Out today on Feedback Moves, ‘Two Movements’ by Conal Blake, Regan Bowering and Li Song. This is the trio’s second release and extends the ideas which underpinned their first outing, ‘Music for Snare Drums and Portable Speakers’ (Infant Tree, 2023), by incorporating motion in two distinct ways. The two sides, ’Swinging’ and ‘Oscillating’, were recorded live at Cafe Oto and Hundred Years Gallery, London.Recorded by @billy_steiger and @hbrownsoundMastered by Taku UnamiAvailable digitally and on cassette now via Bandcamp.

I wasn’t questioning what I thought was happening though. I also thought I knew the extent of it: the voice. Thought that the ghost might on some days be something that attached itself physically like a node on my vocal chords, or was vocal chords, the extra thick ones I’d need to produce that sound, like in films about puberty you get shown in science classes in school.Roy Orbison in Ruins stages an imagined correspondence between a young hospitality worker on a road trip, and the musician David Berman. Unfolding over a series of four unanswered letters and karaoke interludes, we learn that our narrator has been possessed by the voice of Roy Orbison. Accompanied by her chorus of Roys, she slowly transforms into his image as she writes about dreaming, leisure time, haunting and ventriloquism from the rest stops, bars and motels of Florida.

Moving through time and across oceans, writer Sam Moore takes us on a poetic journey of self-discovery through queer history, pop culture and (auto)biography in this deeply personal encounter with queer identity a generation after the AIDS crisis.    Examining the violent political legacy of right-wing governments, the search for liberation through art and the endless quest for self-discovery, All My Teachers Died of AIDS serves as both eulogy and rallying cry, asking us to mourn the dead while lighting a torch to help guide us through grief towards a brighter queer future. 

Letterpress printed by Small Fires Press, Alabama. Green ink on ~60lb warm parchment stock.Duplicated by Cryptic Carousel, New York.Edition of 100

Fred Van Hove's 52 minute solo piano performance at the Jazz à Mulhouse summer festival 2007 reveals one of the giants of improvised music at the height of his creative powers.

A sequence of piano and tenor saxophone free improvisations recorded in concert at the Appleby Jazz Festival in 2004.

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.

LP reissue of Collective Calls, the first duo LP from Evan Parker and percussionist Paul Lytton. Mythically alluded to as ‘An Improvised Urban Psychodrama In Eight Parts”, Collective Calls utilises electronics, pre-records and homemade instruments to wryly in/act self investigation. Having just recorded the cliff jumping Music Improvisation Company with Derek Bailey, Christine Jeffrey, Hugh Davies and Jamie Muir, Parker was at the point where [he] was thinking, ‘what’s the next thing?’ On Collective Calls, only the 5th release to appear on the newly minted Incus label, percussionist Paul Lytton arrives with an arsenal of sound making sources to push Parker into ever new territory. Recorded in the loft of The Standard Essenco Co on Southwark Street by Bob Woolford (Topography of the Lungs, AMM The Crypt), Collective Calls has more in common with noise or music concrete than with jazz; sitting comfortably alongside Italian messrs Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza or the husband-wife duo of Anima Sound. According to Martin Davidson, it was a Folkways record called Sounds of the Junkyard that Lytton was obsessed with around the time of this release - its track titles like “Steel Saw Cutting Channel Iron in Two Places” working to give you a good idea of the atmosphere of Collective Calls. Paul Lytton had encountered the use of electronics in music in 1968 when he was invited to play drums on the recording of An Electric Storm by White Noise (along with David Vorhaus, Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson). He had seen Hugh Davies using contact mics in the Music Improvisation Company, and soon set about assembling a Dexion frame akin to drummer John Stevens’, except that his own was armed with several single-coil electric guitar pickups, long wires and strings with connected foot-pedals to modulate pitch. Influenced as much by Stockhausen, Cage and David Tudor as he was by Max Roach and Milford Graves, Lytton’s percussion is abstract, expressionist and at times totally mutant. Sometimes rolling extremely fast, then screeching almost backwards over feedback, Lytton gives Parker room to play some of his weirdest work. Parker is listed as performing both saxophones, his own homemade contraptions, and cassette recorder - regularly thickening the already murky brew by playing back previous recordings of the duo. Imagining their set up in a 70s loft, it’s an assemblage more akin to what today's free ears might see at a Sholto Dobie show, spread out on the floor of the Hundred Years Gallery, the shadow of Penultimate Press lurking in a corner. It’s a testament to Parker’s shape shifting sound - the ever present link to birdsong being at its most warped here - terrifically free and unfussy, wild and loose from any of the dogma that might come in later Brit-prov years.

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

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.  

