Available as a 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC download.   Tracklisting: 1. The Cheer Up - 1:312. Sweeps - 1:103. Sweets - 1:164. Systolic - 9:335. Swedes - 1:116. Switches - 2:357. Diastolic - 5:118. Swears - 1:389. Sweats - 1:1910. Pulse Pressure - 3:2511. The Slow Down - 3:46   Chris' no drum solo record. "It wasn’t an exercise in constraint necessarily; it was just what I was feeling. I made that record because those were the sounds I was hearing in my head. The first solo record [Young Cricketer]...it wasn’t like it changed the world, but it did change my little world. It was a first statement, and that’s a powerful thing—it gives context to everything that comes after it. Since there's no point in saying the same thing twice, I felt like the second solo record should be as far away from the first as possible, while still feeling honest to me." Chris Corsano - Bomb Magazine Chris Corsano / keyboards, electronics, microphone Recorded April 10 & 15th, 2006.

Mark Wastell has been organising larger formations of musicians, collectively known as THE SEEN, for over 10 years. Using predominantly improvised material with occasional instructions or themes distributed to individual musicians just prior to performance. No formation has ever been repeated, THE SEEN never stays static.  Register of previous participants include Tetuzi Akiyama, Mattin, Michael Duch, Graham Halliwell, Andrea Neumann, Rhodri Davies, Paul Hood, Takehiro Nishide, Annette Krebs, Lee Gamble, Matt Davis, Joe Williamson, Wolfgang Fuchs, Burkhard Beins, Tomas Korber, Paul Abbott, Ben Owen, Jonathan McHugh, Jane Dickson, Olie Brice, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Bertrand Denzler, Angharad Davies, David Toop, Chris Burn, Richard Sanderson, Dominic Lash, Yoni Silver, Graham MacKeachan, John Butcher and Jason Kahn. “With The Seen, everything is up for grabs. Even the act of listening – so sacrosanct in the world of improvisation – becomes problematized, for in such a tapestry of sound and silence how can one process what’s happening at any one moment? Yet this impossibility of total response provides opportunities to form clusters within the whole, that break apart and reform in different configurations as things develop. For listeners, too, there are possibilities for moments of both detailed focus and wider-scale immersion.” (Paul Margree) This product page is only for Volume III, but you can buy the whole set at a reduced price here.  Volume III:THE SEEN // RED ROSE THEATRE, LONDON 15.11.2007 Mark Wastell : double bassDominic Lash : double bassJoe Williamson : double bassMatthew Lovett : double bassAshley John Long : double bassMatt Davis : laptopDavid Toop : laptopLee Gamble : laptopBenedict Drew : laptopPhil Durrant : laptop

Mark Wastell has been organising larger formations of musicians, collectively known as THE SEEN, for over 10 years. Using predominantly improvised material with occasional instructions or themes distributed to individual musicians just prior to performance. No formation has ever been repeated, THE SEEN never stays static.  Register of previous participants include Tetuzi Akiyama, Mattin, Michael Duch, Graham Halliwell, Andrea Neumann, Rhodri Davies, Paul Hood, Takehiro Nishide, Annette Krebs, Lee Gamble, Matt Davis, Joe Williamson, Wolfgang Fuchs, Burkhard Beins, Tomas Korber, Paul Abbott, Ben Owen, Jonathan McHugh, Jane Dickson, Olie Brice, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Bertrand Denzler, Angharad Davies, David Toop, Chris Burn, Richard Sanderson, Dominic Lash, Yoni Silver, Graham MacKeachan, John Butcher and Jason Kahn. “With The Seen, everything is up for grabs. Even the act of listening – so sacrosanct in the world of improvisation – becomes problematized, for in such a tapestry of sound and silence how can one process what’s happening at any one moment? Yet this impossibility of total response provides opportunities to form clusters within the whole, that break apart and reform in different configurations as things develop. For listeners, too, there are possibilities for moments of both detailed focus and wider-scale immersion.” (Paul Margree) This product page is only for Volume II, but you can buy the whole set at a reduced price here.  Volume II: THE SEEN // TEATERHUSET AVANT GARDEN, TRONDHEIM, NORWAY 12.05.2006Mark Wastell : tam tamWolfgang Fuchs : record playersBertrand Denzler : saxophonesAngharad Davies : violinBurkhard Beins : percussionGraham Halliwell : feedback saxophoneTomas Korber : electronicsBenedict Drew : electronicsDominic Lash : double bass

English-German Edition, 655 pages (!) collection of writings about ideas concerning music by American composer Robert Ashley. For nearly forty-five years, composer robert Ashley has pursued his vision of opera in the face of near complete indifference from the American mainstream culture industry. Ashley’s experience parallels that of other American indepen-dent avant-garde figures such as Terry Riley, Alvin lucier, and Pauline Oliveros. like these composers, Ashley uses notation only to the extent that it conveys his ideas to a longtime “band” of collaborators (which includes singers Jacqueline Humbert, Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, and Joan La Barbara, along with engi-neer/mixer Tom Hamilton). like Oliveros, Ashley is also keenly interested in performance as ritual; for the past three decades he has composed operas that rely upon the inflections and rhythms of American english and are set against the backdrop of a largely static “electronic orchestra.” Although much of Ashley’s work is conceived for television, only the seven-part Perfect Lives (1977–83) has been completely realized in its intended medium, and it has never been shown on American networks. Now, as Ashley enters his eighties, a european musicolo-gist—ralf Dietrich—has taken on the task of gathering Ashley’s essays, sketches of pieces, and program notes into one volume.    This bilingual collection—with verso pages in english and recto pages in ger  -man—is divided into four parts, the first three of which are arranged in roughly reverse chronological order. ordering the collection in this way arguably serves two purposes: First, it helps familiarize readers who might be unfamiliar with Ash-ley’s work with an overview of his aesthetic and how it was shaped by changes in technology, collaborators, and economic realities. second, by laying out the various guiding “threads” through Ashley’s career, one is better able to follow the divergent strands as they stretch back into his past work.    The first section, “Towards a New kind of opera,” begins with a detailed “musical autobiography”—Ashley’s recollections of changes in the American contemporary music scene over his long career—and is followed by a series of essays that establish the groundwork for Ashley’s brand of music theater. one distinctive strand running through Ashley’s varied compositional career is the drone, appearing in early pieces such as the In Memoriam series from 1963 as a “reference sonority,” and also found in the recent operas in the form of a sustained harmonic backdrop or “cloud” that the singers use to establish the modality and inflection (contour) of their singing. A second unifying factor is a preoccupation with numbers and predetermined “formulas,” revealed in great-est detail in Ashley’s discussion of the individual “templates” in Perfect Lives. in this work, each episode has a characteristic visual structure (composition of images, distinctive colors, times of day, camera angles / movements, and so on), which also occurs in a fractal-like self-similar fashion within each episode—in other words, each episode is itself made up of seven sections that follow the same procession through the templates, and some sections of some episodes are further subdivided into seven subsections. The thorough descriptions of Ashley’s working methods—illustrated with fragments from his sketches and production notebooks—are especially valuable, since almost none of this music is published in conventional score format.    The second section, “Discovering the musicality of speech: mills College,” focuses on the works composed during Ashley’s tenure at mills College in oak-land, California, from 1969 to 1978, a period during which Ashley “stopped composing” in order to “make music.” (This is a fine distinction—Ashley did in fact create several works during this period, most notably the nearly one-hour In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1972–73), as well as perform with the sonic Arts union, a collective that also included composers Alvin Lucier, David Behrman and Gordon Mumma.) originally brought to mills to build an electronic music studio, which soon developed into a public access studio, Ashley soon drafted a plan for a master’s level degree program in elec-tronic music and recording media (one of the first in the nation), leading to the creation of the Center for Contemporary music at mills College. Ashley taught composition and served as director of the Center, but became dissatisfied with the work: “Teaching musical composition is impossible, i think. . . . i thought of myself as a ‘provider.’ Whatever anybody thought they needed for their music, i tried to provide it. This was a convenient way out” (316).    Today, he acknowledges the period at mills for having changed his music profoundly: “i became thoroughly immune to scores. Nobody working at the Center wrote scores. Circuit diagrams, yes. Computer programs, yes. Tacti-cal plans for making a concert, yes. scores, no” (316). one fascinating piece from this period is “The remote boundary illusion,” one of four “hypothetical computer-controlled installations” called Illusion Models (1970). This piece uses sensors to locate a listener ’s position in a darkened room and interactively change the sound mix in such a way that the listener cannot determine the size of the room as he or she negotiates the space. Though “hypothetical” in 1970, this aural-spatial illusion uncannily anticipated virtual-reality technological breakthroughs of the 1990s.     The book’s third section comprises a number of essays and sketches from Ash-ley’s involvement in the oNCe Festival (1961–66) and oNCe group (1964–71). unfortunately, many of the oNCe pieces were documented either sparsely or not at all. Nonetheless, of particular interest are the pieces Combination Wedding and Funeral (1964), which directly inspired the “Church” episode of Perfect Lives,and The Trial of Anna Opie Wehrer and Unknown Accomplices for Crimes Against Humanity (1968), whose “interrogation dialogue” format foreshadows much of Ashley’s later work. There are also a number of interesting “conceptual pieces” from this period, verbal scores showing the influence of Fluxus figures such as la   monte Young, george brecht, and Dick Higgins. These include Rock Soup(1972), an outdoor performance piece for two or more keyboards powered by automobile batteries and triggering various automobile horns, and Spaghetti for a Large Number of People (1973), which outlines the steps for a spaghetti-and-salad potluck dinner.      The book’s substantial final section collects the program and liner notes for all of Ashley’s major works, from The Fox (1957) to Ashley’s 2006 opera Concrete; a list of works (complete up to 2009) rounds out the volume.    many of the writings in this volume have been previously published, but are hard to find, having first appeared in small limited-press european journals or program notes from Ashley’s live performances. Ashley’s newer contribu-tions made specifically for this volume are thoughtful and penetrating; in one particularly striking passage, he describes the new-music recital as creating an artificial museum culture while stifling any prospects of offering the specta-tor a transformational ritual experience: “it could have been juggling or a live porno act. Whatever it is, you are not a part of it. You have been a watcher. . . . You have simply been distracted from what is outside. You do not have more of a musical life. Your life is not more musical” (56). The fragments of sketches and notebooks are essential for those who wish to understand how these performances are realized, or to revive long-unperformed works. in as-sembling this compendium, ralf Dietrich has obviously benefited from a close and long-term cooperation of his subject; one hopes that, in turn, Ashley will benefit from the additional exposure that such a collection will bring to his impressively original body of work. (Kevin Holm-Hudson, University of Kentucky)

TELLING INVENTS TOLD is the first collection of writings by artist and filmmaker Lis Rhodes. It includes the influential essay "Whose History?" alongside texts from works such as "Light Reading" and "Pictures on Pink Paper," together with new and previously unpublished materials. Since the 1970s, Rhodes has been making radical and experimental work that challenges hegemonic narratives and the power structures of language. Her writing addresses urgent political issues – from the refugee crisis to workers’ rights, police brutality, racial discrimination and homelessness – as well as film history and theory, from a feminist perspective. An important figure at the London Film-Makers Co-operative, Rhodes was also a founding member of Circles, the first British distributor of film, video and performance by women artists. Lis Rhodes was important figure at the London Film-Makers Co-operative, and a founding member of Circles, the first British distributor of film, video and performance by women artists.   "Whose history? It is hard to think of a question more central to our moment, or an artist who has posed it more insistently and urgently than Lis Rhodes. Her films comprise one of the most radical rethinkings of experimental film and politics of the last 50 years; they are like flashbulbs, exposing the physiognomies of power in the cracks of everyday experience. Her writing is both an integral part of her extraordinary filmmaking and a continuation of it. Partisan and sceptical, lyrical and hopeful, it is a voice of resistance to reality as it has been told or sold to us." (Professor Mike Sperlinger, Oslo Academy of Fine Art)Softcover, 336pp The Visible Press, 2019

