Bunny Lee Includes previously unheard versions of such classics as "Cassava Piece" and "King Tubby meets Rockers Uptown." 

Derek Baron is a composer, musician, and artist. Curtain is a diary. Both in musical and non-musical situations, they attribute a filmic quality to their journal-like aural self-documentation. Dreams turn real then dissolve. Single phrases and events arrive and leave, abruptly. Yet, the overall sense of place that Baron creates is understood.Opening Curtain is the eponymous piece. A 21-minute live chamber work for quintet recorded in 2018. A musical assemblage of glued-together fragments and scraps of sheet music from Baron’s past. Compositions wrote in the small margins and folds of paper; illustrated in the art booklet included with the LP. The flute, violin, guitar, keyboard, and bass clarinet phrases saunter at a pre-sleep pace, until a subdued, yet ecstatic Mass theme ushers in periodically. Delivering the warmth of life… it is a slow beauty. It brings me such happiness listening to this piece. Its continuity is cut with scissors and pasted about oddly… all soaked in a certain malaise; a resigned grace.The next piece and other side of the LP, “Chancel,” is rather different. An audio journal flipped through, dropped on the ground, picked up and opened to another page. A confusing montage of world-ized musical snatches: car radios, church choirs emanating to the streets, moldy organs, domestic piano recordings. Similarly, machine vibrations, bodega conversations, and other environmental observations segue the harmony and disharmony of this listening experience. I’ll finish with some of Derek’s notes from the booklet: “Co-opting new achievements / Thank you for this incredible demonstration / This theatre of procedures / This consoling play of recognitions / No theatre but “what’s that”, / Nowhere for the silver ball to roll to. / How are we so in love.”

The Oystercatcher is the first collaborative LP from Cucina Povera (Maria Rossi) and ELS (Edward Simpson)Recorded in London over two days, hours' worth of improvisations have been edited down to form these six tracks.A fragile interplay is at work between Maria's drifting vocals and the ominous churn of Edward's modular synth. Each sonic element takes a turn at leading the way.The opening track 'Mantle' is formed from sparse, monolithic electronics, woven gently with a thread of vocals. In the closing track 'Eon' Maria's voice shepherds spontaneous bursts of sounds, almost Rave-like if order were imposed, through 15 minutes of turmoil and resplendent until the end.Maria's vocals make their own trails amongst the noise, bringing to mind the the exploratory language from Ursula K. Le Guin's album 'Music and Poetry from the Kesh', recalling the same understated mystery.The overall effect of this collaboration is a completely unique creation albeit within a recognisable lineage of predecessors.The artwork reflects the vision of these two artists, collaged together. Both images are from a trip to Helsinki. Edward's photograph of Tulips caught after dark are reviled by a flash. Maria's seemingly abstract drawing is a graphite rubbing taken from a granite slab of a pavement somewhere in Kallio. Together the two images represent two different methods for capturing a city's haptic landscape.The album moves with a feeling of transience, which is no surprise given that the idea to collaborate was formed in Helsinki, realised in London and edited together in Rotterdam.The Oystercatcher tells a fragile tale, one that spins out into the unknown. A cold union of voice and machine, still tentative and probing, learning to co-exist. A kind of fundamental shift whereby shared moments have been turned to sound.The Oystercatcher is a bird that can freely travel between the earth, sea and sky. The motif is taken from a Tove Jansson short story. A dead bird washes ashore, two different versions of events are presented to how the bird came to die. The album feels like two different stories being presented on top of one another but ultimately coming to the same tragic conclusion.

Mine is the Heron” is the new Tom James Scott record, the first document of his solo work since 2017. Over the past decade, the UK-based composer has released a diverse body of recordings via labels such as Bo’Weavil, Carnivals, Where To Now?, and his own impeccably curated Skire imprint.This album finds Scott in half-remembered, sanguine moods, some of which are likely to remind listeners of his collaborative work with Andrew Chalk. Fragile acoustic piano runs are meted out with painterly finger strokes, buoyed by subtle, idiosyncratic FM sound design, chimes, and guitar. Culled from recordings composed and put to tape over the past several years, the collection has the feel of a poet's selected works, or perhaps more appropriately, a compendium of letters - exquisite vignettes that feel simultaneously private and important to disseminate into world. The hermetic nature of this quietly stunning music is evocative of abandoned shingle beaches and misty marshes, and of the Virginia Woolfe novel from which the album takes its title: “Mine is the heron that stretches its vast wings lazily; and the cow that creaks as it pushes one foot before another munching; and the wild, swooping swallow; and the faint red in the sky, and the green when the red fades; the silence and the bell; the call of the man fetching cart-horses from the fields - all are mine.”

HEAT/WORK is the debut release from ТЕПЛОТА, the London-based duo of Grundik Kasyansky and Tom Wheatley.  Working in mutual orbit for many years, ТЕПЛОТА formed around a comparison between obsessive learning cycles in acoustic improvisation and heuristic relationships with recursive yet pliant machines. They continue to center on this point via friction, specific technologies and (mis)translation. The foundation of HEAT/WORK was recorded in late 2019 onto a mangled metal tape, live in Cafe OTO’s Project Space. It was reconstructed/reimagined by ТЕПЛОТА over the first half of 2020, as they focused on dub, redub & overdub as creative agents to play off against one another. The result is a techno of the swamp - the origin of each sound half-obscured in the sludge. Both тепло[heat] and работа[work] wind their way to 130bpm, but by different means. тепло[heat] finds the duo moving through layered meshes of strings and rhythm-grids, bolstered by intermittent glowing orbs of tone, towards a seemingly piston-powered groove. работа[work] opens to a sparser view, held together with a metamorphic yet relentless tick. Finding its tempo, ТЕПЛОТА engages in a playful interrogation of the four, before releasing it into a postscript flight. -- Grundik Kasyansky - feedback synthesizer Tom Wheatley - double bass --- Mixed byТЕПЛОТАand Gosha Hniu Mastered by Gosha Hniu Artwork byТЕПЛОТАandOliver Barrett