"With Clippy EM272 mics clipped on my backpack, I commuted and recorded in various locations to capture what's bluntly obvious to all of us here, I'm certain of. It is about what's been passed down, the pedigree of our people, hastily constructed to pick up the phase of the west, that I've known for my entire life and a part of my life. No good or bad, but just the way it is. I see much beauty here in my city's streets, when the unfavored sides are seen in the same scope. They are inseparable." – Suk Hong Otoroku is delighted to present this enrapturing, multifaceted release from South Korean sound artist, Suk Hong 홍석민, recorded in and around Seoul. At first the rapid procession of sounds in Pedigree's four parts - both found and performed, worldly and domestic - can seem bewildering; streetscapes merge with dissonant organ sounds, snatches of conversation blend with the hum and rattle of transport, electronic tones trade space with grunting pigs and homely rituals. The sound worlds seem to flit from one headspace to the next, giving the listener just enough time to acclimatise to each sonic environment before changing up the scenery again. But give yourself over to the restless momentum and the true expanse of the composition becomes clear, ultimately revealing itself to be something both transportive and profound. With each listen, more is disclosed. The effect is akin to looking at reflections upon the surface of a body of water and then letting your eyes readjust to the world beneath, teeming with life. Pedigree seems to exist in this moment of tension between the surface and the depths, favouring neither but revelling in a state of endlessly unfolding transition. -- - All tracks by Suk Hong- Mastered by Oli Barrett- Cover photo by (stephan) – image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Totally beautiful and rare piano performance from Loren Connors, joined on guitar by long time collaborator Alan Licht.  Celebrating thirty years of collaboration, Loren Connors and Alan Licht performed for two nights at OTO on May 5 and 6th, 2023. On the second night, with the stage lit in blue, Connors took up a seat on the piano stool whilst Licht picked up the guitar. What followed was the duo’s first ever set with Connors on piano - one of only a few times Connors has played piano live at all - here captured and issued as The Blue Hour. Its spacious warmth came as a total surprise live, but makes complete sense for a duo whose dedicated expressionism takes inspiration from a vast spectrum of emotion. Both opening with single notes to start, it doesn't take long before a surface rises and begins to shimmer. A run up the keys, the drop of a feedback layer on a sustained and bent note. The two begin to exchange notes in tandem and brief touches of melody and chord hover. After a while, Connors picks up the guitar, stands it in his lap and sweeps a wash of colour across Licht’s guitar. Sharp, glassy edges begin to form, open strings and barred frets darkening the space. When his two pedals begin to merge, Licht finds a dramatic organ-like feedback and it’s hard not to imagine Rothko’s Chapel, its varying shades of blue black ascending and descending in the room. When Connors goes back to the piano for the second side, the pair quickly lock into a refrain and light pours in. It’s a kind of sound that Licht says reminds him of what he and Connors would do when the duo first started playing together 30 years ago. It’s certainly more melodic than some of their more recent shows, and the atonal shards of At The Top of the Stairs seem to totally dissolve. What is always remarkable about Licht is that his enormous frame of reference doesn't seem to weigh him down, and instead here he is able to delicately place fractures of a Jackson C Frank song (“Just Like Anything”,) amongst the vast sea of Connors’ blues. Perhaps it's the pleasure of playing two nights in a row together, or the nature of Connor’s piano playing combined with Licht’s careful listening, but the improvisation on The Blue Hour feels remarkably calm and unafraid. There’s nothing to prove and no agenda except the joy of sounding colour together. Totally beautiful.  --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Saturday 6th May 2023 by Billy SteigerMixed by Oli BarrettMastered by Sean McCannArtwork by Loren Connors Layout by Oli BarrettScreenprint by Tartaruga Manufactured in the UK by Vinyl Press.  Edition of 300 standard LPs, 100 LPs with screenprinted artwork by Loren Connors printed as inserts. Also available on a limted run of 200 CDs. 

Evan Parker's monumental LP of solo soprano saxophone improvisations, recorded direct-cut and issued by Incus in 1978. Lovingly reissued by Treader — the CD is from PSI — using the original stampers, in a gorgeous hand-assembled sleeve, with glossy front and matt back, flaps out. Unmissable. ‘Parker uses rapid tonguing techniques and circular breathing to create a sound all his own, marked by the simultaneous intonation of multiple notes. One hears a note as well as all the residual tones around it; each breath ends up sounding like a battle between the different registers of the horn. At various times, Parker’s saxophone sounds like dolphin speech, electronic tape squeals, or human murmurs; namely, anything but what it actually is. His language on the instrument is essential listening for anyone interested in acoustic experimental music’ (AllMusic). ‘Eight years after Topography Of The Lungs, and two years after his Saxophone Solos, Monoceros was the most muscular statement of Evan Parker’s solo saxophone muse. Superbly recorded, it seemed to place the listener within the chaotic air flows of the saxophone’s own tubing. Philip Clark said: ‘Parker’s dialogue with the saxophone throws up so much that is unexpected, and indeed unknowable, that the problem he faces is how to keep pace with his own invention’’ (The Wire, Best Albums Of The Year).

Blood Blood is a connective tissue. It nourishes. Cleanses. Regulates. Only a living being can create it. Attempts to engineer synthetic blood have not been successful, to date. Thus, either we "produce" it ourselves, or there will be none... Blood is always in motion. It travels throughout our bodies. In each of us, there are an estimated 96,000 kilometers of blood vessels, that pump our blood. If blood is not in motion, it clots within a few minutes. It begins to die... od is not in mi Every minute someone needs blood. One in ten patients is a recipient. One unit (450ml) is capable of saving three lives. On the other hand, in cases of severe burns, up to twenty units are needed for one patient. In Poland, 2.4% of the population donates blood, while in European Union countries the average is about 8%. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." (Leviticus 17:11). For centuries, in all cultures, religions and beliefs, blood has held the same significance. It has been synonymous with life. In ancient Mesopotamia it was believed that the first humans were created from the blood of a slain deity. In Egypt, blood was removed from the body before mummification, to prepare it for eternal life. In the Old Testament, consuming blood was forbidden. This is still the case in Judaic teachings. It contains the life force. Upon death, this force should return to God. Blood saves. "And they shall take the blood of the lamb, and sprinkle it on the doorframes and on the thresholds of the house where they shall eat it. [....] The blood shall serve you to mark the houses, in which you shall dwell. When I see the blood, I will pass by, and there shall not be a destructive plague, among you when I punish the land of Egypt." (Exodus 12:7-13). The God of the Old Covenant will spare the lives of those, whose house is marked with the blood of the Passover lamb. By doing so, a person will make the passage (pesach - literally to pass over, leap over) and be free, just as the Chosen People were liberated from the rule of Egypt. Blood cleanses and justifies. "Then one of the elders addressed me: 'These in white robes,' he asked, 'who are they, and where have they come from?' And I said to him: 'Lord, you know! And he said to me: 'These are those who come, from the great tribulation, and have rinsed their robes, and in the blood of the Lamb have whitened them. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and in His temple they worship Him day and night. And the One seated on the throne shall spread a tent over them." (Revelation 7:13-15) What does blood mean to you? Blood is life and holiness. In the Christian tradition, it is a symbol of eternal life. Blood of Christ gives life and is life, because it is Christ's body. In art, blood is a symbol of emotions. A blood brotherhood, blood pact, or a document signed in blood, are eternally binding. Blood is a bond, a fellowship - this is why in Polish we say related-by-blood and blood-relatives. If you donate blood - someone becomes your relative… The concept for this record began in February, 2023. It is an audio-portrait of the Regional Centre of Blood Donation and Treatment the name of prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Dorobisz in Wroclaw, enriched by the music of Piotr Damasiewicz and Jakub Wójcik. It is not background music. It is music that requires attention and focus. Detachment and meditation. An immersion into its depths. "Blood" is an invitation to experience a journey. A journey of living fully, through stopping, to rebirth and a new existence. "Blood" is YOU and your interpretation of the world and its hues.