Nine enigmatic, chilling and moving short tales in this first ever collection from David Rudkin, writer of Penda’s Fen, The Ash Tree, Artemis 81 and numerous other television and stage productions.     “Rudkin’s intense spiritual, intellectual, psychological and emotional investigations excavate in the interstices between certainties… For readers and followers of Rudkin’s singular trajectory over many decades, this diptych of story constellations, as ancient, present and prescient as anything in his oeuvre, are unexpected but truly welcome gifts, manifestations of a lifelong enquiry that is among the most charged and profound these islands have witnessed.”From the foreword by Gareth EvansIllustrated by Zoe Taylor Forewrod by Gareth Evans Available in a strictly limited, high quality hardback edition of 500. All copies come with a bookplate signed by the author.   Hardcover, 264 pp Strange Attractor Press, December 2025

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

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

"أحمد [Ahmed] are crucial listening for anyone intrigued by the fertile space between free jazz, Arabic music and West African modes." - Boomkat "Pianist Pat Thomas, bassist Joel Grip, drummer Antonin Gerbal and alto saxophonist Seymour Wright push the source material to new musical planes that are nonetheless framed by a limitlessly wide history of black music." - Jazzwise  سماع [Sam'aa] (Audition) arrives in a gatefold, reverse board sleeve with liners by Fred Moten and designed by Maja Larrson. Recorded and mixed by Benedic Lamdin on February 28th, 2025 Fish Factory Studios, London. Mastering and lacquers cut by Andreas LUPO Lubich. Cover photo ‘Arteries, New York, 1964’ courtesy of the Estate of Evelyn Hofer. Produced by Seymour Wright/OTOROKU with the support of PRS Foundation. Please note: This 2LP is currently sold out and awaiting a repress. Any orders now will be for the repress arriving in Feb. Known for their exhilarating live-to-record albums such as last year's critically acclaimed Wood Blues and Giant Beauty, سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) is the first of two releases that will surface after [Ahmed]’s first studio recording sessions at North London’s The Fish Factory in early 2025.  Since 2014, [Ahmed] أحمد have excavated and re-imagined the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik, in an ever ongoing search for future music. Over a decade on, the group were given the opportunity to set up in the studio for the first time and, with the aid of meticulous engineer Benedic Lamdin,  سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) is the quartet's most detailed work to date.  Fastidious fans may recognise the album's tracklisting as that of Ahmed Abdul-Malik’s Jazz Sahara. After his success collaborating with the pianists Thelonious Monk and Randy Weston, Jazz Sahara was the first record Abdul-Malik made as a leader and was released in 1958. It used the flame of late Fifties jazz to light the wick of North African folk music and acted as a reminder of the Arabic origins of jazz, creating a distinct, unique sound that was far beyond its time. In Malik’s Jazz Sahara, there is no piano. The ongoing work of each member of [Ahmed] then is to think differently, to wonder how the music will work and to take a risk on trying it out - an extraordinarily compelling feat of imagination. Using group improvisation strategies and recording in single takes, سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) tackled the full suite of Jazz Sahara in just one session, with ‘Ya Annas [Oh, People’] and ‘Isma'a [Listen’] being previously unrecorded. 'Farah 'Alaiyna’, also released on 2019’s Super Majnoon, sounds unrecognisable - the slow, heady stomp and repeated phrasing of 2019’s embryonic [Ahmed] having been blast furnaced and sped up four-fold. The result is four kaleidoscopic, relative miniatures that move, unfold and re-imagine at a very different scale and proportion than [Ahmed]’s previous records. It’s a dizzying, euphoric music and an extraordinary record of a group moving through space-time like no other.

Digital will become available 31st OctoberSLIP is Paul Abbott’s response to his 3 day residency at OTO in 2023. It’s a continued exploration of the acoustic-digital hybrid drum setup Abbott has been developing for some time, which involves drum kit and synthetic sounds combined closely—through an entanglement of limbs and cables—in an intimate but strange relationship with each other. Paul Abbott hasn’t had any formal musical training, but has a long history of making music, having collaborated for years with Seymour Wright, Pat Thomas, Michael Speers, Cara Tolmie, Anne Gillis and many others. Eventually, led by a profound suspicion of what is fixed or limited, Abbott began finding other ways to organise sound - or what he calls ‘material’: “I wanted a way to 'persuade' or guide the possibility of something happening - my activity or the events of an algorithmic composition - for example, but without certainty or formalism. It felt to me, during playing, that certain ideas had a particular sort of shape, but more than the form of a line. I began to write alongside (before/after) playing the drums, and ‘characters’ began to enter the scene as a more wobbly, and therefore appropriate option [to notation]. Working with these characters allowed me to simultaneously approach body, imagination, language and music: without dividing things up or separating these aspects from each other. It allowed me to leave things messy and entangled, whilst trying to deal with form and specificity: wanting to have some things feel or respond differently to other things at other times.”  In approaching his residency, Abbott developed a fixed cast of characters - crystal, lleaf, reiy.F, reiy.C, strike, nee, qosel, sphu and aahn. They each communicate using different kinds of movement and drum kit/s, and Abbott choreographed them as ‘dances’ based on different feelings, or outlines of behaviours suggestive of ways of moving (body, drums, sounds). He then arranged these characters into ‘compositions’: one for each performance day, with each composition featuring multi-layered activity - options for behaviours, ways to move around the rooms, play drums, develop synthetic sounds, change the lights or re-distribute the sound in the space. After the performances, Abbott took home 9 hours of recordings split into up to 28 multitrack channels for each day, and re-organised his cast once more into a performance for 2LP, CD and digital. It’s an enormous amount of work - but Abbott is activated by the process. For him, the pleasure of unstable edges, possibilities, slippages, is the vital attraction. Like all living organisms, Abbott’s characters have malleability and responsivity.  They stimulate a bundle of possible behaviours, a tendency to act a certain way, a temperament, a boundary of respective limits or affordances. It’s an affective way of working, inclusive of Roscoe Mitchell, Sun Ra, Nathaniel Mackey and Milford Graves. In ‘Pulseology’(2022), Milford Graves reminds us, ‘Breath varies, so cardiac rhythm never has that (metronomic) tempo. It’s always changing. All the alignments of the heart are determined based on the needs of the cells, specifically tissues and organs. The heart knows if it needs to speed up.’ In SLIP, to slip, in a heartbeat, is to descend not into the grid of the even metre accorded to the heartbeat, but into a play of mutability and modality. To change is the condition of the heart.

New release from South Korean sound artist, Suk Hong 홍석민, following on from his Pedigree album on the label in 2024. Listeners familiar with Pedigree's intricately multifaceted layers of texture and meaning will find much to love here, but Comedy! immediately establishes itself as an altogether more unsettling work. Recorded over an eight month period from October 2024 to May 2025, the album's title and its three parts represent Hong's sentiments over the crisis precipitated by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaration of martial law and its subsequent withdrawal at the end of 2024. From the album's outset it is clear that we too, are in uncharted territory. Taking the same serpentine, collagic approach used to such great effect in Pedigree, the layered and juxtaposed sounds here walk a consistently fine line between soothing and discomforting, eerie and familiar; seemingly blurring the lines between exterior and interior reality in a heady miasma of dream and memory. Soft, muted piano refrains run up against chittering, chattering repetitions both synthetic and mechanical; animal noises - human and bestial - are interwoven with fragments of voice and action but seemingly never enough to allow the listener to create a full picture. It's clear that something significant is happening, but it is outside our ability to make an objective assessment, let alone affect the outcome. As with Pedigree, Hong moves restlessly from one sonic environment to the next, revealing details so intimate that at times it seems that the recording device must have been not so much a physical microphone as a disembodied presence, flitting from place to place; an endlessly curious eavesdropper finding hidden meanings in every encounter. Through it all, ebbing and flowing, runs a calm, strangely distant tone-wash, halfway between blissful reverie and fretful disorientation. By the album's close, we may find ourselves a great distance from where we set out, consoled and unnerved in equal measure. Yet just as our thoughts begin to coalesce, the album ends as abruptly as it began. There is to be no easy resolution here, instead we must live with the ceaseless puzzles and contradictions of life as it unfolds.

“In a concert, I show something with a beginning, a middle and an end. But, there is no end. Of course, there is no end. Because I am the music, and I am still here.” - Sophie Agnel  ‘Learning’ - Sophie Agnel’s first solo LP, feels like the dark, physical inversion of her excellent ‘Song’ which came out on Relative Pitch earlier this year. Sinking her unique sound into vinyl for the first time, the LP arrives as Agnel recovers from a brain tumour - a shocking discovery that will require Agnel to start again with the piano. It’s a terrifying prospect, but Agnel has been here before, having reorientated herself almost entirely away from her early classical training over the last 4 decades of her work.  ‘When I was young I had very good ears, oriole absolute. Then later I began to make strange sounds with my piano, to do different kinds of music. I was more interested in the sounds than the melody, for example. I remember once I sat down in a shop to try to read the scores of Schubert and there was a light [emitting] a very strong bzzzzzzz. And I couldn't listen to my oriole internal - I couldn't read the score. I was entirely subjugated by the sound of the light. And I understood that something had changed. Ten years before I could read and not hear the light. Now I understood that my ears were completely different. I was more open to the sounds of life.”  Born in Paris in the 60’s and playing her parents piano as soon as she could stand up, Agnel quickly grew tired of the classical world. What frustrated her was the strange disconnect between the frame of the piano and its keyboard - a weird boundary that seemed to form some hushed code of etiquette. “The first thing I put inside the piano was a plastic goblet. I’d seen a few pianists do it: Fred Van Hove, for example, put rubber balls inside his. But what didn’t appeal to me was that there seemed to be no link between the pianos outside and inside.”If you see Agnel play now, the body of her piano is littered with fish tins, ping pong balls, wooden blocks - not that you’d recognize their sounds. Having absorbed the language of the European avant-garde, Agnel is known for pulling the piano’s interior outside of itself by tipping her handbag into it. But these ‘strange sounds’ don’t just come from Cage - they also share the poetic force of Cecil Taylor and ‘Learning’ demonstrates that Agnel’s work on the piano's keyboard is just as important as what she’s littered on its strings. The record lets loose her ability to unleash a formidable sound mass and then rope it back to one single, clarifying note. With one hand, Agnel plays 88 tuned drums and on the other an enormous guitar - with the LP rotating through oncoming trains, and blues harmonica and feedback. It’s single minded stuff, borne out of a dedication to a wholly personal language of gesture, accumulation and deft reduction. “Maybe when I’m 80 I will not need anything,” Agnel says in a recent film made at her home. “I will do the same but with one note, and one finger. Maybe it's enough.” — ‘Learning’ arrives in a reverse board sleeve designed by Jereon Wille. Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Billy Steiger on 6th June 2023 and 4th June 2024. Mixed by James Dunn and Benjamin Pagier. Side B edited by Benjamin Pagier. Mastered and cut by Loop-O. Front photograph by Aimé Agnel. Typography and layout by Jeroen Wille.