Following the cancellation of their Central European tour as a duo in June 2020, Shakeeb Abu Hamdan and Sholto Dobie, together and apart, unveil a remote sonic partition between their respective abodes in Lebanon and Lithuania. Letting a melange of new and archival material wind around each other, swell back and forth and coalesce into a nebulous mass, they tease the temporality of real time improvisation, opting instead for a near mythical, ghost-like exchange.  The two have never played together in real life, and while each sonic element can sing on its own, nothing falls out of the frame or feels like a loose fractal. Sholto's self-built organ breathes deep sighs and hisses, meeting Shakeeb's undulating electronics and ricocheting rhythmics in a series of harmonic, tumbling gestures. Like Limpe Fuchs' work with Anima, there is space given for elements to clatter and scatter, but also bring towards circling motifs. Organ dirges & patterned drums emerge out of the misty plains, raising themselves skywards. Sholto and Shakeeb's own locality might or might not have contributed to their ventures, but we can't help but feel an imprint embossed in its genetic make-up. Listen closely and one can hear the spectres of regional folk musics, ceremonies, lonely streets, day-to-day banality... Together they let their complex inner & outer worlds meet and dance in a sonic apparition. -- Shakeeb Abu Hamdan: drums, amplified drums and electronics Sholto Dobie: self-built organ -- Drum parts on tracks one and three: from a live recording by Graham Dunning at The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow 2019. Tracks two, four and five: recorded by Shakeeb Abu Hamdan at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut 2018 - 2019.Organ parts on tracks one, three and five: recorded by Simas Okas and Vytautas Franukevičius in Vilnius 2020. Track two: recorded in Empty Brain Resort, Vilnius 2020. Track four: recorded in the studio of Arturas Bumšteinas and Gailė Griciūtė, SODAS 2123, Vilnius 2020. Assembled and mixed by Shakeeb Abu Hamdan in Beirut and Gharifeh, July - August 2020Mastered by John Hannon at NO Cover design by Oliver Barrett

Live recording and a full film from Viridian Ensemble's show at OTO in February 2020. An ethereal blend of image and noise, reimagined folklore and femininity, Viridian Ensemble's performances evoke dissociative states, keening and supernaturalism. Utterances and nonsensical languages entwine collective rhythm, tone, and resonance. Using improvised sound and image (digital and analogue), the group produce a collective sound which reimagines female narratives; lacing ambiguity through feminist tropes & reaching for a punk solidarity in the classical.  Download includes access to both audio and video. Thanks to VE for putting this together.  --- Dali de Saint Paul / vocals Tina Hitchens / flute Caitlin Alais Callahan / double bass Esme Betamax / percussion Laura Phillips / 16mm films, sound responsive projections, waterphone --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on 29th February 2020. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. 

"I left London at the beginning of March to spend lockdown in Portaferry, Northern Ireland with my family. I ended up staying there for 5 months. I feel incredibly fortunate to have such a place to return to and even more so to have such supportive parents. Many nights were spent talking shite with my dad and further developing our affinity for a certain single pot still whiskey. I spoke to Olan Monk about my contribution to this series—he suggested that I submit a recording of my dad’s advice. My original plan was to distil material I had generated over lockdown, using processing and synthesis techniques I had been working with, alongside recordings of a local barn that I had some open microphones in, which live streamed throughout April. Upon returning to London, I called my dad asked him how he thought I should approach generating a new piece. I recorded the call, combined elements of his instructions (loosely followed and executed) with some of the processing techniques I had been working with during my time in NI—applied to his voice and the material generated over lockdown." - Michael Speers -- “Now it’s time for a Green Spot!!!!! After a few Green Spots it may sound completely different.” —Paul Speers

Please be aware that the download contains a rapidly strobing gif version of the cover included in the file. Secluded Bronte are a multi-faceted experimental trio whose work has embraced scrapheap musique concrete, clattering post-punk, spoken word, poetry, improvisation and more. Collected from a mixture of studio and live recording, this suite of perfectly planned mischief slips and slides between the physical and metaphysical, pathos and alien-abstraction, wry humour and obscenity - relishing in awkward dualities and eccentric imbalances. Tuneful ditties emerge before switching frame to an aural car crash. Shared refrains and in-jokes from live shows are unveiled, then jump gear to a Morricone-soundtracked car-chase. Listen close, arrange the junk and unpack the mystery. -- Secluded Bronte are:Adam Bohman - voice, home made string instruments, objects.Jonathan Bohman - voice, piano, electronics, objects, percussion.Richard Thomas - voice, guitars, bass, piano, synthesizers, harmonica, computer, drum machine, percussion, telephone -- withAdrian Northover - soprano saxophone on Neighbourhood.Daniella De Paulis - voice on Ramble North. Recorded at Studio 35, South Wales; Harrison Sound Studios, London; All Round, Chertsey; Trade Gallery, Nottingham; Dartington Hall, Dartington; Rammel Club, Nottingham; SARC/Queen's University, Belfast; Cafe Oto, London; Westwerk, Hamburg. Recording engineers: Shaun Crook, Craig Jackson, Ramon Flak, Kris Jakob, Helge Hasselberg, Felix Kubin, Bruce Asbestos, Hoover Nettlebeck, Richard Thomas. Edited and Produced by Richard Thomas