“Make Polish Jazz great again”: Piotr Damasiewicz & Power of the Horns return with “Polska” LP A musical visionary, some outstanding instrumentalists, the 10th anniversary of the collective’s founding, a reflection on Polishness, and finally – a 4,000 km-long walking pilgrimage of 100 solo concerts in 100 temples. These events, symbols, experiences and facts have somehow been combined into one coherent whole – the Polska LP, the first release by Piotr Damasiewicz & Power of the Horns Ensemble since 2013. “Power of the Horns have the ability to captivate audiences of any festival, from jazz gigs to the huge Open’er, from the Baltic Sea coast to the Tatra Mountains, and hopefully in every corner of the globe”, as Kajetan Prochyra wrote in Jazzarium a few years ago, shortly after the release of the phenomenal concert album Alaman which earned the band considerable fame in the jazz scene. Power of the Horns, however, turned out to be a scarce commodity. They only performed on special occasions, and it took 6 years for their second album to be released. Now they are back with the album titled Poland. This repertoire is a kind of synthesis of what influenced the image of jazz that accompanied Piotr Damasiewicz while building his musical identity. This is the essence of what was closest to Piotr’s heart in Polish jazz in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, when he would mostly listen to Polish masters live, on the radio and on recordings. It was a period when he often listened to Wojtasik with Szukalski and Harper (it was the Quest album that was the main inspiration behind “Billy”), or some of the unearthly recordings of the Polish trumpet master Tomasz Stańko, such as Bosonossa, Litania, and From the Green Hill. Damas spent that period of his life in Katowice, which he still associates with the hard work of miners. It also remains a symbol of Polish industrial characterised by heavy groove... That’s why he has composed “Kleofas”, an homage to one of the Katowice coal mines. The recording session for Polska LP occurred at a very special time. The album was recorded the day before and on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, as these were the only available dates for all of the musicians. The exceptional atmosphere and thus the dignity of this time were emphasized by the events preceding the recordings. “It was a very moving period, concluding a certain era, as several people close to us, both musically and personally, died. The great master, Tomasz Stańko, to whom we partly dedicated this session, passed away” – the leader explains. There is some kind of symbolism in the fact that when the sound of sirens froze Warsaw for a moment as it does yearly, the album session in Studio S2 (Polskie Radio) was coming to an end. Last year Piotr Damasiewicz and his orchestra celebrated the 10th anniversary of Power of the Horns. It is hard to believe that it took a decade for one of the most outstanding bands promoting Polish jazz in the world to record their first studio album. However, it is hardly surprising given that the leader of PotH – Piotr “Damas” Damasiewicz – is one of the busiest Polish artists around. It is not easy to lead such a big orchestra of gifted musicians, or, to be more precise, a bunch of contemporary Polish jazz stars – that's why the line-up that took all the jazz recaps of 2013 by storm with their debut concert album Alaman (For Tune) remained in phonographic slumber for another 6 years, at the same time putting on a few major concerts with guests such as James Carter, Lotte Anker, Anna Karwan and Zdzisław Piernik. Since the formation of Power of the Horns, the band leader has received a Fryderyk award for his jazz debut, while his colleagues, an alto saxophonist Maciej Obara and Dominik Wania, a pianist, have successfully released albums for the legendary German ECM label. For Piotr Damasiewicz, 2019 is a year full of round numbers. Damas set off on a 4,000 km pilgrimage along the Way of Saint James starting in May when he crossed the border with Ukraine in the village of Korczowa, continuing through the south of Poland, Germany, France, and finally completing the journey in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain. The very idea of such journey seems to be impressive but if one adds that the trumpeter’s mission was to play 100 solo trumpet concerts in 100 temples of various denominations in order to prepare for his academic research, it’s beyond comprehension. Astigmatic Records is all the more proud to present Polska LP, the first, long-awaited studio album of Power of the Horns Ensemble led by Piotr Damasiewicz. The 42 minutes of this outstanding music was recorded in the summer of 2018 in Studio S2 in Warsaw under the supervision of Michał Kupicz who was also responsible for the mix. The album is due to be released on CD, vinyl, and all streaming platforms on November 29, 2019. It can be now pre-ordered in Asfalt Shop and Sounds of The Universe, as well as via the Bandcamp platform. The premiere concert showcasing the Polska programme will be held during the Wrocław Jazztopad Festival on November 23, 2019. The event will be preceded by a meeting with Piotr Damasiewicz taking place at 11 a.m. in Mleczarnia near Narodowe Forum Muzyki. 

Piotr Damasiewicz - TRUMPET Liba Villavecchia - ALTO SAX Grzegorz Lesiak - GUITAR Alex Reviriego - BASS Vasco Trilla - DRUMS, PERCUSSIONS The band Damasiewicz, Lesiak, Villavecchia, Reviriego, Trilla with SKAWA recording is the result of cooperation and friendship of five exceptional artists. The paths of these musicians have intertwined for many years. Each of them is characterized by a unique sound and the awareness of creating their own language, which is a bridge connecting artistic sensitivity, philosophy, mysticism and reality. Each of them blazes its own trail, often in difficult and untouched terrain. Constantly transcending themselves is the essence of their creativity and the true art of living. The initiator of the project is the guitarist Grzegorz Lesiak, who together with the Catalan drummer Vasco Trilla and the bassist Alex Reviriego created an adventure music band called "Essence". The combination of this line-up with the activity and philosophy of the multi-instrumentalist Piotr Damasiewicz is no coincidence, thanks to whom their art has acquired a deeper, spiritual dimension. This unique arrangement is characterized by coherence, openness and extremely subtle expression. Lesiak, Trilla, Reviriego, Damasiewicz recorded the album On The Way under this banner, then decided to invite another musician, Liba Villavecchia, with whom Trilla and Reviriego already co-create the Catalan trio. This is how the quintet was created. They recorded in Beskid Mały in Sucha Beskidzka in a location characteristic for Damasiewicz label, i.e. near Mioduszyna in Śpiwle. The material was recorded in October 2022. It contains interpretations of 5 impressions written by Damasiewicz. L.A.S. listening and sounding – a new concert-publishing initiative, the goal of which, in addition to recording and releasing sounds, is to promote art and music by experiencing it together on the listener-musician, artist-viewer line. The energy built during concerts and live recordings allows for creation of unique publications, with inserts including, as a tangible result of cooperation, the audience’s impressions about the music they listened to.L.A.S.is an artistic platform focusing on the co-creation and coexistence of unforced interpersonal relations. It is the realization of the mutual need to share knowledge and skills, of being in harmony and with nature, of mutual respect for space, building relationships with the world, looking at what is happening around you, focusing on your own needs, listening to yourself and others, of different perception of the world, being in peace with nature and yourself, of following your intuition. All of this guides Piotr Damasiewicz – such goals and principles, among others, are implemented in the L.A.S. In a way, L.A.S. constitutes a platform where you can stop and ponder or talk about what is meaningful to everyone. The basis of such meetings is sound and openness to listening.

