What are you supposed to do with a stray dog? From the smallest acts of kindness to the grandest acts of love, every single variation on an empathetic response to this question ends up becoming the same: you find them a space in which they can live. Stray Dog is one of these spaces, within which a disparate cast of artists, designers, poets and musicians gather around a shared tension between displacement and connection, otherworldliness and physicality. To dream of life is to dwell in the liminal beauty of earthly transience, to float free from waking reality while keeping an eye on the world below. A dream of life might amplify that which is other, shine gauzy light on the strange and surreal while gesturing towards some ecstatic truth, trapped under the weight of the eye’s closed lid. Here, lysergic collage unfolds onto a colossal cloud bank, rendered even more impossibly enormous by an errant shred of tobacco, caught precariously in the instant of a scan. Distorted figures herald alien landscapes scraped from Google Earth, “lifewithallitsbeauty.” Quotidian scenes are brushed with a milky patina, bio-mechanical entities, smudged in alchemical smoke, haunt dreamlike scenes of weird familiarity, nostalgia bleeding into deja vu. Skeletal details are scratched in ink spindle, a bone, a thread and an arrow all woven together in delicate lines. Lynchian visions run into narcotic prophesies, Rorschach angels, printed thick, spark up against pale wraiths captured in alabaster shades. Leather, latex and rough-hewn rope are stretched taut, while someone, somewhere, is tending to an ancient garden, another space in which a stray might live, even if only for a moment. We close with another dream, “How good it would be / If I lived in a world where meaning does not become meaning.” If nothing else, Stray Dog offers a space in which to explore whether such a world is possible, a space in which to search and to stray.’ (Henry Bruce-Jones)

Japanese free jazz saxophonist Akira Sakata meets with his long-time collaborators Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto to release the second album under their name Bonjintan. It combines contemporary Avantgarde and Free Jazz in a beautiful way. ---Akira Sakata / sax, clarinet, voice Jim O’Rourke / double bass Giovanni Di Domenico / piano, hohner pianet Tatsuhisa Yamamoto / drums --- Recorded Jim O'Rourke at Hoshi to Niji Studio, 30th June 2018

Design by Bill Nace to mark the occasion of Steve Noble's first OTO residency. Screenprinted on Plike paper by Tartaruga. Numbered /100.  ""Originally planned for June 2020 I am very pleased that this is happening-and am delighted to be able to play with such great musicians First time duets with NiNo/MiNo and TiNo and a chance to present two new groups of mine-SOS and 4tet. And to start-a solo and the duo 'the both' (I first met Pat T back in 78 in Oxford). Roll on!" - Steve Noble

Steps on the Turning Year marks the second release from Nottingham, UK based artist, composer and musician Bredbeddle, aka, Rebecca Lee. The four long form tracks here form a scrapbook built with snippets from Lee’s music collection from found sounds, amateur viol consorts and more. Drawing connections between different sounds creates odd narratives as loops mingle and glitch against each other. Although vinyl, CDs and turntables are part at the heart of the Bredbeddle process, Lee sees herself as a collagist, not a DJ or turntablist. “I’m interested in mixing pre-existing recordings, and their cultural worlds together to suggest new types of song or story,” says Lee. “I have a stack of records with post-it-notes on them, to remind me of the sounds I want to use.” The quirks of her set up: laptop, turntable, and CD player end up shaping the sound. “While it’s possible to play loops on a turntable, it’s harder on a CD. With my old CD player, all I can do is keep skipping back to the start of the track, but that limitation becomes an effect in itself.” The four pieces have been assembled with a delicate attention to detail. There are echoes of Christian Marclay or Joseph Hammer in the process, but the sheer breadth of materials Lee uses, from early music to BBC sound effects records and recycled recordings from her previous musical projects, makes Steps on the Turning Year a uniquely rich tapestry. “I find connections between textures or moments in different pieces of music. Sometimes it’ll be similar chords, or a quality to the voice, the beginning of a phrase, or even the broken down and looped vowels of a spoken-word record. It means that early music gets combined with something much more contemporary, found and noisy sounds with studio albums.” The result is an album of looping, meandering constructions, as sounds overlap before fluttering away from each other. “It’s not about deconstruction, but trying to assemble something new from these different recordings,” Lee explains. “I don’t think too much about whether a sound is particularly uncool, or fits a grid. It’s about letting them evolve and interact with each other.” The artwork for the tape comes from conversations between Lee and designer Anna Peaker. "I really liked Anna’s use of icons and images in her work - the way she brings a variety of materials together into one space - it connected to the way the tracks are formed," Lee explains. "So I tried to map out references for each piece drawing on sounds in the tracks, or the art work from the source music I used. Together we found and made materials that could be used and Anna worked with this collection to develop the design. The tape sleeves have become kind of weird landscapes and the O sleeve is (as you’d hope), a loop of its own." Released June 11, 2021

The Incredible Years is the new solo album from London based musician and composer Gareth JS Thomas (guitarist in USA Nails, and formerly of Silent Front and Sly and the Family Drone). Contrasting intimate recordings on an old family piano with pounding drums tracked on a digital recorder in a London practice room, the record exists between the comfort of home and a frustration at lost momentum. “Around Christmas 2017 I started tracking the piano parts at my mum's old house down on the south coast,” explains Gareth. “This is the same piano that I used to noodle on as a little kid, it's maybe the first instrument I ever touched.” “I'd intended to finish the tracks off at home in the following weeks but in January 2018 I was in a serious road accident while on tour with my old band (Silent Front), which meant I ended up housebound for a few months. I continued to work on them while I was stuck at home recovering, as I had little else to do, I added the drums in London the summer of 2018.” The grey metallic hues of Gareth’s previous Bezirk release, Cruising Hits, remain – yet the synthetic palette of that album has been switched for a mix of organic, acoustic instruments. The result is five tracks that switch between smothering claustrophobia and minimalist ecstasy. “I added big live drums partly to celebrate the freedom I felt when I was able to finally leave the house and use my body again post-accident” he reveals. “The making of this record spanned a very significant period in my life, where I was processing a lot of trauma but also learning to cherish a lot of the things I'd previously taken for granted. I guess it's only natural that that has been reflected in it.” The album is accompanied by a video for Hyphen British. Made by Gareth, its source material is CT scans and X-rays that were taken just after the road accident. “They show me at my most unglamorously vulnerable,” he explains. “You can see all the broken bones, it might be more than some people want to see, but it felt appropriate.” Released January 24, 2020