Re-engaging with a traumatic experience in the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona, the narrator of Roy Claire Potter's Entrance Song; last time tells their story through foggy wisps of memory, it's a refracted portal laid out and rendered hybrid in form. An ominous, experimental cross-artform publication brought to life by spoken text passages, recorded sound/music and additional visual PDF document. Rather than directly recounting their experience, the story's narrator focuses instead on Gothic Quarter's architecture, topography, history and people. These details unfurl as weighted shadows of the exterior world that loom over a corrupted memory: a memory that cannot be directly accessed. Accompanying and adding to the text are glimpses of music and field recordings. A piano performance of a piece of sheet music found during a research trip to the Abbey of Santa Maria De Montserrat, field recordings of a violin practice by a fountain and a hidden bass track gift a third eye to the dissociative memory and its surroundings, as well as breathe tonal hues to proceedings. A PDF document includes notes and edits of the text, as well as pictures of the towering churches and spires of the city: overwhelming pieces of architecture with spiked edges and webbed partitions. A fly-trap where words don't tread. A story instigated and evacuated, one last time. -- Entrance Song; last time was written, read and produced by Roy Claire Potter and includes the following field recordings by Lisa Lavery: Courtyard violin practice drippy fountain Rome; Calle de las Cortesías; Train platform bell Sicily. Hidden track Bass Piece was written, performed and recorded by Lisa Lavery. With special thanks to Bridget Hayden for piano instruction and Sam Mcloughlin for recording advice. Proceeds from the sale of this album will go to Rape Crisis UK and Safenet, a domestic abuse charity in Burnley.

Axis/Another Revolvable Thing is the second installment of Blank Forms’ archival reissues of the music of Japan’s eternal revolutionary Masayuki Takayanagi, following April is the cruellest month, a 1975 studio record by his New Direction Unit. Comprised of recordings of a September 5, 1975 concert by the New Direction Unit at Yasuda Seimei Hall in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, the two-part set showcases Takayanagi in deep pursuit of what he began calling “non-section music” after leaping beyond the confines of his prior descriptor “real jazz.” The quartet of Takayanagi (guitar), Kenji Mori (reeds), Nobuyoshi Ino (bass, cello), and Hiroshi Yamazaki (percussion) deftly explores the twin poles of Takayanagi’s spacious “gradually projection” and explosively virulent “mass projection” concepts across six pieces, titled Fragments I - VI. Originally issued in two individual LP volumes in rearranged order, this CD edition presents the Another Revolvable Thing concert in chronological sequence for the first time, with “gradually projection” pieces on the first disc and “mass projection” eruptions on the second.As part of his liner notes for the original records (newly translated for this edition), noted Japanese free jazz critic Teruto Soejima wrote:"New Direction Unit performances always emit the smell of blood. Fresh blood, never blood that is old or crusted. This is not the desiccated shell of music, it's sound through which pumps the blood of living human beings. Blood that seethes, that flows and counterflows, that blazes, runs, rises and congeals, blood that vomits and spurts. Vivid, scarlet blood. The ultimate beauty that Takayanagi aims at, is it not the color of this blood?Blood calls out to blood. For these four musicians, playing together means feasting on each other’s blood. It is also a summoning to a secret blood oath, to the creation of solidarity with the audience. In the moment, truly, the situation and beauty are instantaneously unified. To borrow the title of a movie by Kōji Wakamatsu: blood is redder than the sun." --- Masayuki “Jojo” Takayanagi (1932 - 1991) was a maverick Japanese guitarist, a revolutionary spirit whose oeuvre embodied the radical political movements of late ‘60s Japan. Having cut his teeth as an accomplished Lennie Tristano disciple playing cool jazz in the late ‘50s, Takayanagi had his mind blown by the Chicago Transit Authority’s “Free Form Guitar” in 1969 and promptly turned his back on the jazz scene by which he was beloved, going as far as to call his former peers and admirers “a bunch of losers” in the press. Takayanagi had found a new direction, an annihilation of jazz and its associated idolatry of hegemonic American culture. Aiming his virtuoso chops towards the stratosphere, Takayanagi dedicated himself to the art of the freakout, laying waste to tradition left and right, most notably via the all-out assault of his aptly-named New Direction for the Arts (later New Direction Unit) and collaborations with like-minded outsider saxophonist Kaoru Abe. His innovations on the instrument parallel those of Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey and paved the way for the Japanese necromancy of Keiji Haino and Otomo Yoshihide, but even at its most limitless hurdling Takayanagi’s playing is propelled by the dexterous grasp of his foundations, to which he paid tribute with elegant takes on flamenco and Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” In the autumn of his life, Takayanagi’s solo Action Direct performances made him one of the first guitarists, alongside but independent of Keith Rowe, to use tabletop guitar for pure noise improvisation. 

Silvia Tarozzi, inspired by the poet Alda Merini and her studies with composer Garret List, worked with intimate personal history to write songs of love, motherhood, and the mystery hidden behind the curtain of everyday life. Over the course of nearly a decade, Tarozzi practiced setting the poetry of Alda Merini to music and then replacing it with her own to reflect her own life experiences. As a result, ‘Mi specchio e rifletto’ feels both poetic and earnestly autobiographical.A longtime collaborator of Eliane Radigue and a talented free improvisor, Tarozzi inspires as sensitive awareness while echoing progressive music forebearers. Past masterpieces reverberate throughout: the gentle chamber explorations of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the science fiction of Franco Battiato’s 'Fetus', the abstract free jazz flourishes of Maria Monti’s 'Il Bestiario', the sweetness of Caterina Caselli’s 'Primavera'.As a solo performer, Tarozzi has collaborated with composers Eliane Radigue, Pascale Criton, Cassandra Miller and Martin Arnold. In duo with Deborah Walker, and as a member of Ensemble Dedalus, she has worked with Christian Wolff, Jürg Frey, Michael Pisaro, Catherine Lamb, Sébastien Roux, and many others. She previously released Philip Corner 'Extreemizms: early & late' on Unseen Worlds in 2018.  --- Silvia Tarozzi, voice, violin, keyboards, piano, casio sk-8, midi keyboards, slide guitars, accordion, field recordingsEdoardo Marraffa, tenor and sopranino saxDomenico Caliri, electric and acoustic guitarDeborah Walker, celloEnrico Lazzarini, double-bassVincenzo Vasi, electric bassCaterina Romano, flute, piccoloJessica Colarelli, clarinetTiziano Popoli, pianoValentina Malanot, voiceMusic and lyrics by Silvia TarozziRecorded and pre-mixed by Enzo Cimino between December 2015 and February 2016 at Vignola (home studio) and Bologna (SoundLab studio) and by Tiziano Popoli in January 2019 at Vignola (Popoli home studio), Italy.Mixed and mastered by Bob Drake between June 2016 and October 2019 at Studio Midi-Pyrénées, La Borde Basse (Caudeval), France.“Mi specchio e rifletto” and “Anna”, mixed by Silvia Tarozzi in April 2019.