We would like to introduce a new Polish- Austrian quartet led by the trumpeter and composer Piotr Damasiewicz and his Viennese connections- the meticulously passionate saxophonist Krzysztof Kasprzyk, Viennese-to-the-bone, versatile bassist Thomas Stempkowski , and the jazz and electronica drummer Alex Yannilos.The music of the quartet is best described as “(…) expressive, free though very rhythmic and melodic, manic at times, always lovingly passionate.” It goes back to dear to our hearts sounds of 60es and 70es jazz, in which composed and conjointly improvised had an equal place and the energy between musicians and listeners during a live performance was the crucial part of a creating process. The formation of the band is the result of a meeting of the musicians as part of the Melomaniac Corner concert series, organised by Anna Moser in cooperation with the Polish Institute in Vienna, which took place in Strenger Kammer, in the viennese jazz-club Porgy & Bess in February 2019. The repertoire was written especially for this occasion by Piotr Damasiewicz. The band members felt that the collective had something special, something worth continuing. The idea to release an album arose. In April musicians met again to prepare for the recordings. In May 2019, the Viennese Suite material was recorded in the renown Amann studio in Vienna, in a live recording session as part of the new initiative and label of the leader- L.A.S.

Heard in the Carpathians, „watra” is a word of Wallachian origin which refers to a large bonefire with a wooden construction set up. Burned and accompanied by singing and recalling the old times, it symbolizes the return to the roots and serves the purpose of glorifying the ancestors. Watra is also what we ourselves associate with inspiring meetings bustling with stories of tradition, travel and music from around the world, when, by the fire, different musical worlds of jazz and folklore have brought us together. Now we’re all in the state of journey back to our roots, friends creating music together that we are, inspiring one another during numerous gatherings by the fire in Śpiwle estate found in Sucha Beskidzka at the slope of Mioduszyna Mountain and in the Cofeina Jazz Cafe, where the recording of this album took place. credits released June 26, 2021 Piotr Damasiewicz trumpet, harmonium, percusssions, voice Zbigniew Kozera bass, guimbri, african harph Paweł Szpura drum, frame drum

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

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

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

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

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

Dusting off the earthy sounds of American old-timers Hobart Smith, Dock Boggs and Dink Roberts, as well as Irish singer Margaret Barry, London-based Jacken Elswyth lets their influence flood their consciousness and weave itself into 7 stirring tracks. Side-stepping any revivalism, Jacken allows each track the space to trail its own path, letting the spindling strings of their banjo knot their own patterns and colours. With occasional accompaniment by shruti box and melodeon, there's a trance like nature to each proceeding, situating Jacken's work firmly in the tradition of the "avant-folk" (see Henry Flynt's experiments in country music), but very much tempered to their own voice, as if the listener is being given an intimate private view to Jacken's memories: both past and present. --- Jacken Elswyth / banjo --- Recorded and mixed by Jacken Elswyth. Mastered by Oli Barrett.  Cover design by Oli Barrett from a photo by Molly Budd.

"With Tools of Imagination we are treated to a tremendous long form improvisation from Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost recorded in the clubroom of Poland’s Pardon To Tu in September of 2017. Eddie Prévost, a co-founder of AMM and the group’s only physical constant is one of the foremost proponents and practitioners of free improvisation in the world today. His companion for this improvisation is the great English saxophonist Evan Parker, another pillar of the European free improvisation community that’s made this strange and wonderful music his life’s work. The two have recorded together fairly extensively, both as a duo and as part of a larger group, always with spectacular results. Here is no exception as the two masters interlace ideas unhurriedly and with great care for the details.The single track, Tools of Imagination, begins with the sounds of Prévost’s reverberating bowed metal to which Parker offers refined, bubbling shapes, surging occasionally into squelches of harmonics and resonance. Prévost is a master of atmosphere, having honed his skills in his 50+ year career as a professional noise maker. I have no idea how he achieves some of the sounds he does with his bow-work, but it’s fascinating to listen to. Groans and deep shudders are intermingled with piercing scrapes and razor barbs. Parker’s tenor gushes like an artesian well of molten chrome, a turbulent outpouring of aural globules that flow like a river across Prévost’s extraterrestrial atmospherics. At ~ 20 minutes in, the track shifts gears, the din receding momentarily before revealing Parker playing plaintively over gong-work that reminds me a little of La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela’s Study for the Bowed Disc. Parker continues to push forward, to weave webs of ectoplasm in his distinct cadence, his circular breathing technique tracing its heavy fractals in the thick ambience stirred up by Prévost. At around the midpoint the song shifts gears again and the musicians regroup into a quiescent hum interrupted intermittently by cymbal clatter and supine sax shapes. For the final half Prévost gets back to work bowing, scraping, and striking at his contraptions, framing Parker’s saxophone playing with a dense thicket of sound that he plays off and against, alternating between subtle percussive tongue slapping and breathy multiphonics. The final 10 minutes or so begin probing and sparsely adorned before bursting back into Parker’s woven harmonics and the groaning, squealing sound world of Prévost.There are certain practices that in my opinion really benefit from preparation and experience, free improvisation being among them. For as free as the playing is on this release, it’s refined in a way that is almost inexplicable to those that are not well versed in it. That’s not to say that there aren’t any surprises here, it’s just that these gentlemen know how to take surprises and run with them. A highly recommended release, there isn’t a dull moment with this one." - Free Jazz Collective