The debut release from Taw, Truce Terms is an uncanny mix of discrete cacophonies and Fisher Price musique concrete, using nothing but the contents of a child’s toy box for instruments. Taw (pronunciation – rhymes with plough Welsh for the imperative form of 'quiet', as in 'shush!), is the duo of Simon Proffitt (The Master Musicians of Dyffryn Moor, Exotic Spresm) and Owen Martell. The five tracks, recorded by the pair over a single evening in 2017, playfully float from super slow toy xylophone fragments into rattled percussion and whistle melodies. “My son was 18 months old at the time, and we'd accumulated quite a few toys that make various sounds - as one does with toddlers,” says Proffitt. “It occurred to me that it'd be a fun experiment to see whether we could improvise interesting and credible music using only these toys, so I collected together all the toys in the house that made any sort of sound. We put everything in a big pile on the living room floor, set the portable recorder going, played for an hour or so and then pressed stop.” The five pieces skim around solid forms and instead seem to tap into the fundamentals of our relationship with sound generating tools. Creating something that at points sounds like it could be field recordings from an isolated rainforest community. “Thinking about it afterwards, and especially when listening back to the recording, it became clear that the whole thing is about play, but serious play. As adults, I think we all too often confuse play with silliness, but they can be very different things.” pronunciation/translation notes:A1: pronounced 'jex' - the truce term I used at primary school (although to be effective it had to be said while tapping your chest. It only provided short-lived immunity, so for a longer truce you had to say 'jecs-all-my-life' instead of just jecs)A2: pronounced 'dye' - Welsh for 'two'.A4: hehb thim (voiced th) uhn yown - 'and nothing right'B1: KUH-mod - 'reconciliation' Please note that the track order on tape and digital is slightly different Released July 31, 2020

One way to spot a rip current in the ocean is to search for a rippled surface surrounded by still water. When many different currents are pulling in different directions, a rippling effect is created on the water's surface. This piece is for 4 unamplified electric guitars. It’s in a 13-limit tuning that I've been exploring in various contexts recently.  Over the the piece's duration, the guitars are tuned up or down at specific points, so that they cross each other, moving from a close cluster to a spread voicing over three octaves. As the frequencies push away or pull towards each other, the stillness is disrupted, sometimes only subtly, other times quite chaotically. At times many shifts happen at once, at other times the movement is against a backdrop of static pitches. -- Julia Reidy - 4 unamplified guitars -- Recorded in 2021 Mastered by Oliver Barrett Album cover photo courtesy of Adam Pultz Melbye

When we asked Mariam Rezaei to submit a Takuroku release late in 2020 she responded by saying “I want to do something, but I want to make sure it's something special”. Almost a year later Mariam decided to team up with vocalist Alya Al-Sultani, presenting a first time duo on turntable and voice, sending lightning fast sonorisations bouncing off the walls of OTO. Mariam and Alya come from different but overlapping disciplines. After growing up as a classically trained pianist, Mariam has built a reputation over time as a prolific turntablist, DJ and improvisor, never shying away from interdisciplinary and experimental projects. Alya meanwhile is a British-Iraqi soprano, but has spent the last few years integrating improvisational techniques, microtonal ideas and Eastern influences in her music. Together their dexterous lungs and nimble fingers birth forms that dance in and out of each other: shifting, soaring, dipping, diving, but never sitting still.Mariam takes Alya’s vocals as content to throw back into the mix, forming multiple layers of chops and edits that ricochet back and forth. Alya’s vocals move between tender refrains, textural flurries and righteous bursts of operatic expression, meeting Mariam digital fx, textural drones and sonic swells in ecstatic symbiosis. Alya’s repeated aphorism “I want you, female,” throughout the start of the set spells it out. This is music about desire and liberation: fiery, sonically rambunctious and forever reaching for new heights. -- Alya Al-Sultani - voice Mariam Rezaei - turntables -- Recorded in Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on the 30th of June, 2021 Mixed & mastered by Oliver Barrett

For Erika.In memoriam William Thomson, potman, pub pianist who died of TB at 39, the grandfather I never knew. -- Text, 'Lessness' by Samuel BeckettMusic by John Tilbury --John Tilbury: voice and clavichord -- Recorded & mastered by Shaun Crook Cover art by Billy Steiger N.B. The play-back level should be quiet; the text should be comfortably intelligible.

Wild Rani's music emerges from the sonic dirtbin of two different experimental traditions; the laconic and dry no-wave synth and tape work of late 70/80’s UK acts like Cabaret Voltaire, and the gooey dirge of Michigan noiseniks Wolf Eyes. Both approaches infuse her sound world with an eerie aura, filling the space with slime dripped synths, discombobulating drones and flurries of flute and rattle-snake percussion. Becky’s words are pushed to the fore, spelling out her upheavals, desires and alienation in direct, matter of fact syntax. This is an incantation and excavation – dispelling the ghosts of 2020 and 2021 in aural form. Having this as part of our final set of releases is fitting: an ode to an extremely strange, dark time. -- Wild Rani - synths, vocals & various instrumentation  -- Mastered by Oliver Barrett

Since 2006 the Portugese duo of Marta Ângela and João Artur (CALHAU!) have been quietly labouring away on their wonderfully tilted practice, embracing music, text, film, and visual arts on a path that has included performances, exhibition projects and several artistic residencies. For this new release on Takuroku they take influence from medieval Galician-Portuguese songs/poetry of insult and mockery called cantigas d'escarnio e maldizert. A carnivalesque sense of play, pathos and absurdity haunts the 33 minutes run time as they shift between sung and spoken incantations, baroque organ dirges, junk-yard musique concrete, layers of tape mush and sonic trickery. Although medievil in theme, there is a particular timelessness to proceedings. One of the main instruments CALHAU lists is "the ghosts of an old cassette re-recorded thousand times during the last 20 years" - with sounds fermented and rendered into beguiling forms. Another is "a crappy electric organ from 1980 called ORION", which dispels both baroque and twisted sonics from its tired engine. When first listening to this it instantly brought to mind the late Ghédalia Tazartès, who sadly passed away this year. Similar to Ghédalia's work this is ageless, contradictory, old, new, sad, strange and often hilarious music. Music that fearlessly reveals its multiple facets to slowly unfurl its twisted, tender core. -- CALHAU are Marta Ângela and João Artur -- Mastered by Oliver Barrett

Patrick Ward’s performances are dynamic contractions of his gallery installations in which video sequences designed for multiple screens are 'stacked’ within a single frame. Following up his Retroversion/s performances at Cafe Oto Ward’s Video Evidence presents a collage of sounds sourced from old VHS tapes, incidental phone footage and barely viewed YouTubes. Edited and mixed in Tottenham, September 2021 -- Mastered by Oliver Barrett

Thurston Moore / Guitar Alex Ward / Clarinet, Amplifier Recorded 20 March 2012 at Cafe OTO by John Chantler & Jonny McHugh.Mixed by Alex Ward, Vinyl cut by Nick @ Curved. Cover image courtesy of Matti Braun. All proceeds from this LP go towards Cafe OTO's equipment fund thanks to the kind generosity of Thurston, Alex and Matti. Price includes international shipping. 100 copies pressed via Curved - who use MPO in France. Two colour silkscreen print sleeves on 380gsm acid-free archival quality card stock, printed by Pat at Heavyrock, Brighton.