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.

Ballads of a troubadour from Gobi Desert in Central Asia. Wang Xiao was born in Karamay, Xinjiang in 1966. His parents are oil exploration workers. From childhood, he followed his parents to live and grow up in the wilderness of Gobi Desert. In 1989 he quit his oil field job and started traveling as a troubadour. He has lived in Tibet for 10 years and now resides in Yunnan. “In my memory, there is no ‘home’ concept, just keep moving from place to place”. The album is clearly not “indie city folk”, nor is it “world music”. However, after years of immersion in the vein of Central Asian culture, the influence of traditional music from various Central Asian regions is obvious. The whole album is dark and deep, like the rocks in the desert. The occasional overtone singing plays well with the dombra tone, the musician is seeking the divine nature of the universe. “Folk singers in the past were poets and sorcerers themselves. They could only sing after divination and sacrifice, or by helping people to predict diseases, fortunes, planting and family affairs. Folk singers should be the ones who atone for the lives.”The symbolic and poetic lyrics are also an important part for the album. With Lu (Heartless/Vergissmeinnicht/Mandarava), Edward Sanderson and Josh Feola's help, we included the full Chinese lyrics with English translation, it will help the listener to have a better understanding of Wang Xiao’s music.The album was recorded in the winter of 2007 in Beijing. “At that time, it was just me, Wu Junde and Wu Tun to do this recording. They bought me some wine, we drank them and recorded the album (dombra and vocal) for only two hours, then I went back to Tibet right after.” Wu Junde and Obul added tanbur, mouth harp, more vocals and percussions afterward. “We didn’t feel it’s a very good album at first. The tempo is not always right because we didn’t use a metronome, but as you listened to it for a long time, it was great. It's a record that can't be repeated, because it's made at one go, and it's very straight.”Previously self-published as CDr in 2010, now we reissue this album as a Ten Year Anniversary Edition, with new graphic design and a bonus track “Refugee of Faith on the Ancient River Bank” recorded in 2016. All tracks are carefully remastered by our friend Cyril Meysson.“Black Horse River, for me, is my real motherland.” – Wang Xiao“His voice is original, it’s a blend of a shaman and the characteristics of the nomadic people. His way to play dombra is unusual, not with the finger but a plectrum, that makes the music fiercer and more rhythmic. Wang Xiao spent many years in Lhasa, he also put the rhythm of the monks chanting into his music, all these make his works dialoguing with the sun and the earth, it contains the essence from the land and the passing time.” - Zhang Zhi 張智（旅行者樂隊）“I came up with the nickname ‘Folk shaman’. I met Wang Xiao back in 2002-2003, when he was still a rock-n-roll young guy in Shenzhen, but his mental state was like channeling with a shaman or a minstrel. It may have something to do with his life experience, mysterious and unique.” - Wu Junde --- Music/Lyrics/Vocals: Wang Xiao(Except "Wild Geese" Lyrics by Sa Dao & Wang Xiao, "Cover Song" Original singer Li Shirong, Music/Lyrics by Lei Zhenbang, rearranged by Wang Xiao)Dombra: Wang Xiao (Track 1-10)Guitar: Wu Junde (Track 1)Mouth Harp: Wu Junde (Track 5)Chorus: Wu Junde (Track 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10)Tanbur: Wu Junde (Track 4,8)Percussions: Obul (Track 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10)Recorded by Wu Weiyi in Beijing, China, winter 2007, previously self-released in 2010(Except bonus track “Refugee of Faith on the Ancient River Bank” recorded in 2016)Remastered by Cyril Meysson in Saint-Étienne, France, January 2019English lyrics translated by Lu (Heartless/Vergissmeinnicht/Mandarava)Proofread by Edward Sanderson & Josh FeolaCover art: Wang Yuanqing, Photography: Li Ming, Design & Layout: ruò tánSpecial thanks to Wu Tun & Wu Junde