At the Unity Theatre is a live album by saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lytton. It was recorded in January 1975 at the Unity Theatre in London, and was released later that year by Incus Records. The album was reissued on CD (this edition), with three extra tracks, by Psi Records in 2003

It’s difficult to say if it was Evan Parker who invited Jacob Anderskov’s trio Kinetics to start this new collaborative project or if the initiative came from the Danish pianist. The doubt results from the permanent equilibrium of forces detected in “Chiasm”: the British saxophonist can be the protagonist, the frontline voice, but the music reflects in every step the most important motivation for Anderskov and his Kinetic partners, Adam Pultz Melbye and Anders Vestergaard: to celebrate the entire evolution of jazz by means of using some particularities of that patrimony through a compositional concept turned to the invention of the future. Either way, we can understand, just by hearing the music, why this connection with Parker is happening. The London-based musician is an illustrious representative in present days of the long line of innovators in both the tenor and the soprano saxophones: nobody else could symbolize better the double focus of this record in History and in the creation of the New. This task to detect and distill the old soul of jazz, at the same time refreshing it, comes from a radical point of view – radical because it goes to the roots in order to finally reach the flowers and make them bloom. Are you fascinated by the way Coltrane resounds in Evan Parker’s playing these last few years? Well, there’s plenty of that here for your delight… Recorded at London’s Vortex club and live in the studio in Copenhagen, Chiasm is a documentation of what interplay may sound like when an established piano trio meets a master of improvisation. On the four improvised tracks, the group explores melodic, timbral and rhythmical structures on both micro and macro levels, creating a matrix of nonlinear dynamics from which emerges an oscillating and shimmering sonic image, propelled by a shared approach to the real-time generation of structure and form.  Evan Parker - tenor saxophone Jacob Anderskov - piano Adam Pultz Melbye - bass Anders Vestergaard - drums

Recorded live by Takeo Suetomi at Café Amores, Hofu, April 29, 1996.The CD version includes a bonus track (“Two Chaps 1“). New, unsealed, includes Obi

This music was inspired by Lynn Margulis’ serial endosymbiosis theory (SET), and is dedicated to her and her amazing insights into the mechanisms of biological evolution.In inviting Paul Lytton, Barry Guy, Walter Prati, Marco Vecchi, Lawrence Casserley and FURT, I was trading on the pre-existing musical structures that these musicians brought with them: the solo works of Guy, Lytton , Casserley and myself; the duos with Lytton, Guy, Prati and Casserley, the trio with Guy and Lytton, the trio with Guy and Casserley; my asking FURT added a further music with its own history. (Evan Parker).Commissioned by Donaueschinger Musiktage 2003. Previously unissued.

"Two improvisations on piano & tenor saxophone, one in concert and the other before the audience arrived, recorded at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam in 2006. The sleeve design is derived from work by the late Tomas Schmit whose work is much loved by both MM and EP."-

"Substantially the book that devotees of the director have been waiting for: a full-length critical work about Ozu's life, career and working methods, buttressed with reproductions of pages from his notebooks and shooting scripts, numerous quotes from co-workers and Japanese critics, a great many stills and an unusually detailed filmography."—Sight and SoundYasujiro Ozu, the man whom his kinsmen consider the most Japanese for all film directors, had but one major subject, the Japanese family, and but one major theme, its dissolution. The Japanese family in dissolution figures in every one of his fifty-three films. In his later pictures, the whole world exists in one family, the characters are family members rather than members of a society, and the ends of the earth seem no more distant than the outside of the house.

This book is dedicated to the history of the music label Free Music Production (FMP), which from 1968 to 2010 achieved incomparable things as a Berlin platform for the production, presentation and documentation of music and decisively shaped the musical development of the '70s and beyond. Based on many conversations from over thirty years with key protagonists such as Peter Brötzmann or Jost Gebers, Markus Müller tells the success story of a musicians' initiative that emerged in the context of the 1968 ideas of self-organization and self-determination and worked successfully in an international network for over 40 years. Thematic focal points include the Total Music Meeting and the Workshop Freie Musik, the production of recordings, relations with GDR musicians, FMP and women, the internationally groundbreaking collaboration with Cecil Taylor. The book builds on the major FMP exhibitions in Munich and Berlin, but in many aspects goes far beyond them. Thanks to unrestricted access to the FMP-Publishing Archive in Borken, many first-published documents and photographs from the history of FMP can be found.

Sometimes I pretended not to notice it (the black hole), but I knew it was always there. To tell the truth, I started to like having it around. I stuck quite close to it. Not too close, mind you. But it was useful, above all, to have somewhere to put things. Unwanted things. I am attracted to your attraction, he said. (I put it in the hole.) Night by night it got a little bigger.Holes splices forms of fiction and nonfiction. The narrator, a researcher of limits at an unidentified university, figures her entanglement with an unobtainable love object as the descent into a black hole. Everything she reads seems to shed light on the non-events that comprise their relationship, and study collapses into life as she struggles to separate events and forms, reality and ideation. Holes is a study in thematic fixation, engaging a range of ‘obsessional artists’ (including Yayoi Kusama, from whom the term is borrowed, Lee Bontecou, and Carolee Schneemann) for whom holes—as idea, imagery, philosophy—have proved evocative, inviting, and occasionally obliterative.

‘Iris Colomb’s Where do you begin in this takes Joyce’s enthusiasm for linguistic interplay and reorientation and applies it to the fabric of the book. This book records the physical and psychical encounter of Joyce’s words with Colomb’s body. Ulysses has been chopped, cut, repeated, re-ordered, crumpled, and rolled into a whole new book. Colomb offers us a material re-organisation of Joyce’s epic in her own linguistically-dispersed, spatio-temporally-specific image. This is Joyce upgraded, a century on.’