OTOROKU is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of Blue Notes for Mongezi, one of the most passionate celebrations of a life in music ever laid to tape. Recorded in late 1975 by Blue Notes, then reduced to a quartet - Dudu Pukwana on  alto sax, whistle, percussion, and vocals; Johnny Dyani on bass, bells, and vocals; Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums, percussion, and vocals; and Chris McGregor on piano, and percussion - and issued the following year by Ogun, the album is a kairos; the first commercial release by one of free jazz’s seminal ensembles, captured them 13 years after their founding - at the height of their powers - delivering an explosive dirge dedicated to Mongezi Feza, their former bandmate and friend.  Blue Notes were founded in Cape Town in 1962 and stand among the most important ensembles in the history of jazz. Artistically brilliant and groundbreaking - gathering, within a few short years, a devoted following that included Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew,Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, John Stevens, and numerous others - they were also the first widely visible multiracial band in South Africa. As a mixed race band under South African apartheid; this group of friends and like-minded artists - Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo-Moholo -  existed within a context that viewed their mere existence as a dangerous and subversive act. In 1964, as the pressure mounted, they joined an exodus of musicians leaving for Europe, eventually settling in London during the following year. Sadly, not long after arriving and facing continued economic peril, the group buckled. Johnny Dyani left to join Don Cherry’s band. Moholo-Moholo and Dyani followed suit and joined Steve Lacy on tour, and the remaining members morphed into a number of ensembles that eventually grew to become Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath. In late 1975 however, Mongezi Feza - in the midst of a fruitful period collaborating with Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani, and Okay Temiz - suddenly passed away at the age of thirty from pneumonia. Nine days later, on the 23rd December, following the memorial service to their friend, Pukwana, Dyani, McGregor, and Moholo-Moholo gathered in a rehearsal room in London and set out to play. Fittingly, no discussion took place before or during the session. The music was left to say it all.   The resulting double LP coalesced into four long-form movements that occupy a side each, collectively unleashing an onslaught of free jazz fire, fluidly covering a remarkable range of moods and tactical approaches across it’s length. For anyone encountering the Blue Notes for the first time, the album must have felt like being blindsided by a brick, adding a profound sense of credence to Moholo-Moholo’s belief that free improvisation was intrinsically linked to the Pan-African temperament. In the band’s hands, the idiom sounds like nothing else and exactly as it should.  A frenzied funeral dirge, a cry, and catharsis, the record rises and falls between playful and joyous movements of deconstructed song, rhythmic and vocal tribalism, and churning, instrumental free expression. It indicates not only a possible future for musical expression - as all truly avant-garde music does - but also the very roots of music itself, illuminating, through abstraction, the far-flung, ancient roots currently carried by the New Orleans “first line” march to the grave. It is a decidedly African vision of free jazz, coalescing as a collective expression of celebration and loss on a cold London day. It is a masterpiece unfolding in real time - out on a limb and laden with risk - created by four of the most talented voices the idiom has known.   --- DUDU PUKWANA / alto sax, whistle, percussion, vocals CHRIS McGREGOR / piano, percussion LOUIS MOHOLO / drums, percussion, vocals JOHNNY DYANI / bass, bell, vocals and most of the words --- This 2022 re-issue has been made with permission and in association with Ogun records. Transferred from the original masters and featuring an exact reproduction of the original artwork. Remastered by Giuseppe Ilelasi and packaged in a high gloss sleeve. All music by the Blue Notes. All music published by Ogun Publishing Co. Cover design by Ogun.  Front cover photograph and photograph of Mongezi Feza by Geroge Hallet. Blue Notes photograph by Jurg. Back cover photograph by George Hallet and Peter Sinclair. Xhosa translation by Z. Pallo Jordan. Produced by Keith Beal and Chris McGregor. Ogun Recording would like to thank John Martyn for his assistance in making this album possible. Reissue for OTOROKU produced by Abby Thomas. Transferred from the original masters by Shaun Crook at Lockdown Studios. Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Layout for reissue by Maja Larrson. 

OTOROKU is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of Blue Notes for Johnny - a defining statement by one of the greatest ensembles in the history of jazz. Recorded in mid-1987 by Blue Notes - then reduced to the trio of Dudu Pukwana on alto sax, Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums and Chris McGregor on piano - it encounters the band 25 years after their founding embarking on an inward meditation through collective music making dedicated to Johnny Dyani, their former bandmate and friend.  Blue Notes were founded in Cape Town in 1962, and stand among the most important ensembles in the history of jazz. Artistically brilliant and groundbreaking - gathering, within a few short years, a devoted following that included Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, John Stevens and numerous others - they were also the first widely visible multiracial band in South Africa. As a mixed race band under apartheid, this group of friends and like-minded artists - Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo-Moholo -  existed within a context that viewed their mere existence as a dangerous and subversive act. In 1964 they joined an exodus of musicians leaving for Europe and eventually settled in London the following year. Sadly, not long after arriving and facing continued economic peril, the group buckled. Johnny Dyani left to join Don Cherry’s band. Moholo-Moholo and Dyani followed suit and joined Steve Lacy on tour, and the remaining members morphed into a number of ensembles that eventually grew to become Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath.    Following the death of Mongezi Feza in 1975 the remaining members of the group had come back together to record Blue Notes For Mongezi, reigniting a sporadic period of activity over the coming years. Following the untimely passing of Johnny Dyani in late 1986, the last three members of the original line-up - McGregor, Pukwana and Moholo-Moholo - reformed to pay tribute to yet another of their fallen brothers.  Blue Notes for Johnny, the group’s second musical memorial to a band member, incorporates a considerably broader range of touchstone and practices than its predecessor, nodding toward the band’s foundations in be-bop and post-bop without abandoning where they had journeyed along the way. Internalising equal elements of hard-bop, modalism, and free improvisation, it is a startling creative statement, imbued with a tension that renders an equally radical and sophisticated challenge; a furious tide - slow in pace and it slow to reveal itself - masquerading in gentler forms.  A celebration and a memorial. Joyous and tragic. A real time resurrection of personal experience, Blue Notes for Johnny dodges, dances, and transforms across its two sides, refusing to be nailed down. As the trio pushes against each other, bristling tonal and rhythmic collisions leave the impression that something is bound to explode, without ever fully letting go.  Blue Notes for Johnny’s memorialisation is unwittingly doubled by capturing the final time that the Blue Notes would come together in the studio. Both Dudu Pukwana and Chris McGregor would pass away three years later in 1990, leaving Moholo-Moholo - who continues to carve a groundbreaking trajectory across the world of jazz - as the last surviving member. The album remains as a journey between an imaged future and the beginning of it all. Six friends meeting and communing through sound. Six friends who had triumphed against the odds, becoming some of the greatest creative voices of their generation. Six friends who were five, then four, and then three, before they were done. Friends who never failed, in whatever form, to come together and play. It is a story begun 60 years ago that remains just as prescient today. --- DUDU PUKWANA / alto sax CHRIS McGREGOR / piano LOUIS MOHOLO / drums  --- This 2022 re-issue has been made with permission and in association with Ogun records. Transferred from the original masters and featuring an exact reproduction of the original artwork. Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. All music by the Blue Notes. All music published by Ogun Publishing Co. Cover design by Ogun.