Chinese free improvisation saxophonist / flutist 老丹 Lao Dan's debut saxophone solo album (previously released in cassette format, sold-out) reissue in 6-panel Digipak CD format, with new artwork. These recordings are from Qinglongdong Tunnel in Hangzhou, China. All natural cave reverbs, the free improvisation of Lao Dan's alto saxophone and the sound of the passengers and the cars were recorded, as every functioning individual."Lao Dan is a monster improviser. I'd never heard of him and I was completely swept away by his powerful playing and concept.""I have this feeling Lao is a soldier that cannot be silenced."Lao Dan is a freelance musician and wind instrument player, who started learning sax at the age of 8 and later turned to Dizi.During 2002 to 2006, he studied dizi in Beijing. In 2007, he was admitted with the highest score to Shenyang Conservatory of Music (SYCM), majoring in Dizi. During college, he served as the principal Dizi player of Youth Chinese Orchestra of SYCM.From 2012, he started his research on wind instruments from all over the world, including Jew's harp, Didgeridoo, Bansuri, Bamboo Sax, Duduk, etc. Lao Dan blends his own thoughts into the traditional way of playing Dizi, in which he pays a lot of attention on details of freedom, mood, thought and space. With plenty of performing and recording experience, Lao Dan has been experimenting more on his music since 2014. Based on Dizi and sax, adding various wind instruments and with new elements such as experiment, noise and improvisation, his music has been improved to a more substantial and creative level. He has also been actively cooperating with artists worldwide, including the legendary Japanese drummer Sabu Toyozumi.In 2013, he formed the music group Red Scarf with Deng Boyu and Li Xing, covering a variety of music genres including progressive rock, thrash metal, avant-garde jazz, funk metal and punk rock, and released their eponymous debut album in 2016.In May 2017, Lao Dan finishde recording his first Dizi solo album “Zhui Yun Zhu Meng (追云逐梦)” and it was ready to be released under Modern Sky World Music. In June, he joined a four-country avant-garde saxophone project raised by Japanese label Armageddon Nova, where his own composition “Self-destructive Machine (自毁机器)” is issued.  --- Lao Dan / alto saxophone, chinese flute --- Recorded by 老丹 at Qinglongdong Tunnel, Hangzhou, China23 August & 25 December 2017Mastered by Cyril Meysson in Saint-Étienne, France, January 2018Photography by 饒依爾 Rao Eer & 若潭 ruò tánTranslation by 呂立揚 Li-YangLayout by 若潭 ruò tán

Black Truffle’s documentation of the prolific recent work of legendary American composer Alvin Lucier continues with Works for the Ever Present Orchestra. This is a very special release for the composer as it presents pieces written for the thirteen-member Ever Present Orchestra, formed in 2016 exclusively to perform Lucier’s works. At the heart of the ensemble are four electric guitars, an instrument Lucier began composing for in 2013 with Criss-Cross (recorded by two core members of the Ever Present Orchestra, Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O’Malley, for whom it was composed, on Black Truffle 033). Through the use of e-bows, the guitars take on a role akin to the slow sweep pure wave oscillators heard in many of Lucier’s works since the early 1980s, but with added harmonic richness. Like much of Lucier’s instrumental music, the pieces recorded here focus on acoustic phenomena, especially beating patterns, produced by the interference between closely tuned pitches. The work presented here is some of the richest and most inviting that Lucier has composed. Though all of the pieces clearly belong to the same continuing exploration of the behaviour of sound in physical space and make use of related compositional devices, each takes on a strikingly different character. Titled Arc, for the full ensemble of four guitars, four saxophones, four violins, piano and bowed glockenspiel inhabits a world of sliding, uneasy tones, punctuated by a single piano note. Where Double Helix, for four guitars, rests on a pillow of warm, low hum, EPO-5, for two guitars, saxophone, violin, and glockenspiel possess a limpid, crystalline quality. Accompanying the four new compositions are two adaptations of existing pieces for radically different instrumentation, demonstrating Lucier’s excitement about the new possibilities suggested by this dedicated ensemble. Works for the Ever Present Orchestra is an essential document of the current state of Lucier’s continuing exploration, as well as offering a seductive entry-point for anyone who might yet be unacquainted with his singular body of work.2CD release presented in a deluxe 4-panel digipak with cover artwork and liner notes from Alvin Lucier plus a 16-page booklet with live photos. Disc 2 of this release includes the bonus Adaptions for the Ever Present Orchestra featuring two pieces (“Two Circles” and “Braid”) that are not included on the vinyl version. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Design by Lasse Marhaug.

In the tradition of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Geoff Dyer, a Grammy-winning producer discovers a powerful and ancient folk music tradition. In a dark record shop in Istanbul, Christopher King uncovered some of the strangest—and most hypnotic—sounds he had ever heard. The 78s seemed to tap into a primal well of emotion inaccessible to contemporary music. The songs, King learned, were from Epirus, an area straddling southern Albania and northwestern Greece and boasting a folk tradition extending back to the pre-Homeric era. Lament from Epirus is an unforgettable journey into a musical obsession which follows a genre back to the roots of song itself. As King hunts for traces of two long-lost virtuosos, he tells the story of the Roma people who pioneered Epirotic folk music and whose descendants continue the tradition today. His journey becomes an investigation into song and dance’s role as a means of spiritual healing—and what this may reveal about music’s original purpose.