Three friends hang out and share a long and unremarkable conversation about getting dressed, headaches, ticks, compression fantasies, surgery, and personal aspirations, among other things. When two of the friends go home for the night, the remaining one watches TV, dances, and takes apart his face in front of a giant mirror.  Originally a play, Sorcerer is a book about the pleasures of being together and being alone. The characters find contentment in each other’s company, conversing in the placid, eerie rhythms of a sitcom in which conflict never arises. Unease is exported to furniture, gadgets, and bodily movements. The result is a counterintuitive kind of realism, lying somewhere between the procedural and the miraculous. There’s levitation. 

Emblem is the debut collection from Lucy Mercer, winner of the inaugural White Review Poet’s Prize. Emblem revitalises this forgotten hybrid form in the present as a frame to contemplate the obscurities of motherhood, faith and the interior. In ghostly conversation with the sixteenth-century emblematist Andrea Alciato – a witness to a lonely time – the poems are carried forward by a non-linear dream logic of metaphor and similitude, speaking pictures who remain silent and a focus on an adjacent imaginal world. As well as reusing images from Alciato’s emblem book, the poems fixate on alternating relations between text and image that blur into relations between mind and body, child and mother, red and green, past and present, public and private, the living and the dead.

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.

Screenprinted poster to mark the July 2023 residency with Decoy and Joe McPhee Printed by Tartaruga in metallic gold ink on high quality, Black Pile paper The size is just smaller than standard A2 – 36cm x 52cm. Edition of 50. Design by Oli Barrett

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

A3 risograph print for Tashi Dorji's June 2023 Cafe OTO show alongside Steve Noble. Printed by Good Press in dark grey ink on pale yellow paper. Design by Oli Barrett Edition of 50.

A3 risograph print for Sophie Agnel's June 2023 Cafe OTO residency with Steve Noble and John Edwards. Printed by Good Press in metallic gold ink on black paper. Design by Oli Barrett. Edition of 50

Everything in FPBJPC’s oeuvre requires you to tilt your head to adjust where the glare obscures the picture. Or there’s no glare, but we’re accustomed to thinking there ought to be oneFPBJPC invites us to relieve ourselves of that cruelty and, thereby, invites us back into love. Perfect music.   Derek Baron, Sept. 2020

The nineties were full of changes and new energies in Prague. Concerts were organized in galleries, people listened with interest to emerging bands and new musical directions were followed. In this period, there was a growing interest in alternative art, and Richter Band, one of the leading alternative bands operating in the borders between ambient, new age and meditative music, was in its accession. After years of modest gigging in the late 80s, interest in seeing them perform live began to increase and the band started to tour not just the Czech regions but also ventured abroad.At the same time, Jaroslav Kořán, a fiddlerophone and percussion player, left the group and began to experiment with his own music. With him, he brought a range of musical experience from playing in the alternative rock group, Vyšší Populár, and the ambient outfit, Richter Band, as well as building and playing hand-made instruments. The fidlerophone, a unique instrument assembled using aluminium pots and mounted on sprung stands, formed the characteristic sound of Richter Band when played in unison with the subtle sounds of Pavel Richter’s electric guitar, and would later inspire Jaroslav to experiment in creating his own instruments. Although he already owned a sampler and played the piano, as a drummer, he was constantly seeking new percussive instruments and sounds, ranging from water glasses and pots to porcelain plates and salad bowls. In the summer of 1990, he experimented with nails hammered into wood in Šumava, a national park in the South Bohemian regions of the Czech Republic, and the first "Šumava (or village) kalimbas" were created. Together with his brother Michal, they refined the kalimbas, trying out repetitive melodies on them, which they would then record at home and supplement with loops from a sampler and slowed-down tapes.The newly recorded material, full of rhythms, pre-recorded loops and Michal Kořán's synthesizer, was presented for the first time in public in April 1990 at the Klarisky concert hall in Bratislava. Soon after, Jaroslav met Marek Hanzlík, a guitarist from another Prague-based band, Die Archa, leading to the formation of a new musical trio named Modrá (“Blue”). This led to a fundamental musical shift, with Marek’s prepared guitar bringing subtle harmonies and an unusual sound to the rhythmic structures, complemented by Jaroslav Kořán's slowed-down pre-recorded tapes, sampled loops and voices.Over November 1990 to June 1991, Modrá made a number of recordings in Jaroslav’s home studio. For “Bohemian Blue”, the most interesting pieces from this period were selected and supplemented with two compositions recorded live at a home concert in February 1991. Although the group was only short-lived, disbanding in the second half of 1991, it represents an important period of musical experimentation and marked the dawn of the nascent Orloj Snivců (“Horologe of Dreamers”), with whom Jaroslav Kořán still performs today. Modrá - Bohemian Blue CS 2024 [Infinite Expanse]C60 with on-body printing in jewel case and printed two-sided j-cardJaroslav Kořán: zither, sampler, percussion, plates, Mačický xylophone, tapes Marek Hanzlík: prepared electric guitar Michal Kořán: percussion, sampler, Mačický xylophone, village kalimba, plates cymbalsRecorded and mixed by Jaroslav Kořán, 1990-91, Pagoda Studio, Prague Remastered by Michal Kořán, 2018, Moon Studio, Prague 2024 issue under license via Blue Lizard

Amazing deadstock find of this rucial document of the late 70's / early 80s Czech avant-garde scene, privately issued by Black Point in 1991 Amalgam 1978-1981 features the recordings of a series of concerts of this project led by the Czech drummer and percussionist Vlastimil Marek, along with a variety of guests that range from renowned Czech progressive rock musicians and ethnomusicologists active in the country’s underground scene to a rare participation at that time of an international guest like Mohan Lal. The recording on the A-side of the tape stems from Amalgam’s participation at the Prague Jazz Days festival held at the Lucerna concert hall on the 19th may 1978. The occasion brought together Marek’s orientally inclined percussive music with the members of the progressive rock band Švehlík, which included Pavel Richter, Luboš Fidler and Alexandr Hajdovský along with the participation of the Indian tabla player Mohan Lal, one of the first foreign guests to play the festival. This first part depicts the inclination towards non-western musical traditions, in this case by Marek and its fusion with avant-garde rock bands like Švehlík, a style at that time already popularized in "the West" by musicians like John McLaughlin or bands like Tri Atma and Embryo for example. In a sense, such music is representative of a legacy of occidental musicians prone to experiment with oriental modes and percussion in order to escape from the constraining aspects of western music towards free and varied forms of music incorporating a clear tendency towards improvisation. The first half of the B-side was recorded at the sports hall Na Folimance in Prague a year later featuring Czech music-ethnologist and multi-instrumentalist Jiří Mazánekon on acoustic guitar and voice, and Milan Valenta on the violin. The second half was recorded at Baráčnická Rychta also in Prague and the liner notes only name Vlastimil Marek’s use of tapes and percussion along the participation of a series of unknown guests. While working on his solo percussion projects, Marek has also played with well known rock in opposition bands like MCH Band, Švehlík and Extempore, all of which have included Pavel Richter as a member. In this sense we may appreciate the diverse network of musicians of different genres which participated in the country’s underground scene, resulting in the creation of a fertile terrain for the development of non-conventional approaches towards a free music conception despite the ungoing political repression of the country at that time. The first side of this tape was released as the second half of the CD Švehlík & Amalgam – Lucerna 19. Května 1978 in 2017 by Galén, a book publisher and record label from Prague.  By Juan Vacas