To celebrate the announcement of our Blue Notes reissues we're offering a special price for the two LPs when bought together. This bundle includes 1 copy of Blue Notes for Mongezi + 1 copy of Blue Notes for Johnny.

To celebrate the announcement of our Blue Notes reissues we're offering a special price for the two LPs when bought together + Lous Moholo-Moholo's Spirit's Rejoice! This bundle includes 1 copy of Blue Notes for Mongezi + 1 copy of Blue Notes for Johnny + Spirit's Rejoice! 

Full recording of one of the most engaging and beguiling Late Junction live sessions we’ve ever heard - the one off first meeting between Korean multi-instrumentalist Park Jiha and writer and performer Roy Claire Potter. Park Jiha plays the saenghwang, a Korean mouth organ which she blows in long multiphonics to set pace for Potter’s words. Together they unfurl a scene slowly in front of you, rich and focused, shifting your field of vision and drawing you in, elsewhere. It’s impossible not to follow, not to look for where they point. When the piri sounds for a flooded town on the B side, the water flows between your own feet; Potter’s words a sometimes frightening hörspiel in scouse.  Though the details are fine, the space each artist gives one another and their instruments, their language, is given to the listener in turn. A careful melody picks out a route for words with no fixed meaning, a body with no fixed direction, and we are invited to listen and see a kind of music made visible in its inference. A truly very special record we are very proud to share. --- Influenced by linguistics and performance theory, Roy Claire Potter makes performance, text, drawing, installation and film, and often collaborates with musicians and sound artists to make audio for music festivals and radio. Across the wide range of their practice, Roy tells stories built from fragmented, intense images that depict moving bodies or domestic scenes and architectural settings. Roy’s interest in subtext and narrative sequencing is felt in the way they use fast-paced talking or reading speeds, and restricted or partial views of space. Complicated social or group dynamics and the aftermath of violent events are common themes in Roy’s work and are usually treated with a dark, sometimes wilful humour. Park Jiha creates exploratory music rooted in traditional Korean instrumental performance. To this session she brings three instruments: a Korean hammered dulcimer called a yanggeum, a saenghwang which is an instrument made of 24 slender bamboo pipes attached to a bowl and played like a harmonica and a double-reed bamboo flute called a piri, which sounds similar to an oboe. --- Park Jiha / yanggeum, saenghwang, piri Roy Claire Potter / voice --- Recorded and mixed on: 30 January 2020 by Rob Winter, Pete Smith and Andy Rushton at Maida Vale Studios, London for “Late Junction - Roy Claire Potter and Park Jiha in session”. Produced by Rebecca Gaskell, Katie Callin and Alannah Chance at Reduced Listening for BBC Radio 3. Originally broadcast on Friday 28th February 2020, apart from Track 4 which aired on Late Junction the 21st February 2020.  Mastered by Katie Tavini. Original artwork: “Three Boys” by Claire Cansick. Liner notes by Frances Morgan.

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. "Reissue of Derek Bailey and Tristan Honsinger Duo, originally released by Incus in 1976. Born in Burlington, Vermont, and conservatory-trained in the US, the cellist Tristan Honsinger moved from Montreal to Amsterdam in 1974, quickly linking with Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg and opening a long and fruitful musical relationship with Derek Bailey. Recorded in 1976, Duo displays a performative musical approach already characterized by the lack of inhibition which would later endear him to The Pop Group: he is knockabout, exclamatory, explosively rhythmic; burping Bach and folk melodies with spasmodic lyricism, in amongst the garrulous textures and accents of his scraping, bowing, and plucking, and gibbering like a monkey; throwing out his arms and stamping the floor, grappling with his instrument like an expert clown, always tripping himself up. You can hear Bailey reveling in the company, as he ranges between scrabbling solidarity and an askance skewering of his partner's antics, on prepared (nineteen-string) and standard electric guitars -- and a Waisvisz Crackle-box, for the garbled, quizzical, cross-species natter which closes "The Shadow". Throughout, the spirited interplay between laconic, analytic wit, and guttural, sometimes slapstick physicality is consistently droll, often laugh-out-loud funny; vigorously alert, alive, and gripping.” --- Tristan Honsigner / cello, voice Derek Bailey / electric guitar, crackle box --- Recorded at Verity's Place 7th February 1976, except for A1 and B2 which were recorded at Tangent Studio 6th February 1976.

John Hubbard, who is also a book designer and based in Finland, had released the sole recordings of the legendary project “Vogelscheiß Und Seine Verrückten Kröten” in 1989 in a limited edition of just 50 copies on his Strength Through Joy label. Now these rare recordings are re-issued for the first time by Art Into Life. In 1988, upon meeting Steve Stapleton while on vacation in Europe, John then went to Aachen and visited Christoph Heemann & Andreas Martin, and the enigmatic sessions they recorded are revealed here.

The original description is in French.

Recital is joyed to bring to you the new Idea Fire Company album, Lost at Sea. Lost At Sea imagines the Idea Fire Company as the bar band on a small cruise ship. There are approximately 40 passengers aboard. Around 2/3 of them are in the lounge for the nightly IFCO performance. Most of them seem more interested in drink than in music. The ship has become lost and seems to be endlessly circling. Well stocked with booze and food, etc., the ship continues on. IFCO, armed with only a piano and trumpet/ radio/ synth, provide the nightly entertainment.   Lost At Sea is certainly the sister of the also piano-heavy The Music From The Impossible Salon, but Lost At Sea has an air of weary optimism replacing the bleak sadness of Impossible Salon.   For almost 30 years IFCO has carved their own path, or dug their own hole, depending on your view, through the ever-changing world of underground music. Still violently committed to the Avant-Garde and to new forms of beauty. Still Romantic. Still idealistic. Despite the odds. In the old days, this sort of commitment was better appreciated. IFCO remains IFCO. As a number of people have said over the years, every IFCO record sounds different, but they all sound like IFCO.

Since the beginning of Recital, I have been trying to publish the work of Dick Higgins. He is a chief figure in my artistic world, a hero of mine. And now, with the assistance of Charlie Morrow, it has finally happened. The first vinyl album ever published of Higgins! Many know Dick Higgins as the father of Intermedia, a key player in the birth of Fluxus, and the owner/operator of the fabulous Something Else Press. His own poetry is what stirred me. Namely, his book FOEW&OMBWHNW, which contains one of my favorite of his works, “Moments in the Lives of Great Women,” along with other lovely poems (some included on this LP). This recording is of Dick himself reading his own poetry. Poems & Metapoems begins with a voice/tape manipulation piece from 1962, while the rest of the collection employs only language manipulation. Alike a cantor, each word is delivered perfectly with strong warmth. His ability to relay pattern-based poems into sonics is impressive. This album was recorded in 1982, and contains the reading of poems written between 1958-1980. Originally published as a cassette tape by New Wilderness Audiographics, which is nearly impossible to find now. The audio has been remastered and cleaned up for this edition. Dick lived large and was a busybody. All the faucets were running within him, handles broken off. Always pulling to mesh painfulness with playfulness, heartwarmth with heartbreak, comedy with tragedy etc. It is this plurality that Higgins encourages us to spark and flourish.