The sounds of late ’70s and ’80s east coast avant-garde jazz, soul, and punk rock are well documented, but in Nothing but the Music Thulani Davis gives us something beyond, delivering a collection of synesthetic, transportive documentary poems that breathe anecdotal and impressionistic life into a sonic-social history about which most can only speculate. Davis’ verse takes free flight with its muses, scatting and leaping off the page and the shoulders of the musicians, nightclubs, and choreographers she chronicles in these poems. Her odes both to recorded music and its sacred spaces of spirited encounter are at once a paean to ephemeral flashes of embodied experience and a work of preservation. Davis remembers to remember the raw feelings, smoke, dawn drunks, and impulsive energy of her moment, without forgetting its inscription into a broader political urgency. Written between 1974 and 1992, these poems are the most anthologized pieces of Davis’ work, having appeared in numerous collections of writing on black music, here finally assembled for the first time. Nothing but the Music is further proof of Davis’ place as a crucial figure, alongside poets Jayne Cortez, Sonia Sanchez, and Ntozake Shange, in the cultural landscape surrounding the Black Arts Movement. Featured musicians and dancers include Cecil Taylor, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Bad Brains, Henry Threadgill, Thelonious Monk, The Revolutionary Ensemble, The Commodores, MFSB, Dianne McIntyre, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and many more in performances at historic venues such as The Five Spot, The Village Vanguard, The Apollo, Storyville, and Club Harlem. With a foreword by Jessica Hagedorn and an introduction by Tobi Haslett. Thulani Davis (b. 1949) is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar whose work includes works of poetry, theater, journalism, history, and film. Her engagement with African American life, culture, and history is distinguished by poetic economy, passionate musicality, and an investigative concern for justice. While a student at Barnard College, the Virginia native was “schooled” for her first spoken word performance by Gylan Kain and Felipe Luciano of the Original Last Poets, jumpstarting a life of performance that would have her put words to music by Cecil Taylor, Joseph Jarman, Juju, Arthur Blythe, Miya Masaoka, David Murray, Henry Threadgill, Tania León, and others. Living in San Francisco in the ‘70s, she joined the Third World Artists Collective, collaborated with Ntozake Shange, and worked for the San Francisco Sun-Reporter, reporting on stories such as the Soledad Brothers trial and the Angela Davis case before returning to New York and continuing to incite radical political thought as a reporter and critic for the Village Voice for over a decade. This experience as a journalist blazes through her historical fiction and her other writing, breathing anecdotal life into the experiences of actors of American history who have remained unnamed as a result of bondage and other unjust erasures. Davis has collaborated with her cousin, composer Anthony Davis, writing the libretti for the operas X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X and Amistad, and wrote the scripts for the films Paid in Full and Maker of Saints, as well as several award-winning PBS documentaries. In 1993, her writing for Aretha Franklin’s Queen of Soul – The Atlantic Recordings made her the first woman to win a Grammy for liner notes, and her bibliography additionally includes My Confederate Kinfolk, novels 1959 and Maker of Saints, and several works of poetry. She is an ordained Buddhist priest in the Jodo Shinshu sect, founded the Brooklyn Buddhist Association with her husband Joseph Jarman, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Afro-American Studies and a Nellie Y. McKay Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. Davis continues to explore the relationship between music and language as well as the ways we define being American and deal with race with her forthcoming book The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom (Duke University Press) and poetry collection Nothing but the Music: Documentaries from Nightclubs, Lofts, Dance Halls & A Tailor’s Shop in Dakar (Blank Forms Editions). Poet, novelist, playwright, and performer Jessica Hagedorn was born and raised in the Philippines and came to the United States in her early teens. She is the editor of numerous anthologies and author of several books including Dogeaters, winner of the American Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. In the seventies and early eighties, she collaborated with Thulani Davis on multimedia performance pieces presented at downtown venues such as The Public Theater and The Kitchen. Critic and essayist Tobi Haslett has written about art, film, and literature for n+1, the New Yorker, Artforum, the Village Voice, and elsewhere.  

The life and work of Maryanne Amacher are as vast as they are little known. In this volume, Amy Cimini and Bill Dietz offer a heterodox and idiosyncratic selection of largely unpublished documents spanning the breadth of the papers included in the Amacher Collection. The chronologically grouped documents, ranging from private writings and letters to program notes, manifestos, and proposals for unrealized projects, are framed by interviews in which Amacher discusses corresponding periods of her life. This structure leads readers carefully into the composer’s musical thought as it develops and transforms over time, while working  strenuously against the definitiveness associated with “collected” writings. This study of a still-unfolding body of work approaches its materials as provisional, promissory and open-ended. Here, Cimini and Dietz have compiled a volume full of staggeringly rich primary documents, while probing the issue of what it means to assemble these materials while the question “who was Maryanne Amacher?” remains so open. This collection invites the reader to answer. Because Amacher worked across nearly every imaginable media format, this book will be be of interest to theorists and practitioners of urban design, contemporary art history, media and communications, music and sound studies, film, radio, art criticism, and performance studies—in short, a configuration of disciplines that we might call an Intermedial Humanities. At the same time, this collection challenges any area of music, sound, or media studies that might be remade through the recovery of understudied figures. This volume is about doing things a different way. It is organized to foreground Amacher’s voices and soundworlds  so that—whatever future musical and social constellations might join the ongoing excavation of this practice—readers can experience her work in, and through, her own words. At the time of this writing, the Maryanne Amacher Collection is currently being processed at the New York Public Library, stewarded by Blank Forms and the Maryanne Amacher Foundation. Maryanne Amacher (1938 – 2009) was a composer of large-scale, fixed-duration sound installations, and a highly original thinker in the areas of perception, sound spatialization, creative intelligence, and aural architecture. She is regarded as a pioneer of what has come to be called “sound art,” although her thought and creative practice consistently challenged key assumptions about the capacities and limitations of that genre. Often considered in light of post-Cagean art practices, her work anticipated some of the most important developments in network culture, media arts, acoustic ecology, and sound studies. Bill Dietz is a composer, writer and co-chair of Music/ Sound in the Bard MFA program. Amy Cimini is a musicologist, violist and Assistant Professor of Music at UC San Diego. Her first book, Wild Sound: Maryanne Amacher and the Tenses of Audible Life, is forthcoming in Spring 2021 with Oxford University Press.  

“‘Poems for play’ collects thirty-six scores composed for the Jesuit Monastery and its surrounding environment, in the town of Ano Syros on the island of Syros, Greece. ‘Poems for play’ pays homage to the specificity of time and place, with a titular nod to the duality of meaning: 'to enjoy oneself by interacting with one's surroundings', vs ‘the realisation of creative form through the choreography of social poetics, and the mechanics of body/building as instrument.”‘Poems for play’ is a FSC certified 46-page A5 publication, on perfect bound Indigo Arcoprint stock, in a signed/numbered edition of 100 copies.