A vital, utterly cathartic set from the trio of Camila Nebbia (saxophone), Andrew Lisle (drums) and Caius Williams (double bass) recorded at OTO in April 2025. Convened as a group at short notice, after pianist Kit Downes had to pull out of the original line-up alongside Camila Nebbia and Andrew Lisle, the trio nevertheless display the kind of instant symbiosis that feels honed over many years. Nebbia’s playing doesn’t let up for a second, showcasing her astonishing range on the saxophone from deeply sonorous exhalations, to delicate textural work, to a full-throated caterwauling that pins you back in your seat. Andrew Lisle’s highly dextrous, intricate drumming spans the whole gamut from skirring, scampering percussive clusters to the kind of forceful, unruly assail that borders on the rambunctious. And beneath it all, Caius Williams demonstrates exactly why he’s one of the most in demand bassists working today; crafting seeking, probing lines that provide the foundations whilst tipping the entire structure above off into new directions at the same time. The three of them cover a huge amount of ground, ricocheting from skittering downhill runs to a sort to bruising melodicism, to the kind of gleeful clatter that would have had Ayler sitting up. When all three get going it’s the kind of jubilant cacophony that can’t help but lift you off your feet, and in places it really swings, albeit the kind of swing that might require a swift trip to the chiropractor afterwards. The sheer, unbridled energy on display here might sometimes leave you gasping for breath, but this is no one-note onslaught. At times the trio pull it down so low you could almost here a Kernel bottle-top drop, with scattered harmonic notes weaving in and out of a raft of sighing, sloughing cymbals, the bass drawing out the atmospherics from down low. By the end, it's clear that the three of them have left nothing in the tank. Here's hoping it's not long before we see them back here. -- Recorded by Rory SalterMixed and mastered by Andrew Lisle

Free to download for one and all – if you're a member the download will not remove a credit. Oh Xmas Tree (trad)Jingle Bells (trad)Snow (Newman)Let it Snow (Styne / Cahn)Blood On The Snow (Gilfedder/ Wells)Black Xmas (Wells)Frozen Vaults (Wells)In The Bleak Midwinter (trad)Snowed In (Gilfedder / Wells)Hark The Herald Angels Sing (trad)Oh Come All Ye Faithful (trad)Winter Wonderland (Bernard / Smith) The NJTOS are, on this recording and in order of appearance;Bill Wells, Kate Sugden, Isobel Campbell, Aby Vulliamy, Lorna Gilfedder, Chris Geddes, Gerard Black & Audrey Bizouerne. Jingle Bells is performed by Göteborgs Indiekör conducted by Niclas Pettersson and arranged by Carl Magnus Juliusson, Fredrik Lindberg & Erik Karlsson from an arrangement by the NJTOS.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWWiAJgxUUI Blood on the Snow was released as a track on ‘Bill Wells Presents Lorna Gilfedder’ which is available on 7e.p.https://7eptokyo.bandcamp.com/ Apart from Frozen Vaults, all the other tracks are previously unreleased. The NJTOS Christmas Album is available on Karaoke Kalkhttps://karaokekalk.bandcamp.com/ Snowflake cover image by Jad Fair.Come all ye faithful! Just one more to round out the year, and we couldn’t be happier with this one. Back in 2010, Counterflows head honcho Alasdair Campbell asked composer and multi-instrumentalist Bill Wells to curate and arrange a ‘black xmas’ gig at the Tolbooth in Stirling. Of the tunes Wells arranged, most were released as The National Jazz Trio Of Scotland's Christmas Album (Karaoke Kalk), featuring members of Francois & the Atlas Mountains, Golden Grrls and The One Ensemble. Speaking to Bill recently, it turns out that there are a number of previously unreleased tunes, radio sessions and alternate mixes from the time around the record. After a touch of Bill's magic mixing, we're lucky to have an 'alternate' The National Jazz Trio of Scotland Christmas Album to share with you - all of which (with the exception of Frozen Vaults) are so far unreleased. Of course, you'll recognise these tunes of old, but the bright, crisp meloncholy that Wells and the extraordinary voices of Isobel Campbell, Aby Vulliamy and Lorna Gilfedder bestow upon each green bough of 'Oh Christmas Tree' might just put tears in your eyes as you blearily look into a bauble this year.  Classic cockle warmers 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing' and 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful' have been given a cool version of the Wells / Wilson treatment - it's the Beach Boy's Bus on it's way to a Faroe Islands - its frozen lakes iced and glassy yet incredibly warm and inviting. And yet, in the middle of it all, on Wells' original 'Blood on the Snow', one voice asks, 'what will they do back home / how will they deal with it / when will they get the news / that you didn't make it?', stopping the merriment in its tracks and tuning it's listener to the silence of snow. It's delicate, fragile stuff, direct and unflinching in its delivery.

2. otta - tonsättarcentrum123456789 (18:40) otta’s performance unfurled like a conversation with the piano, building on motifs and altering the layout of the preparations inside the piano to suit each individual exploration. Preparations that otta utilised include Athen Kardashian & Nina Mhach Durban’s ‘I never held emotion in the palm of my hand’ (a keyring holding locker keys, a plastic surfboard and dolphin and a small Lotto game, used as a rattle and to dangle over and between the strings), Alia Hamaoui’s peachskin velvet I & II (plastic name tags with pewter cast peach pips attached), Natalya Marconi Falconer’s Between Debris and Thing (an aluminium cast of a fennel husk), and one part of Pheobe riley Law’s shape placing (a unique morph of steel and rubber coating, laser cut into interesting flat shapes). Ellis Berwick’s Electreight (a bike bell sat on its own inverted base) is often returned to by otta as a flourish to mark beginnings and ends of different phrases. A large section of the performance involved bringing Joe Moss’ vibrating Loot Box up to one of the stereo microphones hanging above her head to create a consistent buzzing, whilst she continued to improvise on the piano below. The playful performance felt like an evolving improvised dialogue with the materials at hand, with otta adapting to the effects the preparations made to each refrain. 3. Gentle Stranger - just enough dirt (22:18)  Gentle Stranger’s performance differed from the other two in that there were three musicians or “six hands”  playing on the piano, with Alex McKenzie taking over the high end melodic section of the piano, Josh Barfoot  staying towards the lower end, controlling the majority of the percussive rhythm section of the piece, and Tom  Hardwick-Allan using extended piano techniques, singing and moving the preparations around the inside of the  piano whilst the other two played the keys. Hardwick-Allan began the performance on a tiny red toy piano  (prepared with Olivia Albanell’s Fat Wasp and Ellis Berwick’s Piammer) a metre or so stage left of the grand. The  two pianos were connected by a group phone call that echoed and fed back inside the body of the piano, with  Barfoot and McKenzie’s phones sat inside Hayett Belarbi-McCarthy’s Dear Obsolescence (antique silk) & Verity  Coward’s Wodge (a fake wodge of £20 notes) respectively. The phones were the first of many objects the trio  secretly brought to Cafe OTO that broke the rules for Preparations initially laid out by Joseph Bradley Hill. The  objects included a megaphone, a metronome, a cassette tape and mini-amplifier, an electronic mouse deterrer  and, technically, Hardwick-Allan’s shoes which fell off as Barfoot and McKenzie carried him from one side of the  piano to the other, dropping him onto the piano keys in the process. The performance moves through roughly  eight stages using these objects and the 23 already inside, with each section a different take on the prepared  piano’s possibilities. The performance reaches its end with a wail by Hardwick-Allan into the resonant body of  the piano (the sustain held down by a weight placed their earlier), followed by a ‘wedding song’ sung through a  megaphone from underneath the piano. Hardwick-Allan’s first touch of a key on the grand piano then became  the performance’s last. Three live performances from the third iteration of Late Works’ prepared piano event, Preparations, that took place at a sold out Cafe OTO on 23rd June 2025. For the event, 23 artists were asked to create a sculpture / ‘preparation’ each for the grand piano (shown on album cover above). Three pianists/groups  then had to construct individual live performances with the adaptable unit of preparations. Featuring artist and multi-instrumentalist Stanley Welch, singer and producer otta and experimental ‘post-clown’ trio Gentle Stranger, the playful live album shifts from a vaudevillian theatricality (Welch) to a motif-driven dialogue (otta) to dynamic, rule-bending episodes (Gentle Stranger), together demonstrating the diverse musical range of the  prepared piano. For this third iteration of Preparations, the pianists performed on the grand piano with preparations made by artists/musicians Olivia Albanell, Fan Bangyu, Hayett Belarbi-Mccarthy, Ellis Berwick, Zoe de Caluwé, Patrick Cole, Verity Coward, Mandeep Dillon, Natalya Marconini Falconer, Alia Hamaoui, Ellen Poppy Hill, Joseph Bradley Hill, Athen Kardashian & Nina Mhach Durban, Pheobe riley Law, Vita Lerche, Joe Moss, Eleni Papazoglou, Alexandra Phillips, Gillies Adamson Semple, Thirza Smith & Dominic Watson. The concept (by Joseph Bradley Hill) looks to the piano as an exhibition space, inviting the pianists to activate the sculptures as musical instruments/noise objects. The artists were given two main instructions: the preparation must sit comfortably on an open palm and not damage the piano in any way. Other constraints were organised with Cafe OTO based on their piano, which included using non-perishable materials. The pianists were given one hour each with the piano to work out how they would prepare it for the performance, and were encouraged to use as many of the sculptures as possible. The open nature of the event allows the audience to approach the piano in between sets and explore the effects every sculpture had on the piano for themselves. You can find out more about the rules at www.lateworks.co.uk/preparations 1 - Stanley Welch - Mothers, Dogs and Clowns (27:34) Stanley Welch’s set opened and closed with a tribute to David Bowie, or more specifically Bowie’s nose, the subject of Dominic Watson’s preparation David Bowie (Market Square, Aylesbury) (a pewter cast of the nose of a David Bowie statue). Welch then continued playing almost non-stop through the nearly 30 minute set, shifting through section after section of percussive, theatrical, almost vaudevillian sounds. Throughout, Welch used Joseph Bradley Hill’s Roller (With Hidden Paolozzi) to dampen the bass strings, and the main preparations that punctuated the performance were the lid of Joe Moss’ Loot Box slamming open and shut, and Vita Lerche’s Piano Bell sliding along the strings. A brief whistling interlude added to one of the more romantic refrains in the centre of the piece, and as Welch rattled towards the end, works by Vita Lerche, Gillies Adamson Semple, Patrick Cole, Eleni Papazoglou and Zoe de Caluwé were shifted onto the bass strings to provide him with a dense padding that converted to a loud thumping noise he used to great effect (and to close his performance).

Delighted to present a hallucinatory offering from Ciaran Mackle, recorded as part of a bill of similarly mind-expanding artists at OTO in September 2025, that featured Rory Salter, Regan Bowering and Vespertilio folia ferens - aka the duo of Luciano Maggiore and Seymour Wright. In this set, performed entirely on a Bastl Microgranny granular sampler, Mackle contorts two parallel lines of highly-processed monophonic guitar samples, with each seemingly trying to clamber on top of the other at the same time. With the drama of a coat-tailed concert pianist, Mackle begins with a single chord, which immediately proceeds to unravel in a staggering, punch-drunk procession of woozy mellotron-infused notes. Melodic sequences circle back and forth, over and around each other in a way that would seem to evoke a kind of sonic amnesia, if not for the relentlessly insistent way that these sequences seem to be clamouring for our attention. Despite the spiralling, intertwining paths that each melodic line treads, there seems to be an inherent urgency for both to reach their destination. Each new phrase barrels forward with a dogged persistence that initially seems at odds with the many backtracks and digressions, but slowly but surely carves out its own inherent sense of logic. All too soon the destination is reached, and with a final emphatic flourish we find ourselves some distance from where we started out. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

A live document of Elvin Brandhi, Kenichi Iwasa, Microcorps and Ziúr’s improvised set, recorded at OTO during Brandhi’s 2024 residency. Between 15-17 August 2024, improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist Elvin Brandhi brought three nights of unfolding, spontaneous and mind-bending world building to her Café OTO residency, bringing together collaborators from across the globe to take part in multifarious live actions and exploding group improvisations. On day three, Brandhi combined the quartet of Kenichi Iwasa, Ziúr, Microcorps and herself, for an expansive set, knitting processed voices, electronics, horns and percussion. This live recording from the night captures the group moving through choral bursts of atomised group vocalisations that melt into strands of interwoven electronics and live percussion, where automatic compositions spring fourth to be regurgitated into new mangled forms. -- Elvin Brandhi / voice and electronicsKenichi Iwasa / bass clarinet, trumpet, electronics and voiceMicrocorps / modular system, electronics and voiceZiúr / voice, percussion and electronics Recorded at Cafe OTO 17/07/24Mixed by ZiúrCover assembled by Elvin Brandhi from artworks by the whole group.