The original description is in French.

"On "Le Fruit De Mes Songes" Delphine Dora delivers a different, perhaps darker, shade of the unknown. Sixties psyche folk, Christian hymns and nursery songs - styles regularly deployed in horror films to deepen the mystery - seem syncretically blended here. Such is the uniqueness of her possessed, child-like song, the brain immediately grasps for such reference points lending these eight new pieces a haunted air. Alternating between piano, harpsichord and what sounds like a church organ, the traditional accompaniment reinforces the eerieness. 'Harp-psi-chord' has Dora playing daintily on baroque keys to form a stately, old courtyard over which her wordless, tentative plainsong evokes a ghostly dance. On the following track, 'Oraculum', her calling voice becomes layered, the untranscribable lyrics translate as a channeling over which a church organ seeps in like ground fog. Elsewhere, small bells, a harp and whispers suitably gild the sung séance. The compositions remain remarkably in flux between harmony and atonality yet somehow retain a classical elegance throughout. This leads to suspicions that their intent was not to spook, but to transgressively experiment to forge new forms from ancient modes, forms so new they unwittingly inspire misdirected associations. But, come the end of the album, when dogs are howling into the wind and Dora accompanies them so effectively as to believe both woman and beast are singing the same language, the occult theories seem undeniable." – The Quietus -- Delphine Dora / music, recording, mixingGilles Deles / mastering -- Released October 3, 2016

Good Diz, Bad Bird is the new album from enigmatic British experimental musician Me, Claudius. Opening with Me, Claudius playing mournful piano chords, something of a curveball for those familiar with her earlier work, the machine soon begins to stutter. The notes skip out of place, before totally tumbling down the stairs into a twisted, stuttering beat. Field recording, found instruments and sampling are key in Me, Claudius’ process, a strive to capture the musical and rhythmic events that exist in the most unexpected places in our environment. In turn, this perverse sense of chaos in order seeps into the dynamic shifts and structures of her music. Throughout the three tracks, Me, Claudius distinct sense for placement and alien groove is felt more concretely than before. Her percussion is sounds just on the edge of familiarity, the creaks, buzzes and whirs that infiltrate our subconscious. But from the murk they congeal again and again into glitched out, dub affected rhythms. The key is that the music should always be playful. “Loops going on for far more than is comfortable is intentional,” she explains. “It's another recurring theme. I find slight glee that it is jarring. Despite the serious themes and nature of some of the stuff I do... I hope the prevailing silliness is always apparent." Me, Claudius is an experimental musician living in a village in Southern England. Good Diz, Bad Bird follows Back to the Sweat-Out Tower (2018 Linear Obsessional) and Reasons for Balloons (2017 Dinzu Artefacts). The cassette edition of Good Diz, Bad Bird comes with handmade artwork, printed on a 1960s Farley 24a proofing press on Takeo Yomushi paper by Me, Claudius herself. Released December 7, 2018

The Lounge Era is the debut release from Dutch Courage, the new duo of Andreas Klotz (Superskin) and Gabor Kovacs (Új Bála). It’s a work of organic collaboration between the two artists. Jams on synths and drum machines recorded live to an old school tape deck. “A year ago, Andreas came up with the idea of this band. I liked it, so we arranged a weekend in Vienna, just to see what we could do together,” Kovacs explains. “It went pretty well, we jammed out the whole record from scratch during that 2-day period. The process was kind of a 50-50 ping-pong with sounds, if one of us started to write a beat the other finished it.”The results are a deeply rhythmic set of tracks which are, according to Kovacs, more influenced by hip hop and dub than dance music. “I cannot imagine it in a club environment, maybe in an after party of an after party,” says Kovacs. Each of the 8 pieces revels in happy accidents and absurd consequences. Underpinned by off-kilter beats, warped synthesis and a constant sense of sitting on the edge of collapse. This approach bleeds through to the artwork of the release. “Like almost everything from this project, it came from the gut,” reveals Kovacs. “I was looking for an electric chair originally, as I connected to the word lounge in a twisted way. I found that other electric chair, for massages, instead.”Released March 22, 2019

Shadow of a Shadow is the debut release from London-based Taiwanese composer Cyanching, showcasing her unique approach to composition and production. “I try to redefine sampling,” she explains. “If I like a sound, I don’t just record it, I try to recreate it. If I love a bassline on a track for example, I try to play it myself and capture the qualities that attract me. By doing that you create a new sound within an old pattern.” “The biggest part of my process is researching sounds, to get the materials for my compositions,” Cyanching says. “I then try to put these together, almost like collages. To create something new, to express a different narrative.” The title track, Shadow of a Shadow, is a twenty plus minute journey through rustling ambience, mournful synth patterns and a climax of ferocious guitar chug that aims to capture Taiwan’s diversity. On the b-side, Cyanching engages with the country’s tumultuous past. The track titles, Fermentation, Invasion and Elimination, strive to tell the story of the formation of a national identity against terror and suffering. “Taiwan lives in the shadow of a shadow,” she explains. “A history of invasion and cultural combination. I deliberately used the widest mix of frequencies and textures I could, to reflect the different ideologies in Taiwan. The pulses that go in and out of phase in the album are meant to capture the hope that ultimately, we’re all eventually heading in the same direction, towards the same goal.” Despite the 4 tracks being so directly tied to Taiwan, Cyanching was determined to avoid dwelling on the country’s traditional music to signpost her heritage. “This music is all about present ideology, so why do I need to use ‘traditional’ Taiwanese sounds?” she asks. “I should embrace the fact that I live in the west. If the music used sounds that were obviously Taiwanese, it would seem like I was trying to label it as being ‘outsider’. But I’m more interested in making a distinct identity by fusing different elements,” she concludes. Released August 10, 2019