'Turning in Space,' a new cassette box set by Áine O’Dwyer, compiles a series of sonic choreographies conducted at the artist’s living and studio space in suburban East London. Since summer 2015, O’Dwyer has been a resident of the Lady Helen Seymour House, a former hospital, in a building-wide unit that gives the artist a stereophonic impression of the auditory surround. Inspired by the “natural musics” of the house’s structure (its acoustics, creaks, and room tone) and the community that holds it (sirens, bells, the weather, pedestrian murmurs), O’Dwyer live-mixes multiple vantage points—an extension of her search for Klangfarbenmelodie, a melody split between instruments, which “binds together both the intrinsic and extraneous in real-time.” These three tapes, recorded between 2019 and 2023, capture an array of post-collagist techniques, in which splicing, over-dubbing, and dissolving are performed live, and O’Dwyer’s subtle compositions for found-tune piano and synthesizer blend seamlessly with the environment, keeping true to her belief that listening is “both an instrument and a compositional element” in her work.

Unplayed deadstock copies of the seminal Czech artists Irena & Vojtěch Havlovi's 1999 cassette 'Jako Motýl Na Tvé Dlani' straight from the original label's archive. Intermusic Productions, 1999

*60 copies limited edition* Infinite Expanse follows up their first two LPs with a return to the cassette format, diving deep into the world of the underground cassette network with a focus on SoundImage, a label founded by Martin Franklin and active in Slough between 1989-91. Presented is a compilation of two compilations – Premonitions (1989) and Spiritual (1990) – featuring stalwarts from the scene, including The Vitamin B12, M.Nomized, Konrad Kraft and Hybryds, as well as a host of ungoogleable artists, such as The Happy Citizen, Omega Ensemble and The Time Flies. Birthed through the space provided by the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, a UK government initiative introduced in the mid-80s which assisted unemployed people who set up their own business, SoundImage set out to uncover and present new electronic music which captured a certain sense of magic and mystery. The label operated within the cassette network, though also sought to bring the music to local audiences and stage live events. This included Omega Onsemble, a set of improvisers from Southampton, performing in a small backstreet gallery during the Windsor Fringe Festival in 1990, as well as Richard Leake’s The Butterfly Effect and Peter Appleton, a creator of sonic sculptures, combining for a live show at the Windsor Arts Centre in September 1991. The label even helped them get a feature on Southern TV and connected them with some researchers at the nearby EMI R&D lab in Hayes who recorded the performance with experimental 3D audio equipment. Distribution of SoundImage releases grew to a network of small mail order outlets and tape stalls, with duplication eventually handled by small-run commercial tape duplicators. Some of the artists who featured on releases also had their own outlets for sales, so between them they managed to form a self-contained sphere of underground production and distribution. Listening now, what distinguishes the music is that it sits at the cusp of the  DAW revolution, with the tracks made using the innovative Tascam 244, or similar 4-track cassette recorders, which had just revolutionised affordable music recording. The pumping hiss of its built-in noise reduction, in retrospect, becoming a distinctive feature of the productions. The music also pre-dates samplers, and whilst some of the music makes use of synthesisers, there is still a sense of performance and hand-made sound textures from tape loops, collages, effects and manipulated media, as well as traditional instruments. It sits at a point where abstract music still lived in our imaginations. There were no screens confining the compositions into lanes or grids, no software instruments. Instead, there were cables and cabinets, speakers and effect pedals, radio and tape….reels and reels of tape.

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

The complete performance from Peter Evans' first trip to China, on the invitation of Old Heaven Books and the OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival in October 2019. "Peter Evans believes that his music is closely related to the philosophical concept of "Wu Wei (literally means "doing nothing" or "inaction")" from China. As a composer and improviser, Peter Evans "talks" about "Wu Wei" with his superb trumpet playing, and named his first album released in China "Into the Silence". It's worth mentioning that the artwork on the front cover was made by the closest friend of Old Heaven Books, woodcut artist Liu Qingyuan. Birds and man, noise and silence, freedom and constraint: the artwork is the perfect aesthetic echo to this album." - Old Heaven This release is a collaborative release between More is More and Old Heaven. Recorded live at the OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival October 20th, 2019, Shenzhen China.

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

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

"World renowned jazz alto soxophonist and amateur biologist Akira Sakata reveals the ecology of water fleas (MIKINKO). Sakata himself captured the moments of molting and reproduction, and there are many extraordinary scenes recorded. This DVD is highly educational for both children and adults, letting the viewer experience through the world of this tiny animal the wonderes of Life and Nature. This is the much awaited English version of the work that has gathered so many fans in Japan. As an added bonus, a special jazz live performance by Sakata is included!"  