The release includes a short film created by Matthew Revert especially for this set, now synced with the mixed audio and available to download as an MP4 file.Phenomenal, preternatural solo set from Melbourne-based writer, musician and designer, Matthew Revert, recorded at Cafe OTO in April 2025. Performing as part of a heady lineup alongside longtime collaborator, Vanessa Rossetto and Tom Betteridge, Revert conjures an eerie, crepuscular atmosphere halfway between the Brothers Quay and The Black Lodge, layering up looped chimes and tones, shimmering scrapes and scratches, twittering electronics and low, discordant hums, which all tumble together with a ceaseless momentum. Through it all a muffled voice provides a through-line, with repeated phrases that stumble and cycle back on themselves with hypnotic insistence. References to things both mundane and profound emerge from the murk, with the nagging potency of a half-remembered dream. The cumulative effect is at once disorientating and uncanny in its specificity, leaving you under the distinct impression that this message is being addressed directly to you; that it would, in fact, hold great meaning to you alone, if only you could remember how you got here. Note to self... -- Recorded by Rory SalterMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover image by Matthew Revert

Softcover, 272 pages27cm x 21cmISBN 978-1-03693-585-6OTOHON, 2026 "The discarded syntax of the office, parcels of food on paper and cardboard: all are mummified in photographic stasis in the book you hold in your hand. But still, at this moment, they are also rotting somewhere. There is no end to this: through words and music, sound and visuals, Adam Bohman always brings home the bacon,  his textures manifesting a world you thought had disappeared." - Sophie Sleigh-Johnson   Adam Bohman has been operating on the outer fringes of underground music for over forty years. Working with home-built instruments, found objects, tape cut-ups, collages and graphic scores, his music transmutes the quotidian bric-a-brac of English life into sound - incorporating elements of music concretè and sound poetry alongside free improvisation. Much lesser known however, is Bohman’s visual output. Since the mid 1970’s, Bohman has used pencil, pastel, crayon and ink to conjure creatures and demons, sepia-saddened prospectors and smoked-out cowboys onto sugar paper and repurposed card. His later work uses biro and sellotape to cake together collages of takeaway menus, tinned food and the photocopied litter of the workplace. This is the first collection of Bohman’s artworks in print, bringing together just some of the thousands of drawings, collages and concert posters that collectively represent over half a century's worth of scrawing, scraping, gluing and smudging images into being. From drawings made in adolescence to recent collages, ‘Drawings, Collages, Paintings’ collects Adam’s artwork alongside an interview and an essay by Sophie Sleigh-Johnson in an attempt to bring attention and understanding to the work of one of England's most important underground artists.

The book arrives as signed and numbered 24 page staple bound booklet, printed in black and white on Keaykolour 100% recycled paper. Printed by Aldgate Press. Thanks to Max Bondi for his advice. Written during a bout of illness that prevented Foster from playing and performing music, Kneel to Heal is the first illustrated chapbook from musician Josephine Foster and a grateful offering to the restorative power of nature. Across 24 pages, Foster muses upon the simple joys of just being in the world, her figures traversing a landscape of words and imagery that is both playful and deeply felt. There is an uncluttered simplicity to Foster's art, at once charming and profound; a sense of calm and openness reflective of her feeling during its making "of being drawn profoundly into and toward silence" Conjuring the easy fluidity of Shel Silverstein, or the dreamlike, transportive scenes of Marc Chagal, Foster's brushwork digs deep into the soil whilst looking up to the stars. There are no weighty proclamations, no authoritative conclusions, just a shared wonder and a sense of time unfurling alongside the book's creation that offers solace both in its giving and its receiving. The joys of the natural world may be fleeting but Foster seems to suggest that there is no cause for despondency in this, merely an acceptance that this is how reality is. Nevertheless, "what emerges from the mystery.. and that real reality.. will heal".

First publication of new pieces by composer and musician Mica Levi titled ‘star star star’. The collection debuts 7 new works developed over the recent months by Mica and a working group of performers during a residency at Oto. Using written text instructions, speech rhythm techniques and visual cues, these pieces are open to players with no previous musical experience and incorporate elements such as spoken word, light and movement. ‘star star star’ puts the emphasis on the player and the group, whether that be on stage or at home, and shares a DIY spirit of openness and possibility.

     Released in print by Cafe OTO (OTOHAN01) and as a download by CURL (CURL015). 
 Produced by Cafe OTO and Qu Junktions.     24ppA5Staple boundPrinted on pastel blue 80gsm paper Mica Levi is a musician and composer born in Guildford and living in South East London. They use programming software, written notation and improvisation to produce music and are currently a member of the groups CURL, Good Sad Happy Bad and Tirzah.

Limited run of very special Chen Tiemei (Old Heaven Books) designed tea towels, in collaboration with Dusty Ballz - purrfect for serving dinner and managing spillages. Screenprinted using Chen Tiemei's design from our 2025 OTO Billboard in Dalston, showing some of the highlights you can look forward to here in 2026! 5oz heavyweight 100% cotton tea towel w/ hanging loop. Printed in the UK. Please place any Christmas orders by 10am on the 19th December to ensure delivery by Christmas - Royal Mail have advised us that is the last day for the 48 hour tracked service. We will be open for collection / last minute shopping through to 5pm on 22nd December, and then we'll close until the 27th.

Edition of 100 four-colour screenprints. Print adapted from Chen Tiemei's design for our 2025 OTO Billboard in Dalston, showing some of the highlights you can look forward to here in 2026! Printed on heavyweight Takeo Satogami Mouse Gray 198gsm paper by www.tartaruga.co.ukSize: 59cm x 29 cm

Printed on the Stanley / Stella Creator 2.0 tee -- nice unisex cut on fairwear black organic cotton. Set-in sleeve1x1 rib at neck collarInside back neck tape in self fabricTwin needle topstitch at sleeve cuff and hem CompositionShell: Single Jersey, 100% Cotton - Organic Combed Ring Spun / Heather Haze: 70% Organic Cotton - 30% Recycled Cotton, Combed Ring Spun, Fabric washedWe have collaborated with long term Cafe OTO friend Han Bennink to design the first ever OTO t-shirt. These are made on good quality fair trade Stanley/Stella tees - more info under the design detail.  The Dutch drummer and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink has had a colossal impact and influence in the fields of free jazz and improvised music - not just as a percussionist but also as an organiser, designer and visual artist. Bennink trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterda and was strongly influenced by the anti-art of Dada. Out of what he calls 'a kind of involvement with things', Bennink reuses seemingly worthless objects from his immediate environment, such as broken drum skins and sticks. They are given a second life in his sculptures and installations. For his drawings and collages, Bennink draws on his personal memories and intuition. Birds and airplanes often return in these, symbols of the same freedom that he personifies during his performances. His artwork graces the covers of several corner stone recordings released on FMP, ICP, Incus, hat ART, psi and more. "It simply has to be beautiful and preferably appeal to an emotion as well. In [Bennink's] case that emotion doesn't have to be very dramatic or deeply hidden. You could rather call his art, his visual art anyway, light-footed, the way poems by Rutget Copland and Hans Verhagen can be." - Hans Sizoo, Jazzwereld nr 16. Photo by Corral

The Dutch drummer and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink has had a colossal impact and influence in the fields of free jazz and improvised music - not just as a percussionist but also as an organiser, designer and visual artist. Bennink trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterda and was strongly influenced by the anti-art of Dada. Out of what he calls 'a kind of involvement with things', Bennink reuses seemingly worthless objects from his immediate environment, such as broken drum skins and sticks. They are given a second life in his sculptures and installations. For his drawings and collages, Bennink draws on his personal memories and intuition. Birds and airplanes often return in these, symbols of the same freedom that he personifies during his performances. His artwork graces the covers of several corner stone recordings released on FMP, ICP, Incus, hat ART, psi and more. "It simply has to be beautiful and preferably appeal to an emotion as well. In [Bennink's] case that emotion doesn't have to be very dramatic or deeply hidden. You could rather call his art, his visual art anyway, light-footed, the way poems by Rutget Copland and Hans Verhagen can be." - Hans Sizoo, Jazzwereld nr 16.  Reprint of the now classic OTO tote, designed by Han Bennink and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Available in natural or black.  100% Cotton Canvas - 270gsm (8oz/yd²)Can be carried by hand or over the shoulder39 x 42 x 13 Double sided print - back says Cafe OTO - Han Bennink Photo by Corral

The Dutch drummer and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink has had a colossal impact and influence in the fields of free jazz and improvised music - not just as a percussionist but also as an organiser, designer and visual artist. Bennink trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterda and was strongly influenced by the anti-art of Dada. Out of what he calls 'a kind of involvement with things', Bennink reuses seemingly worthless objects from his immediate environment, such as broken drum skins and sticks. They are given a second life in his sculptures and installations. For his drawings and collages, Bennink draws on his personal memories and intuition. Birds and airplanes often return in these, symbols of the same freedom that he personifies during his performances. His artwork graces the covers of several corner stone recordings released on FMP, ICP, Incus, hat ART, psi and more. "It simply has to be beautiful and preferably appeal to an emotion as well. In [Bennink's] case that emotion doesn't have to be very dramatic or deeply hidden. You could rather call his art, his visual art anyway, light-footed, the way poems by Rutget Copland and Hans Verhagen can be." - Hans Sizoo, Jazzwereld nr 16.  Reprint of the now classic OTO tote, designed by Han Bennink and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Available in natural or black.  100% Cotton Canvas - 270gsm (8oz/yd²)Can be carried by hand or over the shoulder39 x 42 x 13 Double sided print - back says Cafe OTO - Han Bennink Photo by Corral