“I wanted to make neopagan folk songs that would imitate the local muiñeiros, taking the interlacing lines of the landscape as harmonic progressions. And this is what came out,” says Greek sound artist Daphne X, about her new album, The Plumb Sutra. The seven tracks here take in everything from the synthetic chirps and splashes of ‘Irimia’s Bones Crackle’ through spooky piano laments on ‘Eliseo’s Teeth Chatter’. While ‘Halo Dragon’ is a rabble rousing electro-acoustic folk dance of bounding percussion and polyphonic vocal lines. Mostly, the eight tracks are a beautiful document of Daphne X’s playful openness to the sounds and stories around her. The Plumb Sutra was recorded in an isolated rural house in a semi-abandoned region of Galicia. Specifically, along the banks of the Miño, a river which, according to Galician folklore, was home to witches, animals and amphibian human in peaceful coexistence. The site is now threatened by pollution from a major landfill in nearby Eiroás. “There we spent our days with the only other neighbour, Otilia, an 85-year-old farmer, who had never left the place,” explains Daphne X. “Her presence and the stories we heard from her, the soft rain that would fall continuously, the absolute serenity of the place, the fog that would cover everything in the absence of sun, the distant moans of the cows, the little squeals of the mink that would nest in our walls, the hooting of the owl in the attic, the purring of our shared cat, the sole company of the birds, the frogs, the crickets, the apparent discretion of human intervention in this vast area that sheltered us in those 6 months made us turn inward and grow like Otilia´s giant zucchinis.” From collages of rain drops to diaristic travelogues with her friends, Daphne X’s recordings are dominated by moments and settings seeping into her music. No doubt the magic and history of Miño and its colourful inhabitants permeate every sound in Plumb Sutra’s fantastic sonic world. “During this time, I moved a few centimetres away from the computer and instead sat at the piano and by my typewriter, researching local folk stories, polyphonic singing traditions and byzantine music notation, and recovering minor Asian refugee songs from the back of my glottis.”Daphne X is a Greek sound artist, based between Barcelona and Linz. Equally infatuated with mundane and virtual objects, she uses collected, amplified, and synthesized sounds, and voice, to explore and expose chimeric and unconventional forms and textures. Her music has been broadcasted on BBC3 Radio, Noods, and Tuskio.se, and written about by publications such as A Closer Listen and the Quietus. Her work discusses the relationships between human and non-human agencies, emerging technologies and spirituality, mundane life, and fiction. Through a variety of formats, she explores economies of collective composition, environmental listening, and communal healing. She’ s currently hosting a show on movement_athens radio called Sonic Utopias, participates in the Linz-based label Wirtshaus Secret, co-running the curating platform Cachichi. Released October 22, 2021

A focus on stretching and altering resonances as they leave the body of a drum or the surface of a cymbal, and re-incorporating them as accents and key statements in a realm of pulse and cycle. That which is actually in a state of decay becomes propelled forward as a fixture in the sonic environment. --- Leo Suarez / drum set, mixer and objects --- Recorded and mixed by Leo Suarez, December 2020Mastered by Nathan Corder

A project born from the mind of Yan Jun, who has edited this beautiful velvet hardback book and CD. Yan Jun gave friends and contemporaries very simple instructions - "what comes to mind when you hear the phrase 'music will ruin everyything'?" The responses came in the form of both text and audio. This very special limited run book and double CD is the collection of these results. --- “the very reason i initiated this project was vanished in time. however, it’s not very long time since it has suspending into this “physical object is dying” and “society is dying” situation. and it’s long enough to coming back with ideas of “connecting objects and bodies over language” and “connecting an outer territory”. so i have diving back to the files again, starting editing and translating, inviting few more physical entities and fortunately yihao joined as designer at this perfect moment. The way this project runs is very simple: i show my friends this sentence “music will ruin everything” then ask them to contribute audio track and text or images. i tried my best to show it while we meet physically. but some were sent by emails, exceptionally. there is no rules and no clue. i don’t explain why this title because i have no idea what it means. for me what these people doing is a huge cluster of mass such as constellation. they are connected and growing. there are much more alikes surrounding them. the way they are connected is more important than their works. if you dig more on any one of them, you will find its own genealogy of sense and mind. which i have spent years to following and enjoying. so pls, you make it anything and everything. thanx everybody who participate this project ! you have ruined some parts of me.”Yan Jun - 2016 ---

The mighty Sun Ra Arkestra, under the direction of the maestro Marshall Allen, release their first studio album in over twenty years, ‘Swirling’. Recorded at Rittenhouse Soundworks in Philadelphia, the new recording represents the continuation of a heartfelt rebirth of the Arkestra under Allen’s guidance since Sun Ra left the planet in 1993, gaining new generations of followers from their regular touring across the globe. With a big band line-up featuring long-standing Arkestra members including Danny Ray Thompson (RIP), Michael Ray, Vincent Chancey, Knoel Scott, Cecil Brooks, Atakatune (RIP), Elson Nascimento and Tyler Mitchell, the album is a full-blooded celebration of Sun Ra’s legacy. Tracks include brand new arrangements of Arkestra staples ‘Angels And Demons At Play’, ‘Satellites Are Spinning’, ‘Door Of The Cosmos’ and ‘Rocket No. 9’ alongside lesser known gems; the rousing blues ‘Darkness’ is recorded here for the first time, resurrected from the Ra archives by Marshall Allen. Other highlights include an epic version of ‘Seductive Fantasy’ (first recorded on Ra’s ‘On Jupiter’ LP in 1979), the freeform sonic blast of ‘Infinity / I’ll Wait For You’ and a first ever recording of the Marshall Allen swing composition, ‘Swirling’. “We truly hope that this recording brings much joy to a planet which is so deeply in need of a spirit sound and vibration,” states saxophonist Knoel Scott. “We hope it contributes to a change in the ominous direction of man’s journey through the cosmos.” “This new release is the Arkestra’s love offering to the world,” concludes Marshall Allen. “Beta music for a better world.” Sun Ra Arkestra’s ‘Swirling’ is released on 9th October 2020 on Strut on all formats. The album was produced by Jim Hamilton at Rittenhouse Soundworks. Cover artwork is by Lewis Heriz. SUN RA ARKESTRA Under the direction of Marshall Allen Marshall Allen: Alto Saxophone, EVI Knoel Scott: Alto Saxophone James Stewart: Tenor Saxophone, Flute Danny Ray Thompson: Baritone Saxophone, Flute Michael Ray: Trumpet Cecil Brooks: Trumpet Vincent Chancey: French Horn Dave Davis: Trombone, Vocals Farid Barron: Piano Dave Hotep: Guitar Tyler Mitchell: Bass Wayne Anthony Smith, Jr.: Drums Elson Nascimento: Surdo Drums, Percussion Stanley “Atakatune” Morgan: Congas Tara Middleton: Vocals, Violin

French musician & performance artist Manon Anne Gillis came to Japan to perform in 2016 following the 2015 release of the 5-CD archive box set from Art Into Life, which was a compilation of earlier recordings. Now at last, for the first time in 27 years since 1994’s “Euragine” in CD format, her long-awaited 7th solo album is completed. As she still continues to progress and evolve musically, this work is constructed primarily around primitive hiss noise and error sounds. Here she has woven a musical tapestry that is more blurred, obscured, and noise-oriented than her earlier work. With the strong cohesiveness of her disquieting singing voice in a thunderous roar bellowing from the inner depths, the repetition of the dense glitch sounds, and the nostalgic concept of the obscure rhythm track (track 5) will remind us of her days when she went by the alias Devil’s Picnic.