After the album Calques recorded live during a concert, Novembre returns with Encore, a double studio album,the result of a long maturation in terms of form, composition and playing. As they have been doing for more than ten years, Romain Clerc Renaud and Antonin Tri Hoang have constructed a complex poetic form, made up of multiple back-and forths between simple and gentle themes (Encore, Petit Matelot) or very fast ones (LetCo, Klaxon); between very short pieces (Miniatures) and large developments (Continuum). Everything is arranged by the play of contrasts and resonances: a piece is interrupted to be continued later (Please wait), a motif is metamorphosed by dint of repetition (Encore), a piece is played again, but as quickly as possible (Letco Flash). The second CD of the album illustrates another side of the art of montage. Marc Baron recorded Novembre while they were working on Encore, using the most varied materials and techniques (tape recorder, hydrophone, boom box, spring, tape loops). With this harvest he has constructed an electroacoustic piece that diverts, amplifies and transforms the music of Novembre. --- CD1 Compositions by Romain Clerc-Renaud and Antonin- Tri HoangRecording: Antony - July 2021Engineering and mixing: Erwan BoulayMastering: Pierre Luzy, Music Unit CD2Electro-acoustic piece by Marc Baron, produced in the studio in the summer 2018 from recordings of the band Novembre.Design: Galilée Al Rifai

Under the name SBATAX, Bertrand Denzler and Antonin Gerbal continue their exploration of flow, speed and patternsby exacerbating the sound of their saxophone-drums duo. The furrow they dig ends up forming spirals thatgradually migrate towards regions where movement becomes a texture that floats in the wind. Bertrand Denzler and Antonin Gerbal have been working together since 2011, both as a duo and with bands and projects such as Zoor, Denzler-Gerbal-Dörner, Onceim, Horns+, CCP3 or Protocluster, whose albums have been released by labels such as Umlaut Records, Confront Recordings and Remote Resonator. --- Music by Bertrand Denzler (Suisa) and Antonin Gerbal (Gema-Sacem)Recorded at Curved Pitch, Saint-Ouen, France, June24th 2022Engineered by SbataxMastered by Jean-Pierre Bouquet, L'Autre StudioPhoto by Benjamin DenzlerDesign by Erica Saïdah

Cartographie de rythmes is a sound exploration guided by an imaginary map of rhythm, offering as many possible poles to navigate between. The first part of this cartography, Vitesses approchantes (Umlaut Records, 2021) for two percussionists - Sylvain Darrifourcq and Toma Gouband -, focused on the notion of phase shift through falsely repetitive motifs whose slight variations in speed generate sonic illusions. In this second part, Cardiaque, it is the relationship between text and music that constitutes a new crest line: how to listen to the language's rhythm while respecting the rhythm of the music. "Rhythm" does not mean the same thing while talking about music or text - and we would like to preserve the vitality of each field: like the beat created by two frequencies, the two rhythmic logics generate new interferences without losing their singularities. Julien Gaillard's texts are intertwined in a montage that allows us to travel from note-taking to poem. His voice mingles with that of Aurélie Maisonneuve and the tone of Fabrice Arnaud-Crémon's clarinet: together, they carry these textures made of truncated cycles, frames and breaks. The theme of the heart runs through the cycle: accelerations and phase shifts, thresholds between periodicity and arrhythmia, in the light of questions of breathing and heartbeat, take on a singularly organic dimension: the exploration of rhythm becomes an exploration of body states. --- Recorded in June 2022 at Athénor - Centre National de Création Musicale (Saint-Nazaire)Engineering and mastering / Ananda ChererDesign / atelier informationCare / Ronan Le RégentProduced by Athénor scène nomade - CNCM incollaboration with La Maison de la MusiqueContemporaine.

"Original compositions between jazz, ditties and microtonal post-romanticism; hits from the 60s, marginal classics of the jazz repertoire (among others with old Dutch lyrics), a traditional song from Belarus, a Cologne march from the 30s, a peace song from the USA and a piece of music in which a programmable lithophone made of more than200 stone slabs plays the leading role. All this in an always delicately unpredictable approach by eleven improvisers of the most diverse character, lovingly arranged by the ensemble's namesake, as well as warmly supported here and there by La Chorale Transcendentale. Lucia Mense / recordersJoris Rühl / clarinetsGeorg Wissel / alto saxophone, clarinetUdo Moll / trumpetMatthias Muche / tromboneCarl Ludwig Hübsch / tubaMichael Griener / drumsRadek Stawarz / violinOxana Omelchuk / casio DM-100 keyboard, harmoniumKetonge / electronics, voiceSimon Rummel / piano, harmonium, melodica, voice With the singers from La chorale transcendentale

Otoroku is delighted to present an extraordinary set from 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. In this solo harp performance, recorded at OTO in April 2024, Davies' inimitable playing style is showcased to full effect, with a sound that seems to span from Welsh harp to arched or ‘bow’ harp playing found in Sub-Saharan African traditions; Indian ragas to the circling, synthesized arpeggios of Laurie Spiegel, touching on the insistent player-piano pieces of Conlon Nancarrow along the way. Alternating between improvisations and improvisations with pre-written pieces across the set, Davies lets the distinctions between the two melt and spill over, giving space to breathe and expand. 'Gardd a Thŷ' for example (from Davies' Telyn Wrachïod release from earlier in 2024), is unfurled out to nearly twice its original album length, with Davies darting about each melody and motif like a moth around a flame. Each improvisatory section meanwhile, feels equally present and alive, with clusters of notes rising and tumbling around each other as insistent, repeated phrases ebb and flow like mantras to a rapt OTO audience. Ultimately, the overarching impression you are left with is that of Davies' intuitive and deeply felt relationship to the harp, embracing the instrument's traditions whilst constantly seeking new paths towards its future. A remarkable recording from one of the most vital artists currently working today. -- Recorded by Dan EhrlichMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover photo by Daryl Feehely

A masterclass in sound and texture from the Stockholm-based duo of John Chantler and Daniel M Karlsson, recorded at OTO in December 2023, following on from their ‘Hell or High Water’ release on Chantler’s 1703 Skivbolaget label the same year. From a dual synthesiser setup, the pair craft an incredibly naturalistic atmosphere - electronics not so much imitating organic sounds as creating their own little pocket of life, fully realised. The set slowly awakens like frozen ground thawing in the first spring sun; little sonic tendrils budding and reaching and gradually coalescing together in symbiosis. Ebbing and flowing, the momentum builds inexorably in ever-intricate patterns of tension and release; fractal forms unfurling and intertwining with a density that never collapses into aimless blowout even when the volume reaches a tumultuous peak. Finally, energy expended all at once, the piece falls back into a last cluster of sighing tones, and the day is done. -- Recorded by Billy Steiger Mixed and mastered by Daniel M Karlsson