"Presented by Sacred Realism Press, D=D is the culmination of 15 years of work and the latest and most ambitious installment of Bryan Eubanks and Joe Foster's Don (now Dan) Brown and Dan Reynolds' project. The book itself contains 391 pages of letters, notes, aphorisms, scores, images, and commentary from Brown and Reynolds, with contributions from related figures including Jenny Haniver, Tim Bradley, and of course Gwendolyn Lovequist and Jack Lunetti, offering furtive glimpses into the thoughts, work, and lives of these still under-recognized figures of contemporary American music. While it might be tempting to see D=D as epistolary speculative biography it also may call to mind the heteronyms of writers like Fernando Pessoa and especially Antoine Volodine. But make no mistake --D does equal D and everything is as it seems. The accompanying audio CD compiles Eubanks and Foster's interpretations of Brown and Reynolds' Holy and Old musics, respectively, bookended by two cassette recordings from the composers themselves, which should be of special appeal to listeners with an interest in never before exposed corners of American West Coast musical experimentation and iconoclasm." mixed by Joe Foster & Bryan Eubanks, Berlin 2018mastered by Dick Stormm, the Bronx 201910 tracks, total running time: 52:28391 page hard cover book with glass mastered CD, edition of 500 release date: April 17th, 2019

Restock expected to ship 3rd August Guest edited by Shawn Jaeger, the Lee Hyla issue features remembrances and appreciations of the deeply missed composer by Stephen Drury, Rhonda Rider, David Rakowski, Bryan Hayslett, Chris Fisher-Lochheed, Eliza Brown, Scott Wheeler, and Ben Hjertmann. As well as articles by or with Jerome Harris on Jaki Byard, Charissa Noble on Johanna Beyer, Rick Moody on Stephen Malkmus, Sam Amidon on Son House, Colin Stetson on Henryk Górecki, Claire Chase, Kate Soper, and Eric Wubbels. Also photos from Katherine Desjardins and exquisite corpse from Shawn Jaeger. --- Sound American is A quarterly journal founded in 2012 by Nate Wooley, providing in-depth interviews and essays, Sound American starts from a simple desire to open the doors of experimental music to a wider audience. Sound American believes that music is for everyone and should be shared on the most basic human level. Sound American aims to accomplish this by creating a direct intellectual, social, and emotional bridge that links audiences and artists. Advisory board: David Grubbs, Rebekah Heller, Taylor Ho Bynum, Zeena Parkins, Matana Roberts, and Ken Vandermark.

Edition of 100 hand numbered two color screenprints for our four day Peter Brötzmann festival celebrating his decade long relationship with Cafe OTO. Design by Peter Brötzmann. Printed on A2 colorplan White Frost 175gsm paper by Tartaruga. 

Screenprinted on thick, quality paper. Design by Maja Larsson. Limited poster to celebrate the two day residency by the legendary and uncompromising Patty Waters.  From original listing:  Patty Waters must be acknowledged as a vocalist who has tested the limits of the human voice’s capabilities. Since her brief recording career in the mid-6O’s – after Albert Ayler brought her to the attention of ESP Disk – and despite performing very rarely, her influence has spread far beyond the realms of avant-garde and jazz. She has received much critical acclaim for her two ESP Disk recordings - Patty Waters Sings and Patty Waters College Tour. Waters' interpretation of Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair still remains a bold testament to the power of human expression. With a repertoire ranging from hushed piano solo ballads – in which her voice can fade to a whisper, barely audible – to performances using her voice as an instrument, conveying an incredible range of emotions, Waters is a singular artist and we're delighted to host her for a very rare two-night residency alongside Burton Greene (piano) and Tjitze Vogel (bass). “One of the best fucking singers alive.” – Rolling Stone “Praised by people like Miles Davis. her range moves easily from intimacy to introspection to rage. and her evocation of “Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair” has no parallel In musical history.” – San Francisco Sentinel “Hear her voice with the ears of wolves. A sound contour never before heard in American music and poetry. It transcends virtuosi vocalizing. It is presented as Shamanic ritual. The most perfect realization of Jazz song as siren song. Compels a revisioned understanding of the lure of the sweet woman's voice as a passage to paradise.” – Village Voice

Two color screenprint for our Music and Other Living Creatures series, designed by Silja Strøm and printed on 175gsm colorplan natural paper by Tartaruga.  Music and Other Living Creatures is a series at Cafe OTO (curated by OTO Projects) dedicated to music about, with, or by other living creatures. Birds, tigers, chickens, insects and many other living creatures are explored through sound-walks, listening sessions, commissioned performances, live responses and discussions. 

A2 silkscreened poster for Joe McPhee's four-day residency at OTO, May 2019. Designed by Oliver Barrett and printed by Tartaruga on thick, quality paper in a limiited edition of 50 numbered copies. For over four decades Joe McPhee has been pursuing a beauty in his music that balances the fierce attack of European free improve with a lyrical poetry stemming from Coltrane’s Love Supreme and hinting at the dark roots of his country’s civil rights protests. Joe has performed and still performs with musicians across all music: Survival Unit, Brotzmann’s Tentet, Dominic Duval, The Thing, Raymond Boni, Andre Jaume, Decoy with John Edwards, Steve Noble & Alexander Hawkins, Evan Parker amongst others. This very special residency draws together the various strands of Joe's incredibly diverse, ever-curious sonic approach, with a jam-packed line-up of collaborators old and new. Even across four nights it's hard to do justice to the scale of his musical output but what's guaranteed is that each of these nights will be unmissable in its own way.

On occasion of the very special 2 shows by this insane trio we have a limiited screenprinted poster - DESIGNED BY BRÖTZMANN and printed on thick, quality paper in a limiited edition of 100 numbered copies.  From original entry:  Delighted to welcome back the dynamic, corruscating pairing of Peter Brötzmann on reeds and Heather Leigh on pedal steel – this time expanded to a trio with the addition of the one and only Keiji Haino! The duo of Brötzmann and Leigh have established a fierce rapport in the past couple of years – weaving a powerfully frenetic interplay reminiscient of some of the all-out blast of Brötzmann's Die Like A Dog quartet. Add Haino's incendiary propensity for masterfully fluid improvisation and you have the makings of a very special evening indeed.