Double CD documenting the magic meeting of one of the all-time great rhythm sections in jazz: percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker, with London’s brilliant Black Top (Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas) and Elaine Mitchener. Across two sets the quintet are infectiously energetic and inspired, striding from synchronised heavy groove to star bright solos, whilst incorporating dub effects, guimbri and sumptuous blues piano playing.  Formed by Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas but always realised with an ever changing number of invited musicians, Black Top's blend of lo-fi samples, dub effects and experimental electronics has been daring free improvisation since 2011. Their virtuoso performances draw on their Afro-Caribbean roots with delicious spontienty and humour; the histories of Ridley Road Market, the LIO and Islamic West Africa are sounded out side by side on iPad, marimba and vibraphone. Having met in 2006, Black Top played with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake as part of their residency at Cafe OTO in 2016; forming a quartet grounded in transatlantic kinship but which looked outward to the Carribean, calypso music and Saharan gnawa rhythms. When Parker and Drake returned to OTO in 2019 Black Top reformed again, but this time with the brilliant addition of vocalist Elaine Mitchener.  Over the last few years the clarity with which Mitchener has explored vocal expression in the global Black Avant Garde has been stunning, but here the range in her influences is manifest, moving effortlessly between phonetic and poetic experimentation and spoken word, all the while at ease with soul soaked jazz and dissonant free fall. A hand drum duet with Hamid Drake astonishes before being laced perfectly with cosmic theremin and Parker’s fantastic acid shehnai.  --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Sunday 28th July 2019 by Paul Skinner and mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photos by Dawid Laskowski and artwork by Oliver Pitt. 

Creel Pone rendition of this elusive 1975 Cramps Nova Musicha series (N.7) LP by the Romanian Composer Costin Miereanu, “put on the map” (so to speak) by its inclusion in the infamous Nurse With Wound list. I've always found it baffling that; of all of the Cramps titles reissued and re-reissued over the past few years, this piece, considered by many followers of the “Dark Side-long Aleatoric Electro-Acoustic Collage” aesthetic - see Dub Taylor, Luis De Pablo, Jean Claude Eloy, et.al - to be one of the finest examples of said, was never given its due time in the warm, contemporary sun. Kudos, then, for the Nth time, to Mr. P.C. C.P. for his prescient, timely efforts.Do, aside from “Dark Side-long Aleatoric Electro-Acoustic Collage,” what does it sound like you ask? imagine Xenakis’ bells-and-trinkets epic “Bohor” overlaid with Basil Kirchin’s “Worlds within Worlds” and generations of pan-linguistic self-help / instructional programs - at any given time in the piece there are at least 4-5 separate layers of gated textures, field recordings, dissonant / glassy ensemble playing, and a bed of Synthesized Drone-sound. The voices that dominate the first half in strident, authoritative tones give way in the second half to sparse moaning and sustained ululations, leaving more room for the woozy “Instrumental” textures. An ominous, creepy piece; not for the weak of constitution. --- Creel Pone, 2007

Jun Konagaya is best known as GRIM, but in 2012 he published a story and CD called “Organ” about a young girl called Magnolia and a monster called Gamahead. “Travel” presents the second part of the story. Several years have passed and Magnolia has set out on a journey, where she records the many things she sees and hears. It is unclear whether her journey is real or imaginary, and as she wanders between dream and reality she stumbles across some ruins in the middle of a forest. Her feet carry her closer to the ruins, as though she is being summoned there. She then hears a woman singing underground.

London's Lost Rivers takes the reader on a series of walks along the routes of eight lost rivers, combining directions for walkers with richly detailed anecdotes outlining the history of each river s route, origins and decline. Tom Bolton reveals a secret network that spreads across the city, from picturesque Hampstead in the North to the hidden suburbs of South London, and runs beneath some of London s most iconic and historic sites. These London pasts are brought to vivid life, populated by characters both famous and infamous, including politicians, forgers, actors, architects, athletes, monarchs and murderers. Evocative, witty and engaging, London s Lost Rivers invites both visitors to the city and lifelong Londoners to explore another side of London and its rich history, whether on foot or in the imagination.

Although Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his association with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, he began his career as a composer and successful music critic. "Night Music" presents the first complete English translations of two collections of texts compiled by Adorno - "Moments musicaux", containing essays written between 1928 and 1962, and "Theory of New Music", a group of texts written between 1929 and 1955. In "Moments musicaux", Adorno echoes Schubert's eponymous cycle, with its emphasis on aphorism, and offers lyrical reflections on music of the past and his own time. The essays include extended aesthetic analyses that demonstrate Adorno's aim to apply high philosophical standards to the study of music. "Theory of New Music", as its title indicates, presents Adorno's thoughts and theories on the composition, reception, and analysis of the music that was being written around him. His extensive philosophical writing ultimately prevented him from pursuing the compositional career he had once envisaged, but his view of the modern music of the time is not simply that of a theorist, but clearly also that of a composer. Though his advocacy of the Second Viennese School, comprising composer Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, is well known, many of his writings in this field have remained obscure. Collected in their entirety for the first time in English, the insightful texts in "Night Music" show the breadth of Adorno's musical understanding and reveal an overlooked side to this significant thinker.

Angela Davis has been a political activist at the cutting edge of the Black Liberation, feminist, queer, and prison abolitionist movements for more than 50 years. First published and edited by Toni Morrison in 1974, An Autobiography is a powerful and commanding account of her early years in struggle. Davis describes her journey from a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century: from her political activity in a New York high school to her work with the U.S. Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Soledad Brothers; and from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI's list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Told with warmth, brilliance, humor and conviction, Angela Davis's autobiography is a classic account of a life in struggle with echoes in our own time.

Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at age thirty-two, he had never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod, revered as one of the most important musical figures of the past hundred years. At the core of this adulation is innovation: as the producer behind some of the most influential rap and R&B acts of his day, Dilla created a new kind of musical time-feel, an accomplishment on a par with the revolutions wrought by Louis Armstrong and James Brown. Dilla and his drum machine reinvented the way musicians play. In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted Detroit childhood to his rise as a sought-after hip-hop producer to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death. He follows the people who kept Dilla and his ideas alive. And he rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of Motown soul to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. This is the story of a complicated man and his machines; his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators; and his undeniable legacy. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teach us to feel and "see" the rhythm of Dilla's beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla's music itself.

A talented pianist and composer in his own right, Sun Ra (1914 - 1993) founded and conducted one of jazz's last great big bands from the 1950s until he left planet Earth. Few only know that he also was a gifted thinker and poet. Sun Ra's poetry leaves everything behind what's called contemporary, and flings out pictures of infinity into the outer space. These poems are for tomorrow. This is the only edition of Sun Ra's complete poetry and prose in one volume. The Contributors James L. Wolf Earned a music degree from Carleton College, and studied ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, Seattle. Now works at the Library of Congress in the Music Division. Active musician in various bands in the DC area. Many contributions to Sun Ra scholarship. Hartmut Geerken Oriental studies, philosophy and comparative religion at the universities of Tübingen and Istanbul. Writer, filmmaker, musician, composer. Since the 1970s, close relationships to Sun Ra and his works, setting up the world's most comprehensive Waitawhile Sun Ra Archive Sigrid Hauff Studied oriental languages and arts, philosophy, and romance studies at the universities of Tübingen and Istanbul. Free lance writer on literary and philosophical subjects. Klaus Detlef Thiel Studied philosophy and history at Trier University, Ph.D. Philosophical author, focussing on theory and history of writing. Brent Hayes Edwards Teaches in the English Department at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Author and Co-Editor of works on jazz and literature.