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

The first of two editions capturing Pat Thomas and XT's (Seymour Wright & Paul Abbot) enduring creative partnership, dedicated to renderings of Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary). This, the vinyl edition, encounters the trio in their second brilliant set at Cafe Oto on June 22, 2022 (while the second, X2 CD edition, listed separately, was recorded a Rote Fabrik in Zurich on June 10 + 11, 2022) Pianist Pat Thomas, saxophonist Seymour Wright (both of [ahmed]) and drummer Paul Abbott - the latter two working as XT - deliver a remarkable set of new music, each, re-imagining improvisation and synthetic ideas with acoustic and electronic tools. This monumental new suite Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* released by We Jazz Records on 30th January 2026 is spread across three release formats, the complete album includes more than 2 hours and 15 minutes of music recorded live in London and Zurich in summer 2022. Five tracks in total. complex, iterative whole that makes ideas live - back into tradition/s and out, on, into an infinite future. In 2018 the trio recorded a remarkable 80-minute tribute to the late Cecil Taylor "Akisakila" / Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees) vigorously re-visiting his 1973 Tokyo trio Akisakila recording. Re-convening five years later to celebrate that release they imagined a-new, expanding that attitude to history through connected lenses of the traditions of British electro-acoustic-mystery: from the live electronics of Tony Oxley’s February Papers or Howard Riley’s Synopsis, to Leviticus’ Burial and Splash’s Babylon, plus of course Derek Bailey’s Domestic Jungle, and now up to their overlapping global-temporal experiments with, between them, Mark Fell, Anne Gills and RPBoo. The subtitles of each disc reveal something essential about the three musicians’ shared histories and ways of thinking-through-synthesizing ideas, time, space and sound. The LP, titled Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* London draws from UK improvising pioneer, guitarist Derek Bailey (on playing with Cecil) in its subtitle: “*(it's quite different to the other stuff, the earlier stuff. Without going into all kinds of detail which usually undersells the music, can't describe it. But it was a fine experience, and very memorable.)” Captured at London’s Cafe OTO, the LP hears Thomas & XT expand their acoustic trio each with liquid (dry and wet) electronics, as real and imagined instrumentation. We hear sounds of keys, sticks, reeds, pedals, (i)pads, plug-ins, body and breath and their potentials. We also hear the unique energy, space and feel of OTO a sui generis ecology in which all three musicians have worked and learned since its doors opened in 2008. And as you will hear, this night was a particularly wild, multi-species reception. Released as a double CD, Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* Zurich takes its sub-title from the great drummer, and live electrician, Tony Oxley (also on playing with Cecil): “*(is so much more immense if you prepare yourself to go where the music will take you, and not try and make the music go where you want it perhaps, or think it might go)”. Here we hear the music grow across two nights (one per disc), synthetic, bionic expanding, evaporating, electric, charging through time in ways that renders “genre” indistinguishable, irrelevant and even impossible. Two additional digital tracks added, “London FIRST SET” and “Zurich THREE” round up the release and connect back, in redux-miniature, to Attitudes[...]. This set is a multi-format document of some of the most adventurous, rare (and radical) creative musicians working today. Electronic-and-acoustic, real and imaginary, sounds, times, scales and proportions that extends out of and collapses into musical space in dialogue with past and future.

The latest installment of Paradigm Discs’ incredible initiative dedicated to the work of Anthony Moore with the experimental filmmaker David Larcher during the 1960s and 70s. The collaboration between Anthony Moore and filmmaker David Larcher began in the late 60s, at the start of both their respective careers and lasted many years. Following on from last years release of the soundtrack to Mare’s Tail (the first collaboration with Larcher), this year sees the release of the soundtrack to his 2nd film, Monkey’s Birthday. This LP is a condensation of the essence of this 6 hour film. The sound is partly taken directly from the existing soundtrack and partly from stereo masters that have survived through the decades. Shot and edited between 1973 and 1975 this epic film moves through a variety of landscapes, both physical and abstract. It was filmed in various locations, starting in Germany and moving through Hungary, Romania and most substantially in rural Turkey. In large part this is a road movie that takes the filmed events and locations and uses them as sources for further experimentation. In much the same way, the location recordings made by Anthony Moore are used as raw material for creating much of the soundtrack, working from a battery powered studio in the back of his truck in this east bound convoy. The previously released excerpt, Plains Of Hungary (ReR Quarterly Vol.2 No.1) is included on this album in its rightful place among the collages of Islamic chant, field recordings, tape loops, jam sessions etc., alongside quotes from esoteric texts read by Heathcote Williams. We also hear, alongside various voices from the crew and general public, a repeated theme using the looped cut up voice recordings from the 2 other members of Slapp Happy (Dagmar Krause and Peter Blegvad), who also took to the road for part of this gruelling journey. Comes with large 4 sided insert. Numbered edition of 500.

A sequel. An escalation. Pressure spikes from bar one: future-facing, low-latency. A firmware update for the body. Cuts bite into cuts. Fragments swarm, collide, die out. Drums stumble until they speak; samples crop up without names and leave without warning. Momentum is the one and only rule. Unpredictable, gridless, post-genre. From TikTok feed to vinyl: born digital, cut for the floor. The glitch grows a body, develops a nervous system. Match it or get out of the way. Damned be the ones that are stuck on tradition.

in 2023, sound artist and composer Weston Olencki toured across the American South. Beginning in their hometown in South Carolina, they snaked a circuitous path from the mountains of West Virginia to the banks of the Mississippi River. As the miles accumulated, so did the initial seeds of new work. Instruments and artifacts they acquired hitched a ride in the backseat, while songs and sounds filled their portable recorder: water in its various states, the familiar insectoid buzz of those summer nights, trains cutting through the landscape, the traditional music that lived alongside the communities that kept it. Olencki took it all in, and over time, found ways that these experiences coalesced into a bramble-like perspective of time, where past, present, and future intersect in ways both barbed and beautiful. Broadsides, Olencki’s newest solo full-length is the multilayered result of this journey. The album follows their landmark release Old Time Music from 2022, which presented radical interpretations of traditional tunes from Appalachia and throughout the South alongside original compositions that drew significantly on archival recordings. On Broadsides, Olencki rejects delineations between the unmoored avant-garde and the rootedness of one’s cultural heritage, revealing their porous and intertwined nature. “My mother was a quilter. Her mother before that,” they write in the album’s liner notes. “Quilting, like music, is a practice of embedding knowledge and remembrance into the very core of the thing you are making. It’s not just about the materials, but how they’re reassembled, recontextualized, stitched, woven to form new patterns - the minutiae of craft holding significance to those looking to find it. Stories woven from stories, never told the same way twice.” Like all great road trips, Broadsides unfolds slowly and continuously, with moments of dramatic reverie punctuating the endless melt of highway in the rearview. We’re immediately confronted by the uncanniness of revisiting old haunts, as Southern storms break through the initial churn of the freight locomotives of Alabama. Olencki’s interpretation of the bluegrass standard “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” captures the euphoria of melancholy in motion. The permutational plucks of banjo are bounced around the frame by a computer, its pitches determined within algorithmic sequences and transcriptions of classic three-finger licks. The tonalities of old-time are smeared and stretched until all that’s audible is the insistence that Heaven might be real. In the album’s second half, “Omie Wise,” a murder ballad made famous by Doc Watson, follows an interlude recorded on the river in North Carolina in which the titular character’s body was laid. Ghostly echoes of a dozen other renditions float through the substrata as Tongue Depressor’s Henry Birdsey accompanies them on the pedal steel guitar. The album’s central composition, “all my father’s clocks,” is a profound meditation on entropy and impermanence. The sound of their father’s extensive clock collection ticks away as Olencki pulls a bow across the length of an autoharp sourced from a rural strip mall. The instrument was left as detuned as it was found, the resonance of its deep bass drone and clanging high-end the result of years of neglect and the warping effects of Southern humidity. Historically, broadsides were an early form of broadcasting, an often-musicalized telling of current news pasted in the public square. The name was later taken up by Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen in the 1960s, whose Broadside magazine published songs and social commentary when American folk music resurfaced as an urgent way of communicating the multifaceted politics of its time. Olencki borrows the phrase to recall both this old form of songmaking and that later prominent reexamination of traditional music’s role in modern life, but also to draw attention to the fragmented and machine-mediated way heritage is diffused in this very different, but no less pivotal, moment. As a sanitized past is used as justification for current violence and domination, we can turn to these artifacts to better understand the history of ourselves, but only if they are consciously pushed to evolve. Broadsides represents one personal, striking vision of what far-flung futurisms could be respun from these high, lonesome sounds: a reflection of the unbridled joy and deep sorrow inherent to living together through time, and a desire to push further into the untold and unknown.

Orcutt Shelley Miller is an avant-rock trio comprised of three highly celebrated figures of experimental music: Bill Orcutt (Harry Pussy), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) and Ethan Miller (Howlin Rain, Comets On Fire).  Their debut self-titled album will be released September 5th on Silver Current Records.  Following in the footsteps of the high-firing free jazz and European outer-rock bands of the ‘60s and ‘70s and the Pacific Rim’s subterranean reimagining of “rock” form in the 90s, Orcutt Shelley Miller utilize explosive group chemistry, focused intention and chance to pursue the creation of song in its rawest, purest form. “The landscape Orcutt Shelley Miller inhabits lies deep in the stoner American bedrock, fed by volcanic riffage and hypnotic phrasing with rhythmic nods to the SoCal ‘60s and atonal slash piled on a mid ‘80s SST punk-fusionoid substrate, ultimately blasting a "big rock statement" that treads the line between good times and blown minds.” --Tom Carter (Charalambides) Bill Orcutt is renowned for his incendiary guitar work with the seminal '90s noise-rock band Harry Pussy, Orcutt has since carved a niche in the experimental music scene with his raw, deconstructed guitar improvisations and recent quartet compositions. His solo work blends elements of blues, punk, and free improvisation, earning acclaim for its intensity and originality. Steve Shelley is best known as the drummer for alternative rock pioneers Sonic Youth, Shelley has been a driving force in the indie and experimental music scenes since the early 1980s. His dynamic drumming style has contributed to numerous projects, showcasing his versatility and commitment to pushing musical boundaries. Ethan Miller is a central figure in the psychedelic and outer-rock movements, Miller has been at the bow of influential bands such as Comets on Fire and Howlin' Rain. His work is characterized by high-energy performances and a fusion of classic rock influences with experimental sounds, solidifying his reputation as a visionary guitarist and vocalist.

For years, Jackson C. Frank was as ghostly a legend as they come. Even the relatively few record collectors who revered his work were only aware of the lone LP released during his lifetime. For all most listeners knew, Frank made an incredible album in 1965 and then vanished, despite that record having been produced by Paul Simon. 1975 Mekeel Sessions features six tracks recorded in the mid-'70s at a studio in Lake Hill, New York about five miles from Woodstock where Frank was living at the time. Only uncovered decades later, these recordings hum with the same mysterious warmth that defined Jackson at his peak. His guitar work, alternating between strummed and fingerpicking, is perfectly understated. His stark and somber voice, more weathered than the lighter tone on his debut. While the Mekeel tapes were intended for Frank's sophomore album, it never came to be. What one hears is not a singer-songwriter fading out of view, but rather a singular artist who never stopped trying to build his own world – even when no one was watching. For fans of everyone influenced by Jackson: from Nick Drake, Sandy Denny and Bert Jansch to more contemporary acts like Elliott Smith, Vincent Gallo and Iron And Wine who surely used Frank's sparse approach as a template.