Screenprinted on thick, quality paper. Design by Maja Larsson on the occasion of the special one night event featuring Loren Connors at Cafe Oto.  From original listing:  Thrilled to welcome back one of the most singular guitarists of our time for a very special solo performance - his first European show since 2011. Loren Connors' singular adaption of the blues is a distinct personal vision combining the Delta bottleneck sound and the ancestral blues voice (appearing as distortion, baying hounds or multi-tracked guitar), with hauntingly unexpected sounds. Outside of his three decades of solo work, Connors has also collaborated with the likes of Suzanne Langille, Jim O'Rourke, Darin Gray, Alan Licht, Christina Carter, Keiji Haino, San Agustin, Jandek and many others, as well as leading the group Haunted House. Loren's set will be preceeded by a screening of ‘Gestures’ – a short film on Loren Connors by Vincent Guilbert.

This set of improvised pieces is made up of Montréalers Raphaël Foisy-Couture (bass), Vicky Mettler (guitar), and Vancouverite Lisa Cay Miller (piano). There's a relaxed atmosphere among the trio, despite seemingly disparate elements that swing and play with a tight cohesion; networked fistulas convey and receive. Along with their industriousness, this keeps their music light and exploratory, appealingly collectively-minded throughout. Miller only occasionally breaks out into fitful knots of block chords, her and Foisy's slyly executed extended techniques keep flowing a steady variety of sounds, and Mettler's crafty instrumental resourcefulness (as in the prismatic folk of her project Kee Avil) results in a deeply pleasing group improvisation that often feels wonderfully domestic.

This recording documents the first time meeting between two great double bass players, Tom Wheatley and John Edwards.Recorded at the Hundred Years Gallery on 22.02.14 as part of the ongoing Earshots concert series.released May 20, 2015 John Edwards (PRS): Double BassTom Wheatley: Double BassRecorded by Daniel KordikMastered by Rupert ClervauxCover image by Daniel BlumbergDesign by Earshots/DEPT2

This is Ute Kanngiesser's first cello solo release, recorded direct to tape at two locations: The Cafe Oto Project Space, and the clock room at St Augustine's Tower, Hackney. Recorded and mixed in Spring 2015 by Edward Lucas and Daniel Kordik.Embroidery by Meghan SpringerInlay design by Earshots/Dept2

Iz’s classic album Kөlêngkê (meaning “shadow” in Kazakh). Arguably the most well-known work of Mamer’s group projects, the album was recorded in 2010 when Iz was in the middle of transformation from a Kazakh folk group to an avant-garde music project under various contemporary influences including industrial, progressive, and psychedelic rock. The album took almost a year to record during which Mamer decided to start all over several times. In Kөlêngkê, the band mixes the acoustic sounds of traditional Kazakh instruments, such as dombra and kobyz, with distorted electronic effects and harsh metallic percussion. Drummer Zhang Dong assembled his own kit, replacing snares and cymbals with barbed wires, a giant caged iron fan, and various metal scraps collected from factories. The result is a bricolage of dark, rusty, and confrontational industrial sounds underlying the traditional Kazakh surface, a forceful and sincere anti-world-music type of “world music”. --- Mamer / vocal, dombra, bass, guitar, kobyz, jew’s harp Nurtay / bass, vocals Zhang Dong / drums, percussion --- Recorded in 2010, Originally Released in 2011, Reissued on Cassette in 2015

Puppet is a rock band started in 1991 in Urumqi by Xinjiang musician Feruh (法茹克), and it has gone on to become one of the longest living rock bands in China. The backbone of Xinjiang’s underground scene, Puppet has gone through numerous line-up changes while Feruh remains the only constant member and the mastermind behind the project. In 1997, Mamer joined Puppet and has since maintained a close relationship with the band. The band went on hiatus from 2002 to 2005, reformed in 2006, and finally released their full-length debutUrumqiin 2008, a sophomore titled32 Daysfollowed in 2014. Feruh is currently working on his new band 6501, named after the first four digits of identity card numbers in Xinjiang, 6501 released their debut Endgame in 2018 under Modern Sky’s Bad Head sub-label.  This is Puppet’s first greatest hits album, compiled by Feruh himself, with songs selected from different periods of the band’s history, the song “3 O’clock Xinjiang Time” is previously unreleased. It is gold.

"Born in 1945, Guo Yongzhang has performed zhuizi - a traditional Chinese style of narrative singing - for half a century. An artform whose history spans over a century, zhuizi originated in Henan province. Its main musical instruments are the zhuihu, a two-stringed bowed lute, and the zhuibang, a wooden percussion played with foot tapping.  Almost completely blind, Guo Yongzhang is known for his peculiar, resounding yet smooth vocal style. He sings with deep feelings and great verve. Lyrics deal with both the hardships and good values of life while always maintaining a sense of humour. Despite being long regarded as a folk master, Guo has continued to play tirelessly among ordinary people, often travelling from village to village and performing for a whole day at a time. As he nears the end of his life, Guo regrets that nowadays, few people wish to learn the art ofzhuizi. He worries that this precious art form may soon be lost.  This release, titled after one of Guo Yongzhang’s most well-known songs, Lao Lai Nan, commemorates his performance at the 5th Tomorrow Festival. Guo co-headlined the last day of the festival with French prog-rock act Gong on May 20, 2018. His performance was recorded live and is due to be released on both CD and LP by the Old Heaven label in November 2019. --- Guo Yongzhang /  Zhuihu, Zhuibang, Vocals --- Recorded in the late-1980s, Released in 2018

FILMED LIVE: CAFE OTO LONDON, ENGLAND FEBRUARY 15, 2014

"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."