The first edition of Sound Art Revisited (published as Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories) served as a groundbreaking work toward defining this emerging field, and this fully updated volume significantly expands the story to include current research since the book's initial release. Viewed through a lens of music and art histories rather than philosophical theory, it covers dozens of artists and works not found in any other book on the subject.Locating sound art's roots across the centuries from spatialized church music to the technological developments of radio, sound recording, and the telephone, the book traces the evolution of sound installations and sound sculpture, the rise of sound art exhibitions and galleries, and finally looks at the critical cross-pollination that marks some of the most important and challenging art with and about sound being produced today. ---  Paperback edition. ISBN:9781501333132 Imprint:Bloomsbury Academic Illustrations:25 b&w figures Dimensions:6" x 9"

Limited edition run to raise money for the Adam Bohman Exhibition Fundraiser. Adam Bohman has been operating on the outer fringes of underground music for decades. However, his tape cut-ups and home-built instruments represent just a tiny fraction of his artistic practice. In parallel, Adam has been creating and carefully stockpiling an extraordinary collection of collages, ink drawings and graphic scores that only a handful of people have ever seen. We're planning an exhibition at our project space that will present these works publicly for the first time. We hope you can help us make it happen. More images.

Poster for Chris Corsano's four day residency at Cafe OTO which took place from the 20th to 23rd of August 2014. Full residency line-up:  Wednesday 20 August 2014 Chris Corsano Solo Ilan Volkov's Summer Strings Lover's Ritual with Chris Corsano Thursday 21 August 2014 Okkyung Lee with John Butcher and Chris Corsano Mette Rasmussen with Alan Wilkinson, Pat Thomas and Chris Corsano Friday 22 August 2014 Evan Parker with John Edwards and Chris Corsano Massimo Pupillo and Chris Corsano Saturday 23 August 2014 Vibracathedral Orchestra with Chris Corsano Pressing Information Limited edition of 100 prints. Printed by Pat at Heavyrock.

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

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

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

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

Commissioned for an artist residency at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy, the Sacro Bosco tape explores various themes from the region’s holy mountain of Monteluco (Latin: lucus - a wood sacred to Jupiter), and its myths of saintly protection.Taking form as an installation in Piazza della Genga during a full moon, over 50 hand-drawn talismans invoking the spirits of the surrounding forest and beyond were nailed to the walls to create a 'universal sacred space'.Whilst the use of protective paper talismans (ofuda/fulu) is typical to Daoist practice, Sacro Bosco attempts to observe and unify the local collective religious beliefs of Catholicism and the Pagan god Jupiter. Inspired by a tale about the patron saint of Spoleto, Pontianius, and how in 1703, on his feast day, earthquakes affected the entire region of Italy, save Spoleto.This is a limited run of 50 cassette tapes - each wrapped in one of the original talismans - inked in black and cinnabar (as historically vermilion was regarded as the colour of blood, thus the colour of life), depicting the emblems and living spirits of wild boars, snakes, and trees in the surrounding forest. --- --- Self Released, 2022

Nika Son presents a radiophonic submersion into oceanic rasp and heave, meshes of synth tones, and displaced voices that intone a dismembered, claustrophobic sea story. Released as an edition of 50 pro-dubbed cassettes. --- Surfacing underneath you sea asu lapis Trying to imagine being underneath a liquid that we call water while clutching to a metal ledge of a big concrete building with air in my lungs.Sensing water in your ears and eyes. Being split by water. Thoughts astray.Algaic groaning gulping machines touching the liquid surface. Outer voices uttering in displaced languages. Who are you I am? Sinking. Waves floating over and under. Listening to antartic krill that sway to and fro. Emerging. Walking over oceanic noise, turning the page.Your ears on surfaces. --- Psykick Dancehall Recordings, 2017

Don't test the waters; a gut-rigged amalgam of disengaged tape remedies, mouth whiplash and last-limb electronics. --- TracklistA1 untitledB1 untitledB2 untitled --- Regional Bears, 2021

Saxophonist, poet and puppeteer, Ted Milton, brought his band Blurt to the 4th Tomorrow Festival with an unusual musical scene. He has recited 5 of his poems before the performance. The full set of 19 tracks, including poetry readings, are included exclusively in the special edition of the digital album. --- Ted Milton / 主唱 vocals, 萨克斯 saxophoneSteve Eagles / 吉他 guitarDavid Aylward / 鼓 drums --- 录音 Recording: 曾君 Zeng Jun / 罗绿野 Luo Lvye母带处理 Mastering: 刘英 Liu Ying制作人 Producer: 涂飞 Tu Fei摄影 Photography: 陈悦湘 Chan / 许益铭 Bug @ Dafa设计 Design : 尹思卜 Midori Yin

Ute Kanngiesser's first cello solo release, recorded direct to tape at two locations: The Cafe Oto Project Space, and the clock room at St Augustine's Tower, Hackney. --- Ute Kanngiesser / cello --- Recorded and mixed in Spring 2015 by Edward Lucas and Daniel Kordik.Embroidery by Meghan Springer Thanks to Cafe Oto and Hackney Historic Buildings Trust.  

The first cover and acoustic guitar feedback album by Shanghai guitarist MAI MAI.The first in a series where MAI MAI focuses on the feedback and textures of favourite Beatles song.'It should be a noon of 1997, when I was in the 2nd grade of middle school, I saw the music video of the Beatles “I Want to Hold Your Hand”on MTV channel. A live performance, black and white. It was the first “thriller” The Beatles brought to me.   The second “thriller” was in 1999, when I was in grade one of high school. The day before, I bought the so-called “white album” in a cracked cassette shop. That day I went to attend a kind of “little campus writer seminar” with my schoolmaster and a senior. On my way back home by bike, I began to listen to the double-cassettes. After this “thriller”, I talked with the senior who also loves rock music about grouping a band. But neither of us had learnt or even had any instrument. We just talked about it and thought we were in a band for quite a long time.   In 2001, I was a restudy student in a boarding high school. On the Christmas Eve, I listened to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” lying in the bed in my dorm, which was rebuilt from a shower room. I cried out. It should be count as a “thriller” brought by the Beatles, the third one. After that, it never happened again.' MAI mai April, 2016 --- 卖卖 MAI MAI uses: Martin M-38 acoustic guitar Yamaha hs8 powered speaker system Rode NT-5 pair microphones --- Released: Zoomin' Night Released June 1, 2016

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

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

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