The second of two editions capturing Pat Thomas and XT's (Seymour Wright & Paul Abbot) enduring creative partnership, dedicated to renderings of Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary). This, the Double CD edition, encounters the trio at at Rote Fabrik in Zurich on June 10 + 11, 2022 (while the vinyl edition, listed separately, captures their second brilliant set at Cafe Oto on June 22, 2022)  Pianist Pat Thomas, saxophonist Seymour Wright (both of [ahmed]) and drummer Paul Abbott - the latter two working as XT - deliver a remarkable set of new music, each, re-imagining improvisation and synthetic ideas with acoustic and electronic tools. This monumental new suite Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* released by We Jazz Records on 30th January 2026 is spread across three release formats, the complete album includes more than 2 hours and 15 minutes of music recorded live in London and Zurich in summer 2022. Five tracks in total. complex, iterative whole that makes ideas live - back into tradition/s and out, on, into an infinite future. In 2018 the trio recorded a remarkable 80-minute tribute to the late Cecil Taylor "Akisakila" / Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees) vigorously re-visiting his 1973 Tokyo trio Akisakila recording. Re-convening five years later to celebrate that release they imagined a-new, expanding that attitude to history through connected lenses of the traditions of British electro-acoustic-mystery: from the live electronics of Tony Oxley’s February Papers or Howard Riley’s Synopsis, to Leviticus’ Burial and Splash’s Babylon, plus of course Derek Bailey’s Domestic Jungle, and now up to their overlapping global-temporal experiments with, between them, Mark Fell, Anne Gills and RPBoo. The subtitles of each disc reveal something essential about the three musicians’ shared histories and ways of thinking-through-synthesizing ideas, time, space and sound. The LP, titled Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* London draws from UK improvising pioneer, guitarist Derek Bailey (on playing with Cecil) in its subtitle: “*(it's quite different to the other stuff, the earlier stuff. Without going into all kinds of detail which usually undersells the music, can't describe it. But it was a fine experience, and very memorable.)” Captured at London’s Cafe OTO, the LP hears Thomas & XT expand their acoustic trio each with liquid (dry and wet) electronics, as real and imagined instrumentation. We hear sounds of keys, sticks, reeds, pedals, (i)pads, plug-ins, body and breath and their potentials. We also hear the unique energy, space and feel of OTO a sui generis ecology in which all three musicians have worked and learned since its doors opened in 2008. And as you will hear, this night was a particularly wild, multi-species reception. Released as a double CD, Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* Zurich takes its sub-title from the great drummer, and live electrician, Tony Oxley (also on playing with Cecil): “*(is so much more immense if you prepare yourself to go where the music will take you, and not try and make the music go where you want it perhaps, or think it might go)”. Here we hear the music grow across two nights (one per disc), synthetic, bionic expanding, evaporating, electric, charging through time in ways that renders “genre” indistinguishable, irrelevant and even impossible. Two additional digital tracks added, “London FIRST SET” and “Zurich THREE” round up the release and connect back, in redux-miniature, to Attitudes[...]. This set is a multi-format document of some of the most adventurous, rare (and radical) creative musicians working today. Electronic-and-acoustic, real and imaginary, sounds, times, scales and proportions that extends out of and collapses into musical space in dialogue with past and future.

Pre-order (arriving very soon!) Absolutely astouding, first-ever recording and release of  Éliane Radigue's earliest surviving work, Asymptote Versatile, composed  between 1963 and 1964: performed by an all-star ensemble led by none other than long-time Radigue collaborator, Rhodri Davies, including  Xavier Charles (clarinet), Angharad Davies (violin), Rhodri Davies (harp), Julia Eckhardt (viola), Bertrand Gauguet (alto saxophone), Susan Geaney (bass flute), Dominic Lash (double bass), Thierry Madiot (bass trombone), Aonghus McEvoy (guitar), Hannah Miller (french horn), Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (viola), and Carol Robinson (bass clarinet).  Multifold digipack edition + extensive booklet. Amgen presents the historic recording of Éliane Radigue's Asymptote Versatile (1963-64), widely recognized as the oldest surviving composition by the pioneering French electronic music composer. This monumental work was performed for the very first time at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on November 26, 2023, marking a truly historic event as Radigue had resolutely refused permission for this work to be presented in concert - until now. The legendary composer referred to her 1960s works as "propositions sonores," rather than compositions, and this piece is the only one she kept from that formative period. The graphic score comprises logarithmic curves devised from the Fibonacci sequence, superimposed over sheets of additional notation, to be performed as sustained tones by up to four groups of acoustic instrumentalists spanning the full range of the audible spectrum. Asymptote Versatile sows the seeds of Radigue's exploration of long durational forms, bridging a 50-year gap between the school of composers she met in 1960s New York and her 2011-onwards OCCAM OCEAN series, where she composes for individual instrumentalists. Convened by Rhodri Davies, this exceptional ensemble features many of the OCCAM soloists who have worked closely with Radigue, steeped in the aesthetics and methods of her practice: Xavier Charles (clarinet), Angharad Davies (violin), Rhodri Davies (harp), Julia Eckhardt (viola), Bertrand Gauguet (alto saxophone), Susan Geaney (bass flute), Dominic Lash (double bass), Thierry Madiot (bass trombone), Aonghus McEvoy (guitar), Hannah Miller (french horn), Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (viola), and Carol Robinson (bass clarinet). Radigue herself reflected on the work's origins: "I was young when I composed the Fibonacci suite. I was in New York at that time… During this period of my life I was very interested in mathematics and for this piece I constructed a logarithmic spiral. It is to do with the infinitesimal; the ever-changing, until its destruction in the dance of constant change. […] In one's interpretation, it's important to stay flexible, to avoid rigidity. You can think of the piece as your asymptote … but you are free, it is important to remain free."

t the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of… Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib. A few months after recording “Us”, Lancaster recorded “Mother Africa” along with Clint Jackson III, a trumpeter, partner of Khan Jamal or Noah Howard on other recordings. On march 8th, 1974, Lancaster and Jackson headed up a group composed of Jean-François Catoire (electric and double bass), Keno Speller (percussion) and Jonathan Dickinson (drums). Together, they create an immediate impression. From the first seconds of “We The Blessed”, they develop a free jazz which rapidly abandons any virulence under the effect of blues and soul based interventions. When Gilson’s composition “Mother Africa” begins, listeners are transported into the studio, listening to the musicians setting up: chatting and joking… Then comes the melody: a dozen or so notes of a repeated theme which is accelerated and deformed according to their whims… The jazz played by the association Byard Lancaster / Clint Jackson III is rare: creative AND recreational. “We the blessed”, is apt listening to this again today! This CD edition contains a bonus track, the magnificent “Love Always” that was originally released on the fourth (and last) volume of the Jef Gilson Anthology series released in 1975. Recorded on 8th March 1974, it is a beautiful 15-minute-long modal jazz piece. Four notes from the bass (the relentless Jean-François Catoire, who makes up the rhythm section alongside drummer Jonathan Dickinson and percussionist Keno Speller), and the group is up and running! On piano, Gilson shows the subtle tact of a sideman, leaving the lions’ share of the place to the horns. This allows us to hear the trumpet of Clint Jackson III and the alto (which sometimes sounds almost flute-like) of Byard Lancaster each staking their claim in a long hallucinatory march which moves from moments of direct exaltation to profoundly sensitive collective playing.

At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of… Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib. “Us”, the first of the four records was recorded on November 24th, 1973 with Sylvin Marc on electric bass (a Fender… Lancaster?) and the evergreen Steve McCall on drums. On the album, the trio works from the John Coltrane model; free jazz shook up by the timely contributions of the bassist, followed by a mesmerizing atmospheric music. Then, Lancaster delivers a sinuous solo path, which is a reminder of his unique tone. On the album’s companion single, the trio launches into great black music of a different genre which would lead the clairvoyant François Tusques to claim that Byard Lancaster is an “authentic representative of soul/free jazz”, to sum up this is Great Black Music!

stunning new solo Orcutt recorded live at Oto  Another Perfect Day is Bill Orcutt's first solo electric guitar record since 2017’s eponymous Bill Orcutt. While that eight-year gap might not seem like a ton of time on the cosmic scale, it nonetheless represents a busy half-decade plus for Orcutt projects: a raft of improv collaborations, an acclaimed run of chopped and looped albums on Fake Estates, and the collision of Orcutt's computer and guitar music on Music For Four Guitars and last year's How to Rescue Things, both on Palilalia. The undeniable alchemy of those latter mashups inspired not only a wider appreciation of Orcutt-as-composer, but also the resurrection of Orcutt-as-bandleader, as the Bill Orcutt Quartet hit the road in support of Four Guitars, Orcutt's first work with a proper score (courtesy of Shane Parish). All of the above makes 2025 the perfect year to reacquaint ourselves with Orcutt-as-solo-performer, wielding his trademark four-string rather than a mouse, running the neck rather than shuffling waveforms, blasting through Cafe Oto's tattered Fender Twin (the cover model for the aforementioned How to Rescue Things) rather than a pair of ancient NS-10s. Indeed, this 2023 performance at Oto, East London's finest music establishment, boomerangs back into the slashing chords and frenzied double-picking of the Harry Pussy years, tossing the gentler melodic glow of the last few solo records into the dustbin. In other words, this may be Orcutt's most overtly punk-rockist record since Gerty Loves Pussy, his first solo electric LP from a decade ago. It's an affirmation that Orcutt is above all a lead player -- angular runs scaling the heavens, ricocheting back to ground zero before climbing again. Orcutt builds tension with short phrases, repeated with slight variability until it seems like they’ll never stop, finally slamming into a fresh line like the dawning valley at the crest of the mountain pass. Another Perfect Day is, ultimately, something of a solo guitar Nouveau Roman, an exhilarating run through melodic reiteration, impossible crescendos (check out those ecstatic crowd hoots on "For the Drainers") breaking into — a moment rarely found on an Orcutt record — soft, whisper-quiet tracer notes at the end of "A Natural Death." Another Perfect Day returns Orcutt to the immediacy of his earliest records while maintaining the melodic complexity, phrasing, and flow of a player, who's been going, what — four-plus decades now? And when he taps his roots, it's a reminder of exactly what was so exciting about Orcutt's playing in the first place. — TOM CARTER

Announcing Perseverance Flow, the latest album from acclaimed Chicago-based ensemble Natural Information Society (NIS), release date 2024-10-24. After a trilogy of double LPs by expanded manifestations of the band that began in 2018 with Mandatory Reality & continued through Since Time Is Gravity (a Pitchfork Best Jazz & Experimental Album of the Year selection & Mojo’s #1 Underground Album of 2023), NIS returns to its core formation of Lisa Alvarado on harmonium, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, & composer/multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams on guimbri for one continuous 37 minute composition across a single LP. As the rocket boosters on spaceship earth sputter closer to burnout, lower your stylus into a soundfield that grows stronger the deeper you travel into it; a dose of the medicine many of us look to music to deliver awaits you inside.  One of the deep contemplations of this natural information (thanks Bill Callahan) is the wide range of source materials Abrams draws from over the band’s more than 15 year history: Ideas from minimalism, modal jazz & traditional musics are regularly reimagined in these compositions. The 2021 double LP descension (Out of Our Constrictions), with guest soloist Evan Parker, reflected aspects of Abrams’ love of party music, Chicago house, & John Coltrane. *But even veteran travelers with the NIS best brace themselves for the Perseverance Flow. Speaking to the history & the inspirations behind the album, Abrams offers: “We played the piece for a year in concert before the recording. At Electrical (Audio Studios, Chicago) we went in at 11 & were done in time to pick our kids up from school.” Abrams continues: "In a reference world, I imagine Perseverance Flow like a live extended realization of a Jaylib lost instrumental as remixed by Kevin Shields. Or vice versa. I also think it has sympathies to some of the more rhythmically intricate dance musics out of Chicago & Lisbon.” The core NIS ensemble heard on Perseverance Flow always address Abrams’ writing with the discipline of orchestra musicians & the creativity of improvisers. But this time around, instead of inviting living legend status musicians Evan or William Parker or Ari Brown as honored guests to solo freely over the composed materials, Abrams’ invited guest collaborator was the medium of the recording studio itself. Situated at the board with engineer Greg Norman, Abrams pushed post production techniques found only sporadically on earlier NIS records deep into the heart of the music, distorting & reshaping instruments to subtly &, at times, aggressively mutate timbre & texture, color & time. Refracting the band’s signature mesmerizing chains of overlapping rhythmic patterns through the sonic funhouse of dub makes Perseverance Flow the most formally experimental NIS album to date. Now a soundworld fully unique to itself is listening to itself, consoling & humoring itself, & consoling & humoring you. A destruction myth & a creation myth of a soundworld together at once —”energetically nutritious” (October 2025 Issue 500 The Wire) supernatural information society.

Walking tours of Britain's nuclear power stations, exploring the history of the sites they occupy and their social, ecological, and cultural impact on the landscape.The United Kingdom has sixteen nuclear power stations. Most go under the radar, but their presence is enormous, both physically and culturally. They divide opinion like nothing else. Are they relics of a past era, or a crucial part of our futures? Are they cathedrals of science or temples of doom? Atomic Albion is a journey around Britain's nuclear power stations and the country itself. From the Essex marshes to the Anglesey coast, from the Dungeness shingle to the far north of Scotland, Tom Bolton explores how nuclear sites shape the places around them, and enters the impossible world of nuclear power and weapons.Softcover, 488pp Strange Attractor Press, 2025

Pre-Order: Arriving direct from the source during mid Feb.  From the ashes of his longstanding zine, Personal Best, Lasse Marhaug delivers the first installment of 8090 VÅG, “Nothing Personal”. Comprising interviews with Ronny Wærnes, Stina Stjern; Mental Overdrive, Government Alpha, Fredrik Nilsen, Jérôme Noetinger, Michèle Bokanowski, Ralf Wehowsky, and Jim O’Rourke, collectively covering a wealth of diverse subjects, ranging from Faust, analog tape process, techno, Japanese noise, the Los Angeles Free Music Society, Metamkine’s 1990’s Cinéma Pour L’Oreille 3”CD-series, numerous disciplines of visual art and publishing, and a whole lot more. The follow-up magazine to PERSONAL BEST (ten issues, 2011-2024). This new publication follows the same formula –  long in-depth interviews with a wide range of great artists, as well as photos and artwork – but the design is new, there  are written pieces, no ads, and it will follow a regular annual publication schedule. 88 pages offset printed CMYK (with  Pantone on cover), sewn-glued binding with a 9mm spine, and folded flaps cover – a slightly more deluxe upgrade from  PERSONAL BEST. It is also printed in a smaller edition. Produced, edited and designed by Lasse Marhaug

Opening the pages of NOW JAZZ NOW will drop you into the ravenous mind of the insatiable Free Jazz and Free Improvisation record collector.  Here are the infamous and rarified recordings that challenged, advanced and, many times, polarized, the orthodoxy of a music defined by beauty, struggle, and the pure essence of inspiration.  Featuring images of albums, singles, and cassettes direct from the authors’ personal archives in all their loving wear and tear, along with Philippe Gras’ exquisite photos of Free Music legends, this is a book for all adventurous lovers of creative sound, whether they be record collectors, avant-garde Jazz enthusiasts, students of radical culture, or simply curiosity-seekers in wonder to this music’s illustrious history and lineage. The three authors, music writer Byron Coley and musician's Mats Gustafsson and Thurston Moore, share a life-long mutual obsession to record collecting with a distinct focus on the recorded history of Free Music. Compiling their personal archives with a long-running discussion and debate of which recordings could be considered within a list of more than one-hundred releases, they have decided on presenting the works in chronologic order, realizing the music to be preternaturally noncompetitive, non-hierarchical, and of equal value. The gleanings of Gustafsson, Moore, and Coley along with the words of legendary musicians Neneh Cherry and Joe McPhee, will enlighten, delight, amuse, and bemuse all who enter their enthralled streams of appreciation, perception, and, most importantly, unbridled respect and regard for a universe of music devoted to the dignity of freedom and the holistic vibrations of spiritual unitySoftcover, 196 x 268, pp 277, fully illustrated  Ecstatic Peace Library, Dec 2025 By Bryan Coley, Mats Gustafsson & Thurston Moore Foreverlogue by Neneh Cherry

Within today's intensely polarized environment, in which social and political debate often tends toward conflict or impasse, might listening enact an intervention? While focus is mostly placed on making statements, capturing history, and the importance of speaking out, listening is radically key to facilitating dialogue, understanding, and social transformation. To listen is to extend the boundaries of the familiar, the recognized, and the known. In addition, listening affords more egalitarian and ecologically-attuned relations, staggering exclusionary systems and human exceptionalism by way of empathic, attentional, and more-than-human orientations: to hear beyond the often fixed schema of self and other, us and them. Listening is an embodied power, it may open and hold, it may support and heal, and it may afford escape as well as compassionate action.The Listening Biennial Reader draws attention to listening as a relational capacity, a philosophical and ecological proposition, a creative practice, and research method. This includes contributions by curators and artists from the first edition of The Listening Biennial, presented in 2021, along with a number of key scholars who offer critical reflections on cultures of listening. Listening emerges as a creative and critical force, or wave of attention, that contributes to maintaining the diversity of our social, creaturely adventure.Edited by Rebecca Collins and Brandon LaBelle. Contributions by Miguel Buenrostro, Wanda Canton, Rebecca Collins, Henry Ivry, Nanna Hauge Kristensen, Brandon LaBelle, Margarida Mendes, Sara Mikolai, Mhamad Safa, Luísa Santos, James Webb.   Hardcover, 17 x 24 cm Errant Bodies Press, Berlin, 2025

A poignant consideration of the material aspect of sound and how it fundamentally shapes our experience of the world, both in its presence and absence. From the joyous communal connections fostered through shared auditory experience to the devastating impact of noise pollution in the deep sea, musician and author Damon Krukowski urges readers to reconsider the significance of sound and its role in both our personal and collective well-being. He looks despairingly at how the multipronged efforts of urban dwellers to mitigate city noise have led to increased isolation, loss of community, and a sense of physical detachment from one’s surroundings. He considers the consequences of the commodification of sound in the digital era. And he looks at what’s at stake in trying to preserve the world’s dwindling quiet places.Hardcover, 115pp Yale University Press, January 2026

'He spoke about music in its pre-cultural state, when song had been a howl across several pitches, [when] musical performances must have had a quality something like free recitation; improvisation. But if one closely examined music, and in particular its most recently achieved stage of development, one noticed the secret desire to return to those conditions.'- Thomas Mann Doctor 'Faustus' 'We are searching for sounds and for the responses that attach to them, rather than thinking them up, preparing them and producing them.'- Cornelius Cardew 'Everywhere, the orthodox systems of our times anticipate the careful and clear presentation of ready-worked-out on-tap outcomes, throughout our lives. Said systems seldom afford focused vantage on the vagaries, protean problems, the awkward wealth, of investigation itself. Generally, the on-goings of development are hidden, edited or simply unseen; what has been developed over time is rendered public, honed for appreciation after the fact, variously knowable, reproducible and endorsable qua final product or record.'- Seymour Wright Percussionist Eddie Prévost co-founded in the 1960s the seminal improvising music ensemble AMM. In this book he presents a very personal philosophy of music informed by his long working practice and inspired by the London weekly improvisation workshop he first convened in 1999. Perhaps controversially, this view is mediated through the developing critical discourse of adaptionism; a perspective grounded in Darwinian conceptions of human nature. Music herein is examined for its cognitive and generative qualities to see how our evolved biological and emergent cultural legacy reflects our needs and dreams. This survey visits ethnomusicology, folk music, jazz, contemporary music and 'world music' as well as focusing upon various forms of improvisation - observing their effect upon human relations and aspirations. However, there are also analytical and ultimately positive suggestions towards future 'metamusical' practices. These mirror and potentially meet the aspirations of a growing community who wish to engage with the world - with all its history and chance conditionals - by applying a free-will in making music that is creative and collegiate.Softcover, 235pp Copula, Harlow, UK, 2011

Limited edition riso done for Dali's residency. 25 white, 25 orange, printed by Good Press on uncoated "Arena Rough Natural" 200gsm and 230gsm Orange. Designed by Oli Barrett.

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

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

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

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

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

Pavel Eremeev: drums, electronics & feedbacks, mixing & mastering Artёm Galkin: guitars, bells, shankha, cover art Katya Shirshkova: harmonium on track 4 Wu Yilin: cassette design

A1、B3、B4为马木尔个人作品，B1是阿西木·东希（Əxim Dongxe ule）作曲，B5为塔塔尔民间乐曲改编，其余为哈萨克民间乐曲改编。 Track A1, B3 and B4 are original compositions by Mamer, track B1 is composed by Ashim Dongxeuly, track B5 is a Tatar traditional folk tune, the rest are based on Kazakh traditional folk tunes. “模仿者系列第六场：星空”现场录音，2024年6月19日录制于旧天堂书店。 Live recording from Mamer's solo performance 'The Imitator Series Ⅵ: Sky' on June 19, 2024 at Old Heaven Books.

Live recording from Mamer's solo performance 'The Imitator Series Ⅷ: Dirty' on June 25, 2024 at Old Heaven Books.

Live recording from Mamer's solo performance 'The Imitator Series Ⅺ: Fake Jazz' on July 3, 2024 at Old Heaven Books.

Live recording from Mamer's solo performance 'The Imitator Series V: Underground Factory' on June 18, 2024 at Old Heaven Books.

Staring Into The Sun is the latest ethno-folk cinema classic from Sublime Frequencies. Ethiopia is known to be one of the oldest areas inhabited by humans and presently has over 80 diverse ethnic groups. In 2009, photographer/filmmaker Olivia Wyatt explored 13 different tribes throughout Ethiopia in this visually stunning film on DVD with accompanying 136-page book of Polaroid photographs and audio CD of field recordings. Traveling from the northern highlands to the lower Omo Valley via bush taxi, Isuzu cargo trucks, and by any means possible, Wyatt brings together the worlds of Zar spirit possession, Hamer tribal wedding ceremonies, Borena water well polyphonic singing, wild hyena feedings and bizarre Ethiopian TV segments, presenting an enchanting look at these otherworldly images, stark landscapes and captivating sounds from the horn of Africa. The featured tribes are captured with an unflinching sense of realism and poetic admiration resulting in a visual and aural feast of the senses. 136-page hardcover photography book with one music CD and one film on DVD. 5 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches, landscape format. 117 color photographs and liner notes by Olivia Wyatt. Sublime Frequencies' most elaborate package yet. One-time limited edition pressing of 1,000 copies.

Matchless, 2024  A film by HajduKino productions. Produced, directed, photographed and edited by Stewart Morgan Hajdukiewicz. Audio recordings mastered by Rupert Clervaux for Matchless Recordings and Publishing. Sleeve design Myah Chun Grierson at Studio Cymbal. "Region 0" PAL format BluRay disc. ABN-DVD A BRIGHT NOWHERE – Journeying into Improvisation is an important audio-visual record of a landmark series of four concerts staged in London in 2022 when more than 30 musicians joined improviser, percussionist and animateur Eddie Prévost to mark his 80th birthday. The film takes a close look at improvisers who create music in the moment, free from the authority of a composer, score or conductor. Ranging from profound delicacy to subversive atonality, the “awkward wealth” of this music raises vital questions about artistic freedom, individual responsibility and what it means for people to make music together in the 21st Century. Featuring performances by John Butcher, Sue Lynch, Ute Kanngiesser, Marjolaine Charbin, Nathan Moore, Seymour Wright, Veryan Weston, Alan Wilkinson, John Tilbury and Eddie Prévost amongst others. Plus readings by musician and author David Toop. The film includes the last ever concert by AMM, the pioneering improvising group co-founded by Eddie Prévost in the mid-1960s.

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

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

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

Directed by Ludo MichCamera: Ludo Mich & Rufus J. BohezMusic: Arthur and his group ‘Live’Editing: Robbe De HertSound: Jules GorisSubtitles: Jan MatthéOriginal flyer art: Georges ‘mafPrint’ Smits Duration : 14:54 min.Year : 1971English subtitledArthur Is Fantastic is a b/w Fluxus film that portraits Arthur Indenbaum and turns him into a work of art by obliterating the boundaries between art and life. Arthur Indenbaum was the son of an American diamond dealer who had come to Antwerp in the late 1960s to be trained in his father’s business. Soon, however, Arthur found his way into the lively art and music scene of Antwerp of the period where he liked to get high, hang out with friends and play music with his band ‘Live’. At the time Gallery Vacuum was an art space run by artists and musicians Luc Deleu, Filip Francis and George Smits, who were an integral part of Antwerp’s alternative scene. On 6 May 1970 Arthur, with his extraordinarily big physical build and fuzzy hair, was exhibited as a live sculpture in Gallery Vacuum during a one-night show in which Ludo Mich took part as well. Ludo’s film Arthur Is Fantastic not only documents this gallery event but also shows fragments of a day in the life of Arthur: we see him get up, take a shower, smoke his first joint of the day, have a huge breakfast, play the guitar and walk the streets of Antwerp before arriving at Gallery Vacuum. Apart from being a strong and humorous Fluxus work of art this film is in hindsight a loving document of the early 1970s.

"Since leaving Rio, Cyro has been accepted as one of the world's leading Brazillian percussionists, recording with Paquita de Rivera, Ruben Blades, Astrud Gilberto and lots of people like that. We met in New York while I was living there in the winter of 1982 and first played together at the Ear Inn on Spring St. In the following months we played all kinds of places, occasions which figured prominently among the many musical pleasures I enjoyed during that period. One such occasion, thanks to Bill Laswell, was this recording." - Derek Bailey.  --- Derek Bailey / guitar Cyro Baptista / percussion --- Tracklisting: 1. Toca Joga - 5:32 2. Quanto Tempo - 3:53 3. Polvo - 4:53 4. Rio Branco - 5:21 5. Joca Toca - 3:26 6. Que Horas - 5:02 7. Tondo - 7:04 8. Batida - 4:36 --- Recorded by Martin Bisi in October  1982, New York City. Produced by Adam Skeaping and John Haddon. Design by Karen Brookman. Photos by Eleonora Alberto and Karen Brookman.

For the time being we are unable to get to the post but if you order now your item will be posted as soon as things return to normal. Thank you for your support. Originally released by Incus in 1974. Recorded at a private house in Catford, south-east London, the side-long title track is a masterwork: a twenty-two-minute, starkly personal, freely expressive, itchily searching re-casting of orders of rhythm and sound into a new, quicksilver kind of affective and musical polyphony. Never mind the guitarist’s championing of ‘non-idiomatic improvisation’, the poet Peter Riley gets the ball rolling in his identification of the various hauntings of Bailey’s playing at this time: ‘mandolins & balalaikas strumming in the distance, George Formby’s banjo, Leadbelly’s steel 12-string, koto, lute, classical guitar… and others quite outside the field of the plucked string.’  The five pieces on side two were recorded back home in Hackney around the same time — with the exception of Improvisation 104(b), from the year before (and issued by Incus in its TAPS series of mini reel-to-reel tapes) — opening with ventriloquised guitar feedback, and taking in some cod banter about colleagues like Mervyn Parker, Siegfried Brotzmann and Harry Bentink. Crucial. "In 1974, when Derek Bailey was planning his second solo LP on Incus, he decided to include a side-long solo using his stereo electro-acoustic set-up. Unfortunately, he never seemed to have a 20-minute stretch of time free of interruptions in his home, so he asked if he could record it at my place. After a fairly lengthy drive across London on the arranged date, he discovered that he had brought all his gear except the actual guitar. So he had a cup of tea and a chat, then drove home again. He came again about a week later, on May 13th, this time with everything. I set the level too high for the first two takes, not quite allowing for his enormous dynamic range (which really was not suitable for analogue recording and reproduction equipment). The result was too much distortion for his liking. The level was corrected for the third take which was the one used as the title track on the LP, even though he preferred the music on the earlier takes. All but one of the short pieces on the second side of the LP were recorded by Bob Woolford around the same time, probably at Derek's home. (The exception, 'Improvisation 104(b),' was recorded the previous year and originally released on one of the Incus TAPs -- mini reel-to-reel tapes that were an attempt to bypass the technical problems of going from tape to vinyl. They were reissued by Organ of Corti.) 'Pain In The Chest' and 'In Joke (Take 2)' feature the unamplified 19-string (approx) guitar, which was probably the only instrument that Derek modified -- he otherwise used standard guitars. There was a shortage of good vinyl at the time, making it difficult to get decent pressings. (The original pressing of the solo Steve Lacy Emanem LP sounded as though it had been recorded in a hail-storm.) We were recommended to go to a pressing plant that specialized in 'classical' music. (At the same time that Derek was trying to get Lot 74 pressed, I was also working on his duo album with Anthony Braxton.) The first test pressing of Lot 74 was very muffled, and we discovered that the cutting engineer had played the tape up-side-down, so that the music had been filtered through the tape backing (used on professional tapes to reduce print-through). The cutting was subsequently redone correctly, resulting in an acceptable test pressing. However, the plant manager was completely incredulous and perplexed, as he was used to checking pressings using his library of scores of Beethoven sonatas and the like. How could he tell if the vocal and feedback howls at the start of side two ('Together') were correct? Over thirty years later, advances in technology have eliminated most of the technical problems we had then, so that this magnificent music can be heard sounding better than ever. Every so often, I get someone asking me to issue things on vinyl -- my response is usually not very polite." Martin Davidson --- Please note the LP available is the 2018 Honest Jons reissue

The third release in a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: a reissue of Derek Bailey & Han Bennink, originally released in 1972. The tussling vegetables in Mal Dean's cover-sketch somehow befit perfectly this extraordinary duo of Bailey and the great Dutch drummer Han Bennink. Recorded in London in 1972, Incus 9 was their second record (after an Instant Composers Pool in 1969), becoming a blueprint and inspiration for generations of free-improvisers. It is paired here with a brilliant session from the following year, with the same power and friendly combativeness, and oodles of creativity, technique, and humor. It's obvious how much they loved playing together. Newly transferred from tape at Abbey Road, and remastered by Rashad Becker. Available exclusively for download here. Derek Bailey / guitar, voice Han Bennink / percussion, saw, reeds, brass, strings, voice --- Engineered by Bob Woolford (tracks: A.1.-B.3.). Mastered by Rashad Becker. Cover by Mal Dean.

The second release in a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: three double-LPs of the legendary free-improvising guitarist Derek Bailey, solo (HJR 200LP) and in duos with Anthony Braxton and Han Bennink(HJR 202LP), augmenting the original releases with marvelous, previously unissued music. Recorded in 1974, at the Royal Hotel in Luton, with Braxton playing soprano and alto saxophones, and Bb and contrabass clarinets. Two volumes were planned; only one was issued, till now. This was an early transatlantic meeting between the leading free improvisers. Many of Braxton's signature techniques and ideas were gestated in such sessions. It still brims with inquisitive musical creativity and knockabout jazzbo allusiveness. Newly transferred from tape at Abbey Road, and remastered by Rashad Becker. Available exclusively for download here.  --- Derek Bailey / electric guitar Anthony Braxton / saxophones, clarinets --- Recorded during a concert played at the Royal Hotel, Luton, England on July 2, 1974. Sides 1 and 2 were issued as Royal Volume 1 in 1984; 3 and 4 are released here for the first time by Honest Jons. Thanks to Karen Brookman-Bailey and Tim Fletcher.

For the time being we are unable to get to the post but if you order now your item will be posted as soon as things return to normal. Thank you for your support. Kicking off a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: Solo Guitar Volume 1, a reissue of Derek Bailey's Solo Guitar release on Incus in 1971, with additional tracks included on previous reissues and a performance at York University in 1972. Recorded in 1971, this was Bailey's first solo album. Its cover is an iconic montage of photos taken in the guitar shop where he worked. He and the photographer piled up the instruments whilst the proprietor was at lunch, with Bailey promptly sacked on his return. The LP was issued in two versions over the years -- Incus 2 and 2R -- with different groupings of free improvisations paired with Bailey's performances of notated pieces by his friends Misha Mengelberg, Gavin Bryars, and Willem Breuker. All this music is here, plus a superb solo performance at York University in 1972, a welcome shock at the end of an evening of notated music. It's a striking demonstration of the way Bailey rewrote the language of the guitar with endless inventiveness, intelligence, and wit. As throughout the series, the recordings are newly transferred from tape at Abbey Road, remastered by Rashad Becker, and available for download exclusively here. --- Derek Bailey / guitar, synthesizer — Tracks 1-13 recorded by Bob Woolford and Hugh Davies. Photographs by Roberto Masotti. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

'Solos for _ _ _ _ spaces' is the debut release from London-based percussionist and sound artist Regan Bowering. Her music is created by placing snare drum, amplifiers and microphones in configurations which trigger volatile yet malleable flows of sound. Across these four tracks, percussion and amplifier feedback are carved into crescendos and diminuendos where coarse textures move in intricate constellations. The album charts this process travelling through different contexts, moving from live improvisations in a large, reverberant hall to micro-edited versions on a laptop. Bowering’s interest in feedback is an extension of research into how, historically, technology (such as mics, amplification, instrumentation, and recording processes) have affected the ways improvisers approach rhythm. “I wanted to explore ways to use the drums that extended beyond typical rhythmic gestures or the need to hit the drums to generate sound,” Bowering explains. “To create a continuous texture which doesn’t need continuous input. The unpredictability of feedback is what draws me to it. It’s similar to playing with another musician. Things can happen unexpectedly, just like in a group improvisation.” To our ears, touchstones for Bowering’s use of space and feedback could be Alvin Lucier, or perhaps even Ryosuke Kiyasu’s radical approach to percussion, amplification and setting. However, there are fluctuations between frenzy and gentleness, a sensitivity to mood and affect on 'Solos for _ _ _ _ spaces' which are uniquely hers. This is far more intricate than a simple bridging of minimalism, free-improvisation and electro-acoustic techniques. This is perhaps explained by some of the musicians that Bowering mentions having a long-running impact on her practice, from percussionist Seijiro Murayama to saxophonist, composer and Art Ensemble of Chicago founder Roscoe Mitchell. While their influence may not be explicitly audible in these four tracks, their unique approaches to texture, space and improvisation are undoubtedly present. Bowering treats what might typically be cacophonous – drums and feedback – with subtlety and nuance. “I like exploring the possibilities in feedback beyond just harshness, and drums beyond being loud and rhythmically dense,” she reflects. “The detail that’s possible. The emotional intensity you can get from different sounds. The feelings that come when you move between extremes, such as from loud and abrasive to almost silent. The feedback gives me a different set of colours to work with, a different material to carve as part of my sonic and rhythmic pallet as a percussionist.” System, organism, ecosystem – there’s a litany of metaphors which could be used to describe how her music is produced. All make sense, and all feel slightly inadequate. Her music originates in processes, but its realisation comes through liveness and response. Bowering manipulates the sound by bending drum skins to change pitch, moving mics to alter intensity. Striking the snare to trigger dramatic upheavals in the circuit. But her music is a balancing act, a compromise between her own actions and the context they’re happening in. “It’s a system I improvise within, but it’s also always affected by the space I’m playing in. The acoustics, the number of people in a room and if they move. How I’m feeling at the time. These subtle dynamics all affect the sound.” This variation is highlighted throughout the album. The recordings here document performances in vastly different settings. A reverberant hall at Goldsmith’s University. An intimate gig at Avalon Café where the audience enclosed Bowering, and on track 3, an empty studio. For the final track, a DAW is used to rearrange components from the preceding three into a new composition. Here feedback and drums enter the possibilities of another space, a computer, and the different means of response it offers. More than a live album, this tape charts a consistent practice applied to inconsistent contexts, capturing in real time how the outcomes are determined by the player, the moment and the situation. credits -- Mastered by Billy SteigerAll sounds by Regan Bowering.